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Saul Marquez:
Hey, everybody! Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Rocket. I want to welcome you back to our podcast today, and I’ve got a treat for you. His name is Dr. Wren McCallister. He’s got two decades of experience as a board-certified orthopedic hand surgeon, helping thousands of people identify, overcome and prevent hand problems like pain and numbness. This is what led Dr. Wren to a shocking realization and shifted his focus to helping people use principles of foundational health to live their best life with healthy hands. It’s such a pleasure to have you here, Dr. McAllister. Welcome!
Wren McCallister:
Thanks, I’m happy to be here. Appreciate it.
Saul Marquez:
Absolutely. Now, really, one of the first things that I like to dig into with our guest is what inspires your work in healthcare. What is it that makes you tick?
Wren McCallister:
I think it’s, at the end of the day, it’s a fundamental desire to help people. It’s the same kid in sixth grade, we had a classmate that fell in the track, skinned her knee, everyone ran the other way, and I just went up to her and started helping her, and it just, that hardwired instinct just to help people. Combine that with a curiosity, just enjoy, I love learning, I’m very curious. I like a lot of challenges and I like people. I Joke sometimes, I’d make a good hairdresser as well because I enjoy chatting with people. You kind of put all those things together, and then I’m in surgery because I like fixing things. So all those things come together, and so I think it’s just a natural expression of who I am.
Saul Marquez:
That’s fantastic, Wren, I love that. Great story too, and how are you and the business that you run today adding value to the healthcare ecosystem?
Wren McCallister:
It’s interesting. As a hand surgeon, I end up basically treating problems, and what I discovered after a period of time was that people show up with basically, repeat offenders with similar issues. And also, as I got a little further along, I began to just make some observations, and it’s a very similar type of individual that shows up in the clinic, and so my focus is shifted, it’s outside the clinic. I still take care of people with hand problems, but my bigger sort of mission, if you will, in the second half of life, so to speak, is helping people fundamentally alter the trajectory of their life in terms of giving them tools to live healthier, happier and longer lives that are full of energy and vitality, and the key to getting there are these foundational health principles. Ultimately, if we get to that, then there’s less chronic disease, and there are fewer hand problems as well. But ultimately, what I think it boils down to is many people put off issues related to either their hands or their health in general. They think they’ll get to it later in life. So I think this helps address that by bringing this message forward. It also helps with access issues, whether the financial or social, a lot of this information just doesn’t get to the right people. So there is a certain portion of the population never end up in my clinic, and this is a better way to reach them.
Saul Marquez:
Good for you, man. That’s awesome. So what is the message? What are you sharing with people that is going to help them live happier, more vital, healthier lives?
Wren McCallister:
It’s an attention to fundamental principles of foundational health. It really boils down to how you sleep, think, eat, and move. And if you pay attention to those four things, and really the sort of the question to ask yourself every day is how did I sleep, how did I think, how did I eat, and how did I move? And there’s a lot to unpack in each one of those, but at the same time, if you just start driving some attention towards that, you’ll start making changes that’ll make an immediate benefit. And as a result of that, you start to sleep better, which means you have less inflammation, fewer aches and pains, you’re better able to handle stress, you make better food choices, you have more energy now, you move more, and it’s a virtuous cycle. So rather than having people get confused with, there’s like 600 different diet books and things like that, all diets work for everybody to some degree, and so, yet no diet works. All diet works for some people, but no diets work for everyone, it’s probably a better way to say it, so. … strip away the confusion and get back to fundamentals. I had a lot of good sports coaches growing up that drilled in the fundamentals and those principles. Even the best athletes like they just harp on the fundamentals, and that’s where they work at, and I think often we just get confused and overwhelmed, and we lose sight of that, and we see it in the populations getting sicker and sicker.
Saul Marquez:
Sleep, think, eat, and move. I like that framework. It makes it really easy to think about. So on the sleep side, like, how many hours are you thinking? What’s the ideal number?
Wren McCallister:
It’s an individual thing, but you know, 7 to 9 hours, depending on the individual. If you sleep less than 6 hours, statistically, your life is shortened, if you sleep more than 9, statistically, your life will be shortened as well, so there’s a sweet spot in there. It’s not just the hours of sleep, though, it’s the quality of sleep as well, and that’s the other important thing too.
