Speaker 1: Muscle is the organ of ondevity. Your survivability against all
Speaker 1: cose mortality will be greater the more muscle mouse your health.
Speaker 1: It is the only organ system that we have full
Speaker 1: control over. We cannot say that for any other organ system.
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you
Speaker 2: come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. I'm so
Speaker 2: grateful because our guest today is going to help you
Speaker 2: do just that. Today's guest is doctor Gabrielle Lyon, a
Speaker 2: physician and a founder of the Institute for Muscle Centric Medicine.
Speaker 2: She's the author of Forever Strong and her new book,
Speaker 2: The Forever Strong Playbook. Her groundbreaking work shows why muscle
Speaker 2: isn't just about fitness. It's the key to longevity, vitality,
Speaker 2: and preventing disease. If you want to sort this area
Speaker 2: of your life out, this is the book to grab
Speaker 2: a six week science based plan to sharpen your mind,
Speaker 2: strengthen your body, and get healthy at any age. Go
Speaker 2: and grab a copy of the book right now. Please,
Speaker 2: welcome to On Purpose, doctor Gabrielle Lion. Gabrielle. It's great
Speaker 2: to have you here.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here in.
Speaker 2: The first few moments that you've walked in your In
Speaker 2: the first few moments that you've walked in, your spirit
Speaker 2: and just your energy is really captivating and it's really
Speaker 2: wonderful to be around and some really excited for my
Speaker 2: audience and community today to connect with you and be
Speaker 2: introduced to your work.
Speaker 1: Well, I couldn't be happier. Awesome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, let's dive in. I want to start off in
Speaker 2: on purpose fashion by asking you what is the purpose
Speaker 2: of your work? What are you trying to achieve for people?
Speaker 2: What are you hoping they get out of today by listening?
Speaker 1: I believe that the world can be stronger and more resilient,
Speaker 1: And it's not going to be from one person. It's
Speaker 1: a collective path forward and so together we can create
Speaker 1: a cultural shift and it's available to everybody.
Speaker 2: And what about with this book? What was your purpose
Speaker 2: with this book? What were you hoping that people are
Speaker 2: going to get by following the six week science based plan?
Speaker 2: In our conversation, Yeah, what's the output? What's the result
Speaker 2: you want them to get?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of information out there and it
Speaker 1: can become very overwhelming. I wanted people to be able
Speaker 1: to pick up a book to show them exactly how
Speaker 1: to eat, how to think, how to move, how to recover.
Speaker 1: It's a playbook.
Speaker 2: Now, you just said three really important things that you said, eat, think,
Speaker 2: and move. Where do we start?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I would argue we start with mind.
Speaker 1: People will want to hear about the body. I'll let
Speaker 1: you choose because there's a bi directional relationship between both
Speaker 1: muscle and your mind. You pull one to push the other.
Speaker 2: So let's start where you think we should start with
Speaker 2: your thoughts in our mind. Let's start there, all right?
Speaker 2: What challenge do people have in their mind that you
Speaker 2: hear most often, that you face most often when it
Speaker 2: comes to building muscle.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that people have to feel worthy of
Speaker 1: being healthy, and there's a lot of internal dialogue. I'm
Speaker 1: too old, i can't do this, I'm too busy, and
Speaker 1: these are all distractions. The brain is an organ system,
Speaker 1: and the brain is doing what it's supposed to do,
Speaker 1: which is produce thoughts. Not all of those thoughts are relevant,
Speaker 1: and we have to become very skilled at discerning what
Speaker 1: is a relevant thought versus not so that we can
Speaker 1: take the next right action. And that takes discipline and then,
Speaker 1: of course, after that, you are free to choose and
Speaker 1: be able to live how you want physically.
Speaker 2: How do we start doing that? When those excuses feel
Speaker 2: so strong, they feel so big, and they feel so real,
Speaker 2: right that thought of I'm too old, I've never been
Speaker 2: that fit. You know, no one in my family ever
Speaker 2: worked out. I don't need to work out. I'm actually okay.
Speaker 2: What can convince people to realize that no investing in
Speaker 2: their health is the most investment they can make.
Speaker 1: Well number one practice, And you have to prove it
Speaker 1: to me that you're too old. I think we have
Speaker 1: to start challenging our thoughts because oftentimes they're irrelevant. And
Speaker 1: that's why I wrote the playbook, because whether you're having
Speaker 1: those thoughts or not, you still have to take action.
Speaker 1: And you might not be motivated, but you do have
Speaker 1: to be committed. And people will say I don't have
Speaker 1: time for health and wellness, and I would say, well,
Speaker 1: if you don't have time for health and wellness, how
Speaker 1: are you going to have time for sickness?
Speaker 2: That's a great I mean, that's such a big point.
Speaker 2: It's it's incredible. How I mean, I was saying it
Speaker 2: to you about myself. I met my wife. You know,
Speaker 2: we've been together for twelve years now, I'm married for nine.
Speaker 2: But she's always been focused on health and fitness. Health
Speaker 2: and wellness has been a big part of her life,
Speaker 2: especially physically. She's a dietician and nutritionist. And for me,
Speaker 2: I came from a world of mastering the mind and
Speaker 2: mastering your thoughts, but not necessarily pushing the body. I
Speaker 2: was athletic, I played sport, but I didn't really work out.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a fitness schedule. And what happened for
Speaker 2: me was she said to me, and I was just
Speaker 2: sharing that with you offline. She said to me, she
Speaker 2: was like, Jay, you're so present, you're so alert, you're
Speaker 2: so focused. Imagine how powerful you'd be if you were
Speaker 2: to exercise.
Speaker 1: I mean, she is brilliant. She didn't say, Jay, you
Speaker 1: have to do this. She gave you the choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think that's what people need to realize,
Speaker 2: is that whatever level you're at, whether you're at a
Speaker 2: pain point or whether you feel good, imagine how good
Speaker 2: you could feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that we have focused a lot
Speaker 1: on what we have to lose. I mean, there has
Speaker 1: been an obesity epidemic going on, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: For the last fifty years or so, we've been chasing
Speaker 1: obesity as something that we have to lose as the
Speaker 1: root of all of our problems, and it's very disempowering.
Speaker 1: And if you think about what women and men have
Speaker 1: to go through, the average person has at least fifteen
Speaker 1: diet books on their shelf, and can you imagine trying
Speaker 1: to lose fat something that you don't necessarily have control over.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, our body is made up
Speaker 1: of forty percent muscle. It is something that we can
Speaker 1: take action and focus on what we have to gain,
Speaker 1: and we can use our mind to do it, or
Speaker 1: you can use your muscle to move your mind, and
Speaker 1: so either way you will become a stronger, more resilient human.
Speaker 1: And if we recognize that muscle is the organ of
Speaker 1: longevity and what we need and what we have to
Speaker 1: focus on for aging. I mean, you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about health and wellness, in order to get there, we
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge skeletal muscle as an organ system.
Speaker 2: You know what, You're the first person to say to
Speaker 2: me that we've been thinking about it or wrong. I've
Speaker 2: never heard it put that way. I feel like every
Speaker 2: single book or every single conversation is always about losing
Speaker 2: fat and not about building muscle. And even though we're
Speaker 2: in this protein rich muscle conversation right now, which is great,
Speaker 2: it's still always been And it's almost like telling someone
Speaker 2: never to have a negative thought again without having a positive.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and that's not true.
Speaker 2: You're always gonna have negative thoughts. That's always going to
Speaker 2: be the case. But what if you could lean in
Speaker 2: And no one has ever said it that way, And
Speaker 2: now that you've said that, it's almost like I've unlocked
Speaker 2: a whole new mindset about it, because I think everyone
Speaker 2: listening to just think about that for a second. You've
Speaker 2: been spending the last few decades every single January first,
Speaker 2: you're thinking to yourself, this is the year I lose weight.
Speaker 2: This is the year I lose weight. And it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, you just said, forty percent
Speaker 2: of us is muscle. If it's all about building muscle,
Speaker 2: building something that we already have. We lose weight naturally, right,
Speaker 2: that happens as a byproduct of it.
Speaker 1: And it is the only organ system that we have
Speaker 1: voluntary control over. You cannot tell your heart to be
Speaker 1: at fifty beats per minute. You cannot tell your thyroid
Speaker 1: to produce x number of thyroid hormones, but you can
Speaker 1: tell your bicep to curl, You can tell your body
Speaker 1: to squad. It is the only organ system that we
Speaker 1: have full control over, which makes it extremely empowering. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I think about obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease,
Speaker 1: what if these external diseases are all in part pathology
Speaker 1: of unhealthy muscle.
Speaker 2: First talk to me about that. Yes, explain it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So skeletal muscle and I say skeletal muscle. People
Speaker 1: are like, well, why do you always say skeletal muscle. Well,
Speaker 1: because there's cardiac muscle and then there's smooth muscle.
Speaker 2: What's the difference.
Speaker 1: Well, cardiac muscle stride and muscle the heart. It's the
Speaker 1: only area where there is again cardiac muscle, and then
Speaker 1: smooth muscle is uterus or in blood vessels. But skeletal
Speaker 1: muscle that is our powerhouse. That is what we are
Speaker 1: built on and as the most important organ system, it
Speaker 1: is the center and focal point for an number of things. Well,
Speaker 1: number one, you knew you were talking about sport. We
Speaker 1: know that muscle is important for sport mobility, yes, and strength,
Speaker 1: of course, but what about muscle as our metabolic control center.
Speaker 1: Skeletal muscle is the primary site for carbohydrate metabolism, for
Speaker 1: fatty acid metabolism, for amino acid reserve. It's our body armor,
Speaker 1: and when you contract it, it releases these myokindes, which
Speaker 1: are hormones that go throughout the body that affect the
Speaker 1: brain and the liver and the bone. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: skeletal muscle when it becomes unhealthy. If you think about
Speaker 1: muscle cross sectional area of to thigh, a filet mignon
Speaker 1: sounds gross, but just stay with me. Is a rich
Speaker 1: red muscle without fat infiltrated into it versus a wagou
Speaker 1: steak or a ribi which has fat that is infiltrated
Speaker 1: throughout it. When we gain weight, don't just gain weight
Speaker 1: subpcutaneously that we can see or even viscerally around our organs,
Speaker 1: but we also can gain weight should I say gain
Speaker 1: weight gain fat within that muscle tissue and muscle becomes unhealthy.
Speaker 1: There is no such thing as a healthy sedentary person.
Speaker 1: And when that muscle becomes unhealthy, then we see diseases
Speaker 1: like cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer's, which is type through diabetes of
Speaker 1: the brain. But the health of our body and what
Speaker 1: controls glucose triglycerides relate to the health of our skeletal muscle.
