406 - The BEST Anti-Aging Advice for Women Over 40 (Wish I Knew Sooner)

24:19right right it's going to go somewhere it has to this is just like thermodynamics yeah and i want to talk about this for a minute because again i have this wonderful special gift of having a show for so long and being able to hear the audience even while this conversation is happening in real time it's like i can lean into the future for people going like oh but you know tracking it's really hard or i don't want it to trigger certain you know eating disorders around food or i don't want to be obsessed it's like you actually have to calm down for a minute i think about that because if you don't have awareness, which I never used to have before I started tracking things, if you don't have awareness, what a proper food portion size is, how are you supposed to know?

24:56If you don't have awareness on, you know, the size of your bowls or what you're sticking in there or how it'll make sense, you're going to wind up in this place where you're like, but I'm eating all the right stuff and I'm walking or I'm working out, but I'm not able to feel as powerful or strong as I want to feel. Nothing's changing. It's like, I just needed to say that out loud so that the people are like, meh. I know. Hey, I didn't want to do it either. And by the way, Tim was the big holdout. So when he came back with the 25 % DEXA, I'm like, okay, now will you do the things I've been talking to you about?

25:28Like now will you do it? And what he discovered was like, you know, the Siete chips before dinner, the handful or two of nuts, the lots of extra virgin olive oil. And what's interesting is I find we tend to under eat on protein and overeat on, you know, fats and carbs, it's really, it's so easy to do. Who hasn't done it? And part of it is think about how dysregulated we get if we're going out to eat, where they serve smaller protein portions and bigger carb servings, and then loads of fat on it. And so we, we can't really figure out what's a normal serving size. That in addition to, I think plate sizes are huge.

26:07And I mean, at least here in America, it's like sometimes you go out to a restaurant and the plates, they're enormous. I sometimes I'm like, that is like three meals in one. And if you're just having a good time, you're unconscious with your friends. It's like, I remember, you know, growing up, it was like, you finish your plate. You know what I mean? There's certain kind of conditioning that many of us have been brought up with. At least that was me. It's like, no, you finish the plate. So if someone sticks up in front of you, that's huge. You just keep bowing through it unless you have awareness and consciousness.

26:33Right. And so the first thing, I mean, it's just like tracking your steps, Right. Right. And, and I'm glad you brought this up because I want to bring it back to the scale too, because I know there's a lot of emotion around the scale too. That's why I like that you could use a Renpho and don't even look if you don't want to look like, don't look and realize that we're looking at the scale. We're using it like a blood pressure cuff. We are not looking at the weight. We're looking at what the weight's made up of. And we're looking at, wow, is this changing? And guess what? If you're doing this correctly, it changes slowly.

27:04That's important. It changes. Maybe you can put one to two pounds of muscle on a month. That's huge. I want everyone to really hear that, that this change is slow, but it's important. And I think you can start feeling better fast, which when we get to nutrition, we'll talk about that. Right. Right. But just having those realistic expectations and understanding, especially as women, I've watched my weight on the scale go up into over a couple of days and times when I wasn't, you know, it's usually when you're so good, it goes up. You're like, what the heck? Totally. And you can get really disheartened and feel really frustrated and feel like, oh, nothing works.

27:37Screw it. You know, let me just go have that bag of chips. But I love that. So potentially one pound of lean muscle mass per month. Yeah. So it's so one to two. Here's the thing. Someone who's deconditioned and, um, you know, hasn't been eating correctly, like hasn't been eating enough protein, et cetera. And they flip over into doing this. They'll see more results after the first same month. Cause the first month a lot of neurological learning, they'll probably see bigger results. As you get closer to your optimal, it gets harder and harder, right? To put on another pound of muscle. So someone starting out, you know, they could easily put on one to two pounds of muscle a month and they could drop, um, gosh, four to eight pounds of fat.

28:21It really depends on how much fat you have to lose. But if you try to do it too quickly, you're going to have a big challenge with dropping, with losing muscle mass. And that's the last thing we want to do. I love this concept that Peter Atiyah talks about the centenarian decathlon. You've heard this one. It's so good. It's like, think about what you want to do in your eighties, nineties, a hundred. And what do you need to do now to be able to do that then? And if that doesn't motivate you, think about what you don't want to do. I know for me, I don't want to ever have to call my husband and go, could you get me up off the toilet.

28:57Never. Like I never want to have that happen in my reality. Right. Yeah. Josh and I talk about that. Like we talk about hiking together in Italy. You know, like you think about the things I know when we were, we were in Santorini and I was looking at these steps, we were going up and down and I was thinking, gosh, I want to come back here. Yes. And I want to make sure that I can come back here. And I remember thinking at the time, boy, this would be a tough place for someone to come in their eighties and nineties. I fully intend to be able to do that. And so what do we have to do? I just interviewed Dr.

29:25Andy Galpin, who I'm obsessed with this amazing exercise physiologist. He goes, our most important thing is that we've got to have good leg strength. You think about it, that's getting you up the stairs. That's getting you up off the couch. So we have to focus on these things to build them. I want to go back to tracking. Let's talk about what we should track exactly and how to do it, how to get somebody started because it is intimidating, but we know it's worth it. Okay. So here's the thing. Let's just do it for a month. That's it. We can do anything for a month. Let's just do it for a month. And the first week, all you do is track what you're eating.

30:02You don't judge it, right? Which that's going to be your biggest challenge is not the tracking. It's mean girls sitting there going, Oh my God, I can't believe you ate that. Right. Just write down everything you eat. Here's what's crazy. If that's all you did, you would start to shift things. Because all of a sudden you're going, I don't really want to have to write down that handful bag full of CTA chips. So I'll just skip it. But that's the first thing you do. You're just curious for a week looking at this. And what I'm really trying to get to is what's your average calorie load that you're doing and where's it coming from?

30:35And we'll kind of take the average over the week. The second week, we're going to now look at how much protein is optimal for you. Now, 30 plus and especially 50 plus, the protein needs for everybody, not just women, are probably double of what the RDA is. In fact, the top protein researchers are trying to get this shifted because they're so low. And the reason this is important is protein breaks down into amino acids. And there's a specific amino acid, this came from Dr. Donald Lehman called leucine that you need the high enough amount, probably, I just saw some latest research that said probably three to four grams, but at least two and a half grams to flip the switch for muscle protein synthesis.

31:21So we have to have enough protein a few times a day, at least twice a day, but probably three times is better with morning being super important, morning and evening, because you're turning on muscle protein synthesis, right? In the morning. So the first thing that you're going to do is just start to now focus on protein, getting enough protein and tracking that and using a scale to make sure that you actually are getting it right. Or when you're going out to eat, asking them the size of the protein portion. And so that's the next step. All you're going to alter is you're going to add protein.

31:57And here's the important thing. You're going to eat protein first. Now I know we've heard a whole lot of eating vegetables first. And here's why I'm saying eat protein first. And I just saw it the other night when I went out to dinner. So I got to dinner with a group of people. I just done this talk for the whole group. Now we're sitting out at dinner. I'm always fascinated to see what happens. Right. I'm just kind of watching everybody. And one woman, she has a salad and then she has some appetizers, more veggie stuff. Then she had a glass of wine and then she ordered eggplant for dinner. I ordered a steak and I was planning to take some home for the next day.

