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allan

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March 8, 2022

How to build a fitness program that is right for you

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Many people walk into the gym without an idea what they are there to do other than get a workout in. As a result, they don't see the results they want. On this episode, we discuss how you can build the right fitness program for yourself.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

R

[00:01:11.230] – Allan

Hello, Ras. How are things going?

[00:01:13.440] – Rachel

Good, Allan. How are you today?

[00:01:15.530] – Allan

Going well, just kind of busy, actually. Kind of funny. I was supposed to have a call and I completely lost track of days.

[00:01:23.780] – Rachel

Oh, Jeez.

[00:01:26.650] – Allan

I switched up my workouts and I did a weight lifting workout on a Sunday. And as a result, I woke up the next day thinking it was Tuesday and did a weight lifting workout and then woke up today thinking it was a Wednesday, when, in fact, we're recording this on a Tuesday. And so it's like I was completely backwards on my thinking, fell behind, thought I was way behind. And then even though everything being what it was, I should have known different. I didn't. And as a result, kind of miss some appointments and things I was supposed to do. So if I was supposed to be on a call with you on Monday night, I apologize. I thought it was Tuesday night. I just don't even know what was going on last night when I thought, okay, it's Tuesday night, tomorrow's Wednesday. What do I have going on? And okay, well, tomorrow is another weightlifting day, and it wasn't today was a cardio day. And we'll talk a little bit more in detail about that at the end. But it was just kind of one of those things of the weather here is the same every day.

[00:02:35.170] – Allan

There's not a lot of differences. I don't really have weekends the way a lot of people have weekends. Any day could be a weekend. Everybody's here on holidays. So it doesn't feel different one day to the next, for the most part, any day here. So, yeah, just kind of lost track of days.

[00:02:54.420] – Rachel

Oh, my goodness. How crazy is that? Do you keep a calendar? Do you have a paper or a digital calendar?

[00:03:00.430] – Allan

I have a digital calendar, but it's kind of one of those things where I'm trying to condition myself to not look at things unless I need to look at things. So social media maybe not look at it all the time. Log in and check in on my clients once a day or so where I need to and do what I need to do. And then it's the same thing with a calendar. It's typically just, okay, what do I know is going on today and on the Monday, but I knew I needed to record something so we could have this call because I failed to do it on what I thought was Monday. And then again, just like, complete confusion. Didn't do what I was supposed to do when I was supposed to do it and then didn't know what day of the week it was and did other things, failed to do other things I was supposed to do.

[00:03:56.110] – Allan

So it just kind of put me in. I'm in this kind of weird juxtaposition because my weekend and the first part of next week is going to be intense because we're moving all the gym equipment. We're moving in. So the paint is late, the light fixtures are late. So those are going to be like, I had to go actually buy replacement/alternate light fixtures, not the light fixtures I want to keep. I had to pay for those just to have light fixtures because you need light the building to do what you got to do sometimes. And then the paint is not in because we were put off the paint waiting on the light fixtures because it's coming from the same source. And I'm like, no, I got to have the paint because they're finishing up now and now I don't have paint. So I told the person we were telling them, okay, look, regardless of whether the lights are ready, bring the paint, because I've got a paint because we're moving all the equipment in on Sunday.

[00:04:51.080] – Allan

So I'm hopeful I'll get the paint on Thursday, Friday the latest, and then I'll start painting where I can paint. And then I'll start moving equipment in and continue to try to paint around the equipment. That's going to be harder, but it kind of is what it is. So a lot of moving parts in my life right now, and I just completely lost track of days. But I won't lose track of days those days because those are going to be four or five really hard days.

[00:05:18.510] – Rachel

That sounds like it. My gosh, no wonder you've lost track of days. There's a lot going on. A lot of things you're balancing right now.

[00:05:25.780] – Allan

Yeah. How about yourself?

[00:05:28.690] – Rachel

Good. I'm far less busy than you are, but things are going good. I mentioned I have a trainer and I'm working on my marathon program, and over the weekend I ran 16 miles on my treadmill, and it was hard. It was a challenge.

[00:05:51.190] – Allan

When you're training on the treadmill, do you use the distraction, like watching Netflix or something like that?

[00:05:58.820] – Rachel

I can't watch anything because I feel like I have lost balance and I don't want to accidentally trip. I think I was watching something like, I don't know, the Matrix or something ages ago, and I was trying to bob and weave along with Neo there, and I almost fell off the treadmill. I prefer to listen to podcasts or on certain days, music is actually easier to listen to. So that's about my limits of my distraction. But it was just a long day and I chose that over outside, we had single-digit temperatures and double-digit wind gusts, so I chose the safer route.

