Shireen Abdullah 0:00
In today’s episode, we are in conversation with Franco Lopez III, a veteran, dietitian, and diabetes specialist who uses his lived experience in the military to build bridges of trust and provide nutrition education to fellow service members and veterans struggling with health issues. Stay tuned.

Shireen Abdullah 0:21
Podcasting from Dallas, Texas. I am Shireen, and this is the Yumlish Podcast. Yumlish is working to empower you to take charge of your health through diet and exercise and reduce the risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. We hope to share a unique perspective and a culturally relevant approach to managing these chronic conditions with you each week.

Shireen Abdullah 0:54
Franco Lopez III, is a veteran, husband, father, and goat rancher, as well as a seasoned clinical dietitian and diabetes specialist. He’s dedicated to guiding individuals toward type 2 diabetes remission and optimal metabolic health. As the owner and founder of Vanguard Metabolic Nutrition, his mission is to strengthen the health of individuals by optimizing metabolic health and blood sugar function for extended, high-quality, and functional lives. Welcome, Franco.

Franco López III 1:26
Thank you for having me. Shireen, it’s an honor to be here.

Shireen Abdullah 1:28
Of course, such a pleasure having you on, so first off, Franco, thank you so much for your service and just trying to see that journey that you’ve made from the military all the way to nutrition. What was that journey like? How did you make this journey? And tell us more just about you?

Franco López III 1:46
Sure thing. Yeah, it was an unexpected journey. But I was; I grew up and was born and raised in the border cities of what is Chihuahua and El Paso, Texas. Paso, Texas, is home to one of the biggest military bases: Fort Bliss. So growing up, I always had somewhat of a military influence because of neighbors in the community there. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be a soldier when I grew up, and that’s exactly what I did. After I completed high school, I joined the Army. I became a tanker with the M1 Abrams tanks, and soon after I was done with my basic training, the conflict in Iraq took off, so I was then deployed and served a 15-month tour in Iraq.

Franco López III 2:33
During that time, we were living in, you know, conditions that were in remainings of blown-up buildings or parking lots or outside, so we’re exposed to a lot of hazardous pollutants and handling a lot of chemicals and hazardous materials that, at the time, the world wasn’t really aware of. And also being enlisted, I was assigned to do some of the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. And one of those was burning these famous toxic burn pits, which contains everything from trash, human waste, and everything else that needed to be burnt, that was fueled with jet fuel, and we just were assigned there to stir and without airway protection. So at the time, you know, I didn’t know any of this, or have any clue what was going on.

Franco López III 3:23
But after I completed my deployment and I was assigned to my second duty station in Fort Knox, Kentucky, I started to feel really off, and my health wasn’t feeling well. I was feeling tired all the time. I felt like I was unrested. I was snoring a lot at night, enough where I would wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air and dry and then sort of developing gastric dysfunction and some intolerances, alongside some pain from some injuries that I had sustained, also having some brain fog and different deficits with cognition. So it was just a cocktail of things that really plummeted my health.

Franco López III 4:06
And I was, you know, in my early 20s. And prior to that, I had always exercised and been on the top tier of my physical fitness groups. So it was a surprise to me when I had developed these things, and I really didn’t know what was going on. And my doctor told me then that my lab showed that I had the beginning of diabetes, alongside a cluster of things. And then what I didn’t know then, but also some issues related with some small traumatic brain injuries that I had sustained, you know, so all this with having a cocktail of medication, then my life really just turned a different way. And I exited out of the military, and I was dealing with these health issues.

Franco López III 4:51
Things weren’t good till one point where I was driving down I-10 during the day, busy highway. I was so tired and sleepy, which was just an ongoing thing for me, that I had to pull over a side of the highway to sleep because I was unsafe to drive. And this was really when I decided that I needed to do something different and knew there was another way to improve my health, and I decided to learn everything I could about how to improve my health. So this led me to the field of nutrition.