32:30Thankfully I had extra. So I'm looking at her, I'm watching her and she goes, you're watching me. And I go, yes, I'm watching you. I'm going, where is your protein? She goes, I'm just so full. And I go, well, tell you what, skip the eggplant until you've eaten the steak. And I'm going to share mine. She goes, you're protein shaming me. I go, I am because I love you. I'm going to protein shame you because I care about you. Like you're 60, you know, you need this. So this is what I see is I'm full. We're not eating enough. So if you eat protein first, there's a couple of cool things that happen.

33:03Number one, protein's the most satiating of the macronutrients. So you will tend to get full. I don't know about you, but if I'm hungry, it is really hard to not overeat. Absolutely. I mean, come on, we're human. I'm going to eat. So number one, it's the most satiating. Number two, it's also the most satisfying because of what proteins used for in the body, like making neurotransmitters, it tends to shut down cravings. Also, there's this concept called the protein leverage hypothesis. That's really not a hypothesis anymore. It's been proven now in locusts and then rodents and monkeys and humans is that we will eat and eat and eat to get enough amino acids.

33:44So if you're eating a high carb, high fat meal, you'll tend to overeat in an effort for your body to get enough amino acids. So when you eat protein first, you've got satisfaction, you've got satiety. You've also got the thermic effect of protein, which is 20 to 30 % of the calories are expended in the digestion and assimilation of protein, contrasted with 5 to 10 % of carbs or about 0 to 3 % of fat. So if all you did was take some of the calories away from carbs or fat and put it into protein and kept your calories the same, you lose weight. Wow. That's crazy. And that study has been shown over and over and over.

34:19That's like not just one study. There's multiple studies showing that. So there's that. Now, the other cool thing is protein research has shown that protein, when you eat it first, you tend to make better food choices, probably because you're not hungry and you're not craving. And so you're not crazy. And then the other important thing with protein is when you think about how our body detoxifies, like if someone is listening and wants to lose body fat, one of the things that isn't talked about is the fact that we store toxins in our fat. And when you go to start burning fat, guess what you release?

34:53Toxins. Yes. You better be able to get them out. So we have three phases of detox. The first thing is that we free them up, right? And we free them up with all the deep green leafies and colored plants and amino acids. But what really happens in phase two is those amino acids grab a hold of those toxins and neutralize them. So that phase three, you can poop them, pee them, sweat them out. Right. And you need fiber for that one. So if you don't have adequate amino acids, you've got a problem there. Wow. Right. So there's that piece too. So that's why I tell people to eat protein first. I just want to make sure we get it in.

35:28Yeah. Right. And I just don't want you filling up. And one of the challenges, people will go to a restaurant and they'll go, well, I'm just going to have a salad. I'll have that first. And they have a salad, but it's about 10 calories of romaine lettuce or arugula. And it's about 400 calories of fat and carbs. In terms of the dressing, you look at what they did. Like, like I always say, you had the raspberry vinaigrette, you had the dried fruit, then you had the fried bread, you really just turned your lettuce into a salad into a sundae, right? You know, so if we could just start instead with the protein, maybe a shrimp cocktail or whatever, right?

36:06And just start there, get it in, then eat your non-starchy vegetables. Awesome. And see what else you even want. You'll be full. Let's talk about the amount of protein that one should have and how we can start to kind of calculate this depending on obviously our, who we are, what our goals are, things like that. And so I'm talking specifically for really 30 plus, because again, when you're in your teens and 20s, you can build muscle hormonally. So that shifts in our 30s, which is probably why we start to see the slide. And it gets worse, of course, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. We have something called anabolic resistance, where we have trouble now building muscle from resistance training and from protein.

36:47So we actually have higher protein needs. Couple that with all proteins not created equal. And that's the other important thing. There is a big difference. And these are not my rules. I know that diet is nutrition is this weird religious thing. And, you know, I know I'm treading into this here. These are like, you can do this, however you want to do this. And I have tricks for you. If you want to do plant-based and still be able to do this, there are ways to do it. You just have to be a good little biochemist, right? You can do it. You can do it. But you can't do it without supplementing. You can't.

37:22Someone asked me that the other day at a lecture and I go, you overdose on carbs and fat. You cannot be in the right amount of calories and get enough protein that way. So you're going to have to do some other things like protein powders and essential amino acids. It's doable. But the basic calculator is 0.7 grams to one gram per pound of target body weight. What's the body weight you feel great at? Me personally? I mean, not you personally, but I've been just throwing out. Oh, 140. Let's say 140. So let's say 140. So that would be, you would do 0.7. Math on the fly, oh my gosh, it's roughly about 100 grams, right?

38:00To 140 grams of protein. I really like as a baseline for people to get at least 100 grams of protein a day. And if you are eating more plant-based, because you are not, there's a couple different things you have to look at. The digestibility of the protein, plant-based tends to have more fibers, it's lower digestibility. The bioavailability of it and the balance of the essential amino acids. Animal products are higher in all that. Plant products are lower in all that. So if you're going for plant, you're going to need more. One of the ways you can get around it is to do essential amino acids with it so that you can get the things that you need that you aren't going to get in the right balance from your food.

38:40Someone said this statement. I go, that's really perfect. They go, you know, plants have their amino acid profile to make plants. Animals have their amino acid profile to make animals. So that's the challenge that you have there. So, okay. So we looked at that formula. What are some of the easiest ways to get more protein in both? If you are a carnivore, you eat meat and both if you're plant-based. So for people who eat animals, if you are not dairy intolerant, I think whey protein is probably the mother load of all of it. Now, for most people who are dairy intolerant, which includes me, it's me too.

39:18However, for a lot of people, it's the casein that's the trigger and you really don't get that in whey protein isolate. So you might be able to do that. So that's one. And again, if you are not dairy intolerant, Greek style yogurt can be another amazing one. The other ones that you have, you know, chicken, fish, I especially love fish seafood because it's really rich in creatine, which we will definitely have to talk about. I think that's the single most important supplement for women, creatine. Plus you have fish oil in there and fish oil now has been found to be anabolic. Not only is it anti-inflammatory, it can help you build muscle.

39:57Plus it's got vitamin D. So like fish for the win, just make sure it's clean fish, right? Not lake fish. And then grass fed, grass finished meats. And, and I wish I could say bison and those things. I don't, you probably do. I don't, you don't bison. Um, I have game, that kind of stuff. I wish that I could say I do that, but grass fed, grass finished chicken breasts, easy peasy. Um, if you are going to do eggs, if you're not egg intolerant, egg white and egg yolks. So what I do is I'll have people do like two whole eggs and then some egg whites to get up to enough protein. Cause if you try to do it with eggs alone, you'll end up with a lot of fat from the egg yolks and you still want some of the egg yolks, a lot of great nutrition in there, but it's really like you end up with like, I think five or six eggs.

40:44How about plant-based? If you're plant-based, how are you getting there? So plant-based, obviously the things that we know that are higher, like lentils to me are some of the better ones, right? So beans and quinoa and nuts and seeds. But the thing I have people do is spike all of that. And what do you mean? So I love starting out the day and using, Siggy's makes a coconut yogurt that is four grams of sugar that has pea protein in it. So you could use that one and then you can add in some extra like pea protein with that. So that's an easy one. I just use protein powders because like that's how you're going to do it and use some essential amino acids if you need to like look, count and see what you're getting.

