Has your thyroid stopped working? An unhealthy thyroid, caused by Hashimoto’s disease or Hypothyroidism, can make you lethargic, overweight, and achy. Today’s guest, Dr. Alan Christianson, is joining me to talk about thyroid health and how his new book, The Metabolism Reset Diet, can help you take back control of your health.
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Alan is a naturopathic physician who, like many of us, began his healthcare journey by treating his own problems. Through diet, nutrition, and exercise, he has more or less cured his cerebral palsy, with his last recurrence in 2016. Alan is using his experience and education to help others reset their bodies and heal “untreatable” conditions.
On this episode, we’re talking about what you need to know about thyroid disease. Alan explains what can cause a slower thyroid and what some of the symptoms of these diseases are. He also lets us know what the “normal range” for thyroid health is.
Alan also talks about some of the natural methods of treating and maintaining thyroid health are and what supplements you can take. As with most health issues, eating the right food and taking daily exercise can only be a benefit. We also talk about Alan’s new book, The Metabolism Reset Diet, and how it can help you when you’re struggling to lose weight.
Have you been tested for any issues with your thyroid? Do you struggle to lose weight? Do you know what you should be eating to support your thyroid?
In This Episode:
- What we need to understand about thyroid disease
- What are the differences between Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism
- What can contribute to a slower thyroid
- What is the normal range for your thyroid
- What are some of the symptoms of thyroid disease
- What are some more natural methods of thyroid treatment
- What are some supplements you can use to support thyroid function
- What foods should you avoid for a healthier thyroid
- How exercise benefits thyroid health
Subscribe to Couch Talk w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca on Youtube
Quotes:
“People with thyroid disease are at higher risk for thyroid cancer and thyroid structural complications. Not a month goes by in our practice where we don’t find someone who has hidden thyroid cancer.” (9:55)
“It takes more than hormones to fix our hormones.” (13:56)
“For a subset of people who struggle with weight, the issue is that their liver is not working right.” (16:18)
Links
Find Dr. Alan Christianson Online
Follow Dr. Alan Christianson on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | YouTube
Get The Metabolism Reset Diet Book
Join the KetoGreen Community on Facebook
Buy The Hormone Fix
Transcript:
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Hello everyone. Dr. Anna Cabeca here for Couch Talk and today I'll be talking about thyroid health and metabolism. I know that many women often come to me complaining of weight gain. Especially around menopause and with hormone changes and we always want to blame our thyroid but sometimes it goes beyond our thyroid. It's been a busy few months for me. As you know I've been releasing my book and have had the opportunity and blessing to travel and to meet and talk with so many people. It's always a delight when I get to speak with another clinician who is also a book author and really sharing knowledge. Today I am bringing you my dear friend, Dr. Alan Christianson, who is a naturopathic doctor and a thyroid expert. He's also a sports enthusiast and has the gift of really being a fabulous clinician, bringing many integrative techniques to his office. From cold nitrogen therapy to IV vitamins and hormonal therapy and especially with his expertise in the thyroid.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
He has a book coming out called The Metabolism Reset and it is sure to be a New York Times best-seller. Really hoping so for him. Enjoy this interview. We hit on some really great pearls about testing for our thyroid, causes of thyroid disease as soon as things we need to really understand. As far as the difference between Hashimoto's and being hypothyroid. I look forward to your feedback. Again, always please share this interview and share this information with your friends. Let me know how you like what you hear. For all our listeners and viewers that are coming onto Facebook live, I'm excited to have you here today and to join in. We're going to talk about a topic that is really important to me and my community and it's all about thyroid health. With that, I brought on Dr. Alan Christianson, a long-time friend, and colleague. I mean I've known Alan for nearly 10 years now.
Dr. Alan C.:
Probably, yeah.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah. And it's been a long time. We met up in the mountains of Idaho or somewhere. Wasn't it Alan?
Dr. Alan C.:
Right, you're right.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Brought together by our mutual friend, J.J. Virgin, and have been friends ever since. Alan is the thyroid expert. He's a naturopathic doctor and he is a doctor's doctor. He has brought in so much integrative philosophy and skill as well as I mean just great clinical acumen. Just clinical observation and ability to help individuals on a very personal level. Alan, I'm pleased to see you here. Tell our audience a little bit about you. More about you. And all the books you've authored and your recent book that's coming out is The Metabolism Reset. I'm excited about that.
