223. Leana Deeb: On Faith, Fitness, and Finding Purpose

27:11So always reminding yourself when you leave, am I choosing to wear these outfits for myself or am I choosing to wear a lot of make up for myself or is it to prove to someone that I am beautiful or that I am, or do deserve to be here?

27:26Gary Brecka:Yeah. And now I'm sure when you went through this transition too, there's like, it's like a great shedding too, because there were probably relationships or, you know, maybe even family close to you at the time, friends, people in your sphere, maybe, you know, some of the, the people on your, your media team, um, you know, did, when you went through this process, um, you know, did you shed a lot of people that just now long, no longer belong to your new narrative? So I think that's tough for a lot of women too. Right. I mean, cause the, this fear that a lot of women are in encourage exactly what you were talking about.

28:08Yeah.

28:08Gary Brecka:Right. So I definitely lost some of my friend groups that were at a time of my life, it was more around partying and, you know, whether it's drinking or smoking, all these things, which didn't align with me anymore. And I would say my brand partnerships, everyone stayed because. That's awesome. Which was actually, it was, it was definitely a teamwork thing. my manager always pushing, you know, that we're still committed to this relationship and that there was also a deeper meaning behind the mission that I was on for the women that weren't being spoken to and the representation of modesty. And so to be completely honest, I didn't lose that.

28:56I didn't lose that much. And I think that I thought I was going to lose so much, but I was prepared to. No, it worked out in the end.

29:04Gary Brecka:But I, you know, I just want to read some things because now I want to move into the present day. I mean, Time 100, Creators Recognition, brand partnership with Jim Shark, which is your Liana Deeb, your modest collection, that launched in January, 2025. So pretty recently, you've been an Oxford Union speaker. You have an Uplift U app and a movement, which I think is also amazing because, you know, social media and our phones are usually what disconnect us. And you're trying to use that to create connection. Um, uh, the uplift you women's only run club, um, and you are, uh, and, and a whole host of other brand partnerships and social media endeavors that you're involved in.

29:44Gary Brecka:You're pretty active young woman right now. Um, so what does your platform look like now? And where is, where is, uh, Leanna deep going now in the fitness industry? So I would say I am now leaning more into a mix of hybrid training. So I've kind of transitioned just from purely strength training and training for the way that my body looks to now doing a bit of running and weightlifting. I'm training for a marathon, which I'll be doing in February. And then - And you're going to do that fully covered. Yes, fully covered. That's going to be awesome. It's going to be toasty. Yeah, it will be toasty for sure.

30:22Gary Brecka:That's awesome. Great for you. So training for a marathon and podcasting is the next thing for me. Still, of course, posting on every single platform, but podcasting and being able to share stories just like you're doing as well. I find it to be fascinating. And also something I've been yearning for is connection. And there's nothing like being able to meet new people, get to know them and be able to share that to my community as well. Yeah. So now let's just get into some tips and tricks because that's a lot of what my audience always loves, you know, advice. So what is a typical day look like for you?

31:00Gary Brecka:I mean, certainly, um, you know, now that prayer has become a part of your daily routine, I think, uh, that is a major, major foundation of, of, of connection. Um, but what does a typical day look like for you? Um, you know, going through your, your meals and, uh, and your exercise routine. Probably I watched some of your videos and I tried to, I tried to do the kettlebell squat thing. It's awful. Where you stand on one foot and you, you know, you raised your knee to 90 degrees and then you brought it back and you actually tapped it behind this foot. And I almost face planted. And I was like, how the heck with her?

31:39I'll just stick to regular squats.

31:42Gary Brecka:But what does that typical day look like for you? Because fitness is still a major part of who you are and the impact you're having on the world. It's not just your transition to your faith. Yeah. So I would say I always start by planning my day around the five daily prayers. So when I wake up is about an hour before the first prayer of the day. So that's around like 4 a.m. Wow. And then I'll have around like a two to three hour block of just reading and learning. So I like to read the Quran and take notes and practice that. And then I'll get into some admin, speak to my team. And then I'll have breakfast, which I have been trying to cut out a lot of things in my diet because I do struggle with acne.