Speaker 1: And so I would argue that skeletal muscle at its
Speaker 1: core is a root cause of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease,
Speaker 1: and Alzheimer's, because these are diseases in part of metabolism.
Speaker 1: And if someone is listening, they're like, well, what does
Speaker 1: that mean. You go to your doctor and you get
Speaker 1: your triglystrides measured or your cholesterol measured, you get your
Speaker 1: glucose measured, your insulin, but the primary site for control
Speaker 1: of that is muscle.
Speaker 2: Can you see that you can't measure that right?
Speaker 1: You can?
Speaker 2: What's it called? What would what should you be asking for?
Speaker 1: Ask for a panel for metabolic syndrome? And everyone's heard
Speaker 1: about metabolic syndrome. So it's a fat percentage over thirty percent,
Speaker 1: it's elevated blood pressure, it's elevated triglytrides, insulin, and glucose.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating is people feel as if that is related
Speaker 1: to obesity, but it's a clinical indication that your muscles
Speaker 1: are unhealthy.
Speaker 2: That's why you say that pull muscle health is bigger
Speaker 2: than the obesity crisis, because that's what's at the root of.
Speaker 1: It, exactly. And for the last fifty years we've been
Speaker 1: chasing obesity and it reminds me of this. So have
Speaker 1: you ever heard of the street lamp effect?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, well, actually I think I have out of it,
Speaker 2: but I forgot what.
Speaker 1: You've been to New York City and you've been to
Speaker 1: Central Park. So imagine that it's two in the morning
Speaker 1: and there's a guy who's drunk and he's looking for
Speaker 1: his keys, and you know, there's lamp posts, and a
Speaker 1: cop comes over and he sees this guy on his
Speaker 1: hands and knees and he's looking for his keys. The
Speaker 1: cop comes over and is, well, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Can I help you? And he's like, yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: lost my keys. So the cop and the guy are
Speaker 1: on their hands and knees looking for the keys, and
Speaker 1: after twenty minutes, the cop goes, are you sure you
Speaker 1: lost your keys here? And he was like, no, I
Speaker 1: lost it over there in the park, but it's too dark.
Speaker 1: I can't see anything. So aside from wasting time and
Speaker 1: probably the cop got really frustrated. It's a metaphor for
Speaker 1: the fact that obesity is easy to see. We don't
Speaker 1: feel when our muscles become unhealthy, it doesn't affect us,
Speaker 1: but we see when we put on weight, and that
Speaker 1: has then become the primary focus. And the only way
Speaker 1: we're going to solve something is if we ask the
Speaker 1: right question. Yeah, and if we are still asking the
Speaker 1: question about obesity, then we are absolutely missing the point
Speaker 1: of skeleton muscle as the primary organ system for a
Speaker 1: healthy and great, strong life because it is at the
Speaker 1: focal point.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean yeah, No one's ever explained it like
Speaker 2: that to me, and I feel like it's a breakthrough
Speaker 2: to hear it that way, because we've just been looking
Speaker 2: in the wrong direction, focused on the wrong thing. And
Speaker 2: I would add that another reason for that is because
Speaker 2: it's aesthetic, like we look at it as something that
Speaker 2: will improve the way we look, etc. And feel good
Speaker 2: about ourselves, and so it becomes an easier thing to
Speaker 2: focus on, whereas there may be a feeling of like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't want to be too bulky, or I don't
Speaker 2: want to look like this, or that's not how I
Speaker 2: meant to look or whatever. These norms and traditions have
Speaker 2: been or what our physical appearances should be like.
Speaker 1: And you said something really important, and you know this
Speaker 1: better than anybody. Humans become really good at thinking the
Speaker 1: same way. And because we've been talking about obesity for
Speaker 1: so long and well, we should lose weight, then that
Speaker 1: is passed down generation after generation, as opposed to I'm
Speaker 1: going to go out and I'm going to do my
Speaker 1: best to build muscle. And let's face it, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's much easier to gain body fat than it is
Speaker 1: to build muscle.
Speaker 2: And they're hard is it?
Speaker 3: How is it?
Speaker 1: How?
Speaker 2: What is how hot? What is how long does it
Speaker 2: take to gain body fat versus build muscle? Right?
Speaker 1: They say that it's an excess of three hundred thirty
Speaker 1: five hundred calories for every pound I mean, think about
Speaker 1: the holidays. The average person, I don't know, they might
Speaker 1: gain between five and ten pounds over this season. They
Speaker 1: could be training for a month and it might take
Speaker 1: depending if they're new to training, they might gain one
Speaker 1: to few pounds. If they are perfect and dedicated of muscle.
Speaker 1: And then the fitter you are, the more skilled you
Speaker 1: are at training, the more difficult it is to put
Speaker 1: on muscle. But those same people. It's discurgin, But those
Speaker 1: same people could go out and eat a cake and
Speaker 1: do all this other stuff and put on fat. The
Speaker 1: body finds it very easy to store body fat. It's
Speaker 1: this protective mechanism. Arguably, I would say it's a design
Speaker 1: flaw that it's so much more difficult to put on muscle.
Speaker 1: But even with that being said, if we reorient ourselves
Speaker 1: to muscle, then as we think about aging, there's a
Speaker 1: natural decline in muscle and muscle health. And we know
Speaker 1: that consciously. If you look at your parents or your grandparents,
Speaker 1: they seem to have shrunk, right, I mean, you've experienced that,
Speaker 1: And there's this natural progression, especially when people don't train
Speaker 1: because skeletal muscle tissue it changes. It becomes more resistance
Speaker 1: called anabolic resistance. It becomes less efficient at utilizing protein.
Speaker 1: It can become less efficient at responding to exercise. But
Speaker 1: it's not to say that it always does. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you exercise and have a great program, you can
Speaker 1: be ninety years old and you'll put on muscle.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about how to build it. Now that
Speaker 2: we've shifted everyone's focus to this conversation being all around
Speaker 2: building muscle as the priority, as the focus. We know
Speaker 2: it's not easy, we know there's a challenge to it.
Speaker 2: What's the first thing that we do that we was
Speaker 2: trying to build a muscle?
Speaker 1: There is something that people have to recognize that when
Speaker 1: you are young, you are very anabolic. My kids don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about what's young five Okay, but really
Speaker 1: I would say the cut off, we say is about
Speaker 1: thirty five, and after thirty five you have to become
Speaker 1: much more intentional about both died and training when you're young.
Speaker 1: You know, I was talking to you before showing you
Speaker 1: videos of my four year old who's training for the
Speaker 1: CELT to push out yea. He doesn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about building muscle or thinking about a certain amount of
Speaker 1: protein because he's so anabolic, meaning five grams of protein
Speaker 1: could be all he needs to stimulate his muscle. Whereas
Speaker 1: we get older, it's a minimum of around thirty grams
Speaker 1: to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. But when we think about
Speaker 1: building muscle, we require a certain progressive stimulus. And this
Speaker 1: typically I think about resistance training, and for people who
Speaker 1: are listening, they're like, well, the women will say this
Speaker 1: to me. I've never lifted a weight in my life.
Speaker 1: I feel very uncomfortable and hesitant to start. And do
Speaker 1: you know what my answer is, you've been lifting weights
Speaker 1: your whole life. Do you have a toddler, do you
Speaker 1: have luggage? Do you have groceries? People have to stop
Speaker 1: believing this repetitive narrative. They are stronger than they think,
Speaker 1: they are more capable, and they've been doing it their
Speaker 1: entire life, but just not in a structured program.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's and again it's a mindset shift. It's
Speaker 2: a mindset shift to recognize all those moments that you've
Speaker 2: been doing it. And kids are heavy sometimes kids kids
Speaker 2: discussing to be super heavy.
Speaker 1: So now we know that people have been doing it,
Speaker 1: So what do they have to do to build muscle? Now?
Speaker 1: I will say that the current recommendations for exercise are
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate to vigorous activity
Speaker 1: a week and two days a week of resistance training.
Speaker 1: Roughly seventy four percent of people don't meet that. Fifty
Speaker 1: percent of people are sedentary, not moving. So why that
Speaker 1: sets us up for an opportunity. As soon as they
Speaker 1: begin to implement a program, they should see success. And
Speaker 1: I like to start with two to three days a
Speaker 1: week of a resistance training program, and you know, I
Speaker 1: put that in the playbook. They don't have to go
Speaker 1: to the gyms since training can include body weight, weights, bands,
Speaker 1: anything that you are moving your body against some kind
Speaker 1: of force. It's simple, not complicated. The lighter the weight,
Speaker 1: the more reps you have to do. The heavier the weight,
Speaker 1: the less you have to do. And there's ways in
Speaker 1: which you can change up the stimulus. You don't have
Speaker 1: to always progress to heavier weights because if your audience
Speaker 1: is older, or if someone who's listening is older, those
Speaker 1: that heavyweights could set them up for injury. It's not
Speaker 1: about is this weight too light or too heavy. It's
Speaker 1: about the stimulus to the tissue.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's just like the mind, the body responds to resistance
Speaker 1: and if we create enough resistance then it has to respond.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that because I think there's not
Speaker 2: a full understanding. You just explained the difference between heavyweights,
Speaker 2: less reps, low weight, higher rep to build muscle. What
Speaker 2: are you trying to feel after the completion of a
Speaker 2: set number of reps to know that you're building muscle?
Speaker 2: Because you could do a low weight high reps and
Speaker 2: maybe don't feel that stretched, or you could do high
Speaker 2: weight low reps and you do feel quite stretched. What's
Speaker 2: building muscle?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that regardless, you're building strength and you're
Speaker 1: getting technical skills. And again, if we're talking about hypertrophy,
Speaker 1: because building mass is important, people will say, and you know,
Speaker 1: they argue about it.
Speaker 2: I mean by that building Yes.
Speaker 1: That's exactly where I was going. But these are great
Speaker 1: questions because I think that the way that we look
Speaker 1: at muscle in general, we're doing it such a disservice.
Speaker 1: Why is it important to build mass? And they argue
Speaker 1: about this in the scientific community, But you know I
Speaker 1: cheat I trained in geriatrics, which is people over the
Speaker 1: age of sixty five, and this is one reason why
Speaker 1: I became so passionate about talking about muscle. Muscle mass.
Speaker 1: The amount of muscle you have is important for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. If you bought into what I said
Speaker 1: about muscle being this metabolic control center, then you recognize
Speaker 1: that muscle. The more healthy muscle mass you have, the
Speaker 1: more of an opportunity the place you have to store glucose,
Speaker 1: because if you can't remove glucose out of the bloodstream,
Speaker 1: into cells after two hours. You know, we have a
Speaker 1: disease for that. We have a name for that, and
Speaker 1: it's called diabetes. The more healthy muscle mass you have,
Speaker 1: the better your metabolic control. So think about it this
Speaker 1: way and again this is setting the stage for why
Speaker 1: building muscle is so important. Think about it as a suitcase.
