The Lifestyle MD

The Sustainable Path to Health: Breaking the Diet Cycle

• Dr. Angela Andrews • Episode 29

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Dr. Derek Alessi shares his journey from obese teenager to fitness expert, revealing sustainable strategies for long-term health transformation through consistent habits and practical nutrition.

• Extreme diet approaches like keto fail because they're too advanced for most people's skill level – the average person only lasts 11 days
• Small, consistent wins build momentum better than waiting for major milestones – success starts with making better choices daily
• Strength training naturally improves sleep quality as the body increases deep sleep to release growth hormone for muscle repair
• Quality of sleep matters more than quantity – most adults get less than 30% deep sleep when we need 50% for optimal recovery
• The 10,000 steps myth originated from a Japanese pedometer company name, not from scientific research
• Mindset is the foundation of all health changes – believing in yourself must come before strategic changes

It's never too late to improve your muscle tissue, nutrition, and lifestyle. Take those necessary steps today, and you'd be shocked at how quickly you can improve.


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Speaker 1:

Dr Angela, I want to do calculus right now, okay, but Derek, you're not good at addition and subtraction, so how do you think you're going to jump right into a pure keto diet the rest of your life? You're going to have very little chance of being successful for the long term. You're going to do it, for. The average for keto is 11 days.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Lifestyle MD podcast, the podcast dedicated to high achieving women who are conquering their careers while striving for total wellness. I am Dr Angela Andrews and I am thrilled to be your guide on this journey. Hello, this is Dr Angela. Welcome to the Lifestyle MD. I am excited to have a new guest with me today. He is Dr Derek Alessi. Also goes by Dr Derek.

Speaker 2:

He became interested in the field of fitness training at an early age, when he was an obese teenager, which I find very hard to believe, but we'll talk a little bit more about that story. Determined to change his health, body and, ultimately, his future, he began strength training and developed a system to modify his nutrition. He dropped over 80 pounds in one year and later that year, same year, he entered his first and only bodybuilding contest. More about that later as well. Disenchanted by the way bodybuilding tend to minimize health and wellbeing in order to encourage raw size, he left the arena and dedicated his career to helping individuals achieve better health and wellness through a program, planned exercise and practical nutrition. So you started this at a very young age.

Speaker 2:

Your accolades are, you know, exhaustive. You are the author of a book, the Bermuda Triangle Diet. That was from October 2009,. The promise of health and fitness from 2002. You have a doctor degree in health and physical education, a master's degree in nutrition. You have a national strength and conditioning association trainer certification. You own and operate Dr Derek Alessi Health and Fitness, a private practice and personal training facility for adults in East Amherst, new York. I mean, just goes on and on. What else should our listeners know about you? And thank you for joining me today.

Speaker 1:

Dr Angela, thanks for having me on. No, it's my pleasure to be on and thanks for all the kind words regarding the bio. So when people ask me, you know and I think many people, as you just kind of alluded to think that I've always been in health and fitness and I have been for over 30 years now. But originally I started off just wanting to be a dentist. So, to answer your question, I was going to be a dentist.

Speaker 1:

I kind of fell accidentally. As you mentioned, I was an obese teenager. In fact that went into my late teens, early 20s, in which I had to take. I started working out, I started lifting weights, I started exercising. I did have a genetic advantage because, well, when you're a young male you can build muscle quickly and you can burn through a lot of calories, which of course doesn't last forever. But I took advantage of it, then changed my body and because of it I kind of fell in love with it, because it was a personal transformation more than anything else, more than a career transformation. So I fell in love with it, kind of through the back door, and I haven't stopped doing it ever since.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic and so much of your story really resonates with me my passion for medicine. I came back to medicine, was an engineer and then decided to leave that and return to my original passion, which is medicine. But along the way I wasn't actually in the best of health. I saw a lot of my family members struggle in the past and even currently with health conditions diabetes, obesity, hypertension. My father had his first heart attack at the age of 40. So when I decided to get my health together in my 20s, pre-medical school, it was okay, look, I've got to do this for myself. If I can't do this for myself, how can I help anyone else? And it was about fixing myself first and everything that I do.

Speaker 2:

This podcast my coaching in the past being a doctor. It evolves from just a real passion for one helping people but also from personal experience and understanding how much it matters. So I hear that from you and I appreciate that. That resonates with me and I think it'll resonate with anyone listening to this because they know what the struggle is like. I'm going to hop back to what you said there. It was easier in your 20s because you were male and you had testosterone and muscle mass and youth in your favor. I tell my patients all the time you can't lose weight like you used to, and then with my women patients and perimenopause even whole different ballgame. So expand upon that. How do you you? You primarily focus now on clients over the age of 40? Right?