Dr. Alan C.:
Well, first and foremost I'm a really big Anna Cabeca fan. Super happy to be with you. Any reason to hang to is a good reason. Naturopathic endocrinologist, like you, said. Like a lot of us I came into this trying to sort out my own health struggles and was able to do so more or less. Pleased with that and just realized what a big deal it is when you're not feeling your best and how tough that can be. So yeah, it's a great path. I'm honored to be on this path with you, helping others clarify those things.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well and I'm glad to have you here. One of the questions I get so often is the difference between thyroid... Not everyone who is hypothyroid is Hashimoto's and not everyone who is Hashimoto's is hypothyroid. Let's talk about that. Explain the difference and share that information. I see one of our magic menopause ladies, Roberta, is on. I just want to shout out to Roberta. Thank you for joining us, Roberta and everyone else who's listening and watching.
Dr. Alan C.:
Hey Roberta, how you doing? Okay, so yes, so hypothyroidism. Think about that. You're going down the freeway, the car's moving along, 65 miles an hour and your car can't go past 40. So that's hypothyroidism. That's a car that's going too slow. And that's your gland, it has a lot of facts. We can talk more about that but hypothyroidism just means that it's underactive. Imagine now back in that scenario, maybe your car ran out of gas. Maybe the engine's failing but running out of gas could be one cause of the car running too slow.
Dr. Alan C.:
In this case, Hashimoto's can be one of the causes of hypothyroidism. It's probably the most common cause by far, but yeah, the gland can slow for other reasons. You could have, you could be low on gas but have your car not yet slow down. Or maybe the car is going to make it to the gas tank. So you can have Hashimoto's and not have your thyroid slow, and you can have a slow thyroid and not have Hashimoto's.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So let's talk about some of those other reasons that we can have a slow thyroid.
Dr. Alan C.:
To be honest there's not a lot. They're not very common. Main things we think about would be the gland being removed surgically, completely or partially due to nodules, calcifications, cancer. There are some medications that slow it also. In many cases, they slow it because they trigger Hashimoto's but in some cases, they slow it just directly. They're not commonly used but they are out there. Lithium is one. Also amiodarone, a cardiac medication. And a couple of others in some cases can slow it. There were times more common in the past where people would have their necks radiated for tonsillitis. That can do it too. But those are not that common. So now Hashimoto's, its an autoimmune attack and the reason that there's a lot of difficulties between saying who for sure has it is that many who have it don't have simple to detect signs. Not everyone has measurable antibodies. The vast majority of hypothyroidism is caused by Hashimoto's unless there's some other obvious cause.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
When we're talking about Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, let's talk about testing. Because that is something I'd love to talk about. I know you talk about it in your book. I talk about it in my book. And just the importance of testing for determining, okay, well what is going on. Is my thyroid underactive? What do those numbers really mean and what are all the numbers I should look at. Because we know in our standard medical community that predominant testing for thyroid, is it underactive, overactive. Is it doing what you should do? Is the TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone test? Now that can be affected by so many other hormones in our body as well. So we need to look a little deeper than the TSH. You explain it better than anyone I know, Alan, so, please.
Dr. Alan C.:
Well the TSH is how much your brain asks your thyroid to work. When things work correctly, it's a backward gauge on your thyroid performance. So imagine you've got workers who are, maybe they're inherently lazy and if they're not being yelled at they're going to goof around and be on Facebook or something. You could tell how hard they're working by how loud the boss is yelling. If the boss is totally quiet, they must be doing a really good job. They're working hard, maybe even too hard. But if the boss is screaming you know they're going pretty slow. So that's what the TSH is. It's a backward thing.
Dr. Alan C.:
Some cases people think about the vagrancies of it and they want to ignore it altogether. The pitfall is that when it is way out of range, either side, it does predict a lot of health changes. Good and bad. We can't ignore it but the normal range is really broad. And the normal range doesn't perfectly apply to healthy people. It's an average of scores for those who've been tested for thyroid disease. And lots of papers have shown that healthy people have scores that are in the normal range but in the lowest part of the normal range only.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
And that's interesting because our endocrinology society says if we're on thyroid replacement we want it in this optimal range. But yet that optimal range is really where we want our thyroid hormones to be in general, correct?
