Heart Health, Diabetes Medications, and Holiday Weight Tips with Dr. Catherine Toomer

Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week I am joined by Dr. Catherine Toomer to explore GLP-1 and SGLT2 medications for heart failure and diabetes, along with tips for handling holiday weight. 

Dr. Toomer is a physician entrepreneur, certified hypnotherapist, and NLP Practitioner. She founded TOTAL Weight Care InstituteTM to create comprehensive and compassionate weight health practices for both patients and practitioners to remove the shame-for-change model too often seen in wellness transformational spaces.

Dr. Toomer developed her highly successful TOTAL Wellness + Weight Loss programs based on the biopsychosocial system she used to lose over 100-pounds, reverse her insulin-dependent diabetes, and survive postpartum cardiomyopathy & depression.

When not creating courses and individualized health plans, Dr. Toomer is a keynote & TEDx speaker, host of Dr. Toomer Talks & a popular guest on numerous podcasts. She enjoys teaching complex processes in language people understand while adding tools that can be immediately implemented.

0:00 Welcome back! Guest Intro
02:23 Medication for Congestive Heart Failure
07:06 Diabetes Medications
15:55 SGLT2 for Kidney Protection
17:48 New Medications and Exciting Developments
18:59 Holiday Survival Tips
22:03 Strategies for Holiday Eating
29:06 Additional Tips and Conclusion

Connect with Dr. Toomer
Email: courage@drtoomer.com
Website: www.drtoomer.com
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@UCiuG3nCQbxhY-qgMZyk4JwA 

Connect with Dr. Kerry Reller
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearwaterFamily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clearwaterfamilymedicine/
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy Website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwaterallergy/home

Subscribe to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, iheartradio, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pandora.

#glp1 #glp1weightloss #ozempic  #wegovy  #semaglutide  #mounjaro  #tirzepatide  #weightlosstips  #obecityspecialist #familymedicine

Transcript

Kerry: 0:28

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller. And today we have a very exciting and special guest, Dr. Catherine Harman Toomer. Welcome to the podcast.

Catherine: 0:40

Thank you for having me.

Kerry: 0:41

Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

GMT20231115-140517_Recording_separate2: 0:45

All right. Well, I am Dr. Catherine Toomer. I'm a family medicine and community health physician and trained in your state, actually in Gainesville, University of Florida. And many, many years ago, I won't say how many, and I'm the founder of Total Weight Care Institute, which is really a new institute, which is kind of a umbrella organization that houses my program for patients who want to maximize their health and wellness through weight loss. It's also teaches physicians and other clinicians how to provide complete and compassionate weight care and weight health services for their patients. But also the third wing is a nonprofit in the developing and that's to provide weight health services for those who don't normally have access in my community.

Kerry: 1:35

Well, that is definitely going to be something exciting as you develop that because I mean, not just your community, but obviously all across our country and everywhere else. But there's a lot of people who don't have access and it's difficult. And I mean I don't know if it's going to come up today, but just even like we've talked about medications before on my podcast that people don't have access to that. So that's really commendable that you're adding all of that to your institute as well. So how did you get involved in all of this?