Speaker 1:

Right over 45. And Angela over 45? Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly it. So how many times, angela, yourself, me, you're in a consultation and someone will say but I feel like I'm eating better now than ever before, but I'm nowhere near my size, or I just look at a piece of cheesecake and gain two pounds? We're hearing that constantly, and I'm sure you are as well. Yes, every day that goes by because we hit our genetic peak and we're in a state of atrophy, it's going to be a little bit more challenging.

Speaker 2:

Now look that doesn't. And that genetic peaks around 20 to 25, depending on your gender, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a little earlier for women, a little later for men. That's the natural progression. And I'm stressing natural only because, well, of course and you know what's coming here we could change some of that by doing some of our exercise training, which is so important. But if we think it's just going to naturally get easier in our 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, it doesn't unless we physically do something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's absolutely true, and I don't think I appreciated that as much until reaching that phase in my life now, being in my mid 40s, and I do feel like it's relatively easier for me to maintain my fitness now than my friends who are just trying to turn it around Right. I've been doing it for longer, I've got more base muscle, I've got a lot of muscle mass to start off with, so the amount of muscle mass I have to lose is greater. I mean, that makes a big difference. So what hope can, what hope do you give to people who aren't there already, where they're just like OK, look, I didn't do this for the last 20, 30 years. How do I fix it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I love it because it's what I tell my clients is. It's the same as school. So the longer you're working with it, the more skill you develop and you become a better student. So if I really never did this before, I'm kind of like a bad student that just tries to cram for an exam. So maybe I have a midterm or a final coming up and I think you know, I just want to look good for spring break. I just want to look good for the summer. I just have these New Year's resolutions. I don't have these good habits, but all of a sudden I cram for two weeks, three weeks, go to the gym every again.

Speaker 1:

I have a hard time keeping it up. So a lot of people will say I just felt it was so hard to keep it up, it just wasn't sustainable. Yes, you're trying to do calculus in first grade. It's hard to do. You don't know addition and subtraction yet, so you have to get the steps down first to make sure that you're going to be able to sustain something at a higher level. So that's exactly what happens. Yes, the longer you do this, the easier it will become, because of your base muscle and because of your habits.

Speaker 2:

Now I've seen you reference how you work with people who may have tried other things before and started things and failed at it or didn't keep it up. What do you teach people differently to where they can make this a sustainable, long-term habit? I think that's like in the fitness industry. That's like there's this open door right. People cycle in and out, start over quit, start over quit. How do you stop that cycle?

Speaker 1:

So, dr Angela, I'm going to tell you a little secret. It used to really upset me at first, and that is, people would come to see me and say you know what, you're my last resort. And I would say all the time you know, I've written these books, I've been in business for 30 years, I've done all these television shows and I'm your last resort. Couldn't I be your first resort? But how about second? Can I be your second resort? Why am I your last resort?

Speaker 1:

And they'll list everything that you just mentioned.

Speaker 1:

You know they have the home equipment, the fitness memberships, health clubs, fitbits, pelotons, they've done tummy tucks, they've done bypass, they've done all these different things, and then eventually they'll come across into my office.

Speaker 1:

And, once again, my background in this whole thing is we need to make it very relatable, just like school. So, first and foremost, I want to see what grade you're at, just kind of like a teacher in school. You come to a teacher and you say, hey, I want to get better in school, I want my grade point average to go up. Any good teacher, of course, would start with well, let's assess where you're starting from, let's set some goals and I'll show you what better grades look like if you do the right classwork, homework and evaluations, which essentially is the pinnacle and principles of my program. The right exercise, the right nutrition and accountability is classwork, homework and evaluations to improve your grade point average and to make it repeatable. So it all becomes part of a behavioral change as well, and once you put all of that together, I want a person to say, hey, you know what, today was a little bit easier than yesterday and tomorrow is going to be even a little bit easier than today and that becomes very repeatable and exciting.