32:29And so right now it's been pretty consistent with just an egg white omelet and maybe some chicken sausage. Try to do a very high protein diet and then healthy fats. Drinking lots of water. I do electrolytes. I need to get into the magnesium now. I need to get you into the H2 tabs.

32:48Gary Brecka:Yeah, that's what you're drinking now. Yeah. It's elemental magnesium that becomes hydrogen gas. And another one of my favorites is something called Baja Gold, which is just the 91 essential minerals that comes from a mineral salt. It's probably the cheapest, most impactful biohack. Like a$15 bag of this stuff will last you a few years. And it's just mineral salt. But so you hydrate. When is your first workout? I mean, so I like to train around 930 to around like 1130 in between that time, because I do film in the gym and I don't like getting people in the back of my workout. So I want to choose a time where it's pretty empty.

33:27Yeah, I feel like with the way that social media is going, people don't like being recorded. So, yeah. After that, that's kind of when I start my main focus block where I film, I edit. and then around five to 6 p.m. I tried to start slowing down. I do eat lunch in between. I meal prep usually because I just find it to be easier and saves time. And then, yeah, I tried to wind down, have at least like an hour to like an hour and a half before I go to sleep, remove all phones. The first, the first two hours in the morning and around like the last hour of the day, I tried to do no cell phone at all.

34:04Stop sleeping with my phone in my room. And I also went through a period where I had to really just, I was constantly getting distracted. So I don't know if you use any kind of like locking apps, but I would, or maybe it's more of a Gen Z thing because we grow up with our like phones differently, but I would lock my apps with, yeah. And so it like, that's cool.

34:27Gary Brecka:I just throw it on airplane mode and put it down and literally just walk away from it. I'm going to be better than the phone today, you know. And I lay down and I have a little breathwork technique that I use when I get in bed to try to create some separation between my day and going to sleep. You know, my sincere belief is that sleep is our human superpower. And if you haven't mastered, you know, sleep, whole food diet and mobility, you know, really nothing else matters in terms of your fitness journey. Right. I mean, people are like, where do I start? Should I use hyperbarics? Should I be doing sauna, cold punch?

35:03Gary Brecka:Should I be laying in a red light bed? And I'm like, all those things are amazing. But if you haven't mastered sleep, whole foods and mobility, you know, exercise, basic exercise, there's no sense in going to that. If you know me, you know I'm a huge believer in the benefits of hydrogen water. H2Tab delivers cost-effective portable tablets that generate ultra clean molecular hydrogen at 12 parts per million. one of the highest concentrations on the market. With over 1 ,300 published studies showing benefits of oxidative stress, energy, recovery, brain function, and so much more, taking charge of your health has never been easier or more cost-effective.

35:46Gary Brecka:Just drop a tablet in water, let it dissolve, and drink it back. It's less than a dollar a day, science-backed and part of my daily routine. I never travel without this, and it is my favorite biohack. Visit drinkh2tab.com. That's drinkh2tab.com and upgrade your hydration today. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So what does your community look like now? Like what are women getting from this app? What are some of the most common things that you're hearing from your audience when they say, this impacted me because of X or Y? I would say the main thing are my routines. My vlogs truly help people create a better morning routine for themselves or a night routine.

36:37Also, I would say workouts, but it's been the main, the main focus has really been habits. people just starting to practice better habits clean eating not using their phone as much anymore right journaling that has been a massive thing meditation or prayer if people that don't practice faith they always say that i've started meditating because of you as well and it's helped me just calm myself down and yeah i would say my audience is mainly it's a little bit of men as well but people that just are trying to be better in themselves every single day. And since I am someone who also is, I, I used to really struggle with consistency.

