Revolutionizing Health with New Weight Loss Medications: Dr. Jonathan Schmidt’s Insights

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Casey Cease Show. Casey is your entrepreneurial guide. Dive into weekly insights that blend inspiration with practical strategies to grow your business with integrity. From boosting sales to building strong relationships, Casey shares the essentials to help both your venture and personal dreams flourish.

Ready to elevate your entrepreneurial journey? Let’s dive in.

Casey Cease: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Casey Cease show. I’m so glad you joined us today. Today I have my friend, Dr. Jonathan Schmidt, and I call him John. So, John, it’s great to have you with me on the show today. How are you?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: I’m doing fantastic. Thanks, Casey. It’s, been so great to get to know you over the last year or so.

Casey Cease: No, likewise. No, I really enjoy getting to know you and, work with you and, we have some projects we’re working on together and I wanted to bring you on and share with my listeners just your background. You have an interesting background as a physician, but also as a businessman in your practice.

I want to hear about [00:01:00] that story. And I want to chat through your new book and your new online course that’s coming out because we’re really talking through a hot topic. John has been involved with the new weight loss drugs or that have come out and has seen a lot of benefits with that, I want to share about that.

And I just want to share about your book and tools of coming alongside people. I really enjoy getting to know John because John is a down to earth approachable guy. We met in a mastermind group together, learning together and growing together and just hit it off and just began exploring opportunities to partner together and work together.

And so John, why don’t you take a minute and just tell us a little bit about yourself, share a little bit of your journey with us and we’ll then dive into some of the things you’re working on now.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah. Well, thanks, Casey. So I’m a doctor. So I’m from Illinois, small town, youngest of four boys. My poor mom growing up we always made a disaster of the house. My oldest brother was the first one to go to college and in our, extended family even and then I was the first one to get an advanced degree.

So I did all my schooling in Illinois. I did my residency up in South Bend, [00:02:00] Indiana. And it was in med school that I first learned about this concept of concierge medicine or direct primary care. So there were no doctors in my family. The whole managed care, having an insurance company dictate care down to patients never made sense to me and I never really wanted to pursue that.

So when I was in residency, I sought out opportunities to learn about direct primary care and, then after residency, I joined one of the largest direct primary care practices in the nation that’s in Indianapolis. And from there, I was the fifth physician that they hired. And I went on to help grow the practice.

We’re now up to 12 doctors, two locations, soon to be three locations. And direct primary care is just so different than normal, traditional Western evidence based practice, traditional insurance practices because I have more time with patients. And so the whole concept is just, I don’t bill insurance.

My patients pay me a [00:03:00] yearly membership fee. And in return, I kept my patients. I only have about 200 patients. The average primary care doctor has three to 5,000. And so I get to build those relationships with patients and I get to really go through things with them. And so over the last 10, 11 years that I’ve been done with residency and practicing, one of the things that I’ve gone through so many patients with is weight loss, you know, just about every American wants to lose 5, 10, 15, 20 or more pounds.

It’s on everybody’s mind, we’re all afraid to talk about it. We all are constantly trying to lose weight unsuccessfully. And I’ve, been struggling with patients for that for a number of years, and myself included, you know. Once I finished residency, I was married, we started having kids, life got great.

And just like every other American, my waistline started to go up, but then when I turned 39, I’m a very goal oriented person and I had the goal of, okay, this is [00:04:00] it. I’m going to lose 30 pounds. I’m going to recommit to exercising diligently and calorie restricting. And I’m going to try my darndest to lose 30 pounds by the time I turned 40.

Well, I started on that journey and I learned three or four months into it, that my wife didn’t like being around me. My kids didn’t like playing with me ’cause I was hungry all the time. So I was hungry, I was always tired, I didn’t have the energy to do anything. But I had lost seven pounds in that the quarter of the year. So I was on track for my 30 pound weight loss.

But also in that timeframe one of my patients who just happened to help bring one of these new GLP 1 medications for diabetes and weight loss to market. He came to me and he’s like, Hey, John, I want to get on this medication. Here’s all the data, Let’s, do this together. And we went back and forth and put them on it and he, had amazing success. Unlike anything I’ve seen with any medication.

And so I started calling some other patients that were on [00:05:00] the heavier side and I was like, Hey, you, I saw something crazy. You want to give it a try? And you know, these, patients.

Casey Cease: What was that like, calling up, I mean? George you’re a little chunky as we’ve discussed. And well, you know, that I think I found a sleep. What was that like? I mean, going from you’re skeptical, obviously, cause anything, quote unquote, a miracle drug I’m sure as a physician, you know, that there’s plenty of snake oil salesmen out there.

