EP 18 - STUPID SURGERIES
Before we dive in, an extra lil disclaimer for the content of this ‘sode: we are not telling you to go against the medical advice from your doctor – unh uh honayyy!
Our intention is to bring awareness to procedures commonly suggested to our clients.
We cover everything from gastric bypass and cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal), to hysterectomy, diastasis recti or prolapse repair, and back stuff!
If any of these sound familiar, stay tuned! We discuss questions to ask your provider, when to consider a second opinion, and additional solutions that may improve your situation or outcome.
In this episode of Get Your Shit Together we chat about…
🧡 Common procedures, including: gastric bypass or sleeve, gallbladder removal, hysterectomy, diastasis recti, prolapse, and back stuff!
🧡 When to fire your physician and get a second opinion
🧡 Additional solutions that may improve your situation or outcome!
Resources & Good Shit
Episodes
What We’re Consuming: Food
Diane found Cook This Book by Molly Baz [formerly of Bon Appetit mag] at Homegoods and will be cookin’ her way through it. Hot tip - check your local Homegoods for pantry staples, snacks, and discounted kitchen gadgets!
What We’re Consuming: Film & TV
Adina is still geeking out over White Lotus (HBO Max) and wants Jennifer Coolidge (Stiffler’s mom) to have the recognition she deserves.
Diane watched Captain Fantastic (Netflix) starring Viggo Mortensen / Aragorn. It’s a cuuute, quirky film following a dad and his 6 kiddos who live off-grid in the wilderness in Washington. The fam returns to society for the first time after their mom dies suddenly. Sounds dark, I know but it’s a touching dramedy! If you enjoy this, check out true-story Educated by Tara Westover.
Strength Training for Happy Hormones - Self Paced!
Get it while it’s hot! Enrollment for Adina’s self-paced Strength Training for Happy Hormones (STHH) program is open, this week only! This is her signature, approachable 12 week kettlebell program to help you gain strength, boost your metabolism and balance your hormones. We like it, we love it. Doors slam shut on August 16, so get your booty in there!
Connect with Adina:
Instagram: @adinarubin_
Website: www.adinarubincoaching.com
Connect with Diane
Instagram: @dianeteall
Website: www.diteawellness.com
Root Cause Reset: www.rcrprogram.com
Transcript
Transcript was auto-generated! There may be some errors, but you get the…GYST 😜
Adina: Hello. And welcome back to another episode of the gyst podcast. Diane was the
Diane: Hi, nice to see you. Well, I guess we had our little meeting outside our little prerecording zoom sash. We're trying to get our sunshine and our daily D as we talked about in our last episode,
Adina: I tried to get some daily D today. I went for a [00:03:00] walk, but it's really cloudy here.
Diane: The air is thick on the east coast. Who isn't it?
Adina: Mm Hmm.
Diane: Maybe you should come over here just saying,
Adina: Just saying maybe you should come over here
Diane: yeah. Yeah
Diane: you're getting that you're getting anything tape, but did you get into anything tasty this past weekend
Adina: Tasty, what are we consuming?
Diane: food activities
Adina: We consumed, I got like this crazy craving to make like a crispy white fish type thing. I don't know. Haven't had like a fried fish in a while and just got really in the mood. So I got some flounders, some really nice flounder from my fish market and I just breaded it in a gluten-free panko and fried it up in some butter.
Diane: as we do
Adina: then I made like a buttery, lemony parsley [00:04:00] sauce to put on top. It was really good.
Diane: You're reawakening my fishing fantasies. I've had salmon on my mind. So we got sushi last night. That sounds delicious and butter. That's the way to go. So yummy
Adina: Yeah, it was yummy. It was
Diane: if you want white fish. I mean, it's a big thing here in Michigan. And when I recently went trout fishing, I said, salmon fishing, hoping we get salmon.
Diane: We got, but we got trout and we made a delicious, smoked white fish dip. And that is very popular, especially in the UPP, the upper peninsula of Michigan
Adina: there's been, um, our fish market. Hasn't had such like nice white, flaky fish in a while, or I've just been missing it. So we've been eating a lot of salmon, but I do love a nice, the likey white fish. So
Diane: Oh, do you like Cod as well?
Adina: yeah, I was looking for like a sea bass or, you know, something of that nature, but flounder I'll do.
Diane: I actually have a Cod recipe plan today. So if you don't know now, you [00:05:00] know, home goods. TJ Maxx home goods is the spot for all kinds of things. I'll find some good pantry goods in there and cooking tools even deeply discounted like enamel cast
Diane: iron, like crusade. Like that's a great spot to look for those FYI.
Diane: But I also found Molly Baz of bone Appetit. Her new cookbook was there. And so as Claire soffits divert her dessert person book, but I picked up Molly Baz, his book, and it has beautiful design. It's beautifully designed. So I loved that too, but there is a baked cod and roasted cabbage dish. I'm going to try today.
Diane: She had some also like a milk braised chicken, which sounds really interesting. I think it's going to be one of those dishes that looks ugly, but tastes phenomenal. So I'll report back.
Adina: Well, I can't go milk braised because kosher LA we don't mix meat and milk.
Diane: that's right.
Adina: but that sounds nice. It's hard for me to even imagine what the flavor would be. Cause I've never mixed those things.
Diane: Yes. That's all right. Well, what [00:06:00] are you watching? I think you're still working through
Adina: we haven't done anything new we're okay. So we finished, never have I ever, which delightful, just as cute as I thought it would be. And we're working through white Lotus, which you heard me talk about last week and you heard my Jennifer Coolidge impression who here's what I have to say. The
Adina: more of, yes.
Adina: The more of this show that I watch, the more I feel that she is so underappreciated, like her performance in this series is fantastic. She's very funny, but just, I can't even describe it. It's such a unique humor. Everything out of her mouth is golden and I'm really enjoying it. But yeah, this show is good.
Adina: It is really, really good.
Diane: that's next up on my list. It's it seems quirky after I finished them on my trash TV. And we also, we had to split this one up because we started this movie too late and just had to [00:07:00] fall asleep. But it's captain fantastic. Starring Viggo Mortensen. Aragorn from Lord of the rings and Kathryn Hahn from stepbrother.
Diane: She has a minor role in this and a bunch of kids because it, the story is about a man, a dad, and his six kids. And I believe he figured this out pretty early on. They're going to go to other wife, his wife, his mom, their mom's funeral, and they're traveling around. They've never been in school, their homeschool, they live off the grid and they're just quite an interesting bunch.
Diane: It reminds me a little bit of educated. If anyone has read that book, I don't typically go for memoirs, but that is a true story of someone who similarly lived very off the grid. And it's fascinating. It's just like their cute family attitude.
Adina: it's funny. We watched that a while ago. I don't remember. What year did that come out? Probably.
Diane: I think it's relative. It's relatively new. Maybe the last couple of years.
Adina: Yeah. I think maybe like three or four years ago at this
Diane: Oh, 2016. Yeah.
Adina: A while ago. Yeah. So I remember watching that when it first came out and [00:08:00] it feels even more pertinent now, just like the intrigue of watching someone just live off the grid in the woods. Um, yeah.
Diane: to our inner Ron Swanson. We'll say
Adina: Yes, really, really enjoy that film. So good.
Adina: I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Diane: yeah, it's a, dromedy added to your list. And then as far as things, I'm into two things as sweet DM that you got, which we'll read in a second. And also, I mean, these are very different things, hair extensions. So I got some inches yesterday. I'm still acclimating to long hair. They were like, what are you thinking for a length?