Speaker 1: Your muscle is a suitcase. You are going on a
Speaker 1: trip for four days. You're bringing just to carry on.
Speaker 1: You open it up, you stuff it in there and
Speaker 1: instead of looking for four days. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I'm a very heavy packer. I packed for fourteen Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you probably wear the same pair of shoes.
Speaker 1: I bring at least three pairs of shoes. So here's
Speaker 1: the suitcase and I'm stuffing all this clothes in and
Speaker 1: then I've packed for fourteen days. I close the suitcase
Speaker 1: and I can't get it to close. My clothes are
Speaker 1: falling everywhere, half the shoes are out. Your muscle is
Speaker 1: just like that. If you are over eating carbohydrates, you
Speaker 1: have nowhere else for the carbs or fatty acids to go.
Speaker 1: Stays in the bloodstream for a period of time, and
Speaker 1: then over time it deranges metabolism. You put on body fat,
Speaker 1: and that is one reason skeleton muscle is so important.
Speaker 1: It's the suitcase of your body. So now we go
Speaker 1: back to building mass. How do we do it? Now
Speaker 1: I've told you that it's really important because of your
Speaker 1: metabolic control center. There's a number of other reasons why
Speaker 1: building mass is so important. If you get sick, you know,
Speaker 1: if you get pneumonia, if you you know, break a bone,
Speaker 1: if you are hustlized or in a highly catabog sty.
Speaker 1: We've all had the flu terrible, terrible, terrible. Your body
Speaker 1: will pull from your body armor also known as a muscle.
Speaker 1: To get those amino acids out for repair and rebuilding.
Speaker 1: That's critically important. So then we go to one more
Speaker 1: thing that's very important is the site for fatty acid oxidation.
Speaker 1: At rest, healthy muscle burns fat. The more muscle mass
Speaker 1: you have, the more all of these things are accounted for.
Speaker 1: If we focus on obesity, and I'm going somewhere with
Speaker 1: this to stay with me, there is this cycle of
Speaker 1: weight gain and weight loss. And each time you hit
Speaker 1: January first and you put on weight and then you
Speaker 1: crash diet and then half the weight that you lose
Speaker 1: is muscle, and you do this year after year, over time,
Speaker 1: you are left with less muscle than you started with.
Speaker 1: And then you start to see blood glucose increase, fatty
Speaker 1: acids increase, visceral fat increase. All of a sudden, it
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. So then we turn our attention to
Speaker 1: what do we do to fix it? Whether your body
Speaker 1: composition changes, the moment you begin to engage in exercise
Speaker 1: and movement, you're emptying the suitcase, you're using that fuel.
Speaker 1: So while we are talking about resistance training for hypertrophy,
Speaker 1: which is building mass, recognize that the moment you choose
Speaker 1: to do something physical, you are improving in that moment
Speaker 1: the health of that tissue. Because what I don't want
Speaker 1: to happen is people to be hyper fixated on how
Speaker 1: to build it, because then we're just the reverse reverse
Speaker 1: coint of how to lose it. But again, focusing on
Speaker 1: resistance training two to three days a week of providing
Speaker 1: enough stimulus. And you talked about this is it light weights?
Speaker 1: Is it heavy weights? And you know I love the
Speaker 1: rep range ten to twelve where you have one or
Speaker 1: two reps in reserve where you can't go one more
Speaker 1: rep without a technical failure without your form breaking down,
Speaker 1: you just can't quite do it. You do this over
Speaker 1: time and you become stronger, you become more skilled at training,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, you will find ways to then to
Speaker 1: progress this activity.
Speaker 2: The main difference with men building muscle and women building muscle.
Speaker 1: What a great question. Now there's a lot of myths
Speaker 1: out there and women, and again this is pretty controversial.
Speaker 1: Men have more muscle massive baseline, but relative to their size,
Speaker 1: there is data to suggest there's no difference to the
Speaker 1: amount that a woman could build versus a man relative
Speaker 1: to size, and same with strength. But culturally we have
Speaker 1: to recognize that. I don't know about you, but when
Speaker 1: you go to the gym, do you see a lot
Speaker 1: of women in the weight room?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not based on just traditionally women
Speaker 1: are if you. I mean, it's changing now and I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful that it's changing, but really, women are you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I remember my mom
Speaker 1: wearing a leotard and the bandana and eating salad. And
Speaker 1: we've done this for decades. Women are afraid to get bulky.
Speaker 1: It's never going to happen. I've been trying for thirty years.
Speaker 1: And if you talk to any guy who's reading any
Speaker 1: of the muscle mags, they've also been trying. It is
Speaker 1: very difficult to put on muscle, but it's not impossible.
Speaker 1: And to answer your question, men and women can both
Speaker 1: put on size and both be strong relative to their
Speaker 1: body size.
Speaker 2: But the process of putting it on is the process
Speaker 2: of putting on muscle different for men and women?
Speaker 1: No, No, And that's important to recognize that a good
Speaker 1: foundation program, with enough stimulus, you will see data to
Speaker 1: support that men and women can put on muscle comparatively,
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that it's always that way. But again,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors and a lot of the
Speaker 1: data is you know, it's difficult because we take randomized
Speaker 1: control trials and we take meta analyzes and then we
Speaker 1: try to put into clinical practice and we have to
Speaker 1: recognize that people are individual and there's individual variability based
Speaker 1: on people. Yeah, for sure, muscle is made up of
Speaker 1: two main fiber types. There's type one fiber and type
Speaker 1: two fiber. Type one fiber you can think of as
Speaker 1: endurance fiber. So my husband, he's really big into marathons.
Speaker 1: He's crazy, but he loves running marathons, and he has
Speaker 1: a lot of type one fiber types and that primarily
Speaker 1: will burn fatty acids. And then there's the type two
Speaker 1: fiber type, which I think of two and two biceps,
Speaker 1: So it's the bigger, bulkier fiber that is used for
Speaker 1: lifting weights. And over time, as we age the type
Speaker 1: two fibers for power and strength, they naturally decrease and
Speaker 1: we're left with more type one fibers, which again are
Speaker 1: this thinner more think of it as a endurance athlete.
Speaker 1: This is why resistance training is so important, is to
Speaker 1: maintain and build those type two fiber types.
Speaker 2: If someone wanted to test their strength today, what could
Speaker 2: they do for them to know whether they're doing well
Speaker 2: or struggling?
Speaker 1: Okay, now there's the hand grip test, so basically, and
Speaker 1: you can buy one of these on Amazon and it
Speaker 1: tests your hand grip strength and it will give you
Speaker 1: a range if you are strong or weak, It'll give
Speaker 1: you a range. But that's great. However, what I would
Speaker 1: rather have people do is pick an exercise like a
Speaker 1: push up and see how many push ups that they
Speaker 1: can do at baseline, and then begin to train or
Speaker 1: do a pull up or a dead hang ways that
Speaker 1: we can increase grip strength. I mean there's a million
Speaker 1: different ways to do these things and people should figure
Speaker 1: out one thing that works for them and test it.
Speaker 1: For me, it's a push up. I say everybody should do.
Speaker 1: See how many push ups you can do and then
Speaker 1: you train for it for.
Speaker 2: A healthy amount of a healthy woman. How many push
Speaker 2: ups should they be able to do?
Speaker 1: We don't have a number. Okay, we don't have a
Speaker 1: number that I can confidently say. I mean there is
Speaker 1: some data that if a man can do and I
Speaker 1: don't remember this number, so I don't want to misspeak.
Speaker 1: But they've done a few studies in men that if
Speaker 1: men can do I think it's ten or more push
Speaker 1: ups in a period of time that they have a
Speaker 1: lower risk of heart disease. And really what it's relating to,
Speaker 1: and don't quote me on that number, but what it's
Speaker 1: related to is I think their muscular health and strength.
Speaker 1: But again, we should pick one or two exercises and
Speaker 1: set that as a standard of something that you work
Speaker 1: to achieve.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also think that's just a great place to start.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes the challenge with this is we try
Speaker 2: and start out a workout regimen and the challenge with
Speaker 2: that is is like you're like going from doing nothing
Speaker 2: for years, it's now saying I'm going to go to
Speaker 2: the gym three times a week. I'm going to do
Speaker 2: two days of resistance training, one day of cardia. And
Speaker 2: it's like, this is it's so much. And I remember
Speaker 2: when I was recovering from a surgery and I couldn't
Speaker 2: do one push up unless I was on my knees
Speaker 2: because of my surgery. And I remember just getting on
Speaker 2: my knees and doing one push up every night, and
Speaker 2: then the next day I could do five, and the
Speaker 2: next day I could ten. And now that my surgery's
Speaker 2: held and everything, it's like I'll comfortably do twenty five
Speaker 2: thirty push ups whatever it is in one round and
Speaker 2: can do more. And it's just so fascinating to me.
Speaker 2: How like, just I love that advice. So just pick
Speaker 2: one thing because what it does is a few things.
Speaker 2: The first thing it does is you actually get to
Speaker 2: see how strong you are, and you get to feel
Speaker 2: and measure growth. You're not measuring now do I have muscle?
Speaker 2: Have I lost weight? You're like, I can do one
Speaker 2: push up. The second thing is it builds your confidence
Speaker 2: as soon as I could get off my knees and
Speaker 2: start doing proper push ups again. After my surgery, I
Speaker 2: was like, wow, I'm making progress. My body didn't look
Speaker 2: any different, didn't have an amazing chest or didn't have
Speaker 2: abs or whatever. I just felt better about myself. I
Speaker 2: was like, wow, I went from doing ten push ups
Speaker 2: on my knees to doing ten push ups without. Oh.