37:19I used to be such a lazy individual. I know the term lazy is a bit like off, but I used to be an extremely lazy individual and it took a lot of force for me. And so I think that's also my community is like, we're just trying to be better constantly and we're not the perfect people. And so.

37:35Gary Brecka:I love that. I mean, that authenticity is, is, is very attractive. You know what I mean? It's, It's when we talk about the universal law of attraction, I think being intentional and authentic and vulnerable, I think authenticity is – there have even been studies on this. The most attractive frequency that we can put out into the universe to bring people that are like-minded into our tribe. And when we talk about community, I mean what better community than one where you're actually open and honest with each other. And, you know, one of the things I appreciated when I was going down the rabbit hole of your social media was you're pretty vulnerable on there.

38:16Gary Brecka:You're not always the guru giving sage advice, you know, Yoda with all the young masters. You're very vulnerable about the things that you're struggling with. And I think, you know, too, this is, you know, right place, right time. I think a lot of women especially are looking for, you know, where do I belong? Have you seen an increase in the number of women that are actually subscribing to your modesty, you know, philosophy as well? Like and finding actually that they're more grounded in being modest. I mean, tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. And so I guess the community that I've built has it's so weird.

39:03I would always see women that were like familiar faces of girls that were wearing shorts and sports roles at the time with me. And they've now transitioned into being modest as well. Yeah. Even Christian women, because I had a mainly, I would say mainly Christian community or not really a Muslim background. And so those women connecting with their faith and even in the in-person events, it's women that are telling me I am now practicing modesty more and trying to truly love myself from within and trying to even start a social media page and to communicate the same message that like I'm going through.

39:38And so it's, it's showing me that so many women are practicing modesty, which I was afraid, like, are people going to be doing this? Like, and that wasn't my intention was to like, you know, bring.

39:49Gary Brecka:You don't have to be modest to be a part of your movement. Right. But, but it, it did inspire many women to go on a similar path for spiritual reasons and not only just faith. So it's been, yeah, it's been amazing. Yeah. I think, you know, you also sort of putting it out there that I've heard you talk about the fact that you were at the highest part of your career success wise and impact wise, but you were at the lowest, you know, days mentally. Can you talk a little bit about that disconnection? Because I think there's so many people listening to this podcast that are in that socioeconomic level of success.

40:33Gary Brecka:So if you were looked at it from the outside in, you would say, wow, that person's really successful. They have lots of followers. They appear to have lots of fans. They're wealthy or well off, you know, traveling the world, seem to be in a great relationship. But you never really know what's going on behind the scenes. And you've talked a lot about that disconnect where you were at the peak of your career, but yet you were at the lowest point mentally. Yeah. So I, I would say having all that success, but being in an apartment that was empty and I didn't have any connection to anyone. I didn't have any kind of higher purpose in my life.

41:19It felt like I had everything in the world materialistically, but deep down I didn't feel true. I didn't feel true love for myself. I didn't feel that I had a, I don't know. I didn't connect to my family that much. It was purely just about success and money. And so I really just, I guess I just, I wanted to feel whole from within. I didn't want to keep, keep ignoring my feelings. And I speak a little bit about music. And so I would always consume myself with so many things to ignore the emotions that I was facing. And so I think it just reached a level to where I had to face my emotions head on and see what was actually wrong with me within.

42:11And so cut out music, cut out everything that was like drawing me the wrong way. And that's when I realized I needed to seek something higher than me. Otherwise, it was going to just lead into a down, dark place in my life. Yeah.

42:29Gary Brecka:So where do, um, in your, in your daily routine, where do like you fall on supplements? What kind of supplementation are you taking? Yeah. So I started taking an omega three. I am taking some skin supplements. I do an electrolyte packet for hydration. I would do a greens powders, but I do try to get in my whole greens more so because I know that's really where the true benefit is. But at the time when I did start taking it, I was eating fast food. You're traveling a lot now too, I imagine. Yeah. So sometimes I'll do caffeine. Well, I do actually, I do. Hey, I'm a fan of caffeine. Don't let me, oh yeah.