41:30Cause remember really with, with plant-based proteins, you really want to hit 40 grams. Now, if you are not soy intolerant and don't have thyroid issues, soy is better amino acid profile than the other ones. So it just depends on how you do with it. So that's an option too. And that gives you opens the door to a lot more things, but there's things like good karma has a flax milk that's got pea protein added to it. So you just have to become a good investigator of these things. So that's some of your favorites. So I heard, um, flax milk. So I like this good karma flax milk that's got the, um, pea protein in it.

42:03I like the Siggy's coconut yogurt that's got protein in it. And then protein shakes. There's two different protein shakes out there that are ready to drink that actually are decent. One is called Only What You Need, O-W-N, and one is called Koya, K-O-I-A. And they're actually at airports. Wow. I know. That's new. So those work great. Like for traveling, there's some great grass-fed beef sticks and turkey sticks. So those are great too. Get the ones that are keto that have no sugar added. I have to tell you about a sugar too. Remind me to tell you about allulose and creatine because these are like the coolest things that blow your mind.

42:44Allulose and creatine. Allulose and creatine. So step two is protein. All you do next is start tracking that protein and watch what starts to happen because if you kept your calories the same, that first week, what we're really trying to find out is how many calories do you normally eat to maintain your weight? you can go do a BMR test to find out what your basal metabolic rate is. And then you can look at, okay, what's my thermic effect of food and my activity level during the day and use an equation to try to figure it out. But the best way to know how many calories you need each day is just to do the macro audit and take the average over the week.

43:19Because if you do want to go into any kind of body recomping, you will need to rotate in some caloric restriction. And I used to never talk about that. I was like, no, we're not going to talk about calories. We're your food's made up of and it'll be fine. And then I went, actually, that was not true. Because if you do want to recomp, you're going to have to look at some caloric restriction. It's just what we do. Thermodynamics. Yeah. But there's a really cool way to do it that's going to help you hold on to or build muscle and help you avoid diet fatigue. And it's called using diet breaks. This comes from Dr.

43:55Bill Campbell. It's actually what I'm building into the next book. He went through the research with me, I'm like, oh, that's fantastic. It's basically five days of caloric restriction, two days of normal, you know, what you normally need for calories and then do it again. So like weekends, you can eat normal calories. It's not a license to eat overeat. It's eat what you normally need on the weekends and then do caloric restriction during the week. It also helps with that caloric variability to help you not have the metabolic adaptation that we see happen with like the biggest losers. Right. Where they're not flexible.

44:27You're not metabolically flexible. This is what really happened with them is their calorie needs. So as we lose weight, we have to move less of our body around. Therefore, our daily energy needs go down. That's just, you know, physics that's going to happen. But what happened with the biggest losers is their calories dropped 500 calories lower than what it should have been. So imagine you go through a whole program and your basal metabolic rate is 500 calories lower than it should be forever. Like you are screwed, you know? So we want to avoid that at all costs. And I think caloric variability helps there.

45:07Eating the way that I'm talking about, yes, helps with some metabolic flexibility as well, which means that you can burn carbs when you need to burn fats when you need to, you know, you can go four to six hours without going crazy. You can be able to do those things. And a lot of that has to do with eating what I call the trifecta, making sure that you've got protein because that's the satiety, but fiber and fat with that is like the, you know, perfect formula for getting rid of your hunger. And then I have a trick too. Tell us. I'm so excited about this part. So there's really cool research that's coming out about GLP-1 agonists and how they help with neuroregeneration, cardiovascular health, all sorts of different things.

45:52And it's a wild thing because there's a lot of fighting on the internet, like, you know, GLP-1 shaming and all this stuff. And what the hell is GLP-1? GLP-1 is semaglutide, Ozembic, Munjaro, like all of these different - Oh, all of these weight loss drugs. These weight loss drugs. Well, these weight loss drugs were around for a long time as diabetes drugs. What's interesting now is that they're starting to be researched for all these other effects. I put my son in it for the neurocognitive because I met a really cool researcher and he started telling me about all the neuro regenerative stuff. And I'm like, oh, wow.

46:24Then I got turned on to another company. It turns out that allulose, which is a rare sugar, actually, so there's a couple of things that raise GLP-1. GLP-1 is something that is made in our gut, right? And probably because our guts are so messed up, we don't make it like we used to, or we should. We may never have made it because our diets have been so messed up, right? Why we need to eat protein and fiber, right? We need the fiber for our gut microbiome. So GLP-1 is raised and one of the big things it does is helps with satiety and helps with insulin sensitivity. When you talked about being metabolically flexible, that's all about having good insulin sensitivity, which the fastest way to create that is build muscle and get good sleep, right?

47:14But it makes a huge difference because if you're insulin resistant, where your insulin's higher than it should be all the time, you will see fasting blood sugar go up, which is a lagging indicator. By the time you have higher fasting blood sugar, you've been insulin resistant for a while. But the big thing that happens with insulin resistance is it basically makes it almost impossible for you to burn off fat. And then therefore it makes you hungry all the time because you can't, you know, right. You always feel like you need some incoming. Well, it turns out that this allulose sweetener is it's a rare sugar comes from things like dates.

47:49It doesn't raise your blood sugar. It doesn't raise your insulin. In fact, if you take it before you eat a candy bar, it will lower your blood sugar response. because it raises GLP-1. It acts like a GLP-1 agonist drug, but it has a short half-life, like it might work for about four to five hours. But basically you can take 10 to 12 grams of this sweetener. It won't have any calories and it's going to lower the blood sugar effect of the meal. So alleles for me, my familiarity with it is as a sugar, basically like a substitute, if I'm going to make brownies, if I'm going to make the thing. perfect one.

48:28But what you didn't realize is that you were actually like, it's a therapeutic supplement. Like you, like I am now making a point of taking it. I'm trying to get it in before each meal. There are doctors using it to get people to be able to titrate off of GLP-1 agonist drugs, to be able to use them as weight loss drugs. But just think about anyone using a sweetener, this is the sweetener of choice. It's amazing. Like I'm kind of blown away by this one. Yeah. So, you know, if I was going to look at what would be a perfect thing, it would be, you know, stir it into whatever you were having in the morning, or if you were having coffee, my biggest challenge is I actually don't like sweet.

49:10Yep. So I'm like, oh, good for you. I mean, I, I would take, I'd take salty and we all have our things. We all have our vices. I'm just a crunchy, salty person. I'm not a sweet person, but I probably would do sweet and salty completely happily. Yes. Right. So the other thing I've heard you talk about tracking, which I think is important in terms of building muscle mass is hydration. Talk to me about how much water should we be having? Are most people under hydrated and how important is it to, for us to just get those hydration levels up? Cool. And then let's go to the next phase of tracking too.

49:40Don't let me forget. And I'm going to tell you the hydration research is wild. So So even mild hydration, dehydration, like 1 % can start to raise cortisol. It can start to lower your metabolism. In fact, we know that when you drink water, you boost your metabolism for about 30 minutes. So just drinking water makes an impact, right? But dehydration can actually make you store fat. Now, this is research from Dr. Rick Johnson, who wrote the book, Nature Wants Us to Be Fat. And what he discovered, he's the big fructose researcher. And what he discovered is that if we are dehydrated, we actually take glucose from the liver, convert it to fructose.