Franco López III 5:30
So I decided to pursue a degree in Human Nutrition and Food Science at the University of New Mexico State University, which was next to El Paso Texas. And as soon as I took my first basic nutrition class, I was really fascinated. I knew that this was going to be the way to improve my health. So I really started learning everything that I was learning, I started implementing it on myself, and just started seeing all these changes improve. And all of a sudden I started changing the way I was eating, eating leaner proteins and more fruits and vegetables. I had cut out alcohol, so I was sleeping better, waking up better, and having more energy. So then I started to exercise again, as I mentioned, a passion of mine for some time that I had let off. And then I was competing, playing competitive tennis and powerlifting, and running. So my health just really started to improve.

Franco López III 6:27
Then all my levels went into remission. All the metabolic dysfunctions I was experiencing seemed to improve. My pain improved. I was just feeling more energetic, and then also mentally. My anxiety improved, and I just felt overall better. And then I went on to pursue my dietetic internship in Seattle, Washington. After completion of that, I came back to practice for a few years in El Paso, Texas, and I practiced in an adult pediatric hospital, and I worked with geneticists and neurologists, and really had a deeper understanding of the metabolic process and cognition, and how different therapeutic diets can really improve the health of people who had any of these deficits.

Franco López III 7:15
So after that, I joined the Veterans Affairs, and I was working in a program called Home-based primary care. So we actually went out to veterans’ homes, especially in rural places in Texas and New Mexico, who otherwise didn’t have access to health, and we went there and provided care that they needed. And I really found this to be a rewarding job, and then we relocated back to the Northwest, here in Washington state, which is where I’m at now. So since then, now I’ve had over 13 years of experience and 30,000 hours of clinical practice. I’ve helped hundreds of people improve their metabolic health and put their diabetes or prediabetes into remission, and I also work with patients with cognitive deficits and help prove that. So now I’ve opened up my own practice to really help people the way I know best and have none of the constrictions that I’ve had working for other organizations and also bridging that gap to help the underserved people. So our services are telehealth, so that way we’re able to reach everybody. Yeah, this is where we’re at now.

Shireen Abdullah 8:35
Yeah, it’s just one such remarkable story, and I’m just so sorry to hear about what happened and what all you were exposed to. I can’t; I can’t imagine being in that position where you have to, you know, even get to the state where the symptoms are getting so bad, where you’re just in the middle of driving and you’re having to pull over. What a terrible experience to go through. But also, so glad to see you on the other side of this.

Shireen Abdullah 8:57
My next question to you, Franco, is around this, as you know, something you mentioned about even helping veterans specifically and just with the experience that you’ve had. Do you feel being a veteran yourself helps you empathize with a lot of that experience of other veterans facing, you know, similar or even different health challenges, and are there any moments that you can share with us that you think where you can cite to where nutrition has made an impact? I mean, clearly it has for you, but for other veterans as well that you’ve worked with.

Franco López III 9:27
Yeah, no, it really does make all the difference to have that, you know, so I’m able to live through and talk about that and understand the difficulties of having those sugar cravings, having that weight come back sooner than people without diabetes, having those drops of energy. So I can relate that to and be able to speak to that. And then, you know, with being a veteran. And just let me pause here, because, you know, veterans and military is a small percentage of the population, but surprisingly, at least about a third of veterans are living in poverty or have food insecurity, and this also translates to the military active community, so they’re especially lower enlisted are experiencing food insecurity and don’t have access to registered dietitians, diabetes specialists, or other specialty care, and now that has become more challenging, so I experienced those struggles myself getting connections to, like, physical therapy or waiting for referrals, and especially living in the community, you know?

Franco López III 10:37
So this is part of the reason why I created my practice—to really bridge that gap and offer services to members who wouldn’t otherwise be able to offer but you know, as my own personal experience and with the people that I work with, veterans prefer care from other veterans or other military members. So when, when I share that, I’m also a veteran, and make that connection. It’s just like, immediately they’re able to relax, start talking freely, and maybe share some information that they wouldn’t have otherwise shared. So just having that connection really builds trust and builds rapport, and then they can receive the information better, and then they’ll be showing up to the next appointment. So then we really build and establish that trust and that relationship. So I think it’s really key and just helps build that stronger, long-lasting connection.

Shireen Abdullah 11:36
And there’s something about that shared experience, right, that really brings you closer, that makes the individual that you’re working with really feel that you understand them and you know where they’re coming from. You mentioned working with veterans. You mentioned diabetes just a little bit ago as well. What are some common misconceptions, perhaps, that you hear from veterans about managing their health conditions, specifically when it comes to diabetes?

