Speaker 1: Dr Stacy seems welcome to Project one hundred. How are
Speaker 1: you going?
Speaker 2: Oh, thanks for having me. I am currently freezing in
Speaker 2: New Zealand because it's winter, but pretty.
Speaker 3: Much really, yeah, it's cold. There were you in the
Speaker 3: south part of New Zealand right the north.
Speaker 2: Now I'm on the North Island about two and a
Speaker 2: half hours southeast of Auckland, but we get the wind
Speaker 2: that comes straight up of Antarctica, and so it might
Speaker 2: be sunny and you go outside like, oh, that's freezing.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 3: I mean, like you've really been at the forefront of
Speaker 3: talking about women's health, particularly in relation to exercise and
Speaker 3: all the regimes that we have to have to be,
Speaker 3: you know, to be healthy and live longer. What is
Speaker 3: it though, in particular that females or women should be
Speaker 3: looking at relative to muscle strength, you know, long term
Speaker 3: health longevity generally speaking. Why is it different for women
Speaker 3: to say relative to men or is it the same thing?
Speaker 2: Well, I have to bring everyone back to like the
Speaker 2: origins of research and medicine and how all this trajectory
Speaker 2: of health started and we have to think about who
Speaker 2: was in the room and it was men because women
Speaker 2: weren't allowed in the room because they weren't deemed to
Speaker 2: be smart enough or have a seat at the table
Speaker 2: to have a voice. So as we start looking at
Speaker 2: all the research and everything that's come out and the trajectories,
Speaker 2: it's all on a false spaceline for women, so based
Speaker 2: on male data. So if we look at the trajectories
Speaker 2: of longevity, it's also viewed through that false spaceline. Because
Speaker 2: men and women age differently, there's systems age in a
Speaker 2: linear fashion, but that linearity is different, so we'll see
Speaker 2: different time points of cardiovascular issues that have between men
Speaker 2: and women. We know women have an uptake in cardiovascular
Speaker 2: issues when they hit late perimenopause, but men, depending on
Speaker 2: if they're an athlete or not, might start in their
Speaker 2: forties or it might start in their sixties, So we
Speaker 2: see different delineations. And when we talk about muscle and bone,
Speaker 2: there's specific delineations for that. As we think about aging
Speaker 2: between men and women, we know that as women age,
Speaker 2: we tend to have a dual effect of the loss
Speaker 2: of hormones as well as an aging factor, so that
Speaker 2: affects our ability to have a really strong muscle contraction
Speaker 2: to produce power to have the ability to have lots
Speaker 2: of appropriate reception and agility, and this happens a lot
Speaker 2: faster and a lot sooner than is in men. Men
Speaker 2: have a linear decrease in both lean mass and that power,
Speaker 2: but it's at smaller decrements where women have a big
Speaker 2: whack of a loss of power and then they start
Speaker 2: to lose mass. So we start talking about what is
Speaker 2: optimal for men versus women for longevity and health span.
Speaker 2: We have to actually think what is the baseline for
Speaker 2: one sex versus the baseline of the other sex, and
Speaker 2: what are the risk factors for major implications of avoiding
Speaker 2: frailty and things like Alzheimer's As we get older.
Speaker 3: Is there enough daughta around or do you need more
Speaker 3: daughter and women to be able to start to build
Speaker 3: out really solid, good baselines as to how women should
Speaker 3: protect against all these diffferences.
Speaker 2: We have enough data to start writing the guidelines, but
Speaker 2: what we do need is more robust data on the outliers.
Speaker 2: So if we think about the typical woman who has
Speaker 2: access to health care and therefore has access to being
Speaker 2: in databases for research or being a research participant, it
Speaker 2: tends to be an upper middle class white woman, and
Speaker 2: so we know that there are complete ethnic differences socioeconomic differences.
Speaker 2: So we have enough for the middle of the Bell
Speaker 2: curve to make general recommendations and to guide the middle
Speaker 2: of the Bell curve. Right now, we're really trying to
Speaker 2: upscale the outliers, like what happens if you come from
Speaker 2: a Latino or pacifica background. How does culture and your
Speaker 2: genetics impact different risk factors. So the data gap is
Speaker 2: still there, but unfortunately it is still growing instead of
Speaker 2: shrinking between men and women, especially in the age of AI,
Speaker 2: because we start seeing AI and AI is turning out
Speaker 2: outcomes and insights based on that broken baseline of male data.
Speaker 2: So you know, we'll have healthcare professionals that are turning
Speaker 2: to places like open evidence for information. But when you
Speaker 2: compare open evidence versus a general chat like anthropics, Claude
Speaker 2: claud is actually better than what this particular medical one
Speaker 2: is supposed to be because the algorithms are learning from
Speaker 2: that poor baseline, whereas if you have a large data lake,
Speaker 2: then it can learn from more robust information.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: I don't think many people know about this, and I'm
Speaker 3: sort of already taken back by that, are you saying
Speaker 3: there is a difference in the chemical system of a
Speaker 3: woman relative to a man, or a female relative to
Speaker 3: a mile or is it getting right down to the
Speaker 3: cellar level, at a cellular level, is there a difference
Speaker 3: between mile and female?
Speaker 2: Both?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Both?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: So if we think about in utero, we have XX
Speaker 2: versus XY, like this is primarily the research that we
Speaker 2: have right now on the binary sex differences. So we know,
Speaker 2: oh that what happens is the Y is just.
Speaker 1: A small chromo chromosomes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So the Y chromosome is actually an X
Speaker 2: with half of it's turned off because as we start
Speaker 2: to have testosterone, it mutes the second half of an X.
Speaker 2: So when we see under a microscope, the X is
Speaker 2: huge and the Y is very small. So when we
Speaker 2: start thinking about sex differences from a chromosomal standpoint, it
Speaker 2: depends on the X and we have a silent X. Factors.
Speaker 2: That means when you have two x's they talk to
Speaker 2: each other to be able to turn certain genes on
Speaker 2: and off. When you have an X Y you lose
Speaker 2: some of that capability of having that conversation, which is
Speaker 2: why feeding forward we see things like less metabolic dysfunction
Speaker 2: in men versus women when we're looking at something like
Speaker 2: shift work, because the two x's are having a stronger
Speaker 2: conversation and a turn on the genetic profile to create
Speaker 2: metabolic dysfunction under circadium misalignment than the x y. So
Speaker 2: we have these specific sex differences, and then we have
Speaker 2: environmental considerations as well as sex hormones that then can
Speaker 2: create an epigenetic change. So we think about a lock
Speaker 2: and a key, So the hormones can be the key
Speaker 2: that unlocks a certain gene code even though it's not
Speaker 2: changing DNA. So what I mean by that, I'll take
Speaker 2: estrogen for an example, a muscle fiber. So everyone thinks
Speaker 2: that testosterone is responsible for building muscle tissue. This is
Speaker 2: why men get so bulky and can really put on
Speaker 2: lean mass really effectively. We look at testosterone in women.
Speaker 2: It doesn't work that way. Testosterone actually can inhibit muscle growth.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But estrogen is a driver factor, driving factor for women's muscle.
Speaker 2: So it's responsible for how our basic basal cell or
Speaker 2: our satellite cell of muscle responds to tension, so it'll
Speaker 2: upturn it and turn on some stem cells of muscle
Speaker 2: to grow muscle. It's also responsible for how our contractile
Speaker 2: proteins will come together to create a contraction. So we
Speaker 2: know that estradyle or estrogen is so important for muscle
Speaker 2: function and bone function and women, where everyone on the
Speaker 2: outside of the bubble think it's testosterone because we've had
Speaker 2: all of this conversation about testosterone being muscle and bone building.
Speaker 2: Yes in the male body in the xy but in
Speaker 2: the female body it's completely different.
Speaker 3: Women have testosterone as well, but obviously not to the
Speaker 3: levels of men have. So what is the function of
Speaker 3: testosterone and women then.
Speaker 2: So we see that it does help with bone strength,
Speaker 2: it's libido oriented. It also counters some of estrogen's what
Speaker 2: we call cell building capacity, so it counters some of
Speaker 2: what estrogen does. So does progesterone, and then all three
Speaker 2: of the female sex hormones can kind of break down
Speaker 2: to certain steroids to then help other systems of the body.
Speaker 2: So they work in conjunction. It's just what is the
Speaker 2: ratio Whereas men have a lot of testosterone and they
Speaker 2: have a little bit of estrogen and a little bit
Speaker 2: of progesterone, so they counter each other but in different ways.
Speaker 3: Is it fair to say therefore when you were talking
Speaker 3: about the X and Y chromosomes and how the Y
Speaker 3: chromosome is effective, the next sort of like an X
Speaker 3: chromosome with half the half functions turned off.
