Why Stress Makes Weight Loss So Hard and What to Do About It w/ Jared St. Clair

19:14And so my take on everything is the human body wants to be whole. It wants to be well. It wants to be balanced. And it will take you to that place if you give it the proper inputs or remove the things that are damning up the process, the toxins and things like that that you talk about constantly. Right. And so if we get the stuff out of the way that's in the way and we put the stuff in that's missing, then the body does what it's supposed to do. Well, GLP-1 was never a drug to begin with. It was a gut peptide hormone built inside the gut that's released when we eat. and when we eat and we are releasing GLP-1 like we should, it tells us when we've had enough.

19:52It tells us that we don't necessarily need all those sweets and refined carbohydrates and things like that. It influences insulin sensitivity in a significant way. It balances glucose. It does all of these things beautifully. So ultimately, my thoughts on it are, I'm not necessarily opposed to the peptides if they're done correctly. And I listened to your interview with Dr. Tina on that and I thought it was probably the best interview I've ever heard on that topic. from the medical perspective. But I do believe, just like what I said about lifestyle and supplements, there are things that we can do short of a pharmaceutical or a peptide hormone that will allow the body to do what it's supposed to do in the first place anyway.

20:29And we always have to look at the gut first, because if you talk about, you know, we're talking about cortisol like crazy here today, but the first place to look for health issues is always the gut, right? With mental health, physical health, everything else. And GLP-1, because it is actually a gut hormone, we've got to look there. And so we have to look at repairing the gut lining because leaky gut is a big thing. There are certain probiotics that have been shown to be incredibly beneficial at producing more GLP-1. Acromansia is the one that has probably the best studies on it right now. But even getting more butyrate in the gut.

21:00I know you've got the tributyrin in your...

21:02Jared St. Clair:Yeah, in our probiotic capsule, but then also in our probiotic powder, it has a pre, pro, and post. And the post is that butyrate. Yeah. And so the butyrate is huge because that plays a significant role in gut permeability and leaky gut that we hear about all the time and that many people listening to this podcast are dealing with for sure. I think all people should be on butyrate with how many people have leaky gut. Yeah, I don't disagree. It's certainly not going to hurt anything. And I think most people probably would benefit from it. And there's different ways to do it. I just did a show on my podcast about this because there's also a probiotic, a spore probiotic called Clostridium butyricum that influences butyrate production as well.

21:39So there's a couple of different ways to do that. But between those and acromantia, you can really influence GLP-1 signaling at the gut level. But what's interesting is when you have high cortisol, there's two things that happen. High cortisol over an extended period of time. Whenever I say high cortisol, I mean chronic high cortisol, chronic stress. Every day running on high cortisol. Because we're all going to peak with cortisol here and there. And that's normal and that's fine. And it's frankly a healthy part of life.

22:05Jared St. Clair:You get some lab work and it shows some high cortisol. Yeah. You know you're in trouble. Exactly. Or if you just never feel calm and relaxed or you're dealing with that wired and tired thing that we talked about. So if you have that chronic high cortisol, two things happen with GLP-1 that are really interesting. Over time, that influences more leaky gut for sure. It's a major player, high stress and cortisol in inflammation. And remember, we talked about rest and digest versus fight or flight, right? When we're in fight or flight and we're eating a meal, we're not digesting our meal very effectively.

22:36Like 80 to 90 % of the energy that would normally be used to produce digestive enzymes and stomach acid and all this kind of stuff is basically turned off because the body is saying, I'm in a state of fight or flight here. I'm not worried about whether I digest that meal that you just fed me. I'm worried about saving whatever life needs to be saved in this moment. And so if that happens, then that leads to more gut inflammation, which then leads to more leaky gut. And it's this kind of perpetuating cycle. And the other thing that happens with high cortisol that's really interesting is it tends to dumb down at the HPA axis level, hypothalamus level, the body's ability to actually receive the GLP-1 signal.

23:13So not only are we not making as much GLP-1 as we should, we're also not receiving the signal as well. So both ends are blunted in that scenario. And that is a real problem if you're talking about metabolic health.

23:24Jared St. Clair:That is interesting. I actually didn't realize that. I told you we'd learn something. I know. I knew the part about the leaky gut. I didn't realize that about the signaling. Okay, so you're almost saying then before people should go on a GLP-1, they should back up a step and look at their gut health. 100%, yes. And look at their cortisol. Yes, yeah. And understand that if we're talking about weight loss and we're talking about metabolic health, which again is the vast majority of people investigating GLP-1s or using GLP-1s, then we always have to look at what got us into this state in the first place.

