LeanLabs Medical Spa

11/05/2025

Trade willpower battles for biology wins

I spent years white knuckling diets.

Hired trainers. Did hours of cardio. Lost 20 pounds. Then plateaued, got burnt out, quit the restrictive diet and gained it all back within months.

The cycle repeated so many times I stopped believing the problem was me.

When I finally shifted to protein targets, real sleep, and a GLP-1 plan with my provider, everything changed. Weight loss felt calm. Repeatable. Like my body was finally working with me instead of against me.

Here's what actually happened →

Your body treats different foods completely differently, and understanding this changes everything about how you approach weight loss.

Protein takes energy to break down and triggers hormones that tell your brain you're satisfied. The same signal that medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro mimic.

Animal fats work similarly.

Your body uses them to repair cells and they release those same satiety signals.

But carbohydrates? They spike your blood sugar fast, then crash. No satiety signal. Just cravings and constant snacking an hour later.

That's not a willpower problem.

That's insulin resistance, and research shows 44.8% of young to middle-aged adults have it. Even 50% of non-obese people.

Your cells stop responding to insulin properly so glucose can't enter efficiently, which means your body produces MORE insulin to compensate.

You end up with high blood sugar AND high insulin at the same time.

Your cells are starving while you're overfed with calories.

Low calorie diets make this worse. For every kilogram lost, your body's calorie expenditure decreases by 20 calories per day while appetite increases by 100 calories per day.

Your metabolism slows down.

Your body interprets restriction as starvation.

The famous Biggest Loser study showed contestants were burning at least 400 fewer calories than predicted even six years after weight loss.

Their bodies never recovered.

That's why 95% of diets fail.

When I stopped fighting my biology and started working with it, the struggle ended. Protein targets gave my body what it needed to feel satisfied. A GLP-1 plan with my provider helped regulate the hormones that were broken. Real sleep let my body actually heal.

No white knuckling.

No constant hunger.

No metabolic damage.

Just biology doing what it's designed to do when you remove what's blocking it.

You can make the same switch.

Like if you're done with willpower battles. Comment "biology" if you're ready to try a different approach.

11/05/2025

Clients who trade soybean and corn oil for olive or avocado oil often report fewer crashes within two weeks. Small change, big difference in cravings and morning focus.

Here's what's actually happening in your cells.

Your mitochondria, the energy factories in every cell, are wrapped in membranes built from whatever fats you eat. When you consume seed oils loaded with omega-6, those unstable fats get woven into the membrane structure. They oxidize easily under normal metabolic stress.

That oxidation damages the machinery.

Your mitochondria can't produce ATP efficiently anymore. So your body does what it's designed to do... sends hunger signals. Strong ones. You eat more, but if that food contains more seed oils, you're just introducing more damaged building materials.

The cycle feeds itself.

Within days of cutting out seed oils, something shifts. You stop adding new damage. Your healthy mitochondria can finally operate without constant interference, and the acute inflammatory burden starts dropping.

That's the two week window.

The complete cellular repair takes months as your body gradually replaces those oxidized fats with stable omega-3s from quality animal sources. But the initial relief shows up much faster than most doctors would tell you to expect.

Want to test it yourself?

Week one, eliminate seed oils completely. Soybean, corn, canola, vegetable oil. Check every label because they're hiding in almost everything processed. Track your energy levels at 10am and 3pm daily, rate it 1-10. Note your cravings for sweets or carbs each evening.

Week two, keep tracking.

Most people see a clear pattern by day 10 or 12.

The food industry built a system that damages your mitochondria at the cellular level. Then the medical system prescribes medications to manage your symptoms. Nobody's asking what you're actually building your cells from.

After 15 years in functional health, I've seen this pattern repeat hundreds of times. People get their energy back not because of some trendy diet hack, but because they stopped poisoning their mitochondria and started giving their cells what they actually need to function.

Your mitochondria are either working for you or against you.

The fats you choose every single day determine which one.

👉 Like this if you're testing the oil swap this week. Comment "SWAP" if you want my specific list of oils to avoid and what to use instead.

10/21/2025

I switched oils and eating felt easier.

No cleanse, no rigid rules. I moved to olive oil, avocado oil, and high-oleic versions for cooking. Pulled back on deep-fried takeout and restaurant meals where seed oils dominate every dish.

Within a few weeks I noticed my hunger wasn't this constant background noise anymore.

Energy felt steadier through the afternoon instead of that 3pm crash. The plan was easy to keep because I wasn't fighting my body the whole time.

After 15 years in functional health, I've watched this play out with thousands of patients who make the same switch.

Here's the mechanism that matters:

Polyunsaturated fatty acids in seed oils (soybean, canola, corn) oxidize easily when exposed to heat, air, or just sitting in your tissues. Those oxidized compounds create inflammatory metabolites that interfere with hunger signaling and metabolic function at the cellular level.

Linoleic acid has a half-life of about two years in your body. That means the damage builds meal after meal, and getting rid of stored oxidized fats takes years... not weeks.

Between 1909 and 1999, soybean oil consumption increased over 1000% in America. We replaced butter, lard, and tallow with highly processed vegetable oils. The food industry called it progress.