So you trusted this guy, you saw what was happening. You studied the data. What was that like? And I’m not asking you to violate any HIPAA or anything, but like, what was that like having to make these phone calls and how were people, were they open and receptive to it?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Well, so I’m not the traditional insurance based doctor where I don’t really see my patients and only have six minutes with them. You know, I, text with my patients, I know them really well, I know their families, they know my family. We’ve probably been out to dinner together with spouses.

So, it’s more like calling a friend gosh, darn it. I just saw something amazing and I want to share it with a friend. So it wasn’t like the, Hey, I think you’re too overweight. Let’s try something new. [00:06:00] And plus,

Casey Cease: Hey, chunky. Got something for you. Yeah. So it was

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: And we do yearly physical. So like, it’s something we talk about every year and I’ve struggled with these patients with other weight loss medications and other diets and exercises.

Casey Cease: No I, I’ve had,

I’ve had,

my friend, Dr. Peter Johnson on the show as well, who’s a psychiatrist and treats me with my ADHD stuff and I remember one time I call and he’s like, what’s your weight? And I told him, he goes, oof he said that to me.

That’s why I was imagining Peter is my friend though. Like we’ve had dinner together and we’ve had, talked and we’ve done other stuff together. But I remember when my weight was on the fluffier side. So I just imagine you call and be like, look, man, Frank, Hey bud, the, I, man, woo, you’re,

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah.

it, Beep when you back up, Frank? I want to know. And so, okay.

Casey Cease: So it wasn’t like that through relationship, you’re able to call people were they pretty receptive overall?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah, you know, they took me up on it and I saw some remarkable things. I mean, in a short amount of time, I saw people lose 30, 40, 50 pounds. You know, this was when, boy, way back in what, [00:07:00] 2022 so the summer of 2022 when, Tirzepatide, which is Mounjaro and Zepbound actually came out and those patients have gone on, I have one guy who’s lost, you know, 150 pounds.

It’s just unbelievable life changing stuff. And so I’m seeing this and it’s like, I gotta tell more people about this. Like, this is crazy. And then it just kind of evolved from after that I started using it with more patients learning the best ways to use the medications and what to avoid, you know, how to maximize their success.

But after a while it was, why am I working so hard? You know, I’m making my wife and my kids not want to spend time with me and I’m only down seven pounds. I want to lose 30 pounds. And so I, convinced one of my partners to go out on a limb and write the medication for me.

And gosh, darn it. Every time I gave myself an injection, I would lose five or 10 pounds. I ended up losing about 70 pounds in three to four months. And it was to the point that it was undeniable. Like I looked different to everybody. And so I’d come in for one of my yearly physicals with a [00:08:00] patient and they’d be like, Oh man, John, I got to find a new doctor.

What disease did you get diagnosed with and why are you dying? And it was just cause it was that drastic. And ultimately that’s what led to the book because I had to tell my story to every single one of my 200 patients because I couldn’t hide the weight loss. And after I told it so much, my wife’s like, why don’t you write it down?

And so I started writing and you know, I’ve learned some of the good things, how to use the medications, how to augment that your own natural weight loss with them, maximize their benefits. And then ultimately. You know, the goal is to use the medications, use the smallest dose for the shortest amount of time and get off the medications and sustain that weight loss off the medication, and that’s ultimately the goal.

And so that’s what I hope people can kind of glean from my book. And that’s why I do the course as well afterwards, so people can dive in even further and get more tangible, practical help on how to use the [00:09:00] medications, lose the weight, and then get the sustained weight loss, because that’s what everybody’s afraid of, that’s the biggest pushback I get about the medications is, you know, I don’t want to be on that medication forever.

Well, you don’t have to be. There’s a way to do it, so that you use the medication as one tool, just like all the other tools for weight loss. And then you put it away and you don’t use it anymore. It’s pretty amazing stuff. The other big pushback that I get is we just don’t have 20 year data on these medications and there’s no getting around that. We don’t, they’re new medications. We don’t have 20 year data on it. But we do have 20 year data on what carrying around an extra 20 or 30 or 40 pounds does for your longterm health.

So you can’t make these decisions in a vacuum. We know the consequence of staying obese. We know the consequences of staying overweight. And so that kind of offsets some of the unknowns for me.

Casey Cease: Well, I think that’s an important key point because I try to play mediator as much as I can when I hear people, because I have friends on both sides of the aisle as it were with [00:10:00] you know, friends like you who really believe in it. And I have friends that are you know, no organic and do the hard work.

You didn’t get this way overnight, you know, I can get out of it overnight, but I do wonder if there is you know, when you think through the ethics of using a weight loss drug per se, it was interesting to me when you and I were chatting about it, you said, Hey, look the issue with carrying around this extra weight. Right?

And like you were saying, you were trying your own way of doing it, calorie restriction, exercise, you’re still hungry a lot and everything else. There comes a point where a person needs to make a decision on a macro scale, right? How is this going to affect me long term? Right? And it seems easy to just say, well, Hey, we don’t know the long term effects of, we don’t know what it’s going to do and blow it off.