23:59Why am I 30 pounds overweight? Why is my body fat not where I want it to be? Why am I hungry all the time or never feeling satisfied or always craving sugar? And what's interesting, Karlyn, so I grew up this way, right? And as a kid who grew up in a health food store with very health conscious parents, both of which had an incredible sweet tooth that they donated to me for free. They each gave me a sweet tooth and I haven't figured out how to get them removed. No dentist will take my sweet teeth out. It's super annoying. It's been like the bane of my existence for years. I eat probably one of the cleanest diets you'll ever find.

24:34It's almost completely organic. We cook all of our own food. We eat out almost never. And yet I still like gluten-free, 100 % organic chocolate chip cookies, right? And things like that. And so I struggle and have struggled with that for years. And I've never been the guy that got, you know, morbidly obese, but I've never been at the optimal weight that I've really wanted to be. So as I started studying this about two years ago, almost exactly two years ago, looking into the whole GLP-1 thing and what can influence GLP-1 because I didn't really want to do the peptide thing if I could avoid it.

25:07And I wasn't, you know, significantly overweight, so I didn't feel like it was probably a right fit for me anyway. Then I thought, okay, then what does the body need? And I've always felt like I've been taking pretty good care of my gut because I take spore probiotics every single day. And you and I are both fans of the exact same probiotic strains and all that stuff. And I've been doing that for years and I take digestive enzymes when I eat and, you know, all these different things. And my first antibiotic that I was ever on, I was 45 years old before I was ever on an antibiotic because my parents taught me how to not need antibiotics, right?

25:40The only reason I was on that is because the hospital for a procedure I had forced it. I didn't have an option. But I went 45 years without an antibiotic and my mom was a little bit of a hippie. So she breastfed me for two and a half years, but I was a C-section baby. So I started out in a little bit of a hole when it comes to my gut. But my gut, for the most part, you know, I felt like is in pretty good shape. But what's interesting is I started recognizing that butyrate and acromantia are things that I had never done anything with ever. And as you start to look at the research on these things, I think it's estimated that something like 60 % of Americans no longer have any acromantia in their gut.

26:15Jared St. Clair:Oh, interesting. And acromantia plays a major role in the gut lining. It's a different role than what butyrate plays, but it's a very important role. And we know that directly both of those strains of probiotics, well, butyrate isn't a probiotic, but the probiotic that creates it, both of those strains actually influence GLP-1 specifically. So I started looking into the research on that. And what's interesting is I think the number one selling probiotic right now on Amazon is actually Ackermansia. And they're selling it, the most popular product, I won't throw the brand under the bus right here, but the most popular product has half a billion units.

26:53And the research on acromansia has done it 10 billion units. So it's 20 times less than what the research actually indicates is needed. But people don't know that. So they, you know, they buy it and they pay an unbelievably high price for it.

27:06Jared St. Clair:They probably buy it because it's marketed as a GLP-1 support pill. Yep. Yeah. And so then they think they're supporting themselves. And there's all kinds of issues that come with that, right? Because not only do they not get the results they're looking for, but beyond that, they then think that maybe GLP-1 isn't the problem when GLP-1 very likely is part of the problem. But they give up because they tried something for GLP-1 and it didn't work, right? So these probiotics are really, really crucial. About six weeks ago, give or take, my GLP-1 formula came out. We call it GLP-1 Metabolic Optimizer.

27:36And it was funny because mine was out for about three weeks before I discovered yours. You have your Crave support, right as that was called and i looked up your crave support and i said on my podcast i said i dare anybody here listening to find a product that actually has the right ingredients at the right doses to actually influence glp1 because i'd looked everywhere and i couldn't find one and yours is the first one i found that actually has legitimate doses of legitimate ingredients even the best forms of ingredients both of us are using the glucovantaged dihydroberberine for instance, which I think is the best.

28:09And so, but I'm the best one out there.

28:11Jared St. Clair:Yeah. It's amazing. It's it for so many reasons we could do, we could do three shows on Berberine, right? It's an amazing thing. So anyway, I started taking this stuff. Did someone suggest ours to you? No, I was actually, I was just placing an order for your products for my stores and I, it popped up and I said, I didn't know this existed yet. So I must've missed whatever, when you launched it on Instagram or whatever, but, but yeah, it's, it's a very cool product. And this morning I was actually reading reviews on your website for it. And people are saying the same stuff. They're saying, I'm not craving sugar like I used to.

28:40I'm not, I feel full more quickly than I used to. My portion controls where I want it to be. So my wife and I are the ultimate guinea pigs of our own products. I'm sure that you are to some degree. And we've both been on it for five weeks and both of us have lost 10 pounds. I've actually, I'm a half a pound ahead of her. So that's amazing.

28:59Jared St. Clair:But she has a lot less to lose. And guys lose fat easier. Let's just say it. That's right. And thank goodness for that, right? But what's interesting is, you know, during menopause, she's in menopause right now. She gained 12, 15 pounds or whatever. She's not heavy, but she gained that weight and she's doing so many things right. But it appears that GLP-1 was playing a pretty significant role for her. And both of us have experienced the same thing. It's not that all of a sudden our body is just burning fat like crazy because of a supplement. It's because our capacity to listen to the signal has improved.