43:10Oh yeah.

43:11Gary Brecka:Really? I just drink a mold free, you know, like an organic mold free coffee. Cause I, uh, I remember I, so I have these little challenges I do and I, uh, I was doing a challenge on detox and, um, uh, It's fascinating that I did this urinalysis and found out that I had this ocrotoxin A and aflatoxins in very high levels. And so it's a mold and it comes from coffee. The ocrotoxin A is a lot of that is found in non-mold free coffee. I had no idea. And here I am as, you know, I'm very woke to what I put in my mouth. I'm very conscious about my sleep. I'm conscious about my exercise routine. I'm conscious about my bedtimes.

44:00Gary Brecka:I'm pretty, just very aware. And this one just slipped right by me. And so I actually sent my coffees out for testing and I would take the beans and just put them in these big glass jars. And I also ate a lot of nuts and I would store the nuts in these big tall glass jars too, full of ochratoxin A, half the toxins. And so I switched coffees and I did, you know, mold detox. I actually took tens of thousands of people through this eight week detox program. Felt amazing because, you know, these are the things that don't show up on labs. You know, like your labs are great, but you have this crushing brain fog and you have fatigue and muscle soreness and all of this stuff that you can't explain.

44:44Gary Brecka:Doctor tells you it's all in your head. Um, but in any case, I'm a huge fan of, of, of coffee. I just try to drink the, the mold of free coffees. Yeah. I, to be honest, I completely cut out coffee for about a year because I listened to something on mold being in coffee. And also I was always relying on it rather than going to sleep on time and stuff. So I switched over to matcha. now okay which you're part of the matcha round it's caved on me i know it was before the matcha trend it was before the matcha trend okay good but i am slowly it's like a religion now it is i was arguing with my podcast manager before this i'm like i just can't do it she's like i just love my matcha i'm like oh stop it you don't love it that much you It definitely does not have the same impact as I know there's like more caffeine in it, but it doesn't have the same impact that coffee just gives you right away.

45:40Gary Brecka:Yeah. So I'm kind of back on the coffee kick, but I do need to get into a mold free because I'm not really keeping that in mind anymore. I also think I also drink caffeinated drinks sometimes. I try to. This sounds like a confession. It's okay. It does. I forgive you. Okay. No, I, I, I really don't. have an issue with caffeine. I mean, I think we abuse it obviously like anything else. And, you know, having it too late in the day obviously impacts your sleep. But I mean, I think we put way too much, you know, people fall on one side or the other. There really is no detriment to prolonged use of caffeine, you know, in 200 milligrams to 400 milligrams a day.

46:27Gary Brecka:You know, obviously if you're overdoing it with anything, it can be detrimental. Of course. And, and, and I always encourage people that are drinking a pot of coffee a day to say, you know, what is going on in your physiology that's causing you to be tired? You know, are you anemic? Are you low on hormones? I mean, let's, let's get to the reason why you're tired, not why you're drinking so much coffee. But, but it's funny. And I've, I've been trying to, I want to jump on the matcha bandwagon so bad. I want to be a part of the, part of the cult, but I just can't, I haven't found one yet. That's like, it's so earthy to me.

47:01Yeah.

47:02Gary Brecka:You know? I mean, do you use sweeteners at all? Yeah. I'll use like an organic monk fruit or allulose. Some big fans of those, you know, a lot of times the monk fruit is mixed with erythritol or xylitol or other things, but if you can get a pure organic monk fruit or a really good allulose, I mean, those are great. I hate calling them artificial sweeteners because they're actually not artificial. Those are in a category all their own. You know, I have no issues with monk fruit or allulose. You know, the aspartames and erythritols, allotols, you know, those have some challenges. But I don't mind the artificial sweeteners because the other side of that coin is that your blood sugar kind of looks like a heart monitor instead of looking like rolling hills.