Diane: And I thought, okay, not quite sister wife hair, which I had a few years ago. You know, the kind where you have to pull it around the front. So you don't, you know, Accidents. Don't zip it up in your pants, that kind of stuff. But my friend, um, Katie Lynn owns a local salon cheeky strut here in grand rapids.
Diane: And she has been hard at work at her own extension line for the past few years. And it was an honor to be back in her chair and just to see how it all came together. So I was honored that she was asked me to, to model for it. So I got some inches got to [00:09:00] take them home and I'm liking it.
Adina: I love it. I think it's fresh. It's fun. It looks great.
Diane: because my attitude's like 15 out of 10 now. So get my nails together again and watch out.
Adina: Oh yeah.
Diane: But this DM you got let's, let's go it a little read and share it because I just warmed our hearts. We love it. We love you.
Adina: the sweetest. We love you all. And we love you. We love when you send us these messages to tell us about how you're enjoying the show, but this one was hi, Adina first. I wanted to say that I adore you and Diane and your podcast is so fun and informative, learning so much from it. I also love how often you mentioned scenes from the office and parks and rec because they always make me laugh.
Adina: I always say scenes from those two shows are relevant to almost any season or a situation with life and you know what we feel the same way. And we feel that they're relevant to any topic you might learn about health and fitness.
Diane: we can't stop. Won't stop. And we're glad that you're picking up what we're [00:10:00] putting down.
Adina: I said this on Instagram, but like when we set out the vision for this show, we very much wanted it to feel like you were just hanging out with us and having casual conversations and laughing about our favorite shows and learning about how your body works and feeling empowered in that way. And so when we get messages like this, we feel like our vision is coming to life and the right people are listening to this show.
Diane: Yeah, so I know not everyone loves banter and the funny stuff, but those are people like who doesn't like appetizers before the main dish. So thank you so much for sharing this space with us and letting us into your ear balls. Every week, we have so much fun doing this and it means a lot to us that you also are having fun with it.
Adina: Yeah. All right. So this episode is a bit controversial as many of them are.
Diane: surprise.
Adina: Surprise, welcome to our show where we [00:11:00] question everything and don't accept anything at face value. So the thing about this episode is we do need to make quite a few disclaimers. And I know we say that a lot of times, but when it comes to stupid surgeries, that's the title of this episode.
Adina: And it's not that all of these surgeries are stupid, but that is a very funny title and we did want to use it. And also, if you got one of these surgeries, we don't want you to feel like you failed and made a huge mistake. There are certainly reasons to get surgery. We can't beat ourselves up for doing things before we had certain information
Diane: right. If you had any of these trends, are you. Best you could with the information that you had available at that time. So there's no shame or judgment here. We just want to talk about these things for a few reasons. We hear about them a lot with new clients. Maybe they are in a space where they are considering [00:12:00] these, right?
Diane: So again, bears repeating. There are scenarios where these are appropriate, where you and your doctor decide this is the best decision for you. But if you are perhaps approaching
Adina: Let's highlight that also you and your doctor, like we really want our intention with this episode is that you don't get bullied into something. That's a big deal. Surgery's a big deal. Without being truly informed. And your doctor handing you a little pamphlet or telling you about what some potential side effects might be or how bad your life's going to be.
Adina: If you don't get this surgery, that is not you and your doctor making this decision together.
Diane: yeah, it needs to be full informed consent. And also remember the model that will. That most doctors are, a part of, and that is to, to treat, treat, treat, make something, go away, see you as perhaps parts and not a whole. And we want to bring some awareness to just all parts of your healing [00:13:00] and what are some things that you could maybe do proactively, uh, to not only improve your outcome, if you decide you and your doctor decides surgery is appropriate, but also maybe there's some questions that you can ask another doctor.
Diane: If you have space and bandwidth for a second opinion before you have an organ removed or have a really significant surgery. So these are some things to keep in mind, remember things aren't always black and white. We are not telling you to go against the advice of your doctor. Remember those disclaimers we're dropping here.
Diane: Just some things to think about.
Adina: Yeah. So like Diane mentioned, like maybe this information helps you realize that you can get a second opinion. Maybe this information helps you realize that you can seek out modalities to better support your body so that you can completely avoid surgery. Maybe this information helps you realize that a surgery you already got, and maybe weren't given information about how to support your body afterward.
Adina: Maybe now you'll have some more tools to feel better [00:14:00] after having gotten that surgery. So we're always trying to better your quality of life. And like Diane mentioned, doctors are going to do what they learned, how to do surgeons.
Diane: they
Diane: know.
Adina: Surgeon's gonna surgery. So if you get referred to a surgeon, they're gonna do surgery, that's what's gonna happen.
Adina: So we want to give you some tools so that you can take a look at the bigger picture and really think what got me here in the first place. Are there ways that I can support my body and maybe surgery doesn't need to be the answer here
Diane: totally. And as far as caring for yourself, right before a procedure, whether it's something with local anesthesia or where you're being put under into a Twilight, I was gonna say, Twilight zone, Twilight, state,
Adina: don't know what you'll see when you end up there.
Diane: the nanny.
Diane: But, um, if you are interested in, uh, [00:15:00] pre-op and post-op care, we could do another episode on that, but we do have a lot to get into today. Yes. From mouth to tail all over that body. So
Diane: let's get into
Adina: picked a bunch of different, super common surgeries that clients come to us, either having gotten, or being told they might need. And we feel like they kind of hit all of the buckets of our practices, the things that we help our clients with. So hopefully we can kind of help you guys navigate some of our frequently asked questions here.
Diane: I tote. So in this first one,tonsillectomy so when your tonsils are removed, this one comes up a lot on my new client intake forms. When I ask about what procedures have you had from childhood all the way to present day. Right? And we ask that we go so far back because our health, as a child, our environment, our terrain
Diane: location, all of that shapes our health now and want to know what kind of stress physical, mental, emotional the body has been under. So a [00:16:00] really common one is tonsillectomy. So many of my clients have had ear infections, lots of strep throat recurring as a child, right.
Adina: yeah, so interesting to note here is that I know you've seen this and I've seen this too. Whenever I run a GI map with a client, which is one of the functional labs that Diane and I will use some times with our one-on-one clients. And it's an opportunity to see what's going on in that gut of yours.
Adina: Again, we're going to do an entire episode on testing and if it's necessary for you, because spoiler alert, not a starting point for most people, for any people
Diane: Most people. Yeah.
Adina: but something interesting that I always notice is we can see strains of strep in the gut streptococcus . In the gut. And it often is in these clients who had tonsils removed when they were younger or had many bouts of strep throat as a kid.
Adina: And so when something is in your body, also, what's [00:17:00] interesting to note too, is a lot of these clients who did get their tonsils removed, it was after already having strep throat a few times. And so we know that the conventional treatment for that is they have, by the time they were five, they had already undergone many rounds of antibiotics.
Diane: raising my hand over here. Yes. Several rounds of antibiotics.
Adina: considering what that's going to do to the balance of our gut bacteria, and that has a really big impact in our, on our health. And so we are not saying you are guilty for having gotten your tonsils out, or if this was recommended for your children, we're just encouraging really thinking about that bigger picture of the gut terrain.
Adina: Why are we getting strep all the times? It's not just like, take the tonsils out and the strep goes away. Maybe you won't get strep throat anymore, but the strep goes somewhere else.
Diane: in that lower gut and [00:18:00] that will be a hospitable environment for it. When you use lots of rounds of antibiotics to wipe out your good bacteria. The bacteria that does nice stuff for us. So that's something I do. I see a lot, unfortunately, and kiddos need to gut support too, we're shaping that gut microbiome, let them play outside, get their hands in the dirt to tend that terrain, neither of us work with kids in our practice, but, kids are watching what you're doing, what you're eating.