But I do think it’s important thing talking about, you know, well, what is the implication of carrying around extra weight? And what are some of those implications of walking around obese?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Well, boy the easy ones, increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, type two [00:11:00] diabetes, high blood pressure, even joint replacements. I mean, getting your knees replaced all of those things just metabolic syndrome, it is crazy. How many of those are just weight related? And what’s scary is most of what I treat is actually weight related conditions.

I mean, most of what primary care doctors in America see is from excess calorie intake, which is wild. That’s one of the reasons why I get excited about these medications because think about where our healthcare system could be. If suddenly 15, 20 years from now, we weren’t treating all of these weight related conditions.

We could focus on other things, you know, like, Whoa,

Casey Cease: Couldn’t that cause a lot of problems for those in the industry? If it works too well to not be causing all these other issues? I mean, and I’m not trying to put on my tinfoil hat. I’m just, this is more of a wax paper hat. So I’m not trying to get too far down that pipeline. But I mean, there are implications, right?

You think through all the cancer hospitals, you think through all of the different medications that go. And if a [00:12:00] medication like this precludes it, I mean, there are implications and what I love about you is like your business isn’t tied to as closely to the greater ecosystem as it were. You’re not dependent on income from insurance companies.

You’re more private physician to your clients. But I mean, if I’m hearing you correctly, it does sound like Ali, if we can have a reduction in type two diabetes and less heart disease and less hypertension and you know, joint replacements. I mean, that’s a big deal for people.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah. I mean, for their quality of life and that individual, I boil it down to the individual level their quality of life, their health, they’re going to live longer. But then on the macro level, my goodness, the amount of money the system could save by investing in these medications and avoiding heart attacks, strokes, you know, joint replacements, diabetes treatments, all down the road is wild to think about.

Casey Cease: So what was it like for you? I mean, tell a little bit, I mean, if you’re willing to share a little bit, I know people can buy the book and [00:13:00] hear more of your story, but I mean, what was the difference for you? I mean, you’re trying to lose 30 pounds and then you took the medication. Why don’t you talk to us a little bit about your experience and the results?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah. So it was Labor Day of 2022. I remember it, I’m a big boater, I love to be out on the water. And I love ice cream, ice cream is my, like I used to tell people if ice cream gave me diabetes, I didn’t care because it was worth it. And so my kids knew after a day of boating we’d put the boat on the left, walk across the street to an ice cream shop and we’d always get ice cream.

And I actually didn’t tell my wife when I started these medications. I kind of viewed it as a failure. And I think that’s some of the reasons why there’s so much pushback from patients is you have to admit to yourself, you fail. Like you couldn’t do this on your own. You’re asking for help. And so nobody knew I was on it.

We put the boat away and we’re walking across the street. The day I gave myself the first injection. We’re walking across the street and I’m just thinking to myself, I cannot put anything in my mouth. Like, I am gonna throw up if I put something in my mouth. It’s the [00:14:00] first time in my life I ever said no to ice cream.

And, my wife knew something was up my kids knew something was up. And, I tried to play it off. But then, three weeks later, I had lost, like, 20, 25 pounds and my wife was finally like, alright, John. Something’s up, either you have a serious health condition, and let’s figure that out or you’re addicted to drugs and let’s deal with that.

And I was like, well, it’s drugs, but it’s not what you think. And so, I told her and of course her first reaction was well, when can I start this medication? And you want to talk about a tricky subject, try managing a weight loss medication with your wife. That’s frat

Casey Cease: I mean, your first response like, baby, you don’t need it, you know, but you’re beautiful. Yeah,

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: I love you just the way you are,

Casey Cease: Just the way you are. But I,

I was hoping you’d ask.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah, so it was just, it happened so quick. Now, my results aren’t always typical. Lily has come out, Lily, the manufacturer of Tirzepatide, which is Mounjaro and ZepBound, has come out and acknowledged [00:15:00] that there’s some super responders and I’m, definitely a super responder.

But there was just no denying it, every week I was down another five or 10 pounds that it was, you know, couldn’t hide it from people. And then that’s what really led to me feeling so comfortable to talk to people about it. And really to experiment to broaden my horizons with using this with patients and discussing with them.

And fortunately, the kind of job that I have, I get to talk to them about it. So it’s not just, Oh, go try this medication, come back in six months and tell me how it went. It was, wow, you have my cell phone, so you can text me tonight if you didn’t like it, or if something went wrong and I really got to fine tune how to use these medications to augment your own natural weight loss, because that’s, the secret.

You can’t use them as a magic pill or a magic injection. If you do, the weight’s gonna come right back. If you don’t change anything, the weight’s gonna come right back.

