How to Loose Weight with Hormones

Raena Morgan: Hi, I’m Raena Morgan with iHealthTube. We’re visiting today with James LaValle. He wrote Cracking the Metabolic Code and we’re going to talk about something that bothers many of us. And that would be weight loss. What is your take on diet? Jim LaValle: Well, once again, it’s not a one size fit all situations. I think there’s obviously a thing that people need to do. The big issue is that there’s a lot of misinformation out there and many people are frustrated because they think that, “oh, if I just diet and I exercise, I am going to lose weight.” Well, I’ve got to tell you, the majority of people that come to us, that is not the case. They know that they’re frustrated. They did exactly what the dietician told them, or the doctor. They’re training six days a week, an hour a day, and I mean literally, I just talked to someone—this is before, you know, I sat down with you here actually—and she said to me, “I just had my baby. I went to a boot camp, getting up at 5:30 in the morning”— this is a doctor— Raena Morgan: A doctor? Jim LaValle: “5:30 in the morning. Everyday, I’m watching my diet. I wrote down everything I’m eating. I did it exactly the way they told me to do it. I gained four pounds and I added inches.” That is not a success story, and it’s a very frustrating thing. Raena Morgan: Because people flock to commercial weight loss clinics and they gave you that exact same—they follow the rules and they do not lose, or they gain, as you said. So, there’s something else going on here. Jim LaValle: Well, we actually are pretty successful with weight loss. I think it’s because we step back and we look at what’s going on with someone’s chemistry. We look at [if] you are insulin-resistant; meaning is your blood sugar not working the way it should. So we’ll measure glucose and insulin after we feed someone. We can tell how much insulin they’re pumping out. We’ll look at their thyroid function and not just measure one thyroid hormone, we’ll do a complete profile to find out is there a pearl in there— is there some little glitch in your thyroid metabolism that’s keeping someone from losing weight and burning fat? We’ll look at stress hormones and find out [if] its stress, because stress can have a dramatic impact on your ability to lose weight. Raena Morgan: And that would be because? Jim LaValle: Well, because when you have stress hormones like cortisol, when you release cortisol, it inhibits the conversion of the thyroid hormone P4 to the more active thyroid hormone called P3. Raena Morgan: It does? Jim LaValle: Absolutely. And P3 is four times more active than your body in driving your metabolism than P4 is and your metabolism will drop as much as 40% if your P3 level is well. Now in addition to that, [is] when your cortisol is high, you make something called thyroid binding globulins, so your thyroid hormones are getting all bound up, they can’t work with their receptor anymore like they’re supposed to, they can’t tell your body burn fuel, burn the fat. Instead, store the fuel, store the fat. Raena Morgan: Okay, so that’s the message that’s getting through. Jim LaValle: Absolutely. Raena Morgan: And what do you do naturally to address something –that kind of situation? Jim LaValle: What we do [is] we also look at intestinal function because we think that a lot of people have chronic inflammatory situations going on in their intestine. They have to address the beneficial flora in the gut. We’ll eliminate wheat and diary from their body. Their dieticians do that; sometimes gluten as well and sometimes we may have to put them on a grain-free diet, depending on their chemistry. [We] look at food allergies because that could be a piece. So we really develop a comprehensive way of looking at it—and I go through it in the book; here are the steps you want to try to succeed at weight loss. People will have a higher rate of success than if they just try to eat less and exercise more. There [are] some great things you can take. There’s something called 7-kihto-DHEA, which is specific. Now you hear about DHEA and a lot of people get worried about it as a hormone. Well, the interesting thing about 7-kihto-DHEA is its main action is to improve the conversion of P4 to P3. So you can get that conversion to occur, if you’re low. It would be wise for you to get it measured and find out. And now, all of a sudden your metabolism starts working because you have an adequate, active thyroid hormone. You can balance blood sugar. Chromium is fantastic. You know, a lot of people because they drink so many sugary drinks, and eat a lot of carbohydrates, they deplete their chromium levels. Raena Morgan: Okay. Jim LaValle: Put the chromium back in your body, now my insulin receptors can start to work. Alpha-Lipoic-Acid [is] another thing that improves insulin receptor function. And so there [are] several things that you can do, as I have outlined in the book and I have questionnaires and I tell people about what supplement they should take that that will help them to uncover, “where do I need to start”. Raena Morgan: Well, thank you. You’ve been a wealth of information Jim. This is Cracking the Metabolic Code. I’m Raena Morgan with iHealthTube, thank you.