47:45Gary Brecka:This Black Friday, I'm doing something really, really, really special. I'm actually going to discount my genetic test kit by 30 % in the UK only and give you 10 % off the supplements. Why? Because so many of you don't know where to start with supplementation. Some work, some don't. You've heard that your aunt is on ashwagandha or St. John's Ward or CoQ10 or NED, and you don't know where to start. What you have to do is test. Find out what's deficient in your body and give your body back the raw material that it needs to do its job. This is not a guess. This is a test, and it will tell you individually by your own biology what's missing, and we can replace that with supplementation.

48:23Gary Brecka:So for Black Friday, take advantage of 30 % off the test and 10 % off supplements across the board. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I want to go back just for a moment, not to your prayer and journaling from a religious standpoint, but how prayer and journaling for you is an outlet. You said you journal on a regular basis. I'm not going to ask you what you journal about, but what is the intention of your journaling? So I personally like to start off with a gratitude section in the morning because I feel like sometimes you have to force yourself to be gratitude at points in your life.

49:04And that's something that I would struggle with and having a negative outlook on life. I think that you have to force yourself to feel happy, not always seeking happiness. Like you have to make yourself feel happy. And so gratitude in the morning always, and setting an intention for the day of what you want to achieve and where you want to spend your time. And then I like to journal at the end of the night, reflecting of where I went wrong. How can I have a better day tomorrow? Where did I go with my time? Always thinking about, did I mess up here or could I have responded to the situation better and always reflecting and thinking about myself in terms of trying to be better, trying to respond to a situation better.

49:48Um, and so, I mean, I know you speak about ADHD and ADD, which I don't, I don't want to diagnose myself, but sometimes I do struggle with focus and impulsiveness and stuff. So it's been such a game changer to me in terms of just sitting with my thoughts before I react to a situation or an argument, for example, like getting mad at things. So that has been life changing for me. And in terms of prayer, just being able to speak to the creator of the world or the universe, whatever you believe in, about the things that you're going through or the things that you want to attract into your life or being just grateful and thanking what you have every single day.

50:34That has just helped me have more appreciation on the super low moments of my life or when things go wrong. I try to think about I know that the creator of the world is working in my favor. So this situation happened for a reason and I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to grow from it. Everything has a blessing in disguise. I always believe that. So instead of just ruminating and getting upset and going into a spiral, I think about the benefit in this situation. And so that's what prayer and journaling has really done for me.

51:07Gary Brecka:How do you cue into gratitude? Like, you know, it's, you know, I think that you're on a really important topic that, you know, the first thoughts we have in the morning and the last thoughts we have at night, because a lot of our day we can't control, right? You can't control how people, other people act towards you. You can't control what people are going to say about you on social media. You can't maybe control how an interview goes. But the way we wake up and the way that we go to bed, there was actually a Scandinavian study I'm actually reading right now. So I don't want to quote it because I haven't distilled the entire study.

51:41Gary Brecka:But it was a practice that these Scandinavian parents were using on their kids to right before they went to bed, they would answer the question, what was the last good thing that happened to me today? And they would answer that question. The kids would start thinking about it. So the last thought that they had when they went to bed at night was a positive thought. And again, I don't want to summarize the study because I haven't fully absorbed the conclusion section, but it had a very positive impact on not just their sleep, but their sense of self-worth and resulting in a reduction in symptoms of attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder and being disruptive in class and not following directions.

52:27Gary Brecka:And so, you know, whether or not we know we're doing that, you know, we're actually having a positive impact on our physiology. So is there a question that you ask yourself to find what you're grateful for? Or is there a journal prompt that you use? Or do you just sort of close your eyes and say, I'm grateful for X? So I use a journal prompt where it's kind of question based. I know it can be, yeah. Can we get this journal? Yes. I have journals. Yes. All right. I'm selling your journals now and it wasn't even the intention. So that's great because I think people need those kinds of prompts. So tell me a little bit about that.

