Transcript

Bill Jollie (00:00.238)
We know that there are hundreds of genes that are associated with weight gain and the propensity to gain weight and to store more fat. And the more of those genes a person has, the higher the likelihood that they will develop obesity in the right environment. Now talk about our environment. Is our environment right for people to gain weight? Absolutely! More than 73 % of Americans have overweight or obesity, while more than 12 % have food insecurity.

America is getting heavier, sicker, and more isolated from each other every day. Our motto, Move, Eat, Give, reflects our belief that virtually every problem in America could be fixed if we took better care of ourselves and took better care of each other. Welcome to Interrupt Hunger’s Move, Give podcast where we talk with experts in exercise is medicine, food is medicine, and food insecurity. And understanding that knowledge isn’t always enough to help you lose weight.

Every other episode showcases someone who’s lost at least 10 % body weight to share exactly how they did it. Interrupt Hunger is a 501c3 nonprofit, which helps you lose weight while feeding the hungry. Bring our free 12 week weight loss challenge and donate your weight program to the places you live, work, and pray. We fund our mission with sales from our movie, give bracelets and clothing. So please visit us at interrupthunger.org to show your support. 50 meals are donated for every item sold to the nation’s largest hunger relief network.

So get to look good while feeling good. Now onto today’s episode. Hey everyone, Jolly here. Thanks for joining us on another episode of our new podcast, Move E Give. And today I’m very excited to have our guest, Carly Burridge. Title of today’s episode is, It’s Not Your Fault.

how biology controls cravings and weight loss. Carly, thanks for joining us. So she’s a physician assistant and fellow of the Obesity Medicine Association. She’s the co-founder and president of PAs in obesity medicine and serves as a secretary on the board of the Illinois Obesity Society. Carly is the founder of Gainy Health, where they offer resources, support, and coaching to clinicians who want to provide comprehensive evidence-based obesity care to their patients.

Bill Jollie (02:10.082)
She is also the host of the Gaining Health podcast where she keeps clinicians up to date on the latest developments in obesity management. Karla works clinically as an obesity specialist at Ascension Medical Weight Loss Solutions in Westmont, Illinois. She holds the certificate of advanced education in obesity management and has received several awards for her work in obesity medicine, including awards from the Obesity Medicine Association, as well as being voted one of America’s top.

PA’s, such a cool thing. She has authored numerous publications and clinical practice statements on obesity care and is passionate about revolutionizing healthcare with compassionate evidence-based obesity care. So I think you are just absolutely perfect to help us through this topic today. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for inviting me to talk. I love talking about this topic. This is one of my favorite conversations to have.

with patients and also one of my favorite things to educate clinicians on. So I’m excited to be here today. Very cool. It’s great that you’re sitting right between. So you do this with patients and help other clinicians because more more patients are talking about it. You offer a lot of resources to make it easy for them to get started. So this is wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we know that, you know, everybody’s familiar probably with the obesity rates and that they’re only increasing currently about 42 % of adults.

20 % of kids are living with obesity. And unfortunately, these numbers are only expected to increase. It’s expected that by 2035, over 50 % of US adults will have obesity. And so, you know, this is, this is a pandemic. It’s more than an epidemic. This is affecting people all over the world. remember Dr. Angela Fitch say that our bodies weren’t built to lose weight. So would you mind taking us down a journey of,

of why it’s not actually a lack of willpower that’s causing the obesity pandemic. Yeah. And thank you for asking that because I think this is the first step towards people themselves or people in general understanding obesity and also for clinicians. And I think if we really understand the pathophysiology and the biology of obesity better, then a lot of that bias and stigma goes away.

Bill Jollie (04:29.406)
So this is often one of the first things that I also talk to my patients about because I think a lot of people carry this internalized weight bias, right? You hear these messages from, you know, social media, from other media, from even from your clinicians oftentimes that, you know, it’s just a matter of willpower. If you just tried a little harder, if you just ate less and moved a little more, you would be able to control this. When in fact, there’s many, many aspects of this that people do not have any control.

