The Complete Protocol

The phone call could have ended a career. Commercial truck drivers with uncontrolled diabetes lose their medical certification—and for someone who’d spent decades on long-haul routes, that meant everything.

“He came in, he had an A1C of 11,” Dr. Aaron Hartman recalls. For context, that’s not just diabetic—it’s dangerously diabetic. The kind of number that sends people to the emergency room and changes lives forever.

“For truck drivers, it means your career’s over. And so… he’s like, doc, gimme a month. I’m like, okay, whatever dude. This is what you need to do for a month.”

What happened next defied everything conventional medicine teaches about diabetes management. One month later, the A1C had dropped to 8—still high, but legally drivable. “Now you can drive… I’m willing to give this to you for two months, buddy.” Six months later: A1C less than 7. Career saved, health transformed, life reclaimed.

If you’ve been following this series, you understand how the metabolic syndrome gang operates together, why mitochondrial dysfunction is the master controller, and what testing reveals the full scope of metabolic problems. Now comes the crucial question: what do you actually do about it?

But Dr. Hartman is brutally honest about what separates success stories from disappointment: “For every one of those, I have five people who come and expect supplements only to do it for them. They don’t want to change lifestyle. They don’t want to change diet… and [they ask] why am I not getting better? It’s like, you know, I’m sorry I left my magic wand home today.”

The truck driver succeeded because he understood what Dr. Christian Jenski calls the fundamental requirement: “You have to be a professional athlete at the lifestyle stuff.”

Dr. Jenski knows this personally. At 230 pounds with fatty liver disease, gut dysfunction, heavy metal toxicity, and a brain that had stopped working properly, he faced his own metabolic crisis at age 39. “I thought I had dementia. My brain was broken.”

His transformation to 167 pounds with completely reversed fatty liver disease didn’t happen with supplements alone. “It was a drastic lifestyle change… I don’t eat gluten, I don’t eat dairy. I don’t eat processed food. I don’t drink alcohol. Completely detoxified my home and my lifestyle.”

This is what “professional athlete of your health” actually means—not perfection, but the same dedication to fundamentals that elite athletes bring to their sport. The same attention to detail, the same commitment to doing the unglamorous work that creates extraordinary results.

The protocols exist. The science is clear. Patients are reversing fatty liver disease, normalizing their elastography scores, dropping their A1Cs from 11 to under 7, transforming their energy and cognitive function.

“I’ve had patients reverse their fatty liver disease, have their elastography testing normalize,” Dr. Hartman confirms. The question isn’t whether metabolic transformation is possible—the question is whether you’re ready to commit to what it actually takes.

Because as Dr. Jenski learned through his own journey: “The body is so cool. If you give the body the right kind of fats, it just does the rest.”

But first, you have to stop poisoning it and start feeding it what it needs to heal.

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Why ‘Good Enough’ Isn’t Good Enough:

The All-In Requirement

The difference between transformation and disappointment comes down to commitment. Not the casual “I’ll try to eat better” commitment, but the total dedication that treats your health recovery like the life-or-death situation it actually is.

Dr. Hartman’s truck driver didn’t succeed because of superior genetics or lucky circumstances. He succeeded because when faced with losing everything, he followed the protocol completely. “Gimme a month… This is what you need to do for a month.” No modifications, no excuses, no “I’ll start Monday” delays.

“He changed everything, absolutely everything,” Dr. Hartman emphasizes. Not most things, not the easy things—everything. Diet, sleep, stress management, supplement compliance, follow-up appointments. The compound effect of total commitment created results that looked miraculous but were actually inevitable.

The Failure Pattern

“They don’t want to change lifestyle. They don’t want to change diet,” Dr. Hartman observes about patients who don’t succeed. “They don’t want to treat their sleep apnea because they don’t like the machine.” They want the supplement protocol that will fix everything while they continue the lifestyle that created everything.

The failure pattern is predictable: initial enthusiasm, partial compliance, frustration with slow results, gradual abandonment of protocols, and eventual conclusion that “functional medicine doesn’t work.” But the protocol wasn’t the problem—the commitment level was the problem.

This is particularly challenging when you understand that the metabolic gang has been operating for years and mitochondrial damage runs deep. Half-measures simply can’t overcome years of accumulated dysfunction.

The Professional Standard

What does “professional athlete of your health” actually mean? It means treating your health protocols with the same precision and consistency that Olympic athletes bring to their training. Professional athletes don’t skip workouts because they “don’t feel like it.” They don’t eat junk food because they’re traveling. Their commitment level matches the importance of their goals.

Your metabolic health deserves the same standard. This doesn’t mean perfection—even professional athletes have off days. It means consistency, precision, and understanding that small details compound into large outcomes over time.

