Are Men More Hormonal Than Women? – With Dr. Don Clum

Dr. Don Clum 0:00
You already have what you want. You already have the ability, it’s in you. We don’t need to help it, we need to get out of the way. Healing health needs no help, just no interference.

Dr. Mindy 0:11
I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again, my name is Dr. Mindy Pels, and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Okay, resetera is on this episode of the resetter podcast, we are going to take a totally new twist on hormones. And we are going to talk about testosterone from a man’s perspective. So I have brought you what, who I think is actually one of the greatest teachers out there right now on insulin resistance. His name is Dr. Don Klum, and we will link him in the more in the notes so you can go follow him on Facebook. But the reason that I wanted to bring him on to the podcast as I wanted to talk about testosterone and hormones for men, this is going to be one of those podcasts that will be great to listen if for anyone who has is a man or has a man in their life that they love the Facebook post, and you’ll hear this when I introduced him. The Facebook post that he put out a couple of months ago, the title of it was men are more hormonal than women. And the first time I heard that I thought, Oh, no, no, no, Don, you don’t know what you’re talking about. But you’re gonna learn so much about male hormones. In this episode. He talks about depression. He talks about, we talk even about more than just libido. But we talk about energy and ability for men to keep their libido up high based off of their testosterone levels. We talk about the culture in which men are not given the full expression to be able to talk about symptoms. we dive into hormonal tests, I mean, everything you want to know about a man’s testosterone we approached in this episode. So Dr. Dong Klum, I will put a link to all of his resources. This was a mind blowing interview, I wanted to take notes, the what I learned about testosterone in men, it took my knowledge to a whole new level and I’m sure it will do the same for you. So enjoy.

Okay, resetera is I have a really cool new product for you that Organa five just put out. And it’s called harmony, beautiful name for what it does, it helps balance hormones. And specifically it’s going to help with progesterone production, which Hello, so many of us need more progesterone to calm ourselves and feel better. So it has three nutrients in it that I’m really excited about. It has Makkah and it has chaste tree, which is going to help with progesterone production, but they also put stinging nettles in it, which is a really cool nutrient. Don’t worry, you’re not going to taste it or, or feel any stinging on your tongue. But stinging nettles is an incredible detoxifier. So I always say that just because you make a hormone doesn’t mean you’re using that hormone and that you’re breaking that hormone down into a nutrient that you can actually put into action. Well when we detox when we support our liver with things like stinging nettles, now we’re supporting the liver. We’re using maka and chase tree to help make progesterone and you’ve got an incredible product that’s going to help us burst our progesterone stores. The other really cool thing about this product that I’m excited about is how do we use it with our cycle. So remember, you’re getting the most amount of progesterone the week before your before your cycle starts. So what if we lean into harmony doing a scoop two skips maybe even three skips a day before the week before our cycle and see if it brings our progesterone stores up and postmenopausal women we need progesterone more than any other person on the planet. So a scoop every day would keep your progesterone stores up. So it’s called a harmony. It’s chocolaty, which is really good. I put it in some probiotic rich yogurt and it was like a dessert. I’m really excited about this product as hopefully you can tell and remember Organa phi will always give you 25% off if you use this code. It’s Organa phi comm forward slash pells. That’s Organa phi dot com forward slash lapels, let me spell it for you, O r, g a nifi.com. forward slash pells, pe, l z. So check it out, let me know what you think and happy hormone balancing. Here’s what I want to start with is, uh, you know, I love your Facebook post, by the way, you are the best at in health, I think as with your Facebook posts, and now your graphics are incredible. So I definitely want to leave links for everybody to go check that out. And you had a post? Gosh, I don’t know how long ago but this was the title of it, or the beginning of it, and you’re gonna remember it, but it said, Men are more hormonal than women. Yeah. And honestly, the first time I saw that, I was like, Oh, hell no dawn, they are not so convinced me as to why men are more hormonal than women. Yeah, well,

Dr. Don Clum 6:01
that’s always a shocker for people on both sides. Because when women, you know, they, I think it comes down to cultural norms and issues like that we can talk about, but the bottom line is men have at least eight different cycles within their tusks, testosterone life and world that can be going anytime they have a daily, they have it monthly. They have it seasonally, they have it during different times of the year. And they also have it in situations so that it changes like the old saying, you know, if you don’t like your man’s answer, wait 15 minutes and ask him again. Right. So yeah, so we’re we are so hormonally up and down all the time. It makes a woman’s regular cycle look strange to us. But the reality is, is much more predictable, much more to some extent, right. predictable and reliable demands because it men’s are all over the place. You know, and it’s an issue.

Dr. Mindy 6:55
Okay, so I understand that. But let’s talk about like what does so testosterone for women, a woman and testosterone for a man? Do they do different things in our bodies, even though it’s we call it the same hormone?

Dr. Don Clum 7:11
Yeah, it does. Some of the core fundamentals are saying they drive focus, sex drive, libido, all of that kind of thing. That’s, that’s the same, we just get into different percentages based on male male or female, right? That’s, for men, it has a different effect, it affects much more of the brain chemistry than it does in women. So we know about the body chemistry and how it makes us get revved up. But the brain chemistry is well and so you see it a lot with men. On a subtle levels. When there’s problems, we look at the a type A personality, or the overachiever and we kind of trophy put them put a trophy out there for those people that are gogogo reality that’s that’s an imbalance potentially going on. In the irritable male syndrome. We it’s identified as early to moderate onset of male depression issue and it just it all it all cycles together because culturally, men don’t get depressed right? At first, they won’t talk on I just wanna listen radically. Well, I’m just talking to general culture is that that’s even the even the medications and the treatments are all women centric for decades. I think it’s the terrible in imbalance going on. Not to mention at all, most of the doctors that are doing it are men. Right? So there’s a disconnect there. But yeah, so that yet in men, that testosterone has a much deeper effect in the thinking, and the mindset and the and the way they focus because we all know we’re wired differently. And you just think of the stress response when when stress hits the same stress. We’ve got a man and a woman different reactions, man get focused, they want they’re looking at one thing, they’re ready to do something right now. And it just like now, not three steps down the road. Where is the immediate danger kind of kind of concept. Whereas women, they kind of they broaden, there’s their focus, they expand out, they bring in, they commute, right? That’s their strength. And so the common the differences is great. So the idea that we would approach and analyze or deal with stress or that kind of response the same across the board, like we do like to have in medical books and stuff like that. It just is ridiculous. And then what ends up happening is the brunt lands on the woman for that category. It’s why the guy knows so much more identify, and the man falls through the cracks until something really big heads.

Dr. Mindy 9:32
So if there’s let’s say you’re you’re in a house with a man or woman in a house with a man if they’re if you’re both trying to address a problem is the man’s brain looking for the singular answer and the woman’s brain wants to verbalize The problem is that where test I mean when you say weak men, testosterone makes their brain very focused under challenges is what I heard in women. It makes us very broad. Does that how does that show up in our behavior?

Dr. Don Clum 10:00
Again, you’ll see it express more. As soon as there’s conflict, like not just talking regular relationship stuff, that’s fine. But as soon as something good, that’s why money becomes such a big hot button, because that just sets things off. Right? What’s the number one reason people fight in a marriage? Or relationship is over money? And then you ask him, how often is money? The issue you’re arguing about? Right? It’s never right. Because it just creates that. And so once you’ve kind of set off that certain level of the tipping point for upset, yeah, the man was like, because not only can you you need to do something right now. Right? Right. That’s, that’s it makes them settle down. Right? Otherwise, they will spin men will spin like crazy. And next thing you know, it’s like, yes, that’s a problem. And the problem in this house and that carpet that’s carpet is messy is a dog and dog. I didn’t want the dog in the first place and no kids in the in the woman’s like, What just happened? The guy just Yeah, right. It’s out of control. And that’s because it just got set off and they didn’t, they didn’t get their outlet. And now all it has to do is one thing to do. And when what I do with people when guys are in that, I say okay, let’s make a plan to make a plan for you to do and they’re like, Oh, okay.

