Laura: A recent study found that 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Sophia: Ninety-three percent? Come on, that can't be right. That sounds like one of those made-up internet statistics. Laura: It's not a typo, and it’s from a credible study. Ninety-three percent. And this isn't just about being overweight; it’s about a silent crisis happening inside our cells. And the book we're talking about today argues that the very system designed to 'fix' this crisis is actually a huge part of the problem. Sophia: Okay, now you have my attention. That’s a massive claim. Laura: It’s a bold one, and it’s the entire backdrop for the book we're diving into today: Good Energy by Dr. Casey Means, co-authored with her brother Calley. Sophia: And what's so fascinating about Dr. Means is her background, right? She's not some lifelong wellness guru. She’s a Stanford-trained surgeon who actually left her residency. Laura: Exactly. She was on the traditional, prestigious path and walked away. She realized she was spending her days managing symptoms—cutting things out, prescribing pills—but not actually making people truly well. The book was born from a very personal tragedy for her and her brother: watching their own mother navigate a healthcare system that ultimately failed her. That experience completely reshaped her mission. Sophia: Wow. So this isn't just academic for her. It's deeply personal. It’s a story of both professional disillusionment and personal heartbreak. Laura: Precisely. And it’s that combination that makes this book so powerful. It’s a takedown of a broken system, but it’s also a deeply hopeful guide to reclaiming our own health.

Sophia: That really sets the stage. So what did she see in the system that was so broken? What happened with her mother that was the final straw? Laura: It’s a story that unfolds over decades, and it’s probably familiar to a lot of people. Her mother was considered 'healthy' by modern standards. In her forties, she got a pill for high blood pressure. In her fifties, a statin for high cholesterol. In her sixties, metformin for prediabetes. At every stage, a specialist treated a number on a lab report with a prescription. Sophia: Right, which sounds like standard procedure. The doctor sees a problem, prescribes a solution. That’s what we expect. Laura: That’s what we think we want. But Dr. Means argues that each of these was a symptom of the same underlying problem: metabolic dysfunction. Her mother's cells were struggling to produce energy efficiently. But because the medical system is so fragmented—or 'siloed' as she calls it—the cardiologist only saw the blood pressure, the endocrinologist only saw the blood sugar. No one was looking at the whole picture. Sophia: That's just devastating. It’s like they were diligently treating the smoke, but the fire was raging out of control the whole time. Laura: A perfect analogy. And the fire, in this case, was her mother's declining metabolic health. The tragic conclusion was a diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer at age seventy-one. She passed away just thirteen days later. Dr. Means is haunted by the fact that all those preceding conditions—the high blood pressure, the cholesterol, the prediabetes—were warning signs of the metabolic chaos that likely contributed to her cancer. Yet the system just kept patching the leaks instead of fixing the engine. Sophia: And the system was profiting from it every step of the way. The doctor visits, the prescriptions, the lab tests… It’s built for chronic management, not for cures. Laura: That’s one of the book’s most provocative points. Dr. Means quotes a friend, a cancer surgeon, who bluntly said, "If you walk through the doors of this surgical oncology department, you are going to get an operation, whether you need it or not." The incentives are aligned with intervention, not wellness. She even shares a chilling euphemism they teach surgeons: "You eat what you kill," which is a way of saying you get paid for the procedures you do. Sophia: That is horrifying. It completely reframes the doctor-patient relationship. You go in thinking they are purely focused on your health, but there are these immense financial and systemic pressures pushing them towards more tests, more pills, more procedures. Laura: And it creates these absurd situations. Dr. Means tells another story about a patient she calls Sophia, a fifty-two-year-old woman with a whole host of issues: recurrent sinus infections, prediabetes, high blood pressure, back pain, depression. She comes to Dr. Means, an ENT surgeon at the time, for her sinuses. Sophia: Okay, so she goes to the sinus specialist for her nose problem. Makes sense. Laura: Right. And Dr. Means does the surgery. She removes the inflamed tissue, drains the infection. And post-op, Sophia is so grateful. She says, "Thank you, you've changed my life!" But Dr. Means feels defeated. She writes, "The patients aren’t getting better." Because she knew Sophia’s inflammation would just come back. Her sinus issue wasn't a random nose problem; it was a symptom of systemic inflammation, the same inflammation likely connected to her prediabetes, her high blood pressure, and even her depression. Sophia: It's like taking your car to a tire specialist, an engine specialist, and an electronics specialist, and none of them ever talk to each other to figure out why the car keeps breaking down. They just keep replacing their one part. Laura: Exactly. And you keep paying for each individual repair, while the car’s fundamental problem gets worse. Dr. Means realized she was just an "inflammation physician," treating one manifestation of a body-wide problem. And that’s the great deception: the book argues that the biggest lie in healthcare is that the root cause of why we're getting sicker is complicated. It's not. For most of us, it's metabolic dysfunction. It's 'Bad Energy.'