Speaker 1: Is it because.
Speaker 3: We have those like a male have those X Y
Speaker 3: chromosomes in them in their cells, that as a result
Speaker 3: of that, those chromosomes then express different chemicals, so different
Speaker 3: hormones into our whole system. And as a result of that,
Speaker 3: we males respond differently to the way the two X
Speaker 3: chromosomes and the female cell will get express certain hormones
Speaker 3: for them to respond their way. Is that what we're
Speaker 3: talking about when it come we're going from the settling
Speaker 3: a level now to the chemical level.
Speaker 1: But that is the that seems to be the procedure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Yeah? And I mean I like using caffeine as
Speaker 2: an example, right, We know that caffeine can affect you
Speaker 2: or not affect you. And so when we look at
Speaker 2: a genetic standpoint, we see that there are certain what
Speaker 2: we call alleles. So that's part of a genetic code,
Speaker 2: and if you have two alleles of this particular gene,
Speaker 2: then you're really sensitive, regardless of your man or a woman.
Speaker 1: And do you get one from mom, one from dead right, yep.
Speaker 2: But when it comes down to when you drink caffeine
Speaker 2: what happens. So when you drink caffeine, women's bodies tend
Speaker 2: to hold on to it for a longer period of
Speaker 2: time because those alleles that turn on the response to
Speaker 2: caffeine and women, they turn on an enzyme, but the
Speaker 2: response of that enzyme is not as fast or as
Speaker 2: robust as it is when it's turned on by the
Speaker 2: X Y. So we can have the same chemical coming in,
Speaker 2: we could have the same what we call sip gene
Speaker 2: and alleles, but it's the expression of the chemical response
Speaker 2: from those alleles based on xx versus x Y that
Speaker 2: determines caffeine clearance.
Speaker 1: Can I just check on that caffeine paige?
Speaker 3: Based on when you say caffeine clearance, do you I
Speaker 3: mean the time it takes for the caffeine to have
Speaker 3: an effect on the on you know, on on my
Speaker 3: brain or do you do amount the time.
Speaker 2: It lasts, how long it lasts, and how long it clears.
Speaker 2: So this is why you have a lot of the
Speaker 2: guys you're like, Oh, I could have an espresso after
Speaker 2: dinner and I could still go to sleep, not a problem,
Speaker 2: not me. But then then women are like, oh, I
Speaker 2: can't have it afternoon because then I really can't sleep.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how does that then inform a woman as to
Speaker 3: let's say we're talking, because it's going to be difficult
Speaker 3: because you've got different age groups, But let's say a
Speaker 3: thirty to forty year old woman who maybe hasn't had kids. Perhaps,
Speaker 3: how does that what you just told me? Then inform
Speaker 3: a thirty to forty year old woman to prepare for
Speaker 3: an exercise regime? And what is it that you if
Speaker 3: you were advising this particular individual, and this is not
Speaker 3: an advice show, but if you advising this particular individual hypothetically,
Speaker 3: what would they be trying to build?
Speaker 2: So this this is a really interesting decade from thirty
Speaker 2: to forty because one, we're still trying to understand did
Speaker 2: you reach peak bone mass and were you capable of
Speaker 2: reaching peak bone mass and muscle mass when you were
Speaker 2: in your teens in twenties, Because if you start hitting
Speaker 2: your early thirties and you didn't hit your peak bone mass,
Speaker 2: then that's what we have to worry about. Because you
Speaker 2: get to your mid thirties and you start getting into
Speaker 2: more hormone dysfunction or perimenopause, which can accelerate bone loss.
Speaker 2: So when we're talking to someone about an exercise routine,
Speaker 2: especially in our thirties to forties, we lean into what
Speaker 2: has been lifestyle habits and what is the trajectory if
Speaker 2: you haven't reached the peak span of that particular system.
Speaker 2: So for someone who's thirty to forty, those are the
Speaker 2: first things I talk about. I'm like, Okay, what was
Speaker 2: your lifestyle when you were a teenager, what was your
Speaker 2: lifestyle when you were in your twenties, what's your training history?
Speaker 2: Because from there I can say, hey, you know what,
Speaker 2: we want to really boost the peak span of your
Speaker 2: bone because we know that bone mass peaks for both
Speaker 2: men and women in their early twenties, and if we
Speaker 2: haven't reached that peak bone mass, we've missed peak span.
Speaker 2: We want to build that before we lose it, because
Speaker 2: if we don't build it as much as we can,
Speaker 2: then the cliff of the drop off is so severe
Speaker 2: that we're facing osioporosis in our late forties.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So this is where it becomes really I guess, particular
Speaker 2: in the type of exercise that we do in which
Speaker 2: decade we're in in our teams. Through our twenties or
Speaker 2: early thirties, you can pretty much do what you want
Speaker 2: and you're going to get pretty good results. When we
Speaker 2: start getting into our early thirties to our late thirties,
Speaker 2: women really start to question what's going on. We start
Speaker 2: seeing more and more what we call ann ovulatory cycles
Speaker 2: or regular minstrual cycles. That's an early sign of perimenopause.
Speaker 2: If you're not seeing that, when we start to see
Speaker 2: less of a response to the training that you're doing,
Speaker 2: so it might take a greater effort or more recovery
Speaker 2: to get the same gains as a male counterpart. Or
Speaker 2: even if you're comparing yourself to your early thirties to
Speaker 2: your late thirties, you'll see that there is a significant
Speaker 2: difference between the way that your body responded. And it's
Speaker 2: not an age factor. It's a sex hormone factor because
Speaker 2: men won't start to experience that until they're in their
Speaker 2: mid to late forties to fifties, So there is this
Speaker 2: whole decade shift in the thirties to forties is really important.
Speaker 2: We're talking about how are we going to maximize our
Speaker 2: peak span, which is each system reaches a peak at
Speaker 2: different points in our life, and we want to be
Speaker 2: able to maximize that so that the cliff of drop
Speaker 2: off is way less that we have to worry about
Speaker 2: hitting the bottom when we get to our late forties
Speaker 2: early fifties and having to rebuild.
Speaker 3: And I'm picking on thirty forties for particular reason because
Speaker 3: they don't want to go to forty fifty to fifty sixty,
Speaker 3: but just starting on thirty forties, what are the sort
Speaker 3: of questions they're asking themselves in informing themselves as to
Speaker 3: how they should excose between thirty and forty relative to say,
Speaker 3: what they should have they made done from fifteen to thirty.
Speaker 3: I mean, do they ask themselves or did I play
Speaker 3: soccer or football? Was I a basketball or a netballer?
Speaker 3: Did I lift weights? What are the sort of questions
Speaker 3: or none of those?
Speaker 1: Probably? What are the sort of questions are those are?
Speaker 2: So if we're looking at interminute sport like soccer or
Speaker 2: rugby or even netball, those are all high intensity, low
Speaker 2: intensity that's really good polarization and there's lots of agility,
Speaker 2: appropriate reception. Did I lift weights? Great? Yes, because then
Speaker 2: we know that you're also putting impact on the bone
Speaker 2: that's going to help reach that peak bone mass. The
Speaker 2: other question that we really need to dig into is
Speaker 2: what was your nutrition. Were you able to fuel for
Speaker 2: your exercise and recover appropriately from training. Were there times
Speaker 2: where you lost your period or times where became really
Speaker 2: irregular or did you start late like the minstrual cycles
Speaker 2: a big telling on what we call energy availability, because
Speaker 2: if we get into times of low energy availability, it
Speaker 2: mutes all of our systems. So we're not really maximizing
Speaker 2: muscle cell development and growth and strength development, we're not
Speaker 2: really maximizing bone turnover. If a woman is saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I played soccer, but I had a lot of stress reactions,
Speaker 2: so not full stress fractures, but stress reactions in the bone,
Speaker 2: then I know that they didn't reach peak bone mass
Speaker 2: because their bone isn't strong enough to withstand the intermittent
Speaker 2: activity of soccer. Did you have an ACL injury or
Speaker 2: any kind of other soft tissue injury. From a mechanistic standpoint,
Speaker 2: most women who play soccer have some kind of knee issue,
Speaker 2: and that's because they're overdeveloped in their quad and not
Speaker 2: developed enough in their posterior chain. So then we have
Speaker 2: to look at the strength training that they're doing. So
Speaker 2: it's really if I was going to sit down with
Speaker 2: someone and ask them a question so they can ask
Speaker 2: this themselves. When I was fifteen to thirty, what was
Speaker 2: my sporting like life? Did I have big holes in
Speaker 2: my sporting life? Was I someone who just ran or
Speaker 2: someone just rowed, or someone who just swam. That isn't
Speaker 2: kind of the kind of stuff that you can do
Speaker 2: to build bone. So we have to think of putting
Speaker 2: in some strength training, some jump training. Was I someone
Speaker 2: who did lots of intermittent sport? Fantastic? You have a
Speaker 2: leg up on peak span, because we know that that's
Speaker 2: taxing cardiovascular system, it's helping metabolic control, it's helping reduce
Speaker 2: body fat, and it's putting different load on the bone.