And so, you know, this is one of the first things that I talk to my patients about when I see a new patient is this biology of weight regulation. you know, so often we, the old thinking was that we had total control over our own body weight, right? Because people were like, well, you control what you eat and how much you eat and you can control how much you move. And it’s a simple balance of calories in, calories out. And if you get this simple equation right,

You should be able to manage your weight, right? That’s kind of the old thinking. What we have come to understand, especially in the last 30 years or so, is that weight is highly regulated and it’s regulated in the brain. It’s regulated in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. And so the hypothalamus receives signals, receives hormonal signals and other signals from the rest of the body that inform us about

about when we’re hungry, when we’re full, when to eat, when to stop eating, how often to eat, how much to eat, decisions that we think are conscious decisions, but they’re driven by hormones and other processes that occur in the brain. So for instance, the first hormone that was discovered that is related to appetite regulation wasn’t actually discovered until about the mid 1990s. So not that long ago, at least for me that doesn’t seem that long ago, right?

and it was the hormone leptin. So leptin is a hormone that’s produced by our fat cells or our adipocytes and it gives the brain a signal in terms of how much energy we have stored. you know, in our brains, we have to remember that our brains, humans have been around for a really long time, right? And for the vast majority of our human existence, we were hunter-gatherers, right? So food was scarce.

Bill Jollie (06:50.028)
The idea of having to lose weight did not exist back then. The idea of having an excess of calories stored as adipose tissue was not even a conceivable concern. So our brain is designed primarily to protect us from starvation. We do have some signals that prevent excess weight gain, but they are not nearly as strong as those signals that

prevent weight loss because to your brain, take us back to our 100 gather days, if you were losing weight, that meant that something was seriously wrong. Either there was a food shortage, there was a famine, maybe you were sick, something bad was happening. So your brain sees weight loss as a threat to your existence. So how does your brain know if you’re losing weight? Well, when those leptin levels, as you have less adipose tissue, you make less leptin.

So that drop in leptin level signals to the brain that, we are losing weight. This is bad. Your brain sees this as a threat to your existence. So we have all of these other hormones that also regulate appetite that we now know about, and we keep learning about more and more of these hormones that regulate appetite. So for those science geeks out there who want to know some of the words and the names of the hormones, I don’t think it’s that important that people know the names of the hormones, but some people want to know. So ghrelin is our

primary hunger hormone. produced in the stomach. So you can kind of think of this hormone as like that little gremlin, but like, you know, when your stomach is growling when you’re hungry, that’s your hunger hormone, ghrelin being produced and telling your brain that you’re hungry, that you should eat, right? And then when we eat food, there are all kinds of hormones that get released in our gut from our pancreas, you know, from other places in the body that tell us when to stop eating. So these are

food-sensing satiety hormones that tell us when to stop eating. So again, these signals go to the hypothalamus and tell us when to stop eating. So first of all, we have to recognize that everybody’s brain is a little bit different and some people’s brains are more geared towards food seeking and food store and energy storage and other people’s are less so. So some people are just more hungry, just their set point is just set to more hungry than others.

Bill Jollie (09:10.818)
There’s that first of all. Then also different food types can influence this as well. Inflammation can influence this as well. Processed foods can influence that part of the brain as well. But then what happens when we lose weight? So when we lose weight and we have these leptin levels dropping, essentially what your brain does is it tries to get you to regain that weight. So what it does is it increases your hunger hormone, brelin, and it decreases all of those satiety hormones. So the end result is we are hungrier.

than we were before we lost the weight. And another thing that your brain does is it slows down your metabolism. Again, all of these are efforts to get you to regain the weight, which is why so often we see that people might be able to lose weight temporarily, maybe for six months or so, and then they start regaining weight again. And so often people will blame themselves for that. They’ll say,

I must just not have enough willpower. I must not be trying hard enough. I must be falling off the wagon or whatever people tell themselves. And other people are telling them the same thing like, well, you had lost this weight. Now you’re regaining it. What’s going on? Just try a little harder. When what we don’t realize is that we’re fighting our own biology and our brains are not designed to allow us to lose weight. Our brains are designed to protect us from weight loss. And this is really why obesity is a

chronic disease state too, that we can’t just like treat short term and then think, okay, people lost the weight, they’re good now, right? And this is also why it’s so challenging for so many people. And again, the hormonal part is just one aspect of it. We know that obesity is a multifactorial disease. There are so many different factors that can contribute to weight gain. Genetics is a huge one, right? So we know that there are hundreds of genes that are associated with weight gain and the propensity

to gain weight and to store more fat. And the more of those genes a person has, the higher the likelihood that they will develop obesity in the right environment. Now talk about our environment. Is our environment right for people to gain weight? Absolutely. So those people that are genetically susceptible, and then there’s so many other factors. Stress is a big factor, lack of sleep is a big factor, weight promoting medications can be a big factor again.