29:35I think that I'm actually hearing the signal better for lack of a better term that I was talking about, like in the brain, it's noticeable that I just don't feel like I need the sugar like I used to, which is so not me for 53 years. So it's been really, really cool as far as that goes. Over the long term, what I believe is going to happen with your formula and mine for people that are willing to take it consistently, because most of the studies on these ingredients have been done for like 12 to 16 weeks. And as people take them, I think A1C levels are probably going to improve. Blood sugar stability overall is going to improve.

30:07People are going to get more metabolically healthy, not just lose weight. And that is probably, I think, the big differentiator for me with doing it from a supplemental standpoint and a diet and lifestyle standpoint is that we're making a metabolically healthier body, not just doing something that's curbing appetite or cravings.

30:27Jared St. Clair:Right. Right. Well, so berberine is to help keep your blood glucose levels more balanced rather than the spikes up and down. So, of course, that's going to help within people's A1C, things like that. All right. So I'm going to recap some of the stuff that we've just talked about because there's a lot. So people that want to go on a GLP-1 maybe first could look at their cortisol levels because the cortisol levels are affecting their sleep, which affects their gut. But also the cortisol is affecting their gut, leaky gut. But GLP-1 is a gut peptide hormone. And so that can be affected by this leaky gut.

31:02Jared St. Clair:But then also, though, there are things that we can do to increase the GLP-1, like berberine, or to support the GLP-1, I should say, like berberine. Are there other things, though, that you like for supporting the GLP-1? Are there certain foods, certain herbs besides the berberine? Yeah, for sure. So bitter melon is a big one. There's some really good evidence that that is. And bitter melon's been known for a long time, but it's kind of fallen out of favor. It's funny because I've been selling supplements for 50 years or whatever. Not quite 50, but a long time. And with that, I see trends come and go.

31:37And there was a time before you were into this stuff where bitter melon was like the number one selling supplement for several months. It was the berberine of our time? It was for a much briefer period, but it was big for a while. And there was a time before that when chromium was the number one selling supplement in the industry, and it was number one for like two or three years.

31:54Jared St. Clair:Well, that's in our Craves support. Yeah, you've got all those in there, and they're all in mine. Like I say, our formulas on the herbal, because we both have alphalopoic acid, we both have chromium, we both have bitter melon, we both have dihydroberberane. These are all really good established ingredients that make a big impact on insulin sensitivity specifically, which has a big impact on GLP-1 production and the reception of the GLP-1 signal. Okay, let's talk about that then, because that's another thing that people could look at besides their cortisol and their stress and their gut is the insulin sensitivity.

32:29Jared St. Clair:So how is that insulin sensitivity related to this? So insulin sensitivity, I think a lot of people have heard of it. A lot of people have heard of insulin resistance. It's kind of the other side of the coin, right? If we're experiencing insulin resistance, essentially at the cellular level, our body is having to knock really loud with insulin in order to get the signal across, which means it's producing a lot more insulin for the cell to receive the signal than it once did. Essentially, the cell receptor is blunted. It's not able to receive the signal as effectively. And as such, what ends up happening is then the body is overproducing insulin.

33:04And insulin, just like what I said about cortisol, at the right amount at the right time is optimal for health.

33:10Jared St. Clair:Amazing. We need it. Unless we're doing too much or too little or, you know, that sort of thing. And so as insulin sensitivity reduces and insulin resistance increases, eventually things like A1C start to go up. Fasting glucose levels will go up. Eventually, diagnoses of, you know, type 2 diabetes and things like that. occur. And that's really kind of the root of the problem when it comes to metabolic health, is that insulin resistance issue. And it plays a major role in hormone health as well, things like PCOS, low testosterone, things like that, which, I mean, that's the thing. We could go a lot of directions with this, right?

33:46But the important thing to understand, I think, with this is that if we are insulin resistant, then it's, I think, extremely safe to say that we're also going to underproduce GLP-1 and we're not going to listen to the signal very effectively. And that is a pretty big key to reversing that insulin resistance as well as dropping those cortisol levels, actually getting optimal sleep. Those all play a role, but the diet is a major player in this as well. And of course, I think it's safe to say that most people, that's the last thing they really want to change is their dietary habits because there's a lot of addictive properties to food, especially the type of food that's produced in America today, right?

34:26And so with diet, if we want to simplify it, because we can certainly go into more detail on this, protein is huge. It's such a major player. And we have to make sure that we're optimizing, because it also plays a major role in GLP-1 production. And we have to make sure also that we're telling the body that it needs to actually be in a repair and recovery mode, increasing testosterone and the way that we do that is exercise and weight-bearing exercise specifically. And I think things have shifted a lot in the last five to 10 years where women are understanding now, I got to lift weights. But 10 years ago, I used to hear all the time at Vitality Nutrition, I don't want to get bulky, Jared.