Speaker 2:

Do you focus on helping people get some wins in there so that they feel compelled to keep going forward? I feel like that's something that I found very useful for folks. They need to have a small victory in the beginning to know that what they're doing is working.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, of course, and, as you know, a lot of clients come in and they'll say hey. Or a lot of patients come in they'll say, hey, I need to lose 50 pounds, I need to lose 80 pounds, I need to lose 100 pounds, and in their mind, it's not successful until they lose that 50, 80, 100 pounds, which really isn't true. In fact, the first win becomes when you make the decision that you're going to start improving yourself. The first win is when you wake up in the morning and you make your workout. The first win is when you don't have the high sugar, high carb meal and you maybe have more vegetables and protein. Those are all small wins. And then, since I like to keep people on a monthly check-in basis for an appointment so our evaluations with body composition are done on a monthly basis I want to show them some change very early on so they're not waiting for that big home run of I lost 100 pounds to be successful.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, that's excellent, and I think that regularity of the check in is really key because people need to. We tend to be way more accountable to someone else, but if we want to hold ourselves to it, we're just going to dismiss all you know. Whatever you mentioned the right exercise and the right nutrition. What is the right exercise and the right nutrition?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So when it comes to exercise, I think we can define it in a couple different ways, but so often we hear things like I can't exercise because I have a bad shoulder, I have a bad back, I have a bad knee or some orthopedic issue. Or I can't exercise because I'm older, because I have never done it before, because I don't want to look foolish. Well, I am a fan of trying to regain that muscle tissue. We just mentioned before that we lose with atrophy. So I usually like to start with some type of base strength training program, but it has to be designed based upon orthopedic conditions to make sure that we don't have any muscular imbalances. So that, in my mind, is already starting the right type of program to improve metabolism and joint stability. So that would be the right exercise.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to the right nutrition, it's very similar, but the change is this is you're going to have to eat. There's no way around it. You're not going to go the rest of your life without food. You're going to have to eat. There's no way around it. You're not going to go the rest of your life without food. You're going to have to eat. And my opinion is you could eat everything, even the worst things you could possibly mention, that would send your blood sugar through the moon. You could still eat, but we have to develop a frequency of that. Once we put together what that frequency is based upon, your goals and your expertise, then we could come up with the right nutrition.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's so. That's kind of like harping back to the bodybuilding. So you and I both have a little bit of background in that and when you are training, again, I couldn't agree with you more in your sentiment that it's not focusing on your health and well being. But let's take some nuggets from that, recognizing that in order to optimize muscle growth and to optimize your physical wellness and aspects of your physique, you're going to have to achieve a certain nutrient composition, right. But even when you're doing that, it depends on where you are in the stages of your training.

Speaker 2:

You're going to allow a certain amount of quote cheat meals, right, and I use that kind of terminology even with my patients saying hey look, I'm not telling you need to get rid of all the good stuff indefinitely, but we need to learn how to enjoy those things at a, at a frequency and a quantity and a rate that's not going to derail our goals Right now. With that, the hard part, I think, is getting people's taste self-control habits tuned to know what that looks like. You know, do you think that that people have to completely go cold turkey for a period of time to be able to reset and and have have just a little bit and not a whole lot of say that chocolate cake they might want, or can they still introduce small amounts of it throughout throughout?

Speaker 1:

How do you approach that? I think they could certainly introduce some during the process. If somebody is really committed, though, and they say I just want to be perfect, I'm not going to stop somebody if they have big intentions of trying to be perfect. However, I find most of the people that come to see me are not asking for that. They're asking for something to be more moderate in type of an approach. So the good news is no, you don't have to be perfect, and even the worst possible things ice cream chips, chocolate, candy cookies, all of those things that really have no nutritional value they have no place in our diet. They still can be consumed if you follow some principles.

Speaker 1:

So I'm a big fan, nutritionally, of trying to get insulin lower by keeping blood sugar as stable as possible, so, with it, we have to be very careful of what those things would be that would really cause a blood sugar fluctuation, such as the things I just mentioned.