Franco López III 12:01
Yeah, you know. So a lot of the veterans that I work with happen to be males and around the age of middle age, like 50, between 40 and 60. So a lot of times when they arrive to their first appointments, they say “they’re fine”, “they’re good.” Their diabetes is fine, but they don’t make that connection with what could be going on. So, not necessarily, they’re in denial, but they just can’t associate the symptoms that they might be experiencing with diabetes, because it’s not always evident. But as we start to talk and dive a little deeper, then you know, “Oh, okay, yeah, you are feeling fatigued and you are feeling tired, you have to have those naps, and, oh, you’ve had a little bit of blurry vision. And yes, those tingling in your feet and numbness around there is all related.” So once we make that connection, then they really do understand. And as they’re starting to make changes, you know, within a few weeks, they feel better; they start to report a reduction of those symptoms related to neuropathy or other things so that.

Franco López III 13:10
And then the second misconception is, if they come in and they’ve had diabetes for a long time, but their blood sugars are still high, they report, “Well, I’ve been taking my medication consistently. I don’t understand why.” But you know, then again, I help explain that one of the biggest factors and driving factors to help improve that is going to be your eating patterns and then your lifestyles. And you know, we’ve seen studies show that regardless of medication, adherence, with no changes in weight, diabetes, and resistance, can continue to increase and further that. So I help make that connection and that understanding of symptoms and how they can be improved with lifestyle changes.

Shireen Abdullah 13:55
So what I’m hearing you say is like it’s a combination of downplaying the symptoms a little bit and then also just this lack of overall education, which, you know, which we also see broadly in our broad population, across the board. Where does that understanding of diabetes, all the complications that go with diabetes are just not well understood. Which takes me to my next question as well, which is around, how do you bring your military background into your coaching style? And you know, you mentioned sort of coming with that commonality, sort of drawing that. What are some of the other things that you do to be able to make that connection and work with individuals?

Franco López III 14:36
Yeah, so, you know, one thing that really makes the veteran and the military population special is that, number one, is that there is a higher prevalence of all these comorbidities, and more likely to develop any of these chronic diseases that lead to the leading causes of death. But also this is a very resilient population. So they’ve gone through difficult things and done difficult things, you know? So I know from them and from other people that they have it in them to be able to surpass whatever is the barriers or things that are making it difficult to achieve good health.

Franco López III 15:18
So I go in with that mindset into every encounter that, you know, we just want to need to find what it is that truly motivates them to be able to get that, so not just the military population, but everybody else. Because I’ve seen everybody being able to capable of surpassing that. The other thing is, I have set protocols that I have standardized to help people kind of reset their metabolic health and then be able to improve it. So I use a combination of tools, you know, using a continuous glucose monitor, has really been a game changer in my practice, and from what I’ve learned, to really be able to individualize and tailor each person’s eating plans. And then also, a new tool that I’ve been using is a metabolic scale where they’re able to see their breakdown of their muscle and then their fat.

Franco López III 16:12
So I have all these things, tools, and different skills that I teach them, because ultimately, we need everything we can to be able to not only achieve but sustain those long-term goals. And finally, just like we train in the field or in combat, we have a plan, but when it comes down to it, everything’s going to be unpredictable, and your plan can crumble. So I have Plan B and Plan C. And so I approach each case individually with an open mind and have availability for flexibility.

Shireen Abdullah 16:52
Availability for flexibility. I like that. I’m going to snag, I’m going to snatch that from you, which takes me to my next question, which is, you know, we’ve been talking about veterans this whole time for those currently serving, whether it be active duty, here, stateside, deployed overseas. What are some practical tips that you can mention here on the podcast for those listening to better manage their health condition? Now, I think I should also qualify here that from what I understand, diabetes, or prolonged diabetes, is also a cause for discharge from the military, if I remember this correctly. Do you – one, has that changed? So I want to update my own understanding. And then – two, how do you work with individuals who are not quite diabetes but even pre-diabetes, and again, any practical tips that you can provide for someone who’s on active duty?