50:27Now, what we know about fructose is it's a very different sugar than glucose is. And in fact, one of the things I wrote in the sugar impact diet was glucose gives you fuel, fructose gives you fat. Because fructose doesn't really have places to store in the body. And so it can convert into glucose into the liver to be stored as glycogen, but there's not much space there, which is why we have this epidemic of fatty liver, right? In kids. And, you know, apple juice is like one of the worst culprits, super high fructose, more high fructose than a cola. Wow. Yes. So what he discovered was mild dehydration actually causes your liver to turn glucose into fructose and store it as fat.

51:15Why would we do that? I was like, why is this happening? Camels. So camels, yes. So think about camel storing fat in their hump, because when you burn fat, you liberate water. Same thing. So super duper important to make sure that you're staying well hydrated. And basically the rule there is half your body weight in ounces, plus a half an ounce to an ounce for every minute of exercise. Air on the, you know, I drank too much. Yes, yes, yes. Use some electrolytes and like I'll do electrolytes when I go to the gym in the morning with my essential amino acids just to make sure I have my bases covered.

51:55So use some electrolytes. Don't think Brooke Shields, wasn't she the one that passed out? She drank so much water with no electrolytes. So do some replenishing there, like one or two of your glasses have some electrolytes in there. It's going to help you out. And then check your pee. Check your pee. If your pee is really yellow, guess what? You're dehydrated. Either you just took some B vitamins or you're dehydrated, right? So, you know, clear urine. There you go. Little hack, little hack. You keep mentioning amino acids. Tell us about like, what are the amino acids you take and how did, what form do you take them in?

52:29So I just take a powder, essential amino acid blend. Now here's the thing. There's some really cool research that shows that if you take essential amino acids, you know, you're doing your protein and you didn't quite get what you needed. Maybe you're a plant-based, maybe you got 20 grams of protein where you really needed 30 or 40 grams. The essential amino acids are like the insurance policy for that to make sure that you got what you needed. So for me, I think it just makes sense because I hear so often, especially from women. Oh, I just can't eat all that. That's why I say eat it first. And what would happen if you like had your smoothie in the morning, then went off and worked out with your essential amino acids and some electrolytes covered.

53:10And in your smoothie, you put some creatine in there. Why? Tell us about it. Oh my gosh. So creatine, I had no idea. I cannot believe that I've been in this industry for so long and I had no idea about this, that creatine, when you look at it as a supplement, it's more important for women than men. So women have 70 to 80 % less tissue stores of creatine than men do. Creatine is something that is going to help us work out harder, recover faster, can help with muscle, can help with bone density, can help with our mood. In fact, they did a study on postmenopausal women, and they found that when they gave them creatine, it was more effective than just giving them like an antidepressant alone.

53:53So it helps with cognition. It helps with depression. It helps with skin wrinkling. What? I know. So it's like, and we're just not getting, I know. Right. And we're just not getting that much. So the deal with creatine is, and at first when I was first using, I was like, Oh, just take five grams. You'll be fine. I'm really playing around with this because one of the issues is that it may cause water retention. It's transient, but what I've done now is looked at it and went, what would happen? Like I take five grams every morning, I'm fine. But I think when you're first starting, if you just started and took a gram three times a day, it takes you about a month to get up to tissue stores, which is where you want to be.

54:35And then likely you're just fine after a week, just taking three grams at once. And then the first couple of weeks, take it before your workout. Once your tissue stores are there, you're probably fine. Whenever you take it, it doesn't really matter. I always say with any of these things, it's just like, when's the best time to work out? When you'll work out. When's the best time to take this? When you'll take it. But it's an easy one to throw into the morning smoothie. And I still like, I think the easiest thing to do for breakfast is, is what I call a loaded smoothie. What's in it? A loaded smoothie would be protein powder.

55:06I use that good caramel flax milk. There's other now milks out there that have proteins added into them as well. So I'll just do that. I'll put in, depends what I'm, what I'm feeling at the time, maybe a little bit. I like to use a half of a barely ripe banana because that's going to have more resistant starch, which actually is really good for raising butyric acid, which helps you burn fat. So that is why cooled potatoes, cooled rice, these things can be great for raising butyric acid in the colon. it. Um, so I'll do that with some ice. I actually don't, I would love to say I put a bunch of greens in there too.

55:45Yuck, but I eat so many vegetables throughout the day. So, but if you're one of those people that can do that, like a plus for you, and then I'll do some fiber. So I'm either throwing in some extra fiber or some chia seeds or a little avocado or some freshly ground flax. I really like for women, freshly ground flax, good phytoestrogens in there. And what are you aiming for? About 50 grams of protein? I get about 50 grams of protein in, but you know, again, I'm, you know, six feet tall. Yes. So I am, I am a tall drink of water here. So that's my goal. I tend to eat about 150 to 160 grams of protein a day.

56:22Sometimes as low as 140, but that's tends to be sometimes I'm up at 180. That's ambitious. And I'll tell you, you're better off erring a little bit on the higher side than the lower side with these things. How come? Right. Because of getting the right amount of essential amino acids. So if someone was going to err, and also I got to tell you, since I really started tracking protein and making sure I was getting enough, I've had to watch to make sure I'm maintaining my weight and not losing. When you start to eat protein first, it is so satiating that you actually have to start watching. And it's so thermic.

56:59I just think about that. If you shifted, uh, you know, your calories, some of your calories over, right. And now you're eating less and it's more thermic. You're going to start and you're holding onto more muscle. Yep. Like look what happens. Oh, and the other cool thing with allulus I didn't even mention is it acts like an exercise mimetic as well. Now I don't know, there's something with it and I haven't understood the mechanism yet of how it's helping with supporting with muscle mass development, but it's doing that too. So that's cool. I think it might be because of helping with insulin sensitivity because that's important.

57:33But back over to tracking because we did the first week, all you do is track. Yep. No judgy. Observing. Tracking. You're just the observer. Curious. And then the second week you add in the protein and you eat it first and that's all you do. And you just kind of pay attention, like, how's my satiety? How satisfied am I? You know, what's my energy level like? Because just like vegetables will help you with blood sugar control, so will protein. Right? And so will allulose. Had to throw that in. Then next week, let's really start to get into it. Because this is when you are now at a point where you could start to do body recomping if you wanted to.

58:10Where if you go, I really would like to lose some fat, hold on to or build muscle, which is going to require some caloric restriction. that's where you could for five days, you know, take 20 to 25 % of your total calories, cut it down, not don't take it from protein, right? Make sure you're getting in. I love 10 servings of non-starchy vegetables a day. I think that's the best with it being a cup of raw or half a cup cooked and two servings of fruit, maybe three, if you're super active, you get healthy fats in your protein. You can add a little bit more in your cooking and then see what else you need.

58:43Yeah. And you know, I just want to say this too. I think it's, it's so important because for anyone, And again, once you're in your kind of mid thirties and then you're in your forties, fifties, like you start realizing stuff does change. And while it may seem like a lot of work, it's like, oh my God, this is overwhelming. It's actually not. You know, what's really overwhelming? Being really sick. Yes. What's really overwhelming is trying to navigate the medical system and trying to heal yourself. So yes, there's some upfront quote unquote investment that you need to make in terms of your education and learning and testing and maybe that little food scale.