Casey Cease: Well, I think that’s a key point, right? That you know, I had two questions for you. One on the rebound weight gain, but also before [00:16:00] that, I’ve always heard it. Well, it’s not it’s kind of bad for you to lose weight that quickly to lose or 10 pounds in a week. I mean, I’ve heard people say that’s bad for you. I’m not a doctor, I don’t even play one on TV, I know you’re not giving medical advice to the world, but is that a true fact, that it’s bad weight that quickly?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah, so both things we should touch on there. First the ozempic thing. So ozempic which would be like second generation, that’s some megaloglutide which is ozempic and Wigovy. You lose about 15% of your body weight, but a study came out that showed that if you stopped it, you gain 78% of your body weight back. So you’re still down 50%, but you’re not down where you wanted to be and I, think that’s mostly because, well, I think there’s a better product out now.

But if people weren’t making those, lifestyle changes and then to your other point of boy is fast weight loss bad for you, and 5 years ago I would have said yes that your increased risk for, you know, like [00:17:00] pancreatitis, gallbladder, gallstones, there are complications to losing weight so quickly.

But some of it’s that it takes time for your body to adapt to a new weight. I’m a big proponent of the set point theory for weight. Your body wants to stay where it is. And so when you lose weight quickly, your set point is still pretty elevated that you’re gonna want to go right back up to that weight and that’s the point of making these changes.

So you can keep your set point or you can keep your weight down long enough that your set point can come back down. And so that’s, I talk a lot about it, that in a book, I mean, I have a whole chapter to slow weight loss versus fast weight loss. And it is a, shift in our thought process as doctors that maybe we need to be okay with fast weight loss.

We live in a society where we’re all getting this feedback, we all want instant gratification to ask somebody to suffer now for weight loss six months from now. It hasn’t worked for the last 20 years and maybe we need to view things differently. And so we need to [00:18:00] open our minds to something that can allow you to get quicker feedback on your attempts at weight loss. And that’s, what the medications do.

Casey Cease: So on the changing of habits, and I know you have a whole course walking with people coaching them through that. Yeah, because I imagine, you know, when I’ve done other restrictive diets before, you know, it’d be like, okay, you know, high fat, low carb, you know, or eat, you know, don’t eat for 18 hours and eat for six or all these different things.

if my rhythms were right and normal, I was fine. If something threw it off and then it just kind of barrel rolled and I just like to eat. So, you know, in general, it’s one of those pieces where, Hey, you know, cool. You go, I mean, that’s one of my wife’s concerns, you know, is saying like, Hey, if you could do something that’s weight, you quick weight loss, you’re going to gain it all back and nothing’s going to change.

And I think you’re acknowledging that a little bit by creating these resources and helping people realize that this is a tool. to. But like you said, even those who took the other drugs that you know, they, okay, they gained back 50 percent of their weight, but they’re still down 50 percent from where they [00:19:00] were that’s still progress.

So how do you chat through that with someone as, you know, I mean, because you’re getting to heart issues when you get to like the way people use food for comfort or for identity you or if they used to be a football player, then, you know, hey, Bubba eats a bunch of barbecue and you’re changing those things.

How have you seen successful helping people form new habits and really keep that weight off?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah, it’s, because things, it’s normal for them, right? Everybody’s living in their own normal reality. And so, the newest GLP 1 medication, Terzepatide, which is Mounjaro and ZepBound, has a GIP component that works in your brain and kind of takes away that food noise. It takes away the blinders that you have.

Like I would have said that I was not an emotional eater, but when I was on the medication, holy cow I, understood that I was an emotional eater. And so, it kind of gives you, the medication [00:20:00] gives you that clarity to accurately make those connections and to put that together. And then that’s what the course is trying to help you do so that if you’re using the medications you realize this, you don’t, it’s not a wasted opportunity.

You know, the medications are expensive, so you’re investing in the medications. You might as well maximize their potential and utilize that option of the medications so that you can re examine, you can form a new relationship with food because we all have an intimate relationship with the food.

It sustains us, you know, and we all need it. And so you can accurately reevaluate your medications or accurately reevaluate your relationship with food when you’re on the medications and that’ll help you make those changes. Plus, as you’re seeing the results roll in, that’s providing motivation and encouragement to keep going.

And so you want to take one step further. And if I can come alongside you and just offer a little more push, a little more encouragement to [00:21:00] keep making those changes you can get further. You know, we’re all better together.

Casey Cease: That’s great. No, that’s true. I mean, you know, when, you sit with a patient and help them navigate through that, how have you, I mean, you’ve been in prescribing this now for a while. I mean, many patients now have you carried through with this kind of treatment?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Boy, it’s probably, it’s over a hundred, maybe up to 120 now that I’ve intimately had with while I’m treating them. And it’s you know, you, you’ve got to personalize it. So you’ve got to boil it down to what works for each person. Cause you know, mine was ice cream and emotional eating.

Casey, yours might be something completely different.