Catherine: 2:04

Well it started really with college. I've always known I wanted to be a physician. I always knew I wanted to be a family physician because I wanted to be able to have some flexibility in what I could do with my education. But over the years, the stress- I'm very sensitive to stress, I have very high family genetic component. I'm predisposed to diabetes. I guess that's the way of putting it. And so over the years from stress, I just slowly started gaining weight and then started having the secondary diseases associated with that weight gain, like diabetes. And so by the time I finished college, residency, and all the rest, marriage, having two babies in three years, I was roughly over a hundred pounds overweight and was on insulin as a diabetic. A month after my daughter was born, went into congestive heart failure, which isn't uncommon. it's rare, but when it does happen after pregnancy, it is one of the times that congestive heart failure can happen. And at the time, my prognosis was really poor. I was told I had a 50 percent chance of living five years, and there was really nothing I could do about it. And so I decided to focus on what I could, and that was getting my diabetes under control and also trying to help with my weight and knew that they were connected and I knew that if I controlled one, it would control the other. And so I tried to do them both at the same time. But unfortunately I couldn't get help. Everyone was scared of me because of my heart. And so my husband and I, who's also a physician, we started creating a program for me. I documented everything, I paid attention to what I could eat and what I couldn't, what made my blood sugars go up, what didn't make my blood sugars go up. But one of the most important components though, was that I had been trained in a biopsychosocial approach to medicine. In that you do pay attention to the biology, the psychology, and the sociology happening. And so when I had these two babies, I had my husband who was supportive and I just couldn't do anything. I had no motivation whatsoever, even scared. I didn't. And I realized I was really deeply in depression, postpartum depression. I already had a low level chronic depression, which I had treated in the past. And then cardiac depression, cardiac disease can cause depression as well. And so I started there. I treated my depression first. And after that, everything became so much easier. And so years later, When I was able to go back into practice, I tried using my program in a setting where I was working at the time, which were community health centers. And I just didn't have the time. I didn't have the support. And so I started my own micro practice using my program. And then when COVID hit that closed and long story short, I'm now virtual. I'm using the same program and then just teaching other people. But it's really important for me to make sure that There isn't any shaming involved. We often get blamed for our condition. We often get blamed for not being able to stick to a particular program. And so my emphasis is really on individuality and making it easier. So it fits into people's lives. It doesn't affect them psychologically and feel like a failure. And it also is healthy biologically. I mean, it has to be healthy. It's not really about weight loss its really about health and then weight sort of follows.

Kerry: 5:37

absolutely. I mean, so many things that you said there. First of all, I think at the recent obesity medicine conference, I wasn't there, but they did talk about the mental health component and association with obesity that really like kind of drives it. As you said, you treated your depression first. Right. And got that under control. And yeah, you were able to, I guess you said you lacked motivation before, but perhaps you were able to be more motivated to do some, the changes that you mentioned that you obviously had to do nutritionally. Could you tell our listeners what congestive heart failure is and what symptoms you were having. And basically why that's such a problem to be able to function, I think in society and try to lose weight, like, why is that so difficult? What is it?

Catherine: 6:23

Well, our heart is a pump, it just kind of opens and closes, opens and closes. It fills with blood, pushes blood out, fills with blood, pushes blood out. So when it fills with blood, about 55 to 60 percent gets pushed out to send, blood and oxygen to the rest of the body. In congestive heart failure, the type I had was called dilated cardiomyopathy. So my heart muscles got floppy. So all they did was go up and then they just did this. And so no blood was getting out, it was just pooling in my heart. And so that meant blood wasn't getting to the rest of my body. Oxygen wasn't getting to my body. So all my organs were reacting. My liver, my kidneys, toes, eyes, everything. But the most significant symptom is that when blood pools in your heart, it backs up and it backs up into your lungs. And if it gets more severe, backs up into your liver. And if it gets really severe, backs up into your lower extremities. So your legs start to swell. And for me, it was primarily lung. And so I was severely short of breath, to the point where I could not walk across the room and hold my baby at the same time. I didn't have the energy. I couldn't stand up and brush my teeth. Couldn't bathe myself. Mine was at 15%. wHen I was diagnosed, sadly though, I had gone, I knew something was wrong. I went to my doctor two weeks before I was diagnosed and said, I'm really, really tired. I just can't breathe. Something's wrong and essentially was told I was obese. That was probably the problem. I just had a baby. I was also anemic. So go home, eat more spinach and enjoy your baby was essentially what I was told. And then two weeks later I was rushed to the hospital in congestive heart failure. And also for some people, part of the problem with congestive heart failure also is that it can cause your heart not to beat in the rhythm it's supposed to. So it can cause strokes, it can cause a type of heart attack, but not really in the same way where blood vessels are blocked, but there's a high mortality rate, really high mortality rate.