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The Triangle of Health:

Where Every Success Story Starts

Before diving into advanced protocols and targeted interventions, every successful metabolic transformation begins with Dr. Hartman’s Triangle of Health: gut, sleep, and stress. These aren’t suggestions or options—they’re the foundation upon which all other interventions build.

Understanding why these three areas are foundational requires remembering that mitochondrial dysfunction is the root cause connecting all metabolic problems. The Triangle of Health directly supports mitochondrial function at the most basic level.

Gut: The Metabolic Command Center

The gut-metabolism connection runs deeper than most people realize. Your intestinal bacteria don’t just help digest food—they produce signaling molecules that directly communicate with mitochondria throughout your body.

“Bacteria in your body make these organic acids, they make butyrate. Short chain fatty acids. These are signaling molecules that go to the mitochondria and say, burn off this bad stuff,” Dr. Hartman explains.

Gut Restoration Protocol:

• Remove the disruptors: Processed foods, industrial seed oils, artificial sweeteners (“neuroendocrine disruptors”)
• Feed beneficial bacteria: Diverse fiber from real foods, not supplements
• Address SIBO when present: “How many young ladies do you see have SIBO? Most of them,” Dr. Jenski confirms about PCOS patients

“What’s the source of butyrate? The biggest source is fermentation in your gut… the biggest source is actually the fiber you were eating.” When you eat diverse, fiber-rich foods, beneficial bacteria like “Akkermansia, Roseburia, ruminococcus, Faecalibacterium” create metabolites that support cellular energy production in every organ system.

This gut-mitochondria connection explains why comprehensive gut testing becomes crucial for understanding metabolic dysfunction.

Sleep: The Non-Negotiable Recovery Period

Sleep isn’t just rest—it’s when your body performs the cellular repair and detoxification that makes metabolic health possible. Poor sleep sabotages every other intervention.

“If you’re not sleeping well, if you have sleep apnea and you’re not treating it, that’s gonna affect it,” Dr. Hartman emphasizes. Sleep apnea deserves particular attention because it’s both a consequence and a cause of metabolic dysfunction.

Sleep Optimization Protocol:

• Screen for sleep apnea: “If you’re 50 or over, you should get a sleep study”
• Optimize sleep hygiene: Consistent timing, cool environment, light management
• Address the testosterone connection: “There’s a close association with sleep apnea and low testosterone, especially in men”

“If any of my patients have any of these and they’ve never had a sleep study, I order a sleep study. Like it doesn’t matter if they have a thick neck or what their mouth looks like,” Dr. Jenski states, treating this as essential metabolic medicine.

Remember that sleep apnea is a core gang member that operates in the shadows, often undiagnosed while contributing to the entire metabolic dysfunction network.

Stress: The Multi-Faceted Destroyer

Stress in functional medicine means more than emotional stress—it encompasses every assault on your body’s adaptive capacity.

The Three Types of Stress:

Emotional Stress: “Cortisol’s role in metabolic dysfunction… chronic stress and cortisol elevation affecting testosterone and metabolism.” Elevated cortisol drives insulin resistance, promotes visceral fat storage, disrupts sleep, and creates inflammatory cascades.

Toxic Stress: Environmental chemicals, heavy metals, and biotoxins create cellular stress that manifests as metabolic dysfunction. “How many people, how often are we exposed to petroleum distillates today? All the time,” Dr. Hartman observes.

Understanding the petroleum distillate epidemic becomes crucial for comprehending the scope of toxic stress in modern life.

Infectious Stress: “If you’re a mold patient, they’re a long Covid patient, they’re a Lyme patient, then all of a sudden you’re going down a different pathway,” Dr. Hartman notes. Chronic infections create immune activation that drives metabolic dysfunction.

Comprehensive Stress Management:

• Address emotional stressors through counseling, relationship work, financial planning
• Reduce toxic load through home and product audits, water and air filtration
• Investigate and treat chronic infections, biotoxin exposure, dental issues
• Support stress resilience through adaptogenic herbs, meditation, movement

Dr. Jenski’s recovery required addressing all three: “Completely detoxified my home and my lifestyle. Heavy metal chelated based on testing. Got my dentition right, purify my air, filter my water.”

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The Human Oil Change:

Cellular Renovation Protocol

With the Triangle of Health established, the next phase focuses on actively repairing cellular damage through what Dr. Jenski calls the “human oil change.”

“You do a human oil change – give them good lipids, exchange out the bad ones,” Dr. Jenski explains. “The body is so cool. If you give the body the right kind of fats, it just does the rest.”

This protocol directly addresses the membrane destruction process that petroleum distillates and industrial seed oils create in mitochondrial membranes.

The Membrane Repair Science

Your cellular membranes—including crucial mitochondrial membranes—undergo constant turnover. When you stop consuming damaged fats and start providing high-quality building blocks, your cells literally rebuild themselves with better materials.