Casey Cease: That’s eating.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah. And so, while you’re using the medications, having somebody who can open those doors and take off those blinders for you and like, Hey, this is how you can maximize your potential. Have you thought about this and try and take those steps in the right direction.

But it, ultimately comes down to it’s personal, it’s on every level. And that’s, part of the [00:22:00] course because only have 200 patients. So I only get to do this with so many people. And sharing some of those thoughts with people kind of in mass through the course I think is hugely beneficial and hopefully a significant amount of people will get some benefit from it.

Casey Cease: So what are some considerations someone thinking about? Because I’m just thinking also clothing budget, because I know you go and drop 50 pounds, then current garb is not going to fit the same way.

But what are some considerations in general? Because you shared with me before, like, hey, if I would ever do this, there’s dietary changes you need to make it. It’ll help you We’re just regulate some of that, but what are some other considerations before someone gets involved with this?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah. The wardrobe thing is very real and I bought a new wardrobe when I lost 30 pounds cause I thought I was done and I was happy. And then I had to do it all again when I lost another 40 pounds. I mean, it was crazy. But one of the offsets to it when me and my wife were on the medication together, you know, she does all of our grocery shopping. I’m so fortunate to have her. And she pointed [00:23:00] out that we’re just buying a lot less food.

We’re going out to eat a lot less and almost not quite, but almost to the point that it offset the cost of the medications. And so, there’s a lot of cost savings there that can happen too. But also how you feel is going to change, you know, when that food noise gets taken away, you’re gonna be more productive, you’re gonna have more time to think about new things, try new things, and you’re gonna have more energy.

You know the amount of patients that I’ve had who’ve you utilize these medications and then gone on to start a new side business or to write a book like myself or to do whatever is just incredible. And I think that has a lot to do of we’ve struggled with weight every one of us has struggled with weight for most of our adult lives and it’s always been a failure and then you finally get some success with it and you think, my goodness, I can conquer the world.

What’s next? And people come up with what’s next. What excites them and what’s gets them motivated. You know, I had a patient who I think when [00:24:00] he lost 150 pounds or so, he told me that he felt like he could just jump out of bed like a chicken now. Like he just hop right out of bed.

Whereas prior to losing the weight, getting out of bed was a chore for him. And so when you get that, you can literally start your day on a better foot and you can go out and tackle whatever gets thrown at you. And so there’s a whole mindset shift that happens. And you know, I’m also a big fan of mental health.

That’s an awkward thing to say, but I think mental health is not really addressed all that well especially in the primary care setting. And I think these medications through weight loss and helping patients accomplish their goals do a whole lot for mental health too.

And so, I think there’s some room there that just feel better, they have a better outlook on And ultimately, that’s. what we want, right? My favorite line is that nobody wants to live to be a hundred if you can’t enjoy life.

So we don’t want you coming up with this new lifestyle where Casey, you can [00:25:00] only eat rice. And then every Thursday you get to eat some chicken and that’s it because that’s unsustainable. You’re not going to be happy with that.

And even if you did lose weight and it added 10 years onto your life. You’d be miserable, you wouldn’t like that. And so we want you to have a good quality of life. And I think these medications help you have that and certainly they improve your outlook and can improve your mental health on how you view the world.

Ready to skyrocket your business and truly connect with your audience on a whole new level. Unleash the power of your story with Lucid Books. Imagine transforming your insights and experiences into a captivating book that not only cements your status as a thought leader, but also weaves a strong bond with your ideal clients at lucid books.

We’re more than a publishing house. We’re your creative partners on a journey to turn your wisdom into a masterpiece that speaks directly to the hearts and minds of your audience. Join forces with us and let’s embark on this incredible adventure together. Your story has the power to inspire, [00:26:00] engage, and elevate.

Are you ready to share it with the world?

Casey Cease: So are there any, folks that shouldn’t take this or shouldn’t make this type of investment?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah, absolutely there are. One is the thyroid cancer. We didn’t really talk about that, but boy, way back when the first GLP 1 medication came out, which was Victoza, boy, maybe 12 years ago, in their phase one clinical trials, the mice who got Victoza had a higher risk of a very specific type of thyroid cancer.

That wasn’t seen in the phase two, phase three clinical trials. But they got hit with a black box warning that, Hey, you shouldn’t use this if you have a family history of thyroid cancer, personal history of thyroid cancer. When a semaglutide came out, which is Ozempic and Wegovy, they got the same warning even though they didn’t see it in their trials. Same thing with Mounjaro and Zepbound.

So, there’s maybe that risk about thyroid cancer. People with pancreatitis who are prone to pancreatitis shouldn’t take it. And then you get into the [00:27:00] whole vanity. So I’m, not a big fan of the people who want to lose five pounds for an upcoming wedding or some big vacation.

You know, these medications are potent, they’re serious and I think you should use this under the guidance of a physician and in a regimen that’s designed specifically for you. Not for those vanity, let’s lose five pounds here and there kind of things.