Saul Marquez:
Hey, so I’m like, I’m at that 6, 6 and a half. I don’t know. How am I doing?
Wren McCallister:
Yeah, it depends on the … There’s a small subset of the population, they’re called congenital short sleepers that actually, it’s a super small number. It depends on how you feel during the day, there’s a lot to go with that, and then you can actually look at measures of inflammation and markers, things like that in your blood work that can tell you it depends on diet and things. But some people are okay on 6 and a half hours of sleep, and they function fine, other people need 7 or 8. That’s the whole thing, is that it’s an individual thing. You got to figure out a hard stop, less than 6, you’re going to be in trouble. If you find yourself pumped up on caffeine and sugar all day to get through the day, you probably need a little more sleep. And it affects food choices and all kinds of things, if you have difficulty, get brain fog. Sleep is probably the single biggest chunk of all of this because it drives everything else. When we’re tired, we don’t sleep, our brain starts to crave sugar, so we start to make poor food choices. And you can’t will this away, right? Your brain will go. If you think about when you’re tired, you have a busy day, or you get 3, 4 hours of sleep, you get up the next day, think about what you eat. Guaranteed, it’s going to be sugar and salty stuff, and you can’t fight that. That’s your brain trying to get glucose.
Saul Marquez:
Your brain knows,
Wren McCallister:
Yeah, you’re hardwired for that.
Saul Marquez:
Man, that’s so interesting. Yeah, and we’re actually on the podcast, Wren. We get other sub podcasts, and I’m really excited to kick off a podcast coming up soon on sleep. It’s big, man, and so I love that’s one of the main pillars of your framework, something that everybody listening to this needs to be thinking about. How would you say what you do has improved outcomes or made business better?
Wren McCallister:
I think the idea, ultimately, improving the outcome is really going to drive down the cost of healthcare and improve the quality of life regardless of your demographic. Because when you sleep better, when you eat better, when you start moving, when you manage stress, all of this stuff, as I mentioned, is a virtuous cycle, and you end up with less chronic disease, and you get, when you have less confusion and overwhelm because your focus is on the fundamentals, this stuff is easier to stick to, right? There’s better adherence. Some will say the best diet is the one you’ll stick to, right? And if all this stuff is complex and you’re overwhelmed, you’re not going to stick to it. If you think you got to get 7 hours of sleep at night and you get 6 hours and 45 minutes, and you think you failed, that’s not the way it works. So ultimately, you’re building positive momentum. And some of this may seem obvious, but I like to say it’s hidden in plain sight in the sense that this is stuff we overlook, the fundamentals. We chased the hack, we chased the diet, we chased the new exercise equipment or supplement, and we’re missing the big picture. And when you have foundational health, when you have these fundamentals locked down, then you just unlock all this energy, and you feel terrific, and you don’t need that other stuff. You can, and if you want, you can start to add pieces as you go along, but get the basics first. We’re missing it.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. So a patient shows up, you take care of their hand problems. Do they leave with a log-in to how to live life like this, or how does that work?
Wren McCallister:
Not yet in my clinic because I haven’t quite figured out how to, yeah, it’s a little, it’s a lot to introduce at one time, which is why I have this sort of parallel path here. So it’s a busy hand clinic, and I ended up just fixing the problems. It’s just when I go back between patients, after the years, felt a little disingenuous. Then, I fixed your hand problem, which is what you came for, but really, these other issues are a bigger problem that will shorten your life and rob you. And another part of is, there’s a concept called armache, which is kind of like headache, so it’s nonspecific limb pain. And so people that lack a sense of self-efficacy, poor coping skills, things like that, which gets to stress management and things like that, it’ll manifest itself physically. And so they’ll come with, you know, what most of what I do is applied anatomy, if something’s wrong, I can go from A to B, a straight line, and fix it, but there’s a subset of folks who, man, there’s just nothing there that I can fix. There’s usually something else behind it, and you start to ask them, Yeah, I’m getting hammered at work or, you know, this is happening, and it’s a manifestation of sort of stress management, and then it affects their sleep, and it drags into all this stuff. So it’s a lot to get into a clinic, and that’s why I have a parallel path here with this, but I think it’s an important message. Like I like to say, it’ll do more than anyone, anything I can do in the operating room for people, which, the operating room is pretty cool, that’s really saying a lot.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, for sure. There’s a lot of people on that proverbial playground, scuffed up knees, you’re wanting to do this for them, and I think that’s really cool. What’s one of the biggest setbacks you’ve had, and what’s been a key learning out of that?
