PQS Method

A simple, integrative approach for consistent energy and mental clarity, a resilient body, and feeling confident.

The PQS method is designed for health-conscious entrepreneurs and driven professionals whose health is affecting their productivity, focus, confidence, and stress levels at work and home.

They may also struggle with things like low testosterone, gut issues, prediabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and may even be heavier than they’d like to be.

Whatever the reason, they are not operating at a level that they used to be capable of and can’t seem to get back to that level despite their best efforts.

So if this sounds like you and you’re open to it, I’d like you to ask yourself a few questions.

Do you ever…

• Feel afraid of where the world is heading and whether you will be physically and emotionally up to the challenge of supporting yourself and family?
• Wake up in the morning and have trouble getting out of bed even though you have a lot you want to accomplish
• Struggle with inconsistent energy and focus to the point that you get to the end of the day and have not completed all the tasks you set out to?
• Experience symptoms that affect the quality of your life and relationships, such as gut distress, low libido, or anxiety?

 

And if you do fit into one or more of the above categories, are you frustrated by…

• Conventional medicine where are you only get 10 minutes with your doctor and all they want to do is give you generic advice you could look up on WebMD and a prescription for your symptoms?
• All of the conflicting information online about what the best diet, supplements, and protocols are for your specific goals?
• The amount of time, money, and effort you have put into feeling better and yet you feel just as lost as when you started?

If this sounds like you I totally get it. This is the story of nearly all of my clients who have been let down by their countless Google searches, physicians, and even more alternative methodologies.

In fact, by the time they get to me many are pretty skeptical if they can be helped.

And they should be!

The truth is the human body is unique and there are no cookie cutter protocols that work for most people most of the time.

What people are missing, including conventional doctors and the online health gurus, is a personalized and systems-based approach that is tailored to your specific upbringing, health history, genetics, mindset, lifestyle, and goals.

EVEN IF you have the same diagnoses as someone else, what is leading to that health issue and what needs to be fixed can be completely different.

For instance, I had a client whose type 2 diabetes was created by significant exposure to environmental toxins that was hurting his pancreas. There was no type of diet or exercise recommendations that were going to help him overcome the toxin issue.

This is just one of many examples why personalization is so important.

And intuitively we know this. We know that no two children are the same. That no two relationships are the same.

Sure, there may be similarities. But in order to get the best results in whatever you are doing, your approach needs to be tailored to the individual.

And this is where the PQS method comes in.

What is the PQS Method and how did it come to be?

I’ll be the first person to tell you this did not come to me through some grand epiphany.

It came through struggle, frustration, and the guidance of some amazing mentors.

I was working in a Functional Medicine practice with an MD and soon after working there I realized we didn’t really help that many of our 500 or so patients.

Not that we weren’t TRYING to help and following the principles we had been taught. We certainly were, it just didn’t seem like out patients were doing that much better after working with us.

This really bothered me because I got into the field to help my patients achieve significant health outcomes and it just wasn’t happening consistently… and this was despite spending YEARS studying functional medicine, taking advanced courses and internships, and shadowing world-renowned practitioners.

I felt out of alignment knowing I was working in a popular practice that was still “figuring it out,” despite charging a lot of money on testing, supplements, and programs.

So I begun working with a mentor who helped me understand the true importance of personalization and sequencing — doing the right things in the right order.

Throughout the years, I have come to hone my skills and understanding of what works and why.

Where I started with a lot of tools in my toolbox from over more than a decade in conventional and functional medicine, I’ve since come to learn the power of distillation — focusing on the few things that get outsized results.

• Instead of running a million different tests, I only use ones based on what each person uniquely needs.
• Rather than recommending 10 different supplements, I try to keep them to a minimum and only use them when needed for as short of a period as necessary (AND I pass on my practitioner discount to my clients).
• Where I used to have my clients try to live a perfectly clean and healthy life, I now have a more balanced approach that they can actually stick to but still gets results.

I have even recruited an extremely talented team including a functional medicine dietician, executive mindset coach, and doctor of physical therapy to help my clients get even better results than I could do on my own.

So to better understand what this looks like in action, here are the 3 core tenets of the PQS Method.

 

Tenet #1: Personalized audit

You are a category of one. Everything up until this point has influenced your current level of well-being. In order to determine what needs to be addressed you first need to do a comprehensive audit.

The 6 key causes of chronic health issues to look at are…

1. Nutritional deficiencies and excesses -- Nutrients are literally the building blocks of your body. Different systems require different nutrients to run properly. When you have imbalances, over time that leads to the break down of systems and the development of chronic health issues like impaired hormones, anxiety, or gut symptoms.