Diane: If you are introducing to them, nourishing nutrient dense foods, this is an excellent opportunity to let them get a taste of that too.
Adina: Yeah. And I think neither of us work directly with kids. We do know some great practitioners that we can recommend. If you do have a kid that has some severe stuff going on, that you really want to take a look at there outside of the conventional model. However, I feel that we work with kids because we work with a lot of moms and moms are the gatekeeper of the house.
Adina: And I've had [00:19:00] this experience so often where I start working with a woman and she starts to really understand the why, because both of us really teach our clients the why and changing things about her health and feeling the effects. And I have so many moms who go through this week of just feeling so guilty for what they have been feeding their kids or how they have. Missing out on opportunities to support more optimal health and their children. And so to see, you know, it always breaks my heart when I see that experience, because it can be so frustrating where we kind of just exist in this world and do what we think is best. And then we learn new information and then when my clients start changing over the way that they cook and the way that they feed their children as well.
Adina: And we can see those shifts in their health too. That is one of my favorite things.
Diane: mine too. It's such a beautiful ripple effect. And whether it's their kids also experiencing feeling better, or I've also had the experience of working with [00:20:00] women and then their partner, their husband, boyfriend, well start working with me too. Or sometimes I've worked with couples because they're like, oh wait,
Diane: they're feeling really good. I want a taste of that. And that's just such an awesome thing. Like your health has a gift that you can give yourself and also to your family too. So we, we love that.
Adina: Yeah. And so. Before we just start taking out, organs taken out your tonsils. Uh, we want to ask why we want to take a look at, are there things in diet lifestyle that are contributing to this terrain, to these recurring episodes of strep and for some of us, when it starts so young in our kiddos, we may think, oh, like what could they have done already?
Adina: There they're two years old. How did their gut get? So quote unquote messed up, but we pass our microbiome to our kids and we pass our mineral status to our kids. So when you birth a baby, what's going on with [00:21:00] you will be going on with them. And I saw this firsthand, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I had a bunch of gut stuff going on when I was pregnant with Abe.
Adina: If you guys remember those cute pics of the eczema all over my face, but when I gave birth to Abe, obviously I gave him my microbiome and my mineral status and he was doing great. , and exclusively breastfed. And then around like three months he got kind of sick. It was really sad. We had to nebulize him a little bit and
Diane: I remember that we used to call that breathe, breathe. When my brother had
Diane: that, the breathing.
Adina: it was just like rough. And then after that point, he stopped gaining weight, which was really shocking because he had been gaining beautifully since he was born. And. I work with a pediatrician who is very much collaborative and sees me as an expert on nutrition and metabolism and digestive function.
Adina: And so she was willing to let me give things a go before she made her recommendations. And I did a little baby [00:22:00] gut healing protocol, Abe, and, kids are really resilient and their turnaround time for healing is much quicker than ours.
Diane: that fast metabolism.
Adina: yeah, within three weeks of this protocol, he started gaining weight and was doing totally fine.
Adina: All his health markers were looking wonderful and now he is a beautiful, healthy little, almost two year old. And so if I hadn't had those tools and would have gone straight into whatever medication or supplementation my pediatrician wanted to recommend, who knows, you know, the, our health is this picture.
Adina: And so. When we can start to support it at these young ages and ask these questions, we can do a lot of really good for these kids at a really young age.
Diane: Yeah, and I th I've seen videos that you either text to me or on your story, and he's an adventurous eater and that's because of what you've shown to him. And he's in those formative years where he's just experiencing [00:23:00] everything for the first time. I love seeing that he gobbles your sushi. That you leave out or he and Minnie both love butter.
Diane: And I've heard from clients who are maybe a little new to this way of eating to ancestral diets, to really nutrient dense food. And one of my clients was telling me how her, I think he's almost too like Abe's age. Um, her son was enjoying bone broth and other really awesome local dairy and feeling so good.
Adina: yeah. And kids love liver if you give it to them at a young age, they don't know. They're not supposed to like it. Right. They don't know that we think it's gross. Um, and I, I only say that to be silly because if you didn't grow up eating it, that flavor can be really intense.
Diane: for me, it's the texture. I'm I'm going to make some, actually this evening, so
Adina: Yeah.
Diane: wish me luck, fear factors. Well, speaking of tummies, this is a very common surgery. One that I heard a lot when I worked in the plastic surgery practice med spa, [00:24:00] and that is gastric bypass or gastric sleeve, having your stomach stapled.
Diane: And the intention here is to help patients lose weight. After other solutions don't work, patients have to be cleared.
Adina: what are those other solutions?
Diane: yeah. What are those solutions? Diets, exercise, and weight loss medications that aren't effective.
Adina: Okay. We do want to
Adina: say yes, we know there's a lot wrapped up in this one and that there's a lot that contributes to get someone to a place where this surgery would be recommended for them. But we do want to talk a little bit more about what conventional medicine considers strategies that didn't work. Right. EV we talked about this a lot in our PCOS and strength training episode. In our experience with our clients, whenever a doctor has recommended that a client of ours [00:25:00] loses weight, they are always told to eat less, to do a diet and to exercise more.
Adina: And there are not really great recommendations. Within that about what is the food that you should be eating? How do we support better metabolic health to help drive this whole process is the exercise.
Diane: It's it's cardio. Like we were saying in that PCOS episode, it's just cardio, cardio, cardio, and eat like a toddler.
Adina: And cardio to a point of intensity, like if you've watched the biggest loser, right. What they are doing to the individuals on that show for the sake of weight loss is so incredibly unsustainable that no wonder the regained weight, the Regaine rate is through the roof. We don't. And we talked about this a little bit when I talked about my approach to fitness, so that it's approachable postpartum. [00:26:00] We always want people to look at these solutions. As things that feel good in their body and that they can do long-term if your only exposure to exercise and to the things that will quote unquote, help you lose weight, is this mental picture of intensity to the point of exhaustion? Sure. Yeah. I want to do that either.
Adina: So we need to think about that. Like when we say, oh, all these recommendations weren't effective, what really were the recommendations? Did we consider the mental health aspect here? Did we consider something that's truly sustainable? And that feels good in the body. Did we address past traumas that maybe led us here?
Adina: You know, there's so much to unpack there. The approach to, oh, these things didn't work. So now we're going to do this surgery. Like, again, this is not my specialty and I can't speak to these [00:27:00] surgeries specifically, but I do know that on the whole, the conventional fitness industry, the diet culture, diet industry, they are problematic.
Adina: And I hope we've exposed that for you a little bit throughout this whole first season. But that's, that's a big piece for me. And again, weight loss medication, like what's
Diane: this one makes my blood boil. I've mentioned it on story. Maybe a couple of my Instagram story. A couple of times I've had several clients who they really tried with diet or the movement that was suggested to them by their doctor. Of course, the counsel for that is like, okay, lose weight, just go.
Diane: And I'm waving my hand around kind of dismissive, just go lose weight, just go do it. Do cardio and diet. What does that look like? They have like 10 minutes with their doctor. They're told to go do that. Right? And so some of them, after that doesn't work, they don't see progress. It is suggested to them that they get on weight loss medications to the tune of for some $1,500.
Adina: I
Diane: these medic fake medications, are you fucking [00:28:00] kidding me? 1500 a month?
Adina: yeah. Like just refer them our way.
Diane: I mean, yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. It would be a lot lower for investment. And then you'd learn more about how to keep results sustainable and, and to have results in a sustainable, healthy way. But anyway, with these medications, I just saw an ad for one of them.
