I believe every person has a right to basic knowledge of how to optimize their mind body and spirit here I bring to you influential individuals and ideas to help you live a more healthy fulfilling life I'm Julie Foucher and i'd like to welcome you to pursuing help welcome to episode 16 of pursuing health I'm really excited to share with you a new type of episode here on pursuing health today I'll be sitting down with someone who has dramatically changed the course of his own life and health by changing his lifestyle you'll have a chance to hear from Pete cats who after many years of ups and downs with different diets and exercise programs finally found lasting success with a paleo diet and CrossFit he was able to lose over 30 pounds and more importantly he heard several chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes sleep apnea hyperlipidaemia and anxiety he has an incredible story that I know has it inspired me and it's also inspired many of the people around him to make similar changes in their own lives I first met Pete as a medical student a couple of years ago in the office of one of my preceptor is dr. Isaacson dr. Isaacson is Pete's primary care physician he also serves as the assistant dean for clinical education at my medical school the cleveland clinic lerner college of medicine there he's well-known among medical students as a master of developing meaningful relationships with his patients and partnering with them to improve their health in this episode dr. Isaacson will also be joining us to share his perspective on Petes journey to improving his health for the past several years in the future I'd like to share more stories like this so if you or someone you know has used lifestyle to overcome serious health challenges please share your stories you can email me at info at Julie Foucher calm with your story and I'll choose some to share here on the podcast you never know who else might be out there in a similar situation looking for some hope or inspiration a couple of reminders before we get started today number one if you're enjoying the podcast don't forget to head over to iTunes to subscribe there and give it a rating you can also head to my website Julie Foucher calm and enter your email to stay in the loop with the podcast and everything else I'm up to with my newsletter every couple of weeks if you're interested in training with me check out my program through beyond the whiteboard this is the actual training I do now five days per week one hour per day schedule out for you minute by minute from warm up to cool down for more information or to try out the program yourself visit beyond the whiteboard calm / Julie Foucher or listen to podcast episode number 12 so with that let's get started here on pursuing health episode number 16 with Pete cats and his physician one of my mentors dr. Isaacson so welcome to episode number ten of pursuing health I am here with Peter cats and dr.
Isaacson who is his physician and also my preceptor here in medical school I'm really excited to sit down with both of you and talk about Peters journey here I've known you for about three years now and he has a very inspiring story and I'm excited to talk about it a little bit more today so maybe we could start off um Pete if you want to talk a little bit about your background regress flag background growing up okay sure so yeah I was I was a pretty chubby kid starting in probably about elementary school and I think that's a lot more common today but back when when I was the chubby kid Elmer's well there's like two or three kids you know in the class and there were chubby kids I I was probably pretty good athletically but I just like food a lot so so uh you know I was never the first kid picked than any teams or anything like that pretty free average joint various teams in middle school and that sort of thing a little bit in high school just just some average academic type sports but then when I got to college it's probably the first time in my life I actually got get physically in shape actually became a vegetarian in college did that probably for about little probably 25 years I was vegetarian got into triathlons lost a lot of weight was pretty successful with that until I I had a knee injury okay and then I had some stress from the type of work i was doing at the time and and you were what how old were you at nothing well i think i got into those triathlons probably about summer run 19 20 years old something like that so I was the first time I was actually in shape for a while but then you know the real world took hold hurt my knee got busy with work and pretty much stopped doing any sort of exercise at that point so was it wasn't until about three years ago that I I found CrossFit as well as made some big changes to my diet and kind of get back into the the realm of being an athlete again probably feels good right yeah I want to talk about that more in a moment but first maybe you could talk a little bit about your sort of your your journey as you decline from those triathlons and maybe as some of these health problems started to creep in things that you had tried in the past to try to change your lifestyle to fight those sure so not long after I had come dropped out of the triathlon thing gotten gotten into the the real world doing some stressful work that sort of first chink in the armor I was probably starting to gain weight again kind of go back to my old eating ways not exercising first chink in the armor was was uh I started having a lot of just sort of dizzy spells feeling like I was going to faint this is when I actually first met dr. Isaacson okay because I i was going from doctors dr. sure there was something terribly wrong with me and dr. Isaacson was one of the backers I think I first met him in an emergency room oh and uh he eventually i believe was the person who told me he thought I you want you I think you have an anxiety disorder to which I said you know that's impossible I you know I'm not anxious and of course I didn't understand what things I just sort of was that at that time and for those listeners you don't know it's just it's it's actually like physical symptoms like we're you having like panic attack yeah exactly it's not like you have butterflies in your stomach like before a speech or something it's actually like you feel like at least in my case you feel like you're gonna have a heart attack or you're gonna pass out you're scary long story short I eventually learned that yes that's exactly what I had and started going on some medication for that did some cognitive behavioral therapy and kind of back on got back on track but I look back at that now as sort of the first the first like I said chink in the armor where that I think it was directly attributable to diet and lack of exercise and how long ago how long have you been working with dr. Isaacson has it been uh over well just about or just a little over 20 years I would say I think going to the close to that yeah yeah going back to when that was in my head okay yeah so then just slowly over a period of years I got heavier I still didn't do much exercise a lot of spurts of starting and stopping I remember several conversations with dr.