35:07I don't want to get bulky. And that's obviously not a problem if we start to understand the physiology of men versus women and everything else either. But We have to get that muscle firing in order for the body to say, I need to make more testosterone. And then, of course, testosterone is intertwined directly with cortisol as well.

35:26Jared St. Clair:Let's take a quick break to hear from our show sponsor. I've been talking about ingredients for a long time now. What's in our food, what's in our homes, and what we're feeding our families. One thing I get asked about often is on-the-go snacks. That's why I've recommended Scout Organic for years. Scout makes the kind of snacks I'm always looking for. Simple, organic, real ingredients I actually recognize. No weird stuff. No long ingredient lists. Just food that makes sense. My kids love them and I trust them. Their bars are soft and easy for younger kids and the cookies are a great better for you choice when your kids want something that feels like a treat but you still want to feel good about the ingredients.

36:10Jared St. Clair:Scout snacks are sweetened with things like organic dates and organic maple syrup. not refined sugars. They're soft, delicious, and easy to toss in a bag for school, practice, or on the go. If you're looking for a snack that fits into real life and busy days, Scout is one I genuinely keep stocked in our pantry. You can find Scout Organic at scoutorganic.com, and you can use my code JUSTINGREDIENTS for 20 % off. Simple ingredients, snacks your kids love, and one less thing to overthink. Now back to the show. So let's go over that. How is testosterone intertwined with cortisol? So it basically has an inverse relationship.

36:53Higher cortisol over an extended period of time, by and large, decreases testosterone production. And also the other sex hormones and even thyroid production can suffer when we're dealing with higher consistent cortisol levels. And as such, then we have this, because we have to remember, again, going back to fight or flight versus rest and digest. If we're in the fight or flight mode, the body's not concerned about digesting food or even information, really. It's not worried about repairing and recovering and resting. It needs to be on high alert and it needs to be able to jump out of the way of that oncoming train or whatever is going on.

37:27And so that's happening. And both cortisol and testosterone are made largely from cholesterol. And so from a raw material standpoint, they're using the same material. And if the body's constantly sucking all that up for the production of cortisol, we have that issue. But also if the bodies in fight or flight, it's not worried about making testosterone. That's not the time. The time for testosterone is after a good workout or when we're sleeping and resting at night and we're trying to repair the muscle tissue and things like that. So when we have that high cortisol level, we have that disrupted sleep, then we have generally chronic low testosterone.

38:00And in women, that is also finally starting to resonate where women are like, I need to be concerned about testosterone too. But that didn't used to be the case not that many years ago either. And now I I hear all the time we have people coming in, women coming in, that their testosterone is like zero or near zero, and their free testosterone is not there at all. And I never, 20 years ago, nobody was even, women were never even asking about testosterone. Now we have women asking about it all the time. So thankfully, it shows like this, and influencers like yourself and people that are actually talking about this are waking up a lot of women to the importance of testosterone.

38:37One thing is really interesting, Carlin, that I just discovered not too long ago that blew my mind because I never had thought about it. And it's kind of obvious if you look at a blood test. But estrogen and testosterone are measured differently. Estrogen is measured in picograms and testosterone is measured in nanograms. And there's a thousand picograms in a nanogram, if I have that right, I think I do. Women have more testosterone than estrogen all the time. So it's the dominant hormone in a woman, too. It's just not as dominant as it is in a man. Men have a lot more of it. And so if you, but I like that framing because I think it tells women, testosterone is a big deal.

39:12Jared St. Clair:Big deal. Not just in dudes. Yeah, because we always think it's just the estrogen and progesterone. Okay, well, this all makes sense because you hear that men's testosterone has tanked. Big time. There's something that says like a 50-year-old today has the same amount of testosterone that an 80-year-old had like 20 years ago. I mean, don't quote me on that study. There is a study out there, but I don't know the exact, but something along those lines, meaning we are dropping tremendously in testosterone, male and female, like you said. And really, we're just shooting this cortisol off all day long because of all these stressors.

39:47Yeah, it's a huge, huge factor. We have to recognize that, again, that inverse relationship is really important to understand. If you want to optimize sex hormone function, period, there's one thing we always have to do, which we don't have time to talk about today, is avoid the things that are blocking all that up, right? All the endocrine disrupting chemicals that you talk about, that I talk about all the time, and do things to detoxify from those things. That's really important. But we also have to recognize that if we don't get on top of chronic stress, then we will never optimize the sex hormones.

40:20I just don't even think it's possible when we have chronic cortisol disruption. Because again, when one is switched on, the other is kind of switched off.