Diane: And I'm not even gonna name the medication here, but we've all seen pharmaceutical ads on cable TV, or flipping through a magazine. They talk about the benefit of the medication and then all the side effects and the common side effects suck things like nausea, depression, like all these things that I thought, uh, okay.
Diane: These side effects on worse than right. Uh, possible benefit to me, they just sound terrible. But a couple of my clients were suggested that to take this, it's not covered by insurance. It is such a steep investment and we still need to learn how to move, how to manage stress, how to nourish ourselves with food and play all of [00:29:00] that.
Diane: So this really is just reducing people to one piece and it's, we've seen the, the suggested care before and after these surgeries. And it says doctor suggest a healthy, low calorie diet before surgery
Adina: Wait, wait,
Diane: adjust to a low calorie diet.
Adina: What's a healthy, low calorie diet cause me
Diane: Right. Um,
Adina: herein lies. The problem that healthy is acquainted with low calorie.
Diane: yes, and low size as well. I mean, we hear that too often and I think a lot of our audience they're probably coming over. Yes. I'm not the number on my scale, on the scale. Uh, they understand the problematic issues with just chasing it down a pant size. Right. But unfortunately, largely in our society, it's still thin is in, and that is what we need to, to strive for.
Diane: That's your worth. And it's really not there.
Adina: Yeah. And like we said, there's so much to consider here. So if you got to a place of being [00:30:00] recommended a surgery like this, because we know metabolism is at play, we know mineral status is at play. We
Adina: know blood sugar, hormone balance. Like there's so many things at play. So if you just go ahead and get your stomach stapled, you know, gastric bypass, sleeve, whatever it is, those things didn't go away.
Adina: And now you're absorbing less nutrients because of the structure of your stomach,
Diane: yes. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about how you really lose weight in the. The cascade of dysfunction and inflammation problems that come with us, the weight loss, the fat loss happens, um, with it after the surgery, because it's a result of malabsorption. That's, we're starving yourselves of nutrients and of important fuel that we need.
Adina: right. So that's going to drive this problem further into the ground. Like, okay, maybe you got skinnier, but if you're not absorbing [00:31:00] nutrition, we know all that metabolic dysfunction, that blood sugar, that hormone balance, that mineral status, it's going to get way worse. And actually you said weight loss, and then you corrected yourself to say fat loss, but actually in this case it would be weight loss.
Adina: Yeah.
Diane: Cause your body's gonna be like, Hmm, I'll break down this
Adina: muscles got to go. That's going to be the first thing to go because we don't need that. So again, Not the case for everyone. And if this is a surgery that you got or that you were recommended to get, and you still feel like it is a good idea for you. We do want you to understand that everything, when we talk about, we talk about when it comes to supporting digestion, supporting metabolism, building muscle, deep nutrition, those things are going to apply tenfold after a surgery like this.
Diane: Cause that's an incredibly stressful event, both physically the trauma of that physical surgery to the body. And also mentally, emotionally, there's a lot that goes into that and maybe fear of a procedure, medical environments, [00:32:00] all of that. And so you're going to need extra TLC afterwards, but your digestive capacity is V extremely lowered.
Diane: So let's talk about the concerns for gastric bypass and sleeve from a nutritional therapy perspective and gut health perspective. So in a bypass instead of your stomach churning like mechanically churning, chemically, turning your food with gastric juices, think of like a, I'm thinking of like a tumbling cycle on a washing machine, right?
Diane: So with a bypass, the gastric juices and the food meat in the small intestine, but usually ideally the way that we work designed is that everything's going to happen in that kind of wash cycle in the stomach. So obviously a side effect of this bypass surgery is going to be a nutritional deficiency because what we want is for that chyme that food to be kind of sludgy broken down.
Diane: By the time it gets to that small intestine in here, it's not it's going down there. [00:33:00] Those maldigested particles are going to cause like a physical stress to our small intestine. You might also notice things down the line, like your hair falling out as a result of the mineral deficiencies or foul gas and bloat because the food is just
Adina: Foul gas, stinky farts.
Diane: Stinky. Yes. Yeah. I always go political there and say foul gas, but you know, like gas doesn't smell great. But you might notice like, whew, you're gassing out your roommates or your house it's very foul so this just so many problems. What, and like great. You might, you, you, you're going to lose some weight, but have a myriad of other issues here.
Adina: And Diane and I have looked into this and it's funny in all of the conventional, informative pamphlets about this surgery. It's like your. Gastric juices and stomach acid still act on the food. Cause I, when I first saw a picture of how the surgery looked, I was like, does it come into contact with [00:34:00] any digestive juices at any point?
Adina: And then, so it says, it sounds like they're trying to reassure us that like your food still gets digested, but the main side effect listed for after this surgery is GERD and heartburn. So to me,
Adina: that's
Diane: happened when we don't make enough gastric juices,
Adina: So that's a red flag that, that is not the whole picture and this
Diane: lie in why you always lying.
Adina: I'd be really curious to see like how much of the protein is getting digested. Cause if you're eating a steak and it's bypassing your stomach, like
Diane: protein. Farts.
Adina: not going to feel good.
Diane: Yeah, it won't feel good. It won't smell good. Okay. So heartburn and GERD, very common side effects for a gastric bypass. And they also warn you in these pamphlets. If you eat too much and exercise too little, you could gain weight back.
Adina: Stop right there. If you eat too much and exercise too [00:35:00] little, you could gain the weight back. So, first of all, if we never were successful at following these arbitrary rules before the surgery, and then we're expected to follow them after how's that going to go, I'd love to see statistics around success of the surgery.
Adina: And you kind of mentioned that you experienced that firsthand
Diane: Yes. When I worked at the plastic surgery office, we would often see clients who'd come in, maybe after they've recovered from their immediate, surgery to remove excess skin, to do liposuction, some other body sculpting and things like that. But there would be this recurrence of people coming back, maybe after another stomach surgery or they're coming back several times.
Diane: And the surgeons, there really did their due diligence of listen. This is not liposuction, uh, surgeries, like this are not a replacement for diet and exercise, but we would have repeat patients come back, uh, because they just didn't have the opportunity perhaps to learn about how to fuel themselves and how to make their results [00:36:00] sustainable.
Diane: After a surgery like
Adina: Right. We've said it before. We've said it again, diet and exercise the way they are presented to you in conventional fitness and the diet culture do not work. They do not serve you and they are not sustainable for your optimal health. So just expecting people who have had this surgery to continue to eat less and exercise more again, just
Adina: nebulous, right? Like what are we doing?
Diane: And you've said before, on a previous episode that a chronic health problem calls for a chronic health solution. So if you have had trouble losing weight, finding your body is happy weight, and you also experience other things like poor sleep, tough cycles, uh, low energy, all of those other things, there needs to be a more complex solution and it doesn't have to be this overwhelming thing.
Diane: I hear from so many of my clients who have found like a place in their body that feels good for them that, oh my gosh, I feel so empowered that now I know how to fuel myself [00:37:00] and this food can taste good. And it's just given me so much more of my life back that I didn't think was possible. I thought I would just had to feel uncomfortable both in my body about my body and, oh, that is just not the case.
Adina: Yeah, like who's going to feel good, eating lean chicken breasts, and salads, and doing cardio, like all day every day, that just like, we want to give you a place where you eat steak and butter and potatoes, and you lift weights two to three days a week and you feel great and you feel really good inside your body.
Adina: And it's so sustainable and enjoyable.
Diane: Yeah. And with the gastric sleeve. So in this approach, part of the stomach is removed. Food still goes into the stomach. Part of that stomach is removed and in doing so they've removed the part that makes ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone. Um, so your hunger signals are going to be off and you're going to be physically uncomfortable with a smaller tem.