[00:06:41.130] – Allan

Yeah. And those are not the conditions that you're going to be running your race in. So there's no value to pushing yourself through something like that, other than just saying, I want to be uncomfortable for what was probably about two and a half hours.

[00:06:55.180] – Rachel

Yeah. It was definitely the right guess. Exactly like that. The snow and the ice is just too sketchy, and it would have impacted my gate so greatly that I probably would have put myself at more risk than I got off the treadmill. So at least on the treadmill, I had a consistent gate, which I think is far more beneficial for that long run.

[00:07:19.910] – Allan

Day treadmills were originally a punishment.

[00:07:24.730] – Rachel

I know, I know. I could tell you. Yeah. So things are good up here.

[00:07:32.220] – Allan

Good. So let's go ahead and get into today's episode where we talk about programming for yourself.

[00:07:38.550] – Rachel

Perfect.

Episode

Hello, and thank you for being a part of the 40+ Fitness Podcast. Today, I want to talk about a topic that is actually really important if you're looking to build your fitness and make it really matter. A lot of people approach fitness programs the wrong way. They try something that's generic. They don't get the results they really wanted. As a result, a lot of them give up. So today I want to discuss how to build a fitness program that's right for you. So first, let's define the problem. Now, the initial problem with a fitness program is that most people seem to have a singular view on fitness. So you either think that you need to build cardio or you think you need to build strength or you think you need to do this. And as a result, people get tied into one dimension of fitness. So they become runners or they go in and they start taking the classes. They really enjoy them. And so it's just basically you're doing classes. And then there's also things like people that just go in and do yoga and think that's sufficient for what they need, or people that actually just go in and do weightlifting and say, okay, that's all I need.

The reality is most of the time that's not enough. And when we do this, what happens is we tend to put the workouts first. So you enjoy the class. The class is what you do. You feel like you're getting what you need. And as a result, what we've done is we've effectively put the tactics in without really having a strategy for what we're trying to accomplish. So if you're going to work on your fitness, you need to ensure that the fitness is doing. The work you're doing for fitness is working for you. So why do we do some of these things? Well, the first one is if you enjoy doing something like you really enjoy running or you really enjoy your fitness classes, you tend to want to do it more. Or another thing that I've seen quite often is people are really good at one thing, so you're really good at running or you're really good at lifting. And as a result, that's why you want to do that one thing. But movement for the sake of movement is not necessarily always a good thing. Now I will be the first to tell you I'm not going to poopoo anyone who takes the time to do a workout.

If you're doing a workout, that's a thousand times better than not doing a workout. But there's a reason why the treadmills are at the front of the gym. And the reason the treadmills are at the front of the gym is because 99% of the time that's as far as most people are going to go, they're going to walk into the gym and they're going to get on the treadmill, they're going to do their time, literally, and then they're going to get off the treadmill, and that's their workout. Now, again, movement for the sake of movement, fine. But realize that won't necessarily get you where you want to be. You need to get a little deeper. You need to do a little bit more because you're not only missing modalities, you're missing key one of the ones you're doing. Okay. So it's great you're on the treadmill. It's great that you're lifting, but are you really pushing yourself? Are you really doing the things that are necessary to move the needle for your health and fitness? So how do we make this happen? Because it's so easy to get wrapped up into the I'm really good at lifting, and I really don't want to do these other things or I'm really good at running, and I don't want to do these other things or I really enjoy doing the elliptical or the treadmill.

And I'm really somewhat intimidated by doing anything further. So the first thing you want to do is you want to go all the way back to the beginning. I'm going to do this to you over and over again. You have to go back to the grounding that you did at the front of this whole process. And if you don't know what that means, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to any of the lessons I've talked about with regards to commitment. And so within commitment, we have this vision. Okay. And within the vision, there are multiple segments of fitness that you're going to need to have. I've never seen anyone who has this vision to be able to run 50 miles a day and that's their vision. That's not what people emotionally attached to. The vision is about enjoying your life. It's about being the person you're meant to be. It's about being able to do the things that you need to do, which is fit for task. So if you want to be fit for task, you've got to really pay attention to what that means. What does the future you what are they capable of doing?

Okay, so let's say, for example, you want to be able to travel and there are certain places you want to be able to go, like let's just say Europe and you want to be able to do the Mediterranean, you want to be able to arrive there and enjoy yourself and do the things that you want to do. Well, I can tell you one of the first challenges you're going to get when you get that trip going, because you're most likely going to have to get on an airplane or some kind of mode of transportation that's public and you're going to have to load your bag, you have to carry your bag, you're going to put it up over into the overhead bin. There's things you're going to have to be able to do that will require strength. If you're going to do something and go somewhere and you're going to be doing walking or anything like that, you're going to need some stamina. And if the roads are cobbled like they are in most of Europe, you're maybe going to need some balance and mobility is always a good test thing to have just to keep your body moving in the way that it's supposed to so you don't injure yourself.