Bill Jollie (11:31.06)
So many different components that can drive weight gain in a lot of people. And that’s why we’re seeing the prevalence of obesity where we’re seeing it today. Right. It’s not like people just woke up and all of a sudden, none of us had willpower anymore. It’s not about the willpower. As you said, it’s about the biology and the interplay between biology and our environment. for taking us through that. It’s really eye-opening. would say a psychology major, my absolute favorite.

class in school was behavior and neuroscience. that first class and that professor is really what got me going down the direction of, you know, there’s a reason why people do what they do. And sometimes it’s fun trying to figure that out, but there’s usually a chemical or biological basis for whatever’s going on up here. And I think just learning that those processes, whether

I like that you said that what the hormones are called doesn’t matter. Just know that there’s a very complicated system going on in your own body, in your gut, in your brain, causing the feelings and the cravings and a lot of stuff going on that you just aren’t conscious of at all. the cravings is actually another important part that we should talk about because that’s kind of a different part of the brain in what’s called the mesolimbic part of the brain.

And that’s where we have like dopamine gets released, serotonin gets released, and even opioids that our own body produce get released. And so when we eat certain foods, especially these, you know, highly tasty processed foods that are high in sugar, high in fat. So again, biologically, we’re designed to crave those foods because they’re calorie dense. you know, for us to survive, we needed to seek out food. And so calorie dense food is going to light up that reward center.

because that’s also where we learn. Dopamine is we kind of think of it as a feel-good hormone, but it’s also our learning hormone. So this is where we learn to go back to these types of foods. So this is where cravings really live and emotional eating lives and this side of the brain. And that part of the brain can actually override the hunger control center of the brain. You know, we don’t always eat just because we’re hungry, right? That can be an important factor, but also, you know, just seeing

Bill Jollie (13:52.576)
certain foods, the smell of certain foods, the sight of certain foods, the taste of certain foods. They’re just incredibly difficult to resist. And then there are some people for whom that reward center of the brain is more active than it is for other people. And studies have shown in brain scans that some people with obesity really have a much higher response in that reward center than people who don’t have obesity. And so for them, it’s much harder to

pass up the donut in the break room, then it might be for another person. So that’s just, that’s another part of the brain that’s involved with this, which again, is not a conscious thing. It’s not something we’re choosing. Therefore, it’s not about no willpower. And I think when those two parts of the brain really are in overdrive for people to really produce food intake, it can be incredibly difficult for people to resist certain foods. And I was just talking to a patient

on Wednesday earlier this week. And she’s been struggling with obesity and with a lot of mental health and she has a history of addiction. So whenever you hear addictions, you know that that reward center of the brain is probably more active in that person than it might be because somebody who doesn’t struggle with addictions. And so she’s had it tough and she’s lived with obesity now for many years and has just really struggled to

manage her appetite as well and to be able to stick to a nutrition plan. And so we got her started on a medication and she said, she was like in tears. She said, this changed my life. All of a sudden that food noise that I always hear, it used to be both sides of her brain, that reward center and the hunger control center telling her, yes, there’s carrots and there’s pizza. But for her, wasn’t a choice. Like her brain was like, eat the pizza.

And she said, now something has quieted down in my brain where I actually feel like I have a choice. didn’t, it never felt like I had a choice. And now something has quieted down in my brain where I’m like, I can’t have the pizza or I can have the whatever, you know, the chicken, the carrots, whatever. And I can choose to eat the healthier option. Whereas before she didn’t feel like she had a choice. So the medications are almost allowing your rational brain.

Bill Jollie (16:15.902)
some time to make a decision, whereas our genetics and biology, it’s shouting way too much to let your rational brain be heard. I’ve talked to a lot of folks and it’s really, really easy to start a diet or exercise program because the motivation’s really, really high and you’re going along and things are great, you’re getting in shape and you’re feeling good and you’re feeling healthy and maybe some of, maybe you’ve been to the doctor and

Your blood pressure is going in the right direction. Your resting heart rate is down. You’ve lost some pounds. And then all of a sudden life happens and stress. And that’s usually what happens. There’s a lot of factors in your life that make this such a complex play. So can you talk about how stress and you just layer on stress after stress. Maybe things aren’t going great with your spouse or you’re having, you know, your kids, middle schoolers, you know, that’s…

There’s not much more stressful than middle schoolers have been through that, having three girls. Sleep, if you’re not getting enough sleep, maybe you’re worried about something, maybe things aren’t going great at work. You just keep adding layers and layers and layers. What effect does that have on your ability to make rational decisions and make healthy choices? Yeah, I mean.

