Surgeon embraces ‘healthy aging’

ALBANY, Ga. — Dr. Phillip Allen’s no publicist. He’s an oto … an otolar … an otolaryngol … He’s an ear, nose and throat guy. He leaves the PR stuff to his wife/best friend Laurie, who does that kind of thing for Deerfield-Windsor School.

But when Allen’s closing a potential client interested in his RestoreFit age management clinic, which focuses on the unique concept of healthy aging, he just shows the pictures.

Or, if you will, the pictures.

Pretty much works every time.

“Around 2005, about the time Katrina hit New Orleans, I was going through a crushing amount of professional stress,” Allen, a native of New Iberia, La., said. “I was already the A-1 junk food king, but I’d always been an athletic guy so I could handle it.

“But my body quit handling it. And I got fat … very fat. I got really unhealthy, and my whole personality just changed. I got grumpy, my joints were aching and I was so weak I couldn’t bend down and get a pot out of a cabinet.”

About this time in his narrative, Allen offers the “before” picture.

“I went to see a physician, and he told me I should start working out,” Allen picks up his story. “I told him I was, and he said, ‘Aww, you’re just getting older.’

“I was 40!”

Allen had finished first in his med school class at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, so he boldly decided to set out on what he called his “journey of self-discovery.”

“I did a lot of research, went on the Web and got all the literature I could find that I thought related to what I was experiencing,” Allen, a partner in the Albany Ear, Nose, Throat, Sinus and Allergy Clinic, said. “One of the things that I kept coming back to was hormones, particularly testosterone.

“Now admitting that your testosterone levels are low is a hard thing for a guy to talk about … That’s your manhood. But one of the things I discovered is that people with low hormone levels — especially testosterone — have problems that are unique. They can work out all they want, but they still get fat.”

Allen’s search for self-discovery eventually took him to Las Vegas and the trendy — if “ridiculously expensive” — Synergenics anti-aging program. He took elements of that program, including a regimen of hormone/testosterone replacement, went “full-circle with a pristine diet” and started working out like a demon.

Now comes the “after” photo.

At 45, Allen is the picture of health, a poster-boy for “healthy aging” with a grab-all-the-gusto outlook on life that rivals his party-hard teenage self.

“The transition I’ve made, and the transition I now try to help others make, is not about living longer,” Allen said. “People are still going to age. But I like to talk about healthy aging, about ‘squaring the curve.’

“Have you ever seen a lame seagull flopping around on the beach? You don’t. Those guys just live life 100 percent; they fly up there and drop down into the water to get their food and take back off. Then, when their time is done, they drop out of the sky into the water and that’s it. That’s how I want to live.”

Allen’s passion for living healthy — and the amazing transformation that passion brought into his own life — led him to start RestoreFit in March of 2009 as a kind of side business to his otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat surgeon) gig.

And RestoreFit is a business like no other.

“This is not something for people who are not motivated,” Allen said of his nascent operation. “If you don’t buy into it, you’re not going to stick around. It’s not something I can talk you into.

“You see, one of the problems I have with Western medicine is that doctors are taught to pooh-pooh nontraditional medical theories. I believe that Western medicine should do what it’s good at: treating cancer, healing broken bones, those things we do best. But we’re not good at obesity. That’s why I admire integrated medical theories.”

With RestoreFit Allen uses the best of hormone replacement treatment, sensible diet and an exercise regimen created by a certified personal trainer to help people over the age of 35 come up with a healthy way to “maximize the aging process.”

“It was a way to cut out all that crap in the middle, all the stuff that doesn’t involve the one-on-one interaction between a doctor and patient,” he said. “It’s what patients want, and it’s what doctors would love to do if they didn’t make their living through volume.

“On any given day, I may see 36 people at the ENT office. When I work with someone through RestoreFit, the first session usually lasts about three hours on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Each of my clients gets unlimited access to me.”

Through word-of-mouth only, Allen has built a client base of somewhere around 50, about what he can handle. But stories of amazing results are spreading.

“We had one professional guy who was really motivated,” Allen said. “When he set his mind to it and started working really hard with our trainer, he lost 8 percent of his body fat in a period of three weeks.”

Most of Allen’s clients are men — “I’m leaning more and more toward all male clients; I think guys get me,” he says — but he discovered dangerous inflammation levels in an apparently healthy female client that he was able to help her reduce to near nothing in a matter of two months.

“There’s nothing exotic,” Allen said. “We really concentrate on the basic stuff; it’s very Mom and Pop. We look at hormones, inflammation, blood levels, vitamin D levels. Then we sit down and have a real conversation about individuals’ labs and what the results mean.

“I’m not going to change what a person’s primary-care physician says. In fact, I insist that interested persons talk with their primary-care doctor first. I work in conjunction with the primary-care doctor, and he has the final say.”

Allen has a chat with potential RestoreFit clients before even agreeing to see them.

“It’s not about money, it’s about finding out if they’re a good fit,” he says.

Once the level of interest is established, potential clients fill out a health and lifestyle questionnaire that delves into personal as well as medical issues: family and individual medical histories, sleep habits, sexual issues, eating habits, social activities.

A complete lab workup and comprehensive physical exam precede a consult with a contracted personal trainer, who sets up an exercise program that takes into account needs and limitations. The extensive session then moves into an in-depth, line-by-line discussion of lab results and a specific hormone replacement regimen to meet individual needs.

“And, no, this is not ‘taking steroids’,” Allen said. “We’re talking about biomedical replacement of hormones that the body makes, particularly testosterone. And I don’t sell hormones, I prescribe them.

“The most important thing I do, I think, is encourage and help individuals assume responsibility for their own health. I want to instill in people the passion to go on their own personal health journey.”

There are regular follow-ups to make sure the prescribed treatment is working as it should, but for the majority of clients who have stayed with the program, RestoreFit is providing amazing results.

“I’d hate for my fellow medical practitioners to think I’m just looking for another way to make a buck,” Allen said. “That’s about as far from the truth as you can get. As a matter of fact, I’m losing money on this hand over fist. This is not a business plan to make money.

“But I found something that changed my life, and I want to share it with others. That’s what I do. There is plenty of huxterism out there — a lot of folks selling snake oil — but I’ve seen what can happen with this program. And I have my ace in the hole: I put my money where my mouth is.”

And he’s got the pictures to prove it.