So just in that one vision of being able to travel successfully, you're going to need strength, stamina, mobility and balance. Okay, so that's four different training modalities that you don't get if you're only doing one thing. Now, how much of each of these do you need? Again, we go back to the base. The base is your vision. Okay. If your overhead is not going to weigh over £30, then there's very little reason for you to train to be able to press over £30 over your head. Okay. If the most you feel like you're going to ever have to walk or run or do. If you're going to go do a tour or something would be about three or 4 miles, then maybe that's the stamina that you need to have. So if your vision is travel, then you need to be fit for that task. If your vision is to do something else, like be an awesome grandmother and keep up with your grandkid, maybe your stamina needs to be a little higher at certain points in time. You're picking up the child, maybe your strength needs to be a little higher at certain points in time.

And then the other thing is mobility and balance. Obviously if you live in locations where there is a potential for you to fall or slip, you need to have those skills too. So looking at your vision is really an independent topic, independent approach to you doing you to you being the fit that you need fit for task. So what you need to do, the work that you need to do is really should be driven by that vision. And if it is, that breaks down all the motivational problems that you would have. Yes, it can be intimidating to try something that you're not good at. I walk into a yoga class. I am like a bear in a Penguin shop. I don't belong there and I know I don't belong there. But if I need to work on mobility, that's a great place to do it. If I want to get into body weight strength, that's a great place to do it. Even if I'm uncomfortable, it's important for me to push myself through. And if my vision is a part of that, it makes it a lot easier to do. So how do we get started with all of this?

And I'll say the first step is always going to be a self assessment. Now the self assessment goes along with my GPS model, and the S is the self assessment. So how are we going to self assess? Well, the first is to look at our fitness and what our capabilities are. Okay, so what areas of fitness am I really good at? And I'll tell you generally strength. However, I did tear my rotator cuff a few years ago, and as a result, I am not as strong in my upper body from a pushing perspective as I was back then. So there are areas of fitness where I'm good, particularly leg strength and pulls with my back. But there are areas of strength that I'm not so good at. So kind of looking and saying, what are the areas of fitness I'm good at? I know that I'm good at strength. I know that I'm good at long, slow cardio. Where am I not good. I'm not good in balance, I'm not good at mobility. So those are areas that I may need to focus on. Okay, do I want to do more where I'm already strong?

And the short answer to that is it depends. If I need to be stronger, like I'm trying to work on building my pushing strength because I'm weaker, then that's something I need to consider. Okay, so what effort is now necessary for me to maintain or gain the fitness I need? For most of us over 40, that's going to require working each body part at least once per week. But probably just twice per week would be enough for most of us to maintain or gain some fitness at that level. Meaning if I want to get stronger at lifting weights, I'll probably need to do weight training for my whole body or for body parts at least twice a week. So what are some fitness areas that I'm not so good at? And I mentioned earlier, I'm not so good at balance. I'm not so good at mobility. So what effort is necessary for me to gain or maintain those? And that's some balance training that's putting myself in some positions where I might not be as comfortable. So instead of doing a two legged squat, maybe I'm going to do a one legged squat, or maybe I do some form where I'm moving side to side and then doing a squat.

So there's opportunities there for me to work on my balance. As for mobility, that's paying attention to where I'm tighter, where I'm not as mobile and working on stretching, working on some other efforts to make sure that I'm gaining that mobility. And for those types of modalities, for balance and for mobility, those are things that I could practically do every day. So if I'm lifting two times per week as a whole body workout, I now have five days left. I can focus on doing these other things and in some cases, maybe go ahead and double them up and I can do these others more often. So you kind of see how I'm beginning to do from this self assessment to build out the training things that I need to get in to build fitness, to maintain fitness based on where I currently am and based on where I want to go. So the first question is, is a predefined workout for you? Because they're everywhere. You can go on the Internet, you can do a quick search for anything you want to train on. And basically a workout is going to come in. So if you went on YouTube and you type, which is the second largest search engine in the world, and you Typed in mobility workout, you would be inundated by all kinds of videos that you could do as a predefined workout.