40:27Jared St. Clair:I do know though with unbalanced cortisol levels that it also can affect the progesterone, not just the testosterone. For sure. And then progesterone can be our calming hormone for the women. Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not just affecting testosterone. No, it's all of it. And like I said, even thyroid hormone. You know, I always tell people when they come in with low thyroid and they're concerned about it, I always ask them about stress first. That's always the first question because we have the HPA axis, right? The hypothalamus and pituitary are up at the top in the brain. And we have the adrenals down on top of the kidneys.

40:58And then we have that thyroid is kind of in the middle, right? Right there in the throat. And it pays a price when any of the other ones aren't doing what they're supposed to do. And when we're under high stress, the thyroid oftentimes is also going to misfire or underproduce. And so, yeah, all the sex hormones, the thyroid hormones, stress plays a role in all of it.

41:16Jared St. Clair:Well, and I've said this so many times on the show, but people used to tell me all the time to lessen my stress. And I'm like, I can't, like, I'm busy. So listeners, you just need to learn to manage your stress. Managing your stress is what helps the cortisol levels. Okay. But you said something just a minute ago about protein being really important for GLP-1. And so tell me why. Well, there's a couple of things to consider for, there are people in this audience right now that are on GLP-1 medications, right? A lot of them. The last number I heard, and I don't know if this is true. I don't know if you've heard this number is like one in eight American adults or something like that.

41:52Jared St. Clair:And I think it's increasing. Yeah. Which is just incredible, right? The use of these. And again, I'm not - a lot of people. Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. If it's done right, I think it can be done effectively and safely. But the big risk, I think the single biggest risk, maybe that's not the right way to put it. The thing that most people are going to deal with if they're not very cautious with it when they're on these types of medications is muscle loss along with fat loss. So they're losing weight and they're loving what's happening as far as that goes. But if a high percentage of that weight is not fat and a high percentage of it is muscle, then they're not getting metabolically more healthy.

42:29And that's what a GLP-1 ought to be helping us do is to become more healthy metabolically, not just thinner. And so protein is the single biggest thing that can help to prevent that. We have to feed the muscle. Creatine is another one that's really, really important. Beta alanine can be incredibly effective in that area as well. And then, of course, exercise. Again, weight training is really, really important. The challenge with the GLP-1 drugs, in my opinion, is simply this. It can be too easy. The weight can start to fall off and you can start to say, oh my gosh, I just lost 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds, whatever it is, and not do the things to protect the body during that process and optimize your health.

43:12If you do it right and you do those other things and potentially even supplement with things that are supporting natural GLP-1 production. So that hopefully if you're working with a practitioner that will adjust your dose of GLP-1 because you don't need as much, then you can actually get away with less of the GLP-1 pharmaceutical as well, which I think is always best. The least amount is optimal when it comes to pharmaceuticals. And I was actually talking to my doctor. He's a naturopath here in Salt Lake City. And he saw my GLP-1 formula and he said, I'm going to give every single patient this product that's on a GLP-1 because it's going to be the best, most supportive thing.

43:50I just won't give it to them on the day that they get the shot.

43:53Jared St. Clair:That is so interesting because we always suggest ours as like an alternative to taking the GLP-1 shot. Yeah, and initially that's what I was recommending. I did a lot of research on this while I was producing the formula, and I don't see a reason other than blood sugar coming too low that there would be like a danger of using the two together. But you do have to pay attention, right? You have to pay attention to how you feel. It's always, I think, a really good idea to be keeping an eye on your blood sugar if you're on a GLP-1 anyway. And, of course, a lot of the people on GLP-1s also are dealing with high A1c, type 2 diabetes, and they're watching their blood sugar anyway.

44:26But it is possible that you might get blood sugar dropping lower than you want it to. And low blood sugar, just like everything else, isn't good, nor is high blood sugar. And so we want to keep an eye on that. But from a supportive standpoint, if we can support the body in doing what it does naturally and throw in a little extra with the GLP-1 pharmaceutical, to me, that makes the most sense. Covering all the bases, the exercise, the diet, the supplementation, and the pharmaceutical. And for the people that don't want to do the pharmaceutical or aren't a good match for the pharmaceutical or have tried it and it wasn't good for them, then the other three, I think, can still be incredibly effective.

45:01Jared St. Clair:Well, I always like to say that it's a tool in the toolbox. I tell people like, why take it if you're going to eat Oreos and Frosted Flakes all day long? Let's first get our nutrition dialed in. Let's start sleeping, you know, good quality sleep. Let's exercise. Let's do the things to detox. Let's do all the things. And after the show, do the things like balance that cortisol so that we don't have leaky gut and don't have gut issues so that we actually can have effective GLPs working for us that we naturally create. Right. Let's do all those tools and use berberine, use, you know, some of these amazing things that nature has given us to help with our blood glucose levels.