53:06Yeah. So it starts with an intention and an affirmation, which is, I know some people are kind of iffy on affirmations, but I do believe telling yourself that you are worthy and you're capable and you are an individual who is disciplined. It does help you shift your mindset, because I do believe that if you embody the identity of a hyper disciplined individual, you'll start to change your habits to become that individual. And so affirmation intention, and then what am I grateful for? But I always think to myself, do I have food? Do I have a roof over my head? Do I have a family that loves me? Then you have everything in life.

53:47Wow. And so if you have those three things, all of the problems that you're facing are actually not that big. You'll get through them because you always have overcome certain situations in your life. And so I think reminding myself of those three things are so important because I feel like as humans, we're never going to be satisfied with things in life. So always reminding ourselves of just those basic fundamentals. And then, yeah, it's, it's shaped, it's definitely helped me shape my mindset to always have more of a positive outlook, always take advantage of every single opportunity. And yeah, so I would say start with a journal prompt of what are you grateful for?

54:31Gary Brecka:You know, it's interesting. I've been deep down the rabbit hole of this because for years I didn't believe in the universal law of attraction. And I kind of thought all of this like practice gratitude. I was like, this is such a waste of time, right? I mean, you should be out there getting after it. And the more I study the physiological impact of prayer, gratitude, the ability for especially women to feel safe in their bodies. And by safe, I don't mean you think somebody's going to attack you. But I mean you're accepting of your body and you feel safe. There's a reason why 82 % of autoimmune disease is in women.

55:13Gary Brecka:You know, if you took 100 people that had autoimmune disease, 82 of them would be female. Only 18 would be men. The overarching reason for this is that women don't feel safe in their own bodies. They don't feel safe in who they are. And what that causes, it causes the autonomic nervous system to get trapped in a sympathetic state, this fight or flight state. And I think your story is so impactful because the stress of always trying to be beautiful, the more you show, the more you grow, of always looking for that external validation. This is exactly what creates that feeling of not being safe. I wonder what he thought of me.

56:01Gary Brecka:I wonder what she thought of me. I wonder what they thought I looked like. I wonder if they liked my dress. I wonder if they know my fitness model. Was I fit enough? You know, these, you know, constantly having to worry about the judgment of others keeps your nervous system in a different state. So there's now like direct scientific links between prayer, community, sense of purpose, and the practice of gratitude in your physiology, how strong your immune system is. So it's amazing that you are very much empowering women to have a healthier immune system. I know it sounds wild, but it truly is.

56:48Gary Brecka:So what are some of these journal prompts? What do they look like in this journal to prompt people to draw into their sense of gratitude? So the ones that I've mentioned are kind of, I would say you could even go deeper and think about simple things like, could I have responded to a situation different in my day? or also just I truly love just writing on a blank piece of paper and writing anything that comes to your mind about a situation that might be weighing heavy on you instead of bottling up all your emotions truly just letting that out and yeah I would say you kind of have to find what works best for you because some people like the prompts some people like just freely writing but I would say, always think about it from a positive perspective, create a ritual around it, set a candle or an incense and get a nice cup of coffee or a matcha and the matcha and journaling.

57:55It could be a concept. And so I would say, make it a ritual, think of it as a positive way. And then hopefully they will find the right prompt for them, but it kind of takes a little bit of searching.

58:06Gary Brecka:Yeah. I think too, I love what you, you've talked a lot about the difference between discipline and motivation and how the more disciplined you've become, the better your life has, has become. And can you talk a little bit about, about that? Like how do you define discipline versus motivation? And for people that think all that organization and all that structure is just going to add extra stress to their life. You know, what would you say to that? I would say discipline is the highest form of self-love. And it has truly given me so much freedom in my life. Because if we are a slave to our desires, distractions, we're never going to be able to be free or experience peace.