Isaacson encouraging me to exercise and do something about my diet and of course I always left the the the office visits with the new resolve but I try different things they'd last certain amount of time and and was never really able to stick with it but so then that over the years over that 20 years a different new problems health problems would start coming up so over that time I developed high blood pressure I had elevated liver enzymes my cholesterol began to get high my blood sugar also began to get high to the point that eventually I had a high enough blood sugar that I was definitely a diabetic mm-hmm and started on metformin which is a medicine for I think it's one of the first medicines most most people get when they they have diabetes and I had I had pre-diabetes before that but eventually I got got to this certain level and it wasn't long after that initial diagnosis that I then got to the point where the my Foreman wasn't enough and so dr. Isaacson recommended an injectable medication called Byetta that started that started me really being concerned and thinking oh this is the last straw I can't be I can't have diabetes I can't be injecting myself with medication check my blood sugar all the time I mean I really felt horrible like how could I how could I let myself get to this this point so that's what's really started getting me thinking I gotta do something so so that that was that was the point that sort of led me up to discovering CrossFit okay and dr. Isaacson throughout this time what is your what was your general approach obviously it has you know Pete's blood sugar starts to creep up and you start the medications you have the discussions about style and exercise what's your perspective on that this is an extremely common situation actually as Julie knows and it's one that is really challenging for us as primary care physicians Pete was really in a common group someone who busy with life work former athlete and really we had discussions just about every time I saw you I know students medical school saw you and we really work together to try to say what was a plan that we could come up with that would set you on a path and I really felt you know frustrated that I wasn't really helping you that much that we weren't getting where we want it to be and so it's a common situation and as physicians we really can't necessarily tell the patient what's best for them we can try to give some guidance and tell them where we want to go which is to get healthier and to lose weight but the path to that is often difficult and there's probably not one path for each patient so you've gone down that path and eventually you found something that worked for you yes so tell us about that so yeah I I listen to podcast like this one occasionally and and when podcasts were first starting to get popular which was probably about three or four years ago I was I was mowing my lawn and that usually takes me close at two hours so oh wow that's when I listen to podcast I was mowing along and I I can't remember the packs was a podcast about paleo something I never had heard about and and someone was on the episode and explained how they had lost a ton of weight eating a paleo diet and so I just sparked my interest and I bought a few books about it and thought it sounded interesting and thought hey I'm gonna give this a try and for those listeners who don't know Palio's I would say it's a flavor of a low-carb diet then there's a lot of different low-carb diets out there but but this is the one I came across and decided to give it a try and as I was starting to read about it and I started doing it CrossFit kept coming up in two different books I was reading the differ articles online some of the podcasts it just seemed to be sort of a loose connection between the two things and so I thought I could check out what what this is what CrossFit is and went on the main CrossFit website look for an affiliate i found one not far from me called CrossFit pains well just happen to be relatively close to my house went in there and decided I'm going to check this out and it was a complete shock it was but but I did have sort of a background as as an athlete for a while it did fairly intense sports so I think my personality was was kind of well soon yeah suited for something like CrossFit and so yeah you know the first three months probably I maybe went twice a week you know the people were great didn't care how in shape out of shape you were everything was scaled so it didn't matter what the workout was I was able to do it in some form and you know I probably couldn't walk up and down the stairs like like a lot of people for literally three months at a time I would it would i'd finally start getting recovered and bam it would happen again but you know i quickly started seeing results and actually before i started the crossfit just