Diane: Along with that, you're [00:38:00] also going to need to supplement with key nutrients afterwards to avoid deficiencies.
Adina: Duh, duh. So why don't we talk about what those deficiencies cause it's like, there's so much more to this picture.
Diane: Yes. And again, for both of these surgeries, you could gain the weight back. Um, if some other food and lifestyle changes aren't made.
Adina: Yeah. in our minds, we get why this became a solution, but this surgery is missing the mark for us and is not going to solve the obesity crisis. This isn't going to fix this. We need to talk about blood sugar regulation. We need to talk about how we can enjoy our food and nourish our bodies deeply and improve our metabolism.
Adina: We need to make physical activity, not so scary and we need to make it. Actually work and support our best health. It is not going to be solved by the two of us. [00:39:00] Hopefully the more people that listen to this and the more of you that keep talking about how this shift needs to be made, we can make some progress in that respect.
Diane: yes, this next one on a similar digestive note, gallbladder surgery or cholecystectomy. So having your gallbladder removed another organ that unfortunately some GIs just think, eh, well it's
Diane: causing problems to take it out. Don't need it
Diane: to take it out.
Adina: I'm picturing a cartoon and it was just like a surgeon just like chucking organs behind their head.
Diane: Got a problem you're out. Oh. And we see this a lot. I definitely deal with my focus being mostly in gut health with my clients. So whether that's women who have experienced gallstones, so kind of that prelude to the suggestion of removing their gallbladder, or maybe they just had a cholecystectomy and they are trying to navigate how to heal after that.
Diane: So I see that a lot with women, our age, late twenties, [00:40:00] early thirties. Yeah. Or some of my older clients who maybe had that a while ago. And let's talk about what may have led folks here to this being more common. Yeah.
Diane: Low fat, poor fat diets, because what happens? We want thin flowing bile. That's going to digest our food, our dietary fat.
Diane: Right. But if you are, have a diet that is low or poor quality fat. Thick sludgy bile. And I always, this is a rice, like my old TLC remix. We don't want no sludge. A sludge is a bile that can't digest fats for me. Okay. It's not moving
Adina: I just don't get why no one has taken a step back and been like, Hmm. All these women between the age of 30 to 60 are getting their gallbladders removed. They all grew up on a super low fat diet because we told them that butter was bad for them. Hmm. Maybe there's a connection here.[00:41:00]
Diane: Yeah, nothing to see here. That's it's just so unfortunate. And you might be told that it's not that big of a deal. You think just remove it and proceed business as usual. But I've worked with too many women who have had a call cystectomy and maybe they're like one, two years post-op and they're like, I just can't really eat any fat.
Diane: And so my doctor also suggested I just continue on with a low fat
Adina: Right. That's the post-op care they get is, oh, just eat low fat. You'll be
Diane: A healthy, low fat diet.
Adina: like, I don't know if this has been your experience, but for most of my clients who have had their gallbladder out, they actually do way better, outside of the functional support that I do end up recommending without that functional support, they do way better digesting, saturated fats, than things like heart healthy oils that their doctor was recommending.
Adina: Like
Adina: that shit canola oil. Oh
Diane: spoiler there. Those vegetable oils are not heart healthy and go right through them. Right. I'm sure you've heard that from clients too. It's just, Oop, [00:42:00] got to poop as soon as they eat some of those foods. So they might think, all right, that's my body's saying we can't have this. Can't tolerate this.
Diane: It's not for me. Other times I'll hear from clients who they're eating saturated fat and they don't do well with those, um, maybe closer to their surgery. And so we do bring in functional support, other healing support because what's happening when you don't have that gallbladder.
Diane: You're going to have gastric juices, just dripping drip, drip in,
Adina: Drip
Adina: and
Diane: small intestine. I'm going to come through drippin. We don't want that drip
Adina: we need to take a little bit more time to explain this because if someone is listening and they got their gallbladder removed, and this is the first time they're hearing this, it's quite shocking. I've had this experience where I've had this conversation with you before, and they're just so upset that the surgeon didn't mention any of this, but when you do get your gallbladder removed, there is going to be not enough. To actually break down your fats, but just a constant slow drip into your small intestines. [00:43:00] So it can be super irritating to the small intestine and it can be not enough to actually help you break down those fats. So we need to understand how we need to support both that soothing of the small intestine and that actual implementation of something to help you better digest fats.
Diane: Yes, exactly. It's the answer is not to remove an entire macronutrient group, like, okay, we're just not going to have that anymore. We need fat, as we've talked about on several episodes for so many processes to build healthy skin, healthy hormones, to balance our blood sugar. Like there are just so many.
Diane: Reasons why fat and healthy cholesterol, rich foods belong in your diet. This is another example, again, of conventional medicine, just saying, oh, just take it out, whatever the cost we just want to make this problem go away, but then create all these other problems for you. We see it too often in our practice with women [00:44:00] who have, experienced the surgery, the inflammation, the urgency, the stools that are floating and just the discomfort and cramping that they feel when they do have fat after the surgery.
Diane: It's unfortunate. Yeah,
Adina: All right. We got a lawn mower on my end. Hopefully it's not too disturbing, but we are going to continue this conversation.
Diane: Soothing summer sounds just to pretend it's a little white noise machine in the back of it.
Adina: Good. Good timing guys. Why can't you get on a schedule? Come at the same time every day. Oh man. Okay. So yeah, just, just pull that organ right out. Just solve your problems that way. I remember when we first started learning functional nutrition. I think this was in the NTA. The first time I heard this example of like, if you had some foot pain, because there was a nail in your foot, conventional medicine is like just chop the foot off
Adina: [00:45:00] and,
Diane: all off.
Adina: and functional medicine is like, let's find the nail and just take it that out.
Diane: Yeah. Which would you rather do? Yeah, I remember that analogy.
Adina: Just cut that foot right off. Just cut that gallbladder out.
Diane: Tell me a bit, let's switch gears a little bit here. We're moving lower. I guess we're kind of working like mouth to tail with these surgeries, but this one Adina has a lot of expertise and experience in supporting and that is supporting prolapse and diastasis recti.
Diane: Sounds like a wait, that sounds like a dinosaur.
Diane: I always think of a dinosaur. When I say
Adina: This one, I see this in our outline and I'm just like, hold me back because
Diane: and getting all fired up already?
Adina: oh my God. I need to shout, but I'm going to keep my microphone on the same volume and try to speak softly. Okay. All right. My main question here is, so the two surgeries we want to [00:46:00] touch on here are prolapse repair.
Adina: So whatever that looks like, whether basically if you have organs, your pelvic organs, prolapsing, that could either be your bladder, your uterus, your rectum. They could either be prolapsing into the vaginal canal or just kind of out the body. And yeah,
Diane: I just clenched.
Adina: I know that that's the reaction too, which is so interesting.
Adina: Oftentimes people with prolapse end up with a tight pelvic floor because they're holding on for dear life.
Diane: And we don't want that tight butthole
Adina: We don't want that tight booty hole. So lot to say here, but when it comes to surgical repair of these things and also diastasis recti, which is when those abs split from the center. So your abs separate from that center line.
Adina: So imagine like the line in between your six-pack muscles kind of separating. And the thing with both [00:47:00] of these is that first of all, they're so misunderstood and women have created so much fear around both of them when they are a lot more normal. And I use the word normal specifically, not the word common, because as we've mentioned, certain things are common, but not normal, but actually when it comes to diastisis and prolapse, they actually are normal.