Speaker 1:

Things high carbohydrate, high sugar, can certainly cause that to happen. Once again, though, how often are we having it? Well, a person might be having it one, two, three times a day before they come to see us. Now, that's going to be way too much, and that's what caused that 50, 70, 90 pounds of fat gain in the first place. So three times a day is too much. So what is the frequency? Well, it would depend upon gender, muscle tissue, athletic performance or how often you're going to train and what your goals are. So, based upon that, I find that most people kind of fall in a range of being able to have maybe three-ish, possibly up to five-ish sheet meals per week and still can drop a healthy amount of body fat and get into some slight levels of ketosis in the process of doing so.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's fantastic, I think, when people hear that, they might be having a sigh of relief right now. I think that's really powerful, because a lot of people enter the diet cycle, going to extremes, and one of the things I tell folks all the time is every diet works to a point if you stay on it. But you want to adopt a habit of eating, a lifestyle, a pattern of eating that you can sustain forever, and what you're describing sounds forever sustainable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's exactly it and I take the same approach. I kind of alluded to it earlier, dr Angela. I want to do calculus right now, okay, but, derek, you're not good at addition and subtraction, so how do you think you're going to jump right into a pure keto diet the rest of your life? You're going to have very little chance of being successful for the long term. You're going to do it, for the average for keto is 11 days. And people will ask me all the time is keto this unsustainable, bad diet? And the answer is, of course, not. It's not unsustainable and terrible. In fact, we all ate keto. If you went back over the 2.7 million years of human evolution, that's what it was. I mean, you could fish or hunt and that was about it. We all came from a place of keto, but it may have been so long since you have done anything close to it.

Speaker 1:

You are asking to radically change everything that you've done your whole life. You're going to have a hard time keeping up with it because your skill level isn't good enough for it yet Now. It doesn't mean that you can't make some changes right now and always strive to become better and better and better at it, cutting those cheap meals out more or less frequent every single week. That is something you can strive to do. I just wouldn't jump in there, and why. I would want something to be a heck of a lot more consistent, right? So I'm going to go back to my dental analogy from before. If I have a bad checkup, it doesn't mean I have to brush and floss nine times a day for the week before I see the doctor. It means I should just brush and floss consistently all the time and then, if that's working well, I could always do more.

Speaker 2:

That analogy was perfect, that consistency. I think that really drives it home. You can't make up for a terrible diet or lack of exercise in the course of a day or a week. It's really kind of an accumulative effect and in a society where people are looking for instantaneous results, they want to do the big thing, get the big results, and when things are more drawn out and take more time, it feels painful and it's just not giving that immediate gratification. So I find that to be one of the hardest tasks. What's taken you, what's taken me, years to cultivate and we're not just talking about knowing what to eat. You have to have a habit and routine of your grocery shopping, your food preparation, how you travel with your food, whether it's to work on vacations, who you're eating, with all the things that you're doing, when you put your exercise time and when you go to sleep. It's really an entire lifestyle, right, and when people are walking in the door to talk to you, I can imagine they can't even fathom what's coming their way down the road.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, there's many different facets of nutrition. Teaching somebody what they should be eating is pretty quick, it doesn't take that long. But practicing it in all those different environments that you just mentioned, that becomes the skill. So when I tell people that food or diet is a skill, they look at me like I'm crazy. Well, what do you like? Playing golf, like playing the piano, like, like you know, going to school? Yeah, it's the same type of thing. It's a skill.

Speaker 1:

Oh, but you don't understand, dr Angela. I've been eating my whole life. I agree you have been incorrect. You've been practicing and getting better at eating poorly. The more you practice it, the better you get at it. You've been practicing and getting better at eating poorly. The more you practice it, the better you get at it. So we're going to try to change what you're doing. So you start practicing the right things, because that can be cumulative as well.

Speaker 1:

And then lastly and you just mentioned it people are getting bombarded by media messages all the time. You know, you know, lose 30 pounds in 30 seconds like a Kardashian, and all these different things, and you just have to shoot a Zempik and GLP-1s and all. They're getting bombarded with all of these messages and they're confused. They're not sure what to do. They've dabbled in many different things over time and they don't have a lot of confidence in themselves. So I think establishing that confidence is very critical to the individual. They have to start believing that they can get better at this and the second they do believe in it they will start getting better at it, like any skill.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so you're helping them build that self-efficacy after countless trials and failures. They need a little bit of building up. At that point right, I want to ask you about sleep. This is something that you and I, apparently, are both very passionate about rightfully so, because sleep is paramount. You broke down the sleep cycle. We'll get to that in a moment In your own words. Why is sleep so critical and what impact does it have on your client's ability to lose body fat and to achieve their health and fitness goals?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I should preface this whole thing by saying for six years I slept with an EEG machine on my head Six years, six years, so headgear with all these wires attached to it. That would send different feedback back to a device that collected overnight. That would show what type of sleep wave I was in. Wow, so I'm a big time geek. I understand that I do not look cool in bed, I get that, but you can get a lot of information from it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm a little bit jealous. You're talking to a fellow geek here. I'm like, ooh, that's some cool information.