Speaker 2: Now I can do thirty push ups in one go,
Speaker 2: and I do four rounds within a thirty second break
Speaker 2: of each. Oh wow, I feel really good. And I
Speaker 2: feel like that's what so many of us. And I'm
Speaker 2: speaking of someone who has not worked out since I
Speaker 2: was young, has not gone to the gym. Now, I
Speaker 2: have a five day week weight training program, play pickaball
Speaker 2: three times a week, have a high protein diet. But
Speaker 2: like having gone through that, for me, it was those
Speaker 2: little moments of picking one activity that just started to
Speaker 2: make me feel better. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: I love that. And also you've reoriented everyone listening or
Speaker 1: watching to the fact that it was under your conscious control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't control how much muscle you're gonna put on,
Speaker 1: you can't control how much fat you're going to lose,
Speaker 1: But the one right thing. Is that one next action
Speaker 1: that you can take, because if we can understand that
Speaker 1: muscle is this organ of longevity, and we've so far
Speaker 1: pushed it to this vanity metric that you're missing what
Speaker 1: it really is, and it's the foundation for our health
Speaker 1: and wellness. And it's this bi directional relationship you just
Speaker 1: said confidence. Yes, the stronger you are, the more effective
Speaker 1: you are going to be in your mind. We use
Speaker 1: the body to build the mind, because sometimes the mind
Speaker 1: is crazy. I'm gonna give you an example. Think about
Speaker 1: you're in a negative headspace and everyone listening, they've all
Speaker 1: been there, right, You can try to think your way
Speaker 1: out of I mean, listen, Jay, you might be more
Speaker 1: skilled at thinking your way out of a negative headspace
Speaker 1: than say the rest of us. But I know, for me,
Speaker 1: if I am struggling with a thought that is ruminating,
Speaker 1: or I did something and now I'm thinking about, well,
Speaker 1: I wish I hadn't done this, and it's just spiraling
Speaker 1: out of control. The fastest way to stop that, and
Speaker 1: the most effective way to stop that is not thinking
Speaker 1: my way out of it. But it's taking thirty seconds
Speaker 1: to do something so physically hard that you cannot possibly
Speaker 1: think of anything else in imagine trying to think of
Speaker 1: those negative thoughts when you are doing a ten second
Speaker 1: max outsprint where you want to die because you just
Speaker 1: work so hard you're not thinking about any of that.
Speaker 1: Or do you cold plunge it all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just there yesterday. I love it. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Could you think of anything else? That's seconding it?
Speaker 2: That's it? Focus on that's it.
Speaker 1: And you've now leveraged your body, your muscle, to change
Speaker 1: your physiology, your mental constructs, and so people have to
Speaker 1: recognize that muscle is at the focal point for our
Speaker 1: physical power but also our mental power. And if you
Speaker 1: can't move your mind, you can definitely move your body.
Speaker 1: And I challenge anyone to try to think of any
Speaker 1: anything negative when you are jumping in that cold plund Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that's the challenge I want people to do. While
Speaker 2: you're listening to this right now, here's what I want
Speaker 2: you to do. I want you to use Gabrielle's insight
Speaker 2: of just choose one activity. I think bush ups are
Speaker 2: the easiest one, and just see how many you can
Speaker 2: do today, and then see how many you can do tomorrow,
Speaker 2: and see how many you can do the third day,
Speaker 2: Just take one activity. You don't have to start going
Speaker 2: to the gym three times a week if you're not
Speaker 2: already doing that. Now. I know a lot of our
Speaker 2: audience loves going to the gym, loves walking. Hopefully this
Speaker 2: is shifting in the direction of muscle building and helping
Speaker 2: you understand what that's going to require. The question I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you was what are the dangers of
Speaker 2: being skinny fat?
Speaker 1: You're talking about sarcopenic obesity, which, by the way, I
Speaker 1: think is going to be the new epidemic. We have
Speaker 1: largely been able to and I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: want to be very careful about what I'm saying here.
Speaker 1: We have now the use of jolpi ones. They are
Speaker 1: a medication called an innkreton does a number of things.
Speaker 1: They are more effective for weight loss than nearly anything
Speaker 1: we've ever seen except for bariatric surgery. With the use
Speaker 1: of these vlp ones, individuals are able to lose weight.
Speaker 1: Part of that weight is fat, and part of that
Speaker 1: weight is muscle. When we lose muscle like that at
Speaker 1: any kind of rapid pace, or really at all, we
Speaker 1: now are a smaller version of ourselves, with less muscle
Speaker 1: and this becomes extremely detrimental. So while we work on
Speaker 1: treating obesity, we are treating one epidemic obesity for sarcopenia,
Speaker 1: which is low muscle mass and function. The dangers of
Speaker 1: that are astronomical number one. Low muscle mass is poor
Speaker 1: metabolic health. Number two, muscle pulls bone. When you have
Speaker 1: low muscle mass, that is an indicator that you will
Speaker 1: have lower bone density. We've all heard about the people
Speaker 1: that fall and break a hip and oftentimes low muscle
Speaker 1: mass and strength and function, which is defined as cyclopenia.
Speaker 1: We think about as diseases of aging. They're not. We
Speaker 1: are going to see sarcopenia as diseases of youth, and
Speaker 1: it is terrifying and we are not ready to deal
Speaker 1: with it. Because if the majority of the population is sedentary,
Speaker 1: and there are two ways to stimulate muscle, which is
Speaker 1: diet and exercise, those are the two main ways diet
Speaker 1: and resistance training. If an individual becomes skinny fat, we
Speaker 1: know that they have an increased risk of higher glucose,
Speaker 1: higher triglis threads, higher insulin, all of things at the
Speaker 1: core of Alzheimer's diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and low bone density
Speaker 1: we have to address it because muscle. I think about
Speaker 1: why muscle is important in kind of a three prong
Speaker 1: bucket area. Number one muscle mass and strength. If you
Speaker 1: are skinny fat, you probably don't have that. Number two metabolism.
Speaker 1: If you're skinny fat, you definitely don't have that. And
Speaker 1: number three plumbing. You need to have activity, not just
Speaker 1: resistance training, but also cardiovascular activity to have good blood flow.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have any of those things, then
Speaker 1: your muscle span. You know, people talk about health span,
Speaker 1: talk about lifespan, but it really is about muscle span.
Speaker 3: Interesting, and you have less of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, but that's what's so hard about it
Speaker 2: because you think you look healthier because we've made people
Speaker 2: believe that healthy means like like no fat totally and
Speaker 2: so outwardly it looks like you ticked all the boxes
Speaker 2: and you got it right. And whether you did it
Speaker 2: through a gop one or whether you did it just
Speaker 2: through fasting, well, whether you're naturally built that way, like
Speaker 2: I'm naturally skinnier, Like I'm a leaner person in ever
Speaker 2: since I lost weight when I was a teenager, I'm
Speaker 2: a leaner. So for me, putting a muscles hard. It's
Speaker 2: very easy for me to naturally be skinny fat, and
Speaker 2: it takes a lot of ever to turn that around.
Speaker 2: But I'm glad that we're addressing it because I think
Speaker 2: that's where it comes back to your mum wearing the
Speaker 2: headband and the.
Speaker 1: Salady kill me when she listens to this by.
Speaker 2: Sorry mom, But no, it's that idea of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: if I eat salad every day and you know, I
Speaker 2: walk or run, I'll be fine, But I'm not actually
Speaker 2: building any muscle because there's no resistance training.
Speaker 1: Right, And I'm going to take it one step further. So,
Speaker 1: the average American eats around three hundred grams of carbohydrates.
Speaker 1: And I talked a lot about metabolism and the muscle
Speaker 1: being the focal point, and I would argue that we
Speaker 1: are eating out of alignment with our muscle health. So
Speaker 1: when we are eating, if you believe muscle as this
Speaker 1: suitcase analogy, and that is the place where carbohydrates go.
Speaker 1: And we eat about three hundred grams of carbohydrates a
Speaker 1: day according to the Healthy Eating Index, we are eating
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent more refined grains processed carbohydrates than we should.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, that's actually crazy.
Speaker 1: The average the average No, no, so the average, the
Speaker 1: average person is eating ninety eight percent more grains and
Speaker 1: process foods in the show. Wow, the majority of us
Speaker 1: are not eating fruits and vegetables. We have a low
Speaker 1: intake of seafood and a lower intake of dairy. I mean,
Speaker 1: the majority of individuals are eating a highly processed food diet.
Speaker 2: That was the challenge. I was going to say, Ah,
Speaker 2: so it's also processed.
Speaker 1: It's highly processed, highly palatable, highly addictive. But what happens
Speaker 1: is is muscles not prepared to be able to deal
Speaker 1: with that. If you are sedentary, which we know based
Speaker 1: on the statistics, most people are sedentary, and then we're
Speaker 1: giving them highly processed foods, there is no way to
Speaker 1: be set up for success. And I can share with
Speaker 1: you because I know that your wife is so interested
Speaker 1: in nutrition. I can't wait to chat with her. How
Speaker 1: many carbohydrates one should have at the first meal, which
Speaker 1: is breakfast, and at any additional meal, and what they
Speaker 1: would have to earn after that, which is going to
Speaker 1: be surprising.
Speaker 2: Oh no, tell me now, I want to know that
Speaker 2: I forget my wife. Sorry, right, but no, that's really
Speaker 2: interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, because it's practical takeaways for people. Well, if
Speaker 1: you think about glucose disposal, where it goes, what uses
Speaker 1: carbohydrates or what uses glucose. You have your obligatory use,
Speaker 1: which is brain and red blood cells, and then you
Speaker 1: have your organs, and then you have your muscle. If
Speaker 1: you are sedentary, your body is using about fifty grams
Speaker 1: at max over a two hour period. Fifty grams of
Speaker 1: carbohydrates at a two hour period. It's probably a little
Speaker 1: bit lower because if you're not exercising, there's nowhere for
Speaker 1: the glycogen to go the carbohydrates to go. Imagine fifty
Speaker 1: ground So if anyone is listening, think about that fifty grams.
Speaker 1: Your one process donut probably has seventy five grams of carbohydrates.
Speaker 1: Anything above fifty can derange metabolism if you are sedentary.
Speaker 1: So a practical takeaway would be how many carbohydrates are
Speaker 1: you consuming? Yes, over the day, but even more important
Speaker 1: per meal the first meal of the day. I don't
Speaker 1: like to have my I still see patients, by the way,
Speaker 1: my first meal of the day. I don't like to
Speaker 1: have more than thirty five grams of carbs. Every other meal.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no reason to go over one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty grams of the RDA set at one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty grams.
Speaker 2: Per meal per day a day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, per day, but really.
Speaker 2: So you're spreading doing thirty five grams than forty five grams.
Speaker 1: And depending on if I'm active, I'm a tiny person.
Speaker 1: If I'm not active, I'm not having a bunch of carbohydrates.
Speaker 1: The body requires about eighty grams a day, and we
Speaker 1: don't have an essential carbo hyde requirement. By the way.
Speaker 1: The body can make all it needs, but if you
Speaker 1: were to eat it, you just have to be very
Speaker 1: aware at how you are treating muscle help because you
Speaker 1: do not want a derange metabolism. We know what that
Speaker 1: does over time.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming obviously what's the protein intake across those
Speaker 2: meals then for.
Speaker 1: You, typically that first meal of the day is around
Speaker 1: forty five grams of protein, anywhere from thirty five upwards.