Most people know this. What they don't appreciate is that TOO MUCH of a specific nutrient can be just as bad as too little. It's all about finding the right balance.

This is why random supplementation or strict diets rarely works long term and can exacerbate imbalances over time.

2. Stressors -- This includes both psychological and physical stressors. Even positive things can create significant levels of stress, like a new job, moving to a new house, or working out too much.

3. Immunological (Allergies, food sensitivities, etc.) -- This refers to any time your immune system is responding inappropriately. This can be things like seasonal allergies but also harder-to-detect reactions like food sensitivities.

The big problem here is that immunological reactions create inflammation in the body. Short-term inflammation is useful, but when it happens too often or for an extended period of time, it breaks down the body.

The other issue is if you are constantly mounting an immune response to something like foods you are commonly eating that requires energetic currency in the form of nutrients that your body could better be utilizing towards healing.

4. Microbes -- When we think of microbes we think of obvious infections like the flu or stomach bug. What's harder to detect are stealth infections like CMV and Lyme OR gut issues like dysbiosis, parasites, and yeast.

5. Toxins -- Our world is full of toxins and you're not going to avoid them all. But you need to be aware of your common sources of exposure and how to mitigate them.

I'm not just talking about heavy metals like mercury and lead, but environmental toxins like plasticizers in foods/water containers, VOC's in your home, and pesticides in your food.

You also need to understand the detoxification capacity of your body and if it can properly handle the toxic burden you are being exposed to.

6. Lifestyle factors (activity, sleep, social, habits/routine, etc.) -- What you do on a daily basis, your activity level, amount of sleep, and even your fulfillment at work all play an important role in your overall health.

Lifestyle factors are easy to overlook because we do, or don't do, a lot of these things unconsciously. It is the things we do consistently that can build us up or break us down over time.

One key difference between the PQS Method and nearly any other approach is we are not looking for a magic bullet because they rarely exist.

The VAST majority of health problems are not because of one issue (like a vitamin deficiency) but multiple imbalances in those 6 key areas that lead to the breakdown of your body over time.

Thus, this audit MUST identify all of those possible imbalances. Instead of looking to make a diagnosis, you must retrain yourself to look for the imbalanced systems leading to the development of your symptoms.

The diagnosis is a distraction.

For instance, if you are diagnosed with low testosterone you will be focused on attacking that problem directly. But the real solution is to look at all of the factors that influence the production and bioavailability of your testosterone and then to fix those things.

Instead of blindly taking testosterone-boosting supplements or medications, you will methodically identify what specific changes you uniquely need to make to see results.

This is the only way to truly identify the root causes of your health challenges.

Following the personalized audit, you are now aware of your areas of potential weakness and ready to move on to…

 

Tenet #2: Quantification

Once you have spent enough time going through your personalized audit, you now need to use the right tools to determine what needs to be fixed and what doesn't.

This can include…

• Advanced labs (nutritional, gut, hormone, toxin/detoxification, food sensitivity testing, etc.)
• Devices (continuous glucose monitors, HRV monitors, pH testing, autonomic testing, etc.)
• Tracking (food and water intake, sleep, activity, etc.)

The goal of quantification is to provide you with actionable data.

Knowing that you are low in testosterone isn't super helpful for understanding WHY it's low. Knowing your vitamin and mineral status, sleep quality, weekly activity and sun exposure is because they are some of the upstream factors that influence your T levels.

The other huge benefit of having reliable data is it makes it much easier to stick to your plan.

Without data, it's difficult to know if what you are doing is working or how long you should stick to your plan without trying something else.

This can lead to you giving up on something prematurely that was working or sticking to a plan that isn't working for too long.

Knowing what needs to be addressed through testing, such as having low omega-3's via a fatty acid profile, makes it easy to formulate a game plan to fix those levels AND stick to your plan because you have a clear, objective goal you are working towards.

You can also verify whether you hit your goal or not by retesting. This feedback allows you to know with certainty if the changes you made are helping you hit your goal or not.

So now that you have collected the right data, what do you do with it?

 

Tenet #3: Strategic Implementation

Armed with the right data, you now need to implement change within the right sequence. What I see most people do wrong is they try to throw the kitchen sink at a problem instead of being strategic.

The big issue with the kitchen sink approach is that when it doesn't work you are left guessing what was working and what wasn't. When you are methodical in your application, you can see every step of the way if a specific intervention is helping you move forward or not.