Speaker 2: But we still don't have a large aerobic base, so
Speaker 2: maybe we need to work on that, and we also
Speaker 2: need to work on the weaknesses within in the weight
Speaker 2: room so we don't get into soft tissue injury and
Speaker 2: we can keep building the bone and the muscle that
Speaker 2: we need. So it's really, what have you done from
Speaker 2: a training history and what do we need to maximize
Speaker 2: what you didn't do?
Speaker 3: Is it too late at thirty to forty to start
Speaker 3: to do this resistance work.
Speaker 2: Not at all, Not at all. It's never too late.
Speaker 2: There was this really cool study that came out two
Speaker 2: months ago from the UK that was actually looking at
Speaker 2: this specific question from muscle and muscle strength. So it
Speaker 2: took eighteen to twenty two year old men and women
Speaker 2: and seventy five to eighty year old men and women
Speaker 2: that had never lifted weights before, put them both on
Speaker 2: the same four week progressive resistance training, so they're all
Speaker 2: doing relative strength work to their body weight and ability.
Speaker 2: And then they were looking at the strength of the
Speaker 2: contraction and the tonality, so that means how fast the
Speaker 2: nerve conducted to create a contraction. So the old line
Speaker 2: of thought was as you get older, you can't develop
Speaker 2: a really fast contraction, that the ability to generate power
Speaker 2: is not there. This study showed it's completely not true
Speaker 2: that regardless of where you are, because the body is
Speaker 2: very malleable and responds to stress, that wherever you are
Speaker 2: in an age span, you can improve your muscle function.
Speaker 2: And this is what we're after, especially when we're talking
Speaker 2: about avoiding sarcopina or avoiding osteoporosis. Does not matter how
Speaker 2: old you are, you can still develop power and strength
Speaker 2: and lean mass and bone.
Speaker 3: Maybe you could define what you mean by muscle function
Speaker 3: because it's your bility, power, strength, durance. Do I mean
Speaker 3: there's probably a number of factors towards what from a
Speaker 3: scientific point of view, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: So when we're talking about muscle muscle function, I'm bringing
Speaker 2: it right down to central nervous system, not how much
Speaker 2: muscle we have, because we could have a lot of
Speaker 2: muscle mass, but that doesn't mean that it can respond
Speaker 2: really quickly. Say you step off a curb when you're older,
Speaker 2: and you don't have the muscle function to quickly correct yourself.
Speaker 1: So you've done for Beeva exactly.
Speaker 2: Because we know that if you're in your seventies and
Speaker 2: you break your hip, you have a sixty percent chance of.
Speaker 1: Dying within two years of something.
Speaker 2: So when we're talking about muscle function and how fast
Speaker 2: that nerve conducts and how fast it can affect the
Speaker 2: muscle fibers to contract, that's what we're after. And that's
Speaker 2: also why we say pure strength and power, because that's
Speaker 2: connecting the central nervous system to be able to respond
Speaker 2: quickly to a stimulus to then create a nerve impulse
Speaker 2: down to a whole bunch of muscle fibers to coordinate
Speaker 2: them to contract quickly, and that's what we're after. So
Speaker 2: when we talk about strength training, that's the very first
Speaker 2: mechanism of adaptation is a central nervous system being able
Speaker 2: to tap into quick conduction and really grabbing muscle fibers
Speaker 2: together to coordinate them to contract at the same time
Speaker 2: really strongly, and that's the important part of muscle function.
Speaker 2: Then we can start talking about developing more mass. And
Speaker 2: as you're developing the mass, we also want to have
Speaker 2: that central nervous system thing. The good thing about strength
Speaker 2: training is it doesn't matter what rep range you're in,
Speaker 2: you're going to develop mass. But as we get older,
Speaker 2: we want to focus on the heavier loads and the
Speaker 2: lower rep range to keep tapping into that central nervous
Speaker 2: system because we want to generate that power and that
Speaker 2: quick conduction of the nerve because that's very protective. We
Speaker 2: talk about preventing frailty, we talk about skeletal longevity, and
Speaker 2: all of that is on this power based part. And yes,
Speaker 2: will develop mass regardless if you're a man or a woman,
Speaker 2: regardless of what strength or what rep rains you're in.
Speaker 2: But we really try to pull people who are the
Speaker 2: forties plus down into the power based of a zero
Speaker 2: to eight reps at a heavier load to really tap
Speaker 2: in the central nervous system to maintain the type two fibers,
Speaker 2: to maintain agility, appropriate reception and reaction.
Speaker 3: Is that the reason therefore that some exercises like for example,
Speaker 3: and this applies amount of female like for example, our
Speaker 3: deadlifts are important because say, the central of the system
Speaker 3: is sort of activating a lot of muscles, not just one.
Speaker 3: A compound Movement's probably a better way putting it, is
Speaker 3: that the reason that's so important.
Speaker 2: Yes, because it is coordinating total body. And this is
Speaker 2: a functional movement. So if we talk about a compound
Speaker 2: movement like a deadlift, you can also think about it.
Speaker 2: Is you have to bend down and pick up your
Speaker 2: grandkid or your kid or a big suitcase. Right, So
Speaker 2: you're effectively doing a deadlift when you do that, because
Speaker 2: you have to activate the whole body. If you're not
Speaker 2: used to doing dead lifts, you might hurt your back,
Speaker 2: you might not have the strength to pull it up right,
Speaker 2: because if you're just doing leg press, you don't have
Speaker 2: that full coordination. There's a time and a place for
Speaker 2: those complementary machine stuff. But when we're talking about being
Speaker 2: really focused on functional movement, it's compound movements of the
Speaker 2: push pull the front like your squat movements of a
Speaker 2: knee focus or your hinge motion for posterior chain. So
Speaker 2: you are looking at your squats, your dead lifts, your
Speaker 2: bulgarian split squats, your push presses, all of that because
Speaker 2: it is coordinating every muscle in the body to do
Speaker 2: a movement. And the other thing that we know from
Speaker 2: doing heavier compound movements, and this is primarily because I
Speaker 2: have some research going in the Alzheimer's space that we're
Speaker 2: seeing that with heavier movements because it's such a neural load,
Speaker 2: so that means it really taps into central nervous system
Speaker 2: and the brain to be able to coordinate and lift
Speaker 2: things like that. That with the heavier loads, we have
Speaker 2: a really good neural connectivity in the prefrontal cortex. So
Speaker 2: that's the very first part that goes because that's our
Speaker 2: cognition and a reaction, and that's the first part that
Speaker 2: goes with dementia and Alzheimer's. So by doing the compound
Speaker 2: movements and lifting heavier, we are actually reducing the onset
Speaker 2: of dementia by keeping those neural conversations and connections going.
Speaker 2: We see that lighter loads and body weight doesn't do
Speaker 2: the same thing. It increases what we call BD and F,
Speaker 2: which is like miracle growth for the brain. So it
Speaker 2: does help with brain volume and brain health, but not
Speaker 2: with neural connection. I think this is the conversation that
Speaker 2: is not had in the strength and conditioning world about
Speaker 2: what are we doing besides just trying to put on mass.
Speaker 2: For me, I'm trying to get women and men to
Speaker 2: understand we want to protect the brain because that's how
Speaker 2: we actually can have health span. How do we do
Speaker 2: that in the gym? Heavier loads, jumping plios, lots of
Speaker 2: different kind of confusion to the muscles. You might be
Speaker 2: doing a lateral bar, slams, or you know, twists and
Speaker 2: catches and land mine presses, which are all still total
Speaker 2: body movements, but it creates such a neural load that
Speaker 2: improves brain function.
Speaker 1: Gogle, I wouldn't mind talking about that for a moment.
Speaker 3: Is because you know, like let's say we are stepping
Speaker 3: off a curb and potentially, you know, we could fall
Speaker 3: over and if we're building muscle strength to help us
Speaker 3: with those functions, and we decide to do dead list,
Speaker 3: which is quite a linear sort of movement, what about
Speaker 3: these players, I mean like jumping up in our box
Speaker 3: and then jumping from box to box and all those
Speaker 3: sorts of things. What about that type of exercise regime?
