“I’ve been taking Wegovy for two months now, and even though it has worked, I want off,” Alexandra said with conviction. 

She had lost 13 pounds already. 

She was grateful for the jump start, but a GLP just didn’t sit well with Alex as a long term solution. 

At 29 years old, Alex knew there was something underlying her decade long struggle of gaining and losing the same 30 pounds over and over again. 

With a little momentum under her wings and a real commitment to resolve her weight struggles once and for all, Alex was ready to get to work. 

Alex’s journey from “there” to “here”...

We started by gathering data – lab work to understand Alex’s body – so that we could gear her up with a targeted and customized plan.

Because Alex was dealing with fatigue alongside what she described as “the slowest metabolism in the world”, I ordered:

• A deep-dive look at her thyroid (five tests, not just one!)
• Inflammatory markers
• Nutrients key to energy production and detoxification 
• An Organic Acid Test (OAT)

The OAT is one of my favorite tests for cracking hard-to-solve health conundrums. When it comes to a slow metabolism and fatigue, an OAT helps me understand:

• Are mold or fungus interfering with healthy metabolism?
• Is there a disruption of the microbiome?
• Are mitochondria (powerhouses of the cell) fully operational? 
• Is your body able to use fat as energy?
• Are your detoxification pathways overwhelmed?

And the answers we got were illuminating! Alex’s thyroid was working like a champ, but her inflammation – that was the skeleton in her biochemical closet.

You see, when inflammation is elevated, it stalls fat-burning, drains cellular batteries, and leads to a build up of free radicals that damage tissues. 

How this showed up for Alex:

• Her hsCRP was over 6.
  • I like to see it under 1. 
  • hsCRP tells us about your long term / chronic inflammatory load.
• Her LpPLA2 was over 130.
  • I like to see this under 118.
  • LpPLA2 tells us about inflammation in the cardiovascular system.  
• Her homocysteine was over 12.6.
  • I like to see this between 6-8.
  • Homocysteine is a marker of total-body inflammation.

This was information we gathered through Alex’s standard lab tests. In her OAT, we learned that her detoxification pathways were overwhelmed and glutathione was depleted – a duo that often dance together. 

And so Alex’s biological story became clear. 

Her detoxification pathways were overwhelmed, depleting glutathione (our body’s most potent antioxidant). This led to oxidative stress and damage which caused her body to get locked into an inflammatory response. The inflammatory process was slowing down her metabolism and interfering with her mitochondrial function.  

Sure the Wegovy was helping Alex lose weight, but it wasn’t addressing the root cause of her slow metabolism and fatigue. 

And that’s where Alex’s Well Empowered journey really began. 

In the days after Alex came to understand her body through the lens of root-cause functional medicine, she chose to discontinue Wegovy. 

Alex dove into the tailor-made plan we created, beginning supplements to restore her body’s health rather than bandaid biological barriers. 

We identified a few nutritional shifts that were both meaningful and accessible for Alex.

And she began making these shifts in a new way – one born of self-love rather than born of self-aggression. 

You see, Alex arrived swimming in the inherited paradigm or what I like to call the “all or nothing” approach. Just as much as the science, our work together has centered around guiding Alex in leaving this broken paradigm grounded in self-aggression and stepping into a new era of Authoring her Middleground, grounded in self-love.

Nearly six months later Alex has lost an additional 10 pounds and says “I can’t remember the last time I had this much energy.”. 

And her labs? 

• hsCRP has been steadily creeping down, and is currently at 2.0. I expect her December labs to register optimal at <1.
• LpPLA2 is in an ideal range at 115. 
• Homocysteine is sitting in its sweet spot at 6.2. 

We’ll be repeating her OAT next month, and I fully expect to see results worthy of gold stars and cartwheels. 

Beyond the number on the scale and her awesome new lab numbers, Alex has shed the weight of struggling with the scale. 

“I’m just so grateful to finally understand my body and to really be coming at my health from a whole new perspective. It has taken a lot of work and attention, but it was worth every second. The ease I feel around food – and in my body – runs deep now. The more I live this work, the more I trust myself and that may be the biggest gift of all.”

Ready to begin your Well Empowered journey?

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