Speaker 1:

No, I tell people I'm too old to be cool, so it's all right. But when it comes to sleep, I think we've never gotten the message that sleep quality needs to be looked at and improved. Yes, that sleep quality needs to be looked at and improved. Yes, we may have heard you should get seven to nine hours or some type of general, general recommendation every night, but the quality when you really break it down would astonish most people, and what I mean by that is spending seven to nine hours in bed doesn't mean that you have a high quality sleep.

Speaker 1:

So sleep is in stages you have light sleep, you have deep sleep and you have REM sleep. Now, light sleep does do some things, such as motor unit connections, but it doesn't restore. You need to get to deep sleep in order for that to happen. And then REM sleep is a level of deep sleep which helps for memory consolidation. So deep sleep needs to be prioritized Now. You will not be able to maintain and hold deep sleep if certain things happen, such as a poor diet, so many people don't realize. If you consume high sugar foods, high carb foods or any amount of alcohol each and every night, your deep sleep is going to drop tremendously.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

And you're going to be a zombie the next morning or over time it's even worse, because then you're chronically deprived of sleep, even though you're laying in bed long enough. So you have to be extremely aware of sleep quality. I would beg people to take a look at that.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, that just makes me so happy to hear someone say that out loud, right, especially the quality of the food and the alcohol intake part and the impact on the quality of sleep. Speaking from a physician's perspective, people will take sleeping aids and request medications to get to sleep and I think, just because they're closing their eyes and they're dead to the world that that qualifies as sleep and that's sufficient. So, as a clinician, one of my struggles is somewhat convincing people that that's not actually sleep. You're not actually solving the problem, you're not reaching all those stages of sleep and you're definitely not getting to the REM sleep, which is why you still feel exhausted. So From your side of things, where you're coaching people and you're working with them from a nutrition and exercise physiology standpoint, how are you helping them improve that quality of sleep?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think they first and foremost have to be aware of everything that we just mentioned. Now, can you jumpstart the system? And the answer is yes. So one of the techniques to jumpstart the system is this Even before you change your diet at all, is when you do strength training, you start lifting weights, you start building your muscle tissue, your body will set itself in deeper sleep. So, as we know, when you start doing your workouts, your muscle tissue breaks down the tear and then it tries to repair. During the repair, it's going to call for more growth hormone anyway. So it's not uncommon that a person who hasn't been exercising says hey, I feel like I've only been doing this for two weeks and I'm already sleeping better. Yes, Break the muscle tissue down. The body's very smart. It puts you in deeper sleep to release more growth hormone to repair the muscle tissue. So that happens initially and that will start jumpstarting it. Then, when you make the dietary changes on top of it, wow, it could completely change the chart. So when you look in effect I'll give you an example If you were to look at eight hours sleep, what I'm really looking for is at least 50% deep sleep.

Speaker 1:

Is four hours deep sleep Now, for most humans, for most adults in the US, the answer is no. They're well under 30%, many under 20%. Total deep sleep to total ratio. You don't need to wear what I wear to bed. You can get that from a Fitbit, a Garmin, an Apple Watch if you wear it when you're sleeping. But we're looking for 50% or more. Now, once they start exercising, cutting out the sugars, getting rid of the alcohols, they're going to notice that, start to creep up. Now they're going to maybe get close to 50%, Some nights 55%, Some nights 60%. So they're going to see that and then they're going to eventually say I feel as though I don't need as much sleep. Yes, because you're getting more deep sleep. So now, yes, you're repairing on seven hours, You're repairing in six and a half. You're becoming much more efficient. You're yes, you're repairing on seven hours, you're repairing in six and a half.

Speaker 2:

You're becoming much more efficient. You're not just, as you just mentioned, lying in bed. Oh, okay, look, this is mind blowing. I mean, you just dropped some real serious nuggets there. So, first, strength training, which we both agree super important for your physical well-being throughout life and, without a doubt, in later years, and you're going to jumpstart your ability to get sleep because your body is going to need to go into deep sleep to release that growth hormone for that muscle development, because you're breaking down muscle while you're exercising Awesome. And now we can become more efficient with our sleep because we're getting a higher percentage, relative percentage, of deeper sleep if we're following these basic steps of good nutrition and regular exercise.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so, on a similar note, I tell my patients lately, I'd say you got a Fitbit, like I said, fitbit, garmin, apple Watch, wear it tonight. I, intentionally, about half an hour before bed, I put it on the charger, I charge it just before bedtime and then I put it back on. So I want to collect that data while I'm sleeping and I'll ask my patients do you sleep with your watch? No, I'm like. Well, you should. Yes, yes, please sleep with your watch. Let's look at your data.