Dr. Mindy 11:13
So is this like a man hack? Is what I’m hearing that if my if I’m in conflict with my husband, if I give him one thing to do to resolve the conflict, it’ll come his male brain down?

Dr. Don Clum 11:26
No, that will aggravate him. If you listen in this, he’ll say something he’ll want to do and it might not have anything to do with you think relevant or whatever. Good. Do it let him do it. Okay. Because the idea of making a plan to to make a plan it’s a check off the list and that instantly starts to down regulate that that spin and calms him down. Having said that’s why men when when the really good Friday, like midlife crisis, and things start them out, they run, they escape, they stay they talk even less they retreat into the man cave, right? Is because that there’s no there’s there’s nothing moving forward. There’s no there’s no outlet for that, that hyper focus. And so the only thing that makes sense in that moment, which doesn’t make sense is they run,

Dr. Mindy 12:11
they run good. Forget it. Okay, and so that’s how testosterone shows up. That’s testosterone being the hormone that’s affecting that.

Dr. Don Clum 12:21
And yeah, that’s the main catalyst. Now, to be at that point. You’re already kind of you’re up there, right? You’re already Yeah. The physiology the insulin, everything is already kind of right. Oh, sensitive. And so yeah, right. But that’s, that’s what creates that and he can’t get out of that. As a man is really hard. That is why they can’t see it either. Right. One of the symptoms, which makes it very hard to deal with this men don’t see it in their common answer will be, it’s not me. It’s her. Right? It’s not me, sir. And that’s not just a defense. That’s what they think.

Dr. Mindy 12:52
Fascinating. Okay, so then here’s where my brain goes, then it is it more instinctual in it as conflict gets deeper in a marriage for a man to run than for a woman based off our hormones.

Dr. Don Clum 13:05
If that, that venue that avenue doesn’t get opened up. Yeah, could mean that it becomes the prefrontal cortex are so shut down. And the that’s why also, same thing with addiction, why men are more vulnerable to addiction, it shuts down the prefrontal and raises up the impulsivity part of the brain. Because because it wants that actually do something, something, you know, and then it has nothing to do then that’s when some reason it looks like a good idea to blow it off. Whatever it is,

Dr. Mindy 13:36
yeah, fascinating. Okay. And then, in the day, this is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about, as I’ve moved through menopause is that I started to like, understand my own hormones for the first time, which I think is really fascinating that I had to understand my own hormones. It’s like my late 40s. And I realized that my testosterone surges were coming that at vastly different times than my husband’s. So men get testosterone surges every couple of hours in the day, is that correct? 15 to 20 minutes,

Dr. Don Clum 14:10
it’ll shift

Dr. Mindy 14:11
15 to 20 minutes. So if they have normal testosterone levels, then do you think that there is a mismatch between a woman’s testosterone surges and a male’s testosterone surges? We’re getting it like once a month, men are getting it every 15 minutes, that that alone creates conflict, I would think in a marriage.

Dr. Don Clum 14:36
Yeah. And again, those are just the fluxes throughout the day. So there’s more in the morning, less in the afternoon. Then and and more towards the end of the month in the beginning of the month for men. Right then there’s more in October then spring which I always confused me but that’s the way it was

Dr. Mindy 14:52
really why

Dr. Don Clum 14:54
the Fall is it goes up and then it comes down and is lowest in the spring which I thought would be the opposite, but It’s not

Dr. Mindy 15:00
because Aren’t we supposed to reproduce? Exactly.

Dr. Don Clum 15:04
Exactly. Right. You know, I figured, but no, that’s not the way it is. But for men, when it comes down to it is not always the number, the number can really be misleading. It’s the efficiency. It’s, you know, it’s the sex hormone binding globulin relationship with the free and with the number. So here’s the deal, I’d rather someone have a low number with high efficiency than a high number with low efficiency, right? That’ll burn that’s burnout. But over time, that’s, that’s going to be trouble. And I learned a lot of this when I was working with some athletes who were on steroids. And so we had to how do you interpret numbers when they’re on steroids is so we started looking at that, and looking at how much they’re actually using, because they have huge numbers. But some of them still weren’t using it very well at all, even though they were blasting it through them. And so we started to look at that and extrapolate out. So it’s about efficiency, and what drives the efficiency? Is your your neuro endocrine state, your metabolic state. Whether you’re in a Fed state, are you in a repair state? Are you got insulin driven? Or are human growth hormone?

Dr. Mindy 16:06
Yeah, I think that all hormones is the most interesting discussion. Because just because we make a hormone doesn’t mean that we’re actually using that hormone. And a lot of the medicine and the pills and the solutions are will just you need more hormones. And yet, you still have to break that hormone down, it still has to get in the cell, you still have to be able to use it is that’s really, especially as a woman whose hormones have declined as I go through menopause, I realize, Oh, my God, I got to make sure I’m breaking every hormone I get down and it’s getting into the cells. And what I hear you saying is, if a man goes and gets his testosterone checked, doesn’t matter, necessarily the level it’s only one part of the equation, it’s how efficient he is at using it.

Dr. Don Clum 16:51
Yeah, because when that when you do the intake form, and you do some personality, or some lifestyle questions, they don’t match up. It’s not it’s not linear, like you would see in a book high low. We’re not chemistry sets, we’re not a pool. Right? You know, it’s brand new, this and this Tinker, it never works out? Well, when we when you try to eat, whether you do it medically, or even naturally, it just I’ve always had an issue with that it’s just not linear. But when you understand what could be holding back that expression, cuz I tell people, hormones whisper, they don’t scream. When we just throw more hormone on there, we’re just screaming, and why they’re so powerful, 90 over 99% of a hormone will be bound when it’s released. Because it’s so it’s so powerful. You know, hormones are just, they’re amazing. And what they can can do, they can shift the body faster than a nerve impulse. Yeah, and so forth. So, you know, they’re bound and so okay, how much is bound, how much is being utilized. And then the the other key to hormones is the recycling process. If you don’t have a good recycling repair process, it’s you’re not going to be feeding into the quality system, so to speak, right? If think about, you’re using all disposable food wrapper one item, things you’re creating waste, your crate is not efficient, as expensive. Same thing, if you’re not recycling, you’re your body’s not recycling things like hormones, or proteins, or minerals, then is expensive. A lot of cook builds up and it gets in everywhere. And it can cause a lot of problems.

Dr. Mindy 18:17
Wow. So okay, so let’s start with this. How would if somebody is listening to this? How would they know they have low testosterone? One of those classic signs other than depression, you mentioned that?