Adina: And by that, I mean that a hundred percent of women at their birth date of their baby, like when they're giving birth will have a diastisis and that is a natural mechanism of the body to create space for that baby, that tissue in between the abs separates to create more space for the baby. And
Diane: got to go somewhere,
Adina: yeah, it is a hundred percent normal to have that separation when you burn your baby, the question is then how to we [00:48:00] get there. And I don't even want to say gap to close because there's a lot more research coming out now that that doesn't necessarily need to be the goal for everyone. And so the question is, can we Regaine tension and function at that AB line and same thing with prolapse. It's like we're. So I think so many of us think of prolapse as like a worst case scenario thing that happens to people who give birth.
Adina: But Diane and I were talking right before we got on here about a study from 2018, actually, which talks about, and it's a pretty decent study, like 578 women. And there are four groups of women in the study, people who had a vaginal delivery, so normal vaginal delivery C-section delivery forceps. So when the baby was actually pulled out with an external tool and.
Adina: Women who didn't have babies at all. And the craziest thing is that 13% of the women who never delivered a baby [00:49:00] had prolapse. And
Diane: that really blew my mind.
Adina: there were actually more than that when you calculate all the different types of prolapse. But this was specifically talking about a rectocele, which is that rectum prolapsing into the uterine wall.
Adina: And so it's really interesting that we think of this as like this trauma thing that happens to some women who have babies, but you could have a prolapse and have no idea because you're not symptomatic, which is what we're always talking about here, where we get people. So worked up and scared into thinking that like, they need to fix this thing when, if it's not causing you any issues. We might not really need to fix it, or if it's just that your organs sit a little differently than they did when you were like 12, like that's fine. As
Adina: long as, yeah. As long as we can properly manage pressure, as long as we have our function, as long as we're not symptomatic. And if you are symptomatic, it doesn't mean you need [00:50:00] surgery.
Adina: And so, okay. So again, we're not your doctor and consult and whatever, but before you go and do this surgery, Please see a pelvic floor, physical therapist, please join a program like mine or somebody else who has a strength coach who has an awareness around the pelvic floor and how to teach you how to adequately manage that pressure because yes, prolapse and diastisis are two different things, but we grouped them together because at the end of the day, they are both pressure management issues.
Adina: It's not that diastisis is a core issue. And prolapse is a pelvic floor issue. Pressure goes to the weakest link. And so for some people it will present as diastisis for some people will present as prolapse for some people they'll have prolapse get surgery on it and then it will present as diastisis.
Diane: right, because it has to go somewhere. And if you're not managing that pressure,
Adina: [00:51:00] yeah, exactly. So if you don't learn anything about pressure management And you don't learn anything about how breath work can better support this function and how to actually control that intra-abdominal pressure. And you just go get this surgically repaired, you know, what's going to happen. It's what we see in the statistics, which is that so many women need to go and get that surgery done again.
Diane: yes. This was another one that we saw the plastic surgery practice was Dr. Repair. And I again think that the surgeons did their due diligence to talk about other lifestyle things, but they didn't have anyone in house or they are to maybe helps facilitate that. So pelvic floor PT, super key, right. Or working with someone like you as strength coach, who has understanding expertise in your core, your pelvic floor.
Diane: You're going to have to use that part of your body for so many things, getting up, sitting down, picking up your toddler, like so many things. So we need [00:52:00] to learn how to use it.
Adina: Yeah. Again, I don't want to go on a huge tangent here because you know, I get fired up, but that's an issue for me too, where if you get this surgically repaired and then you're just told like, okay, just don't lift more than 10 pounds
Adina: and you're good to
Diane: goals.
Adina: Uh don't
Adina: I know she's trying, she's stoking the
Diane: well, we'll do a full, dedicated episode
Adina: poking the beast. Um,
Adina: yeah. Yes. Just kegels. It's about a full system of pressure management, which again is why diastisis and prolapse are both pressure management issues. They are not separate core and pelvic floor issues. And the fail rate of these surgeries is just way too high for me to feel okay.
Adina: Recommending this again, some people might get to a point where they would need surgical intervention. The rate of people getting the surgery are not the rate of people needing the surgery. And so we really want you to understand that it is not so scary. I know it can feel really scary and like, you have to just go and get it [00:53:00] stitched up, but it is not that scary.
Adina: First of all, it might not even be prolapse. Like maybe it is just some tension that you don't know how to relax. And so you feel like it's prolapse, but get it assessed, get some manual therapy from a good pelvic floor, physical therapist. That's the issue too. Here is like PF PT is such a niche already that within that finding someone that's good, that really understands your body as a system that really understands the need for load and strength.
Adina: It's challenging. So,
Diane: Yeah. And we could get fired up about, about how women are just very unsupported in this, in our culture and the system postpartum. I imagine so many of them listening or have not heard about this, or been able to connect with someone who knows what they're doing in that space.
Adina: So I will say this also, if this is the first time you were ever hearing any of this and you're like, wait, do I have that? [00:54:00] Um, if you feel in a lot of heaviness in the pelvic floor, if you have a lot of difficulty going to the bathroom, we post that. Um,
Adina: Andy. Yeah,
Diane: both of
Adina: both. Um, if you leak, you know, that could be an issue there if you have pain, obviously.
Adina: But if we posted that, um, that reel of Andy being like, it's like wiping a marker, that's a big one that happens for
Diane: constipation.
Adina: With prolapse, because like, they just feel like they can't get a full evacuation of their poop.
Diane: Well, you went clinical there. You can't get all your shit
Adina: exactly.
Adina: Anyways, if you feel anything in your pelvic floor that maybe doesn't feel right. See a pelvic floor, physical therapist, just investigate.
Diane: yes, don't stop at kegels. And remember it is a issue of managing, creating tension, distributing that pressure. [00:55:00] Similarly hernia. Now we see this more with men and that tells us that they have pelvic floor problems. So why is that? Do you know?
Adina: Yeah. I did want to just mention this one here, because I think if any of you have male partners or any men in your life and you think pelvic floor physical therapy is just for women. I wanted to just say this because I saw this a lot in the weightlifting space and men, so many men that lift heavy, get hernias, specifically inguinal hernia, which is more in that groin area.
Diane: I've heard this a lot.
Adina: Are not connecting that this is a pelvic floor and a pressure management issue. And when I saw the way that I was coached to first learn how to lift heavy load, it just cues me into the rest of the weightlifting coaching industry. There's such a lack of understanding of our breath and our pressure management.
Adina: So if you have a partner or a male friend who lifts heavy things and experiences hernias, don't run to [00:56:00] surgery. Let's first look at pelvic floor
Adina: physical therapy.
Diane: I think there's this pressure pun intended on men in the powerlifting bodybuilding space. You just add load ad load and at the expense of their back, their pelvic floor. Gosh, I've had friends and family members who have experienced unfortunately hernia and then hernia repair. So pelvic floor supporting it is not just something that's for women. Back to uteruses or is it utero when they're plural? I don't know. But another surgery that we hear of often from our clients is hysterectomy, or maybe they are thinking that that might be a possibility for them.
Diane: So hysterectomy being one of these three, but oftentimes that's removing the entire uterus doing a total hysterectomy. Right? So, um, in that scenario, the whole uterus and cervix removed, maybe a partial hysterectomy is suggested where the [00:57:00] uterus is removed, but cervix is left intact. And finally, maybe the whole kit caboodle is removed.
Adina: No kitty caboodle.
Diane: yes. Your fallopian tubes and your ovaries. So that's called a salpingo oophorectomy.
Adina: Yeah. And I think our clients like our endo clients, our endometriosis clients, so many of them just feel like this is the inevitable end
Diane: Yeah.