59:11But the long-term gain, the ROI on taking care of your health and starting to think about this differently, I don't think it can be calculated. It's priceless. The ability to set yourself up, God willing, so that we're around and healthy and strong in our 70s and 80s and 90s and whatnot. It's like, we have to prepare for this now. So I know we've talked about a bunch of different things. We talked about protein first, which I really like and I'm really excited about. And even as I was preparing for our convo, you know, we're such good friends. And I was like, okay, it influenced me. But when I was eating today, I was like, oh, I had more protein before I got here.

59:47Now, the second pillar is about lifting heavy things. And this is what gets me really excited. So I've also been that person, like at 16 years old, I was in Gold's Gym on the Jersey Shore. So I love lifting weights. And there was just a period that I didn't do it because I was just really busy doing other things. And it just wasn't my priority. But now it's like, oh, I go to this class here in New York City that's called Lift Tonic. And it's basically a dungeon. And we go in there and there's benches and there's dumbbells and you throw around a lot of heavy weights with excellent form. The instructors are fantastic.

1:00:20So it's all about form first, but they're also very direct about, Hey, if you got a little more in the tank, I want to see you push it. Even if you get once, you know, just one rep in and then you drop and you go to something lighter. So that's been really fun. So talk about the power of lifting heavy things. What's the best way for someone watching right now to get started, especially if they're intimidated and they're like, I don't know what the hell to do. Where do I start? I don't even want to go to a gym because I'm embarrassed or I can't afford it, anything. What would you say to them? Yeah.

1:00:49And, and you know, what's great now, like, and again, what you just said, a lot of this stuff is just a learning curve, which is so much easier. Like that little chronometer app. I used to have people write everything down on, and then they would have to show me the paper, you know, the little food scale that's$10. I mean, there's so many easy things now to be able to do this. I mean, a$20 bioimpedance scale that goes to a phone. So I would love a, like to give a global of how we're going to do this exercise prescription so that people really know what to do. And again, wherever you are, you know, wherever you're starting, it's great.

1:01:23You're starting. Like if you're listening, you just started. So now we're started. And the very first thing of course is tracking those steps and making sure that you're getting your eight to 12 ,000 a day. And I've gotten like, you know, once you're used to it, you'll know, okay, I've hit it. But this is such an important one. So that's step one. And again, if you haven't been moving at all and you're doing that, great. Because once you do that for a month or two, get it under your belt. However, this is not a sprint. So that's step one. Step two. Now for years, I've been taking people to the gym.

1:01:57Like way back when I used to take people over to Gold's Gym in Venice, the mecca of bodybuilding on field trips. and they would be like, oh my gosh, right? And most of the people that I worked with never wanted to go to a gym and they really didn't want to lift heavy weights. And right now, depending on what you're doing, lifting your body weight may just be enough. And that's totally cool. So I did a YouTube video on how to start a resistance training program we can link to. Oh, great. We'll link to that in the show notes. Yep. And if you have any joint issues, my big advice is to see if you can work with a physical therapist or a personal trainer for at least a session or two, like just because when you're doing this, form is everything.

1:02:37You never push heavier if your form isn't good. Form's always the thing that stops you, right? So that's, it's called technical failure. It's your form. Now, when you look at this, when you're training, you are training to get better at life. You are not training to be better at training in the gym. So what you'll see if you see me at the gym is you are not going to see me doing little silly exercises, right? Like you'll never see me on the inner and outer thigh machines. Okay. Ever. Because that's the first thing that came to my mind. Literally. I was like, I'm not going to be seeing JJ doing it now.

1:03:11Never, ever. Or doing little every, maybe once a month, I'll throw in a bicep curl. I just never do them. I do it just because I like how strong I feel. And then I think about Arnold or, and I do my Arnold presses just because it's a fun time. So what you want to do are compound movements. First of all, they cost more metabolically. You're going to burn more calories. They're also are going to resemble how you normally are in life. Like in life, we're not bolted to the floor, right? We're moving around. We're picking things up. We're pushing things overhead. We're catching ourselves. So that's what you want to mimic in the gym.

1:03:44People are concerned about getting injured in the gym. You work out in the gym so you don't get injured, right? That's where you should be the safest and then you shouldn't get injured in life. So I like to divide the body into four and focus on three. I'll tell you why. First is upper body pushing. And those are things like a pushup or an overhead press. You mentioned an Arnold press. I love overhead presses because they load your spine. So in terms of things that you can do for great bone density, because again, if you have great muscles, likely you'll have great bone density. Standing up and pushing weights over your head, loads your spine is great for that.

1:04:20Plus it also helps you throw things into the overhead compartment. Yes. In the, yeah. And like I might play volleyball or push some stuff around with your friends. Yeah. And that's why we'll talk medicine balls next, but so that's upper body pushing. Now what's cool about upper body pushing, things like dips are also upper body pushing is it's your chest, it's your shoulders, but it's your triceps too. And everyone says, I want better arms. I'm like, good, do some pushups, do some dips. Right. Yes. And And then for upper body pulling, things that works your lats and your biceps and your shoulders, pull-ups for the win.

1:04:54And one of the biggest reasons I love pull-ups, and I've got to get this on video because I have my husband. I can do six now. I can do four sets of six. I'm so proud of myself, except I was just with another girlfriend. She's like, I do 10. I'm like, okay, all right. I'm going to be competitive. Yeah, absolutely. These are the things we can be competitive in, right? Totally. So, you know, but at six, he spots me on the rest of them. And then a lot of these gyms have pull-up, little assisted pull-up things. I love those. I haven't been to a gym for a while, but I really need to go do that. Those were great because they help you build your confidence and start to really get the form down.

1:05:27Right. And you can also use a band to help you. But the reason I love pull-ups is because they improve your grip strength. And what we know with grip strength is the people who have the lowest grip strength actually have the highest rate of all-cause mortality. It is clear. They did 2 million people they looked at. So this isn't a little thing. And you don't train grip strength by squeezing tennis balls. You train grip strength by doing life, right? So that would be pull-ups, lap pull-downs. I love bent over rows. Yes. Because we bend over and pick up things in life, right? So I love bent over rows.

1:06:01Then there's hip and thigh hinging. So this would be things like squats or step-ups or lunges or hip, the deadlifts. Okay. And then there's core. Now core, I actually don't do much of core. I will throw in things in between sets here and there, but core things that work your back and your abs. If you're doing squats and you're doing pull-ups and you're doing pushups, you should be using your core all the way through. So if you're doing things correctly, I mean, you can still do some crunches and stuff in between if you want. But the reality is your core should be engaged in everything you're doing.

1:06:42And so you really actually don't need to do that much with it. Now, if you haven't been doing anything, so you're at home, you could do squats over a chair. If you've got any knee issues that you need to work on, you could put a big ball against the wall and you could do an assisted squat against the wall and walk your feet out a little bit and take the pressure off your knees. You know, you can do a little plie. You can do step ups on a step. You can do a pushup against a wall. You can do a dip with bent knees off of a chair. You can use some water bottles to overhead presses or some bands. So it's really easy, all the different things that you can do at home, right?