But what I see in patient labs tells a different story.

When people eliminate processed seed oils and return to stable fats like olive oil, butter, ghee, and tallow, inflammatory markers improve. Hormone panels shift. And most importantly, they tell me eating feels simpler and hunger feels manageable for the first time in years.

Your body responds to the environment you give it.

Seed oils create oxidative stress and inflammatory static that makes everything harder. More stable fats reduce that load so your cells can actually function the way they're designed to.

The fix is simpler than most people think, but it takes time because of how long these compounds stick around in tissues.

What are you cooking with right now? Comment "olive oil" if you've already made the switch, or "curious" if you're thinking about it.

10/21/2025

Clinics see the same seed oil pattern.

Patients hit a plateau, weight won't budge, energy crashes by 2 PM. Hunger feels impossible to control.

Then they cut ultra-processed foods with seed oils, add more protein and fiber... and within weeks the plateau breaks.

I've watched this happen hundreds of times over 15 years in functional medicine. And once you understand what's happening at the cellular level, it makes perfect sense.

Most seed oils (soybean, canola, corn oil) are loaded with omega-6 fatty acids. Your body needs some omega-6, but historically humans ate a 10:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. Today that ratio flipped to something like 1:20 because of how our food system changed.

When your cells need to repair membranes and you're low on omega-3s, they substitute omega-6s instead.

Problem is, omega-6 fatty acids oxidize easily... from sun exposure, stress, even normal energy production in your mitochondria. Once oxidized in your mitochondrial membrane, they change shape and your mitochondria can't produce energy efficiently anymore.

Your cells are screaming for energy but can't make it.

So your body sends hunger signals. Cravings for quick carbs and sweets. You eat more processed food (with more seed oils), making the cycle worse.

Clinically, we see elevated blood sugar, A1C, insulin resistance. All markers of metabolic dysfunction. But also brain fog, chronic fatigue, slow healing, inflammatory skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis.

When patients eliminate seed oils and processed foods, we see improvements in 30 days. Some take 4-6 months to feel like themselves again, but the direction matters more than speed.

Here's the starter plan clinics use:

→ Eliminate processed foods in bags and boxes (they almost always contain seed oils)
→ Shop the perimeter: fresh produce, meats, dairy, eggs
→ Cook with stable fats: butter, ghee, tallow, olive oil
→ Add fiber at every meal (leafy greens, beans, berries)
→ Prioritize protein for satiety and blood sugar stability
→ Read labels religiously... seed oils hide everywhere

When eating out, ask what oil they cook with. Most restaurants use seed oils for cost, so you'll need to make requests or choose carefully.

Tailor this to your kitchen and culture.

If you eat Mexican food, use lard instead of vegetable oil. If you love Asian cooking, use coconut oil or ghee. Mediterranean? Olive oil and butter.

The framework stays the same: eliminate oxidizable omega-6s, add stable fats your cells actually recognize.

Linoleic acid (the main omega-6) has a half-life of about two years in your tissues. Decades of accumulation won't reverse overnight, but every meal without seed oils reduces your inflammatory load. Your mitochondria get a chance to heal, energy comes back, hunger normalizes, weight starts moving again.

This is what I see in clinical practice. Not quick fixes or hype, just biochemistry that actually supports your cells.

What's one processed food you're ready to swap out this week? Drop it below, and if this clicked for you, like and share so someone else can finally break through their plateau.

10/15/2025

Your doctor gets paid to manage you, not heal you 💊

High blood pressure gets medication. Inflammation gets steroids. Fatigue gets dismissed as aging.

The symptom gets managed.

The dysfunction continues.

This pattern repeats across thousands of patient visits every day - different specialists, different medications, same underlying problem getting worse. One medication leads to another, which leads to another, and nobody asks why the body stopped working correctly in the first place.

When you shift to root-cause thinking, everything changes.

Instead of suppressing inflammation, you identify what's triggering it. Instead of managing blood sugar with medication, you restore the insulin sensitivity that regulates it naturally. Instead of replacing hormones blindly, you investigate why production dropped.

The body doesn't operate in isolated parts.

When insulin resistance develops, it affects everything simultaneously: hormone production drops, inflammation increases, detoxification slows down, cellular aging accelerates. Conventional medicine treats each symptom separately with different medications.

Functional medicine addresses insulin sensitivity, and the downstream symptoms start resolving without needing separate interventions for every single one.

This produces outcomes you can measure: patients reversing prediabetes instead of progressing to full diabetes, restoring hormone levels that conventional doctors call "normal for your age," eliminating medications they were told would be lifelong.

The functional approach takes more work upfront - comprehensive testing, detailed protocols, your active participation. But the return shows up in years of healthy life instead of just suppressed symptoms.

The healthcare system makes money from chronic disease management.

Your body benefits from actual healing.

Like this if you're tired of treating the same symptoms over and over without getting to what's actually wrong.

12/24/2024

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2025 is going to be amazing!

10/23/2024

How did we get to where we are with processed foods and artificial ingredients??? Well, big To***co BOUGHT Big Food back in the 90’s.

10/23/2024