Adina: Um,
Diane: Or if they have, um, yeah, endo and fibroids, I've been hearing about those and a dental miles has a lot from clients. So they're thinking this is just it's going to happen.
Adina: oh, and in some cases, this one gets recommended for prolapse, which you just heard us break down before where, or even pelvic pain, like why are we just pulling people's uteruses out if they have pelvic pain? Yeah. Why can't we just go see a pelvic floor, physical therapist and figure out why, why our pelvis hurts.
Adina: So, yeah, that one fires me up. Like don't be taken out. My [00:58:00] clients. Uterus is just because they have some symptoms of prolapse. That's backwards to me.
Diane: so that would be a
Adina: It's already falling. So let's just pull it the whole way out.
Diane: yeah. Yeah. So that's a scenario where if you are able to seek that second opinion to see a pelvic floor, physical therapist, first try that out before removing a vital organ. I know. And if you are someone who, um, who having children is not a goal for you, maybe think, okay, cool.
Diane: I won't have periods anymore and just move on. Right. But whether your goal is to conceive or not, our cycle is a marker of our overall health and. We still want those sex hormones. And when you remove have the whole thing removed, including your fallopian tubes and your ovaries, the job of making sex , hormones is taken on by your adrenal glands.
Diane: Your think of them as your stress glands, right? But if you're someone who is already under chronic stress, that's not [00:59:00] going to happen. You're going to let me cue Ruff menopause, and maybe hormone replacement therapy is going to be suggested to you. But before we get there, what else can we do to support cycle?
Diane: If you have heavy periods, so maybe endo, but other times not. I do have clients who have really just tough, painful cycles, PMs, PMDD. And so hysterectomy is recommended to those women. What can we do to support your cycle upstream with your blood sugar balance, your thyroid health, your, your metabolic health.
Diane: Before we get to that point, what's the low-hanging fruit that we will need to work on any way. Eating, moving, sleeping.
Adina: Yeah.
Adina: And, and consider this too. Same thing. Like we talked about with diastisis and prolapse, where if we don't figure out how to manage that pressure before the surgery, and then we just go stitch it up and then you'd take one breath after the surgery and your pressure goes down, like it's getting the surgery is not going [01:00:00] to fix the pressure management issue.
Adina: And so that will still be a factor when that surgery happens. Same thing here. Like if you go and get your uterus out, but we never talked about what led you to that pain in the first place. So if it's things like endo fibroids, heavy periods, we need to be talking about estrogen dominance. We need to be talking about iron overload.
Adina: We need to be talking about blood sugar issues, mineral imbalances, metabolic health. And so all those things are still going to be a problem if you get the uterus taken out. And so then it's just going to present somewhere else. You know, like Diane said earlier, maybe it starts out. Hair loss and sleep issues and acne, and other ways that these issues present.
Adina: So we always want you thinking big picture. We always want you trying to look at this holistic way of supporting the body and it doesn't happen overnight, which is the difference with surgery and what we do and what we [01:01:00] teach you to do and how we teach you to be empowered inside your body. Like cycle concerns can take a long time to shift, especially if it took a long time to get us here.
Adina: You know, like Diane said earlier, chronic health conditions require a chronic health solution and these things we didn't get here overnight. And so we can't think that in a two hour surgery about a Bing badda, boom, like all our problems are going to be solved.
Diane: That would be nice, but you're a complex person. You didn't get there overnight. You've chances are, if you, if you deal with things like endo tough periods, you've experienced that for a while. But still what you do now is going to affect your cycle in a few months. So because you need to still move, sleep, eat, manage stress regardless of what's going on, let's start there because there's this beautiful ripple effect.
Diane: When we have more time there, I know it can feel very frustrating if you have a lot of this chronic pain and all [01:02:00] you want to do is to get out of it. But truly the sum of these things are driven by like estrogen dominance, things that we hear about so often in our practice. And there are things that you can do, be a lifestyle and food to shift that.
Diane: Um, I also hear from women who say, well, uterine cancer, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, uh, running my family and something to note there. And I want to say this. The most passionate way I can, but as clearly as I can, that may be the case. It doesn't mean that it will happen for you. We know that that's going to also still be affected by lifestyle by stress.
Diane: So what can you do now to love on yourself, nourish yourself and give yourself the best possible outcome before that is something you need to, to do.
Adina: Yeah. And, and again, like, even if you do go ahead and do this surgery for any of those reasons mentioned, if we take some dedicated time to really focus [01:03:00] on all of the things we mentioned, getting that estrogen dominance in check, supporting metabolic health, supporting your mineral status, that deep nutrition and all of these things we mentioned, even if you do go ahead and do this surgery and feel that that is the best choice for you, that outcome will be so much better.
Diane: yes. I know we're going to do many an episode about fertility and periods in the future, but this is just top of mind because I just did a Q and a on my Instagram story yesterday.
Diane: And there were a lot of questions about how do I support as tips for supporting estrogen dominance, progesterone. That was Doug snoring, but we're going to probably have to leave that one. And I know this doesn't sound as sexy, or it's not like this magic pill that maybe people are thinking of or hoping for, but the top tips, SparkNotes style, eating enough, sleeping, eight hours.
Diane: Moving your body with true strength training. We have several episodes about this, and I [01:04:00] know an awesome coach and finally managing stress. This is one that so many people want
Diane: to skip over the mindset work. That is the number one, but I wanted to spend a little more time talking about that, right? That is the number one, managing your stress as much as you can.
Diane: I know there are a lot of things out of your control, but I noticed how clients will want to skip over the mindset work because it's uncomfortable, right? But cultivating healthy relationship with yourself with others. If you have capacity to change your job or to, to find some joy outside of a job, if you can change that.
Diane: Now, this is so key. These chronic stressors we see too often in that stress that's chronically present in your life. That's mental and emotional affects us in our health.
Adina: Yeah.
Diane: is.
Adina: everything we do. H is for the sake of that stress management. Like we tell you to eat nutrient dense foods and to eat enough, but that's just to make you more resilient to stressors. Like this is all about managing our total [01:05:00] stress load and those stressors tip the scale and they lead to a lot of these pathologies.
Adina: We want to kind of shift the thinking away from pathologizing, all of these things, and oh, you have this, you need this pill or, oh, you have this, you need to get this organ removed. Let's take a look at the big picture and see where we can better support the body, the metabolism, that mineral status, that deep nutrition and remove the stressors.
Adina: Wherever we can
Diane: yes. We said this before, too. We'll
Adina: remove the stressor is not the
Adina: organs.
Diane: Yeah, it was the remove stressors, not the organs the body's going to react to it. All stress in the same way. That's whether that's physical, mental, emotional, environmental, spiritual, all of that. So when we work together, we're we focus a lot here in our work with those physical stressors, uh, to unburden the body's stress load, but it's going to be ongoing work and it's going to be on you to manage that mental, emotional [01:06:00] stress.
Diane: So we talk about ways to support that play, rest, getting outside in nature. So many things we can do more episodes about that, but managing your stress is a non-negotiable sleep non-negotiable you have to eat well, all of these things. I mean, when those things aren't in place, we're not going to even talk about these clever sexy adaptogens and
Adina: Testing testing.
Adina: Yeah. They love the testing.
Diane: The last one we want to get to is spine stuff. My neck, my
Adina: Wow.
Diane: all of that, because we hear about back pain, neck pain. I mean, I've gone through some of this too recently, but what I'm not going to do is say, oh, this is just part of getting older. And now my knees hurt and my back hurts. I'm not going to pathologize it.
Diane: Let's just talk about what could be going on beyond behind back pain. And maybe some things that you don't need to run for a straightaway right out the gate, [01:07:00] your back hurts.