Franco López III 17:42
Yeah, I don’t know what the current regulations are for that, but yes, that was the case before. But now, you know, just even with the current US population, a third of people most likely have pre-diabetes; like I said, those rates are even higher in the military. You know. So within the diagnosis of prediabetes, statistics show that within five years, people have developed diabetes. So it just goes back to the fundamentals on, you know, where you know, what are you eating? Physical activity portion, especially in the military. Now that physical activity portion of it is really key. But the biggest thing I emphasize is number one, having a plan in place, and again, finding the balance for flexibility.

Franco López III 18:28
So if they’re going to the field, okay, bring an emergency kit if you already have diabetes, you know. So that includes a handheld glucometer, in case your continuous glucose monitor fails; glucose gel or hard candies, in case you have drops in your blood sugar; ways to hydrate; and then also having snacks that will balance out your blood sugar, because you might be many hours without being able to eat a meal. So anything that’s rich in protein and/or fat, like beef jerky or those tuna salad kits or gel nut butters or a combination of that. So have a plan in place, and then again, just have that backup. You know, in last-case scenarios, like with the MRE’s, as many people don’t like them, you can still mix and match and find something sustainable to be able to take with you.

Franco López III 19:22
But the main thing is it has to be a protein bar so that they have to be small, so you can carry it with you but energy dense, especially around the calories of protein and fat, so then your blood sugars can be sustained. So we have that, and then I’m associated with a nonprofit organization called Independence, that we provide programs for military families to educate them on how to meal plan and how to have flexibility with that, so we have a number of tools that we’re trying to share with our community.

Shireen Abdullah 19:55
You know, speaking of active duty, what advice would you give a commanding officers? Others you know, in the leadership on how best to support someone who’s active duty in their health.

Franco López III 20:06
Yeah. So you know, whatever platoon or company you belong to, or squadron, it becomes your family, and you really interact with them more than probably you would think so, but and then they also become your best friends. And so you got to see that approach as a whole. So if somebody is having pre-diabetes and about to have those diabetes levels or has diabetes, then the whole squadron and platoon adopt those same behaviors. So at cookouts, you know, “Hey, let’s not just bring a bunch of beer and maybe some non-alcoholic drinks, different things. Let’s try to, you know, if we’re grilling, you know, try to include something that’s going to include some lean meats, but also some vegetables.”

Franco López III 20:54
So really, cultivate and foster that environment to make it easier for the individual or individuals to be able to sustain those goals. Because, you know, it’s just common that we get together, and then everybody brings their favorite snacks, and then it just makes it really difficult, from my own personal experience, during the time that my wife was caring for her baby, the children had snacks and those things available when you have them there, it just makes it more difficult to resist, especially when you’re sleep deprived and everything. So if the whole environment is set to better foster that, then the soldiers or personnel will have better long-term success.

Shireen Abdullah 21:37
Love that. Thank you so much. With that, we are toward the end of the episode, Franco. It’s such a pleasure talking to you at this point, though. Would you tell us how folks on here who are listening to this episode here today can connect with you and just stay more informed with your work as well?

Franco López III 21:52
Yeah, they can visit our website, at www.vvleads.org, and especially for military and veterans, you’ll be able to find a resource page with a lot of free programs and things put in there to support our members. And also they can find me on Instagram or Facebook. Vanguard Metabolic Nutrition.

Shireen Abdullah 22:16
I appreciate that very much. And again, with that, Franco, thank you so much for your time today. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Yumlish podcast. Let us know what you thought about this episode. Head over to Facebook or our Instagram page. Find this podcast post and comment below to tell us what you thought about it again, or head over to @Yumlish on Facebook or on Instagram. Find this podcast post and comment below to tell us what you thought about this episode; we will continue the conversation there with that. Franco, thank you again, and thank you for your service.

Franco López III 22:46
Thank you very much.

Shireen Abdullah 22:52
Thank you for listening to the Yumlish podcast. Make sure to follow us on social media @yumlish_ on Instagram and Twitter and @yumlish on Facebook and LinkedIn for tips about managing your diabetes and other chronic conditions, and to chat and connect with us about your journey and perspective. You can also visit our website, Yumlish.com, for more recipes, advice, and to get involved with all of the exciting opportunities Yumlish has to offer. If you like this week’s show, make sure to subscribe so you can hear more from us every time we post. Thank you again, and we’ll see you next time. Remember, your health always comes first. Stay well.

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