Speaker 2:

Yes yes, so do you collect some of that data from your clients?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, I do so. Depending upon the kind of sleep unit they have and by the way they now integrate, sometimes you could get a bed. I also have a bedside unit that uses sonar. That measures my movement patterns as well. Once again, total geek right, I love it.

Speaker 1:

So there's a lot of different ways to gather the data and I do have clients that send it to me and we could see when they're eating well and training well and when they're not, because of their sleep quality scores. I couldn't agree more. Everybody's so concerned about wearing the watch during the day because they think the total amount of steps they take in a day means something. It's meaningless, in fact. We'll break down 10,000 steps. Do you know the whole story of 10,000 steps?

Speaker 2:

I do, but why don't you go ahead and share some of?

Speaker 1:

it. It's hilarious. It has nothing to do with health and fitness at all. It had to do with 1960s Japan automotive industry, in which they were trying to get their workers more productive by putting these pedometers on them. So they took fewer steps, but the name of the company in Japan that invented it, when you translate it into English, was 10,000. So it became 10,000 steps, which once again has nothing to do with anything health and fitness wise. You can take 10,000 steps.

Speaker 1:

In fact, I have currently a client who is a postal carrier in the city of Buffalo and he takes over 44,000 steps a day. And so you think, oh, my goodness, 44,000 steps, this has to be the fittest individual in the world. No, type two diabetic, obese, thyroid disorder, low muscle tone, all of the things that you would say no, that's impossible. Still happened because his diet was awful and his muscle tissue was neglected. So 10,000 steps by itself doesn't mean anything. I guess we started this whole thing off with wear your smart device and get that data, because it's more impactful and meaningful than some of the things that you're going to get during the day.

Speaker 2:

I absolutely love that and I'm going to continue where you were going there. That reminding me of a patient that I recently saw who, in a similar vein, has a very active job. And we had this conversation around exercise and you know, I was kind of like doing my whole inventory, you know sleep, diet, exercise just kind of I collect all these different aspects of their wellbeing. You know, sometime when I'm first getting to meet them and he didn't really see the value or importance in exercising because he's on his feet all day. It's like, well, I'm not sedentary, yes, good, you're not sedentary, but you're not building muscle, you're not exercising, you're not doing this piece. And this is like one of the few times I had a hard time selling someone on it no-transcript, and maybe it's because he's a male who still hasn't reached felt the impact of that muscle loss. A lot of my female patients get there much quicker. So how do you make the connection for people?

Speaker 1:

So, as we know it, sometimes it's difficult and challenging. It has to be a willingness on the other person's part. So if I start feeling that I'm not getting my point across or it's not being received, more than anything else, I like to turn it around and I'll say well, what do you think the problem?

Speaker 2:

is then.

Speaker 1:

What do you think it is? Is everything going perfect for you? Is everything going super? Is this awesome? Do you love where you are right now? If so, I guess we wouldn't really need to change a thing. But if you're looking to change and you're looking for those suggestions, well, maybe I could shed some light, after doing this for 30 years, in terms of what you might be looking to do right. So I like to kind of use the Socratic method in that situation ask more questions and try to see if they can come to the answer without me telling them to help persuade themselves, because people are very persuaded by themselves and not persuaded by others, so that would be yes, oh, spot on.

Speaker 2:

I think I literally just had a similar conversation with medical students yesterday. They were asking me about how I motivate people and I said I try to get them to motivate themselves. Like, if they're not, if they don't want to change anything, I'm not going to convince them. They have to want to change something or see value in it. It has to help them drive towards some goal that they have for themselves.

Speaker 1:

If that doesn't work, you can try to threaten them and instill fear.

Speaker 2:

I might have tried that from time to time with certain lab values.