Kerry: 8:34

Yeah. You mentioned your ejection fraction, your function of the heart was 15%. I think you said earlier, normal is, we usually say about 65 55 percent or more. Yeah. So that's a significant decrease of not being able to pump the blood to the rest of your body. And yeah, I think the most common thing is shortness of breath or you know, the fluid on the lungs, like you said, but I mean, how are you, supposed to get motivated to lose weight is we can't say go run a mile, right? Or go exercise. So how does that play into how you overcame this?

Catherine: 9:08

I knew that, I had diabetes, and I knew that diabetes is a food related, it's what our body does with food that creates the disease. And so I knew that I could control my diabetes one meal at a time. It's a blood sugar issue. And if I didn't feed my body, anything that could make my blood sugar go up, that controlled my diabetes. Now, unfortunately, I was a very brittle diabetic meaning that no matter what I ate, my blood sugar would go up. And so I was on insulin. But what I did find though, it wasn't so much what I ate. I started realizing it was the order that I ate food in. If I ate things that didn't have carbohydrates in it first, I was able to eat a little bit of something to because I was well, the first month that before I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, I was trying to breastfeed also so I was trying to make sure I got enough nutrients, I got enough calories so that I could support, breastfeeding a baby. But what I found for me was that focusing on protein, not so much avoiding certain foods, but just really concentrating on maximizing one particular group, vegetables and protein was really, really helpful. And fortunately, I love beans, a wonderful food. And so, the protein, the fiber, the nutrients, and the volume, I could get larger amounts of food in me and get more nutrients packed into a smaller Package. And so that's what beans did. But one of the things I did find with congestive heart failure. It's difficult to eat because our body needs oxygen to digest our food and congestive heart failure restricts the amount of oxygen that your body can use. And so I found that I had to eat little meals throughout the day because if I eat too much at once, I couldn't breathe. So really just focusing on whole foods, foods that were as close to the source as possible as fresh as possible. And as hormone free as possible and not processed. I didn't eat any processed. Fortunately, my husband's a wonderful cook. And so he made the wonderful, complete meals for me. And so I was able to use my diet. But not, not in this restrictive diet. Just, I ate the same thing I always did. I just changed the configuration and changed the order and managed to get my diabetes under control over time. And I was slowly able to come off insulin.

Kerry: 11:36

I think that's really important that you, you know, you mentioned you were predisposed to diabetes, right? And yes, you did end up getting it, but the important thing is that you were also able to have it under control, reverse it. And just because our family is predisposed to something doesn't mean you're actually going to have to get it. You can use the measures that you're teaching to, get it beforehand and not end up progressing. And that's what's so nice about-Our medicine is progressing and where you can diagnose these things earlier, so there's pre diabetes and then we can also pick up insulin resistance prior to that, as long as you have a physician that's looking for it. And I know that's something that you definitely do as well. And it's funny, I remember I don't know where you said this, but obviously I'm listening and you said one time, I think it was at the conference and you were like, Oh, did you eat all that food? It was so good, but there was high in carbohydrate. And you said, yes, but did you pay attention to how I ate it? And I'm pretty sure you were referring to food order as you just mentioned. So it's a big thing. And I think it's fun to use these tools that we have now to see how these things matter. So I'm sure, you know, people who are using like a continuous glucometer just for maybe they don't have diabetes or maybe they do, but they can use those tools to see, okay, what happens when, I ate the carbohydrate first, what happens when I ate the protein first, and how much of the carbohydrate affected anything like that. I guess my question to you is, do you still check your sugar? Do you use a glucometer or do you need to do any of that anymore?