It affects our choices, our health behaviors in so many different ways, right? First of all, when you have all these different competing things that are going on in your brain, it’s hard to prioritize, right? And sometimes the priority of your kids having a crisis or something else is going on, that’s going to take priority over what am I going to eat today? Is this healthy? Do I get to do my physical activity? So the more stressor somebody has, the more difficult it may be to prioritize their health and.

engaging in those health behaviors. mean, if somebody’s making the decision about, you know, paying the rent this month or, or buying, you know, healthy food, they’re, they might choose the rent, right. And just go for the cheap process. So I think that’s one way in which stressors obviously can affect our health behaviors. It’s just much more difficult to prioritize health when we have so many other stressors going on.

Bill Jollie (18:27.478)
But the other thing to also recognize is again, it comes down to hormones and biology as well, right? So again, to our brains, is stress and our brain doesn’t know that it’s the stress of, your boss is upset with you or you have a deadline coming up or there’s a saber-toothed tiger that’s chasing you, right? To your brain, that’s the same stress. So when we experience this stress, our stress hormones get released, right?

cortisol levels go up and we have these stress hormones that get released. So what cortisol does is it says, okay, we need to release a whole bunch of glucose into the bloodstream so that we can run away from this single toothed tiger. We’re not running away from anything. We’re sitting at our desks trying to finish this project and this email and we’re not actually using that glucose to exert ourselves because it’s more of this mental stress, but your body doesn’t know the difference. So cortisol levels go up.

blood glucose levels go up. Now, at some point your body says, all right, there’s all this glucose in the bloodstream, but we’re not using it, so we gotta get it out of the bloodstream. So insulin levels go up. Your pancreas makes insulin, and then insulin’s job is to take that glucose and get it out of the bloodstream and put it back into cells or convert that glucose, that extra glucose, if your cells are already full of glucose, because we can only store about 1,000 calories of glucose in our muscles and in our liver. But once those stores are full,

and your body says, what else do we do with this extra glucose? Well, your body knows what to do with it. It sends it to the liver and the liver converts it to fat and we store it as fat. And that fat that gets stored from those increased cortisol levels typically goes in the abdomen because the body knows that’s close to the liver and we can have good access, easy access to that fat if we need it. So that’s how stress can contribute to

What we call this visceral fat, which is more dangerous, is more associated with things like diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, you know, all of those things. So that’s kind of the physiologic way that stress can impact our weight and can impact our health. And then obviously that on top of the health of the And then sleep is a similar, it’s a similar stressor to your body. So when we’re getting insufficient sleep, that is a stressor to the body.

Bill Jollie (20:45.58)
So if we’re not getting at least, you know, seven or eight hours of sleep for most people, your body senses that as a stressor. And so again, those cortisol levels go up and then that can contribute to weight gain and insulin resistance, which further perpetuates the weight gain cycle, type two diabetes, heart disease, so forth and so on. But another thing that happens when we’re stressed or when we don’t get enough sleep is it affects those appetite hormones.

So we actually see a drop in leptin levels. So remember, leptin tells our brain that we’re full. So we have less of the hormones that make us feel full or satiated or not hungry. And our ghrelin levels go up by about 30 % even after just one night of sleep deprivation. So we’re more % after one night. That’s incredible. Yes. So I mean, I think many of us have had that experience. If you’ve like pulled an all-nighter or you stayed up, the next day you’re just like.

craving crap food and you’re just hungry all day. So a lot of us are like, yeah, we’ve had that experience, but there’s actually biology behind, there’s hormones driving that, right? So you take that and then you look at people who are chronically stressed, especially if you look at people who are facing racism on a daily basis, discrimination on a daily basis, or any type of discrimination, or who have financial stressors or other stressors in their life.