Dr. Alan C.:
Right. Yeah, so the thought is what's the best level to say whether or not someone has thyroid problems if they're not on treatment. And if they are on treatment where should they be. Those are all different. The problem is that the range has been average for people who are tested. If you think this through, the people that get tested, you know no one wakes up and says, "Hey I feel great. I'm going to get my thyroid tested five times today." That doesn't happen. So, people that get tested the most often, they are more prone to have thyroid disease and they're more prone to have symptomatic thyroid disease.
Dr. Alan C.:
So when you take them out and you find people that have no clear thyroid issues and no clear symptoms, then we find the range is really low and narrow. To be precise for your listeners, normal ranges are usually between about 0.45, 0.4, up to about four and a half or five and a half. But when you pull out people with thyroid problems, it looks more a lot like 0.5 to like 1.9. That's a more typical spectrum for healthy people.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
And looking at free thyroid hormones, so Free T4, Free T3, and then thyroid antibodies to determine Hashimoto's. What else should we be looking at?
Dr. Alan C.:
Those are all important. There are many other markers that exist and many of the other blood markers don't always add too much more. But there's structural screening which is important. People with thyroid disease are at higher risk for thyroid cancer and thyroid structural complications. I swear not a month goes by in our practice where we don't find someone that has hidden thyroid cancer. That's significant. So yeah, they should be screened with ultrasounds. They're very commonly underutilized but they're part of that because also in figuring out someone's best scores, the structure of the thyroid is relevant to that as well.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's really important. Now I think we're seeing more thyroid cancers than... I know I didn't see them so much in my residencies or at training at Emory even. Thyroid cancer wasn't something that was in the top of our diagnosis but now it is when we have thyroid and we're palpating for nodules, doing ultrasounds. I think that's really important so I want to emphasize that. If someone's been diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, it's not enough to simply do a palpable thyroid test. We need to do a thyroid ultrasound. Now, Alan, I've got to regress a little bit and when I did my endocrinology as a medical student, I rotated through Cook County in Chicago, the just really most fabulous inner-city hospital that has ever existed. There were gunshots in the emergency room, gunshots outside. And thyroid disorders that would come in.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So I learned the palpable thyroid. Being able to palpate. I saw goiters like this. Now we don't see it so much. I mean we're so astute and we're able to do lab tests much more frequently but at that point, the symptoms of hypo and hyperthyroid, the drooping of the eyelids, the slow reflexes, the slower talk. The hair loss that we associate with hypothyroid, let's talk about some of those symptoms as well.
Dr. Alan C.:
Yeah for sure, there's many and couple of nuances. One thing I think of a lot about, there was the thing called the Colorado Thyroid Prevalent Study and this was '98 or 2000. They tracked a large number of people at various health fairs and they did detailed symptom questionnaires and they also just pulled blood panels on them. What they saw is that some symptoms were better predictors of thyroid disease than others. What was interesting is that they asked about many symptoms in two ways. Like you mentioned hair loss, they would ask are you prone to hair loss. Or are you prone to more hair loss? Hoarse voice or hoarser voice. So one little distinction about when symptoms are related to thyroid function, there's often some change in their arc. We've all had things that we struggle with long-term. Those by definition become a little less suspicious. But if you say, this was never really a big thing for me before but ever since last November, my skin, it tries crazy dry.