Wren McCallister:
Probably the biggest setback is sort of a shock, it’s just the … predisposition of metabolic syndrome. And so I was a medical student, and a resident neurologist, I said, hey, my buddy’s got a study going. Let’s get a test, you’d be a control. I said, that’s fine. So we get our blood drawn, and the staff calls me attending and says, hey, you don’t need to worry about this now, but you need to keep an eye on this. You have your markers look like they’re heading in the wrong direction, and just keep an eye as you get older. Of course, like any knucklehead, I’m like, whatever, push on with life. It couldn’t gain weight all through high school and college, and then playing sports try and never worked, and so I just developed poor eating habits, I’d just eat. I could eat anything, wouldn’t gain weight, so it wasn’t a problem. And then one day, all of a sudden, kind of mid-40s step, would come home from Christmas, step on the scale, it’s like, shit, 215 man, how did that happened? And all of a sudden, it’s, damn, I’m here, you know? The waist is over 40 inches, and it’s like, what’s going on? And so going through that, my sort of own personal journey, discovering these principles of foundational health, tried 30-10 program, weight loss, a couple of different programs and things and really had to come to my own realization of that this really, if you focus on the fundamentals, this is what it’s going to get you where you need to be. And the realization in that was that the biggest one was, the time is now, right? There’s no someday. I thought, okay, I’ll start working out when my kids are through school. You got three kids, busy, all kinds of stuff going. When they’re through school or whatever, I’ll start doing this, and man, you just got to find a way to do it now because life is simply the summation of many little moments, and all these little moments accumulate, and that’s where you end up where you are today. And so if you find, you got to make it a priority, and you just have to address it every day, and then it’s a consistent, persistent action, it’s never going to be perfect, but you just have to hammer away at it. And next thing you know, you turn around a little while later, and everything is reversed, and you’re feeling great. My wife’s a health coach. She helped a little bit as well, so.
Saul Marquez:
Oh, nice. That’s awesome, man.
Wren McCallister:
She nagged me for a while. I said, okay, whatever. And then all of a sudden, Hey, wait a second. What you’re saying is making a lot of sense.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. It sounds like my house over here. And actually, just being transparent here, literally like now, right? A couple of weeks ago looked down at the scale, and I’m 185. I mean, that’s high as I’ve ever been, and right now, I’m on my own journey to reverse that. I want to be 20 pounds lighter. So, like you were sharing with me, you recently lost 20 pounds, right? Or within the last few years.
Wren McCallister:
So when I’d stepped on that scale said, okay, something’s got to change. Lost 20 pounds of fat, added 7 pounds of muscle, and it’s all from resistance training, right? Like it’s not running. I used to run or walk a little, my son’s practice and stuff, but nothing, the needle doesn’t move, but it’s when you start realizing what the fundamentals, start resistance training, and then your body composition starts changing, and that’s a whole ‘nother topic. But the resistance training people are spending hours on pelotons and treadmills and things, and it’s not what you need to change your body. And the, I just finished a book recently. It’s a short one, Resistance Training Over 40, and it’s just really making the argument that you need to lift heavy things and push heavy things to live longer, lose weight, get the longevity you want. I mean, it unlocks so many things in wellness, but that was the key. And then diet, right? You got to, they say abs are made in the kitchen, right? But you got to put the right things in your body, and nobody’s perfect with it, right? That’s the whole thing. It’s not, like you’re never going to be perfect, but if you start stacking these things together, you don’t really have to be, which is nice.
Saul Marquez:
Well said. Thank you for that, Wren. And you know, for me, it’s alcohol. Like I just love having a drink after work. I actually went on a no-drinking 30-day thing, and I’m already losing weight, like that in itself.
Wren McCallister:
Yeah, alcohol is a huge source of empty calories, and it’s a ton of sugar, right? So it’s interesting, actually, you know, my son, he’s in college now, but he had gotten to know a professional punter when COVID hit. They were all, NFL gave him all hammer weights, right? Hammer strength weights. You couldn’t buy any equipment in the NFL, just, you know, of course, they get everything, right?