Dr. Don Clum 18:29
Well, yeah. And that does motivation is a big one. Because when you’re in that fed state all the time you start things start to change, the chemistry starts to change. And you’ll notice things in the personality. Sometimes the men notice it right away, sometimes not. More often, not not until later. But things like motivation and decision making, suddenly a decisive man will be indecisive. And they’ll feel weird about that. They don’t they know something’s wrong. But that’s this. This is not me. Being indecisive procrastination, though suddenly, procrastination is a symptom In my opinion, and not a personality flaw, right? People aren’t progressing, they express procrastination, and that’ll start to go up. And so you’ll see a lot of the driver elements start to soften. And that might not be a bad thing. But it’ll get to a point where something you just like, that doesn’t sound like you kind of thing. And he’ll feel that too. Like, you know, I don’t feel like myself. In the urinal male syndrome book where this whole concept started from, he talks about the loss of the male identity. And that’s a lot of that’s cultural, a lot of that societal and stereotyping and all that kind of stuff. But that’s where it comes from. And you just see this, they start to change that way. Yeah, that’s how you can that’s one way obvious ways or energy drops, muscle tone shifts. And that has a lot to do with the relationship with human growth hormone, which controls the expression of testosterone physically. And human growth hormones inversely related with insulin back to everything you wrote, again, we’re reading the book and I know that’s awesome. And yeah, it’s fantastic. is right on And so it all ties back. So if the guy’s got insulin resistance, you know, sex hormones are going to be a problem, just like with women, downstream, you know, insulin was the bully on the playground and messes with everybody.

Dr. Mindy 20:13
Well said Well said, so Okay, so now if I want to rate if I want to keep my testosterone up, I’m a man, I want to keep my testosterone up, or I want to raise my testosterone up, what strategies do we have,

Dr. Don Clum 20:27
you have to kind of go upstream. And rather than trying to raise it, you want to increase the efficiency first, because that’s a negative feedback loop. And so to do that, you got to drop insulin resistance, then things like vitamin D will start to come up. And you’ll see HDL start to come up. Because that means the HPA is getting is getting back in the scene, because the HPA makes the estrogen and testosterone, right, and so start to come full circle. So the first things you can do is just clean up the diet. And the biggest thing about that like, like in your book, it’s not about always what it’s about when, yeah, a lot of people don’t need to eat less than eat less often, right, and just doing that will start to make that shift. But as soon as you eat something, a man needs something, their testosterone drops, dramatically. All it takes is like two to 300 calories a snack, and they’ll just cut their testosterone right there. Which is, which is interesting, because not many hormones, you can do that.

Dr. Mindy 21:21
So okay, so now I’m thinking this through, like, if a man is already struggling, or thinks he’s struggling with testosterone, and he has a standard American diet filled with like meal with bad oils and high sugar, high carbs, then for a man, we probably don’t know how long but maybe, you know, for what the next hour, so his testosterone is going to be lower than before he ate that meal. Is that correct?

Dr. Don Clum 21:49
Yeah, let’s see probably more than an hour, we know the immune system will get ahead, and that takes four hours. So I would put it in the range of somewhere between two and four hours, two and four hours, which, if you eat meals and snacks, that puts you right in the range of your next food. Right? And so you just keep basically holding it down, holding it down, holding it down.

Dr. Mindy 22:08
Okay, and what part is testosterone play in, like erectile dysfunction. And I mean, we know it plays a part in libido. But with men gravitating towards medications like Viagra, is it possible that just what they eat, and when they eat it before they try to have sex would would affect their performance in bed,

Dr. Don Clum 22:32
not necessarily that day. But over time, the net effect would and it doesn’t take a lot of time, because the way you eat is so tied into capillary function, blood flow. So testosterone gets the arousal, arousal going, and then the actual event and the reaction and going forward, that’s more systemic for cardiovascular for and that’s, that’s why diabetics lose that almost all the time, or even pre diabetes is such a big issue because of that. And so the same efforts will shift that as well. Can you drop the insulin exposure, drop the meal frequency, and pretty quickly, you’ll see a change in that the first thing men will notice is that they’ll start to wake up with erections again. Sometimes they don’t even remember that they don’t have them until they get them again. Remember that and they’ll start to see that start to change. It’ll know the little one, they’re on the right path.

Dr. Mindy 23:22
Okay? And are they so it’s a combination of cardiovascular plus the right hormonal balance, those two things have to buy hormones, I mean, insulin and testosterone like you’ve got to have, and this is the hard thing about hormones. I mean, I tried to I mean, you are helping lots of people with fasting and you are the insulin resistance King. And man hormones are moving targets just when you get them like lined up. They like move and it’s really this is why I think lifestyles The only way for us to balance them because they are constantly moving. So do you think what am curious from your point of view? What do you think’s the worst food that will contribute to insulin resistance?

Dr. Don Clum 24:03
The worst food? That’s a tough question I would say for insulin, in general, would be a processed food. any food that is made with a powder becomes a super insulinogenic food is a super sugar, even more than table sugar. So we’re talking about flowers of any kind. So breads and baked goods, because we take up food and we make it into a powder, then we use a powder to make something else. Right? If it doesn’t sense food in the system, for the majority of the insulin exposure, it interprets it. There’s an interpretation. So it’s in your gut before it’s in your body before it’s in your blood before it gets to the pancreas, you got 70% of your secretion of insulin already going because your body just interpreted that. So somehow it’s interpreting soft foods, liquid foods, and denatured foods like flowers and protein powders and powdered stuff, as I guess a threat. I don’t know. But as we know it has a hyper response. So that if you want to decrease your overall insulin exposure, you just shift away from anything that’s fabricated. Anything is made from a powder, essentially. And it doesn’t matter what kind people will say, but I use almond flour, I use key, I use keto based coconut flour, I mean, it’s still a powder. That’s why you take 30 grams of protein powder, best quality in the world, and 30 grams of the best steak in the world. They’re both 30 grams of protein, the insulin response is dramatically different. Three times or more with the powder, then the the whole food, just different, different story.

Dr. Mindy 25:39
So you are here not a protein powder user then?

Dr. Don Clum 25:42
No, no, not at all. Not at all. But I’ve had so many athletes that we had metabolic problems. Some of them had diabetic crashes when they’re off and like in Hawaii on a on in a competition. And we were like why these are, these are top level athletes. And they’re in their fit. And they they eat perfectly. They were using these protein powders and things like bcaas, branched chain amino acids to help them pre workouts post workout, all of that was just crushing their insulin profile. And that was it. That was it. And that was a tipping point for them. And so get them off that and then everything else kind of works better together. Wow.

Dr. Mindy 26:20
So are there foods that we can that men can add in to improve testosterone levels? So we can take foods out the powders I’m hearing is one, what are their foods we can add in to improve testosterone?

Dr. Don Clum 26:36
I think the first step is the frequency that makes they got to open that gate first. So we assume that’s been done, then Whole Foods. Our first choice higher fat would be a great choice for that cholesterol base foods are a good option. Cholesterol mix. Yeah, eggs, butter, bacon, cholesterol, natural good cholesterol, because that’s where our sex hormones are made from that those building blocks, right your body. And so that’s good. And then the other thing that’s hard to convince a man easy to convince a woman you got to take care of your skin 50% of men’s testosterone is made in the skin 75% of women’s estrogen is made in the skin after menopause. 100% up to 100% made in the skin. This is a endocrine organ, okay, we we underestimate that it has a feedback loop with it with HPA and HP o axis that that you talked about in your book. And it’s just it’s a major player. So there’s a couple things you can do. But one is you got to be very careful what you put on it. Okay, like you. You talked about the hormonal disruptors and so forth. The nothing you don’t put anything on it, you wouldn’t eat. You use oils, make sure that that you rotate them. So Coconut oil is great. But if you use it every day, it’ll strip stuff because it’s astringent, right? Just anything like oil pulling and so on. And then you want to flex and get metabolically fit in your sweat reflex.

Dr. Mindy 28:06
So you want to sweat. You want to learn to sweat.