Now, I would say that for most of these, yes, for balance and mobility, a typical class or plan will work fine. So you can go in and say, okay, I'm going to do this basic stretching class or I'm going to work on this balance program. Those typically are fine for just about everybody. However, I'm going to say this, not all muscles need to be stretched. If you have good solid mobility in certain movement ranges, say you're almost double jointed in the upper body or in the lower body, you don't need to stretch those muscles. Those muscles are already long. They're already doing what they're supposed to do. Look for other muscles that are a little tighter and focus on those. So while basic plans and classes work, you just need to make sure that where you need to be focused, you are getting that focus. The next is stamina. Now, stamina is kind of one of these things that I think a lot of people struggle with particularly as we get older, and that's because we have physical limitations. Now, as we went through that self assessment, we talked about reasons why we were good or not so good at things.

I mentioned the shoulder problem, so you may have issues with your needs. There's a lot of different examples of where we have physical limitations that would prohibit us from doing certain activities where we're trying to build stamina. So at least knowing those ahead of time is really important. For most of us working on stamina, it's really good to try to get this done outside. Getting outside is going to be better for you. However, there are a lot of machines that can help you do this, particularly when the weather is not so nice. This episode is coming out in March, maybe it's in March, but as this episode comes out, you're going to see that the weather is starting to improve. This is a great opportunity to get outside, but in the event you can't, it's raining, the weather's not good. It just isn't conducive for you to be outside doing these things. Treadmills, elliptical rowers, bikes. There's all kinds of machines that can help you build different forms of stamina. Mixing them up, trying different things always a good thing. Get that variety in there where you can, particularly if you're trying to work around a problem like knees or shoulders or something like that.

All that said, like I said, outside is better. Outside is better. So if you can do these things outside, go ahead and do it. And then if you're going to do a program for stamina, I strongly encourage you to use one that has been proven to be effective. One of my favorites is Jeff Galloway's run walk run method. We interviewed him on episode 248, so you can go back and listen to that episode. I'll have a link in the show notes, but that's a great program about how to build your running stamina without injuring yourself. Other great programs. You can find a couch to five K program. It's going to be sort of a similar walk run kind of thing. So you can build up that stamina in a controlled perspective to try to get you ready for a five K, which is 5 km or basically 3.1 mile. So you're looking to do something specific, either just program or the five day programs. Both are great programs and it can help you start your spam in a process. And as you get a little bit more specialized or start building up to longer distances or longer periods of time, there are other things that you can use that are fixed and then always.

We had a conversation with Rachel not long ago. She has hired a running coach to help her improve her stamina even further so she can run faster and have better times on her run. So if you're looking for that, sometimes having a running coach can go a long way towards helping you build superior stamina. So now we'll talk about my favorite thing. Okay. As I mentioned earlier, it's really important for you to understand your limitations before you start a strength program. Some of those are physical limitations. As I mentioned, my shoulder, my ability to push, my ability to do shoulder exercises very much different than what it was just even five years ago. So I have to be aware of that. I have to address that as I put my training plan together, and then the other is knowledge gap. So one of the reasons that I work on getting my certified personal trainer and the different specializations that I did was just recognizing that I had a knowledge gap in what my body was capable of doing and what I need to do. I was building most of my programming for the first several years off of what I knew when I was in my 20s.

And guess what? It doesn't work and it breaks you time and time again. So I knew I had a knowledge gap. If you have a knowledge gap, you don't know the form of particular exercises. It's really important for you to get this right. Don't do an exercise right and you put load on yourself. Opportunities to hurt yourself is huge, so make sure you've bridged that knowledge gap before you leap into any kind of program. Now, when you're getting started for most lifters, as long as you do know the form and you find the right coach or you find the right website. Strong Lifts Five by Five is one of my favorites. They teach you basic workouts, basic programming, simple lifts, five sets of five reps. It's pretty straightforward and it will help you get stronger. It's a really good entry level basic workout that you can do for quite some time before you need to switch that up. And then most gyms will have a machine circuit. And while machines are not optimal from a form perspective, it's really hard to screw up. If you're sitting in the seat properly and you've got the right posture, a machine workout can be quite good.

You just have to make sure that your settings on the machine are appropriate so that it fits your body. Most machines can adjust seats up and down, back and forward. Just making sure you're in a good position to do that workout is really important. You go to most gyms, they're going to have people available to help you learn how to set up that machine and use that machine appropriately. Take advantage of that or as I mentioned earlier, hire a coach to walk you through it. But strength is probably the only fitness modality that I would say is non negotiable. You have to be training strength, and second behind that is stamina. You have to be training stamina. Mobility and balance are also important, but if you aren't building strength and you're really just focused on stamina, you're going to lose strength, you're going to lose muscle mass. And in the long run, as we age, that's not going to be a good thing. So strength has to be a part of your program. Stamina must be a part of your program. Mobility and balance will very likely need to be a part of your training.