Speaker 3: Does that have the same effect as say lifting a
Speaker 3: heavy load. Always it fit into the regime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if we think about players and we think
Speaker 2: about box jumps, and you see these people doing amazing
Speaker 2: kind of bounds and jumps and things, that's our pliometric work.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I've seen people who are taking one
Speaker 2: of the trap bars, so you know, the hex bar
Speaker 2: or deadlift, and they have one hundred kilos on it
Speaker 2: and they're jumping with it because they have so much power. Right,
Speaker 2: So that's been trained into them and they've maintained their
Speaker 2: fast twitch. From a benefit standpoint, we know that plyometric
Speaker 2: work not having to jump high, but having to work
Speaker 2: on that rebound. So maybe we're doing what we call
Speaker 2: contrast training with squats, So we do two or three
Speaker 2: reps at a heavy load, then you have twenty seconds rest,
Speaker 2: and then you do squat jumps, so you're getting that
Speaker 2: plyo work and under furshet of the heavy load. Then
Speaker 2: you do the squat jumps, and then you go back
Speaker 2: in no wight, no wight, no waight, just body weight.
Speaker 2: Then you go back and do another heavy load. You're
Speaker 2: incorporating a little bit of confusion but also improving that power.
Speaker 2: So it's not about necessarily having to have specific high
Speaker 2: jump pliometrics. It's like, where can we instigate some agility
Speaker 2: and power within what we're already doing. If we want
Speaker 2: to challenge in ourselves, then maybe yeah, we want to
Speaker 2: build up our box jumps, but that's not as important
Speaker 2: as making sure that you are jumping.
Speaker 3: You think there's a lot on you know, obviously all
Speaker 3: of us look at Instagram and social can be good
Speaker 3: and bad, can motivate us, but at the same time
Speaker 3: can sort of be a bit misleading because like there
Speaker 3: seems to be a competition at the moment, at least
Speaker 3: on my on the algorithm that is playing itself to
Speaker 3: me is that plymetrics is becoming it's nearly becoming a
Speaker 3: bit of a shelf game.
Speaker 1: It's nearly like saying those deadlifts.
Speaker 3: Are useless and you should be doing this ply metrics
Speaker 3: and actually, when you look at these dudes like they're
Speaker 3: unbelievably built, Like, I'm thinking, my god, I never looked
Speaker 3: like that, and I don't know anyone who's had looked
Speaker 3: like that, And maybe I should have been doing this
Speaker 3: sort of stuff before. Is this misleading us? And where
Speaker 3: social fit into this whole game that you're in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if we think about social and clickbait, that's
Speaker 2: the problem, right. People will put really polarizing things on
Speaker 2: social to get people to watch them. And it's just
Speaker 2: like reality TV is completely scripted. It's curated to be
Speaker 2: what is coming out, right, So when we start really
Speaker 2: leaning into social media, it doesn't give you the full
Speaker 2: story or the nuances. So if I'm thinking about the
Speaker 2: algorithm that you're locked into, with everyone showing off about
Speaker 2: their power moves, I always go back to, well, how
Speaker 2: did you develop that power in the first place. We
Speaker 2: know that hip thrust and deadlifts are paramount for being
Speaker 2: able to build up the posterior chain in order to
Speaker 2: have a high sprint capacity and a high power of
Speaker 2: jumping capacity. So that's the part that they're not telling you.
Speaker 2: They're not saying I had to build a base of
Speaker 2: strength first before I could do these power moves. And
Speaker 2: this is where we start to see injury and deflation
Speaker 2: and lack of confidence because people who are leaning into
Speaker 2: these clickbait reels or these short snippets of time that
Speaker 2: have been curated for a message rather than giving the
Speaker 2: full story.
Speaker 3: So it's a slow build too. So notion, so how
Speaker 3: important is that for people to understand? Look, I've never
Speaker 3: done the exercise gys. I would like to do some
Speaker 3: exercise because I now understand that there's a lot of
Speaker 3: benefits in terms of lifespan, but also probably equally important,
Speaker 3: probably maybe more important health span being healthy during that
Speaker 3: long life. I'm going to start doing some resistance work.
Speaker 3: For example, my dad never did resistance work, but around
Speaker 3: about eighty five he started. He asked me could I
Speaker 3: get him some handweights, and then he conquered those ones
Speaker 3: that are only two and a half. Then he got
Speaker 3: to five kilo's and he started standing up, sitting down,
Speaker 3: the chairls and those sorts of things. He realized, I
Speaker 3: don't know why I realized, but he realized that they're
Speaker 3: you know, lifting some resistance stuff is important. What should
Speaker 3: we be doing now? If where you know, if a
Speaker 3: forty year old person sitting here listening to you speak, woman,
Speaker 3: what she should should she be thinking about? I don't
Speaker 3: mean sort of building a program, but what you should
Speaker 3: be thinking about as having like an appropriate program like
Speaker 3: between say heart lune and resistance work. I mean she
Speaker 3: should be doing resistance for one hour a week. I
Speaker 3: mean I listened to Peter Tayor, and Peter sort of
Speaker 3: says things like, you know, you should be doing you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty minutes of zone two and three
Speaker 3: and then you should Like it's sort of like I think, fuck, like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if time to do all this sort
Speaker 3: of stuff. That's like I don't I'm trying to wake away.
Speaker 3: The optimum is and what should a woman be thinking about?
Speaker 2: There was a study that came out last week about
Speaker 2: weight lifting and what's the optimal sweet spot? Yeah, ironically
Speaker 2: it's one hundred and nineteen minutes a week, not a week. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I mean that can be divided up into what
Speaker 2: three thirty ish minute sessions a week yep, right, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't take a lot and ideally total body so
Speaker 2: you're doing some compound movements after that, they see the
Speaker 2: risk factors for all cause mortality doesn't go down, but
Speaker 2: it really does significantly have an impact on things like
Speaker 2: dementia and bone and cyclopamia. When you hit that one
Speaker 2: hundred and nineteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Positively positive, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, which is a pretty far cry from the
Speaker 2: to moderate exercise resistance training sessions that things like ACSM
Speaker 2: have out there. We're starting to see more and more
Speaker 2: research on the benefits of resistance training. Not only that,
Speaker 2: but resistance training does give you metabolic changes. As we
Speaker 2: talk about zone two and mitochondria and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: we still get mitochondrial changes with resistance training. And when
Speaker 2: we talking about cardiovascular and like reducing things like viscraal fat,
Speaker 2: we need a really high intensity work for that. We
Speaker 2: know that short bouts of really high intensity work improve
Speaker 2: cardiovascular because one we're having to really shift blood rapidly
Speaker 2: to the muscles and the heart under high loads, so
Speaker 2: we have a vascular component that improves our blood pressure
Speaker 2: and the way that our body controls blood flow. We
Speaker 2: see that when you do high intensity it uses a
Speaker 2: lot of blood gluecose, so it improves insulin sensitivity because
Speaker 2: as the muscle cells then adapt to be able to
Speaker 2: use insulin with our used glucose without insulin. If we
Speaker 2: have less insulin resistance, then we also decrease our leptin resistance,
Speaker 2: which becomes a problem for women in their mid to
Speaker 2: late forties where they never feel like they're really full
Speaker 2: and they're craving lots of carbohydrate. There's a change in
Speaker 2: the gut microbiome, but we are also starting to see
Speaker 2: a little bit of leptin resistance because that goes up
Speaker 2: as insulin resistance goes up. So if we're talking about
Speaker 2: high intensity work that helps with metabolic from a hormonal standpoint,
Speaker 2: it also creates a change so that your body doesn't
Speaker 2: have a stimulus to store visceral fat, which is that
Speaker 2: deep abdominal kind of dangerous fat, and it improves our
Speaker 2: heart and lungs because we have to be able to
Speaker 2: shift blood quickly and get oxygen to the working muscles.
Speaker 2: So then when we're looking at what does that look
Speaker 2: like in a week, right, it's like if we can
Speaker 2: hit three forty minute sessions a week. In that forty
Speaker 2: minute session space, sometime doing some mobilization and warm up
Speaker 2: because we have to make sure our tenons and ligaments
Speaker 2: are warmed up as well. As our muscles get into
Speaker 2: some compound compound loading, and then we finish with a
Speaker 2: couple of sprints or a couple of one minute efforts
Speaker 2: with one minute off, so that we're getting to that
Speaker 2: higher range of our anaerobic capacity. And if we think
Speaker 2: about it from a longevity marker, it's hitting those capacities right.
Speaker 2: We're hitting VO two with our high intensity to the end,
Speaker 2: we're hitting our grip strength through total compound movement. We're
Speaker 2: helping with brain health, cardiovascular health, we're helping with mobility
Speaker 2: and agility because we're warming up properly, so you're hitting
Speaker 2: all the notes that help protect you from having just lifespan,
Speaker 2: but it's really improving your ability to have a health span.
