How to Eat for Strength, Metabolism, and Longevity

30:14You're doing all the things. And then other nutritional shifts that aren't necessarily muscle-centric, but I do think getting enough dietary fiber in is a really good thing. If you're just healthy overall, it creates a better microenvironment for building muscle. So you have lower levels of inflammation, you're going to have better blood lipids, and it's just good overall. I look at you know, kind of, there's like this animal versus plants. And I'm like, but why not Ulf? Most people will chase the best diet, the best diet for this. And a lot of food anxiety creeps up. Have you had any experience with food anxiety?

30:56Do you think that that works long term? Can you scare yourself into being fit? well i think that people just sort of ruminate and worry about um is this the right kind of diet that's going to get me to my goals and what people don't realize is that once you get certain things down the there's elements there that are highly flexible so once you nail down the optimal amount of protein that you can realistically consume, and once you nail down the total caloric intake, then there is a lot of flexibility in terms of the proportion of carbohydrate and fat in your diet that can arrive at similar body composition results.

31:48Now, the variations and how you individualize this sort of thing really can depend on somebody's exercise performance goals. like if somebody has um some very kind of competitive type of athletic goals then they're not necessarily going to do great with severe carbohydrate restriction um whereas if somebody does not have those competitive type of um athletic performance goals then it really is kind of a matter of of preference whether they like a high fat low carb or whether they like a high carb low fat type of model or somewhere in between, or if they just want to kind of vary that through the week.

32:27It all works. You just have to find out what you prefer and what you can be consistent with under the umbrella of a healthy food selection just for long-term health purposes. It makes me think about this muscle-centric lifestyle. And if someone wants to live a muscle-centric lifestyle, but they struggle with digestion and absorption. What do you think would make the biggest difference immediately? It's an amazing question and something that I get asked a lot, and I know you get asked a lot as well, is this conversation around protein and digestion too. Because people have different kind of tolerances for protein.

33:08Like for instance, if someone has acid reflux, let's say, they might not have an appetite for hot and cooked protein as much because their appetite might be lower. So the goal is always get the protein in in the way that you can. So it might mean a protein shake for someone in the morning who doesn't have a good morning appetite. It might mean eating colder varieties of protein for people who have lower appetite. Or it might mean for someone who has a really big appetite actually having hot and cooked meals. But you have to cater it to what your body wants and what feels good to you while still you You have to hit those protein goals.

33:41You have to. What about the role of nutrition? You've been talking about nutrition for a long time. You've written multiple books. Have you landed somewhere on what we should be having? Yes. I think there's some, as I sort of try to distill, what is the truth about nutrition is three things. One, we should eat food. And when I say that, I really mean that because most of what Americans and increasingly the world is eating is technically not. food. What do you mean by that? Well, if you actually look at the dictionary definition, I'd encourage you to post it on this conversation. What is the dictionary definition of food?

34:19It's basically more or less something that supports the growth and health of an organism. Do our ultra-processed foods do that? Hell no. They do the opposite. Well, they provide calories. Well, calories doesn't necessarily support the health and growth of an organism. It can to some degree, and you need a certain amount of calories to live and thrive and it does provide calories. But at the same time, people can eat an enormous amount of calories. You could eat 3000 calories of Coca-Cola a day. That doesn't mean you're gonna be healthy. Be undernourished. And be massively nutritionally deficient and actually cause massive harm to your health and have plenty of calories.

34:57So I think what we've learned is that the idea that we should be thinking about food as food is really important. And it's a simple idea, but I think most people don't realize that most of what's consumed today is technically not food. It's food-like substances or frankenfoods or science projects that are highly addictive. I mean, the state of California and the city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against all the major food companies talking about the way in which their foods have been designed and marketed to be addictive and to be harmful. And we know they're harmful, and they're pushing them in ways that are really unethical.

35:33It's like smoking. You know, like the tobacco companies marketed smoking knowing it was killing people. So I think we're in that situation. So that's the, you know, first thing. The second principle, so eat real food, whole food, real food. If it's basically your great grandmother would recognize it as food, eat it. It's not a Go-Gurt or a Lunchable or Pop-Tart. They wouldn't know what that is. The second principle is that food is medicine. It's information. It's instructions. It's code. It literally interacts with your body in so many different ways. not just the proteins, fats, and carbs, and they're not all created equal.