It's just a function of how mobile and how much balance you have now and how much work you need to do to enhance that or at least maintain it, depending on where you stand. So those are the basic training modalities. Now I want to skip into something a little bit deeper about fitness that I think is probably some things that people really struggle with in the long run. First off, a lot of people will start a fitness program and then they'll get bored. And like I said, if you downloaded a program and you started it and it's not something that's progressive, then it can get kind of boring. So if your decision was that you were going to go out and run or walk the same path, and so you're going to walk around the field or you're going to walk through the neighborhood and you've got your horse, if you will, you've measured it out and you know the length and the distance that you're going, and you're maybe keeping up with your time. You know, this takes you a certain amount of time so you can get your workouts done before dinner or before you have to go to work.

So you know how much time it's going to take you to do this. But if you keep doing the same route week in and week out, other than changes of weather and other things that might be going on in that neighborhood or in that field, it could get pretty boring. So that's one thing to be very concerned about is if you get bored and you want to quit, it can be a problem. Likewise with lifting weights, you may go in and do the same basic five exercises. When I mentioned strong lifts and you do them and do them and do them, and then you kind of say, okay, I do these every two times a week, and then eventually kind of getting boring. I mean, okay, squats are great, bench press is great, pulls are great. But in the end, that can get a little boring when you're doing the same workout week in, week out. And yes, maybe you are seeing some progression on that, but it can get kind of just dry. And so don't make sure that what you're doing and the fitness routines that you're doing don't bore you. Some people are able to do the same thing over and over and over again, and they're fine with it.

Others do need some variety. So at least be aware of where you stand with some of those things. Next, some people will see diminishing returns or plateaus. Now, this is completely normal in all phases of training. Initially, you see some pretty good results because your body is not accustomed to what you're doing. Your brain and your muscles are having a conversation. It's a very easy conversation to have once they figure out the wiring, the very difficult conversation when you first get started. So you will see yourself from a strength perspective, potentially from a stamina perspective, from a balanced perspective, and even from a mobility perspective, actually sees some pretty good gains in returns when you first start. And then it kind of slows down and then it kind of Plateau. You've seen this with weight loss. You'll see it with fitness. So a lot of people get disgruntled or upset when they don't see that continued linear progression. And I'm going to tell you, you almost never see a linear progression over and over, because if you did, then the strongest people in the world would never stop getting stronger. So there's a natural limitation on what the brain muscle conversation can do.

And then there's a limited potential for when you're actually building muscle and building strength or building stamina that can continue. At some point, you will Plateau. Now, there are things we can do to break those plateaus, but just realize, don't get dismissive. Don't quit just because you're not seeing the return. And then the other thing is sometimes you're going to see unequal returns. And so maybe your stocks are not exactly what you wanted it to be. Whereas some individuals just really can't put on a lot of muscle mass, they're getting stronger, but they're not seeing their muscles get bigger. They're putting on all the stamina. They're capable of going further. Distances are going and or going faster, but they're not necessarily losing weight because they thought, okay, I'm burning all these calories, I should be losing weight. So just recognize that even though you're pushing yourself in a fitness direction, you won't always see equal gains going forward. And even within body parts, you might not see the same. So like for me, it always was the case. My legs get stronger. They get bigger very easily now. Probably not as easily now as they did before when I was younger.

But that said, I can get really strong with my legs. I'm not capable of getting that much stronger with my upper body the same way. So I see unequal returns. And I also see my legs getting bigger when I lift weights with my legs do leg strength stuff, my upper body doesn't respond quite as well. So recognizing that I'm going to have those biological limitations, I have to keep pushing through, I cannot let that break me mentally. So these are things that are really hard to get through mentally, as if your workout is boring. If you're not seeing the returns that you used to be seeing or you're seeing unequal returns a lot of times that makes it really difficult to stick with, but I want you to go back to what commitment your grounding. There's a reason why you're doing this. There's a vision of what you want to accomplish. If you want it bad enough and you know where you're going, you will still get there. It's never going to be a straight line, so you got to keep pushing through. And that takes a lot of guts, it takes a lot of mental fortitude.

But if you have a good why and you have a good vision, that makes it a lot easier, stick with it and it'll pay off. Okay. So the whole reason we're on this podcast is to learn how to program for yourself. Okay, so first, let's get into the basics of all this. Now, the first thing is you have to know your muscle groups. You have to know what you're doing and why you're doing it. I'm going to talk about this predominantly from a lifting perspective, but a lot of this will fly across the board. Okay. So first, know your muscle groups. When you're doing a certain movement, what muscles are you supposed to be building? What muscles are you supposed to be using? For most exercises, there's going to be a pro mover, there's going to be a primate mover that's causing that exercise to move. Even if it's a compound style movement, there's a prime mover for parts of it and then potentially a different prime mover for other parts of it. So knowing which muscles you're trying to work for each exercise makes it easier for you to know that you're doing the exercise.