Essential Membrane Materials: “Phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylethanolamine… these are fats that are particularly the PE and PI that are super critical for mitochondrial function.”

These aren’t exotic supplements—they’re components of real foods: egg yolks from pastured chickens, organ meats, wild-caught fish, and certain plant sources.

The Fasting Revolution

“The newest superfood is fasting,” Dr. Hartman declares. Strategic not-eating forces metabolic flexibility that improves mitochondrial function.

“Forces your body to go from a sugar metabolism to a glycogen metabolism, to a fat based metabolism that forces fluidity, it forces resilience in the cells.” Modern eating patterns—constant snacking—never allow this flexibility to develop.

“The average American in the mid 18 hundreds ate a meal in half a day, the ancient Spartans ate a meal, one meal a day. This whole three square meals a day is marketing from the fifties and on.”

The Unsticking Process

“Short chain fatty acids burn out the lipid rafts,” Dr. Jenski explains. Remember those areas of membrane dysfunction caused by petroleum distillates and industrial seed oils? The metabolites from healthy gut bacteria actively repair this damage.

“Everything’s just stuck. You gotta unstick it.” This repair process requires time, consistency, and removal of ongoing sources of mitochondrial damage.

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Gang-Specific Protocols:

Targeted Interventions

Once the Triangle of Health is solid and cellular repair is underway, specific protocols address individual conditions in the metabolic syndrome gang.

Insulin Resistance: The Metabolic Core

The Berberine Protocol: “Berberine is great for metabolic in general because it’s basically natural Metformin… And it doesn’t have the side effects or the nutrient deficiencies that go along with it.” Plus it supports beneficial gut bacteria and improves lipid profiles.

Strategic Supplementation:

• Alpha lipoic acid: “Insulin sensitizing, antioxidant, recycles glutathione”
• Magnesium: “If you don’t have enough mag, your insulin receptors aren’t working”
• Chromium: Only if deficient
• High-quality omega-3s: For membrane support and inflammation reduction

PCOS: The Autoimmune Metabolic Protocol

Understanding PCOS as “an autoimmune spectrum disorder” changes the entire treatment approach, as revealed by comprehensive PCOS testing.

Low-Dose Naltrexone: “Great for dealing with autoimmune spectrum phenomena… It’s a tonic… it just balances things.” This addresses the immune dysfunction underlying hormonal chaos.

Key Interventions:

• Metformin or berberine for gut bacteria support (“increases Akkermansia up to tenfold”)
• Environmental detox prioritization (“40% of women with PCOS have elevated BPA levels”)
• SIBO treatment (“Most of them have SIBO”)
• Targeted nutrients based on individual deficiencies

Fatty Liver Disease: The Complete Reversal Protocol

Dr. Jenski’s personal transformation provides the template: “I reversed my fatty liver disease.”

Understanding fatty liver as part of the metabolic continuum rather than an isolated problem becomes crucial for effective treatment.

Complete Protocol:

• Dietary elimination: No gluten, dairy, processed food, alcohol
• Heavy metal chelation: Based on testing results
• Natural detox foods: Cruciferous vegetables, artichoke, asparagus, parsley, cilantro
• Sweating protocols: Exercise and sauna for elimination
• Targeted liver support: Vitamin E, milk thistle, NAC, phosphatidylcholine, TUDCA

Gout & Kidney Stones: The Alkalinization Strategy

pH Optimization: “You want your urine to be greater than 6.5” through alkalinization protocols.

Key Interventions:

• Natural calm magnesium citrate: “The best for that ’cause it’s basically bicarb”
• Fructose restriction: The real dietary culprit, more important than purine restriction
• Gut microbiome support: Address bacterial oxalate production

Understanding the crystal connection helps explain why these conditions require metabolic rather than just symptom-focused treatment.

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The Cellular Energy Arsenal:

Advanced Mitochondrial Support

With foundations solid and targeted interventions underway, advanced mitochondrial support optimizes cellular energy production at the deepest level.

This becomes the crucial next step after understanding how mitochondria control your metabolic fate and why supporting their function is essential for lasting recovery.

The Core Five Protocol

“If someone comes to me with chronic fatigue and fibro, I’m shooting for like five grams of creatine two, three times a day. I’m shooting for the Acetyl-L-carnitine a gram twice a day,” Dr. Hartman explains, highlighting how therapeutic dosing differs from maintenance.