Dr. Alan C.:
That's suspicious. When there's a time [inaudible 00:12:46] which it changes. So that was one thing. Another little nuance in that study is that there's a lot of possible symptoms but there were no exclusionary symptoms. There are no symptoms you would have to have. So people often think, huh, well I'm tired, maybe my thyroid's a problem but it must not be because I'm not gaining weight. It doesn't work that way. There are no symptoms that have to go with it. There's many that can go with it. And most people don't have a large number of symptoms. So if you've ever thought, it must not be that because I don't have X, that's not how it works. So yeah, the hoarseness of voice, difficulty swallowing. You mentioned about the hair loss, the drier skin. Weight struggles, muscle pain. Migraines are actually pretty high up on there. Digestive issues, like IBS. Those are some of the top ones. And yeah, you wouldn't have all of them. Some people have a lot but that's less common. It's most typical to have one, two, or three of those.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
That's really good to say because we talk about weight gain, right? Especially mid-life weight gain. I'm like, okay, it's got to be my thyroid. Hair loss, it's got to be my thyroid. And lo and behold, more times than not it's not the thyroid. I want to talk about that because one of the things that is my big platform, is that it takes more than hormones to fix our hormones, right? Because if that wasn't the case everyone on thyroid supplements would be thin. Well we know that's not the case, right? So that goes deeper into the metabolism. And your new book The Metabolism Reset is about that, so please share with us a little bit more in-depth.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
How do we restart, re-kick our metabolism? And go beyond the thyroid, and I will talk about thyroid replacement too so I'll get back to that. We do have a question. Actually, before we go, let's go ahead and answer a question from our audience. Nancy wrote in, she said, "I went into menopause at the age of 35 due to neurosarcoid, which caused me to be on about 24 different medications a day. Also on an infusion of Remicade, Methotrexate and large doses of prednisone." And she asked, "Could this have messed with my thyroid?"
Dr. Alan C.:
Had you said, "Could this have messed with my X," it could've almost anything. There's not that that could not have affected. You had quite a rough patch there. I'm sorry to hear that but for sure that could've affected your thyroid health and many other facets of your body's regulation so yeah, check that stuff out.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah. So full panels of the thyroid and talked about just complete thyroid testing, looking at antibodies, TSH, Free T4, Free T3. Thyroid peroxidase antibodies, anti-thyroid globulin antibodies. What am I missing?
Dr. Alan C.:
Thyroid globulin. Just by itself. There's thyroid globulin and antithyroid globulin. So thyroid globulin's a nice adjunct for gauging the structure of the gland.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Perfect, good. All right so let's then talk about if we are struggling with metabolism and with whether we've been on thyroid or not been on the thyroid. How do we kick that metabolism... Talk about why you wrote this book. Because you've had many books on the thyroid. And you found a real need to go deeper so tell us about that Alan.
Dr. Alan C.:
In the endocrine work and working with diabetics, we stumbled upon some protocols that worked great for reversing diabetes. We saw large amounts of radical waste loss. Not always a big deal for weight loss but a radical waste loss in people. And over time we saw that it corresponded with beneficial changes in liver function. And that the waste loss would last well for them. What we realized is that for a subset of people who struggle with weight, the issue is that their liver's not working right. Think about your body being able to generate energy, to turn your fuel into energy. Almost like you've got two stores of fuel in the liver. I think about one as being like logs, and one is being kindled. It's like triglycerides and glycogen.
Dr. Alan C.:
In a healthy liver, it can use kindling to ignite the logs. Now you got nice, steady energy for a long period of time. But in some cases, there's too many logs, too little kindling. That can lead to overt problems like fatty liver but short of it being an obvious disease state. It can make it to where the weight, and specifically the weight in the organs. Not even just around the organs, the belly fat, but the weight in the liver is just logged on. So yeah, it's a way to reverse all that.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Talk about how we do that.
Dr. Alan C.:
The idea with this and for this population, it's a tricky tightrope to walk. So the trick is we want to lower the fuel intake overall. So the body is motivated to tap into its own stores of triglycerides. But when we're doing that, there can be a breakdown of a lot of stored wastes, there can be uric acid that's circulating. So it's a stressful time for the liver. The trick is for this subset of the population, not to just have nothing coming in but have a lower enough amount of fuels so the body taps into those stores. But then supply the liver with what it needs to rebuild that kindling. And also the building blocks it needs to detoxify and heal itself.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
One of the things that really opened my eyes to functional medicine was starting to implement detoxification regimes when I was in my practice. So when clients would come in with their myriad of symptoms and high levels of fatigue, decreased energy, memory loss. Mood swings. Constipation. I mean, name it. The first thing that I did was support their liver with nutrition support like milk thistle, Vitamin C and different other herbs that are my favorite, of course, maca and grains and [inaudible 00:18:21] and turmeric. So combinations of these things to support phase one and phase two detoxification. What I noticed and what happened when they come in, back into my office for their lab results. It would be like, "Ahh, Dr. Anna, I'm 90% better." I'm like, okay well I haven't even prescribed you one thing yet, do you know. How's that work.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
It's so true and talk about the burden in our livers are facing right now. I want to hit back on thyroid because we were talking about thyroid nodules and goiters and cancers. We're seeing a higher increase in that. There's toxicity that is a huge component of that. I tell my clients like let's take off the makeup and if we're using any makeup or skincare it's got to be really natural but try to go without for the majority of the time. Don't you think all those toxins in our skin care are affecting our thyroid?