1:07:22So home with some dumbbells and a TRX trainer, which I think is one of the greatest things ever and some bands. You could literally set up a gym at home for anywhere between$100 and$500, depending on if you want to get really fancy or not. Right. So there's lots of options out there. What I have people do to start with is literally pick two exercises from each of those three categories. Do two sets the first week of do it at least two times a week, ideally three, give yourself 48 hours rest in between monitor how you feel if you're sore at a joint site you shouldn't be give it a little more time if you're sore to the touch if it's really sore give it a little more time you should be a little sore but you shouldn't be like holy smokes right right so every other day when you first do it you don't you do it to about 50 of what you think you can do basically that first week i like you do what i call warm-up sets so you know maybe it's push-ups against a table or a wall, two sets of 10.

1:08:26Now it's interesting with, with building strength and building muscle and building power, they're actually different things. When you're first starting, you're going to build, you're going to build muscular strength and endurance. So don't worry about all of it. Just do somewhere in the eight to 15 rep range. We know that you could go anywhere from six reps to 30 reps. So you can do a broad range. Um, but if you're really working on more of the strength side, it's actually doing something more in the one to six reps is doing super heavy. So I, for most people starting out two sets, eight to 15 reps, easy.

1:09:03Do that for a week, do it two to three times that week, right? The next week, do a warmup set like you did. Now add in two sets with a little weight and do about 60 % of what you think you could do, right? So if you think you could do 10 reps at 20 pounds, then do 15 reps, right? And do that for a week and see how you feel. The next week, take the weight up, right? And take it up about 10%. And you just start slowly creeping up with it. And then once you've done that and got that under your belt for like eight weeks, then you can go to three different exercises with three hard sets, right? I love it.

1:09:47But it's so doable. And the thing is, you can do this at home if you want. Now, I think gyms are intimidating because there's weird machines in there. And I can't tell you how many times I see people sit on a machine backwards and like, should I say something? You know, what do I say here? I think if you're going to go into a gym and you haven't done anything in a gym, a lot of times when you join a gym, they give you free training sessions anyway. Like have a trainer show you how to do things and to set it so that you know how the machine would work best for you because a lot of them need to be adjusted.

1:10:18And I learned early on that no one asked my opinion. So do not go give people advice at the gym. I got yelled at like, and the person was right, but it kills me to see people doing things wrong at the gym. Well, especially if they can injure themselves. I know. And I'm like, do I tell them? But you know, you don't want to get yelled at. I do not want to get yelled at again. They didn't ask me, so I better just stay over here. I think the most important thing for everyone listening to, if you are intimidated by the gym, it is worthy, whether it's a free session that's included with your gym membership, or you pay for something, you can even pay for it virtually record that thing.

1:10:54Anytime I'm having someone give me instruction on something, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like I do this at my beauty appointments. Sometimes they'll be like, here's a new toy. And I'm like, I don't know how to use this. Like what the hell am I supposed to do? And I always videotape it. So videotape the instructions, have it on your phone. Most of us carry our phones with us everywhere. But I love that. And form really is everything. And you're going to feel so good. Like I cannot believe, I think it was maybe, I don't know, six months or a year ago or something. I was saying to Josh, I'm like, God, I just don't feel as strong as I used to.

1:11:23He's like, you've been saying this forever. I'm like, no, no, it's for real. I don't feel that strong. And then after I've been doing this weight training for a while, I'm like, I actually feel really strong. Isn't it great? It's the best feeling ever. Okay. So we've talked about protein first. We've talked a lot about nutrition, which is awesome. We've talked about strength. There's a third pillar in terms of the big global initiative for you, and that's sleep, which we haven't talked about that yet. Well, so when you really look at this, it's divided down. And there's actually an underlying thing here.

1:11:52The underlying piece of this is mindset. Yes. And our buddy, Dr. Mark Hyman, told me, he goes, you know, he told me about this study that showed that people who are excited about aging live seven and a half years longer than people who aren't. And that was the thing. the trigger for me that went, I'm going to get in the best shape of my life for 60. That was what did it for me. So it has to start there where all of a sudden you, instead of going, Oh, I'm over the hill, all the crazy weird stuff that's talked about as you age, I go, what if this is absolutely the best time of your life? And so it has to start there.

1:12:25And then of course the nutrition's that first pillar. The second pillar is the activity. And within that, we also hit training is the next thing. Once you've gotten your resistance training down, if you want to get that visceral adipose tissue going off, resistance training and HIIT training are great for that. And then the third one is recovery. So to make it easy for people, I go eat protein first, lift heavy things, because these are the big rocks. I'm always like, what is the thing that's going to make the biggest difference? And then sleep through the night. And first it was sleep like a baby, but I was like, they don't sleep.

1:13:00Like mine didn't sleep. So sleep through the night because I think there's this idea out there as we age, we don't need as much sleep. And that's absolutely not true. So one of the first ways you can start to improve insulin sensitivity and become more metabolically flexible and less hungry is to get a good night's sleep. So just like we're tracking our steps and we're tracking our food. And by the way, we're talking about all this and the goal is not that tomorrow you go, okay, I'm doing it all. No, the goal is start with one thing, right? That's important. That's actually really important. Otherwise you're going to get overwhelmed and you won't do anything.

1:13:37And you will do nothing. So the first thing that you would do is start getting excited about the fact that you're about to be in the most powerful, amazing time of your life, that you are stepping into incredibleness and that's all within your control. It's actually just a choice. So you're going to choose powerful. Then you can start with just the macro audit, right? And make sure you get a DEXA scan to see where you're at. And then you eat the protein first, you eat by the plate. And now we start to make sure we are moving and we're lifting heavy things. And now we're going to look at our sleep.

1:14:10And you can prioritize too. You might say, I'm going to start with the movement or I'm going to start with the sleep. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Let's just pick one and do it. Pick one, pick anything, do the thing, get that thing nailed, go to the next thing. Yes. Right. There's no rules. People tell me all the time. They're like, okay, I saw your recipes, but can I have grass fed beef burgers instead of the turkey burger? And you're like, yes. Could I use arugula instead of like the spinach? Uh-huh. So, you know, this is your choice. And you also pretty much know what probably is the thing that needs, needs to be addressed first.

1:14:51So, and any one of these things, if you choose them will make such a difference. And that's what's super cool. So with sleep, the very first thing is just, again, to start tracking it. I find for most of us, we just don't prioritize it. You know, I used to do this. I was like, I'd totally steal from sleep. And I'm at the point now where if it was between, okay, you can get a good night's sleep or you can get a workout in, I'm choosing sleep and I will always choose sleep. Yeah. I've turned down a lot of things and a lot of, uh, you know, different social things, even work things. I'm like, Nope, not going to take that flight.

1:15:26Not going to do that because it's like the recovery. I know it's essential. And the recovery nowadays, like we will not do those crazy early morning flights. Yeah. You know, the recovery now is brutal. Yeah. Like you just, it takes days. Yeah. So this is really important. Like I'm so careful when I travel to look at when, you know, what's my sleep going to be like? Do I need to time zone? We actually put into the schedule time zone adjusting so that I can do it. So that's the first thing is prioritize it is actually realize that it is important. No, we don't need less. We probably need more. Especially if you're going to start training training and especially if you're up on your fitness and you're paying attention to all these things.