For instance, if you start 5 supplements all at once and your stomach starts to act up, you now need to guess which supplement is causing the problem. If you introduce them one at a time you know exactly which one is the problem right away.

The other main benefit of working in the right order of operations is you get leverage within the body, which is how you get more consistent and long-lasting results.

Here’s the order that I’ve found extremely useful:

—> Environment and Nutrition

—> Lifestyle and Physical

—> Psychological and Emotional

—> Gastrointestinal

—> Cardiovascular and Immune

—> Neurotransmitters/hormones

—> Detoxification/biotransformation

This alone should show you where many practitioners miss the mark, including myself in the past.

When I had a patient come in with a gut or hormonal issue I used to try and tackle it right away. And when they didn't get better I'd throw up my hands and wonder what I was missing.

Now I know better.

Using this framework, you know the direction you need to take to get more consistent and reliable results.

This is the power of the PQS Method.

 

If you're stuck after working with several practitioners, doing a bunch of research, and trying out different diets and supplements it's likely you're missing at least one of three tenets.

While each tenet appears simple enough, you must make sure you are avoiding the 3 common mistakes people make.

---

1. The Pseudo Expert -- This is a person who gathers information from a lot of different experts and then implements the "best practices."

This is a useful strategy, but it often leads you to being overconfident in what is objectively best.

For instance, I see many people confidently say that zinc helps with testosterone deficiency. The truth is, it can help *IF* you are deficient in zinc. But unless you test your zinc levels there is not way to know if this may help you are not.

You may also be avoiding whole food groups that contain things like lectins, gluten, dairy, nightshades, etc. because you heard they were bad for you. The truth is, some people do react poorly to these things and others don't. And the problem with cutting out large food groups is you can create nutritional deficiencies by omission.

The Pseudo Expert knows A LOT of useful information, but they don't know enough to determine which things apply to them and which ones don't.

---

2. Data Addict -- This is someone who LOVES data. The more things they can quantify the better.

The trouble with too much data is it can be hard to tell the signal from the noise.

When quantifying, we are looking for types of data that are both reliable and actionable.

I see way too many people and practitioners ordering labs that are not scientifically validated (though they sound sexy), do not provide actionable data, or both.

For instance, genetic testing is purported to be able to determine your ideal diet, but there is NO reliable and repeatable data to support this.

And then there are more basic tests like a thyroid panel or measuring your testosterone levels. While it is useful to know if these hormones are off, it does not tell you WHY they are off or WHAT the fix is.

If you are going to quantify, you need tools and datasets that are both reliable and actionable.

---

3. Shotgun Sally -- So you've done the personalized audit and have the right data but now you just want to try to fix everything all at once.

So you drastically change your diet, take a bunch of supplements, and load up on different biohacks.

You may even feel better for a period of time. But at a certain point, this approach will stop working and you're left wondering what went wrong.

And since you did everything at once, you're left shrugging your shoulders and feeling like nothing will work for you.

---

This highlights the importance of correctly implementing all 3 tenets of the PQS Method.

It is through this methodology that you can…

• Know exactly what you need to do every step of the way. This allows you to stick to your plan because you know why you are doing what you're doing.
• Understand the different areas of your life that are working for and against you. Instead of guessing where your holes are, you will know with certainty.
• Stop wasting countless hours and mental bandwidth doing your own research and looking for the magic bullet that doesn't exist.

Instead of yoyoing from feeling great to feeling lousy, this process makes it so that after a short period of time you go, "Huh, I feel so much better but don't know what it was."

This is because you are no longer treating a diagnosis but balancing broken systems.

Michael Jordan didn't wake up one day amazed to find out he was a fantastic basketball player. He put in the work for YEARS, doing the fundamentals consistently, which lead him to one day being the best basketball player.

Similarly, your health will not be strong and resilient overnight despite what biohacks you try. But when you work on doing the right things for your body in the right order, over time you are going to notice a BIG change in how you feel.

And by doing it this way, you will have the knowledge and skillset to maintain that level of wellbeing long term.

Each of the people whose testimonials are above were exactly where you are today.

They had some health issues affecting them on a regular basis that they wanted gone. They had tried some things but could never quite figure it out.

And then, by going through the PQS Method they were able to understand where their holes were, what needed to be fixed, and how to go about doing so.

They now have the tools and a proven methodology to better understand their body and inputs required to predictably feel great for years to come.

Now, if you'd like to achieve these types of results with the PQS Method you can sign up for a complimentary consultation below where we can go over your challenges/ goals together and to see if the PQS Method is a good fit to help dial in your health.