Speaker 3: You mentioned something really interesting states about alzhemis something that
Speaker 3: I've observed here in Australia. I don't know if it's
Speaker 3: the case anywhere else in the world, but more women
Speaker 3: have dementia soften from Alzhemers here in Australia. Dementia being
Speaker 3: the broad but like underneath that Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's and men.
Speaker 3: Do you think that is Are there any studies to
Speaker 3: say that's because women haven't historically done exercise, it's not
Speaker 3: or is it a genetic.
Speaker 2: Well, this is one of those interesting sex differences. So
Speaker 2: we're seeing that it has to do with some of
Speaker 2: the X chromosome and some of the genetic coding. We
Speaker 2: do see that there are men walking around that on
Speaker 2: a brain scan look like they should be fully late
Speaker 2: Alzheimer's individuals, but they're fully functional because they have a
Speaker 2: genetic coding from the why that allows their brain to
Speaker 2: have lots of plaques and tangles and still be very
Speaker 2: cognitively with it. That doesn't happen with women. So there's
Speaker 2: in the States, it's one in six men might be diagnosed,
Speaker 2: but for women it's five out.
Speaker 1: Of six, five out of six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you get in your eighties.
Speaker 1: It's massive, like eighty five percent. WHOA.
Speaker 2: We're talking about brain and cognition, not for a Lolzheimer's,
Speaker 2: but cognitive decline.
Speaker 1: Four times the risk. WHOA.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's a lot of rapid acceleration into looking
Speaker 2: at what is causing this and what can we do.
Speaker 2: And that's part of the research that I'm doing with
Speaker 2: some groups in the States is looking at you have
Speaker 2: a genetic risk factor, you have early dementia, you have
Speaker 2: late onset Alzheimer's and you're living at home. Can we
Speaker 2: do specific interventions to either halt it, attenuate it, or
Speaker 2: stop it because it's so important because it's such a
Speaker 2: drain on the health span of women.
Speaker 3: Wow, sort of late thirties, early forties, perimenopause starts to
Speaker 3: kick in. I mean, obviously that's a broad statement, but
Speaker 3: you know, let's just pick it as take it as
Speaker 3: a fair statement. What are the indicators that someone a
Speaker 3: woman who is experiencing perimenopause, apart from I don't know
Speaker 3: if you said dysregulated period circles and things like that,
Speaker 3: but what is she looking at and what she should
Speaker 3: be doing in terms of her exercise regime around that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there are no specific blood tests. It's all symptomology.
Speaker 2: Some of the first early symptoms. Unfortunately, a woman will
Speaker 2: probably go to her doctor going I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: having panic attacks, and I can't sleep, and I feel
Speaker 2: highly stressed. Those are actually really early symptoms of perimenopause
Speaker 2: because what's happening is you're having less and less progesteronwe
Speaker 2: counter estrogen, because you might still have a regular period
Speaker 2: or a regular bleed, but you didn't ovulate, and you
Speaker 2: can't discern unless you have specific tests if you ovulate
Speaker 2: it or not. So when a woman is in her
Speaker 2: late or mid to late thirties and starts going, I'm
Speaker 2: having panic attacks and anxiety and I can't sleep, then
Speaker 2: start tracking symptoms against a perimenopausal chart, or go see
Speaker 2: a physician that is well versed in menopause. Because if
Speaker 2: you go, as a general woman in her mid thirties
Speaker 2: to your GP and say I'm having problems breathing, panic, anxiety, depression,
Speaker 2: high stress, then most likely they're going to lean into
Speaker 2: the clinical avenue of going down an SSRI or some
Speaker 2: other kind of cognitive and behavioral drug therapy instead of
Speaker 2: looking at hormone flux and understanding that it's a whole
Speaker 2: body system that's starting to be affected by less progesterone.
Speaker 3: So they're going to treat you likely to depressed exactly, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: as opposed to it's a hormonal problem exactly creating these symptoms.
Speaker 3: So the symptomology. So when you're let's say someone starts
Speaker 3: to recognize these symptoms, where does HI two hormone replacement
Speaker 3: therapy HI TW you fit into these programs or what
Speaker 3: would you say about that.
Speaker 2: So when we look at menopause hormone therapy, it's a
Speaker 2: tool and a tool basket for sure, but a lot
Speaker 2: of people are leaning into it because they think it's
Speaker 2: going to stop perimenopause, and we know absolutely that's not true.
Speaker 2: The only thing that has been proven with menopauster hormone
Speaker 2: therapy as it's very effective for protecting your bones. So
Speaker 2: if you have a family history or you yourself have
Speaker 2: gotten your DEXA and you see you have low bone density,
Speaker 2: then definitely have that conversation, especially if you're in your
Speaker 2: late thirties early forties. When we start having lots of symptomology.
Speaker 2: This is where we look at lifestyle. So we know
Speaker 2: that dietary changes help, We know that training changes help.
Speaker 2: We know that getting and nailing sleep is one of
Speaker 2: the pillars. And having that social connection so that you
Speaker 2: can have times of laughter and being out from under
Speaker 2: the stress of life. Those are all really super important
Speaker 2: lifestyle factors that help with symptomology. There are other non
Speaker 2: hormonal options, but it's all symptom driven at the moment.
Speaker 2: There's no like I said, there's no specific blood tests.
Speaker 2: It's I think the whole everyone needs to be on
Speaker 2: it or you should never use it comes from two
Speaker 2: different studies that happen to be going on at the
Speaker 2: same time. So everyone hears about the Women's Health Initiative
Speaker 2: study in the States that said, you know, no one
Speaker 2: should use hormone replacement therapy because it causes cancer and dementia.
Speaker 2: But that was based on women who were ten years
Speaker 2: plus post menopause, where you had a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: biological changes with the receptors where they weren't able to
Speaker 2: use hormones. So it wasn't surprising that study was set
Speaker 2: up to see if we put women back on hormones
Speaker 2: after they've been off it for a long period of time,
Speaker 2: would it help And it didn't. But at the very
Speaker 2: same time, there was a study in the UK going
Speaker 2: that was called the Million Women's Study, and it was
Speaker 2: looking at using hormone replacement therapy for women who were
Speaker 2: in their early forties mid forties who were definitely in
Speaker 2: perimenopause and it helped. So now we see this playing
Speaker 2: out in today's society where in the US maybe five
Speaker 2: percent of women who can access hormone replacement therapy do
Speaker 2: and the rest are too afraid or don't have access
Speaker 2: or haven't asked about it. But any of the commonwealths,
Speaker 2: especially the UK and UK doctors who have trained doctors
Speaker 2: who come to Australia and New Zealand, Canada, everyone is
Speaker 2: very pro image G and say, yeah, let's look at
Speaker 2: this as a means to help. Just like if you
Speaker 2: were having severe depression, we would use an SSRI. And
Speaker 2: cognitive behavior therapy is a medical medication that is a
Speaker 2: tool on a toolbox. So we start to have all
Speaker 2: these conversations of yes, no, should I or shouldn't I?
Speaker 2: But it depends on where that conversation or origin.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be looking like a jump around
Speaker 3: old Tom. But you says, as you're speaking, I thought
Speaker 3: of something really quite important. I think, where do you
Speaker 3: rank the significance of accessing a DEXA machine, which is
Speaker 3: not expensive and they're pretty accessible everywhere here in Australia.
Speaker 1: At least to get yourself a baseline.
Speaker 3: And what would you suggest to people, you know, when
Speaker 3: should they start getting these baselines in terms of the
Speaker 3: bone density, muscle mats, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started getting a DEXA every year since I
Speaker 2: was forty one. Will do it every you're around my
Speaker 2: birthday and.
Speaker 1: Have your birthday. When you say what the result is?
Speaker 3: Have you both that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly been. I'm pleasantly surprised that, you know, body
Speaker 2: weight on the scale hasn't fluctuated that much in that decade,
Speaker 2: as I say, my real age maybe a kilo or two,
Speaker 2: but body composition has significantly improved. Lean mass has gone up,
Speaker 2: bone mineral density has gone up, body fat has gone down.
Speaker 2: And so I think having that baseline and being able
Speaker 2: to compare year to year can tell you different stress points.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: There was one one Dexa I got where my body
Speaker 2: fat was so incredibly low. I was like, WHOA, what happened?
Speaker 2: And it was because I just came off a massive
Speaker 2: amount of stress and hadn't been training and eating properly.
Speaker 2: And so I know that's an unusual case, but that's
Speaker 2: the way my body responds. So I tell women, you know,
Speaker 2: when you start hitting forty, get a baseline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And for men, I mean you.
Speaker 2: Could start for year as well, but you know, fifty
Speaker 2: is really the benchmark for men. Start really looking at
Speaker 2: bone density, muscle quality, where you're storing your muscle or
Speaker 2: you're fat. Is it more subcutaneous or visceral, so that
Speaker 2: you can start interventions earlier rather than later.