Dr. Don Clum 28:08
Yeah, people don’t. People have lost that ability to trainability I’ve found and

Dr. Mindy 28:15
yeah, not sweat. It don’t sweat. But how do you get yours? What if you’re listening to this and you’re you don’t sweat? What How do you get yourself sweating?

Dr. Don Clum 28:24
Well, you have to again, it’s a muscle. So you’re training it. And a good way to do it is you can like you can do the infrared sauna. I love the influence on I use that whether it’s the personal box on or a full sauna. To get that going. You can do temperature acclimation stuff, where you get warm and cold, warm and cold. Right? If you have access to a sauna, you do some kind of warm up in exercise, you know, cardio, whatever you want, and then get right into that sauna to like, catapult that. And you’ll notice you’ll, you’ll sweat more overtime. In the beginning, you might not sweat much. But you’ll sweat more over time, you’ll notice the type of sweat that comes out and the odors and the different changes it is it’s very in your skin will change and your hair will change dramatically as you do it. The skin, the sweat process through the skin is the number one detox process in our body even bigger than the liver, right? The liver and it’s natural. So we’re not forcing it to do anything. We’re just opening up the way for it to do what it wants to do. Right? controlled environment so we don’t sweat our temperature stays pretty constant, right? Air Conditioning heating car is sitting where

Dr. Mindy 29:34
we don’t like I think the greatest like hero that needs to come back into this world is the idea of hormetic stress that we thrive under stress, but we have been living in a world that wants to keep us comfortable in all way shape or form. So yeah,

Dr. Don Clum 29:52
we had the body thrives on variables. Yeah, I talked about the the the primal genetic adaptation pathways that that create healing, fast healing and fast change. And that’s the START STOP start mechanisms. Anytime you get that variable in there, the body goes, I gotta change right now, something’s going on, right? And it’s like life or death in a good way. And it’ll change versus a constant. It’s kind of like, this is okay. I don’t think of heart rate variability. the healthiest heart rate variability is up is a lot of a lot of variable, you want a good variable in there. And the worst variability is a flatline, you’re dead, right? Yes, just is a good thing. And you want to work out and get in shape. You do the same thing every day, the same way all the time. You don’t it stops working for you. Same thing with diet, everything. We want the variable. I use functional fasting, but we have we do a fasting rotation, we rotate it, keep it going, put on the calendar, don’t do the same thing. That’s why people who get into intermittent fasting, they’re all excited for a while. Yep. They start to balance out just like we learned from the low fat, low calorie daily thing. Yep. For decades. Yeah, your body will adapt.

Dr. Mindy 31:00
Okay, receptors. Let’s talk about one of my favorite ways to extend a fast. So a lot of you guys have asked me over the years, how do I get more fat? Where does fat come into play. And the biggest thing about fat that is so helpful to us is it stabilizes our blood sugar, and it kills our hunger hormones. So I have been playing with all different types of fat in order to elongate my fast. And one of my absolute favorite is Andreas seed oils. And I like their five seed oil. For me, I literally will just take a bottle of the five seed oil and put it on a spoon and just drink it straight from the spoon. It’s a cold pressed organic process that they tip they use what their oils, so it’s very tasty. It doesn’t have a harsh taste to it doesn’t have any of that rancid oil taste that you can find in oil sometimes. So five seed oil for extending my fast is the favorite. And for those of you that are trying to build estrogen for my ladies out there, if you’re trying to make more estrogen, so whether you’re trying to ovulate or maybe you’re a menopausal woman, I love their flaxseed oil, it’s not only yummy again, but it also is on a spoon just straight in my mouth is incredible. And I will tell you one other cool way I like to use Andrea seed oils. And that is in my salad dressings, I will use all different kinds. To me the five seed oil is the most user friendly, and I’ll add it in with some lemon and a little bit of honey mix it around and make a salad dressing. So really cool product. Not only is it tasty, but it’s healing and it can be very helpful for our fasting lifestyle. So it’s Andrea seed oils. And you can go to Andrea seed oil.com. That’s a ndreassedoil.com. And you can use the code Pels PLC for 10% off. And if you forget all that I put the link in the show notes. So test it out. And as always, let me know what you think. What do you think about the studies that are on fasting about testosterone? So the two that I’ve seen are 13 100% for men at you know, 15 hours and then like it goes up to like 2,000% surge at like a 24 hour fast. that’s accurate.

Dr. Don Clum 33:28
Yeah, that but that’s happening and people who aren’t trained and they’re coming from a certain point, just like a new a new lifestyle change, and someone who’s not doing something is it looks big, like it’s a big shift. And like they say, this cereal helps lower cholesterol along with diet and exercise. Yeah, if you’re eating pancakes and syrup over here, right, then that shift is good. But you could you do better, of course. Right? And so on. So yeah, you get those surges. The key thing to watch, though, is the is the human growth hormone response. Because, yeah, that’s a social peak up and down, but it’s the growth hormone that’ll really lock in the benefits from it. And that’s, again, inversely related with insulin so that those are good markers to watch.

Dr. Mindy 34:15
So as insulin goes down, human growth hormone goes up.

Dr. Don Clum 34:18
As insulin goes down, human growth hormone can go up.

Dr. Mindy 34:21
Okay, what’s Why do you say can

Dr. Don Clum 34:25
because it’s not a literal teeter totter. Insulin holds things back, right? Like if you have low vitamin D, even though you’re in the sun, you’re taking supplements forever, it’s because insulin resistance is there. Now you you lower that now those have a chance to go up. That doesn’t mean they automatically will. Right, just like you take vitamin D, it doesn’t mean your insulin resistance comes down. You’ll have some changes, but you have to do that work, right. Don’t do that work, then whatever your supplementing is is not going to do that much. Yeah, for sure. So with testosterone, yeah, you get those swings in but we also see 2,000% Increase in human growth hormone from high intensity training from sauna work, or from the different good numbers out there as far as that goes, but the key is to do it over time. Do it over time, because it’s all about efficiency, right? This is the efficiency and not the number. Because get high number and someone who doesn’t have the efficiency is just a waste.

Dr. Mindy 35:20
Yeah, I just saw a really interesting study human study on 24 hour fasts. And they found that if people it was done on both men and women, that if they fast, one time a month for 24 hours, and they followed 2000 people over a course of four and a half years, they found at the end of four and a half years that they had, and they didn’t really say I had to go by the study to find out what the markers were. But they said all the markers for longevity and improve survival rate improved, just from 124 hour fast a month. But it was the the point of the article was it was the consistency of the behavior. And what I hear you saying is it’s the consistency and the variation of the behavior that’s going to keep driving testosterone into a positive level.

Dr. Don Clum 36:09
Yeah, exactly right, the adaptation response will improve as you get better at it. It’s like working out, it’s really hard to get in shape. But it’s a lot easier to stay in shape. Yes. And once you’re in shape, you can move between workouts much easier than day one, where you’re trying to figure out how to do everything. So as that’s why we use a fasting rotation as you go through them. Each one will build on itself and get better, that those numbers that you see are great. But imagine those numbers with someone who’s now metabolically fit going into that, not just someone off the bench, right. So you can get very efficient you can get, you can get into a toffee g faster and more efficiently, then those numbers and stay there longer, and be able to switch it on and off easier as you go. And so if you really keep a good pattern with your efforts, you can also stop basing your next fast on your old results. Because you’re you’re literally a different person going into each one.

Dr. Mindy 37:05
pretty fascinating. So well said I love that. Do we have a way of measuring human growth hormone?