45:37Jared St. Clair:And then if we need more tools in the toolbox, then we have the GLP one. Right. I always say this. The drug will always be there. So why not do everything you can naturally to help your body find balance first? And then if you still feel like you need that, then do it wisely and add it in. But the pharmaceutical is not going to go anywhere. And there's a lot of things that you can do that you probably haven't done yet that can optimize these things. And then if it's OK, if I just go backwards a little bit really quick, you mentioned managing stress versus dumping stress. Like, how do you dump stress?

46:13Right. And the thing that is I think is really interesting about this, you're probably going to be hard pressed to find people that are a whole lot busier than the two of us. We keep ourselves. I mean, you you blow my mind. You guys are, you're producing a new product every five seconds. You build a new studio for your podcast. You've got so much going on. It's amazing.

46:34Jared St. Clair:I have good employees. Well, yes. If you don't have a good team. Yep. A hundred percent. But it's, you know, we keep ourselves busy. We do. Right. But I think we also keep ourselves healthy and it can be done. Right. It's tools and it's utilizing those tools, like you said, in the toolbox and people, one of the challenges with high cortisol is the feeling of overwhelm. And at the end of a show like this, there's going to be a lot of people listening that are going to say, I don't even know where to start. What do I do with that? That's amazing information. What do I do with it? Well, first thing is the first thing, right?

47:06Do something with it. Figure out how to improve your sleep. Start there because that's a really, really critical aspect of it. And there's plenty of education on that. Just Google this if you want. Google sleep hygiene and look at what that means and what to do to improve your sleep. And start doing some of those things. And if that's all you do, do that. Do something to help repair your gut lining. If that's the thing that you start with, do that. Find something that isn't overwhelming to you that you can implement right now to start to get on top of it. And then as you get on top of it, it gets easier and easier and easier to implement these things because you feel less and less overwhelmed because the cortisol is coming lower and lower and more balanced.

47:46And then things don't feel out of reach anymore. But when you're just starting out, it can feel pretty overwhelming. and it doesn't have to be if you start small.

47:55Jared St. Clair:I love that you wrapped it all up like that because we did talk a lot about different things. And so that is a great thing. Just do something, start somewhere. And like you said, is it your gut that needs help? Then take some butyrate or probiotic, you know? Is it your cortisol you need to learn how to balance? Is it your sleep you need to work on? And there's so many tools out there for all of the things. So I love that you said that. But I found it fascinating today how much our cortisol affects the GLP. and so that was really interesting people yeah if you are thinking about glp1 maybe first try balancing the cortisol taking care of your gut using some berberine and see if that works first yeah 100 again take the steps the baby steps you know my i tell the story of my wife and and um you know i don't think we have a whole lot of time left so i don't tell it here but the her story is just called jen's story on my podcast and when i met her eight years ago she was a very unhealthy person, mentally, emotionally, physically.

48:52She had severe IBS, chronic pain, significant thyroid issues, had been diagnosed bipolar. She had all these things. She started where she was comfortable starting. And in her case, that was supplementation. We just started working on her gut to make her feel better when she ate. And then we worked through the different things from gut health to foundational health, you know, omega-3s and things like that. And then we moved on to lifestyle changes and we moved on to mindset things. And interestingly enough, the last thing that she was kind of willing to change was her diet in a significant way.

49:27But when she flipped the switch on that, which was way easier for her because she got to the point where she felt pretty dang good and didn't feel overwhelmed all the time. So then it felt like it was a thing she could do. That's when she regained her health.

49:39Jared St. Clair:Well, I love that. And I love that it's just one little thing at a time. We don't have to fix it all overnight. So thank you so much for being here. Will you tell the listeners where they can find you? Absolutely. Yeah. The best place to find me, if you like this interview anyway, would be my podcast, Vitality Radio podcast. I get great guests from time to time, like Carlin's been on a couple of times, but I do most of them solo. And mostly I focus on supplementation because my experience with supplements, and you and I have talked about this a bit, is that the supplement world is a kind of a big, intimidating place.

50:12It's a lot like what we just talked about with the other kind of overwhelm, it can be very overwhelming. The reason I think people lock on to people like you and me is they find someone they feel like they can trust. And so then they don't feel so intimidated making a purchase for a supplement that might help them because they feel like, okay, at least I know this person is trying to do good in the world and put something out there as opposed to some faceless company that they find on Amazon or whatever. And so, but what I try to do is help people understand what the supplement facts panel actually means, how to tell if they're getting the right kind of berberine versus the wrong kind.