Speaker 3: One of the things is really interesting about it, and
Speaker 3: probably a lot of people who have never had a
Speaker 3: dex that don't know this. They'll tell you the right
Speaker 3: down of competiti left arm, your left leg, the right
Speaker 3: glue competitor left group glute. Have you got sort of
Speaker 3: changes or differences between the two and you can look
Speaker 3: at it from period to period. I think they're critical
Speaker 3: and they're only they're not expensive. You pay about in Australia,
Speaker 3: I think you pay one hundred and fifty bucks or something.
Speaker 3: Can I just talk about nutrition, because you know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff at the moment about nutrition, and
Speaker 3: one thing in particular is about the the value of
Speaker 3: creatine for women especially once again, men have been using
Speaker 3: creatine in gyms for a hell of a long time,
Speaker 3: maybe too much creating. It was more about I will
Speaker 3: build more muscle if I have more creatine. And you
Speaker 3: go through a period of owning creating and then you
Speaker 3: take it up, you stop it. Then you know, you
Speaker 3: go through periodization with it. But now it's become a
Speaker 3: thing you take a full briand health and just general
Speaker 3: physical health. Could you talk a little bit about creatine
Speaker 3: for women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean creatine is the most studied supplement.
Speaker 2: It has so much really robust peer review behind it.
Speaker 2: And the thing about it is it's in every fast
Speaker 2: energetics of the body. So if we talk about the
Speaker 2: way the body fuels itself, every cellular function in the
Speaker 2: body uses creatine. Women don't have as much lean mass
Speaker 2: or muscle mass as men, so by that nature, we
Speaker 2: have less available creatine. Women tend to eat less creatine
Speaker 2: containing foods in general than men, so we have less stores.
Speaker 2: If you're a vegan or vegetarian, you definitely have less stores.
Speaker 2: So we talk about using a very low dose creatine
Speaker 2: monohydrate supplement, maybe three to five grams, so can saturate
Speaker 2: your tissues. So what does that mean from a health perspective.
Speaker 2: We know that there's a sex difference in things like
Speaker 2: IBF and so that means that you have more irrital
Speaker 2: bowl syndrome as a woman and more gut issues. If
Speaker 2: you start taking creatine, it maintains the integrity of the
Speaker 2: intestines and reduces that and some women don't have issues
Speaker 2: unless they start taking creatine. We talk about muscle and
Speaker 2: muscle function, of course, but creatine is also really important
Speaker 2: for bone and bone function. We see it does help
Speaker 2: with gut micro the gut microbiome diversity, and we need
Speaker 2: that for vitamin production and the gut brain access. Talk
Speaker 2: about creating in brain health because the brain is such
Speaker 2: an energy hungry organ it uses a lot of creatine
Speaker 2: in glucose. So if we are saturating the tissues and
Speaker 2: we're providing more creatine for brain function, then we have
Speaker 2: less depression and less fatigue. So when we talk about
Speaker 2: creatine as a supplement, it's been so well studied, and
Speaker 2: now we're having more and more research done specifically on
Speaker 2: women in the health space, not the performance in space,
Speaker 2: and there have been a couple of reviews looking at
Speaker 2: all of that research and the groups that benefit the
Speaker 2: most from three to five grams of creating monohydrate a
Speaker 2: day are women eighteen to sixty five. And that is
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the research. It's like. So if you
Speaker 2: are really looking for something to improve just mood, trying
Speaker 2: to improve muscle function, gut function, herd function, then I
Speaker 2: tell women lean into just starting with a low dose
Speaker 2: of creating, not going up to the five times four
Speaker 2: grams a day where you're getting twenty grams, there's a
Speaker 2: time and a place for that. But that's like shift
Speaker 2: workers or people who are chronically jet lagged or having
Speaker 2: lots of issues sleeping, because then higher doses of creating
Speaker 2: can help in those situations.
Speaker 3: Then what about protein, because that's the big conversation when
Speaker 3: we keep getting hammered definitely on social media about we
Speaker 3: don't have enough protein. And then you know, the general
Speaker 3: as I understand the consensus now in the science community,
Speaker 3: somewhere between one point eight grams protein per kilogram to
Speaker 3: two point two grams of protein per kilogram of weight.
Speaker 3: I guess that depends on how active you are and
Speaker 3: how much exercise you do, and maybe everybody's different. But
Speaker 3: if maybe if you say just two might be easier
Speaker 3: two grams. But how important is protein as a resource
Speaker 3: and should we be getting it just from our where
Speaker 3: do you prefer just get it from a natural foods
Speaker 3: or like someone like I'm seventy my age, like I
Speaker 3: can't eat these days. I can't need enough food to
Speaker 3: get that To reach that number, I way eighty kilos,
Speaker 3: So that means I've got to have one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty plus sixty you've got to have it on seventy
Speaker 3: six grams of protein, which means I've got to eat
Speaker 3: like five steaks or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever it is, and I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it, you know what I mean? Like, So,
Speaker 1: how is it okay to have the supplements? And when?
Speaker 3: Should you have them straight after training? Or should I
Speaker 3: try to always edit in a natural sauce? Where's a
Speaker 3: protein deal?
Speaker 1: Sit?
Speaker 2: Okay? We think about proteins now having its heyday. We've
Speaker 2: heard about fat, we've heard about carbs, and now we're
Speaker 2: having protein. And I always like to remind people that
Speaker 2: the RDI of protein in most countries is based on
Speaker 2: the minimal amount needed to prevent malnutrition. So I'll just
Speaker 2: let that sit there. So all these people are arguing,
Speaker 2: fifty grams is enough, that's enough. If you're sitting around
Speaker 2: doing nothing else except trying to exist, then you start
Speaker 2: just breathing, just breathing. We see that when you start
Speaker 2: becoming more recreationally active man and woman, that comes up
Speaker 2: to one point six grams per kilo. And that's not
Speaker 2: even really focused activity, that's not trying to build muscle
Speaker 2: that's not trying to train for a marathon. That's just
Speaker 2: you're going through your life and you're putting incidental and
Speaker 2: structured exercise in because it helps with bone, it helps
Speaker 2: with muscle, it helps with satiation, it helps regulate our
Speaker 2: appetite hormones. All of these things are really important. We
Speaker 2: start training for purpose and we start getting older, we
Speaker 2: see that we have an anabolic resistant response to both
Speaker 2: exercise and protein for women. When we hear forties for men,
Speaker 2: it starts about fifty. So that means no matter how
Speaker 2: much training in protein we eat, if we're not eating
Speaker 2: appropriately and at the right times, then we're not going
Speaker 2: to adapt to the exercise as well as we would
Speaker 2: have before that anabolic resistance came in. So this is
Speaker 2: where we start leaning into hitting that two to two
Speaker 2: point two Graham's per kilo dispersed across the day, and
Speaker 2: if we lean into a little bit of Keith Barr's
Speaker 2: work on tendons and ligaments, because that becomes a very
Speaker 2: important conversation as we start getting older too, that if
Speaker 2: we have protein as close to the end of exercise
Speaker 2: as we can, then that nutrient uptake is so much better.
Speaker 2: And we see that the amino acids for tendons and
Speaker 2: ligaments gets absorbed and used a lot better too. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: So it's an age factor rather than the exercise component.
Speaker 2: That's more important that you increase your protein, and you
Speaker 2: have more of an eye on the timing of protein
Speaker 2: as we get older. When we talk about sources of protein,
Speaker 2: I've been plant based since i was fourteen, but you know,
Speaker 2: I've also been in the gym since i was sixteen.
Speaker 2: It's very possible to get enough from plant sources. It's
Speaker 2: not necessarily ideal. So I always tell people the plant forward,
Speaker 2: and you think about protein from all sources, not just
Speaker 2: our steaks and or chickens, but also think about etnami,
Speaker 2: green peas, sprouted grains, and nuts, seeds. All of those
Speaker 2: things can work with the typical sources approtein to give
Speaker 2: you a good thirty to fifty grams per meal time
Speaker 2: and a place for supplementation. Definitely, there's a reason why
Speaker 2: they're really good. Clean way protein and peed protein isolates
Speaker 2: out there so that you can use them right after
Speaker 2: exercise or first thing in the morning when you're not
Speaker 2: hungry but you know you need something. It is a
Speaker 2: supplement and you can use it to help boost your
Speaker 2: overall protein intake. The thing is we have this confusion
Speaker 2: now of collagen protein versus a whole protein of way
Speaker 2: isolate or pe protein isolate. Collagen is not a dietary protein.
Speaker 2: So you'll see protein waters you got os and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: great protein water, and you look at it and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's bovine collagen and it says twenty grands of protein.