Casey Cease: That’s extremely helpful. I always wonder, you know, when I’m working with people as,

a lay elder now at my church, you know, I was a vocational pastor for years and I still serve a local body as a lay pastor and thinking through the soul, the nature of the soul and a lot of people want to separate science from the body and from the mind and I see all those things working together.

And so, as a man of faith yourself, are there any checks in your spirit for this type of stuff as well? And I asked that of my psychiatrist buddy as well, and he had a pretty interesting answer, but I was just curious for you, like, I know your job when you show up at work, there are considerations, but you know, as you are a spiritual being as [00:28:00] well, any thoughts or feedback for people who are just like you know, how does this work?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: You know, ultimately everything was created by God and these medications were as well. Now, somebody in a lab somewhere purified them, figured them out and tweaked them. But we’re designed to live our best lives. think we function best when we’re living optimally and these medications can help us get there.

There’s so much data on muscle mass and quality of life and longevity. And this is just one more tool on that road that can help you. And I just don’t think we were designed to suffer to be down on ourselves. And if this is just another tool to do that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t know, Casey, that’s a great question.

I, I’m

going to

Casey Cease: I asked,

I asked Dr. Peter Johnson about that with psychiatry and he’s like, Bro, your brain’s an organ. And sometimes organs go awry and sometimes you need help. And you know, he talked about how it’s God’s mercy applied through the way that people create [00:29:00] these things.

And obviously it’s a conscience thing, right? Like if it’s violating your conscience, then perhaps better to not force something. But I was sitting there with a pharmacologist years ago when was struggling with depression and it was a few years after my crash and everything else.

And he’s like, Hey man, he’s like, I was wearing my glasses. He said, why don’t you take off your glasses for a minute? I said, okay. And he said, okay, tell me what you see. I said a lot of blurry things. And he said, so put your glasses back on. I put my glasses back on. He said, is it wrong for you to wear your glasses? And I was like, No. And he is like, right, because they’re an aid, they’re grace to you.

And he started, explained to me as a pharmacologist from, as a Christian and a pharmacologist from his standpoint that it’s, you know, this body’s temporal. This isn’t forever. I mean, even people who have eschatology of like, no, we’re gonna be raised again, we’re gonna have new bodies uh, in First Corinthians.

So, utilizing what we can to be healthy and to grow is that I think you said something important. You’re not talking about go and find somebody pushing these drugs in the back alley somewhere and self [00:30:00] prescribing and pushing it and using it yourself on the black market.

You’re saying no, under the authority of your physician. See if it’s a good fit for you, right? Because that’s the thing for me is like, I try to find people that are well grounded in the faith and that are at least willing to understand my standpoint and where I’m coming from and be considerate of that.

But I always like to ask that question just as Christians try to navigate the created and the creator and the creative sphere of utilizing these things that way, especially my friends that are more scientifically minded than I am. helpful to get that feedback.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: You know, it’s, interesting, cause we don’t understand consciousness. Yes we have a brain, we understand different parts of the brain do different things. But there’s no explanation for Casey, why you are Casey and why you are the way that you are, we just don’t know.

There’s a disconnect there and we don’t understand it. And so from my perspective you know, it’s kind of optimizing the things we understand. That’s all you can do, right? Is work with what you have and that’s where these medications are really shining a light and advancing our knowledge on maybe being overweight, maybe being obese. Isn’t a [00:31:00] lifestyle issue. Maybe it’s your dysregulation of your hormones that control your hunger and your fullness and your metabolism.

And these medications just bring those things back into line. And so for the first time in, your life or in my life and in 40 years of life, I can experience what the appropriate hunger is and not an all encompassing overwhelming hunger. And so, I kind of view it more as just bringing us back in line to how we were intended to really be from the beginning.

And, we’re all constantly falling apart. And this is just a way to, push things back in into line, at least temporarily, I mean, we’re all ultimately headed to the same place anyways and so it can help put you back, it can help regulate your hormones again and I’m not talking about like testosterone and estrogen. I’m talking about your hormones for hunger and to feel full.

And there’s people who just have a low fullness hunger or fullness hormone. So that they, never really appropriately feel that sense of [00:32:00] being full and if this is a way for them to experience what everybody else gets to feel or all the skinny people get to feel, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean,

Casey Cease: Well, I’ve noticed that with my ADHD medication where, you know, it’s like, Hey, I’m a hoot when I’m not on it. I’m pretty fun, but I don’t get much done. But it was always like, I remember when I first started taking it in college, you know, my doctor was like, Hey anyone ever told you. Blank. And I said, no, and he’s like, well, you should try this.

And so I did, and all of a sudden I graduated with honors, magna cum laude. And I understood what other people that easily could focus what it was like. And for me, it was a gift, it was a mercy. But it’s always, I think as people are navigating in different places of life, trying to consider what’s the best thing.