Catherine: 13:10

I should, And the reason is I'm so sensitive to my body changes at this point. And I've gotten in such a routine that I know what's going to drive my isn't. Now the other thing that has happened is as I've gotten older. it Became harder and harder for me to control my blood sugar with diet and later exercise. I was able to exercise at a certain point. And so in doing that even though I'm relatively muscular, even trying to tone my muscle, it helped for many, many years. But as I got closer to menopause, It became harder and harder for me to control my blood sugars. And so I started medication again. So that has helped tremendously and it gives me a little more wiggle room, with things, but I do not check my blood sugar mainly because I know what does and what doesn't make my

Kerry: 13:59

Well, you're,

GMT20231115-140517_Recording_separate2: 13:59

now. Now that may change. Now, of course, if I start noticing that there's certain symptoms I start having, you know, if I start noticing, I'm getting more thirsty during the day, I'm starting to urinate more or my skin's getting dry or if I have a cut or something that doesn't heal as quickly as it used to, then I'll start paying more attention because those are all signs that my blood sugars aren't as controlled as they should be.

Kerry: 14:22

And you're a doctor, you know more things about it than our listeners, but let's be clear. So you're not on insulin and you're not on any medications that are going to drop your blood sugar where you should be checking it. So, I don't want other people to listen.

Catherine: 14:35

Oh yeah.

Kerry: 14:36

sugar. So it depends, you know,

Catherine: 14:38

Yeah, that's the key. Now I would check my blood sugar to prevent it from going too high. Most people, the danger isn't going too high, it's going too low. I'm not on any medication that would drop my blood sugar too low, mainly because I eat throughout the day, so that's never going to happen. I like food, and so that's really where checking blood sugars is very, very important, particularly if you're on medication that can drop you too low. And so, yeah, it's really important to check blood sugars. I just happen to been a diabetic for, 25 years, 26 years. So I'm pretty familiar with myself, but I would not recommend that as a tool for everyone to say, Oh, I can tell when my blood sugar is up. Your doctor still needs to know what your numbers

Kerry: 15:24

are Yes, absolutely. So you did get off all medications, like your diabetes medicines. Oh, that's amazing. Okay. And then, the newer class of medications are out and so helpful. And sometimes we still can't use them first line, but they can really help get people to better diabetes control. And then, like you were saying, you're not on any medicine that makes it go low. And you're on, are you on one of the newer medicines?

Catherine: 15:51

well, I've been on a GLP-1 one for eight years.

Kerry: 15:54

Eight years. Okay.

Catherine: 15:55

So I wasn't even put on it for my diabetes. I was put on it for my congestive heart failure. My ejection fraction started slipping a little bit. And so my cardiologist put me on medication. He knew that even though I wasn't- I was a controlled diabetic, I was still a diabetic, and there's still going to be some smooth muscle reaction to food that I eat, it won't matter how well I tried, that's just going to happen. I was just physiologically predisposed for that to happen. So as my ejection fraction started worsening. I was put on a GLP 1 to protect my heart because at that time cardiologists knew that it helped. It wasn't just for diabetes, it was helping in secondary ways. And so I was put on a GLP one, Victoza at the time, and stayed on that for many years. And then when Ozempic came out, it switched to Ozempic because Victoza's a daily injection and Ozempic is a weekly. And when Manjaro came out, I just switched over mainly because I was already diabetic, I was already on that class of medicine and I knew I was gonna start prescribing it. So it gave me firsthand knowledge of how it works, how to use it better. And so I'm on Manjaro mainly for my heart. My congestive failure, but it does control my diabetes and it also made me lose more weight, which I hadn't intended. That wasn't the intention. When you control your diabetes, that's really what it does. It controls your blood sugars. The other thing I'm on is a SGLT2, which is Farxiga And that is to protect my kidneys from my diabetes. It does a lot of different things, but mainly it's for kidney protection. And so I did a lot of preventative things because I knew what was coming. You know, take care of certain things. And so I am on medications mostly to protect my organs.