the low-carb diet immediately my blood sugar started going down to the point where I just started weaning myself off the different medications at first I stopped by etta and then I was noticing well it's still going down so then I started cutting back on the metformin and I think I probably came into an appointment with dr. Isaacson at some point and said yeah I just I just kind of stopped and he probably didn't really like that idea but it was it was working I was the blood sugar still low it going down and I wasn't having to take the medicine so I mean anyone listening this who has the same who has diabetes I feel like the first thing that worked was was just cutting carbs out a low carb diet it really carved I would cause your your bloodsucker to go up me was that at all difficult for you to change from going from being a vegetarian to suddenly eating a lot more meat yeah it was was definitely a mindset change I but I was I think why part of the problem and one of the reasons I probably end up getting diabetes because I was a vegetarian probably like a lot of Americans who ate pasta bread crackers cookies I mean it wasn't you know based on vegetables and whole foods right well I like that idea it wasn't what i ate in practice and so I think that probably contributed to my getting diabetes is it I just I was just eating massive amounts of carbs which are vegetarian right it's a very good point you know beans are high carb they're vegetarian they're probably not going to be causing a lot of high blood sugar like pasta or bread or cookies but but yeah that was that was like the main part of my diet so when i switch to paleo you know i did start eating meat but i've never been a huge meat eater even on paleo i do try to focus more on vegetables mm-hmm but yeah now now i do eat meat it was a kind of a strange changeover mm-hmm but but when i started seeing the results i really felt that I at least my body maybe most humans were meant to eat like this just because everything started all my blood tests all the all the health problems I had started going away one by one fall away medications fall away and I think especially you talk about your body being especially susceptible dr. Isaacson and I have talked about this about how sensitive you are to the carbs and how dramatically your your blood sugar went down once you change your diet and I think at one point what what was your ate your a1c at its highest yeah so it was a XII remember you been remember what was it it was I think about 11.4 with a normal being about six and i would say you had one of the more dramatic probably the most dramatic improvement in that measure of diabetes in the shortest amount of time I would say I think for you the diabetes was a wake-up call yeah that fundamentally changed the way you thought about things and really got you motivated and I think the positive results you got reinforced that it's it was really it was you doing the work and actually I was thrilled when you were cutting back on medicine you know I maybe wanted you to check in with me a little bit more but yeah I i also think what i found was interesting is that as i started doing the crossfit i don't know if it's because i was losing weight gaining muscle eating low-carb but the more the longer i did the crossfit i found that if i cheated and like you know had had goat went back to some of my old ways and i had an occasional binge on bad food or had a cheat day i would of course check my blood sugar right away as i started doing the crossfit mm-hmm longer and longer they would have little or no effect on my blood sugar interest so it's like it's like I I think the muscle there could be lots of reasons of course I'm not a doctor scientist but maybe it's that the muscle is using the blood sugar it's like another another pathway for that blood sugar to get used up maybe it's somehow increasing my sensitivity to to the insulin i'm not sure but but now i find that i can eat almost anything i want without any significant change in my blood sugar from day to day and that's probably because you've lost weight and that yeah because your insulin works better when you're at a lower weight and so the composition of the diet has a role but also if you're able to have weight loss that can actually your diabetes has been cured with lifestyle regiments really mm-hmm how often do you see that in your practice doctor Isaacson you know it's a potential for almost a huge number of people with what we call type 2 diabetes which is more weight related but it's difficult to achieve and so you're not alone but you know you're the minority of people who are able to do that but it's out there for everyone really they can have an effect on this more than medications a lot of a lot of ways yeah I mean and and not only the diabetes went away but now I think of my very last visit with dr.