Speaker 1:

We all do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's actually one of the tools that I get to leverage right. I can say okay, look, I can see you've got these risk factors. This is pointing to this, you know, and people respond to data. That's another lesson that I have, whether it's like glucose monitors, seeing what their sleep is like or seeing what their insulin level is like, or seeing what certain markers are like, and then Googling it for themselves and seeing oh, that's not good, Then it's okay, how do I fix that Right? And then when you empower them to know that there's something they can actually do about it, it changes things. Can you tell me an example where a patient, where things didn't go well for a patient, or where someone struggled, and how you kind of overcame that process with them?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think the key thing is, if somebody's not doing well, once again it's a lack of belief in themselves. I hate to sound like their first grade teacher, right, because you know we have our first grade teacher that always said hey look, I think I can, I think I can, I think I't, but I can't imagine a better place to start. So so often during the course of a day, I get stuck in working with somebody's strategy what is their nutritional strategy? What is their workout strategy? What is their sleep strategy? However, I don't want to neglect the fact that their mindset is going to be the mothership to this whole thing.

Speaker 1:

If they don't believe that they can do this, if they don't believe in themselves, if they don't believe that they're worth it some people would love the idea of reducing medications, of having less aches and pains, of looking better, of living longer, but if they don't believe deep down inside and overcome the fact that they're worth it, that nobody is going to do this for them other than them, they're not trying to impress anybody else other than improving themselves.

Speaker 1:

They need to get to that stage Now, not being a psychologist, and I will tell them I spend all day working as a psychologist, which I have no formal training in whatsoever, but, like your first grade teacher, if there is something I could persuade you on even more than workouts or nutrition, it's going to be you must believe in yourself in order to start improving. So that can be the biggest barrier. Once somebody does believe in themselves and they start taking on the strategies, look, I don't think there's going to be that much that's going to hold them back. I would expect them to get to their goal, but getting them to start to believe in themselves, that is the real challenge.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's absolutely true. Kind of establishing that belief up front and helping people get there. So you are in Buffalo, right? Have you been there for all of your professional career up until this point in New York?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I'm born and raised right here in Buffalo, New York. So I'm in East Amherst, which is just a subdivision outside of Buffalo, and you do know this that Buffalo is widely considered the fitness capital of the world. Stop.

Speaker 2:

Says no one. By the way, nobody has ever said that oh, stop it, you got me, you got me. Nobody says that. So you've got your work cut out for you.

Speaker 1:

In other words, so this is in Venice, California. By the way, this is a muscle beach, right. So in Western New York, the one thing Western New York is a very tight-knit community. It is a city of good neighbors. It really is. Buffaloians do look out for themselves, but they are not widely considered the most athletic, most exercising, most ambitious, most health conscious any of those things. Buffalo is known for its food, and there's a lot of it. It's the birthplace of chicken wings. Pizza is on every corner, so it's not a health and fitness haven. However, inside of that, of course, there are a lot of people that want to improve and their health and fitness are important to them.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, I had a little fun with it, but at the same time I look for 30 years I've been working with some really good folks do want to improve that, have worked extremely hard at it and have had some wonderful success.

Speaker 2:

So you've got a tremendous amount of success. You have a team of people working with you. Just kind of like tell me a little bit about the team and what your, what your business is like out there and kind of how people can find you if they're interested in learning more about you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in fact I have two businesses and two teams that run simultaneously. So I have two buildings that are on the same property. They're sitting across from each other. In one building is the Dr Derek Health and Fitness where we do all of the physical fitness training personal training, semi-private training, nutritional counseling and evaluations. And then I have another team who is my supplement company, my sports fitness nutritional supplement company, called Strength Genesis, where we provide all of the best supplementation food items we can to help people achieve their goals with the highest quality of food found anywhere. So we kind of work in tandem. I wear my Dr Derek hat early in the day, I wear my Strength Genesis hat later in the day and kind of go back and forth between two different teams.

Speaker 2:

I know how that goes. And, speaking of the Strength Genesis, early on in our conversations you introduced me to macadamia nut oil. I want to spend a little bit of time on that before we wrap up today, because this is mind blowing. I would be remiss not to share this with other people. So you informed me the health benefits from macadamia nut oil in comparison to olive oil. So it has more omega three relative to omega six, right? It has monounsaturated fats than olive oil. It has a higher what's that called the point Rule point? Yeah, yes, thank you. But more importantly maybe not more importantly it tastes amazing. It does taste like butter. I literally went out the next day and got some, because I said I've got to see for myself. So I can't have butter, I can't have any dairy. You have changed my life and it's healthy. So how did you come to learn about macadamia nut oil and what should our listeners know about it?