36:06There's different quality protein, there's different quality fats, or different quality carbohydrates, the same amount of grams of fat. Of trans fat versus omega-3 fats will have profoundly different effects on your body. In fact, opposite effects, even the same amount of fat. And then there's all the other stuff in food, the dark matter of nutrition. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. If coffee is what gets you through the morning, but also what leaves you jittery, unfocused, or crashing by mid-afternoon, you're not alone. A lot of people are using coffee to push through. I might be one of them, but not actually support their brain.

36:41And that's why for Sigmatic's focus, organic dark roast is different. You're getting a premium organic Arabica coffee blend with lion's mane and hey, I'm talking Mufasa style and shaga mushrooms. Lion's mane supports focus and mental clarity. And because it's adaptogenic, it helps smooth out the spike and crash cycle that caffeine alone can cause. If you're thinking, hmm, gross, does it taste like mushrooms? The answer is no. But it's smooth, full-bodied, dark roast with subtle chocolate notes. It tastes like real coffee. And if flavor wasn't enough, Four Sigmatic third-party tests their coffee for mold, mycotoxin, pesticides, and heavy metals.

37:28It's also one of the best-selling functional coffees at retailers like Target, Whole Foods, with over 100 ,000 five-star reviews. And right now, listeners of this podcast can get a free bag of their best-selling dark roast ground coffee. Just pay shipping and handling. Go to foursigmatic.com slash Gabrielle. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com slash Gabrielle. What do you think are the biggest myths right now that just absolutely need to die in either nutrition or training? I mean, with training, I think some of the biggest myths that are out there is there's like, you know, rep ranges is one that, you know, that there's, you know, magical rep ranges.

38:25Another one is that, you know, there are certain movements that, you know, produce way more muscle growth than other movements. And the reality is like, there are some subtle differences. Like if we look at, for example, isolation movements versus compound movements, this is, I'm thinking about squats versus a study looking at squats on Smith machine versus leg extensions. And they showed overall in the quadricep, similar amounts of growth, basically the same amount of growth. But regionally, the leg extensions produce more growth of the rectus femoris, which is kind of that middle muscle in your quadricep.

39:00And the squats produce a little bit more growth in the vastus lateralis. Now, they weren't huge differences, but it's worth noting. And again, variety is the spice of life. So I would say like there aren't necessarily like magic exercises, but you are probably best off doing a combination of compound lifts that move multiple joints for a given exercise, as well as isolation exercises. But, you know, the myth that like high reps tone and, you know, that's been around for God knows how long ever since people got into lifting weights. and that low reps make you bulky, that's, that's, it's just absolute nonsense.

39:37What makes you look bulky is body fat. Body fat is what makes you look bulky. Now, if you have a lot of muscle and a lot of body fat, you will look bulkier, but body fat is what really makes you look bulky. And, you know, I think I really feel like, you know, women like you and the people out there that are doing good work, the, the, the worry about women becoming too muscular, I think has been tamped down, you know, and even with men, I'll meet somebody like, Oh, I don't want to get too muscular. I'm like, listen, I have tried for 25 years to get too muscular. I'm drug free. Right. And in a t-shirt, I look like a really athletic guy.

40:17Like I look like maybe I played football or wrestled. I don't look like the Hulk. You know what I mean? Um, and so I would tell people, unless you just have unbelievable genetics, you're not going to get too big by accident. It's like getting into a car and worried you're going to become a NASCAR driver. That's not going to happen. And if you do have these great genetics by chance for building muscle, then you can just always like back off and not do so many sets and not go so close to failure. And you're good. Like, congratulations. Yeah, I have that problem all the time. I'm just, I'm just kidding.

40:52I'm still trying to put on muscle, right? And then I think, Gab, sorry, I wanted to touch on one more thing. I think, you know, age and sex gets, is very weaponized now. And there's a lot of predatory marketing used. So I see so much predatory marketing around menopausal women, especially. So much predatory. Yeah, so much predatory marketing. well you can't do the same types of exercises because of your hormones and and you can't do this and always when i ask for evidence it's always it's all that there's like a bunch of circular dancing around the topic and well you and usually they tell me well you're not a woman you wouldn't understand i'm like no but i can read research literature you know like so it and to be fair lane you so you i've worked with you when i was competing and you've worked with countless women.

41:47So it's, you know, that's like saying you can't be a good, uh, cancer doctor unless you have had cancer and gone through that. So I, I think that that's just, that doesn't quite make sense. Yeah. I mean, I want to be clear. There are things about aging and menopause, which may make it more difficult. So menopause, you know, when hormonal shifts happen, um, you may feel less energetic, have a harder time sleeping. Your recovery is worse. it may make it more difficult but the stuff that works is the stuff that works regardless of age and i mean we even have research studies i think the oldest person i found in a research study that they saw significant hypertrophy with was 89 years old yes um as far as i'm aware there is no population that i know of where resistance training does not with sufficient intensity does not produce hypertrophy.