50:42like I talked about with the Ackermancia, how to know if you're actually getting the right dosage of the product to actually get the result that you're looking for. So that's what my show is. And it's on all the, you know, major podcast apps. And I finally got on YouTube recently as well. So we got that going. And then you can certainly find us on our website, vitalitynutrition.com. If you're in Utah, we have our store that's our, we call it the mothership now because we've never had more than one store, but we do now. We have our bountiful location. And then we have one in South Ogden. And interestingly enough, I will tell you that the biggest thing that I've had people excited about of us being in South Ogden is that now they can get just ingredients in South Ogden.

51:21Oh, that's awesome. Got your whole brand up there. So if there are people that are into your stuff, you can find it in South Ogden at Vitality Nutrition there. And we're a small enough company that we like to field questions and actually talk to people. So people can call us 801-292-6662. There's also a chat feature on our website, and it's typically me or my son, who's also extremely well-trained, that you can open and ask questions about anything before you make a purchase as well.

51:46Jared St. Clair:Oh, I love that because you do not find that very often anymore at all. We're all about the education. That's our number one thing. Well, again, thank you so much for being here, but I always close my podcast now with five fire rapid questions. Okay. Okay. Number one, what emerging health topic are you most excited about right now? Well, I'm going to sound like a broken record now, but it's GLP-1. I'm super fascinated with GLP-1. I will say there's another one. I don't know if you looked into this, but are you familiar with visetin yet? No. And I've been looking into a lot of peptides. Not a peptide.

52:16It actually comes from strawberries and a few other foods. It goes after senescent cells or zombie cells. So on a different topic, I actually just did a show on it. It's one of the most fascinating things I've ever learned about. It is so cool, but I'm still learning. I'm still dipping my toes in their ass on. I'm always trying to find the latest and greatest. Yeah, we should talk about it. It's very, very interesting stuff. But the GLP-1 topic is, I think it's the most exciting to me right now because there's not a person listening to this show that probably doesn't need improvement with metabolic health.

52:51It's just what it is. And GLP-1 is such a powerful potential tool if we can get the body to do what it's supposed to do and actually produce it like it's supposed to. So it's just, I just am reading and reading and reading and diving into it all the time.

53:05Jared St. Clair:Yeah. I had a scientist on the show that said 88 % of Americans are metabolically not doing well. Yeah, exactly. Suffering. So number two, what is a piece of advice you give your younger self? Don't go so fast. I think that's really the thing. And really, I imagine this applies to a lot of people, but it certainly applies to me. I have learned a lot in the last probably 10 years or so to stop and smell the roses and really pay attention. And literally, so my mom passed away about six years ago and I inherited the house that I grew up in. And she had two flower bushes. She had a rose bush and she had a, oh, now I'm going to forget, peonies.

53:49And she had a blossoming cherry tree. So those were the three big flowers that were in the backyard. and when she passed, I made a habit every spring of walking out in the yard, smelling all of those flowers, taking pictures and documenting what they looked like that year. And then my wife and I, this was before we were married, we were just dating at the time, would walk around the neighborhood and smell everybody else's flowers.

54:11Jared St. Clair:Oh, interesting. And it is healing and it is beautiful and it is an incredible way to take that cortisol down. Oh, I love that. Maybe I need to start doing that. I take my dog out for a walk, but I don't stop to smell the flowers. Literally snop and smell the roses. Maybe I have to try that. Yeah. Okay. Number three, what is the one health practice you will never compromise on no matter how busy life gets? Showing gratitude. Oh, I love that one. Yeah. And especially to the people that are most important. You talked about your team, my team, you have a much bigger team than I do, but what would you do without them?

54:47Right. Right. And there's always the stress of work and getting things done and deadlines and projects and all that kind of stuff. And it's very easy, I think, to forget to say, hey, you're doing a really great job. I really appreciate you. And so I make a real habit of doing that and affirming the people that work so hard for me. And then, of course, my children and my wife and my amazing grandchildren.

55:08Jared St. Clair:So that's good for you. One of my favorites. Good for you. Number four, what is your favorite Just Ingredients product and why? All right. So the one I use the most consistently is the pre-workout. Okay. Which, by the way, I just found about your new pre-workout that launched, what, yesterday? It did. And it tastes so good. I have to try it. I'm so excited. It tastes good because you know how the other ones are so sour from the citrulline in it? This actually, for some reason, I think the lime and watermelon just cover it up well enough that it's not as sour as the other. Well, I love the flavors of your other ones.

55:40So the tropical is my favorite, I think. But I like the strawberry lime, too.

55:43Jared St. Clair:Oh, can we say that louder? I have to tell you this. It is my favorite too. And my whole team wants to get rid of it. They hate it. And I say, sorry, you can't because it's my favorite and it's what I use every morning. So that is, and no, I can't find anybody else that loves it like I do. So thank you for saying that on a podcast. We're going to make a little clip of that and put it on a video. And then I will say one other thing, because you have to know about it. My daughter, who's 20 and lives with us at home. She is about once a week. Is it time for us to make some hot cocoa? Oh, I agree.