1:16:05People don't understand how much tax there is on your brain and on your body. Once you start to really invest in your health, You actually need more sleep, not less. You do. You build muscle when you sleep. You do not build muscle at the gym. At the gym, you are doing some micro damage, right? It's a stressor to your body. You then need to recover. And so there's more recovery beyond sleep that you can do. But the biggest one, the big rock is sleep. I don't know how to help someone without sleep. I used to work with a bunch of people who were on Broadway here. Yeah. Nightmare. Nightmare. Because they go to bed at two in the morning.

1:16:40Right. I don't, it was always struggling with their weight, right? Even though they were dancing and everything, it just, because it is going to create problems with insulin resistance over time. So, and cortisol. So we're getting good night's sleep during the normal circadian rhythm. This is really, really important. If you are a shift worker, you actually, the best thing you could ever do is stay on that shift all the time and then mimic, mimic daylight and evening because you really have to get your body consistent. So that's step one. And I find with most people, they're just not making time and, you know, just doing the good sleep hygiene, hot bath or sauna, if you can.

1:17:23Saunas are fantastic if you can do this. And there's like now little one person ones that are really inexpensive. So if you can pull off a sauna, it's one of the best things you can do. It helps with muscle recovery. It's an exercise for a It mimics intense exercise and helps you sleep and it detoxifies you. But a hot bath does it too. So hot bath with Epsom salt, fantastic. Dim the lights, cool it down, 68 degrees, get comfortable pillow. I'd say don't have your dog sleep with you, but I would be lying. Yeah, that's a tough one. Kuma is like a pain in the ass and he's amazing and we love him.

1:18:00And we're like, yeah, he's just going to be here. I know, our dog's dog spread. I swear. I like, I woke up this morning. I went there like in one long dog spreading line. I'm all the way on one side. Tim's all the way on the other. And so, you know, I was just interviewing another sleep expert and he goes, yeah, don't let your dog sleep with you. He goes, I do. You know, we all do. It's like, we all do it. So there you go. Um, and things that may help with sleep besides obviously don't look at the tech at night. That's the biggie. We all know that and dim the lights. We found these cool things.

1:18:28We actually even travel with this. they are Philips. They're Hue lights. So have you heard of these? Yeah. Oh my gosh. These are great. And they have portable ones you can travel with. I didn't know that. So we actually, this is why we have three suitcases. We'll never be the carry on people that you are. I'm so impressed, but we actually even travel with a coffee pot. So these lights, you can program them through your phone. They're not expensive. They were like 40 bucks and they'll turn red at night. They'll mimic daylight in the morning because in the morning, the first thing you really want to do is your you're awake, look at the light, look at the sunlight, right?

1:19:04You know, tell your body it's time to wake up at night. You're now mimicking moon and taking it down. And that Phillips hue is fantastic. Things that can help there too, like some evening meditation. Um, I read a good book, but not a great book. That's always my role. It can not be a great book. Cause it'll keep you up. I will not put the book down. I will not do it. And things like magnesium is fantastic, potentially melatonin or L-theanine or 5-HTP. So play around with those. Amazing. I've heard you talk about, this is kind of coming, bringing back up to high level, but just some of the common mistakes that people might be making throughout their day, like morning, noon, and night, specifically around nutrition.

1:19:47So, okay, we know these big three pillars. We know we've got our protein first. We know that we're going to lift heavy things and move. We know we're going to prioritize our sleep and really take care of that. For folks who are out there and they're running as fast as they can and just trying to get by, what might some of the mistakes that they would be making during the day, morning, afternoon, and night, for example, you know, they have their favorite morning drink that they think is just fine, but it's sending them metabolically into disaster zone or the lunch that they might get and they think is healthy, but again, it's not doing them any favors.

1:20:21So the first thing I want everyone to think about is that diets are actually tools. and there's so many different ones out there. Oh my gosh. You know, there's vegan, paleo, endless, endless things. Um, so that's the first thing. And you want to make sure that whatever you are doing, that you're doing it for the goal outcome that you have. And so one of the big mistakes I see people doing is skipping breakfast to intermittent fast to trigger autophagy. Now, here's the challenge. Intermittent fasting is an interesting thing. It can be really good for restoring insulin sensitivity. However, I am not a fan of skipping breakfast because when we wake up in the morning, I think we should eat breakfast somewhere in the hour or two after we wake up.

1:21:09Wake up, let your pancreas have time to wake up again and get insulin going. This is the challenge when we eat late at night. Our pancreas is like, I've snoozed, not really pumping out insulin. Now you ate probably a big carb thing because most people are not eating like a roast at night, right? They're eating cookies or whatever. And now your body really isn't pumping out the insulin. You wake up in the morning, you'll see your high blood sugar and you'll see your poor sleep score. So eating, eating, you know, stop eating ideally three to four hours before bed, at least two hours before bed. Get up in the morning, eat within an hour or two of waking up.

1:21:43I think two hours is probably perfect. So watch this idea of intermittent fasting. the best way to trigger autophagy is to exercise. We have no idea how long it takes to trigger autophagy, which is our cellular cleaning. We have no idea. There's no biomarker to measure it. So it's all like guesswork. Everyone's like, oh, it's 18 hours. Is it? Is it 24 hours? Is it? Who knows? But exercise triggers autophagy. So I'm let's exercise. It'll be great. And what you eat first in the morning really is the most important. So you'll see people do like a juice and a juice itself. When you look at this, oh my gosh, this is a fast way to kick your blood sugar up.

1:22:23And there's something called the second meal phenomenon, which basically you're going to start this hormonal response. It's going to bleed in. It's going to keep things going. Now we've got higher blood sugar, higher insulin, and it's just started a blood sugar rollercoaster. Same thing with like a skinny latte too, right? Oh, so I'm going to go by the coffee shop and I'm going to get the skinny latte and the healthy morning muffin. I remember I went through the calories of this healthy morning muffin at the little coffee shop, the healthy grains one. It had the same amount of carbs and sugar as two Hostess cupcakes.

1:22:58Wow. And I think to myself, it's so deceiving because no woman would go to Starbucks, see two hostess cupcakes and go, I'll have those. That's a great breakfast choice, right? No one, no one ever, no one ever would do that. And yet here we have this healthy morning muffin posing. It's a poser, right? With the little health halo. That's just a carb bomb. And so the last thing you want to do is miss that opportunity to turn on muscle protein synthesis in the morning. So in the morning, we want that protein. Protein, fat, and fiber trifecta is so good for blood sugar stability, right? And for satiety, like that's going to do it.

1:23:41You know, when you look at it, you've got protein and fiber, slow down stomach emptying, help you feel fuller longer. And, you know, fat's going to trigger the release of some neuropeptides tell your brain you're full. So it's just this nice, steady, slow release. You'll feel great. Then you aren't going to go blow it, like blow it at lunch because, you know, breakfast sets you up to fail, which is so bad because you had the little skinny latte, which was all sugar, by the way. That's all sugar. Look at what it is. It is. And by the way, when you drink that, that is such fast acting sugar. So you had that and the muffin and now you're really hungry.

1:24:17And so you have a salad for lunch because you're being good. Cause I know the diet wrap better than anybody and I've done it myself for years. So now I'm having the salad cause I'm being good. Right. But the salad that I'm having has the, the fried little croutons that is fried dough, like fried bread and has a little dried fruit and glaze nuts, which are code word for sugar. And it has a raspberry vinaigrette. It's fat free, but it's all sugar. Like again, you just turned your salad into a Sunday. Maybe it has three ounces of chicken. Maybe if we're lucky, right? I mean, that's just the reality of it.