42:39And so, but, but you're told all the time, well, it's too late to start, you know, and, and now it's getting so bad where I have men who are like 30 years old. They're like, well, I just turned 30. So I know, I know my testosterone is low. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, maybe if you're really overweight, you don't sleep very well. You have a lot of stress. Maybe your testosterone is low, but like you're in your prime. Like, Like, and really I don't feel all that different now at 44 compared to when I was 30. And when I, the difference is I sleep a little bit less cause I have two kids, but like, as far as everything else, I don't really feel that much different, you know?

43:18And I think a lot of people, this predatory marketing is done to basically make them feel like they need some sort of special magic solution that only certain people sell. And again, like the research shows, whether it's old, whether it's female, you build similar amounts of muscle as a percentage of your starting lean mass. So if we look at like young men versus women, as a percentage of their starting lean mass, they build the same amount of muscle. Women just start with less lean mass, so they build less as an absolute amount. Same thing for elderly. They start with less, but when they start resistance training, they build a similar amount.

44:01And actually what's funny is women proportionally actually get a little bit stronger than men relatively. What is one recommendation or one thing that you wish people would stop doing immediately? Wow, you threw me for a curveball there. People usually ask the opposite. What's the one thing you tell people to do? Okay, so stop thinking that you need to wait in the morning before you start eating. Stop that. That's nonsense. Stop it, stop it, stop it. People make all kinds of funky claims. And that kind of goes the other way, too. People think that they need to stop eating at 6 p.m. California time.

44:44You know what I mean? Stop that, too. Look at the bigger picture. Look at how your diet looks in total. Look at what is going to fit with what you realistically can sustain from just a social standpoint as well as just a performance standpoint, everything. But look at the big picture. Don't worry about nitpicky timing stuff. And especially the rule that, man, it really kind of upsets me when people go, oh, you got to wait for X amount of time after you wake up before you eat. Otherwise, you won't be able to squint your eating window down to this amount of hours. And it's just kind of frustrating.

45:22So if you're telling me to pick one thing for people to stop, it's stop listening to that kind of advice. You know, stress, anxiety, the nervous system regulation, dysregulation. Have you seen that play a role in digestion and absorption of nutrients? Oh, big time. I would say that the root cause of all chronic illness is usually within the nervous system, to be honest with you. I think we think of the nervous system as being like, you know, the vagus nerve and trauma. We talk about it in that context, but it's really the control center of our body. So the autonomic nervous system controls where do we send blood flow?

46:01How do we, which muscles should we move? How do we function? I mean, regulating body temperature, like these really essential functions of our body. So if you're constantly dysregulated in your nervous system, I mean, digestion is one of the there's a direct pathway between the brain and our digestion. And we've heard this referred to as the gut brain axis, but it will literally control the contractions of your, you know, the your entire digestive system. So it directly impacts your digestion. Yeah, I agree with you. And I've seen it even when I was in college before being able to put words to it, this idea of just being so stressed and so anxious.

46:41And during that time, I would go through periods of eating more and then eating less as a way of trying to manage my nervous system. Do you have practical tips for people who say, for example, are under really high stress and still trying to maintain a healthy nutrition plan. Yeah, I would say the key word I think of is like safety. I always want people to think of what is going to make my body feel consistent? What is going to make my body know that my body, my brain has its back and that I have its back? And what I think that often looks like is probably eating more regularly and eating with some level of routine and consistency so that your body can anticipate, when am I getting food next?

47:23When are these nutrients coming? I think that's something that's really, really important. And then also, again, really listening to your symptoms. If you're noticing when you're eating a certain food that it's not sitting well, not only asking, is this food making me sick? What environment was I eating that food in? Was I sitting up properly? Was I de-stressed? What was my mind state? What was my physical posture? thinking about those other factors of your nervous system that impact digestion. Think about those other factors of your physical form that impact digestion and your health, too. So we're very quick to say I'm allergic to this food.

47:57I've been tolerant to this food and cutting those foods out. But eating slowly in an excellent posture in a present state does so much more for digestion than just cutting foods out. So I would say finding that safety is essential. What do you think, if we go along the lines of how we're trending right now, most people are not training, we know that obesity is a problem, what do you think the dangers of sarcopenia are going to be? I mean, we're seeing it, Gabrielle. We're seeing this explosion of chronic illness, which ultimately comes down to metabolic health. So when we look at every almost known big problem today, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, things like infertility, mental illness, depression.