Kerry: 17:48

Yeah. I often try to get for Farxiga for patients because I think those are the two best classes of medications and not nodding- if we're not talking about metformin for diabetes, I just have trouble with coverage for the first Farxiga and cost. And obviously you have that for the others too, but there's definitely exciting things down the line and both of those, like the Farxiga preventing chronic kidney disease and I think it has cardiovascular benefit as well. And then like you were mentioning those GLP ones do have cardiovascular benefit as well and are indicated for those reasons, not just for diabetes alone. So the new medicines are kind of really exciting and I think there's only more to come. And I know you know, but the, the tirzepatide, like Mounjaro was now approved for obesity as well as Zepbound fun name. Yeah, but definitely exciting. We'll see what happens with supply and demand coming up. But, other things coming up, I guess, are the holidays and you wanted to maybe mention some of your hot tips for how to survive the holidays regarding the biopsychosocial and obviously navigating to be healthy during that time.

Catherine: 18:59

Well, I'm glad you mention the psychosocial because we talk about people's like, I'm an emotional eater. And I was like, you're all emotional eaters Thanksgiving is all about emotional eating it's warm and happy. You know, it's a social event. And so And it's not necessarily peer pressure, it's just how we are socialized to get together around food, to share, and all the rest. But also what happens for anyone who's on a health journey, who's on a weight loss journey that can also be a bit of a gauntlet. Because people are baking a lot, some of their favorite foods, it's called comfort food for a reason, because it comforts them. And so you want to eat it. And so what I've been doing for the last 23 years is around the holidays because one, I have a sweet tooth so I'm very tempted by a lot of sweets, the other is I like food. And so, and I enjoy it and I want to be able to eat. But for me to, for some people, if you eat a certain way, you may gain a few pounds. For me, if I eat a certain way, my heart reacts. And so I have to be very careful. But what I found is, and this is something that I've done, my family now does, is that we have everything we normally have, all the fixings, everything. But what we do is we start our meal with protein and vegetables, so just a small plate, just a little bit, just enough to prime your body to saying, this is what I'm going to be eating. So your body starts focusing on your protein and your vegetables, then you go back and get a little bit of all the goodies, the macaroni and cheese, candied yams and all the rest you know, roll, whatever. And then just enjoy it. Sit down, have a meal that you really enjoy that makes you feel good and not guilty. And if your body reacts in a way that's health related, then of course you have to make adjustments. But if it's just about weight or weight gain, enjoy the holidays. You may not. lose weight, but you won't gain it either. And sometimes during the holidays, not gaining is the same as losing. And then the other is really watching the sugary drinks. Anytime you drink, our body takes sugar and just turns it into fat. That's just what it does. It's our brain's drug. As soon as you give your brain it's drug, it just goes haywire and wants more and more and more and more and more. And so when you drink a sugar, It just gets so quickly absorbed that your body just goes haywire. And so it's better to try to stay with zero sugar drinks throughout the holidays. And then if you decide that you want to have desserts, which I like to have my desserts, I just protein load my meals, make sure that my meals are really about, 70 percent protein. And then I eat dessert as my baked potato or as my macaroni and cheese so it becomes part of my meal, the whole meal and how I look at it so that it all balances out.

Kerry: 22:03

Yeah, those are really great ways, definitely to keep the blood sugar balanced over the things that you're going to be consuming. I think Thanksgiving is a little bit easier because it's like one day, sometimes only one meal, some people do have, multiple engagements to go to and things like that. And then the question is who is going to have all the leftovers, right? And then what do you do about that? Now you can politely decline to take any leftovers or freeze them for another time, or eat them or don't, I don't know. You have to decide what is most important to you. But I think during the other holidays, it's like there's a party all the time, you know, and where do you Indulge where do you kind of hold back or because it's kind of just a lot of it sometimes right there's a cookie baking party or there's a holiday with the work or your friends or whatever. So how do you navigate that? What would you say?

Catherine: 23:01

Well, I navigate by making sure I don't go into those situations hungry.