58:59And so I would say motivation comes and goes. So I never rely on motivation. I always speak about to my audience, like get rid of the word motivation from your vocabulary. And discipline is every single time that I've chosen to do something that I did not want to do. I felt so much better in myself rather than feeling sorry for myself or feeling like, no, I'm not going to do this now. I can do it tomorrow. I always feel so much regret. But so I now realize I have to be just disciplined. I have to always do the thing that I say I'm going to do. And that's when I have also the most self love and integrity is when I commit to something that I'm going to do every time that I would push something off or not stick to my word.

59:48It was, it was the worst I've ever felt. And I also believe that I never like to diagnose myself with things. And even if someone tries to diagnose me, I never try to accept it. So if someone tells me that I'm depressed, I never want to accept depression because I want to be able to overcome that. I feel like every time that I've accepted depression or accepted that I'm always going to be an anxious person, it's so hard to overcome. And so when I went to the gym and I showed up on the days that I didn't want to go and I did the work that I didn't want to do, that is when I'm not depressed or when I'm not feeling well.

1:00:26But then there's this narrative that's like, no, give yourself a lot of grace. Like, yes, grace, but how much grace and how much should we give into? Oh, I, you know, maybe not now. I don't feel like it. Like I stopped having the dependency on always doing things when I felt like doing it, taking emotion out of it because I was just going with too much emotion.

1:00:53Gary Brecka:And that's when I started to see the most success and the best I've ever felt is when I am disciplined. I just want to shake those people and be like, stand for something. Yeah. Like, like stand for something. You can't just be this sort of mushy. I do, you know, it's whatever I feel today. And maybe I'm feel differently tomorrow. And I'm very fluid in who I am and where I'm going and what I expect out of life. And like that is when crushing depression comes in, when you actually have no identity to call your own. And I'm not even talking about what the rest of the world thinks about you, which is what you think about yourself.

1:01:29Gary Brecka:If you don't know who you are, how do you know where you're going? You know, and I think, you know, I find that fascinating. Do you check any particular biomarkers in your – do you do blood work or do you ever look at biomarkers? markers to kind of say, okay, I'm, I'm doing well on my health journey. My hormones are balanced. My blood sugar is good. Yeah. So I, I use, I used whoop for a long time. Also kind of testing out or yeah, I know I'm kind of cheating on whoop right now, but I, trying to just test out both and see how I feel with, I do like tracking my sleep. I need to get into blood work.

1:02:10I just get extremely nauseous when I take my blood, but I've been, I, I'm getting, I need to just do it because yeah, I really want to understand more about my body, but not enough. I don't do enough. I was, am doing like some sauna, cold plunging. I know that there's like different levels of temperature for women. Yeah.

1:02:34Gary Brecka:I mean, I think for, for women, um, you know, I think women very often are trying to do what's conformant to men, right? You know, intermittent fasting because their husband or their, you know, their significant other's doing it. Some of the worst endocrine disasters I've ever seen are in young menstruating women that eat in too narrow of a feeding window, you know, because they can get their blood sugar too low. And in which case the pituitary starts to slow the metabolism down, like exactly what you don't want to have happen, right? Um, nothing more frustrating for a woman to be intermittent fasting, getting after it in the gym, you know, trying to sleep, trying to eat right.

1:03:14Gary Brecka:And then starting to get bloated from water weight. Right. I mean, there's nothing more frustrating than that. And very often that happens when they eat in too narrow a feeding window. But, um, uh, you know, there's, there are these tests now that you can do, not affiliated with any of them, but you put the, put the little patch on your arm and it has the little vial that attaches to it and it just slowly pulls the blood through the surface of the skin and it fills the vial and then you can send it in for, for testing. So you don't have to do the full blown venue puncture. Oh, wow. My son, who is like an extreme athlete and he's, I mean, does Muay Thai.