48:43These are metabolic problems. We have a metabolic health crisis. 93.2 % of Americans, according to a tough study, looking at their labs and their data and everything else, found that 93.2 % of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, which means they have some degree of insulin resistance as evidenced by abnormal cholesterol, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, they're overweight or obese, or they've had a heart attack or stroke. That means that only 6.8 % of us aren't. And that is why we spend more than twice any other nation on healthcare, why our healthcare costs are one out of five dollars of our entire GDP, why one out of three dollars of the federal government is spent on healthcare, why 40 % of the healthcare bill is paid for by the government, and why it's crippling our economy.

49:28So much$2 trillion a year of our taxpayer dollars are going to pay for something that is 100 % preventable and reversible. And we're not addressing that. And that's why I'm so excited about this Medicare innovation. Yeah. Because they're actually saying, hey, guys, yeah, maybe we should start looking upstream at the issue. So I think that it's a real crisis in terms of the economic burden, the social burden, this burden on individuals and families, the suffering. I mean, it's just endless. And the way we're doing this is also having consequences globally for the environment, for climate, how we grow food, what we're growing.

49:59It was all the way back to the farm, and I wrote a book about it called Food Fix, and an updated version is coming out in February called Food Fix Uncensored, which essentially lays out a lot of the links between our food system and our chronic disease epidemic. Life can be chaotic, especially if you're reaching a stride in your career. And what I'm hearing you say is as opposed to making it be all about restriction and these goals of building and losing as extreme as they were when you were younger, that you reorient yourself to potentially slower progress. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we brought up Jenna.

50:40The thing people don't realize about her is she has been super consistent with her training and nutrition for years, years and years. I mean, over five years, she's been just incredibly consistent. and she took really seriously kind of the threats of what happens in the menopausal transition and there's just a lot of a lot of kind of doomsday type type of messages that are sent out in in the fitness space and the health and wellness space to women who are entering midlife and so she pre-committed to not letting menopause defeat her. And so she actually was ready for it. And she just was really consistent with her training and nutrition.

51:30So it takes years. It really takes years. That's the thing. People want things to happen in weeks or months, but the best transformations, you see it, it's years. Yeah. Um, and definitely it seems the earlier someone starts the better. Obviously it's never too late, but it's much easier to go into perimenopause menopause fit and strong than looking back and go, you know what? Uh, I probably should do this now. So if you're listening to this, one thing that I think both Alan and I fully wholeheartedly agree is that pre-commit, again, it's never too late to start, but things don't get easier. It's just the way in which the world is.

52:22And you might not be able to plan for every storm, but you definitely can prepare for it. So one of the other things that I was also thinking about is this idea that, you know, we should restrict calories. So one of the things that I see in my practice, and that even I've talked to you about is that, you know, if I wanted to get really lean, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to totally cut my calories. I remember I was training, I must have been trained two hours a day. And I was like, lean, I'm eating too many carbs, I'm eating too much food. And I think I was at, I don't know if you remember this, but I do because it was me.

52:56I was at 90 grams or less of carbs a day with a high volume of training and I'm a small person. So I guess the biggest question is when someone is trying to lose weight and they cut all of their calories, you know, what is the metabolic implications of that? Well, there's a few things. You do have a drop in metabolic rate from restricting calories. It's a relatively small drop and it does tend to get like corrected relatively quickly once you get back into a maintenance level. But I think the real problem is the way most people diet, which is they go on a pretty restrictive diet for however many weeks or months.

53:41They lose some weight, but they're losing fat mass and lean mass. And when they regain, they tend to preferentially regain fat mass. elimination mindset that you had mentioned, this idea of eliminating food groups, what long-term impact does that seem to have on people that are really going for overall health, whether it's their metabolism or their mood? It can have the impacts, again, on this physiological sense or can have an impact on an emotional sense as well. If we constantly restrict one nutrient, there is not a it's not a perfect science but there is a potential higher likelihood that we might reach for those let's say we restrict potatoes or cooled potatoes resistant starches we might then reach for other carbohydrates like cake and ones that we're not intending if our body still needs those carbohydrates for fuel especially if we're active it's really important so there's a risk on a physiological level of um maybe reaching for more and also an emotional level of cravings going up and everything like that too.

