The Energy Blueprint Podcast

In this podcast, I am speaking with Dr. Reef Karim, a leading expert in human behavior, who has dedicated his life to educating, entertaining, and helping people understand themselves better. Dr. Karim is a double board certified psychiatrist, addiction medicine physician, relationship expert, writer, speaker (with recurring appearances on Oprah, Dr. Oz, CNN, Larry King Live, Dr. Phil, Anderson Cooper, and many others), comedic host, and media personality.  We will discuss the "victim mindset" and how it appears to be rapidly spreading in the younger generations across the Western world, the difference between victimhood and vulnerability, conformism vs. authenticity/courage, healing from trauma, self-sabotaging behavior, and how to grow into the fullest expression of your own capacities and authentic self. 

Did you know that, in the United States alone, one in two women and one in four men over the age of 50 will have a fracture due to osteoporosis?  And if this happens to be a hip fracture, 24% will die within a year due to complications, while an even higher percentage will never be independent again.  The most unfortunate part is that conventional doctors typically just prescribe vitamin D, calcium, and maybe a non-specific form of exercise…then immediately put you on medication without examining root causes. In this episode, Margie Bissinger, a physical therapist with over 25 years of experience treating osteoporosis, reveals the real culprits behind the bone density epidemic, including sugar, gluten sensitivity and gut inflammation, proton-pump inhibitors like Nexium and Prilosec, corticosteroids, antidepressants, stress and cortisol, and sedentary behavior. Listen to the full episode to get all of Margie's actionable information to avoid or even begin reversing osteoporosis. This episode was initially released in March 2023  

Dr. Izabella Wentz is a renowned pharmacist focused on thyroid health. In this episode, she reveals a shocking pattern: about 90% of people with Hashimoto's have alterations in how much cortisol they release throughout the day.  They struggle with brain fog, chronic fatigue, and sleep issues—tired all day, wired at night—even when they're on thyroid medications. She's discovered something fascinating about "adrenal fatigue" that challenges both the old naturopathic model and the skeptics.  Your adrenals aren't damaged or lazy…they're perfectly capable of producing hormones. "Adrenal fatigue" is an intelligent adaptive response where your body down-regulates cortisol production to protect itself from chronic stress, essentially saying, "This is unrealistic, we can't pump out high amounts of cortisol all the time." After being forced to find solutions during years of severe sleep deprivation with her son, Dr. Wentz developed a 4-week protocol that has now helped thousands of people. By week two, people report their anxiety dropping from an 8 to a 2. By week four, their libido returns and they feel transformed, all without hormones, complicated testing, or bags full of supplements.  

In this episode, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan shares a statistic that should stop everyone in their tracks: 50% of people will be diagnosed with a mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. When she was a kid in the 1950s, that rate was 1% or less. As a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary and co-author of The Better Brain, Dr. Kaplan has spent decades researching what went wrong. She shares the case of "Andrew," a 10-year-old with childhood psychosis who recovered on micronutrients when six months of psychiatric care failed…yet his doctor refused to try it with other patients because "it's not part of clinical practice guidelines." This episode was initially released in July 2022

This interview took place on a historic day: the FDA removed the black box warning for HRT (hormone replacement therapy) after 20 years. My guest, Dr. Mariza Snyder, author of The Perimenopause Revolution, explains why this matters and why women have been suffering needlessly for decades while doctors dismissed their symptoms as "just aging" or "just stress." Perimenopause is the 4 to 10-year transition where hormones wildly fluctuate before menopause, and Dr. Snyder calls it "the window of vulnerability." She uses a powerful metaphor: imagine estrogen as your brain's master CEO who shows up like clockwork from 9 AM to 6 PM for 30 years. Then, suddenly, without warning, it shows up at 2 PM one day and leaves at 11 PM, then shows up at 6 AM the next day and leaves at 11 AM. Your brain scrambles trying to regulate energy, neurotransmitters, sleep, mood, and cravings. The most compelling insight of our conversation is a Mayo Clinic study that found 84% of menopausal women don't seek care. Why? Because they feel judged in the doctor's office.  Dr. Snyder wrote her book as the roadmap she desperately needed when she started her own perimenopause journey, connecting symptoms to future health outcomes and providing practical solutions beyond just "you're getting older."