Kerry: 23:05

That's a good

Catherine: 23:06

tip. I eat at home. I'll probably eat something with no carbohydrates in it because I am so carb sensitive. And the issue isn't the eating. The issue is how much carbohydrates you eat in that situation. And so what I do is I preload my body with protein before I go. Sometimes I'll use protein shakes. I'll just drink one in the car on my way to where I'm going. And so what that does is it will help balance out. Then what I do before I eat, I look to see everything that's available. So I can pick and choose. I'm like, okay, I may not eat the cheesecake bites and the baklava if it happens to be there, just decide which one I want more than the other. And then I plan my meals around my sugar basically. It's probably not a good idea to do this, but I do it and it worked for me. And for those of you who don't know, I mean, I've lost 107 pounds. I've kept it off now for years and years and years. So this is kind of how I've done it. And the other is, this helps when you're at a party and people have put a lot of effort into providing meals. If you don't eat, it really does hurt their feelings and it's just something socially. It's not easy to go to a party and not eat easy psychologically and it's not easy socially. And so what I do is I look and see what desserts I want, and then I go and start looking for the protein, and then I protein load again, I just get one of every single protein there is. And I eat that and then I go get the goodies at the end and then I make sure that I'm not drinking anything with sugar in it.

Kerry: 24:37

Yeah. well, one thing I like to do is get a little snobby is the word with my desserts, meaning like I may not like pumpkin pie as much as pecan pie or something like that. So maybe I'll have a teeny tiny taste of pumpkin pie and a little bit more of the pecan pie, you know, getting a little picky with what I really truly know that I will enjoy. Because obviously you don't want to hurt people's feelings and people do bake with love and that's a hard part of things, not to bake and cook with love, you know? And I think that's definitely something our family has done forever. Food is love. And unfortunately, That's the way our culture is but I think you can still partake in these things. I try not to, I really try to help me and patients kind of not overeat. So if you're going to arrive, yes, eat protein, balance the way that you're going to take everything in, but really listen to like, are you really physically hungry? Maybe you don't have room for that item. Maybe you can bring it home to eat at another time because I know you said it's emotional day, right? You're going to be emotionally eating because you're probably not 100 percent physically hungry to eat everything that's available, but you do want to like try and partake and enjoy the atmosphere, and enjoy the people. And that's the other thing I often try to say is enjoy what the day is about, right? We're supposed to be thankful for things and you're supposed to be with your family and you want to be thankful about that. So I think those are good things too. And then I agree with the drinking and if you're gonna be drinking alcohol, that also sometimes makes your decisions about food not as good. So really keep that in mind as well,

Catherine: 26:11

And also with mixed drinks, just making sure the base is a sugar free

Kerry: 26:16

Right.

Catherine: 26:17

So instead of using regular soda, use a diet soda, even though I wouldn't recommend drinking diet sodas all the time. But if you're in a situation, it's the better of the choices. So.

Kerry: 26:27

agree. You definitely don't want to have the extra sugar, from all of that, that you don't need and your body won't like it either. You probably won't feel so good afterwards. Anything else regarding to the holidays or anything else that you want to share?

Catherine: 26:40

Really just plan, it's really important to just plan. If you walk into a situation without a plan in mind, then the situation kind of plans you instead of you planning the situation. And so just having a system in place because people always like try this, try this, try this, try this. And, I'm actually fortunate. I have a lot of allergies. So people know this. I'm like, I can't avoid it. Or if you have it, just take a little taste and then just don't eat the rest. Just kind of walk around with it in your hand and then set it down somewhere. But I think now People have a better understanding of people's food and food habits and food preferences. I've noticed over the years that's not as prevalent. You know, going to parties and people trying to get you to eat something unless and I'll mind you, there is a psychosocial component of weight loss in that as you start to lose weight, there are going to be people who will try sabotage that weight loss and they'll try to guilt you into eating things that they know and you know are not good for you. And it will derail your process, and you may not even want it but they'll still push. And in those situations, it's just really important to understand that your health matters more than their family,

Kerry: 27:59

Yeah, politely decline, avoid that person, something like that.

