Thick And Tired Of It

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of sailfish, blue marlin and even some sharks swimming around the Caribbean that former tournament fisherman Greg Cappo reeled in but never had the heart to turn into a trophy on a wall.

“No, I could never quite bring myself to do that,” Greg says of mounting a fish. “I fished in tournaments in the Bahamas for 20 years, and there were a lot of times when I wanted to keep one and mount it, but I was more into catch and release.”

Little has changed since Greg, 49, got out of tournament fishing a few years ago. He still releases everything he catches, including a 10-pound bass he pulled in while fishing the Fellsmere Reservoir with his godson in June.

“I’ve caught plenty of bass over the years, including some that weighed maybe five or six pounds, but I’d never caught a largemouth bass as big as that before,” Greg says. “That was pretty wild. It was really amazing.”

Perhaps even more amazing is the physical transformation Greg has undergone since he realized a couple of years ago that he’d gained more than 200 pounds while struggling through some personal issues.

“I’m 6-foot-1, and for years my weight fluctuated between 225 and 260 pounds,” Greg says. “I was able to keep it in that range because I was always very active and did a lot of Muay Thai and kickboxing, and the training helped keep me in good shape.

“But a few years ago, around 2017, I started to go through a rough patch. I lost a parent and my wife was dealing with some health issues, and I kind of let myself go. I stopped working out and stopped paying attention to what I was eating.

“I knew I was putting on weight, but it didn’t really register until a friend of mine said to me, Man, you’re getting so big you could almost have your own cable show. I was like, What are you talking about? because mentally, I didn’t see it.”

What Greg didn’t see until his friend pointed it out was that he had ballooned to 466 pounds.

The discovery sparked a change, though, and simply by eating smarter, Greg lost nearly 30 pounds within a few weeks.

But he knew that he would need help to get the rest of the weight off, so he went to his wife’s doctor: Mel Richardson, MD, the founder of ReGenRX Wellness Integrated Wellness and Medical Spa.

Boosts Energy, Burns Fat

Dr. Richardson specializes in a variety of pain management and lifestyle optimization treatments, including a noninvasive regenerative medicine platform called pulsed acoustic cellular expression (PACE®) and medical weight loss.

With the latter, Dr. Richardson encourages patients to eat healthier while also treating them with a pair of medications designed to stimulate metabolism, increase energy level and suppress appetite.

One of those medications is called tesofensine, which comes in a capsule and is taken once a day. According to Dr. Richardson, it increases lean body mass, promotes fat burning and lowers insulin levels, but it does not elevate blood pressure or heart rate.

The other medication is a once-a-week injectable called tirzepatide, or Mounjaro™. This medication was developed as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes, but it has proven to be an effective weight loss agent.

“Mounjaro suppresses the patient’s appetite by delaying gastric emptying, which keeps you feeling full and reduces your desire to eat,” Dr. Richardson says. “It also stimulates insulin release from the pancreas to lower blood glucose levels.

“It’s similar to semaglutide, another popular medication used for weight loss, but in numerous head-to-head trials with diabetic and nondiabetic patients, the medication that seems to be most effective for weight loss is Mounjaro.”

With some patients, Dr. Richardson also recommends bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).

This treatment uses bioidentical hormones, which are natural byproducts of a plant derivative that are molecularly identical to the hormones produced by human body.

Bioidentical hormones can be administered in a number of ways, including topical creams, sublingual tablets or rice-sized pellets that are inserted into a small incision in the skin, usually in the hip area, where they slowly dissolve.

More Than Weight Loss

In treating Greg, Dr. Richardson began by conducting a thorough examination that included a dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) body composition scan to determine the amount of lean muscle mass and fat in Greg’s body.

The doctor used the results of the DEXA scan to formulate Greg’s personal weight loss program, which included bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, a daily dose of tesofensine and a weekly injection of Mounjaro.

The results have been incredible.

“When I first went to see Dr. Richardson,” Greg reports, “I weighed 430 pounds and my testosterone level was really low, like below 70.” (The recommended testosterone range for men is 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter of blood.) “That’s why he put me on the hormone replacement therapy and gave me some peptides.

“Along with that, I just started eating smarter. I also started lifting weights and working out again, which is something I had done my whole life up until a few years ago.

“At that time, I weighed 400 pounds. Since then, I’ve lost an average of 30 pounds a month, and so I’m down to 312 pounds and I know that I am going to reach my goal, which is 270 pounds. That would be a good weight for me, I’ll feel comfortable there.”

Dr. Richardson’s program has helped Greg do more than shed a lot of unwanted pounds. It has also boosted his testosterone and lowered his cholesterol.

“When I went to see my cardiologist the last time, he hardly recognized me,” Greg says. “I had lost 120 pounds between visits, and when he got done doing all the bloodwork and everything, he said, “Everything on your panel is perfect. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.

“I told him that what I’m doing is following Dr. Richardson’s program, and that I couldn’t be happier with the results. What Dr. Richardson has done for me is incredible, and I would absolutely recommend him and his program to anyone who doesn’t feel right or just wants to lose a few pounds – because it works.”