Isaacson my blood pressure was below normal I got rid of I used to have sleep apnea I got rid of that all probably within six months of starting CrossFit um no more diabetes medication no more I used to have high blood pressure medication don't have that anymore literally at everything that though the anxiety mm-hmm I probably took that anxiety medication for 15-20 years I I stopped that absolutely no issues whatsoever so I can only think a link that all those things all those things also to the diet and the CrossFit yeah absolutely so what are that some of the things the milestones are things that you're most proud of in this whole process or things you've achieved it can be CrossFit related or you know medication health-related yeah well really you know reversing what was a train wreck it is is the best thing I mean losing weight it's something that I struggle with my whole life isn't any way now I feel like I have sort of a formula that I'm in complete control of to keep that weight off it really be able to do anything I want to do I feel like I'm 10 years younger at least biologically than my my age and I see a lot of people my age who are experienced of things I was experiencing that they're just experiencing them a little later than I was I experienced much earlier probably because I was heavier much earlier and I just feel like you know I sort of have a new freedom or sure a secret to staying young and healthy and be able to do what i want to do so so those those were all great achievements and then then in CrossFit itself I mean it I look forward to every single day it's sort of a fun activity to go do almost like you're going out for recess or gym class yeah I love the camaraderie I love the feeling I get when I went after I do a hard workout I would consider myself a little bit of a junkie share that's because there because there is this this very real sort of high you get absolutely after doing it I'm sure I'm sure I think we can connect on that level and there's so many things that you learn and CrossFit that are challenging that you're you're always going to be working on getting better at right so there's always a challenge and you're always kind of achieving something you never thought you could do in your life and I think when we first met you had gotten your first pullup recently so what things are you chasing right now well I i struggle with double unders ok I can do Single Double I cannot string together though yeah it drives me crazy yeah pull ups i did my first Murph this year Wow oh uh pull ups and myself so dr. Isaacson that workout is I was named after lieutenant Michael Murphy who was died in combat and there's a lot of hero workouts that are that are named after you know fallen heroes and so the workout is run a mile do 100 pull-ups 200 push-ups 300 squats and then run a mile and prescribed you do it all with a weight vest on so it is a doozy of a workout I did not use the way but I was very happy yeah 104 yes now I can't string them together and Kip and all that stuff but I did the hundred-plus that is fantastic so yeah to even think I'd be capable of something like that for years ago would it well I would have thought you weren't sane right if told me I'd ever be doing that but yeah I mean I mean there's so many things in CrossFit that i would like to think one day I might be able to do like a muscle up or or something like that right chester bar pull-ups which which I can't do yet there's always something to chasing and to be working on it is and i found out i found that i'm really good at some things across it I'm horrible at others just like it seems like everything yeah exactly amazing amazing so I'm so glad that that you found something works for you I want to talk a little bit more about why you think this was what stuck for you and dr. Isaacson maybe from your perspective to why you know he had tried other types of lifestyle modifications in the past that hadn't really stuck or hadn't really lasted for a while so what is it about CrossFit and paleo that made you stick with it for three plus years well as far as the paleo I honestly do believe that it that even though we you know no one in modern world can eat like some money who existed in the Paleolithic era that's the basis of the diet that for those who don't know that you eat what someone is living in that period of history would be able to eat mm-hmm so yeah we can't duplicate exactly what that is but we can approximate what it is and just the way I feel and the way my health improved based on that diet mm-hmm it's impossible for me after experiencing that to really try to go you know to go want to go back to the way I was eating so that has helped me I'll stick with the diet as far as the exercise I think CrossFit is kind of unique in there is a community type of activity so when you join a CrossFit gym there's a lot of camaraderie you look forward to seeing that the people who work there as trainers or that you work out with so that helps a lot and then there's also the you're always working on achieving something it's different every time you go and and really there is that addictive nature to me sure I love the feeling I have at the end of the workout absolutely and it's it's the same like before maybe you were addicted to sugar carbohydrates there's I've heard of people who have been addicted to drugs or addictive different things that do CrossFit and that kind of replaces for them that addiction or that thing that they can always go back to to get that that high if you you know want to want to call it that that's exactly what it feels like I mean I really I can't wait to go back excited for your workout in you know the work at itself often times its size right in the middle of it you're going awful and sucks with the end you just feel so good yeah so yeah what do you think dr. Isaacson well I think that you know there's not one size that fits everyone and so as physicians and and Julie knows us and learns us what we want to do is partner with our patient and really tap in and help them along the way we usually don't have all the answers we have some medical knowledge we can guide them but it's actually trying to be open to what the patient wants to work on so from my standpoint affect you were found something you wanted to work on and it connected with you was fabulous and I think having some structure so you didn't have to sit each day and decide what am I going to do today you had some structure imposed I think probably the CrossFit did a lot of that where you're going to go you had a community that supported you and we tried to support you in the office but really it was mostly about you and