So that just accumulates day after day after day for people who are chronically sleep deprived, right? Who are not getting sufficient sleep, people who are shift workers, right? Obesity rates are much, much higher, people who are shift workers. And just in general, we’re not sleeping as much now as we were 20, 30, 50 years ago, right? So yeah, all of those things, this is why we say it’s such a complex multifactorial disease, because all of these things play into

somebody’s risk of developing obesity. That’s why it’s so much more than just, eat less and move more, right? Yeah. I’m starting to hear more and more, it’s not your fault. As I’ve dove into the new anti-obesity medicines and looking at the clinical studies, if you look at the placebo, correct me if wrong, our intensive behavior therapy. So placebo, no medicine, they’re getting that intensive behavior therapy. The other arm is getting that intensive behavior therapy in addition to the anti-obesity medicine.

Bill Jollie (23:04.632)
But if you look at those placebo arms, they’re not losing much weight at all. And they’ve got a lot of resources, much more so than the average person who just picks up a book or finds something online and tries to do it themselves. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So, I mean, that just goes to show the limitation of somebody with obesity trying to really lose a significant amount of weight with lifestyle changes alone. We just see that.

because of the biologic and physiologic adaptations that occur and because of, you know, the powerful driver of hunger and things like that. It’s just very challenging for most people to lose weight and keep it off long term with lifestyle changes alone. Now, are there some people, when you look at the study, the placebo group is not 0%, right?

There might be, on average, the weight loss is usually between 3 to 5 % body weight loss at a year. And that’s what we see with a lot of the commercial programs as well, is that on average, people may lose about 3 % of their body weight, which is still progress. But for somebody who has more significant obesity and really medically needs to lose more weight than that,

probably for most people, lifestyle changes aren’t going to be enough. Now there are always outliers and those are always the people that we hear about in the media, right? Like, I was able to lose a hundred pounds with lifestyle changes alone and we all applaud that person. of course, mean, yes, it takes a lot of work and that’s great that they were able to do that. But they’re in a very minor, minor part of the percentage of people who are actually able to achieve.

that type of outcome with lifestyle changes alone. For most people, that physiologic adaptation is just too much to overcome, right? And so that’s where medications can be a tool. And just because somebody is using a medication, it doesn’t mean that they’re not doing all of the lifestyle changes. It just allows them to be able to stick to their nutrition plan better. And then if they’re starting to lose a little bit of weight and their energy levels improve, people want to be active.

Bill Jollie (25:11.91)
They want to feel good, but oftentimes people have so many barriers to movement. They have no energy. Their joints hurt when they move. just, they don’t feel like it’s something that they can, you know, really do. And so when we’re using medications with people, we’re still talking to them about all of these behavioral components. And it’s not just for the weight loss, right? We need to get away from the idea that all of this is just about the number on the scale because we want people to be acted as you know.

regardless of what they weight. Everybody, and you talk about it yourself, every cancer patient should have an exercise program or somebody that they’re working with because it does so many good things for our physical health, for our mental health. Nutrition is incredibly important. If somebody’s losing weight, but they’re eating terribly, they’re eating a handful of Cheez-Its a day and that’s how they’re achieving their weight loss, that’s not good, right? And so,

It’s so important that we have all of these other behavioral components that we’re also discussing with people, but the medications just allow people to be able to follow their nutrition plan better without having to fight their own biology all the time. Yeah, I get that. So you just took us through a lot of how complicated weight loss is and cravings and appetite. That information is getting out to the public more and more.

Despite that knowledge, there’s still a fair amount of people I talk to and even some clinicians, they’re just really holding on to, like, don’t need, I shouldn’t have to take a medicine. That’s not for me. that’s, that’s only for people with diabetes. So, you know, some of the, I would think probably the clinicians who are coming to you and gaining health, they’re already primed.

They’ve already bought into the message that they can help their patients in many different ways. But for both the clinicians and the patients that you talk to sometimes on a daily basis, how do you help them with that emotional weight that they’re still just totally set on holding on to that? Yeah, mean, it comes to the clinicians, as you said, people that are joining Gaining Health, they’re already kind of, I don’t have to convince them.

Bill Jollie (27:31.276)
or people that are coming to OVC medicine conferences, usually they already understand that’s why they’re there. And so, you know, I also try to do a lot of education and speaking for clinicians outside of OVC medicine. So talking to people who are in primary care, OBGYN, endocrinology, you know, any other field of medicine. And we’re starting to do a lot also with medical schools and PA schools so that everybody has a baseline understanding of this pathophysiology.