Speaker 1: If you're a bigger person, fifty grounds and the first
Speaker 1: meal of the day, I would argue the most important.
Speaker 1: You are coming out of an overnight fast and your
Speaker 1: body is primed now. I also mentioned earlier that if
Speaker 1: you are older, anything over the age of thirty five
Speaker 1: that your muscle and it's probably a little young, but
Speaker 1: I like picking thirty five as a cutoff marker. It's
Speaker 1: really important to have enough protein at that first meal
Speaker 1: because a lot of the data, I would say arguably
Speaker 1: almost all the data for muscle holme health and muscle
Speaker 1: protein synthesis is at that first meal of the day,
Speaker 1: and that number should be between thirty five and fifty
Speaker 1: five grams of protein. People are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: what is that and why? Because you want to stimulate muscle.
Speaker 1: You are utilizing your diet, which, by the way, everybody eats.
Speaker 1: That is the one constant one hundred percent of people
Speaker 1: are doing it. It seems like exercise is optional, that
Speaker 1: dietary protein is really important, and that first meal will
Speaker 1: stimulate muscle. If carbohydrates are lower, you have an opportunity
Speaker 1: to be more satiated. So we joke in our office
Speaker 1: that protein is the GLP one of the macronutrient, right.
Speaker 1: It increases these gut hormones like pyy and these hormones
Speaker 1: that send signals to the brain and the body that
Speaker 1: you are getting a caloric load and that you are
Speaker 1: more satiated and Interestingly, that number in order to ste
Speaker 1: mumulate GLP in a meaningful way is around thirty grams.
Speaker 1: The dietary protein intake and the GLP one release is
Speaker 1: about thirty grams. You are not chasing the ebbs and
Speaker 1: flows of blood sugar, and you are set up for
Speaker 1: success and less likely to grab donuts or something sweet
Speaker 1: at that second meal, which is it's like augmenting willpower. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that last meal of the day is the next
Speaker 1: most important before you're going into an overnight fast.
Speaker 2: What would you suggest for that.
Speaker 1: Around fifty grams of protein? People are thinking that's probably
Speaker 1: a lot. And part of the reason people think this
Speaker 1: recommendation is a lot is we have been trained, just
Speaker 1: like to be trained to be focused on obesity, that
Speaker 1: our current recommendation for protein is high. It's not. The
Speaker 1: current recommendation for protein is set at the bare minimum
Speaker 1: to prevent disease. That's the floor at point a grams
Speaker 1: per kg. I don't know about you, but I'm not
Speaker 1: looking to be at the minimum. I want to be
Speaker 1: able to design a diet that allows for healthy muscle
Speaker 1: aging and just aging in general. And the data would
Speaker 1: support closer to double that. And I actually worked on
Speaker 1: some of these early studies back in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, these studies started or even before that.
Speaker 1: But these studies looked at and this is out of
Speaker 1: Don Layman's lab, who's the og, the goat of protein metabolsm,
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. I used to sit in the front
Speaker 1: row and just take notes. I was that person. But anyway,
Speaker 1: twenty years later, he's still my mentor. And we worked
Speaker 1: on a study where it had the food Guide pyramid.
Speaker 1: I remember that the food GUYE pyramid, which really correlated
Speaker 1: with this rise in obesity. It was a really bad
Speaker 1: social experiment. And the study was designed isochloric, so each
Speaker 1: group had the same calories. They also had this same carbohydrates,
Speaker 1: but the difference was that one group had the minimum
Speaker 1: protein recommendation and the other group had double the protein recommendation.
Speaker 1: And what they saw was that that those individuals that
Speaker 1: had double the protein lost more fat mass maintained more
Speaker 1: lean tissue than those that had the minimum amount of protein.
Speaker 1: And so we have to acknowledge that if we want
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves and have healthy aging, that it requires
Speaker 1: dietary protein in a more robust amount than we are
Speaker 1: being told, Now, yeah.
Speaker 2: What about those A lot of people I know right
Speaker 2: now are saying that they're struggling with and I experienced
Speaker 2: this myself. They're struggling with some level of protein in
Speaker 2: trake and gut health. So there seems to be something.
Speaker 1: This is a really important conversation. It depends on where
Speaker 1: you are getting protein, and it is a challenge for people,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of discussion is it animal based
Speaker 1: or plant based. At the end of the day, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. The more plant based you are, the higher
Speaker 1: your protein need is going to be overall. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the minimum amount of protein I would recommend for anybody
Speaker 1: would be around one hundred grams. If an individual is
Speaker 1: eating a more plant based diet, then with that comes
Speaker 1: fiber and just more overall caloric load and carbohydrates. There's
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing wrong with it, and a well designed diet
Speaker 1: can support muscle health with a more plant based diet.
Speaker 1: Animal based proteins have a higher biological value, they're more
Speaker 1: easy to absorb, and they typically require a lot less
Speaker 1: food to meet those amino acids. So when I say protein,
Speaker 1: it's not just one thing. If we were to pick
Speaker 1: up a back of a label and we get the
Speaker 1: back and there is no protein in this amazing drink
Speaker 1: which I'm about to have. What we expect to see
Speaker 1: is just protein. So you'll see the carbohydrates. Carbohydrates might
Speaker 1: have sugars, it might have fiber, fats, might have saturated fats,
Speaker 1: might have unsatury fat. Maybe it has trans fats which
Speaker 1: no one should eat. And then you get all the
Speaker 1: way down and the last number is protein. But protein
Speaker 1: isn't one thing. It's made up of twenty different amino acids,
Speaker 1: all of which have various compositions depending on the food.
Speaker 1: It is very misleading to show protein as one number. Interesting, right,
Speaker 1: for example, if you were to think about a animal
Speaker 1: based product, it has the most similar amino acid composition,
Speaker 1: which these are the building blocks. There are twenty nine
Speaker 1: of which are essential, which means we must eat those proteins.
Speaker 1: You can't make it. And when it comes to muscle health,
Speaker 1: we're eating for this amino acid called leucine, and it's
Speaker 1: about two and a half grams of leucine. That's where
Speaker 1: these numbers come from. This thirty grams, this fifty grams
Speaker 1: because leucine triggers muscle. But there are a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of other essential amino acids. For example, three aene for
Speaker 1: gut health, it makes muscin. There you know, there's tryptophan,
Speaker 1: and there are neurotransmitter precursor, there's phenylalanine, there's cysteine that
Speaker 1: is a precursor for methionine, which is the master antioxidant
Speaker 1: which our bodies become less efficient at making. So we're
Speaker 1: thinking globally about protein, and we're thinking it from a
Speaker 1: lens of muscle, which makes a lot of sense and
Speaker 1: makes it easy. But the reality is we are turning
Speaker 1: over around two hundred and fifty grams of protein a day.
Speaker 1: Your body will replace itself roughly four times a year.
Speaker 1: And why protein becomes so important is that we become
Speaker 1: less efficient at this and that is why twofold we
Speaker 1: need a protein diet that is higher than what we
Speaker 1: are being told. And as we are aging, I would
Speaker 1: argue that getting that first meal to stimulate muscle and
Speaker 1: that last meal before we're going into an overnight fast,
Speaker 1: just from practical application that everybody listening or watching could do,
Speaker 1: will help protect muscle and will allow your body to
Speaker 1: help repair and rebuild itself.
Speaker 2: And if you're taking in that much protein, how much
Speaker 2: do you need to be exercising in order to great question?
Speaker 1: Great question, And what you're talking about is how do
Speaker 1: we make protein decisions. If I was going to go
Speaker 1: down the list of how to make protein decisions, the
Speaker 1: first thing that I think about is age. The older
Speaker 1: you are, the more protein you need. And then physical activity.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, the more physically active you are,
Speaker 1: the less protein you need. Because it's all about muscle stimulation.
Speaker 1: And if there's two main ways to stimulate skeletal muscle
Speaker 1: dietary protein and exercise, primarily resistance training, which again cardiovascular
Speaker 1: training is very important too, but you are leaning on
Speaker 1: resistance training to improve muscle health. And then if you
Speaker 1: are sedentary because you are not pulling the lever of exercise,
Speaker 1: then you require more dietary protein. And then it comes
Speaker 1: down to personal choice. Right, you can have a higher
Speaker 1: protein diet. I prefer a higher protein diet which is
Speaker 1: closer to one ground per pound of target body weight
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Number one, it's more satiating,
Speaker 1: it's the GLP one of nature. Number two, it has
Speaker 1: a higher thermic effect, meaning you know, when you eat
Speaker 1: protein it is not easy to metabolize, and it's very
Speaker 1: important to the body. And let me say this in
Speaker 1: a better way. When you eat dietary protein and you
Speaker 1: begin to stimulate muscle, that is an energy expensive process.
Speaker 1: So your body kicks in these you know, mechanisms to
Speaker 1: begin to utilize it. And then in addition, when we're
Speaker 1: eating a higher protein diet, we are allowing our body
Speaker 1: to have enough amino acids. Again, it's protein is not
Speaker 1: just one thing to do various other things like three
Speaker 1: you know, like gut health and all these other things
Speaker 1: that we need. And so it does come down to
Speaker 1: personal choice. And I would argue, and this is going
Speaker 1: to be surprising to people, that carbohydrates and fats are interchangeable.
Speaker 1: As long as you know your target calories, then you
Speaker 1: hate your protein need. If you're designing a diet and
Speaker 1: it's zero point seven to one one ground per pound
Speaker 1: target body weight, very easy. The rest of your calories
Speaker 1: you decide. As long as you're getting enough fiber and micronutrients,
Speaker 1: you get to pick whether it is fat or carbriadry.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of flexibility in how we design
Speaker 1: a diet for optimal.
Speaker 3: Health, which habits kill muscle gain being sedentary.
Speaker 1: If you are sedentary, that will kill any kind of
Speaker 1: muscle gain.
Speaker 2: And what's the definition of being sedentary.
Speaker 1: I would argue less than three thousand steps a day.
Speaker 1: And it's not that it just kills your gains. You
Speaker 1: get something called intermuscular outipus tissue. It's called imat and
Speaker 1: imat is fat that is deposited in your muscle. Your
Speaker 1: muscle then becomes like a marbled steak. Whether you're skinny
Speaker 1: fat or not, there's fat in that muscle. If you
Speaker 1: are not taking action, and it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: difficult action. For example, let's just say you are doing
Speaker 1: your pushups or you are doing something to increase that flux.
Speaker 1: That's what's really important. And that can be done anywhere anytime.