The Essential Five:

1. Ubiquinol: “100 milligrams if you’re 50… Normal is way too low”
2. NAD Precursors: NMN or NR (“NAD doesn’t get into the cell, has to be converted”)
3. Carnitine: Regular or Acetyl-L-carnitine based on symptoms
4. Creatine: “Everybody would benefit from 5-10 grams daily”
5. Magnesium: “Should be at the top of the list… 80% of Americans are deficient”

Additional Support:

• B-vitamin complex for energy pathways
• D-ribose for ATP substrate
• Alpha lipoic acid for antioxidant recycling
• PQQ for mitochondrial biogenesis

Therapeutic vs. Maintenance Dosing

For serious dysfunction, doses are much higher than general health maintenance. “My daughter for example, she’s on 200 milligrams twice a day of the Ubiquinol” for maintenance, while therapeutic protocols may require 2-3 times daily dosing.

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The Success Framework:

Integration & Monitoring

Sophisticated protocols require equally sophisticated monitoring to ensure effectiveness and guide adjustments. This is where comprehensive upstream testing becomes essential for tracking progress.

Success Measures

Objective Markers:

• A1C and glucose trending toward optimal
• Inflammatory markers declining
• Liver function normalizing (“His pyruvate was sky high, now it’s normalized”)
• Structural improvements (elastography scores)

Subjective Indicators:

• Sustained energy without crashes
• Mental clarity and cognitive sharpness
• Mood stability and sleep quality
• Physical symptoms resolution

“It was kind of cool to see that and to see it clinically correlate with him feeling better,” Dr. Hartman emphasizes. Laboratory improvements must correlate with how you feel.

Timeline Expectations

• 2–4 weeks: Energy, sleep, mood improvements
• 3–6 months: Laboratory markers, body composition changes
• 6–12 months: Complete transformation, medication elimination, optimal function

The key is patience with the timeline while maintaining intensity of intervention throughout.

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The Honest Reality Check:

What Success Really Looks Like

Success exists on a spectrum, and honest expectations prevent disappointment while maintaining hope.

The Success Spectrum

Dramatic Responders (10–20%): Complete transformation like the truck driver or Dr. Jenski. These patients typically have high compliance and catch dysfunction early.

Steady Improvers (60–70%): Significant improvement in most areas, reduced medication needs, much better quality of life. This represents the majority of successful outcomes.

Partial Responders (15–20%): Some improvement and stabilization. Even partial response is valuable compared to continued deterioration.

Non-Responders (5–10%): Usually due to non-compliance, hidden obstacles, or irreversible damage requiring investigation of barriers.

When to Escalate

Sometimes additional intervention is needed despite good compliance:

• Advanced testing for genetic factors, infections, toxins
• Specialist consultation for complex issues
• Strategic medication use to support healing
• Practitioner upgrade to more sophisticated approaches

The functional medicine advantage is knowing when and how to escalate appropriately. This often requires more sophisticated testing strategies to identify hidden obstacles to recovery.

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Your Professional Athlete Journey Starts Today

The complete protocol for metabolic transformation exists. The science is established. The success stories are documented. The question isn’t whether recovery is possible—the question is whether you’re ready for the commitment it requires.

The Commitment Assessment

Before starting, honestly assess your readiness:

• Will you eliminate processed foods completely?
• Can you prioritize the Triangle of Health consistently?
• Are you prepared for a timeline measured in months?
• Do you have support systems for major changes?

If any answer is “maybe,” success will be limited. Professional athletes don’t “try” to follow protocols—they follow them completely because their goals depend on it.

Implementation Timeline

Month 1: Establish Triangle of Health foundation

Month 2–3: Add cellular repair protocols and targeted interventions

Month 4–6: Implement advanced mitochondrial support and monitoring

Month 6+: Fine-tune based on response and transition to maintenance

The Transformation Promise

“I’ve had patients reverse their fatty liver disease, have their elastography testing normalize,” Dr. Hartman confirms. “I reversed my fatty liver disease,” Dr. Jenski adds. The truck driver saved his career with an A1C drop from 11 to under 7.

“You were made for health,” as Richmond Functional Medicine puts it. The body’s capacity for healing is remarkable when given proper support and freed from ongoing assault.

“The body is so cool. If you give the body the right kind of fats, it just does the rest,” Dr. Jenski reminds us. But first you have to stop poisoning it, start feeding it properly, and commit to the process with professional athlete intensity.

Your metabolic transformation is possible. The protocols exist. The science is clear. The only question remaining is: are you ready to stop struggling and start thriving?

The Complete Journey

This comprehensive approach builds on everything you’ve learned throughout this series:

• Understanding how the metabolic syndrome gang operates together rather than as isolated conditions
• Recognizing mitochondrial dysfunction as the master controller that connects all metabolic problems
• Using upstream testing strategies that reveal dysfunction before it becomes established disease
• Implementing these complete protocols with professional athlete dedication

The transformation is possible, but it requires treating your health recovery with the same seriousness and commitment that elite athletes bring to their sport. The question is: are you ready to become a professional athlete of your own health?

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