Dr. Alan C.:
You know for sure, there's data that over 300 different chemicals can be disruptors for thyroid function. The gland is unique in that it has really intense concentrators to pull in a couple of minerals for its purposes. And that doesn't work like that elsewhere in the body. And the drawback is those concentrators don't know not to pull in a lot of toxins that can be in circulation. So a lot of wastes can be in levels in your thyroid that are far harder than they are anywhere else.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah. What are some of your favorite liver supports and your recommendation to additionally support the liver, supplement wise and as well the dietary, right? I calorically restricted diet.
Dr. Alan C.:
Yeah. I pulled the idea of calories and I think about fuel as being a distinct subset of that. So the body has a lot of types of nutrients that all break down to chemically oxaloacetates. They're all forms of fuel. And if there's too much fuel in the liver, it can't really process anymore. So the trick is to give it a break from that. But then we see things like resistant starch or certain categories of fibers or protein and they can work in different ways. And yet they can still fall into the heading of calories. So we think about more of a low fuel but then an adequate amount of supportive nutrients at the same time. That's the balancing act.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
That is a balancing act and can't emphasize enough again how supporting the liver and detoxing and again, this juggle. Especially so many, so often, we really destroyed our metabolism. But it's always repairable isn't it Alan, are there any of us out there that have like this failed metabolism, are struggling and they're like, "There's no help for me. I've been this way for so long."
Dr. Alan C.:
We never want to say, "never," right? The book comes down to a 20-day program. A lot of folks have done the first week of that even. We commonly see two, three, four inches come off in just a week. Then a lot of common changes about triglycerides, blood pressure, blood sugar, a reversal of diabetes. All that stuff. But what's been exciting to see is that people's symptoms and their measurements of inflammation have been plummeting as well. So chronic Epstein-Barr. Or autoimmune thyroiditis. Or chronic inflammatory arthritis. We see all these things people are saying, "Look, my numbers have changed. I'm feeling radically different." In the first week. What I've to realize is that those adipocytes, those fat cells, and the different kinds that they make, they can among the largest drivers of inflammation in the whole body. So when the toxic fat trapped inside the liver comes down so many systemic symptoms that I wouldn't have guessed before seeing all this can get better. So yeah it's really cool.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well, I think that's great and your work is always on the cutting edge and just so clinically relevant. There's just only so much that we can do in our medical offices but this, what I love, is that with all your work you're empowering the individual to take charge of their health and to do these interventions that really make sense and can help. So I appreciate that. Roberta asked a question, Alan. So I want to share this question. She says, "Ooh boy, this is a really, timely discussion because," her thyroid numbers have gone wacky. So she says her, "Free T3 was 3.18, her Reverse T3 was 22 and TSH was 3.71." Yet her Free T4 was good and has stayed the same. She does not have a thyroid. She says, "I need you." She says, "I use Synthroid and no T3. When I added some selenium I started converting over from T4 to T3. Any thoughts on tyrosine?" And she said, "When I take T3, T4, together, my T3 goes too high so I have stayed with Synthroid only. I tried natural ones but they didn't work well for me."
Dr. Alan C.:
Yeah Roberta, great question. First thoughts are, just... You said you do not have a thyroid if I heard that right. So you should have some regular ultrasounds to confirm that there's not been any residual tissue that's creeping back, that can happen. And in cases like that, I'm not sure why yours was taken out, the most common reason is thyroid cancer. In those cases it's recommended to keep your TSH lower, just to cut your recurrence risk if nothing else. And we used to think that lower meant zero. Now we know it doesn't because that was actually harmful. Now we know it means just under one for most people. The scores that you mentioned are not safe, just even apart from your symptoms for that reason alone. If you did have thyroid cancer. There's a lot of complex ties between the TSH, the Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3. What it really boils down to is that all those other hormones, they are regulated by the body outside of the thyroid and outside of the brain.