Dr. Don Clum 37:11
Well, I mean, not in a practical sense. But you can if you can, you can measure insulin correlates correlate is. And if I’m if you get a pretty good idea that insulin is under control, and you’re doing other things, you know, growth hormones could go with him and his poster tile.

Dr. Mindy 37:27
And all the hormones are like that, right? Which is why I think just randomly showing up in your doctor’s office and having them pull out. You know, a blood sample isn’t always the best, either.

Dr. Don Clum 37:37
Yeah, even the collection over time that it’s given his data. That’s cool. Strike data. Yeah, don’t but be careful not to over interpret, you know, by the numbers. Yeah. So yeah, so nobody but human, if insulin is under obeyed, and under control, then you know, human growth has a chance and you’re doing the other things, you know, it’s going pretty well. And things that will change when you fast, and you see the glow come out in the skin, right? And I can look back over years on Facebook pictures and say, Oh, I was fasting there. I was, I was not fasting there. You know, whatever it is interesting. It’s very easy to see. And other people start to see, they’ll be like, what are you doing? You know what’s going on, and they don’t know what it is. But they see something and they know something is because he got that got that glow? That’s coming from the human growth hormone reflection.

Dr. Mindy 38:27
Yeah, I can tell it in my office. Like when we do our fast training weeks where we all fast together. When somebody walks in the door, I immediately can tell who’s fasting and who’s not based off the skin, but I didn’t realize that was human growth hormone. That’s incredible. What How do you like to measure testosterone? Then? Do you like to measure it? Or do you think No, okay,

Dr. Don Clum 38:47
if they have it in the in the program, we can look at it. But you know, the the interpretations the hard part, what do we do with it that, right, like when they came out with all the genetic testing. In the beginning, I thought that was great, you can learn all this stuff, but none of it adds up clinically, like it says on paper, and it would just frustrate me in the person I’m working with. So you can we can track it. But it’s not something that I would change a whole lot in their program, test by test, right because it takes a while they got navigate but over time it will go up. And if you’re testing the six binding sex hormone binding globulin that’ll improve and then you look at the correlates, how is insulin going? How’s it doing and so forth? Because we you know, the reality is we really know very little about all this stuff for testing. Yeah, so doing our best. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy 39:32
it’s I always say gets us in the ballpark. But you know, that’s about about it. You’ve mentioned a couple of times now the sex binding globulin hormone. What how tell me how we, I know we measure it in blood, but how do we make more of that? Do we want to make more do we want to make less like bring us up to speed on the importance of that?

Dr. Don Clum 39:50
Yeah, I always mess up the order. sex hormone binding globulin?

Dr. Mindy 39:54
sex hormone binding globulin? Yeah, so sh BG, correct.

Dr. Don Clum 39:59
Yeah. That’s what when that hormone comes out, the vast majority is bound. Okay, not to be used. And so what happens is when that number shifts, you get more out of what you have or not what you reciprocating. So you can just read a little bit, it can be high efficiency, and that’s good. That’s or at least it’s going in the right direction. And what controls the binding globulin is really insulin exposure. Ah, yeah, it comes back. Well, it’s all those things get better in a repair state. And growth, state stops repair. So we want to be a little bit of growth, a lot of repair, a little bit of growth, a lot of repair repairs, when a toffee g a pop ptosis regeneration, and then all of that happens, and the integration of the new stem cells, and so forth. And then but and then they get fed by the Fed state, right? They get they get boom, they get they get the growth. But that’s really but with promise, culturally, we’re locked in growth all the time. Yeah, that’s Oh, yeah. Therefore, there’s no repair. Yeah, you just see a lot of problems. I could go on and on about what that does. It’s just describing everything.

Dr. Mindy 41:11
Right, for sure. So I just interviewed last week, Dr. Shawna Swan, is called countdown. It’s an amazing book. And if you haven’t read it, you got to get it. And yeah, her whole thing is that there is one category of, of toxins, that if a woman is exposed to this toxin, the first trimester of her pregnancy, the baby, the baby’s testosterone will go will lower. And when the baby’s testosterone lowers, it actually changes the anatomy of the male penis based off of how much testosterone the baby is developing in the womb, and how much testosterone is based off of the toxin and the toxin. So you want to make any guesses what toxin it was

Dr. Don Clum 41:59
toxin, I would think BPA

Dr. Mindy 42:01
close ish, it was just validates the category of family. So all the fragrances so she, her whole book is that there’s lower sperm counts, we have smaller penis sizes, we have male reproduction massively changing from this one toxin to and you combine that with insulin resistance, and you go, oh my god, how are we gonna? How are we going to make it as a human species? So have you will tell us about toxicity and where it affects testosterone. From your point of view?

Dr. Don Clum 42:33
Well, BPA, BPA becomes a big deal because it’s xeno. Estrogen, right. And it’s just, it’s everywhere, we can’t even calculate how much we’re being exposed to. And if you look at the trends, girls are getting their period sooner.

Dr. Mindy 42:47
Yeah.

Dr. Don Clum 42:48
Boys are maturing later, and in different way, and they’re the gap is, is going growing. And so even even the American College of, of clinical endocrinologist, they shifted their acceptable Start Time for a period for girls from nine to seven,

Dr. Mindy 43:06
what it was, like 13, when we were kids, it was like 13 was normal.

Dr. Don Clum 43:12
It’s low, and it’s not normal, but it’s acceptable. And but they my point was, is they knew this was happening. And their answer was just change the change the age, not figure out how to stop this, or if that’s a problem. And then boys, when they mature, they’re maturing later. And when that happens, they they mature differently, you start to see much softer features and edges, you start to see peaks start to form in the chest, which is not, that isn’t they don’t grow out of that that can become actual breast tissue, and he gets pseudo and regular gynecomastia, going into just all these different things. Because of that, I think it has to do with this pool of BPA, which is environmental estrogens that were swimming in and being fed a very, very important time of their life, especially little kids and babies, because everything they have comes wrapped in plastic, and the bottles to the liners. So everything to the inside of the formula can if they use for me just to the Binky. It’s just like it’s all over the place.

Dr. Mindy 44:08
Yeah, yeah. That’s crazy. So do you think we’re on a path to human extinction?

Dr. Don Clum 44:15
Human extinction? I don’t know. That’s, that’s a big one. I definitely think we’re on a collision course with something, something’s gonna crash hard. And there’s, if you know, we’re already seeing it, just the big shift. And the development is one thing, but comes with a physical development as a mental development. Yeah, you start to see energy issues like attention deficit and so on. And then that leads into depression or anxiety. And you now you got these kids going through this. And the traditional model is just to play chemistry and medicate. And now you got these teenagers in early college going through their life and, and starting their life and deciding they want to get off these things. Right. And they’ve never experienced life without them. Yeah, there’s an impact there. It’s like, ma’am So So at some point all of that is going to come to a head. If it if it hasn’t already, and something’s gonna, something’s gonna go. I don’t know what if

Dr. Mindy 45:08
you don’t think this last year was the something that went? I think

Dr. Don Clum 45:11
it’s definitely going in that direction. I mean, that showed us a lot. I think, unfortunately more can always happen, right? Yeah. Where can I always happen?

Dr. Mindy 45:21
Does a testosterone affect the I know insulin affects the immune system? Does tosk testosterone have a play a part in immune health?