Speaker 2: It's not the same as if it was a way isolate.
Speaker 2: The way isolate is what we think of its protein.
Speaker 2: The collagen protein is just a structural protein. It doesn't
Speaker 2: go to help with our dietary intake a protein.
Speaker 3: Stacey, could you help me out on this because I
Speaker 3: see a bit of a It's like two teams so
Speaker 3: and I'm not asking you to criticize one or the other,
Speaker 3: just to help explain it a little bit to me.
Speaker 3: But we got one team on one side, which is
Speaker 3: say David Sinclair, who is talking about and even to
Speaker 3: a point of reducing the amount of calories not just fasting,
Speaker 3: not just intimate fasting or going on days are fasting,
Speaker 3: but also during the period when you are eating, perhaps
Speaker 3: are taking in less calories because It has a cascade
Speaker 3: effect in terms of turning what I don't want to
Speaker 3: get weird about it, but am tore off, and then
Speaker 3: turning apk on and Schouans and all those other things
Speaker 3: that sort of going to fix you up. If you've
Speaker 3: got that camp over there makes sense to me, then
Speaker 3: I got the Peter Tier camp over here, who say
Speaker 3: two point two train your hardest, get enough protein into
Speaker 3: your system.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: You've got to make sure you have enough fats, carbs,
Speaker 3: and protein and minerals and other things too. But then
Speaker 3: I get confused which one's right or where.
Speaker 2: Do we go? You know what conversation is not on
Speaker 2: either camp. There is the exercise conversation right, because if
Speaker 2: we think about exercise exercise themselves as a fasting state.
Speaker 2: We have an uptick of mtour right after exercise, yes,
Speaker 2: because we've had damaged muscles, but over the course of
Speaker 2: adaptation it turns it off. Intours and something that stays
Speaker 2: on or off it is something that comes on in
Speaker 2: responds to a stress of tissue breakdown to be able
Speaker 2: to rebuild it. So when we're talking about taking in protein,
Speaker 2: if your body doesn't have to rebuild protein or muscle, right,
Speaker 2: then it's not going to have a high impact on
Speaker 2: intour It'd be a slight uptick, but not a huge impact.
Speaker 2: We talk about fasting. This is where we start to
Speaker 2: get in a lot of gray area, right because if
Speaker 2: we look at the research on fasting, when you start
Speaker 2: holding a fast on noon or after you're having circadian shift,
Speaker 2: it's more impactful in women than the men because men
Speaker 2: have a longer circadian rhythm.
Speaker 1: But what's that? What's that mean by the way you
Speaker 1: mean between sleep and wait.
Speaker 2: So when we talk about a circadian rhythm, for women,
Speaker 2: it's a twenty three and a half our cycle that
Speaker 2: our body is on, but for men it's more twenty five.
Speaker 2: In a bit we say, you know, in general, people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, it's a twenty four hour circadian rhythm
Speaker 2: of light and dark and the way your body works
Speaker 2: in the day versus night. But every hormone and system
Speaker 2: is tied to a time clock within that, so we
Speaker 2: see appetite hormones are driven by that, or hormone pulses
Speaker 2: throughout the day are driven by that. So the two
Speaker 2: biggest Ziya guests of controlling circadian rhythm is exposure to
Speaker 2: light and when we eat. So if we hold a
Speaker 2: fast till noon or after, we're effectively telling our body no,
Speaker 2: we're still in a sleeping state, so we don't want
Speaker 2: all of our hormone pulses going. So we start to
Speaker 2: see dysregulation of appetite. We start seeing more insulin or
Speaker 2: leptin resistance, and insulin resistance, we start to see flattening
Speaker 2: of testosterone and men, a pbturbance and lutinizing hormone and women,
Speaker 2: and the fact that we're having a smaller eating window
Speaker 2: is why we are seeing body comp change. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean it's positive body comps change because when
Speaker 2: we start looking at metabolic effects of holding that fast
Speaker 2: so long, it has negative impacts on women as well
Speaker 2: as sleep implications because if we are shifting our hormonal
Speaker 2: pulses because we're withholding food, then it's also telling melatonin
Speaker 2: that it's not supposed to rise and peak when it
Speaker 2: should in a normal brain. For our circadian rhythm, which
Speaker 2: is around nine PM for women in about ten for men,
Speaker 2: it blunts and or doesn't peak at all, so then
Speaker 2: we have interrupted sleep. If we have interrupted in poor sleep,
Speaker 2: we don't have any metabolic control and we cannot instigate change.
Speaker 2: So if we're thinking about what are we doing for
Speaker 2: calorie restriction, it's like, let's just make it easy, Okay,
Speaker 2: Let's not talk about the two camps and all the
Speaker 2: metabolic things that are happening. Let's look at how are
Speaker 2: we structuring our day to optimize metabolic health. Let's work
Speaker 2: with the way our bodies are designed to work with
Speaker 2: its intrinsic clocks. So for women, that means eating something
Speaker 2: within a half an hour or so waking up because
Speaker 2: you have a normal cortisol awakening response, which is why
Speaker 2: we wake up. Women's peak is higher than men's, and
Speaker 2: it's tightly tied to appetite hormones. We have something very small.
Speaker 2: Then it unties cortisol and garrilan so that they're not
Speaker 2: so tightly interwound, so your body can then get on
Speaker 2: with its day and have appropriate responses to stress and
Speaker 2: hunger cues. For men, it's a little bit longer, like
Speaker 2: you could probably get away with not having any food
Speaker 2: for a couple of hours after you wake up because
Speaker 2: it's not as important because your circading rhythm is longer
Speaker 2: and you don't have such a tight tied to cortisol
Speaker 2: in your appetite hormones. Then you eat regularly throughout the day,
Speaker 2: making sure that you're having protein and fiber at every
Speaker 2: eating opportunity. You have dinner, you stop eating when you
Speaker 2: finish dinner, so you have about a two to three
Speaker 2: hour break before you go to sleep. So then you
Speaker 2: end up with a twelve to fourteen hour overnight fast,
Speaker 2: which encounters that fasting situation. You have more energy during
Speaker 2: the day. If you have more energy during the day,
Speaker 2: you also have more control over your hunger queues as
Speaker 2: well as what you're reaching for. We see a lot
Speaker 2: in the research that if you're holding or skipping breakfast,
Speaker 2: you tend to have more cravings for simple carbohydrates in
Speaker 2: the afternoon. So this is why we see people are
Speaker 2: leaning for the caffeine and the chocolate in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: It's because of that dysregulation of appetite hormone. So the
Speaker 2: big picture is, let's eat during the day and fuel
Speaker 2: for what we are doing during the day, and then
Speaker 2: not have anything overnight and let our body do all
Speaker 2: the utophagy and reparation it needs to overnight.
Speaker 3: I've heard a lot of discussion around understanding you when
Speaker 3: you do your blood tests understanding a variety of things,
Speaker 3: but one of the important ones in terms of informing
Speaker 3: us as to how we eat and how we live
Speaker 3: our life, et cetera, is a BOI and it is
Speaker 3: and particularly you know, like not making sure, but trying
Speaker 3: to find out do you IUE four for example, as
Speaker 3: opposed to one of the other ones three or two?
Speaker 1: How important is that for thus a bit like decks
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: How important is that for us to get baselines about
Speaker 3: those sorts of things as to informing us as to
Speaker 3: how we should approach our health spend, loss span.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you have the opportunity of being
Speaker 2: able to get that, then that gives you that baseline
Speaker 2: to understand what your risk factors are. Right, so we
Speaker 2: know that APOE four is a significant risk factor for Alzheimer's,
Speaker 2: so then let's do everything to prevent it. Just because
Speaker 2: you have that risk factor, it doesn't mean you're going
Speaker 2: to develop the disease. So this is when we start
Speaker 2: looking at baseline biomarkers and having access to that information,
Speaker 2: it informs you which direction to take. Because people sometimes
Speaker 2: feel like they have a death sentence when oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: my father got Parkinson's that means I'm doomed for it. No,
Speaker 2: it doesn't. It means you have a risk factor, but
Speaker 2: we have a lot of things that we can do
Speaker 2: to help reduce that risk. So that's what these baseline
Speaker 2: tests are, and they are important. If you can access
Speaker 2: it and get it, then it gives you really good
Speaker 2: insight of how to direct your training and nutrition.
Speaker 1: Because it's definitely available in Australia. I know that because
Speaker 1: I'm an E three to four.
Speaker 3: I mean I found out and it's actually helped me
Speaker 3: because it sort of helped me work out about sleep
Speaker 3: patterns and stuff like that. And I do want to
Speaker 3: talk to you finally if you've got a minute or
Speaker 3: two left about sleep generally, and lots of people where
Speaker 3: I've got a wearable lots of peoplehear them and they
Speaker 3: sort of try to calculate you or what they call
Speaker 3: restorative sleep, which is in my cases the combination between
Speaker 3: ramsleep and slow wave sleep will been in a broader sense,
Speaker 3: not every part of slow we sleep.