Speaker 1: There's only one wrong way to do it, you know
Speaker 1: what that is to not do it. That's the only way,
Speaker 1: and so that becomes really important. Another habit that kills
Speaker 1: your gains is to be inconsistent is to talk yourself
Speaker 1: out of it. You know, we have to as humans
Speaker 1: be prepared for mental friction. And you know, I still
Speaker 1: see patients and one of the most valuable attributes of
Speaker 1: the patients that I see that are able to become
Speaker 1: the best at what they do. They have one attribute
Speaker 1: in common, and they're neutral. They never get too high
Speaker 1: and they never get too low. They don't have to
Speaker 1: wait for motivation. They commit to something and this just
Speaker 1: becomes their new standard. They're not always setting goals. They
Speaker 1: become the type of person that trains, the type of
Speaker 1: person that prioritizes their exercise. And when they do that,
Speaker 1: they're not negotiating with themselves. They're very neutral, because you know,
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting experience that I've seen over
Speaker 1: years of seeing patients. I'll give you an example. I
Speaker 1: had one patient that every year he would put on
Speaker 1: this massive event and he would hype himself up, and
Speaker 1: he's doing push ups before he's going on stage, and
Speaker 1: he's listening to a lot of music, and he's you know,
Speaker 1: overdosing caffeine. You couldn't possibly get enough. And right before
Speaker 1: he goes out for this big talk, right at that
Speaker 1: pinnacle of that drive, in that pursuit, he's most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: He's thinking about the next thing that he's doing. He's
Speaker 1: thinking about the next car he's buying. He's doing all
Speaker 1: this risk taking drive behavior to help satisfy this dopamine urge.
Speaker 1: That's a point of vulnerability. Right after the event, I
Speaker 1: put my phone down, I wait for the call. The
Speaker 1: call is DK. I'm depressed. I don't feel like working out,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like eating well, I don't feel like
Speaker 1: exercising or spending time with anybody. I'm feeling so depressed.
Speaker 1: And at the lull, that is his vulnerability. And as
Speaker 1: high as you allow yourself to go is as low
Speaker 1: as you will fall. And why am I bringing this
Speaker 1: up by doc? I thought we're talking about muscle and
Speaker 1: protein and how to manage our carbohydrates. Because if consistency matters,
Speaker 1: you have to prepare yourself for the human vulnerabilities that
Speaker 1: are deeply predictable. You cannot be surprised by your own behavior.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to modify those and there
Speaker 1: are very particular ways that you can train yourself to
Speaker 1: be more neutral. So anyway, at that lull, at that
Speaker 1: you know troth, it takes in four months to get
Speaker 1: back and access and you know you've you know, we
Speaker 1: all know people that have experienced this. They get super pumped,
Speaker 1: chasing the novelty of January first starting their new diet,
Speaker 1: an exercise program and then crash and burn, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the people that are steady chopping wood and carrying
Speaker 1: water stay on their plan for years.
Speaker 2: How does skipping meals affect muscle gain?
Speaker 1: Well, we want to think about how you're eating in
Speaker 1: a twenty four hour period, and what I would recommend
Speaker 1: for people is to be very consistent. Do not have
Speaker 1: a chaotic, erratic eating schedule, because again, protein is an
Speaker 1: essential macronutrient. I think that it is very important that
Speaker 1: you have protein every day. You don't need carbs every day.
Speaker 1: You can probably get away with not having fats every day,
Speaker 1: but dietary protein. If you are focused on protecting this
Speaker 1: organ of longevity, then you want to be very consistent.
Speaker 1: Now I get a lot of questions about fasting. Is
Speaker 1: fasting good? Fasting is not good or bad? But if
Speaker 1: your primary goal is to protect your muscle, then eating
Speaker 1: in an eight to nine hour window is where I
Speaker 1: wouldn't really go beyond that, meaning I wouldn't fast for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. But again, if you are younger, you
Speaker 1: can get away with it. But if you know so,
Speaker 1: My dad is seventy four, he lives in Ecuador, and
Speaker 1: he will not take transportation unless it is four hours
Speaker 1: or less. So if he can walk there in four hours,
Speaker 1: which is why I never go visit him, I make
Speaker 1: him come here, then he'll walk it. And why do
Speaker 1: I say that Because he's very interested in health and wellness.
Speaker 1: So in his mind, if he fasts, then he's doing
Speaker 1: you know, he's creating hormesis and he's creating stress. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, Dad, you're seventy four. You shouldn't go twenty
Speaker 1: four hours without eating food or without eating protein because
Speaker 1: your body is already struggling to keep that muscle on.
Speaker 1: And is it okay to skip a meal here and there? Yes,
Speaker 1: But think about what is your structured plan and commit
Speaker 1: to it. You know, you don't need to do a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but you do have to commit to
Speaker 1: this area of your life so that you age well.
Speaker 2: Does walking ten thousand steps today build muscle?
Speaker 1: This is a this is a very hot topic. By
Speaker 1: the way, walking ten thousand steps a day is good
Speaker 1: for you, and that would maintain our type one muscle
Speaker 1: fibers type two muscle fibers, which is again when you
Speaker 1: see people just walking, you don't necessarily see them build muscle.
Speaker 1: The type two fibers. They do require resistance training. So
Speaker 1: will walking build and maintain those type two muscle fibers?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Is walking great for you? Is it something that we
Speaker 1: have to do? Yes, but we have to become very
Speaker 1: intentional about building our body armor. It requires effort.
Speaker 2: Do pilla is in yoga account of strength training.
Speaker 1: They are in the strength training category and they also
Speaker 1: provide stretch for muscle. And it was really interesting the
Speaker 1: study that I had mentioned earlier, there was also an
Speaker 1: exercise intervention and by the way I misspoke it, their
Speaker 1: carbohydrates were the meals were isochloric, but the protein is
Speaker 1: what changed. In that study, they also added exercise and
Speaker 1: the exercise was just this, and this is how easy
Speaker 1: it is. It was five days a week of thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of walking and two days a week of yoga.
Speaker 1: Yoga involves body weight and resistance training, and it involves
Speaker 1: stretched to the muscle, and those people were able to
Speaker 1: maintain their lean body mass. It is not hard, but
Speaker 1: you do have to be committed and you have to
Speaker 1: be intentional.
Speaker 2: Is cardio killing people's muscle gains?
Speaker 1: That's a really good question. It depends, but a good
Speaker 1: training program has both. It has cardiovascular activity because they
Speaker 1: all do different things. Cardiovascularctivity is great for mitochondria, great
Speaker 1: for metabolism, great for maintaining this fatty acid, this fat
Speaker 1: fatty acid oxidation, fat burning. You know, you want muscle
Speaker 1: to be flexible at rest, you want muscle to burn
Speaker 1: fat and during things like lifting or power type activity,
Speaker 1: then you can switch to glucose. A lot of cardio
Speaker 1: is good, but also lifting weights is critical because they
Speaker 1: do two separate things. So I never want to be
Speaker 1: so dogmatic where I discourage people from doing cardiovascular activity.
Speaker 1: But again, if I think about muscles, impact, and exercise
Speaker 1: and I think about it in three buckets, I think
Speaker 1: about it as mass strength, and then I think about
Speaker 1: it as mitochondrial and metabolic health, and cardiovascular activity can
Speaker 1: kind of fit in there as well, but also plumbing,
Speaker 1: vasculature and blood flow. We recently published a study, and
Speaker 1: this is to get all the guy's attention. Okay, ready,
Speaker 1: So myself and my colleagues published a paper recently and
Speaker 1: it showed that the more healthy muscle mass and better
Speaker 1: strength you had, the greater your sexual function.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, I mean makes sense if.
Speaker 1: You are not on board for having more healthy muscle.
Speaker 1: Then I don't know what's going to convince you. But again,
Speaker 1: there are those two multiple aspects resistance training, cardiovascular activity,
Speaker 1: high intensity interval. And I put this in the playbook
Speaker 1: so people know it's called a playbook, not because it's
Speaker 1: a work book and not because it's a dense, heavy book.
Speaker 1: It's a playbook. It will show you exactly what you
Speaker 1: need to do to be very discerning and avoid distraction
Speaker 1: to take action on these things. High intensity interval training
Speaker 1: is great if you are short on time, and it
Speaker 1: can be where you're working at eighty five percent your
Speaker 1: VOTWO max, so you're working hard and let's say you're
Speaker 1: working for you can pick it forty sixty seconds and
Speaker 1: then sixty seconds off. You do ten minutes of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's very effective at improving insulin sensitivity, which is important.
Speaker 1: And also that muscle health.
Speaker 2: How to hit workouts affect women's hormones? Is there any
Speaker 2: correlation between the two.
Speaker 1: So I will say this. I'm going to say this
Speaker 1: in kind of two ways. Skeletal muscle is very important
Speaker 1: for fertility, especially when it relates to polycystico variant syndrome.
Speaker 2: Interesting, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Polycystico varian syndrome. And there's a few types. There's metabolic
Speaker 1: and then there's a you know, a brain type. But
Speaker 1: when you're looking at metabolic, what you're really looking at
Speaker 1: is twofold. It's insulin sensitivity, but also muscle health. And
Speaker 1: on my podcast, and I actually learned this for the
Speaker 1: first time. On my podcast, I interviewed one of her
Speaker 1: name is doctor Melanie Creede, one of the world leading
Speaker 1: experts in pcos. So there are ten studies on pcos
Speaker 1: and GLP ones and she's written two of them. And
Speaker 1: I was sitting down with her in my podcast and
Speaker 1: I said, Melanie, at what body fat percentage do we
Speaker 1: know that people will affect fertility? You know who's going
Speaker 1: to get better? Does their body fat percentage need to
Speaker 1: be twenty five or less? Or are they at more
Speaker 1: risk of never being able to conceive if they're for
Speaker 1: thirty five or other or over? And I'm like, what
Speaker 1: body fat percentage do people get better? And she said
Speaker 1: to me, she looks at me, she goes, Gabrielle, it's
Speaker 1: not a body fat percentage, it's the intermuscular aud of
Speaker 1: post tissue. It's the fat within the muscle percentage. The
Speaker 1: lower the fat in the skeletal muscle, the greater likelihood
Speaker 1: that we will be able to manage PCOS. Why do
Speaker 1: I say that, because all activity helps with the health
Speaker 1: of that muscle. High intensity interval training does it directly
Speaker 1: affect hormones? Not in that way, but it directly affects
Speaker 1: a woman's ability to conceive if she has PCOS. Now,
Speaker 1: another aspect is female athletes that have hypothalamic amenorrhea, meaning
Speaker 1: their brain and their ovaries are somewhat suppressed because they
Speaker 1: are overtraining. If a woman is overtraining and let's say
Speaker 1: she's doing tons of high intensity interval training or the
Speaker 1: volume of training is over what her body can handle,
Speaker 1: and let's say she's also under consuming calories, then this
Speaker 1: will negatively impact her hormones.