Dr. Don Clum 45:30
Yeah, it does this, like what I can’t say is the same things suppress testosterone suppress the immune system. So whether they’re active and they’re both doing the same thing, I don’t know. But like we talked about eating, eat some eat some sugar, only, maybe half a soda worth, boom, you just knocked down immune system 60% for four hours, you just not if you’re a man just knock down testosterone in a similar pattern. So they follow that way. So right well, gee, you gotta figure chances are you got some immune stuff? That’s not firing well, right. Right. Got on the radar. Right.

Dr. Mindy 46:06
Okay, so I’m, let’s say I’m a 50 year old man, and I’m overweight, my cholesterol is high. I’m not as motivated. I maybe don’t have as much sexual drive definitely don’t have as much energy got some chronic pain. I’m on blood pressure medication, what get walk me through, like, how would we help this man? What does he need to change or look at? Because we don’t know his history? But what do we what does he need to look at to start to repair himself?

Dr. Don Clum 46:37
Well, the good news is the basic fundamentals are pretty much the same across the line, right? They start to vary when we get down the road once we have a base. So the base would be control the things you can control, right? And insulin is one of them insulin and cortisol. So food and stress. Yeah, right? They they’re the bullies insulins a bully. Cortisol is the minion and they you know, they they go around and beat everybody up. And so you start with that, because once that’s down regulated a little bit, your motivation automatically go up. And then things like because those also control hunger, cravings, and emotional eating our programs, we address them first. Because when you don’t have hunger driving you, you don’t have cravings all the time. And you’re not emotionally eating suddenly, now, we want you to do this no big deal. Right, make those bigger changes, you got to clear some of the low hanging fruit first. And then the other thing is, and the hard part working with men is they have to want it or see it. Yeah. So I think we as practitioners have to work on our language, and our dialogue, and culturally have to figure out a way to bridge that gap. Because a lot of the symptomatology of this struggle with men is still praised as the driver and the the caregiver and not a carrier, the breadwinner, and the all these things like the workaholic is almost a badge of honor. Yeah. It’s a way that we’re driving the wrong things going on for most men. Well, there’s, you know, but for most, and men don’t be a man. Yeah, I don’t know, man up, you know, all that kind of stuff is creating a bigger gap for the man to just to feel and see that, and then that’s a problem. So I think, yeah, good.

Dr. Mindy 48:21
No, do you think that’s why men don’t reach out for help as much, they don’t go to doctors as much. They don’t complain about their symptoms as much you think because it’s just they’ve been instilled in them to culturally not do that was part of it. But then who’s gonna listen,

Dr. Don Clum 48:34
because most of the time the doctor, they go to the man, most of time it’s older than him. Therefore, they have a little bit less of the modern thinking. And so there’s a there’s a disconnect. There’s dissonance. There, right? There’s a bias already there. Because it’s very mad. You don’t need to tell you and your crop is a masculine based healthcare system. Yeah, yeah. Terribly. And so the injustice in that creates this hole for the guy to kind of slip there. Yeah, slip through. And even if he says something, it doesn’t get identified. And they don’t identify hormone problems. Nevermind depression, right? You give a guy the same hormone questionnaire as a woman for menopause, but take out like the sexual identifying questions like breasts and things like that. Right? We’re the same, if not higher,

Dr. Mindy 49:22
fascinating, interesting. And yet, if you tell a man that he’s got a hormonal problem, that there he’s not going to hear that very woman’s

Dr. Don Clum 49:30
problem, right? Same thing with depression. That’s a woman’s problem. What was the first depressed anti depression was a sedative? a sedative, right, mommy’s little helper. Go crazy all the way back to keep them quiet. They used to look at where the word hysterectomies came from hysteria, hysteria. Crazy, you know, just it’s just yeah.

Dr. Mindy 49:53
So how do we help man like if Oh, if women are listening to this and they’re married to a man they’re resonating with all everything. You’re saying, how do we help help a man like how do we is there languaging that we can use to be more supportive? And to sort of help him? See it’s not weak to get help for his health?

Dr. Don Clum 50:12
That’s a good question. That’s where most of the attention gets put, because women will see it first. Right? I have a questionnaire for irritable bowel syndrome that the men can take. And I tell the women, if you got a guy in your life, you don’t have to tell me not to tell them, but do the questionnaire for them. And you’ll it’ll just show you stuff. You’ll be like, oh, you’ll see it. So there’s an assessment score, and things will start to come to life. Sometimes the men taking that that’s enough to open up some self reflection, sometimes not. Yeah, no, sometimes it is. And then just having a place you can just go and teaching about not goal setting, but checklists. And in creating the plan to make a plan, right calms the system. And when you’re calling, you can see things better, you don’t get that wound up. thought process going out of control, as what leads us down the wrong path I’ve been a victim of I was I had as much as anyone I thought it was a great marketing tool for to get some more men, right. And as I’m researching and putting together I’m going, Oh, my gosh, you know, and I’m reading Oh, my God, that can’t be true. And in the book, it says, If you really want to know, have your wife fill it out. I was like, okay, and I went to my wife, hey, do I have this or that or this? And she goes, yeah. And I said, What do I She goes, What are you doing? I just want to know, do I do this? Or this? And this shows? I’m like, what’s wrong with you? are you setting me up? And I asked, like, What are you talking about it because it was me. And she thought I was somehow making a joke or setting her up. But the read that was right out of the book. And so that’s what I said, Whoa, and if you really want to know if you’re like that, find those questions. And as kids, that’s when it really shook me out.

Dr. Mindy 51:54
Oh, wow. That is That’s powerful. Yeah. Cuz then they’ll move into action when their kids tell him to do something. Oh, my wife just bugged

Dr. Don Clum 52:01
me all the time. And yeah, it’s her problem, not mine. He showed it to kids. And like, yeah, that’s, they laugh, and they giggle and they identify with it, you’re like,

Dr. Mindy 52:10
yeah, you know, it’s so interesting, as my experience with menopause was that we really needed to create more positive conversations around it and give women a platform to be able to talk about it. So we could, if we can talk about it, we can heal from it, or heal from the craziness of it. I’m, I’m sitting here thinking wow, like men, we could we need to create the same space for them. And you know, as you know, like changing things in the our culture is a slow moving process, but changing things in our home may be a little bit speedier. So I look outside of a questionnaire. Is there is there other things that we can do? Like? Is it just Are there questions we can ask our man? Are there things we can do to just invite him to to be open to talking a little bit more?

Dr. Don Clum 53:01
Yeah, you can back it up even further. Women control the household, right? making clear times making clear not like here’s your schedule, but making things, the less ambiguity, the easier the man is to follow? What? To see that chip that that plan to make a plan,

Dr. Mindy 53:17
right, right lens

Dr. Don Clum 53:18
clear. You know, what drives men crazy is when you ask someone like a spouse, what do you what do you want? You want to go to dinner? Yes, what do you want to go? I don’t know. And the next hour, no one makes, you know, that just builds it up. And if they’re already in that spot, it plays on their own stuff, too. So you can think that women can do is they could just start just first awareness or this is big. And understand that it’s, there’s some interesting books on it. Once called, maybe he’s just a jerk. Right? You know, and it’s in it. But maybe he’s not right, the right now he’s not just being a jerk. Because with things that women say is like, well, something changed. He’s just not, he’s not him anymore. He’s just he wasn’t like that before. And this kind of language, okay. I wouldn’t assume that he’s not that anymore. But something’s getting in the way. Something shifted on him. And just, you know, that’s enough to calm both sides, or at least a woman. And then the things you can control or the environment, how you eat in the house, where you go out to dinner, and that and how and where you go. That can be subtle, because maybe if he’s not open, he doesn’t want to be manipulated or feel that way. So but you wouldn’t have control they can do a lot in the household lot and work on themselves. That’s cool. work on yourself. So your resilience is higher as you answer this, because that’ll automatically that vibrational change him and maybe get them motivated. So I mean, it seemed kind of esoteric, but those are the kinds of things you can do in the beginning. Once he sees a problem, or if he does see a problem, then you start to take bigger steps. Yeah, because if not help with someone who doesn’t want help that we know how that goes right?