54:47Also, when you're in that fear mindset, we don't have as high of a control over our behaviors. So it's really important, both from this physiological sense and this physical sense, that we're getting a balance of those macronutrients. And it's going to look different for every single person what suits their metabolism. Yeah. I, you know, I've seen a lot of people that are afraid to eat because they're afraid of having symptoms. You know, is there an alternative solution to just removing these foods? If someone was thinking, okay, from a practical standpoint, how can I eat in a way that doesn't just continue to interfere with my digestion or eliminate foods?

55:33This is like the biggest conversation online, because you'll see so many people who say, I felt amazing when I did the carnivore diet. I felt amazing when I did the vegan diet and they're being authentic. It's that these nutrients, while they are beneficial to us, like let's say fiber as an example, we couldn't count the number of studies that show the benefits of fiber for us, but people don't tolerate it that well. So the goal in any kind of elimination diet that someone would be doing is to do it very short term. And while you're doing it, you also want to heal whatever the issue is that has made you resistant to that you know, component of digestion.

56:11So if it's something like fiber, it might be, maybe you need to heal the lining of the gut. Maybe you need some support there. But I think the goal, the reason people feel better on eliminations is because there's actually a body process that's not functioning highly that you need to actually work on instead of just cutting these foods out. You know, do you think that, and you know, as we think about cutting foods out, do you think that when people are eating less, maybe say undernourished, does, Is that an overlooked aspect of healing? Oh, it's such an overlooked aspect. I mean, not to also harp on the carbohydrate part of the equation, but certainly like, you know, we need some level of carbohydrate.

56:52It's grossly exaggerated how many we need. Usually people think we need actually a lot more than we probably need for functioning. But without it, like our brain doesn't function as well. And all of the kind of nervous system conversations that we're having, they do center around like having chronic low blood sugar could be a huge issue for stress, anxiety and those things, too. So, yes, absolutely. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. When the holidays wind down, what you usually want isn't another planner or productivity hack. You want sleep. I mean, I know I do. And if you're a parent, you want sleep that doesn't feel like a negotiation.

57:30For me, a fresh start begins at home. And one of the easiest resets I've made going to the new year is upgrading our bedding with Cozy Earth's Baja Bedding Set. It's a complete matching set, which I'll show you if you look at some of my videos, with sheets, duvet cover, quilt inspired by the textures and colors of Baja California. The fabric is incredibly soft, breathable, and has a reversible design. Listen, you just slide in there even when the rest of the house is crazy. And here's the thing. When you sleep better, you recover better. And that doesn't matter whether you're training hard or working lawn days.

58:09We need recovery and we do need rest. So what I appreciate is that Cozy Earth stands behind their products. You get a 100-night sleep-free trial, no pressure, 10-year warranty. and if you don't think it's comfortable, you can send it back. So start the New Year's right. That is not with partying, but with rest. Go to CozyEarth.com. Use my code DrLion for 20 % off. That's CozyEarth.com and then you use the code DrLion. You know, in that vein, do you think that there's one overarching myth? So for example, for me, it's that you can only absorb 30 grams of protein or that protein is bad for your kidneys.

58:57I mean, that one should die. We're still waiting for it to die. And to me, that really holds people back because there's, you know, there's this discourse, internal discourse that people have. Do you think that there's one myth like that, that you've just, oh, I mean, you've been doing this how many years? At least 20. Yeah. Right. At least. Is there one myth like that, that you're just like, I can't believe this one is still here. Yeah. It's kind of a recent thing where the protein hype and craze is getting some backlash from people who just swung the pendulum back the other way and saying, oh yeah, too much protein is dangerous and all of this stuff.

59:36And not only that, you're not going to get any benefits of eating protein beyond 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. Oh man, that's frustrating because people don't look at the nuance and the detail there there's a lot of data showing that you can get body composition benefits from protein above and beyond 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight and there's some great data showing that you can get body composition improvements from protein intakes even a gram per pound and beyond so 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight and beyond and these the benefits of these very high protein intakes mainly have to do with less of muscle gain, but more of fat loss and controlling fat gain.

1:00:25And even a phenomenon called recomposition, where you gain some lean body mass and lose some fat mass simultaneously. And that's kind of a glorious thing when we see it happen consistently as a result of increasing protein intake. And in in some cases, on top of existing habitual diets, which is a really, really interesting phenomenon. So to say that, oh, you're not going to, you don't need any more protein than 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight, that's just getting really refuted by just multiple lines of evidence. And so I think that when people ask the protein question, how much do you need per day?