Right. So knowing the exercise. Okay, so what muscles am I going to work if I'm doing the deadlift? Well, the deadlift is a very complex work exercise. It is a compound movement, meaning multiple muscles are working. The deadlift happens to work the entire posterior chain. So you're working basically your back, your butt and you're working your hamstrings. So all the way from almost top to bottom, you are working the back of your body, the posterior part of your body. When you do squats, you initially start by using your quadriceps, which are the muscles in the front of your legs. And then as you get deeper into the squat, eventually your glutes are going to kick in and they're the braking mechanism at the bottom, and they're the muscles, the biggest muscle, they're going to start you moving back upwards. So knowing that a squat will require you to use both the front of your legs for a period of time and then the back your butt for the rest of the movement, and then reversing that going back up will help you make sure that you're keeping good form, working the muscles you're supposed to.

So understanding the work that you're doing is really important. That starts with understanding the muscles. Okay. Next is for every exercise you can do has a particular form to it. The form is important to making sure that, one, you avoid injury. But two, understanding that form also affects the angles on the muscles. And so a couple of examples would be whether you're doing something a pull from above your head, like a lap, pull down or pull up, whether you're doing a high row, a low row or a shrub. So what I just talked through were three different angles of rows that are all intended to work a different muscle group across, mostly your back. So the laps when you're pulling down the lats are the main mover, the prime mover. It's going to pull that bar down. If you're pulling the bar, the cable potentially to your upper chest, that's a high row.

Okay.

So that's working more of the upper back, the rhomboids and the trapezes. And so there you go. There's a whole different set of muscles. When you're doing low rows, you're now working more of the middle back. And when you're doing shrugs, you're working most of the traps and larger traps there. So you can kind of see as you change the angle of something, it's a different exercise. Hand position can also be a very different thing. If your grip is wide. When you're doing something like a bench press or push up, you're really focusing on the chest. If you get your hands closer together now, your triceps are more involved in the movement and maybe less of the chest. And if you get your hands all the way together almost now you're doing well, you're doing a push up, push up. And at that point, now you're working mostly your triceps, the back of your arm. So where you put your hands also affects the movement you're doing. So as you're putting together exercises, again, knowing the muscle you want to do and understanding the form of the exercise, these are critically the next important phase of this, or at least understanding level, is to know your volume.

Now I'm not going to get into that on this episode because we're probably already going long. But on episode 506, we discussed how to increase volume and knowing what your volume is. And volume relates to the amount of weight, the amount of reps, amount of sets, and also how fast or slow you're moving the weight. And so all of those things add to your volume. And so knowing how to adjust those so that you're getting the most benefit out of the work for what your goals are is important. So you might want to go back after you get started here, go back and listen to episode 506 just to make sure you've got a grip on what your volume is as you're getting into work. Now if you're someone who's going to get bored and you start a program, the easiest way to change a program that you already have is to swap exercises. So I'll give you a couple of examples. Let's say you have a program like the five by five. And the back squat is the exercise that was in the book or on the website. You say, okay, I'm going to do this exercise.

And then you get kind of bored with your back squats or you've got toe and you want to try something different. Maybe you try a front squat. It's a very different exercise from the perspective of the angles with which the bar is going down, how your body structured. You're going to move that center of mass a little bit. That's going to change the exercise. So the front squat is a good exercise to go back to. Another one is a lot of people will work on a leg press. Leg press is a great way for you to build overall leg strength.

A lot of leg strength, actually.

You can get really strong in your legs using a leg press. But sometimes people get to a point where they're a little bit tired of the leg press. They've gotten up to a particular weight and they feel like, okay, they've done enough. They really want to change the structure of their work or they want to do something slightly different. Maybe you introduce a hip rust. So you're basically at this point, you're elevating your back maybe on the bench and you've got a weight on your lap and you're trying to do rust. So your feet are flat on the floor, your butt goes down your hips, and then your hips go up to basically try to thrust upwards against the weight. This is a great butt glute word, which again is similar to the leg press. So something you can swap. So basically, anytime you have an exercise, you get a little bored with it or you're not seeing the progress, you can swap out another exercise that works the same muscles or muscle and plug it into the work and use that as your exercise. So not the easiest thing, but every exercise that you do, particularly if one of them is bothering you, can be swapped with another exercise, typically works the same muscle groups and gives you the same effort or at least similar effort and results.