Speaker 2: But that must be like a really expence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think no. And we cannot discourage people
Speaker 1: to avoid training because of mechanistic data, right, We have
Speaker 1: to really think what do we see in clinical practice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we look through about athletes here like people do, and.
Speaker 1: That's not the population that we're looking to. It's much
Speaker 1: more important to have a healthy muscle tissue than it
Speaker 1: is to think about training in extremes and if anything,
Speaker 1: and the same thing goes for men. The more healthy
Speaker 1: muscle a guy has and the activities he engages to
Speaker 1: have that the more healthyest sperm is going to be,
Speaker 1: the more healthy his sexual function is going to be.
Speaker 1: Is it going to affect him negatively? Now? So again,
Speaker 1: it's very careful. I'm very careful as to how we
Speaker 1: approach it. It's all about the context.
Speaker 2: Is there any negative apart from that extreme? Is there
Speaker 2: any negative impact of building muscle?
Speaker 1: I can't think of one negative. In fact, your vibe
Speaker 1: ability against all cause mortality, all cause disease, your ability
Speaker 1: to survive will be greater the more muscle mass you have.
Speaker 1: We cannot say that for any other organ system. This
Speaker 1: is an organ system and it's it is the one
Speaker 1: that we have voluntary control over that we can actually
Speaker 1: add to. You can't really add to your kidneys. You
Speaker 1: can't really add to your thyroid or your lungs physical tissue.
Speaker 1: You might be able to add physical tissue to your heart,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to add too much. And it's
Speaker 1: going to be very difficult to add too much physical
Speaker 1: tissue through training. And I'm not talking about the extremes.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about you know, hormone use. And again
Speaker 1: we are not talking about extremes. If you want to
Speaker 1: live long, and there are stated to support the stronger
Speaker 1: you are in midlife, you have a two and a
Speaker 1: half times greater chances of living to one hundred. If
Speaker 1: you are in the weakest quartile, you have a much
Speaker 1: higher likelihood of dying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when should people consider creatine in their diet?
Speaker 1: Whenever they want?
Speaker 2: Okay, so you don't have to have a workout level, Laura.
Speaker 1: No, And it's very difficult to eat enough creatine. So
Speaker 1: creatine comes primarily in red meat. You're even if you
Speaker 1: eat a ton, I think for one pound of red meat,
Speaker 1: you might get half a gram of creatine. That's not enough.
Speaker 1: And the data, the data supports between three and five
Speaker 1: grams of creatine for women, probably closer to five for
Speaker 1: muscle and for men also closer to five. But for
Speaker 1: brain health between ten and twelve grams of creating.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: And also creatine is one of the OG supplements that's
Speaker 1: been studied for decades, very safe.
Speaker 2: That's great to I didn't know it's impact on the
Speaker 2: brain at all. So obviously you're into a supplement.
Speaker 1: I love supplement, yes, but I'm very particular. I have
Speaker 1: a handful of supplements that I love. Do you want
Speaker 1: to hear them?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Please.
Speaker 1: Creatin is great. The older you are, the more benefit
Speaker 1: you'll likely have from those higher amounts of creating. For
Speaker 1: brain function, I think fish oil is really important, Omega
Speaker 1: three fatty acids, there's good data to support for brain function,
Speaker 1: and there might even be some extra benefit for women.
Speaker 1: Eu Lithina is a very interesting compound and what it
Speaker 1: is is a post biotics, so roughly forty percent of
Speaker 1: people can't make it. And it comes from pomegranate, so
Speaker 1: your body breaks down or the bacteria, the bugs in
Speaker 1: your body break down pomegranate and one of the post
Speaker 1: biotics within that. And it could be pomegranate, it could
Speaker 1: be walnut. Your body requires this enzyme and somewhat of
Speaker 1: a complicated process to get eurolithana and Euithina is a
Speaker 1: compound that is produced in the gut or you can
Speaker 1: take it. You know, again, only forty percent of people
Speaker 1: can actually produce it in their gut. Affects mitochondrial health.
Speaker 1: It helps with mitophagy, which is the cleaning out of
Speaker 1: old mitochondria. But there's also randomized control trials and there's
Speaker 1: a ton of clinical data. The kind of of eu
Speaker 1: lithinae I use is from a company called Timeline, because
Speaker 1: they have randomized control trials. They have decades of research
Speaker 1: that show this form of your lithinae improves endurance, strength
Speaker 1: and mitochondrial health outside of exercise. So all of those
Speaker 1: things that we were talking about with exercise. You combine
Speaker 1: this with exercise, and it supports healthy mitochondrial function, which
Speaker 1: again I very particular about the supplements that I use
Speaker 1: because there's so many out there and you want to
Speaker 1: have good data. Yeah, okay, have more for you, please.
Speaker 1: Beta hydroxy buttery a keytone. It can preserve muscle mass,
Speaker 1: or some data that it can preserve muscle mass, but
Speaker 1: also incredible for brain function. And I think as people age,
Speaker 1: and you know when women are going through perimenopause and
Speaker 1: they don't quite know that they're going through it, their
Speaker 1: brain function suffers. Key tones are amazing. Vitamin D, magnesium,
Speaker 1: and I think that I've an approaching shake. I love
Speaker 1: approaching shake, and that's it.
Speaker 2: It's not that many. Yeah, it's not too bad. I've
Speaker 2: seen a massive difference in my life since I started
Speaker 2: consistently taking supplements. Everyon's always like, do you think it's
Speaker 2: a placibo? Do you think this? And I'm like no,
Speaker 2: because I'm just taking what I'm recommended, and so I
Speaker 2: wouldn't even know what the perceibo would do. I just
Speaker 2: know that I don't get tired as much. My recovery
Speaker 2: is great. I feel alert and present throughout the day.
Speaker 2: I sleep well. You know. It's whereas there was a
Speaker 2: point where even though I was sleeping well and working
Speaker 2: on eating right, I was still feeling fatigued. I was
Speaker 2: still feeling low energy. And supplements have made such a
Speaker 2: big difference on that. So I'm a big fan of them.
Speaker 1: It's been the biggest one for you.
Speaker 2: Vimin D was huge for me and huge the Omega
Speaker 2: threes were huge for me. Creating has been great for me,
Speaker 2: like those those three have been game changes.
Speaker 1: So you know, there are vitamin D receptors on skeletal muscle. Yes,
Speaker 1: And when I was so, I worked in I did
Speaker 1: my fellowship in nutritional sciences and geriatrics, and one of
Speaker 1: the things that we would see is falls right, someone falls,
Speaker 1: It can be devastating for people, and so we would
Speaker 1: always test vitamin D and one of the working hypotheses
Speaker 1: at the time was that the vitamin D receptors on
Speaker 1: the muscles, if someone was deficient, it would contribute to
Speaker 1: false I mean, I just thought that was my one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's so scary. Is get older? Yes, it's
Speaker 2: so scary. Yeah, it's And that's what I mean by
Speaker 2: the recovery piece too, because I think everyone knows it.
Speaker 2: Like now, if I roll my ankle, it's going to
Speaker 2: take a bit longer if I'm not figuring it out
Speaker 2: to recover than it did when you were a kid.
Speaker 2: There's such a big rise of protein ice creams, protein cereal,
Speaker 2: protein chips. Do those even count?
Speaker 1: That's a really astute point. I would say, you don't
Speaker 1: want just extra calories. And a better way to think
Speaker 1: about things is how do we eat whole foods and
Speaker 1: understand where we're getting our protein. So a high quality
Speaker 1: protein source could be whey. Again, a lot of those
Speaker 1: ice creams are coming from whey. Could it be a
Speaker 1: rice pea blend or a soy protein. Could it be
Speaker 1: from fish or chicken or eggs or dairy, And that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I would bucket our protein. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I think about carbohydrates, right, so you can also
Speaker 1: get protein and rice and beans. But the reality is
Speaker 1: it's a very high chloric load, and so we just
Speaker 1: want to be very careful. But adding extra protein with
Speaker 1: just extra calories, I think, is now we're just diluting message.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're going to have your carbohydrate, have
Speaker 1: your carbohydrate, but what kind of quality, what kind of
Speaker 1: source is that protein coming from? And again it confuses
Speaker 1: people because now it's almost it's like that next shiny object.
Speaker 1: Humans are predictable, and I think if we bring into
Speaker 1: perspective our predictability, we love novelty. Oh my gosh, this
Speaker 1: is so novel. There is protein ice cream, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, I love the idea of protein ice cream.
Speaker 1: I actually I have a recipe for protein ice cream
Speaker 1: in my book, but it comes from away protein shake.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. But I don't need chips with protein. I
Speaker 1: don't need protein in my ketchup. I just, man, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to cut back as it is, and that is
Speaker 1: really important that we have to recognize that we are
Speaker 1: chasing novelty. And you know, as I've been thinking about this,
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, how did we get so off base?
Speaker 1: And you bring up a good point. You know, have
Speaker 1: you ever heard of the Lucky diet? I think this
Speaker 1: is like nineteen twenty or nineteen forty. Of course you
Speaker 1: haven't because it's terrible. It's smoking lucky cigarettes. Lucky cigarettes
Speaker 1: was a diet plan that people recommended to lose weight.
Speaker 1: And then, of course we've all heard of fen fen.
Speaker 1: There were amphetamines, and then there's the cabbage soup diet
Speaker 1: and the grapefruit diet, and then the wine and egg diet.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of that? I had never heard
Speaker 1: of that one. It's two eggs and a glass of
Speaker 1: wine for every meal. What it's bananas with eggs? I
Speaker 1: mean eggs, right, But like you pair when you go
Speaker 1: to school, you pair that with wine. My whole point
Speaker 1: is that we are primed to chase novelty, but we
Speaker 1: already have innovation. In this podcast, you and I have
Speaker 1: talked about foundational scientific principles that we can count on.
Speaker 1: You know, when I think about the biological drive for protein,
Speaker 1: humans have a biological drive. Deed, about twenty percent of
Speaker 1: our diet in protein. You know, decades ago it was higher,
Speaker 1: but we have again a biological drive for these amino acids.
Speaker 1: And when we begin to dilute our food source, which
Speaker 1: all these processed food sources, you know, I consider this
Speaker 1: a dilution of dietary protein. We feed on these highly
Speaker 1: processed foods to get our amino acids. But look at
Speaker 1: when we are aware of something we can recognize. Hey man,
Speaker 1: am I falling for that? Or do I need to
Speaker 1: be discerning? Because at the bottom rung of health and
Speaker 1: wellness is the ability to discern good information from not
Speaker 1: good information, right choice, and right action. And again, all
Speaker 1: you asked me simply was protein ice cream. And now
Speaker 1: I've gone on this tangent lot about novelty, and I
Speaker 1: want to just bring this back, is that we already
Speaker 1: have innovation. We have good science and innovation to know
Speaker 1: that we can create a diet based on protein because
Speaker 1: that protects muscle, helps as we age, doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: it's plant or animal, And this is how we structure it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then your carbohydrates or your fat, it's your choice.