I mean, it does. If I ended up flying to Indianapolis and becoming a patient or something, then, you know, and, or working with my local doctor to get something like that, there is an acknowledgement of failure. Like, I’ve tried a lot of different things often and it hasn’t worked.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: we’ve had appetite suppressants for 30 years and we eat in America, [00:33:00] not because we’re hungry. Appetite suppressants don’t work. But think about what you just described Casey the difference between obesity and ADHD. You know, we, all struggle with something, right?

Your ADHD, you could walk past somebody with ADHD on the street and not realize it. For somebody who struggles with obesity because their hormones are dysregulated. It’s an outward expression of what they struggle with. And so they constantly take in that negativity.

And I think that’s why these medications are so powerful and becoming so popular, because for those people who for the last 10 years have been, you know, or longer been dealt with in a negative light by society, and we just kind of brush it off of, oh, they just eat too much, they have no willpower. They can’t control this obesity.

Casey Cease: Yeah. They’re gluttons. They, you know, they just can’t do anything.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Exactly. And versus somebody else who struggles with ADHD or, you know, high blood pressure or whatever it is, it doesn’t that outward.

Casey Cease: People are like, Hey, they should have spanked you more. I’m not sure that would have worked. I appreciate the sentiment, [00:34:00] I really don’t, but ultimately it’s one of those pieces. No, I think that you’re onto something.

So how do you advise someone just, this is my last thought I have here, but like, you’ve been losing all this weight.

People are either going to assume now that you’re on the shot or that you’re sick, you know, that you’ve got cancer or something cause you’re withering away. Right? So then you get skinny shamed you know, and all that.

So how do you advise your patients? I mean, to discuss or talk about it.

So, I mean, it’s going to be overt. I mean, if you, drop 40 pounds in three months or, you know, 20 pounds in three months, people are going to ask what’s going on.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Yeah. And you gotta be ready for that. But you know, most people are kind of surprised to hear that I’m not still on the medication. It’s been 18 months now since my last shot. And I’ve managed to be within five pounds of my ending weight on the medication. And so it is possible to keep it off longterm, but you’ve got to change things and you’ve got to plan ahead and you’ve got to anticipate those.

And so the fact that I’ve gone ahead and figured out where the roadblocks are and try and lay them [00:35:00] out and give you a map to address them, I think is really beneficial. But there’s you know, these, we didn’t touch on some of the other side effects like muscle loss these medications can cause you to lose muscle.

And so if you’re not working on that you’re going to look like you’re wasting away. But in America, nobody knows what a real BMI, what a normal BMI looks like, you know, to suddenly get your BMI into a normal range or your percent body fat into a normal range, people think, Oh, my goodness, you look sick.

But really, that’s what healthy looked like 50 years ago, 40 years ago. It’s just we look around and everybody around us is overweight and obese that we think that’s normal, but that’s not normal. It’s common, but it’s not normal. And so I think some of it’s just education that you know, people are going to say things, whatever, let them have their comments.

But if you know your numbers, if you know that you’re healthy. What does it matter? You know, it’s just building that mental resilience in you. You know, you’ve, got to work on it, nobody’s perfect. You’re never finished on your weight loss journey. [00:36:00] You’re never finished on your health journey, period.

And so it’s something you’ve got to work on every day. And, you know, you wake up and you say, and go through it and the battle fortunately does get easier the longer you do it, but it’s still a battle.

Casey Cease: 100%. Well, tell us a little bit more about your book and the course that’s coming out or that actually just came out. And tell us a little bit more about that.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Well, so my book had enough questions about my experience with it. And that I just put the pen to paper and started writing and I cover the pros and cons of the medications. I describe them, I talk about them, I talk about patients experience, what I’ve learned through watching patients go through it.

And I give my own flavor on my own personal experience with the medications too. so that’s available June 25th. You can buy it anywhere. It’s called Take A Load Off. But there’s so much more that you just couldn’t put in the book. You know, I wanted the book to be a great starting place, kind of that broad, you here it is, lay out the roadmap, but then the course is designed to get a lot more [00:37:00] practical and, to specifically help you with your weight loss journey.

And so the course is designed for people who are on the medications and either not getting the results that they want, or they want to maximize the results while they’re there on the medications. But ultimately I think there’s enough good stuff in the course that even people not on the medications could benefit from the course and decide if they want to take the medications as well.

Casey Cease: Yeah, it was an honor to, you know, from from my publishing company Lucid Books to publish your book because you match up, you want to help people understand. And you understand like that, hey, awesome, the drug is a tool, but you You also need help and there needs to be change and you realize that yourself and from your patients and we loved your heart and all that and also loved helping you get your course schedule.