1:01:05How much is beneficial? Everybody fails to say, okay, what population are we talking about? and what goal are we talking about? So when you establish the population and the goal, then you can have a productive conversation about protein. And if someone is traveling, right, say it's crazy, they're getting on an airplane, how do you have them think about kind of that landscape? Or if, again, they're in constant movement, you live in New York City, it's crazy there, people are running to the subway, running away from the subway, how does one begin to create safety from just a very practical standpoint?

1:01:45I think, first of all, bringing those snacks with you, being prepared, having those things with you, and then just really like checking in with yourself a lot. I have literally sat on an airplane and been like, this is crazy that we're like flying through the air, even though I fly often and it's, you know, it's just a crazy experience and it's okay to acknowledge that. But being consistently checking in with yourself and even asking yourself, well, what do I need right now to feel a little bit more comfortable? And then I think preparation can be really important. Like even silly things that I have clients do is bringing like ginger tea bags and going to Starbucks and getting a hot cup of water before you get on the airplane, something like that.

1:02:21Just having those, if you need those digestive supportive tools, if you need those certain foods to help manage blood sugar, just having them with you and really getting to know yourself and what makes you feel more comfortable and more stable and routine. is there a game plan do you recommend that your clients have a game plan for example if they are traveling and they ran out of snacks do you have a list you say okay well you're gonna beef jerky you're gonna grab boiled eggs there's always yogurt do you have a list of the uh oh my gosh moment i'm totally unprepared absolutely honestly you named a couple of my favorites in airports by the way hard boiled eggs huge hit usually like a little bit of hummus or something with some vegetables if you need that carb um can be really good always if they do have some sort of protein bars that that feel like they're a good fit it really depends on again what airport you're flying out of or anything like that um and and anytime um i do have clients i travel with little protein sachets i'll have i've had clients travel with gluten-free bread i mean whatever you know suits them but in in the airport setting i i have to be honest hard-boiled eggs or even like egg bites from Starbucks.

1:03:33I'll have clients get because there's usually a Starbucks in the airport. Anywhere you can get a little bit of protein, I think, can be really, really functional and helpful. And when someone is in more of a relaxed state, say going on vacation, do you find that this is the moments where they have more flexibility? Or would this be the moment where you follow your same plan, but you're able to be really consistent? I don't know that you've seen this too with your patients. But I find that my clients end up losing weight on vacation and it's pretty effortless. And it's just because they're so much more able to be present and less likely to snack or even binge when they're on vacation because they're so present and so calm.

1:04:15So, yeah, I find that vacations often where people get so nervous, oh, my gosh, I'm going to eat everything. They end up it's not usually the case where people have, you know, those concerns. Now, if people do have those concerns, again, that's where I'm also really considering like when you have a plate, not to, you know, basically reiterate your mission, but it's true. And that's why I support your mission so much, obviously. But really, where's the protein on my plate? Just making sure you're covering satiety throughout the entire trip too, just to make sure. That's a really good point. You know, one of the things that is what happens to people is there There are expected challenges and then there's unexpected challenges.

1:04:58The expected challenges are the following. You might feel tired. You might be traveling. You might be tempted to miss your work out. These are all the expected challenges. And often we act like we're surprised by them as opposed to how do we double down on really figuring out what we need to do and plan for it, right? So, for example, if I know that I'm traveling at the end of the week, I make sure that my training is really tight so that when I miss a day, I'm not so worried about it. Absolutely. And I think that's really about setting up those non-negotiables also. Like, what is my deal with myself?

1:05:36What does it look like? If I can't work out on vacation, how am I feeling like I'm compensating for that so that I also feel good? Because you're sitting on an airplane for potentially a long period of time. But setting up those boundaries with yourself and those non-negotiables, I think, are not restrictive. I think they can be totally self-loving. But just like what is that absolute boundary that we need to set with ourselves? And to prepare, I think it's important to set those. When you think about boundaries, do you think about training? Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Talk to me about resistance training or muscle health.

1:06:14Well, I think that there is. I think that this is such an interesting conversation that I've been seeing so much, too. It used to be a lot about how women don't need to train as much as men. And of course, now the conversation because of you and many other amazing people has swung back to, OK, women actually do. And it's very critical for our health. But now I'm seeing really funny enough kickback on that again, because people are like, no, you actually don't need to train as much as these people are saying. These people, meaning like world-renowned doctors, are saying, I think that it's all about everything is about individual input and what you can actually do.