Speaker 1: But what are we trying to achieve here?
Speaker 3: Let's say, are we trying to achieve thirty percent of
Speaker 3: our total sleep time in restorative sleep?
Speaker 1: How important is slow wave sleep compared to rams sleep.
Speaker 1: What's the deal?
Speaker 3: Should we get in three hours restorative a night? Some
Speaker 3: people I get five hours restorative sleep at night, and
Speaker 3: I think, no, that's not fair. I don't ever get that.
Speaker 3: What are we thinking about here?
Speaker 2: This is very individual. Well, first, our wearables are not
Speaker 2: since it's enough to actually pick up sleep pases. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it just gives you a general estimation of how slow
Speaker 2: your heart rate goes and blood flow changes.
Speaker 1: Which but it's good for comparisons from month to month.
Speaker 2: Yet. Yeah, so under times of high stress, so this
Speaker 2: could be exercise training, block stress, lots of travel, could
Speaker 2: be work stress. You want to have more reparative sleep
Speaker 2: because this is where our brain gets to be repaired.
Speaker 2: We see that even lots of interrupted sleep the next day,
Speaker 2: you have lots of times where you have attention deficit
Speaker 2: disorders where you're like, oh, what was I thinking of?
Speaker 2: It's because your brain is now trying to improve the
Speaker 2: glymphatic system during the day because it didn't get to
Speaker 2: at night, So it's flushing itself in the day, which
Speaker 2: is not optimal. So if you know that you are
Speaker 2: under a period of high stress or you're going to
Speaker 2: go into a period of high stress, getting more deep
Speaker 2: reparative sleep is super important. We see that it changes
Speaker 2: across seasons. We see more people fall into a deeper
Speaker 2: reparative sleep in the winter than in the summer because
Speaker 2: of daylight hours. It's not something to be worried about,
Speaker 2: but track your own trends. When we're thinking about the
Speaker 2: impact of poor quality sleep over time, that's a significant issue.
Speaker 2: So if you're seeing poor quality sleep and it's been
Speaker 2: three or four months of poor quality sleep, we need
Speaker 2: to talk about an intervention, like what is their sleep hygiene?
Speaker 2: Have you gotten into a new bad sleep habit? Because
Speaker 2: we can effectively have really good sleep patterns, but if
Speaker 2: we develop a poor habit, then it will interfere with that.
Speaker 2: So what I mean by that is if you've had
Speaker 2: a series of interruptions in your nighttime sleep because of
Speaker 2: a noise or for some people, a new baby, then
Speaker 2: your brain learns that new habit and we have to
Speaker 2: unlearn that habit so can get back into its normal
Speaker 2: reperative sleep. So there are things like insomnia cognitive behavior
Speaker 2: therapy that's very effective. That's down the track, but first
Speaker 2: let's look at are we in a cool room do
Speaker 2: we not have screens in the room. Do we have
Speaker 2: access to dimmer light the hour before we go to sleep?
Speaker 2: Are we having ear plugs so that our partner and
Speaker 2: small noises don't wake us up? So there are very
Speaker 2: small little habits that we can instigate to improve our
Speaker 2: sleep environment, which then will improve the sleep architecture.
Speaker 3: If you were to rank out of the three sleep exercise, nutrition,
Speaker 3: which one is the one you have to really make
Speaker 3: sure you don't stuff it up?
Speaker 1: Sleep by far?
Speaker 2: By far? Yeah, yep. There's still so much research to
Speaker 2: be done on why we actually need to sleep. There's
Speaker 2: lots of researchs done that shows what happens during sleep
Speaker 2: and how it is important for total body reparation and
Speaker 2: metabolic control and body comp and cognition and reducing inflammation
Speaker 2: and all the things that promote our public burden diseases.
Speaker 2: So people I always kind of step back because I
Speaker 2: used to be one of these people. I would compromise
Speaker 2: sleep so I get in a training session. Especially when
Speaker 2: I was racing high level, I was like working, I
Speaker 2: have to work late, but then I have to get
Speaker 2: up to get my training in, and I was always
Speaker 2: a little bit sleep deprived. My training wasn't going where
Speaker 2: I wanted, The races weren't going where I wanted. I
Speaker 2: was suffering in work, and I was like, oh, wait
Speaker 2: a second, it's sleep. So then I started prioritizing sleep
Speaker 2: and putting parameters around how I'm sleeping, when I'm sleeping,
Speaker 2: and really getting good sleep, hygiene, and then everything else improved,
Speaker 2: because we can't show up for other people if we're
Speaker 2: chronically sleep deprived and inflamed and just not cognitively there
Speaker 2: from poor sleep.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people just think that sleep. So
Speaker 3: I've just got to sleep. I'm going to get to sleep.
Speaker 3: I'll go to sleep earlier. But other people like you,
Speaker 3: and I've heard you speak, and by the way, I
Speaker 3: just want to say, I appreciate, we appreciate what Station
Speaker 3: seems does for longevity and health span. Thank you, not
Speaker 3: just for women, but around the world, for everybody, all
Speaker 3: the people you've spoken to, the way you say it,
Speaker 3: the research you bring into it, the way you explain it.
Speaker 1: I wonder what it is that drives you to do this.
Speaker 1: Why does Sticy want to do this? What is it
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 2: I grew up all over the world being an army brat,
Speaker 2: and I've seen so many different opportunities and cultures, and
Speaker 2: the bottom current is we're all human, right and for me,
Speaker 2: I want every human to have the opportunity to live
Speaker 2: the best to their potential. I say that with a
Speaker 2: grain of salt, because there are some people that I
Speaker 2: wish would just keel over right now. I think about
Speaker 2: some of the things that are happening in my home country.
Speaker 2: But for the most part, the passion and drive is
Speaker 2: to create an equal playing field because we see so
Speaker 2: many discrepancies, and part of it is lack of access
Speaker 2: to information, lack of money for proper healthcare. So the
Speaker 2: more prevention and information that we can get out for everybody,
Speaker 2: the better potential people have for their own life, because
Speaker 2: no one wants to face a life of being chronic
Speaker 2: pain and illness if they had the opportunity to prevent that.
Speaker 2: So the more that we can get it out there
Speaker 2: and the more we level the playing field, the more
Speaker 2: impassioned I am and empathetic I am with how we
Speaker 2: are going to survive our lives as well as take
Speaker 2: care of the people come after us, as well as
Speaker 2: our planet.
Speaker 1: And where do you think we are now? In the
Speaker 1: in the curve?
Speaker 3: Because you know, it's been fairly steep in terms of
Speaker 3: over the last five years in terms of learning more
Speaker 3: about these sorts of things. We have more and more
Speaker 3: people like yourself telling us about them. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, we rely on you to learn about these things,
Speaker 3: you know, through research, et cetera. Where do you think
Speaker 3: we are we halfway up the up the hill or
Speaker 3: we know we need that we're just touching the touching
Speaker 3: the edges At the moment.
Speaker 2: I think for general purposes, we're almost at the top
Speaker 2: where we have enough information that we can disseminate and dispel.
Speaker 2: It's like the sprinkles and the icing on the cake
Speaker 2: that I'm very interested. And it's like when we start
Speaker 2: taking the nuances, we don't have a lot of research
Speaker 2: and the nuances like the extras, yeah, like the ectress.
Speaker 2: It's like, if we are to look at peptides that
Speaker 2: are making such a big thing right now, right It's like,
Speaker 2: I want to know what the research is, if it's
Speaker 2: really accessible, and does it work and does it improve
Speaker 2: certain parameters for someone like you or someone like me
Speaker 2: or someone like my husband. Which one should we use
Speaker 2: and is it really something that we should lean into
Speaker 2: or should we spend our money and time in something
Speaker 2: we know that works like a Mega three's. So those
Speaker 2: are the nuances that we don't have captured yet and
Speaker 2: that's what excites me about the research. But for the
Speaker 2: general pillars of how do we take care of ourselves?
Speaker 2: Have skeletal longevity to grab the catchphrase that my friend
Speaker 2: vonder Wright has coined of you know, having good tendons, ligaments, bone, muscle,
Speaker 2: cognitive function to be able to live our lives to
Speaker 2: the fullest, however long that is is something that I
Speaker 2: think we have a pretty good handle on.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's a great way to finish this off,
Speaker 3: Doctor Stacy, seems so proviach you on the show.
Speaker 1: That was wonderful. I really enjoyed it and I know
Speaker 1: audience is going to absolutely love this.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me. It's been fun.