Dr. Alan C.:
When your TSH is not where it should be, they won't make sense. The TSH is like the first step and if it's good but the others are off, then there may be some other things to look at. But you can't correct the others when the TSH is off. One quick thought, you mentioned the T3 being high when you were taking it. Some people measure their levels after they've taken the dose. That can give you a false reading. It can make it higher than it should. A more accurate reading is before you've taken a dose. Yeah, you didn't mention any symptoms but you really should have your TSH lowered just to cut risks. Assuming your thyroid is out from thyroid cancer. So yeah, hope that was helpful stuff.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Alan, for sharing that information. And she's ordered your book and she does ultrasounds. So she added that comment.
Dr. Alan C.:
Good. Glad to hear that.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yes. And Becky asked here, she said, "My son is 13 years old and 70 lbs overweight. Can this metabolism reset work for him too?"
Dr. Alan C.:
Hey Becky, to be honest, we've not tested on pediatric populations. So no experience that way. If he's per his size, he may be closer to adult size and can be a consideration. Double check with his doctor, healthcare provider. As far as the details of that. It really is just whole foods. There's nothing too unusual and not extreme. So consider his activity levels and general overall health. It really jumped out at me. I just wrote a long detailed Facebook post a couple of days about my health journeys and chapters in it. At that age, I was severely overweight as well. That's like when I was just turning around 12, is when I started turning it around but I completely resonate with being an overweight, adolescent boy and it really was the worst so if there are any steps that can help him, Dr. Cabeca's work, my work, some combination. Yeah, please do.
Dr. Alan C.:
You make take a peek at dralanchristianson.com, my Facebook. If you just Google that. I wrote a long story about my various chapters of running throughout my life. I put pictures up when I was about his age and I was pretty heavy. This was just a few days ago. So I went really deep in my story and I put it up to make it a possible inspiration for someone. I can't think of a more perfect fit than him. He may find some enjoyment out of that and see that there... Things can get better.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I think that's perfectly timed. If you've written for her, Alan, I appreciate that. I want to let all our viewers know, share this on your pages. Share this live with your audience. You can share this and please, keep your comments coming. I appreciate that so much. This is a discussion that doesn't get had very often and it's certainly one that has just profound effects. So I want to just bring that, bring this issue of thyroid and Alan's work to the world. I'm fully supporting all he does. He's just been a brilliant colleague, a brilliant friend. He knows this area like no one else.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I encourage y'all to dig in and please comment back. Share with me what you find. Your a-ha moments. But sharing this your pages and spreading this information makes a difference. Like for Becky, for your son. We send out prayers and blessings and I know that following these guidelines will support him so please share back with me about that. Roberta asked, "Will your book cover cleaning the liver and supporting it?"
Dr. Alan C.:
For sure Roberta. You have a really good question and that is the focus of it. The cool thing is that I think about this as not really a lifestyle but something that you fix. You fix and you get better. My bias is that if you're going out of your way to hang out with Dr. Cabeca, you're more knowledgeable than the average bear. And you know a lot of good stuff. You're probably doing 80, 90% of the things exactly as you should. You've been listening to Dr. Cabeca, you know what's helpful and what's not. But if you're not getting the results that you should, it may not be that you need to go that last nth degree and do things totally perfectly. It may mean that your body's not internally regulating properly. So my thought is, this is a way your body can get better at regulating itself.
Dr. Alan C.:
And your 80, 90% efforts should be enough. We all know people that do 60% efforts and seem to get good results from that. So that's the idea is getting it to where your efforts are amplified further. And when that's done, I can give some general ideas for maintenance but by and large go back to your previous good habits and listen to Dr. Cabeca. Do what she says and you can do well from that.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So Alan, talk about a day in the life of someone who is following your program then I want to hear about a day in your life. I always ask that of my questions but I can't imagine the [inaudible 00:28:33] will be unicycling and everything so I can't wait to hear that. But talk about a day in the life of someone now thinking, okay, well what's it going to look like for me to do this.