Now, if you're going to make a change, if you're going to do something, I highly recommend that you stick with something for at least six to eight weeks before making a change. You're doing a different workout every day, every time. You're not really going to get the optimal benefit of what you're doing. For one, we talked about that brain muscle, the neuromuscular connection. That's really important. If you don't do an exercise enough, you're not going to get that your brain and your muscles are not going to talk as well as they could without that communication. You're not getting enough work. So you're not going to continue to see gains. If you're swapping exercises every week, you're not going to see those gains the way that you'd like. That will be. So you're going to want to make sure that you stick with something for a while. Six to eight weeks tends to be a really good time before we make a change. Next, you got to increase the load. If you stay with the same weights. And I see this all the time, people will go in and do a circuit. They'll set the machines on exactly the same weight and they go through them time and time again and then they don't really know or see that they're getting any stronger.

The fact that they try to raise it up one weight, they don't really feel like they're able to do it. And that's the struggle. They really haven't pushed themselves, they really haven't made it progressive. So adding a little bit of load when you're using good form creates the stimulus that causes the muscles to react and get stronger and get bigger in most cases. Okay. And then when you're doing this work and sticking with it for a while, you begin to see that strength starting to kick in. So last week you were doing the pulls and you were only pulling £20. This week you're pulling. You're now up to 22 or 25. So now you're seeing the weights get bigger as you learn the exercise, there's communication between the muscles in the brain and then actually, yes, your muscles are changing, they're adapting to the stimulus and they're getting stronger. That's a huge motivation. You start realizing that the work you're doing has a positive effect of actually seeing fitness improvement. That's a great way to know. That's a mile marker to know, hey, I am moving towards my vision. I see it, I see what I'm doing and that's important.

So make sure you stick with it at least long enough. Six to eight weeks to know what you're doing is working before you start trying to mix it up. I know, boredom, boredom, boredom, right, but that's important. So find that balance between switching things up and sticking with it long enough to know that it's working. Okay. So this is how most of us got our start. Most of us, back in the day, it was trial and error. We walked into a gym much like you might, and we had no idea what was going on. There was all this equipment, all these weights. Sometimes there were really big guys back in the back rowing around big dumbbells and big plates and all that. We see that. And I agree it can be a little intimidating for the trial and error part where we just really don't know what we're doing and we're approaching it. I hope today that I've given you some ideas of how you can approach this from a little bit more upscale. You have access to the Internet, you have access to a lot of information, you have access to me. So you won't have to go through trial and error.

Another thing that we did back in the day was we had fitness magazines, so Flex and Muslim Fitness. Those were the main magazines that came out. There were a lot of other bodybuilding magazines in the day. Those have pretty much been replaced by YouTube and different websites. But the concept is the same. There's stuff out there, some of it's good.

Some of it's really bad.

So just kind of knowing that, okay, I have to learn and I can't just try to apply this thing because I can tell you, I read magazine articles where guys were doing 100, which means they're doing 100 reps for a muscle group. A little muscle group at that. I tried it. It hurt. Did it give me additional muscle gain? No, not at all. It was probably a wasted workout because it was too much and it really wasn't set for what I was trying to accomplish at the time. But it looked cool, it sounded cool. And the bodybuilder that was touting it in the magazine was someone that I respected, but again, not necessarily the right thing to do. So take what you see online with a grain of salt, spend some time doing some research, asking questions, and put together a program that's going to get you to your vision. All things considered, being over 40 does add some challenges. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I went to NASM and got certified. And yes, there was a good bit of expense to that. I can't even tell you how much money I have spent on my education, my fitness education over the years.

And so there are ways for you to get around that. Hiring a trainer is a great way to do that. And along the way.

I've done the same.

I've hired coaches to program for me and to push me because when you have someone there, you work harder. So every time I've hired a coach, I've never regretted it. I've never regretted having someone there who wrote a program. I could look at the program and say, this is reasonable, this makes sense. And then I could push myself. And they were there to help. They were there to encourage, they were there to critique. And so my form was better, my work was better, I worked harder, I got more results, and it was well worth the investment. Now, if you want to fast track your fitness and weight loss, I'd encourage you to go to 40 Plusfitness.com. I have an application there had some problems with that website up until I today, but I will have a link to the application there. Go ahead and complete that form. And then we can go ahead and connect and see if 40 Plus Fitness Online training is for you. Programming is not rocket science, but it's also not something you can just pull something off the Internet and do and know that you're optimizing your health and fitness. So if you're still stuck and you need help or you want help or you really want to fast track what you're doing, go to 40 Plusfitness.com and there you'll see a link for an application.

Go to the application. It's not long. It won't take you long. But then we'll get on a call, I'll get on the call and we'll come up with a plan just for you. And it may not be 40 Plus Fitness online training. And that's cool. I really want to help you get where you want to go. And if this training program isn't the right thing, I will help you find the thing that is and get you started and get you moving in the right direction. So thank you so much again for being a part of 40+ Fitness.