1:24:52This is important for everyone to hear though, because I can't tell you the amount of times I've been to a restaurant and right, and your eyes go to the salad side, you're trying to be good. And when you really start to understand what composes this meal, it's not healthy at all. No. I've heard you talk about this. Where do you get the little olive oil packets just in case? I mean, most obviously restaurants, because all of us, if you're out and about, you're going to eat out. And you don't, I always try because I spent so many years in food service. I spent so many years as a bartender and waiting tables.

1:25:23I try not to be the total pain in the ass person and I care about my health. So I'm always trying to balance those two things. So I've heard you talk about little olive oil packets. Who makes them? So you can get them on Amazon. I'm not sure who it is that makes them. But we can research that you can just throw in your bag. Yeah. Yeah. So here's what's important. I'm glad you brought that up because where are the biggest challenges when you're eating out? It is in the dressings and sauces. Tell us why. And so we, first of all, there's code word on the menu, crispy glazed, right? You know, those crispy Brussels sprouts, which taste amazing.

1:25:57You're like, why can't I ever make these at home? Cause you don't deep fry your Brussels sprouts at home most likely. Right. And they deep fry them usually twice. So that's why they taste so good. And then they put like a balsamic glaze, glaze, sugar, sugar. Yeah. So they just basically turned them into like a, you know, it's like a fried donut. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's exactly what it is. Just like that, that orange chicken. Yes. That's, that's chicken candy. Yeah. Chicken candy. So whenever you see those code words, like glazed and crispy, you always have to ask, but where you really like, you know, if you just get things steamed, broiled, grilled, you're going to be in way better shape.

1:26:35And then you always ask on the dressings because most of the time it's really hard. I just heard an interview with Drew where he was interviewing the guy who founded Sweet Greens and he said they have changed their oils to be avocado and olive oil. Oh my gosh, what a Herculean task and it's expensive. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's so incredible. Because otherwise they're all fillers. Tell us what's in them. So what they normally do is they do, and you'll hear them say it and you, this is a code word. They say it's an olive oil blend. Olive oil blends are mainly like canola oil with a splash of olive oil.

1:27:09And so a lot of these oils, the challenges are that canola oil can be more oxidized. Some of these other seed oils are higher in omega-6s, which we need both omega-3s and omega-6s, but we need them in the right balance. If you look back to like historically where we would have, how we would have eaten them, it was like four to one, six to three. Like, you know, we had more six, but just a little bit more. Now it's like 20 to one or higher. What does that mean to us? It means we're more pro-inflammatory. And what the literature is suggesting is that it could cause insulin resistance and visceral adipose tissue.

1:27:48It could cause some of these problems. The biggest places you're going to see these things in a lot of these ultra-processed foods, and you're still going to get a little bit of them. Some of the products I will have, like some of these milks and stuff might have a little bit of them, but I watch my overall amounts because it's really, really the, you know, how much are you getting? The 90 % of the time I'm doing something with avocado or extra virgin olive oil. And if I'm at a restaurant and they're salad dressing, I just get extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice on the side. If it's a blend, then you need your packet.

1:28:20That's right. Or order guacamole, like guacamole. So things I'll put on the side, I'll either put like, um, some, some hummus on the side and I'll use that as salad dressing. Yeah. Right. That's what I did today. Or some guacamole as salad dressing. So a tablespoon or two of that, you'll be in way better shape. So thanks for going through those. Cause those are some of the things, again, folks are so overwhelmed and they can feel so frustrated and they're trying to do the right thing. And they don't understand that what's happening underneath the sabotaging. Yes. And you know, I think the best thing to do here with all of that is just to pick one area at a time to work on and don't try to change it all.

1:28:58At once. Just if all you did in nutrition again was first just be aware, or in the words of Dr. Joe, be aware, right? If you just were aware and you'd start tracking went, oh, how interesting. And then you added the protein and you just focused on that and looked, you started to really learn what are the cleanest sources that feel good for me, you know, whether it's plant-based or animal-based. And then once you did that, like then start to really look at what are the different ways I can have non-starchy vegetables and maybe have I been eating them in a way where they turned them into dessert, you know, because like, let's face it, Brussels sprouts don't taste that great on their own.

1:29:35I like them. I like them most. I do too. But I really love them. But gosh, there was one restaurant I went to and I was like, okay, I cannot have these. I mean, this is ridiculous. Yeah, it's candy. You know, this is just candy. if I'm going to have them, I'm going to have them with like eight people because I'll be a little piggy with them. But, you know, just pick one little bit at a time and improve, right? Because you'll look back over a year, it'll be ridiculous what shifted. And again, the bigger ones are like you've been talking about, you start to lift weights and start to notice that you're getting stronger.

1:30:08And then maybe you start to add a couple power moves in like your dance class does, where you have to incorporate some speed in there, like you're throwing a medicine ball back and forth, or you're doing a kettlebell swing. Holy smokes. You'll look back after six months and go, who, like, look at me. Yes. Right. Who am I? I feel amazing. Who am I? And it's such a different focus than, you know, I, when I was at that, at SC in their graduate program, never once all these, all these 80 and 90 year old athletes, No one was talking about losing weight at all, ever. Everything was focused on muscle and strength, right?

1:30:44If all you did was go, okay, I'm going to eat protein first. I'm going to start lifting heavy things. I'm going to sleep through the night and I'm going to see how strong I can get. And I'm going to focus on how I can improve my muscle mass. You will end up shifting your body composition, right? So like, why don't we focus on those first? I love it. But let's wrap with talking about the mindset piece, just the mental game of aging. What has been your approach throughout the years? And I love, you know, we talked about this and you're like, I'm going to get in this best shape of my life turning 60.

1:31:20And it felt really, really inspiring. So anything that you have to share for someone who might be feeling the effects of like, wow, I don't feel like I did a couple of decades ago. And the mental part is really the hardest. Yeah. I think we need to look for proof. Dolly Parton, cheerleader outfit a couple months ago. Proof. What a badass. Yes. Right? You know, so I've been looking at these women. Elon Musk's mother became a supermodel, I think at 70. Mary Morrissey, my mentor and close friend, like built the biggest business of her life in her sixties when she had to start all over again. So I just start to look around and look at these women who've gone before, who can be amazing role models, who are living their best lives, who are happier now, more content now than they've ever been and more vital now.

1:32:19Like I've traveled all over the world, literally with Mary and watch her. I'm like, she doesn't get tired. She just keeps going. Like it's incredible. So instead of looking at, you know, the people that are complaining and telling you what can't be, what, I mean, even on Instagram, you'll see women in their seventies doing pull-ups, like start to get proof that this can be the best time of your life and then absolutely see yourself there and live into it. JJ, thank you so much. This was so much fun to finally have this conversation and you're an inspiration to me. I know we've been dear friends for a long time, but I'm really excited about this and thanks for breaking it down.

1:33:02Thanks for always texting me and checking in and making sure that I'm taking my creatine or I know about this next supplement and that next thing. It's totally selfish because I want to have you around to play with. You see, there you go.

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