1:06:54But that doesn't mean that there aren't standards for what you need to be doing. So it's like understand the standard for what your body needs. And then you also have to make it realistic within your life. I will also say that for clients like mine who are more like live in more complicated or complex, like chronically ill bodies, it doesn't matter if it's harder because you still have to find a way to do it. So the answer is, how do you find a way within your own life? Even if it's smaller parts throughout the day and you're doing five minutes here and five minutes there, whatever you need to do, you have to find a way to do it.

1:07:32And that's like a harsh message almost. But the actual amount that you need to do doesn't change. It's just that you have to find a way to do it for yourself because it's critical for our health. Critical. One of the things that in retrospect I never asked you was the mindset of wellness. Yeah. I think it goes back to something even deeper. and I think it goes back to something I use regularly now in my practice which is called the ACE questionnaire and this is a questionnaire you can find online it stands for Adverse Childhood Events there's a tremendous amount of research on this it looks at traumas and events that happen when you're a child that govern your health and having more adverse events and it can be something like a divorce it can be something horrible like having an alcoholic parent or it can be a parent in jail or it can be sexual abuse or it can be your parents just didn't pay attention to you Whatever it was, Gabor Monte talks about big T or little t trauma.

1:08:23It could be something in any realm of that. How you register that as a kid controls your life. It controls your beliefs, your mindset, your way of thinking about yourself, the environment. And so if you don't address those traumas and you don't address that childhood stuff, it's very hard to overcome these adult behaviors that are self-destructive. And we see the dramatic and direct correlation between the number of adverse childhood events and the degree of illness, whether it's cancer or heart disease or autoimmune diseases or depression or mental health issues or obesity. I mean, you name it.

1:08:55And I think a lot of obesity in this country is related to trauma. And I see this. People who are resistant to getting better, I mean, there are some of those just an information problem. Like they just don't know what to do and they don't have the right information. And then you tell them and they do it and it's like, boom, they're better. But then there's that group that's not getting better. And then you have to ask yourself why. And I think a lot of it has to do with mindset and your beliefs and what they're struggling with that is not necessarily related to any medical problem. It's more of a psychological trauma that keeps them stuck in a certain pattern of living and behaving that doesn't allow them to take care of themselves.

1:09:31If you don't love yourself, if you don't have self-worth, if you don't have agency. Yeah, I mean, so many people walk around with a lack of self-love and lack of self-worth and self-destructive behaviors and trying to manage their emotions through food or through binge-watching, whatever, or just not taking care of their life. alcohol, drugs, there's so many different ways that people kind of adapt to managing the wounded child inside. If you don't deal with that, and there are a lot of exciting ways to deal with it now, whether it's psychedelic medicine, metabolic medicine, there's a lot of ways that you will stay stuck.

1:10:03So you've got to get your mindset right. And your mindset plays an enormous role. Like I almost died last year, and I felt like crap, I was exhausted, I had four hours sleep for six weeks, because I had massive sleep debt. I was on the most amount of narcotics you could imagine. Everything in my body hurt all the time. And I got out of the hospital. And the first day out of the hospital, I was in physical therapy. And I did it every single day. Except like Sundays. Was that cultivated? And I was like, it was what was between my head. I was like, I am not going to let this take me down. And I don't even know if there's an exit to this.

1:10:42I really didn't know. Because I was in pain for six months. I was in pain for six months. I felt like shit for so long. And I didn't know that I'd get to the other side. And now I feel amazing because I put in that effort. You know, or I just was in a bike accident. And rather than just taking the excuse to sit in bed and watch TV or binge on Netflix, I'm actually working out. I'm in the gym. I'm using my body. I'm doing those things that I need to do to maintain my health and to accelerate my healing. I feel like, wow, you're healing so fast. I'm like, yes. And it's not by accident. because I am very strong mentally.

1:11:16Is that practiced? I mean, listen, I've done decades of work on myself. I've done 10-day meditation retreats. I've done many psychedelic journeys. I've done lots of different therapeutic interventions. So I know my mind, and I spend a lot of time learning how to kind of repair those things that happened to me in childhood that left me with some very destructive patterns. and so yeah I think there's a mindset to it. Some people are born with it. Some people are intrinsically motivated. Some people have to be motivated from the outside but even if you have to be motivated from the outside that's okay.

1:11:52Get a group of people. Do it. Go have fun with somebody else. Go to the gym. Hey take a friend to the yoga class. But take action is what I'm hearing you say. Yeah it's not the big things that matter. It's the micro little things that matter every day. So it's a thousand little choices you make every single day that matter and those add up. I didn't gain 25 pounds of muscle overnight but it was 300 hours in the gym over the course of a year that I did and it wasn't like every time I went in the gym I got better but it was like I could see slowly over time I was like, oh, I couldn't do this. Now I can do this.