Dr. Mindy 54:51
I mean, that’s that’s what I don’t want to see happen from this podcast is a bunch of women turn around, start nagging their husbands more the idea is how do we open this conversation up so that men feel safe to talk about what they’re feeling? And then maybe there’s a lifestyle change that can really, like you said, many lifestyle changes that can help. So what do you what do you think about alcohol? Where does alcohol fit into testosterone and men,

Dr. Don Clum 55:17
alcohol drops testosterone dramatically, immediately, immediate immediately stops fat burning, and so that you now you’re into a metabolic shift going on, and you’re gonna drops testosterone, immediately, if it’s in depends on what is in it straight. That’s one thing. But if it’s in a beer, now you got insulin going crazy, you got, oh, he just everything is just whacked out pretty quickly on that. And it’s a big deal addictions, much higher rate in men. And because we don’t identify early to moderate onset of depression and problems and men is why men commit suicide. Men who are alcoholics recently committed suicide, like 14,000% more than the average person. And the reason is, because there’s nothing there’s no identification until that point. I mean, why actually tried to commit suicide more than that?

Dr. Mindy 56:09
Women will try more than men,

Dr. Don Clum 56:10
they attempt more, but men do it more, a lot more. Because they’re there at this point, whereas women whacked out earlier, in fact out but they’ll have, they’ll have venues they’ll have they have options. Because in our culture, women commune and they talk, right, that’s accepted. And we like that, right? And we kind of say, well, man, why don’t you do that? That’s not their pattern. When they get the build up, they want to take focus, they want to do something, right, right. We can’t scream at that person. We can’t, you know, whatever. In that moment, we have to play nice. And what that does is suppress it. Right, right, press it and it builds up a negative pattern. And it just, it carries forward. Yeah. So part of it is figuring out how do we make the cultural norm and acceptance of a male expression? A little bit more masculine? more masculine, but not violent, but not something like that. And just give that cuz in how do we identify that earlier? Because that’s terrible. It’s horrible. Yeah, that combination leads them to die.

Dr. Mindy 57:10
Yeah, I, you know, when I again, in all the research I’ve done on menopause, I started to think, gosh, you know, if you look at and I don’t know, the stat on this, you might, but if you look at where, like the majority, what, at what point in somebody’s life that divorces happen, the more commonly, I would think it’s probably in a woman for a woman in her 40s. Because as those hormones are changing, you feel like somebody hijacked your brain. But if you take a woman going through menopause, and a man who’s got mismanaged testosterone, that’s a really difficult combination for a successful marriage from a hormonal standpoint. Would you agree with that? Yeah.

Dr. Don Clum 57:53
I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, the old men are from Mars, women are from Venus thing are speaking different languages. Yeah, I talk about hormones. And I tell people, they’re like, I want to listen to my body. I’m like, well, your body is speaking Chinese, but you speak English. You know, there’s noise going on, but you don’t know what your you’re talking about. And that kind of happens in that relationship. They start talking through what they’re going through. And they they just just adds a little layer of more little more ambiguity, right. That’s what we don’t want ambiguity. destroys decision. Yeah, if something’s unclear, we do not make a decision. And if we don’t make a decision, it just festers Yeah, just fester. Right? And so for men, you know, it’s not always about, oh, let’s talk about it. This and that. Let’s just, if you get if men get together, and they just complain about it, you know, they just, that’s, that’s a step in the right direction, believe it? Because there’s really no, there’s no venue. Where are they going to do this? Other than that? Wow, that’s the first step. And so then they hear it, they say it, they feel it like, okay, it’s that’s one step in that plan to go forward.

Dr. Mindy 58:56
Wow, wow. So here’s what I’m thinking Don is I think you and I should start like a relationship counseling, consultation, where we approach it from a hormonal level, and we start to help couples, heterosexual couples, figure out how to and I only say that because you’ve got this mismatch of hormones, but how to clean up their lifestyle so they can bring their hormones back up. And then they would have a fighting chance to be able to actually work the relationship out.

Dr. Don Clum 59:27
Whatever. Yeah, yeah, totally. You down. You get those hormones to just play nice. They don’t have to be perfect. No, the edge comes off. It’s all I love talking about the tipping point. You just dropped that tipping point. That’s called resilience. Yeah, management. Um, you know, if you want to count to 10, for your stress, cool. I’m not against it. But I want to build resilience. Resilience is creating a lens for ourselves, that when our stress comes into our life, we’re better for it now worse. Yes, absolutely. That’s it, because we’re not going to stop it.

Unknown Speaker 59:55
Yeah, no.

Dr. Mindy 59:56
Oh, yeah. Just when you get one stressor under another one. comes around. And I have said for years, and I have no data on this, but I’ve said for years, when you look at your stress in life, about 25% of it is circumstance, about 25% of it is what you’ve been modeled or genetically programmed how you react to it. But 50% of it probably is physiological. So if you, you have control over the physiological piece, clean up your diet, start fasting and all the things we talked about your 25% of how you are modeling your behavior around stress, that’s like therapy and EMDR, and things like that. And then circumstances come and go. Well, it sure seems like if we fix the physiological piece, that’s where we’re going to have the greatest movement in our reaction to stress.

Dr. Don Clum 1:00:46
Yeah, and it’s a huge load off, because that’s something that’s someone else can help you with, right? directly. We talked about that with food issues. And with addiction. The old thought process is that it’s a willpower, or it’s a character flaw, or you’re just weak. They’re symptoms. They are symptoms of this, they were expressing it. Same thing with procrastination, you change the structure, the functional change it we’ll do it all, no, but it will work better sound body, you can think clearer sound mind, right, and then as it clears, then you can work on that. It just goes hand in hand, especially when someone’s at that wall. I don’t know what to do. Okay, let’s do this. I know how to we can do this. Right? I don’t know what we’ll do. I know you’ll be better for it. Whether it look like I don’t know. But let’s do this now. Okay, let’s do it.

Dr. Mindy 1:01:34
Right, right. We’re Awesome. Awesome. I love this conversation. I feel like I’ve like been really thirsty. And someone just gave me a glass of water. I just I’ve been wanting because we talk so much on this platform about women’s hormones. And yet, I don’t want to leave men out of the conversation. And the more I study testosterone for women, the more intrigued I have been about what is it doing to affect men? So this was this was brilliant. Where can people find you?

Dr. Don Clum 1:02:03
easiest way to get ahold of me is through Facebook. You can go to my personal page, Don Klum. And in connect with me there I do almost all my business and writing and stuff comes somehow through there. We have the group called insulin friendly fasting secrets, recently reopened for public. And then and so you can go there. That’s where my archives, our article, hundreds of articles and slides from the seminars, I teach and videos and everything, I just put it in there. So it’s a good place, you can search and do your own thing. But you also have that community there. And so that that’s a good way to do it.

Dr. Mindy 1:02:39
I like I started this podcast with your posts on Facebook are amazing. And I scroll through Facebook pretty quickly. But when I get to you, I’ll either like screenshotted as a reminder of myself and like put it off, but I’ll come back, I’ll read it, you just, I don’t know if it’s your style of teaching the conciseness and what you say stuff. It’s just, it’s brilliant. So we will put links in here for our audience to go find you. because the world needs to hear your voice more.