Tell us a little bit more about the course as well.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: So the course is a 12 week online course where you can take it, you get five videos a week. They’re designed to take one video every like Monday through Friday, but you can watch them all at once. And quite literally, I lay out the plan. I lay [00:38:00] out the formula of this is how you do it. This is how you get the sustained weight loss.

Here’s the things you need to work on. Here’s the things you need to avoid and here’s what you need to think about. Here’s how you plan ahead so that you can ultimately wean off the medications and keep the weight loss off. And so I cover all of that in detail.

I give you practical advice. From a coaching perspective of what you need to address, what you need to change into your life and the tools to get that sustained weight loss, you know, the medications are going to do their work. And then ultimately, like we saw with Ozempic, the weight’s either going to come back or you’re going to keep it off.

And the course is designed to teach you how to keep the weight off so you can get off the medications. You don’t have to be tied to them and you can get the sustained weight loss that we all want.

Casey Cease: Awesome. So what, questions should I have asked you that I did not ask you yet?

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Well, you never once asked me why I’m so awesome. So that’s,

Casey Cease: Well, I am curious about that, but

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: You know, boy, what should you have asked me? Darn it, Casey, you told me you were going to ask this.

Hold on.

Casey Cease: I was [00:39:00] hoping to cover everything. So, I mean, you did a great job me for it, but you know, in, us is chatting about it, but I don’t know. I mean,

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: I think there’s well, I got to give a plug for direct primary care in this as well. So, you know, if you’ve had any experience with the traditional healthcare system you know that it’s a sinking ship. And I fully believe that unfortunately, our current healthcare system is going downhill, it is sinking badly.

And I kind of view what I’m doing, direct primary care, which I’m practicing Western evidence based medicine. I’m not just trying to sell supplements or anything that I’m on a lifeboat over here, waving my hands, trying to get as many people, as many patients and as many doctors doing what I’m doing.

Cause I do think that direct primary care is the solution for the healthcare system. I think if we had more doctors, doing direct primary care having a better quality of life, making a better living and providing great service and great healthcare that America’s healthcare system could turn around.

And so that’s a whole nother [00:40:00] episode for a podcast, Casey. Um, But I’m a huge fan of direct primary care and I love talking about it. And because I do think it’s the solution, much like I think these medications are going to change the way we practice health care, just like antibiotics changed the way we practice health care in, the early 19th century, I think these medications are going to create just as much changes in health care.

And I think direct primary care is the same way. I feel so fortunate to be able to practice medicine right now because there’s so much opportunity and it’s so disheartening that the system is just going downhill when there’s all of these advances and all of this opportunity around us that we just need more people doing it.

Casey Cease: Yeah, we were talking about that the other day, we had a loved one that was in the hospital and just, I mean, nothing against the people that were working in the hospital, but just the dehumanization of having to hear this, person share their story. With three different doctors, four different nurses who didn’t know them.

I mean, I have stories to tell you [00:41:00] offline about that. It’s probably not appropriate for the podcast, but it was just, you know, realized that like something’s not working. So we’ll have to do another episode. And, you know, we have a saying in my businesses, don’t throw dead cats.

So like, we don’t want to come in and just talk about what’s wrong with everything, but come up with some creative solutions and ideas, which I love that you’re doing that with direct primary care and you know, with your coaching program and your book and everything else, like you’re not just saying like, Hey, Oh, guess what? You’re going to gain your weight back.

If you don’t form new habits, you’re saying, Hey, I want to write a book, giving you a resource to do that. I’ve created a course for you to have resources to do that. And so I think that’s very important. So John, where people, yeah, good.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: I’m an eternal optimist. That’s the viewpoint of the book and the course that anybody can do this. We’re all better together and there’s always a solution. You just have to figure it out. And I feel fortunate that I’ve figured out some of those solutions and I’m happy to share them with people.

Casey Cease: That’s awesome. So where can people find you online? How can they connect with you?

So on Facebook, I’m Jonathan Schmidt, MD. And it’s J O N A T H A N S C [00:42:00] H M I D T M D. And I’m probably most active on Facebook and then LinkedIn and Instagram’s in a third place there. But I’d love to connect with you. We’re also starting the direct MD coach Facebook page. And so you can check me out there too.

That’s awesome. We’ll have links to all that in the description for the show. I want to thank everyone for stopping by and listening or if you’re watching us live or watching us on YouTube, thanks for watching and stopping by and Dr. John, it’s always a joy to connect with you and I look forward to having you back on the show sometime soon.

Dr. Jonathan Schmidt: Thanks Casey. This has been fun.

That wraps up this episode of the Casey Cease Show. Make sure to visit our website, thecaseyceaseshow.com, where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or via RSS, so you’ll never miss a show. While you’re at it, if you found value in this show, we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes, or if you’d simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too.

You might also want to check out our book for business consultation available at lucid books [00:43:00] or double your sales strategy session at planify agency. Be sure to tune in next week for our next episode.