And then, you know, for patients, you know, I really believe in handouts and having little videos and stuff like that for our patients. So a lot of the handouts that I created for BaininHealth are, you know, explain some of this complex science in a way that it’s easy for people to understand. And I always, I say, this is the foundation. You need to understand some of these concepts. I also have taught classes for patients before they ever come in and see me face to face.

they would take this kind of intro class where essentially I talk about all this pathophysiology. I’m doing, and again, this is what I do on my podcast as well. So I’m willing to talk to anybody who will listen about the science behind this because there still is so much misconception, so much misinformation about obesity. My hope is that it seems like people are starting to be more accepting.

of things like medications or even bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery works in a very similar way in that it changes a lot of those gut hormones that talk to the brain about hunger. So people think about bariatric surgery as just, well, you make the stomach smaller or your bypass is a part of the intestines so people lose weight, but it’s really the hormonal impact. People just aren’t as hungry. And again, people wanna make good choices. It’s, know, a lot of times, like you said, people may know what to do,

But they can’t get there because some of those biologic drivers are just too strong. So some of the tools that we have can really help them get there. And so I just do what I can to educate clinicians, educate the public, get the word out that this is complex and that we have tools and we have the support to really be able to help people with this and that they don’t have to do it alone. I think two important messages are, it’s not your fault and you don’t have to do it alone.

Bill Jollie (29:51.084)
So many people feel like, like you said, like they should be able to do this on their own, you know, and I just tell them like, you know, if you’ve got a cancer diagnosis or you’ve got some other, you know, blood pressure, whatever, like you don’t feel like you have to fix that on your own, right? Like you turn to professionals to help you with that. why, you know, I know the messaging out there is that you should be able to do this on your own, but hopefully we can change that messaging and help people, you know, feel more okay about.

reaching out for help with something that so many people have struggled with for so long and unnecessarily because we can’t help them. Well, this has been fantastic. That’s probably a great place to stop. I love the positive message that you’re getting out there for both patients and docs alike. that’s pretty wonderful. You’re doing a lot of good, Karly. So thanks so much. Well, thanks for letting me come on your show and geek out about all this stuff.

I think it’s just, love to talk about it and I think it’s so important to change the narrative. That’s wonderful. So, so, so tell us where folks can find, learn more about you and gaining health. Yeah. So the website is gaininghealth.com. So we have links to our, podcast on gaininghealth.com and you know, a lot of the resources that we have for providers. I’m also pretty active on LinkedIn.

professionally, so if people want to reach out on LinkedIn or on Facebook, we have our Facebook page, Mind Gaining Health. And then another resource for people who want to learn more about, you know, what obesity treatments are out there to find a provider. There’s a great group called the Obesity Action Coalition. They also do a lot of advocacy for people living with obesity to get better coverage for some of the treatments that we now have because that’s still a big challenge is, you know, getting coverage.

So that website is obesity action. They also have a find a provider feature on there and they have a lot of good information about the various treatment options available. And again, the advocacy side as well, which I think is so important. I think it’s really important that we push the advocacy side and that we hear from people who are living with obesity that they demand treatment. They demand coverage for treatment of this medical condition. It’s been recognized by the American Medical Association as a disease.

Bill Jollie (32:15.182)
for over 10 years now, and it’s ridiculous that Medicare doesn’t cover these medications and that insurances are denying the coverage of these, what we now know are life-saving drugs. We know that they can help reduce the incidence of heart disease and heart attacks and stroke and can save lives. So it’s really important that we let our voices be heard, that it’s not okay to deny coverage for this chronic disease state.

This has been wonderful. Carly, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a great conversation. It’s been a lot of fun to get to know you better. And thanks a lot. We appreciate it. Well, thank you. But gaining health in the show notes, easy for you to find. So thanks so much. Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review the podcast on the platform of your choice so we can reach more people and more people are recommended this podcast. And if you really liked it, the single best way you can help us grow is by telling your friends. Now for all the legal stuff.

The views and opinion expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. For my day job, I’m an employee of AppVee and appear on this podcast on my own accord and not in the professional capacity as an AppVee employee. All viewpoints provided are my personal opinions and not intended to reflect those of my employer. If you have any questions or comments, please shoot me an email at jolly at interrupt hunger.org. Let’s go spread some joy people.