1:03:51Gary Brecka:He did seven marathons, seven continents in seven days and then he gets after it. You cannot get anywhere near him with a needle. I mean, he will pass out like a baby kidding. I mean, I tease him about it. I try to shame him into it, but he has such a needle phobia. Sorry, Cole, right under the bus you went today. But, um, uh, so I, I understand that. And we, we had a functional medicine clinic for, for years and, you know, there are just those people that cannot get over the venipuncture. Um, but this is awesome. Um, so, uh, I want to, I, you know, I told some of my community that you were coming on the podcast and we, I know we only have a few minutes left, but they, um, uh, they had some questions that they submitted.

1:04:33Gary Brecka:I distilled them down to the most commonly asked questions, but one that we didn't cover so far today was, um, uh, they asked about, um, uh, identity and stress and how you were successful and had a high level of stress because you didn't really know your identity. And now that you have this identity, You're very grounded. Just talking to you, you're a very grounded person. So you've navigated sort of multiple identities throughout your life. I mean, just even your family background, you know, being Uruguayan and Palestinian. What's the psychological cost of not living authentically? Oh, this is a great question.

1:05:24Gary Brecka:Yeah, I thought that was a great one too. I was like, I'm glad I'm not answering it. I'm glad you're the guest and I'm the host. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say not being authentic, you feel this deep, this deep desire to find your true self always and this misalignment and constantly questioning if you're doing the right thing or if this is where you're supposed to be. And I do believe that we do have to go through chapters in life where you do a career or a job that you don't want to do to realize, okay, this is not for me. I need to find something else. But it's about listening to that intuition of, okay, this is not feeling right to me.

1:06:10I need to try something else. Maybe while I'm doing this, I can spend my time investing into myself and making a way where I can pivot into a new career to find what is best for me. But I think that not living authentically to yourself or constantly feeling like you have to please people around you, you're going to feel, you're going to feel just this disconnect with yourself. Like you don't know who the person is in the mirror. And so I still face levels of stress, but now I do it through just always listening to myself, not constantly looking for other people's opinions and caring about what people think about me all the time.

1:06:52And so, yeah, I would say that living authentically is probably one of the most important things that you could possibly do in your life.

1:07:02Gary Brecka:Yeah. A lot of my audience wanted to know if you had a boyfriend.

1:07:11Gary Brecka:Just throw it out. You can answer if you want and not answer if you don't. No, I do not have a boyfriend. I would have to. Oh, here come the offers. I would have to do marriage because, you know, in Islam, you kind of just, you do engagement and then you do marriage right away. And right now I feel like marriage is probably a massive thing. Oh, it's a massive thing. It's a massive thing. I've had two of them. So I don't know if I'm ready for that level of stress yet or to give myself to a human. I'd need to figure out myself fully first before I take on another person in my life. That's amazing.

1:07:48Gary Brecka:Well, I wind down all my podcasts by asking all my guests the same question. And there's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I love this question. You're getting all the hard questions today. Yeah. to be an ultimate human is to live kind of coming back to authentically yourself to treat people with respect to show up every single day for you to stick to the word that you said to stick to your word and do the thing that you said you're going to do and to love yourself in every single way by by treating yourself well and so I think that comes down to habits and fitness and everything.

1:08:33But yeah, I guess being an ultimate human is to live authentically yourself.

1:08:37Gary Brecka:That's such a great answer. Well, Leanna, we're going to continue to follow your journey. I'm excited for your new podcast. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing success. You know, good luck with the move to Austin. For my audience that would like to know more about you, where can they find you? Yeah. So I am on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, at Leonadeeb and that's D-E-E-B. Yeah. And then Instagram has an extra V, but podcast coming out, it's called being human. And so, yeah. Oh, being human. That's awesome. The ultimate human being human. I love it. And I love the word being, um, because it has a lot of connotations to just, just be, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

1:09:18Gary Brecka:You're amazing. Um, we're going to continue to follow your journey and, uh, you know, best of luck with your new endeavors. Until next time, guys. That's just science.