1:12:27I was in the gym yesterday working my trainer and he had me doing these single arm presses on the floor but with my legs up so I'm losing balance so I have to maintain my core strength and like the first time I did, I was flopping all over. Now I'm like, okay, I got this, you know? So, and it's amazing to see, like I'm 66 now, which is incredible to say. And - You don't look 66. Yeah, well, I mean, this is what 66 looks like if you take care of yourself. Like this is what it looks like. You have to tell your trainer that you have a new program. I'm gonna give him the book. Yes. I'm gonna give him a Forever Strong Playbook.

1:13:01And there's actually foundational movements like that. So that cross balance, which is incredible. Yeah, I've done a lot of core stuff. And so just to see the way in which if you provide the right inputs, the body responds. Extraordinary. I have one final question. What does Forever Strong mean to you? You know, people ask me, what is the definition of health? And the definition of health for me is to be able to get up in the morning and do whatever I want to do. If I want to hike up a mountain that's 10 ,000 feet high, I want to do that. If I want to go for a bike ride, I want to do that. You know, I've got three bike rides planned this year.

1:13:36I've got a week in Cuba a week in Greece and a week in Oman on these trips with friends and I love to go with friends it's community building and you know these are things that I want to do I don't want to I'm 66 I want to do it I'm 86 I don't want to not be able to do it and so Forever Strong means just doing the simple little things every day that can keep you going I met a guy I'll end with this story who was 95 years old and he was like a spring chicken bopping around running around he had a girlfriend that was 20 years younger than him. I'm like, what is your secret? Because you're eating bagels.

1:14:09You're eating all this crap. I was at a shiva at my stepfather's funeral. It was kind of reception. And he's like, whatever I did yesterday, I do today. I played singles tennis yesterday. I play singles tennis today. I'm like, okay. And I think that's what happens. When people get older, something happens. They get injured. Something breaks down. They get sick. And they stop. Don't stop. Love that. If you want to be forever strong, don't stop. I love that. It means two things, physical and mental. And, you know, I was watching this interview with Pierce Morgan and Chris Williamson, and I really like what Chris said.

1:14:45And Pierce Morgan said, if you wanted to become mentally tougher, should you do mental training or physical training? And Chris didn't have to say, he said physical training, like physical training. If I had not started bodybuilding when I was 18 and had to experience some of the setbacks and difficulties and working through problems and working through injuries and whatnot, that taught me so much about life because I thought those things were hard. And then life started, you know, kicking me a couple of times and then you realize, oh no, that stuff actually isn't that hard. But if I hadn't had those exposures to difficulty at a controlled dose, I wouldn't be able to tolerate it.

1:15:26And that's, it's so funny that that's kind of what exercise does physically. you know, I describe it's kind of like a, all right, this gets people upset, but it's kind of like a vaccine, right? You're giving a controlled dose of a stressor and your body gets better at handling the stressor. Because if you look at what exercise does in the short term, increases your heart rate, blood pressure, reactive oxygen species, your inflammation levels, your cortisol. If I told you all that, something did all that, you'd go, oh, that sounds terrible. But these are controlled doses. It's what we call hormesis.

1:15:56You give a controlled dose of a stressor to your body and the body responds by getting better at handling it. And so not only did I get better at handling it physically, I got better at handling things mentally. So I always say, you know, people will tell me all the time, but just lifting weights, it's just lifting weights. And I said, well, that's not how I feel about it. You know, not, not only do I love competing, I love pushing myself. I love pushing my body past what I thought was possible for me. I love the idea that, you know, at 44, when I see people I went to high school with and they're really struggling and I don't wish that on anybody.

1:16:35I love that I still feel like I did when I was 25. Forever Strong to me means self-loyalty and community loyalty. I think that honoring yourself is what strength is. Knowing yourself is what strength is. And then incorporating that and uplifting others to bring you along on that mission of self-accomplishment and self-love is what being forever strong is. I think that it's just the alignment of a healthy mind, healthy body, and that you are doing all of this because you enjoy it. You enjoy the process. I think that when people can enjoy the process, then they'll be able to stick to it and just have fun maintaining good health, good body composition.

1:17:27It's easier said than done because you have to find what you prefer in terms of food selection and meal patterning through the day and the week. You have to find what you enjoy in terms of training. But actively seek that out, what you enjoy and prefer. and then you can be forever strong.