Dr. Don Clum 1:03:06
I appreciate that. I love what you’re doing. I hear I we have common people all over the place. And they just keep talking about you. The book club, they love you. And it’s going great. And I’ll tell you as a man, people kind of when I said this is our first book for this new book club. They’re like, they thought it was no pause. No, it’s menopause. This is and in. I’ve read a lot on it. But and when I do, especially from a medical or health practitioner side, it also comes off as JD like, this is not really for you, man. You know, not gonna get it, but you could read it if you want. Yours was open. And it was a dialogue. And I felt included. And I got I feel more confident, even talking about it after reading that than I have. And again, like I said, I’ve read a bunch of them. But there’s a disconnect and yours was very inviting. I appreciate that.

Dr. Mindy 1:03:54
Yeah, thank you I’ve been that’s really what I wanted to do was open the conversation because I felt like when I went searching for answers, I you know, I just there was no conversation to be had or it was Here take this pill all your symptoms will go away. And you know, the way you and I have been trained, we know the power of the body and when the body is not functioning normally, there’s some interference somewhere and that I just wanted to open the conversation up and so I’m so happy for I actually haven’t heard of males perspective like that. So I really appreciate that. That was awesome. Appreciate it. My

Dr. Don Clum 1:04:27
pleasure. Thank you.

Dr. Mindy 1:04:29
Okay, I have five questions, rapid fire questions for you and they’re unique for you. Okay, you’re you’re sitting in front, in a classroom in front of 20 teenage boys, and you want to teach them about testosterone and keeping them selves, hormonally healthy, what what do you tell them?

Dr. Don Clum 1:04:51
What do you tell them about that, um, that you know, the the, the overwhelm and the confusion that you feel This thing is about testosterone. And in the search, we need to focus that you focus that you can get beyond that, because that’s what they when I go to speak or do a poll, that’s what they’re all about confusion overwhelm, flooded full of feeling, right. And so it’s all about a, we can get past that. Let’s do that. Okay.

Dr. Mindy 1:05:19
Okay. And now the second question is, you’re sitting in front of a group of 55 year old men, and their energy’s low, they’re out of shape. They’re not feeling good. And they want to know, lifestyle wise, there’s like, if you were to give them two or three things that they could do lifestyle wise, what would you recommend?

Dr. Don Clum 1:05:40
First thing would be frequency meal frequency, just go to three meals a day, I won’t take any of your food away. I won’t take the junk, you’re doing fine. Just put it in three meals. Simple as breakfast, lunch and dinner. No magic times in between no magic space, three meals a day, all your food. That’s number one. Number two,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:59
walk,

Dr. Don Clum 1:06:00
take multiple small walks a day. It’s amazing what it does to insulin, cortisol and other hormones the way it did in no hands and pockets, no sunglasses, no talking on the phone, no ear buds. If you’re not taking your pulse, you’re not changing your clothes, you’re not gonna sweat, you just go for a five day minute walk and do it five to eight times a day.

Dr. Mindy 1:06:22
I love that walking, walking keeps showing up in the research I’m doing just on brain health and as just this key activity that we need to be doing. And sometimes we’re like sitting or we’re on it. We’re working out. But

Dr. Don Clum 1:06:37
are we when do we just go walk when our brain is focused, and especially in stress or any thing else like this? It’s in a certain mode when we walk, no hands and pockets because we got to swing our arms? Because I don’t turn on the intrinsic motor system. Have you ever taken a long hike and stopped for the chat? You’ll feel your legs and but kind of tick. They’re still firing? Because you had he activated that right? Same thing. When that turns out it takes two to three minutes, then that party brain goes like this opens up. Yeah, and motivation and creativity starts to flood. And that’s why people say when they were out in the woods or on a hike or exercising when they had their epiphany or their great idea, same thing we need to and that’s a start stop start concept. Like I mentioned earlier, we want to that’s why we do it multiple times a day, not 140 minute walk, but bunch of little ones to get that go and get that going and prime that and get that into our system.

Dr. Mindy 1:07:29
Wow. Wow. Well said, Okay, what about books? What books if a man wants to read more about testosterone? Do you have some books that you were like? Yes. You talked about the irritable male syndrome. Is that was that from a book or did you come up with that?

Dr. Don Clum 1:07:41
Nope. That’s a rare actually.

Dr. Mindy 1:07:44
Oh, it’s an actual Oh, not the irritable male syndrome.

Dr. Don Clum 1:07:46
Okay, this is nice. There’s all sorts of information if you’re willing

Dr. Mindy 1:07:50
masking male depression. I love it.

Dr. Don Clum 1:07:53
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. Oh my god. Look at all these sciency your science Do you get in the male brain? The

Dr. Mindy 1:08:00
male brain? Oh my gosh.

Dr. Don Clum 1:08:02
This one is more for fun and women. Oh, dig it. But I won’t say the name but you’ll get it.

Dr. Mindy 1:08:07
Oh, you waking sad. You want to say it? I’ll tell everybody it’s called. I used to be a miserable fuck. Now we’re gonna have to put a sensor on this. Mr. mean is the next one. Oh my gosh, these are great. Oh my gosh, man. Oh, pause. I love it.

Dr. Don Clum 1:08:26
Yeah, I’m working on I’m doing a program for your male syndrome hormonal man. And so they’re all top of mine. And they’re, you know, there’s more. There’s a lot, not as many as women’s hormones, but they’re, they’re pretty insightful. Some of them.

Dr. Mindy 1:08:39
Okay, well, we’re gonna list all those books out in the notes. That was amazing. Okay, what? I’m only going to give you one thing on this one. I’ve just been deeply thinking about the health of the world over the last year. You know, a lot of people have approached the pandemic from a lot of different angles. But I’ve been walking around going, why is everybody so immune compromised? What the heck is going on? What do you if there was one thing you would have everybody on the face of the planet change lifestyle wise to boost their health and specifically their immune system? What would it be?

Dr. Don Clum 1:09:13
I would work on their sleep. Ah, okay. And it is the unsung hero. If you’re not all those hormones we talked about, and when they will heal. It happens when we’re sleeping. Yep. What we do during the day sets the stage, right? Then at night the play unfolds. If we don’t do if we don’t, we can do everything right in the day. But if we’re not sleeping, the play never happens.

Dr. Mindy 1:09:35
Right? Right.

Dr. Don Clum 1:09:36
Yeah. So I mean, that’s when we burn fat. We build muscle we reset. We detoxify all that’s happening when we’re sleeping. Yeah. And so you know, that’s what I would focus on. If we can get some quality sleep then we have a fighting chance.

Dr. Mindy 1:09:49
Yeah. Ah, I love that. Okay, and last question. If you had one message for the world that you could get in everybody’s brain, and and they’ll never forget it. What would that message be?

Dr. Don Clum 1:10:03
What would that message be? You already have what you want, you already have the ability, it’s in you, we don’t need to help it, we need to get out of the way. You know, healing health needs no help, just no interference.

Dr. Mindy 1:10:17
Hey, resetera, I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. And those of you that have left me comments on iTunes, I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you’re enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I’ve learned in just interacting with so many people is that we’ve really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, as the reseller podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me, because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it’s impacting your life. So please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you to make it better. We are now officially in season two. And we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have that mindset changers can give and to really deliver you something that you’re not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube from the bottom of my heart. I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you and let’s get healthy together.