Catherine: 28:04

you know, we all have it.

Kerry: 28:09

Yeah, for sure. 1 thing I should mention is you can always bring these things that you know aren't going to be there either. Like if there's a lack of green vegetables or something like that. You can bring that with you and share, make something a little bit on the healthier side if you want. And if there isn't the protein that you want, I'm sure there's plenty of Turkey, but something else, you can bring it with you. So you have that one thing that you brought that is good and that you can eat and then sample the rest so there's lots of modifications in the holidays and it's hard to navigate. And yeah, it's never ending and you know, you're going to have the same thing next year, probably. So if you don't want it this year, you're not going to miss out.

Catherine: 28:49

well and also it works for birthdays or any celebration really anniversaries weddings, whatever celebration you go to, there's always a food component and so you can just use those same strategies, no matter

Kerry: 29:03

hmm.

Catherine: 29:03

the event is.

Kerry: 29:05

Yes, I don't think it's a party anymore without a spread of food and they get quite elaborate, at least in our area these days. And it's really hard to navigate and it's always someone's birthday anniversary. It's always something right. So having a plan, I think is the biggest thing, right?

Catherine: 29:22

And the biggest plan, never go to a party hungry.

Kerry: 29:24

Yeah. Yeah.

Catherine: 29:26

That's not a good idea. It's like going to the grocery store hungry. You just don't do it.

Kerry: 29:31

Don't do it. You make bad decisions. You're Prefrontal cortex is no longer doing the work. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Is there, well, first of all, tell them about your program and everything and where people can find you and things like that.

Catherine: 29:46

All right. Well right now I am I do have a virtual group weight loss program. And that just depends on where someone lives what they need will determine how that program is created around them. It's sort of a hybrid because I do one on one coaching and I do group for the support and just for accountability. And so that people realize they're just not in it alone and what they're experiencing other people have experienced and maybe have worked through and they can help. And then with my clinician section is really just to for anyone who sees patients. or has someone within their office that sees patients who wants to have a successful weight care practice, then I have another course of program where I help guide people to the point where they can serve and earn with confidence and help their patients in a very comprehensive and compassionate way.

Kerry: 30:41

And where can they find you? Is

Catherine: 30:43

It kind of helps if you know where to find me.

Kerry: 30:46

Yeah.

Catherine: 30:46

You can always contact me dr toomer.com. That's D-R-T-O-O-M-E r.com and send a message that way. I'm on Facebook as Dr. Catherine Toomer. I'm on Instagram as Dr. Catherine too, I'm on TikTok as Dr. Toomer talks and on YouTube as Dr. Toomer as well. So there's only two Dr. Catherine Toomer in the country. I'm the only Dr. Catherine Harman Toomer in the country.

Kerry: 31:17

Okay. So easy to Google you. That's good.

Catherine: 31:20

easy to find

Kerry: 31:21

And I should mention, so you're, it's not a podcast, it's a YouTube Dr. Toomer Talks show. Yeah. So that's a live show. What is it? Tuesdays. So people can listen in.

Catherine: 31:31

and it streams to LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. And essentially I just bring in anyone who's related to health. And who has some type of program or platform that they want to let people know about. And I just bring them in and interview and if I don't have a guest I talk about the health related issue of of some sort.

Kerry: 31:53

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing your story. And hopefully that we will have you come back someday and talk about something else that you'd like, or I don't know. Everything's

Catherine: 32:05

over. I can get you on Dr. Toomer Talks.

Kerry: 32:08

I know. It's my turn.

Catherine: 32:10

I know I was really very pleased by the fact that when I opened it up. It just filled up very quickly, which surprised me. I didn't expect that. And so I would have kind of kept a few open if I had known that was going to happen. So but yeah, we've got to do this again.

Kerry: 32:25

Fantastic. All right, everybody. Listen in next week. Thank you, Dr. Toomer, for your time and we'll see you next week. Bye.