Adina: A few things I need to say. First of all, I was about to say, we're going to make it an entire episode without talking about a parks and rec episode, but I can't talk about back pain with, at all, without talking about when Ron Swanson is sitting in his chair, because I think he like got a hernia or something and April comes in and he won't tell anyone that he doesn't feel well
Adina: And
Adina: April comes in and he just he's.
Adina: Nothing to see here. Like I'm just eating my lunch and he takes the burger and just throws it at his face. Cause he can't move.
Diane: He's in the dusk chair. Oh my gosh. Like my dad right now, unfortunately,
Adina: Oh yeah. That makes me laugh so hard. The way Ron just throws the whole burger at his face.
Diane: I thought you were going to talk about Leslie's MRI, but I guess we're going to
Diane: get there's
Adina: one too.
Diane: so back stuff I've seen and heard people, unfortunately, just going straight for, I need an MRI. I, oh, I must have ha must have a slipped disc. It must be something major. [01:08:00] Right. And perhaps, but also perhaps
Diane: is it that if hubs you're providing, perhaps there is something less invasive, less costly that we can explore first,
Adina: Here's what I will say about imaging, because this is going to ruffle some feathers. If, if this, if you're still here, if this episode hasn't ruffled your feathers yet. Imaging is extremely overused and proper resistance training is extremely underused. So I just kind of feel like I love science and technological advancements, but sometimes I feel like humans were never supposed to know this much about what's going on inside their bodies,
Diane: we need to see inside ourselves?
Adina: because we are our brains run the show, right?
Adina: As human beings, we just talked a little bit about stress, but [01:09:00] pain. Pain is just a brain signal and we've trained our bodies to respond to certain things with pain signals. And yes, pain is a very protective thing, right? If you step on a nail, you're supposed to get a pain signal to pull it your foot away, but certainly pain signals are these pathways that we've created in our head. And sometimes getting out of pain. Yes. It involves getting stronger, but sometimes it involves a little brain training and not being so scared of pain and not letting pain shut us down. And so when it comes to imaging, like we were just talking about a study from 2015 where people that had no experience of back pain were put under imaging and 30% of the 20 year olds had bulging discs with no back pain and [01:10:00] 84% of the 80 year olds had bulging discs with no back pain.
Adina: I am certain, I experienced no pain. I am certain that after my years of sports of jumping of weightlifting, of living life and being stressed out, if you put me under an MRI. I'm sure I have some disc herniations, bulging disc slipped, disc, whatever you want to call them, but it doesn't affect my function.
Adina: And it's not a scary thing. And I don't feel any pain because I have great movement strategies and I have variability in my movement and I have the ability to lift things. And if it doesn't feel right the way I lifted at that time, I can adjust things and lifted a little bit differently the next time.
Adina: And so having that body awareness, having that baseline of strength, having the ability to test those different movement strategies, and again, when it comes to the spine, we can't not talk about [01:11:00] breathing, right. That breath work, understanding how to use the diaphragm. There's so much to this, but I think that what we really need here for this to shift for people is for doctors to. Better communicate with strength specialists. So whether that's the communication between surgeons and PTs or PTs and strength coaches or PTs and trainers like this communication needs to get better because not everyone needs surgery. And even if, and not everyone needs MRIs, people don't need to just feel scared about what's going on inside their body.
Adina: People need to be told that they can trust their bodies and that it's okay to move. And it's okay to lift. Like I've had so many clients over my nine years in this industry who have told me, oh, I [01:12:00] slipped a disc. Oh my I'm not going to be able to deadlift because my doctor said blahbidy blah or, oh yeah.
Adina: My doctor said that I can only lift 10 pounds. It's like,
Diane: What's your doctor's experience with strength training. You have to carry your groceries. I use this example all the time, but you you're going to have to encounter load
Adina: Yeah. Like we can't live without encountering load. Like you're just going to sit on your bed all day and have people do everything for you. And then you're just going to atrophy atrophy in your bed. Cause all your muscle will waste away from not being used.
Adina: Like yeah. It's just like, this is so it's so crazy to me, how quickly we think we need imaging and intervention and cortisone shots and you know, it's like,
Diane: I mean, this also reminds me too, to your point of okay. You have an MRI? Someone might not experience any pain. See that and then think, oh, there's something wrong with me, right? When their spine is anything other than perfect. And I'm glad that we had this conversation before I did have some imaging done and I've had some [01:13:00] issues with my neck.
Diane: I carry a lot of my mental, emotional stress in my shoulders and have things I'm working on with my movement, with my coach Adina but I had some imaging and discovered I had like a slight scoliosis, but I remember talking to you before that and to a friend who, a physical therapist they're like, that could have been there like this whole time, not, and not a part of the discomfort that I'm experiencing now.
Diane: I mean, it was interesting to see, so I'm glad that I had that information going into it. So I wasn't like, oh, i have scoliosis and loss is
Adina: Yeah. You see how quickly someone can just like, go on this spiral of like, what is wrong with me? And especially when doctors are telling you, oh yeah, that thing is wrong with you. Now you can't do X, Y, Z. And it's like, oh, I'm picking up my toddler. I'm going to throw out my back. You know, it's like, we need to just give people positive experiences with movement and make them feel strong.
Adina: And I think that's what one of the most amazing things to come out of my program has been those messages from people of like, [01:14:00] I was told X, Y, Z. And I can't believe how strong and stable my spine feels or, you know, like that,
Diane: Yeah. I want to see more of that collaboration. And I am thankful that I have found a chiropractor who will say things like, make sure you move today, or how did your workout go to experiment with that new range of movement that they give me when I do have an adjustment. So they're a lot more holistic and they're fan of kettlebells too.
Diane: And so I love that. I mean, it was cool to see when my spine started to straighten out a little bit with these adjustments. I don't think that was related to like my neck pain, my Atlas out some of the muscle tension. And I also knew I had to manage my mindset and other mental, emotional stress so that I'm not tensing and carrying my stress that way.
Diane: So
Adina: Structure. Yes. And, and structure doesn't always indicate function, which I think is so important. Like. We need to understand that just because [01:15:00] something looks a certain way, it doesn't mean that's how you need to feel. And I think that's what happens a lot of times when we see imaging or when we find out that we have a prolapse or that we have a diastisis, it's like, we go on these spirals of, oh, it looks like this.
Adina: It must feel like this. Or that's why I'm in pain or now I'm going to be in pain forever. And when we tell ourselves these stories, that's a big part of the problem.
Diane: this might be going a little deep, but I wonder if sometimes when. Happens. You see that imaging or are looking for a diagnosis in a way to pathologize your pain. It's like, how can I put this outside of myself? Or, you know that, oh, that's just how it is. You know, like instead of I have the power to change this, how cool to have that shift.
Diane: I know that there are some scenarios where someone might have real chronic pain and how that, how that is so frustrating. But for those of you who maybe haven't entertained, , haven't been able to move to [01:16:00] do strength training. That is something that we encourage you to explore first, before going down the rabbit hole of expensive imaging and thinking that you're broken or that you need some deeper, more invasive solution.
Adina: Yes. As one of my mentors, Dr. Craig Liebenson says the motion is the lotion and we really need to understand how to utilize strength and movement strategies. To just make us better at living our lives and that you don't always need the imaging, the surgery, that intervention, like there are so many other ways that we can support our bodies towards optimal health.
Diane: yeah. Some things to think about some food for thought. When, you know, we brought that spice as usual, but we want you to know, we love you. We rooting for you. We want you to be strong, healthy, and thriving. So until next week, [01:17:00] have a good one. We love you.
Adina: Stay strong, stay sassy
Adina: bay.