having a structure to what your diet was going to look like what your exercise is going to look like and the fact you had positive results it just reinforce this and really sort of jump started the whole process so you know I've actually been thrilled i think you have done the work on this clearly and that's what's true most of the time is trying to help the patient but most of the work comes from them anything that's true i mean every person's going to be a likely to succeed at something in particular it's finding what them what that is right yeah I do think like I was never a big weight lifter I do feel that has some some benefits that that you don't get from other exercises at least I don't know if that's specific for diabetes or not but it seems like having more muscle mass as opposed to just doing a cardio cardio program I believe has a pretty strong impact on some of the results I've been seeing just just a totally a personal opinion absolutely so and you know we see that it is important for for people to do exercise it's going to make them strong or two and it'll help you know later in life as you start to deteriorate like physically it's going to slow that process like we talked about we talked about in the CrossFit in the level one about not wanting to be in a nursing home when you're older because you can't get out of bed or you can't sit down and go to the bathroom because you've built up the strength over the years that you know you can support yourself into your old age yeah absolutely I i I'm playing the D cross her till day I died nursing see what happens here I'll be right there with you probably we're thinking about to the cost savings if you think about health care costs now well that's the amount of medicine you're on and you know the cost of lifestyle interventions is really so minimal compared to all the medical care I mean you're saving yourself a lot of money you're saving a lot of resources having to be spent in terms of medicine medical care so it is really an untapped resource I think I know Julie's very interested in pursuing this and its really a great thing because it just has benefits not only for the person but for our whole society really in terms of resource utilization and making the whole society healthier that's very true actually just in the last year it's the first time I've ever been on a high deductible health plan which a lot of people are going to a lot of companies are going to that type of model so not only am i saving money by not coming to the doctor but because I have this high deductible health plan I have a health savings account so I'm putting in what I would have paid for a traditional health plan anyway into the savings account and it is growing okay basically because because I'm not going to the doctor every every other month and buying all these different drugs and yeah supplies yeah so I mean you know there there's a silver lining yes there's tapes about it that's right and the fective do you just seem so much happier and healthier all around like you said you feel maybe 10 years younger and it's I'm sure it's permeating into all the different aspects of your life as well yeah well it does I mean you you feel even in non exercise or diet related areas just in life doing something at work a project something you don't want to do it just the success I've seen in CrossFit mm-hmm kind of translates into that if I have a project I don't want to do it I treat it just like a watt right this second I can do the workout I can do this I can get exactly I'm gonna just do a page by page and it's gonna be done 1 repin is exactly awesome well well thank you guys both so much for taking the time to sit down and chat your story is very inspiring and I hope that there are other listeners who can connect with you and hopefully follow in your footsteps oh thank you very much and we'll catch you next time on pursuing health absolutely thank you for having me thank you thank you so much for tuning in to this episode I hope you were inspired by Pete as much as I was don't forget to share your own stories if you or someone you know has used lifestyle to overcome a serious health challenge please email me at info at Julie Foucher com I'll choose some of these stories to share here on the podcast you never know who else might be out there looking for some inspiration who's in similar situations to make sure you never miss an episode and to receive exclusive content from me head to my website Julie Foucher calm and subscribe to my email list and don't forget to subscribe on iTunes as well and give pursuing health or rating I always love hearing your feedback so please continue to leave comments under this post on my website at Julie Foucher calm and share your thoughts on social media you can use the hashtag jf health with any feedback or questions or ideas for future episodes thanks again so much for listening and i'll catch you next time on pursuing health you .
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In his 20's Pete Katz was an active, healthy guy - he competed in triathlons, was a vegetarian, and at one point even ran a health food store. A knee injury, a demanding job, and family life eventually took over and he found himself overweight and with a growing list of diagnoses and medications. The threat of having to take an injectable medication for his type 2 diabetes was the last straw, and Pete made dramatic lifestyle changes by starting a Paleo diet and joining a local CrossFit affiliate. I first met Pete in his primary care physician Dr. Isaacson's office as a second year medical student at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.
In this episode of Pursuing Health, Pete, Dr. Isaacson, and I sit down to discuss Pete's journey back to health. We discuss his background and initial health decline, his frustration with various diet and exercise programs that were short lived, and why he has found Paleo and CrossFit to work so well for him. We also talk about the dramatic improvements in his health and quality of life that have resulted from these lifestyle changes.
Please SUBSCRIBE and RATE on iTunes, and share your feedback in the comments or using #JFHealth. If you or someone you know has an inspiring story about using lifestyle to overcome disease, please share by emailing info@juliefoucher.com. We will continue to feature stories like this in the future!
Disclaimer: This podcast is meant to share the experiences of various individuals. It does not provide medical advice, and it is not a substitute for advice from your physician or health care professional.
December 20, 2020
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