How Bloodwork and Gut Testing Changed Everything (#154) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 154
Dustin Serviss shares his personal experience with bloodwork and gut testing, the questions it raised and why he became interested in measuring more than business performance.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:00] Measuring the human operating system
[00:00:34] Why Dustin asked for more testing
[00:01:45] What his gut-analysis report prompted him to question
[00:02:58] The changes Dustin reports after a targeted probiotic
[00:03:33] Asking more specific questions of a doctor
[00:04:13] Testing whether an approach is working
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Dustin Serviss: Welcome back to t pal labs. We're not just about chasing wealth, but actually building a body, your actual body, and a life that lets us enjoy it for a long time. Now today's episode is a little personal. We're going inside the human operating system. I'm talking about your gut, your blood, and how these two things may be sabotaging your best efforts silently. Now let me back up. I've been deep into health optimization since going to the gym when I was about fifteen years old, twice a day, before school, after school, but that is likely almost thirty years. But something more recent.
[00:00:34] Dustin Serviss: Last August, I started the Whole30 program, lots of protein, clean food, weight training, cardio that's, you know, not too bad, you know, not too extraneous, but my effort, I would call reasonable. Now the results were just not where I thought they should be. Now I felt a little stuck at maybe eighty percent. Not broken, just flat lined. Minimal muscular growth despite pushing hard in the gym, and the energy I was putting in just wasn't the ROI I expected. So I asked my private doctor to go deeper. We did a blood panel. Then we tweaked nutrition to actually what my blood chemistry needed.
[00:01:09] Dustin Serviss: Now, not just, you know, today's world, Instagram advice, and not a macro plan off a PDF. But a few weeks in, I could already feel the difference. Now, let me pause here for a quick stat. We're living in a time when biohacking is a thirty plus billion dollar industry and projected to hit sixty three billion by twenty twenty eight. Now here's the issue. Most people are just guessing. Maybe it's affiliate links and Instagram influencer stacks or this worked for me advice. It's everywhere. And honestly, most of it's fluff. Now I'm not saying supplements don't work. I'm saying if they're not matched to your body's actual needs, you're
[00:01:45] Dustin Serviss: probably wasting time and a lot of money. And that's back to what I was talking about at the start, my blood work and my gut biome combo. Now my doctor recommended something that I hadn't done before, a gut biome analysis. Now here's what it is. You take a sample of your poop, yeah, your actual poop, and you mail it to a lab. Now in return, you get a report that breaks down how well your gut is processing protein, absorbing vitamins, and fighting inflammation. Here's what mine said. Despite eating, you know, grass fed beef, high quality protein, and taking AG one and target vitamins, my gut was only utilizing twenty five percent
[00:02:21] Dustin Serviss: of the protein I consumed, and my vitamin absorption was twenty percent. I was literally spending a lot of money to optimize, and my gut was saying, basically, no thanks. This hit me hard. I've dealt with bloating and gas most of my life, but just chalked it up to be, well, you know, it's me. Turns out it was my microbiome trying to wave a flag for decades, and it was a bit of a... I'm not gonna say piss off, but I've been paying extra money for good protein, and AG1 is not exactly the cheapest vitamin alternative. So I've been basically wasting a lot of that money and it wasn't being utilized. So I took action.
[00:02:58] Dustin Serviss: I ordered a probiotic strain based on my gut specific needs. No guessing, no broad spectrum shot in the dark, and I'm not exaggerating here. Day two, my wife looked at me across the dinner table and said, you're laughing. Who are you even? Ten days in, my body composition started to shift. I looked more muscular. My vascularity was more defined. Same diet, same workouts, just better nutrient absorption. I did actually set a world record in March for the most push ups in thirty seconds, fifty four. And, yeah, I don't fart as much. Two huge wins. If you're looking to dive into this world, start with the guys I trust.
[00:03:33] Dustin Serviss: Now, again, these people are, you know... I have podcasts and all the literature online, but Peter Attia, huge longevity. And he's into longevity meets science and a little... Really, backs his data. Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist meets performance, and that's... He's on a lot of podcast. Tim Ferriss, still a legend in the test and tweak mindset. Again, he isn't... Is deep dives into things and breaks it down. Test, like myself, deep into the actual what happened. Ask the right questions to your doctor. Here's three I recommend starting with. Can we run a full micronutrient and hormone panel, not just the basics?
[00:04:13] Dustin Serviss: Number two would be, what is the best way to get biome analysis done? Number three, can we tailor my supplements to my actual blood chemistry? Now, if your doctor can't answer these or won't or maybe, you know, that might be a signal to get a new one, I'd be happy to share how I approached mine. I'm sharing this not to sell anything. This isn't a checklist of supplements. It's a wake up call. We spend money on optimization, but are we actually measuring if it's working? For me, this combo, blood and gut biome, was a turning point. After years of educated guessing, I finally feel like I'm running a protocol designed for me.
[00:04:48] Dustin Serviss: If you're curious about this kind of private health care journey, the kind where you don't wait until something's wrong, feel free to reach out. This type of stuff, I'm passionate about, especially for business owners who spend more time optimizing cash flow than cortisol. Thanks for listening. Until next time, listen to your body, audit your data, keep testing. See you on the next episode.