56:17And she makes it. So we say, yeah, if you make it, it's time to make hot cocoa. And she makes it. We make it with raw milk. And, you know, of course, you're amazing hot cocoa. Sometimes I'll throw a little bit of extra, like, mushrooms and stuff into it. But we love your hot cocoa. So those are probably one and two.

56:31Jared St. Clair:Oh, I love it. Thank you so much. You bet. All right. Last question. What is the best ingredient you've found to life? All right. So I've been on this show four times. You've asked me that four times, right? That's hard. It's okay, because I started with curiosity. I looked it up. I couldn't remember. Curiosity was number one, then laughter, and then forgiveness were the last three that I went with. And I'm not sure if those trump this one or not, but they're right there. So I heard there's a saying that's accredited to Augustine, or Augustine, however you say it, from way, way back when, that says, the truth is like a lion.

57:07Let it out, and it'll defend itself, basically. you don't have to defend it. And I want to address that specifically because I've thought about this a lot. I've thought about this question more than any other question because I knew you were going to ask me this question. And that is that we have to recognize that the truth that we feel about ourself is often not true, that we apply labels to ourselves. We're not smart enough. We're not pretty enough. We're not good enough in whatever way that we are. Right. Or we have labels applied to us. You have ADHD, you have bipolar. When I met my wife eight years ago, I told you she was very unhealthy.

57:43She'd had two suicide attempts prior to meeting me and had been diagnosed with bipolar. She'd been on psych med since she was 13 years old. She was one of the first kids they ever put on Prozac here in Utah. Wow. So way back when. And she was convinced 100 % that she was broken, that she could not be healthy again, certainly not mentally healthy. And so when I met her because I'm a weirdo, I guess, she told me about this bipolar thing because she also is the kind of person that just opens up her closet and shows you all her skeletons. She's the most authentic person in the world, which I love.

58:16She told me right out of the gate, and she's admitted this since, and I suspected this was the case at the time, that she told me this because she didn't feel worthy to have someone love her anyway. She was coming out of a divorce. I was coming out of a divorce. Very different circumstances, but still both of us hurting a bit, right? Anyway, so she she told me she is bipolar and she said I'm bipolar and I said no you're not and she said yes I am and I said no you're not and she said I am I know I am because I've been diagnosed with it I'm on medicine that helps me with it and I've read everything about it and my symptoms match it and I said okay I get that you have symptoms that match bipolar and I get that you've had a diagnosis of bipolar and I understand that you're on medicine for bipolar but you Jen are not bipolar and you don't have to be bipolar.

59:03You can reverse that. And she thought I was crazy. And she'd be the first one to tell you that she thought I was crazy. But a year and a half after we met, she was off of her psych meds that she said she'd never get off of. In fact, I tell her favorite movie is Lord of the Rings. And I tell her that when she told me about, I told her, I said, I'm not here to change your life or tell you what to do. And I didn't know her very well at the time. I said, but if you don't want to be on that stuff long-term, there are answers you can get there. And she said, no, I can't. I need my medicine. She literally held it to herself like Gollum's ring.

59:37It was really interesting. Now, a year and a half later, she was off the meds. She was dealing with a little anxiety and a little depression, but not crippling like it had been. And by about three years in, she was pretty balanced. And when she finally changed her diet, because we actually discovered that she was dealing with MTHFR stuff, and she got rid of folic acid and went organic. She hasn't had depression or anxiety since. Like she doesn't, she almost doesn't remember what it felt like. It's weird how different it's been. And so now she'll tell you, I'm not depressed, I'm not anxious, and I was never bipolar.

1:00:14So the labels you give yourself and the labels others have given, you have to allow the truth about who you really are sink in and not just who you are but who others are because then judgment slips away, love and compassion starts to take over, and then life gets a lot more beautiful.

1:00:33Jared St. Clair:Jared, that was really good. Maybe the best ingredient you've given to life. All right. I love that. Well, that's an incredible story of hers. I mean, a lot of parallels that I have with my health journey. I should have her on the show just to tell the whole story. She tells her story beautifully. She's always nervous about it. But I actually I heard you and Lindsay on and you were saying that you're doing a series of healing journeys. And just having people. And I immediately thought about her. Yeah, because her story is beautiful. Again, thank you, Jared, for being here. Everybody go give him a follow or go listen to his podcast.

1:01:08Jared St. Clair:He does have some amazing podcast episodes that you'll learn so much from. And thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'll come back anytime. I really appreciate it. Thank you for being here and being part of this community. Don't forget to subscribe to the Just Ingredients podcast. We've got so much more to share with you. And if you're not already, come join us daily on all social media platforms at Just.Ingredients. Until next time, keep choosing what nourishes you.