Speaker 1: But if we are still out there chasing the next thing,
Speaker 1: it is going to further divert our attention, yes, from
Speaker 1: doing and having that next right meal.
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, to me, it's just the manufacturers trying to
Speaker 2: stay relevant to the healthy consumer. So they see that
Speaker 2: people are becoming healthier or wanting to skew this way,
Speaker 2: and they just want to keep you eating processed foods,
Speaker 2: and they'll throw the word protein on it. They'll throw
Speaker 2: whatever word they want on it, the low fat, the
Speaker 2: less fat, the whatever, so that you go and buy
Speaker 2: it and it makes you feel, oh, yeah, great, I'm
Speaker 2: being healthy.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: You're still eating something fried, You're still adding the extra calories.
Speaker 2: It's not a natural source. It's still highly protested, it's
Speaker 2: packaged all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: It's marketed. Well, yeah it is, and can I share
Speaker 1: with you? Okay, So, whole foods are considered a commodity.
Speaker 1: That is almonds, that's dairy, that's beef, that's chicken, any
Speaker 1: whole food. Soy, they are under this what's called the USDA,
Speaker 1: and they have checkof so a certain amount of the
Speaker 1: budget goes towards marketing. But because they are regulated by
Speaker 1: the USDA, almonds or beef or milk cannot say they
Speaker 1: are a better source of protein from a highly processed
Speaker 1: protein source in chips, whereas this chip could say this
Speaker 1: is the best source of protein ever, or they could
Speaker 1: say whatever they want as long as they don't make
Speaker 1: a disease claim. They could say it's a better source
Speaker 1: of protein for you. Then I don't know beef, but
Speaker 1: beef or any commodity cannot defend itself. And so we
Speaker 1: have to recognize that the total marketing budget for these commodities,
Speaker 1: these whole foods wrought last time I checked with seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand total collectively, Whereas one company like
Speaker 1: PepsiCo that you know owns a bunch of others and
Speaker 1: makes a lot of processed foods that can slap protein
Speaker 1: on the label, has a marketing budget of almost two
Speaker 1: billion dollars and they are allowed because it's regulated under
Speaker 1: this because it's a processed food under a different jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: can make claims that whole foods can't. Whoa and you
Speaker 1: can imagine for the consumer, what is a consumer to do.
Speaker 1: The consumer is getting a story that you know, this
Speaker 1: whole food is bad for you, eat this process one instead,
Speaker 1: when at the end of the day, it's a marketing
Speaker 1: budget that is allowed to have flexibility in the story
Speaker 1: that is being promoted.
Speaker 2: I mean, seven hundred thousand versus two billion.
Speaker 1: Come on. And also, you know milk can't be disparaging
Speaker 1: against almond juice, whereas milk is a highly bioavailable form
Speaker 1: of calcium vitamin you know, has vitamin dane. It great
Speaker 1: for kids and bones versus say oat milk. It's just
Speaker 1: not it's who it affects. It affects our children. The
Speaker 1: messaging affects our children. And again, humans are very good
Speaker 1: at locking onto something they hear. They hear and it
Speaker 1: creates a cognitive bias for their life decades later. And
Speaker 1: you and I were chatting before that it's so much
Speaker 1: easier to build good habits when you were.
Speaker 3: Young, Yeah, absolutely, then spend.
Speaker 1: Forty years trying to undo bad habits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved, I was saying to Gabriel. She showed
Speaker 2: me this wonderful video of a husband doing push ups
Speaker 2: with that son and he's four years old, and I
Speaker 2: was just watching that, going, that's it. That's going to
Speaker 2: do what their parents do at that age. They see
Speaker 2: he sees his dad working out, I sees his mom
Speaker 2: working out. That's what he wants to do. And there
Speaker 2: he is doing pushups and showing his muscles and in
Speaker 2: a really cute, adorable way that that isn't like he's
Speaker 2: addicted to it or that he's being forced to do it.
Speaker 2: You know, just this really sweet. And I look at
Speaker 2: that and go, yeah, I was never exposed to that
Speaker 2: growing up, and so it took me intol my thirties
Speaker 2: to really take control of my health. And I think
Speaker 2: there's a difference between a reminder and your kids watching
Speaker 2: you do it. So everyone's parents can say you should
Speaker 2: be healthy, you should do this, but like when you
Speaker 2: see your parents work out and you want to do
Speaker 2: it with them, there's something beautiful of it and.
Speaker 1: It becomes a way of life. Yeah, my kids love
Speaker 1: to lift. I have my kettlebells and they have their kettlebells, right,
Speaker 1: and it's hilarious. Me cold plunge and my son likes
Speaker 1: to cold plunge. I mean he like jumps in and out.
Speaker 1: But he and you ask him, I it's called in
Speaker 1: our colplund is set at fifty degrees so it's not
Speaker 1: that cold. And he jumps in, dunks his body and
Speaker 1: jumps out and we're like, is that cold than My
Speaker 1: son's name is Leonidas. He's like, nope, not call Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. It's we're building resilient humans. And
Speaker 1: it does start with the messages that we send ourselves,
Speaker 1: because I think that again, we're talking about protein and
Speaker 1: we're talking about muscle, and we're talking about them almost
Speaker 1: disembodied from actually who we are as humans. And this
Speaker 1: muscle centric message is not about working out, it's about
Speaker 1: building strong, more resilient humans. And it's not just doing
Speaker 1: it in your mind, and it's not just doing in
Speaker 1: your body, but this bi directional relationship of becoming a
Speaker 1: more capable human because we need more of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I love that doctor Gabriell lyon the books
Speaker 2: called the Forever Strong Playbook. Truly, what a masterclass. You
Speaker 2: gave me. So many breakthroughs today and connections that I've
Speaker 2: never heard before, and I'm so thankful to those because
Speaker 2: I think everyone who's going to listen today is going
Speaker 2: to feel like they've found that one piece of insight
Speaker 2: that they were looking for for that breakthrough to help
Speaker 2: them on their health journey. And I think you've really
Speaker 2: shown us how building muscle isn't just about the esthetics.
Speaker 2: It's not just about you know, how you look and
Speaker 2: how you feel, and it's a real resistance toward diseases,
Speaker 2: real protection for longevity. It's at the heart of it.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much. We end every episode of
Speaker 2: On Purpose with a final five. These questions have to
Speaker 2: be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.
Speaker 1: Well, then I want to give you something before we
Speaker 1: acd Please, there is an ethos to this playbook, and
Speaker 1: an ethos is a collective reason for a way of life.
Speaker 1: And this is what I just want to leave you
Speaker 1: with before my five questions, because if that's how we
Speaker 1: end the show, then aging is inevitable and muscle is
Speaker 1: the organ of longevity. Weakness is not inevitable. Strength is
Speaker 1: not a luxury, It's a responsibility.
Speaker 2: What said absolutely great, Totally couldn't agree more. These are
Speaker 2: your final five.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I'm ready for it.
Speaker 2: Question number one, what is the best health advice you've
Speaker 2: ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: Train like your life depends on it, because it does.
Speaker 2: Question number two, what is the worst health advice you've
Speaker 2: ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: Take it easy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, comfort doesn't help.
Speaker 1: Have another bubble bath when what you really need is
Speaker 1: hard work.
Speaker 2: I used to think that I used to be one
Speaker 2: of those people that used to feel I didn't have
Speaker 2: enough energy to work out. And a lot of my
Speaker 2: friends are in that bucket too, where you're so tired,
Speaker 2: you had a long day, you're working hard, and I'd
Speaker 2: always say I don't have enough energy to exercise, only
Speaker 2: to realize that exercise gave me so much more energy.
Speaker 2: And I used to say that all the time. I
Speaker 2: used to be like, yeah, of course you've got time
Speaker 2: to exercise, that you've got energy to exercise, and then
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, wait a minute. As soon as
Speaker 2: I start exercising, so much more energy. So much so
Speaker 2: I fully agree with that great answer a question three,
Speaker 2: what do we do about that stubborn belly fat?
Speaker 1: For belly fat, you have to control your nutrition, prioritize protein,
Speaker 1: and do some kind of training. It's not as hard
Speaker 1: as we think.
Speaker 2: Question number four. Something you used to believe was true
Speaker 2: about health, but you don't anymore.
Speaker 1: This is a good one, and this is just for
Speaker 1: you and your audience. Okay. I used to believe that
Speaker 1: building muscle could only be done with animal proteins, and
Speaker 1: it can be done with all types of protein, as
Speaker 1: long as you're getting enough.
Speaker 2: That's great to know. I'm plum based. Yeah, that it
Speaker 2: helps a lot and I feel that way. I feel
Speaker 2: that way. It's we found the right sources and it
Speaker 2: makes the difference. Fifth and final question, we asked this
Speaker 2: every guest who's ever been on the show. If you
Speaker 2: could create one law that everyone in the world had
Speaker 2: to follow, what would it be?
Speaker 1: Be strong? You have to be strong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's such a to really make that connection
Speaker 2: for everyone today that muscle strength and strength is necessary
Speaker 2: for longevity and to beat disease. That through line, because
Speaker 2: I still think we think of muscle as visual strength. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we think of muscle as someone who looks muscular. We
Speaker 2: don't think about muscle as every deep type of muscle
Speaker 2: you've talked to us today about you know that's within
Speaker 2: our body that you don't even.
Speaker 1: See, and it's under our control.
Speaker 2: The book is called The Forever Strong Playbook, a six
Speaker 2: week science based plan to sharpen your mind, strengthen your body,
Speaker 2: and get healthy at any age. Go and grab your
Speaker 2: copy by New York Times bestselling author doctor Gabrielle Lyon Gabrielle,
Speaker 2: It's been such a joy having here today. I've learned
Speaker 2: so much. I know this is going to be huge
Speaker 2: for our community. I'm so grateful to meet you, and
Speaker 2: I hope you'll be back on the show very very soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: If this year you're trying to live longer, live happier,
Speaker 2: live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the
Speaker 2: world's biggest longevity doctor, Peter Attia on how to slow
Speaker 2: down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting
Speaker 2: your physical health. Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known
Speaker 2: about the relationship between nutrition and health, and people are
Speaker 2: going to be shocked to hear that, because I think
Speaker 2: most people think the exact opposite.