Dr. Alan C.:
There are three big components. There's, of course, the food, then there are the sleep binges. I encourage a fair amount of sleep during this timeframe. And then there are the micro workouts. So the sleep binges, if there's a lot of data that your liver rebuilds it's kindling, its glycogen during deeper stages of sleep. So you want to not skimp on that. You can even go out of your way to pay back your sleep debt. That's a big part of the program, we talk about logistics and tactics and how to go about that for those to whom it's hard. And the micro workouts so during this time of repair, imagine you're trying to balance your checkbook or balance your budget. You know it's not time to buy a new house or a new car at that time. So you want less spending when you are resetting.
Dr. Alan C.:
Towards the interest of building up that kindling again, exercise is so awesome but it does burn that kindling in the short term. But if you don't do anything, then your muscles get flabby and weak and they forget about you. So I've got these micro workouts structured by which your muscles stay engaged and active and activated but you're still rebuilding that kindling, that glycogen supply, and liver effectively. Then the food part, I wanted to make that really easy and get good protein and low fuel. So I structured around two shakes. A shake for breakfast and lunch. And then a pretty reasonable, healthy dinner.
Dr. Alan C.:
Some people in their first few days they find themselves just munchy or used to eating more food. So I made a whole lot of unlimited snack recipes. You can bake up some really good ratatouille and all kinds of things you can do with vegetables and things that don't set it back. Shake, shake, meal. Unlimited snacks. Sleep binges and micro workouts. That's the basic idea behind it.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I love it. All right. Now share us a day in your life.
Dr. Alan C.:
Well, they vary and if anyone reads the post, but if I try to find a way to directly link to that, I don't know how to do that. But right now I've got a marathon on Saturday. Running's been my lifelong passion. I've kept away from it quite a bit from injuries and various problems. Orthopedic issues. Saturday, this is like the race of my life. I'm hoping to qualify for Boston if it goes well. The last six months I've been more fit and more injury-free than at any time in the last, my whole life. So I'm just super happy and thankful about that. A day in the life right now as far as this part of the whole training phase is pretty cush. I'm in a taper. I did a very casual run this morning, I did a bunch of stretching. All do nothing tomorrow. I'll do a really easy run the next day. So I'm on taper phase. Then I'm going to hit it pretty hard Saturday morning.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I love it. Bravo. Bravo for you and that, you're hitting this goal and I'm excited. Please let us know. Come back and share with us, Alan. All right. Let our audience know, I know your book's available everywhere books are sold. So tell us about that and how people can stay in touch with you.
Dr. Alan C.:
Sure. Just drchristianson.com is my main hub. C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N-S-O-N. If you put in Dr. Christianson you'll stumble across it. And the book, anywhere books are available. If you aren't lucky enough to have a great independent local bookstore still, please give them some love if you can. We'd love to keep them around. But yeah, anywhere books are available you can find it.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well, thank you. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us today, Alan, and thanks for our audience to listening and being interactive. I thank you guys so much. So again, share this, write your comments below. And follow up with Dr. Alan as well. So thank you, guys.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Again, I want to thank my guest, Dr. Alan Christianson for being a super, good sport on our call and just so informative and giving. So as I mentioned his book, The Metabolism Reset's coming out and it's a good complement to my book, The Hormone Fix. If you've been struggling with diabetes and heart disease and thyroid disease for a long time and you really feel in this metabolic stall, we always have to look back at the liver. Remember detox. Something I always share with my clients and with all of you is that we need to detox every time the seasons change. So if you're in a sunny place all the time just think, every three to four months it's a good idea to run through a detox that supports the liver and use plenty of healthy intermittent fasting to give your body time to rest and digest as well.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So often with my clients, I give them the recommendation to intermittent fast and break that fast with my mighty maca elixir. So the mighty maca energy elixir, mighty maca has over 30 super foods that work together that support the liver and detoxification pathways or multiple pathways. And that's a great way to break your fast and again supporting detoxification, supporting your liver as well. So the mighty maca elixir, the energy elixir is one to two scoops of mighty maca with four ounces of water and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a squirt of lemon. So stir that up well, chug that down. It can be done during a fast or to break a fast. It's a great alkalizer and support for your liver as you are healing your liver constantly and supporting it with all the chemical exposures that we have.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So I thank you for listening today and I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Please share this information and like us on iTunes. Please give us a rating and I look forward to that. That helps us so much. Get this information in front of more people. See you next time.