Sophia: Okay, this is all incredibly bleak. It feels like we're trapped in a broken, profit-driven system. So where's the 'Good Energy' in all this? How do we possibly fight back against something so massive? Laura: This is where the book completely shifts and becomes one of the most empowering health books I've ever read. Dr. Means argues the answer isn't complicated at all. It's about learning to listen to our own bodies. She calls it 'bio-observability.' The most powerful tool we have is the data our own body is giving us every single second. Sophia: Bio-observability. I like that. It sounds like becoming a detective for your own health. Laura: It is! And she gives a fantastic example with a woman named Emily. Emily is pregnant and, like all pregnant women, she has to take the standard glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes. It’s that horrible experience where you drink a super-sweet syrupy drink and they test your blood sugar an hour later. Sophia: Oh, I’ve heard horror stories about that drink. Laura: Well, Emily’s doctor calls and says, "Great news, your test is normal! You don't have gestational diabetes." But here's the twist: Emily, being data-curious, was also wearing a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, at the time. Sophia: Ah, one of those little patches that tracks your blood sugar in real-time. Laura: Exactly. And when she looked at her own CGM data, it told a completely different story. The single blood draw at the one-hour mark might have been 'normal,' but her CGM showed her blood sugar skyrocketing after the drink and staying dangerously high for hours. Her body was clearly struggling with that sugar load. The standard test, that one snapshot in time, had completely missed it. Sophia: Wow! So Emily had the data herself! She could see the truth that her doctor, and the entire standard medical protocol, couldn't. That’s a game-changer. Laura: It’s a total game-changer. She writes that Emily's first thought was, "I don’t trust that lab anymore." She realized she had more accurate, more continuous, more real data on her own arm than the hospital did. She was empowered. She changed her diet, managed her blood sugar, and protected herself and her baby, all because she could see what was actually happening inside her own body. Sophia: That is such a powerful story. But let's be real for a second. CGMs can be expensive, and some critics of the book have pointed out that it can feel like a promotion for Levels, the CGM company Dr. Means co-founded. What can the average person do without fancy tech? Are we just stuck? Laura: That's a fair and important question, and the book addresses it head-on. The CGM is just one tool. The principle is what matters: listening to your body. Dr. Means provides a list of simple, standard blood tests that most people can get from their doctor—tests for triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, fasting glucose, and blood pressure. She gives us the optimal ranges for these markers, which are often much tighter than the 'normal' ranges labs use. The goal isn't just to be 'not sick'; it's to be truly thriving. Sophia: So you can use the system's own tools, but interpret them with a more ambitious goal in mind. Laura: Precisely. And beyond that, the core of the solution is stunningly simple. It comes down to her "Six Principles of Good Energy Eating." And the most important one is to ignore all the dogmatic diet labels—keto, paleo, vegan, carnivore—and focus on one thing: eating real, unprocessed food. Sophia: So it's less about a specific diet and more about just eating food that our great-grandmothers would recognize as food? Laura: You've nailed it. The book argues that ultra-processed food is molecular confusion. It sends chaotic signals to our cells. A grass-fed burger and a highly-processed plant-based burger might both be called 'burgers,' but they are sending vastly different information to your mitochondria—the little power plants in your cells. One says 'build strong, healthy structures.' The other says 'emergency, inflammation, store this as fat.' Sophia: It’s like the difference between giving a construction crew high-quality bricks and giving them a pile of styrofoam and glue. You can't build a sturdy house with junk materials. Laura: That's a perfect analogy. And the book is filled with these simple, powerful swaps. Instead of white rice, use cauliflower rice. Instead of a wheat wrap, use a big lettuce leaf. Drink clean, filtered water, because even mild dehydration can signal your body to store fat. These aren't extreme, punishing rules. They are simple ways to start sending clear, 'Good Energy' signals to your cells. Sophia: So the revolution isn't about some miracle pill or complicated new surgery. It's about changing the information we give our bodies, one meal at a time. Laura: That's the core message. It's about moving from being a passive patient in a broken system to being the active CEO of your own health.

Laura: The real power of Good Energy is in that stark contrast it paints. It first pulls back the curtain on a healthcare system that, through its very structure and incentives, often benefits from our confusion and sickness. It can leave you feeling a bit angry and helpless. Sophia: Absolutely. The first part of our conversation was pretty grim. It’s easy to feel like a victim of these huge, impersonal forces. Laura: But then, the book does a complete 180. It hands the power right back to you. It says the most sophisticated, responsive, and powerful piece of health technology on the entire planet is your own body, if you just learn to listen to it. The answer isn't 'out there' in a new drug or a new specialist. It’s 'in here.' Sophia: I love that. It reframes everything. The symptoms we hate—the fatigue, the brain fog, the acne—are not the enemy. They’re messengers. They’re your body’s way of saying, "Hey, the information you're sending me isn't working! The fuel is wrong!" Laura: Exactly. They are a gift of feedback. And once you see it that way, you can start a new conversation with your body. You can start providing it with the right information—through real food, better sleep, movement, and sunlight. Sophia: So if there's one thing someone could do today, right now, after listening to this, what would be the simplest first step from the book? Laura: It’s almost comically simple, but incredibly effective. The next time you eat a meal, just go for a 10-minute walk afterward. That’s it. You don’t have to go to the gym or run a marathon. That simple act of muscle contraction helps your body process any glucose from the meal without a big insulin spike. It's a tiny change that sends a powerful 'Good Energy' signal to your cells. Sophia: A ten-minute walk. Everyone can do that. It's not about a total life overhaul tomorrow. I love that. And it makes me curious about our listeners. We'd love to hear what you all think. What's one small 'Good Energy' habit you already have, or one you're inspired to start after this? Let us know on our socials. Laura: It’s a journey of a thousand miles that starts with a single step—or in this case, a single ten-minute walk. Sophia: A perfect way to put it. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.