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, of course.
Wren McCallister:
So this guy goes down to training camp, and he’s, hey, man, Jack, you want my weights? And Jack’s sure, yeah, we’ll take them. So that’s how we started lifting and then signed up getting a rack and everything else. So Jack’s up the weights from the player, we started lifting, and all of a sudden I realized, man, I don’t have time to drink at night because, you know, you come home, you lift. By the time you’re done lifting, you know, I like to lift at night, lift whatever’s good for you, you’re stronger, theoretically, you know, but it’s whatever works for you. 6:37 and lift, and I don’t have any alcohol. And so I just, ironically, I stopped drinking during COVID. Not that I drank a lot, but it was like just …
Saul Marquez:
The opposite of most people.
Wren McCallister:
Yeah, exactly. So then I would, then I’m like, so my wife’s, you’re, a little bit compulsive. I wouldn’t drink anything, and we’d go out and have a near beer, and she’d do, Come on, man, you’re going to be no fun if you don’t at least have like, okay, that’s fine.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome, man.
Wren McCallister:
I’d sort of joke with my kids, I want to hit retirement as a margarita connoisseur.
Saul Marquez:
Oh, that’s hilarious, man. I love it.
Wren McCallister:
So, you’re 100% right, though. So one of my son’s teammates, his dad actually lost about 20 pounds. And I say, what’s going on? He’s, oh, I stopped drinking. And he, you know, he probably drank a bit more, but you’re spot on, man. The alcohol definitely is a big one.
Saul Marquez:
Great conversation. Hey, so you’re doing hand surgeries, you’re fixing people, but now you’re on this other path of really, like, shooting for well care instead of sick care, right? So talk to us about what you’re most excited about today.
Wren McCallister:
Well, I think the thing I’m most excited about, it’s really the opportunity that these principles, foundational health, really offer people to live their best life because we all kind of want the same thing. We’re all on the same journey. You get along in life, and most of this stuff starts to happen when you’re over 40. When you’re 20, you’re invincible. Do anything you want, eat anything you want. You could run through a brick wall, you’ll be fine. My son just had an ordeal traveling, and he ended up being up all night getting home, and he’s fine the next day. You know, he went to practice, did his lift and stuff. If I did that, I’d be, I need a nap.
Saul Marquez:
Exactly.
Wren McCallister:
So in your 30s, you’re in that transition, you’re busy with family, and you’re still invincible, but you’re starting to realize. And then, but when you hit 40, if you look in all the textbooks, that’s when the curves change in musculoskeletal medicine. It’s when, it’s an inflection point where you start to see injuries and things, and it’s also the point at which your habits catch up with you, right? So you can get away with stuff for a while. So I think these foundational health principles are an opportunity to really allow people to unlock just the second half of their life and really just make the awesome thing that it can be, because that’s what we all want.
Saul Marquez:
Amazing. Man, Wren, this has been a great conversation. Again, I want to anchor us all on this framework. How are you sleeping, how are you thinking, how are you eating, and how are you moving? These are the things that are going to make a difference for you. Leave us with the closing thought here, Wren, this has been so much fun. I’ve enjoyed our talk.
Wren McCallister:
Yeah, I think that would be the closing thought. It’s just, ask yourself that every day. How did I sleep? How did I think? How did I eat? How did I live? And when you get, develop a habit of answering that question each day it starts to shift your focus and you’ll be on your way to achieving foundational health. You won’t get there overnight. … supposed to, you didn’t get where you were overnight. It’s going to take a while, but by asking those questions, you’ll start to make different choices every day, and this stuff just stacks on itself. You get some … momentum, and next thing you know, you’re rocking it.
Saul Marquez:
Love it. Hey, this framework has certainly stuck with me. If it stuck with me, I think it’ll stick with many of you. Big kudos to Dr. McCallister here joining us on the Outcomes Rocket. And where can people find you if they want to learn more about you and what you offer?
Wren McCallister:
Sure. Well, you can email me if you have any questions. Just DrWren@HandGuyMD.com or the website HandGuyMD.com, or on Facebook, Instagram, it’s just HandGuyMD. So you can find me any of those places if you want.
Saul Marquez:
Awesome. Wren, thanks for being with us.
Wren McCallister:
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. Take care.
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