Speaker 1:

Well, boy, you said a lot of perfect things about it. You went through all the bullet points perfectly and I'm thrilled that you love it. When people try Australian cold pressed macadamia nut oil, it will become their favorite oil, in fact. So we call it the world's greatest cooking oil. Yes, olive oil is a good oil. It's just not a great cooking oil because of the smoke point that you referred to. It breaks down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Where this smoke point is much higher 515 degrees up to 620 degrees Fahrenheit keep all of the potency of the good omega-3 and omega-9 fatty acids without getting tarnished and ruined with that smoke point.

Speaker 1:

So I was led to this about 10 years ago through the author Tim Ferriss in his book the 4-Hour Body, when he was describing this thing called the new olive oil. So, of course, having both sides of my family from Italy, olive oil was something we used all the time. So I was very intrigued with something that was the new olive oil and it turned out to be this Australian cold pressed macadamia nut oil and he described everything that you just mentioned. It was high heat stable. It was even stronger than omega-3 in olive oil, but it tastes like butter.

Speaker 1:

So I started bringing it in to my clinic just personally for me at first, and I loved it. So I started bringing it in to my clinic just personally for me at first, and I loved it. So I started giving it to clients who loved it. We started asking where can I get it, and so on and so forth, and I think I was telling you the story where the distributor for the US, about seven years ago, stopped carrying it. So I started importing it by the metric ton to get into the hands of people, and the reorder rate for this product is well over 95%. So that's how well it's received. It's super easy to cook with, it's ridiculously healthy, but lastly, the taste is phenomenal. If you've never had it before, it will soon be your new favorite oil.

Speaker 2:

I cannot disagree with you there. I absolutely love it. I don't think my husband's tried it yet. I keep telling him you need to try some of this oil. It's so good. I mean, granted, our bottle is a lot smaller than our olive oil bottle, and he just bought some new olive oil, so that might be part of it, but I mean, the only thing it doesn't match up to is that it doesn't have as many polyphenols and it's not as researched well, as researched as research Mediterranean diet. So those are really the only two things. Other than that, there's a lot going for macadamia nut oil, so I'm definitely going to be introducing it to a lot of my patients and using it frequently in my cooking. So thank you for that. By the way, oh, you're welcome.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, in terms of cellular health, in terms of lowering triglycerides, lowering insulin, insulin sensitivity, all of those things. Now, also, too, whenever you increase your intake of dietary fats fats satiate which, if you do have a sugar addiction and many people do one of the ways to start overcoming that is by increasing your dietary fats. And when you increase more dietary fats, you will crave less sugar. But we have to be careful of what fats they are. We don't want to be taking in more soybean oil or more Crisco or more shortening. We want to be taking in something that's going to be very beneficial. So you're going to see the health benefits on the laboratory side by using more macadamia nut oil, but you're going to feel it on the culinary side in terms of the taste and how easy it is to work with. So we're very excited about our cold pressed Australian macadamia nut oil. I have been selling it for seven years and, once again, it is so remarkably well received. It will be your favorite oil.

Speaker 2:

All right, I have really enjoyed our time and we just have so much synergy and approach. Even though me coming as a physician, you coming as nutrition and exercise. It's nice to see the alignment right and I think there should be more of that. There's not enough education of students, not education of patients. A lot of people just don't get and have this foundational knowledge on what it takes to be healthy. It's made to be overly complicated. There's a whole industry that thrives on that right. So I appreciate what you're doing and I hope that more people will get this information in their hands. I'll be listing your website on our podcast description. I'll also list the books that you have out there. Any final thoughts that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Speaker 1:

It's never too late to start. So if you feel as though well, I'm not a kid anymore, I don't feel comfortable exercising. It's not for me, it's only for young people. We all have to start somewhere. Yes, it would be ideal if you started as a youth or a teenager. That'd be great, it would be awesome, and some people do. However, if you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s or even beyond that, there is still a time to improve your muscle tissue, your nutrition and your lifestyle, as long as it's important to you. So take those necessary steps today, make the decision, and you would be shocked at how you could improve.

Speaker 2:

As long as it's important to you, keywords there you have to decide first, right, right, and that's the first win. All right, thanks again for joining me today. You have a great one. Oh thanks, dr Angela, you too. Bye, this has been another episode of the Lifestyle MD Special. Thank you to Lou Musa for the show theme music created with free photography and makeup by Janae for the cover photo. And if you enjoyed this podcast and you haven't already, please subscribe today and share with another woman doctor who may benefit. You may also follow me on Instagram at Angela Lifestyle MD. I am Dr Angela. Thank you for joining me today.

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