Post Show/Recap

[00:46:38.750] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:46:40.290] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. What a really great and timely podcast. I think the tips that you've given about developing your own training program could not be more perfectly timed. I'm seeing a lot of questions on the Internet about why do we do this or how do we do that? And right now it seems to be revolving around strength training. That's an important modality that people just don't know how to fold into their current training programs. But I like what you set up here for the listeners because there's a good way to go about developing your own program.

[00:47:14.800] – Allan

Yeah, well, first it has to align with what you're trying to do. And that can be an event or that can just be a lifestyle you want to have or both and probably should be both. Me, I get highly motivated by having an event in front of me. I think I posted something this week in the group about how even the most elite athletes are not what they would call optimally fit all the time. They have their ebbs and flows, their seasons and off seasons. And so they're going through those things themselves.

[00:47:48.480] – Allan

But that said, they're hiring the professionals. They're doing little things that they're supposed to do. And yes, you can do those things yourself. And when I work with clients, I think the thing that sometimes just it kind of frustrates me a little bit is to have a client that really just wants to work out in front of them. They don't want to think about it. They don't want to learn anything about what they're doing. It's just like make me skinny is sort of the mantra. And I'm like, well, okay, skinny doesn't mean healthy. Lifting weights will get you stronger.

[00:48:24.560] – Allan

If they're asking questions. Well, how strong do I need to be? And I'm like, I don't know, what do you want to do? And so they're not able to answer that question because they haven't really done the initial homework. So to them, it's the workout is. And I hate to say this, as we said earlier, the punishment for being unfit. I'm not healthy and fit. I'm not the weight I'm supposed to be. So I have to effectively punish myself. So I've got to do this running. I've got to get on the treadmill or elliptical and they're not really planning out what they're doing. And then even if they do pick up a program, they don't know why they're doing the exercises they're doing. Other than that's what the program says. So they're following a program.

[00:49:05.880] – Allan

And while I said in my talk, that can be great. But at the same time, it's really hard to stay motivated. When you get to the end of that program, it's like, okay, well, I just do it again. Is there something else? And a lot of people get stuck at that. And so I'll work with someone for a number of months, maybe even a couple of years, and at the end they're like, okay, I'll see you. And I'm like, okay, cool. And then they just keep doing what I gave them until they stopped because they get bored or something gets in the way, and then they just don't know where to start back. They're like, well, I was doing this weight and doing that exercise, and now I don't know, should I lower it this amount do that, or should I just go back in and do what I was doing?

[00:49:51.610] – Allan

And that fear keeps them from starting again. And then they're out. And so I talked to him a couple of months after that, and they're like, how's it going? It's like, well, kind of fell off with the exercise. I still run and they still do the thing they enjoy doing. So they're still doing the cardio stuff, if that's what they enjoyed, or the hiking or whatever, the biking. They're still doing some of that stuff. Not all the time, but some.

[00:50:17.030] – Allan

But their eating completely falls off because again, the exercise kind of drives eating. And I don't mean that you can exercise out of bad diet, but what I found is almost implicitly 100%, someone who works out, puts time in in the gym, pays the trainer, starts eating better, and when they stop paying the trainer and then they stop working out, they go back to their old habits. So just realize that there's more there than just doing a workout.

[00:50:49.390] – Rachel

Well, I think you mentioned the very first place to start is to have your vision, to have your long term goals. And it's not necessarily like for me right now, I'm training for a marathon in April or the ultra, maybe I'll do in the fall, but I've got good role models in my life. My great grandparents didn't leave their farm property until they were in their 90s, their late 90s at that.

[00:51:14.080] – Rachel

So I'm looking that far forward. I want to be active and able to live independently well into my 70s, 80s or 90s if I'm so allowed to do so. So lucky. But that's the thing is that I've got these long-term goals and then in the medium, I've got these short-term goals about running, and I think that's what people might forget about. Sure, you can do a couch to 5K program. That's a great place to start. Absolutely. But what are you going to do after that? What is going to keep you motivated to stay active and to stay healthy and fit for the long-term? And some of these tips, like having a vision is a good place to start.

[00:51:56.800] – Allan

Yeah. When you have that vision, then everything seems to make a little bit more sense. You know, that okay, I could have all the stamina on the world, but if my grandchild comes running up to me and I can't pick them up or I have to sit in a chair because I can't kneel down and tie their shoe, those are things that are going to emotionally affect me in a way that I don't want to experience. I want to be able to get down on the floor and tie their shoe and roll around with them in the grass and not feel like, okay, now someone has to come help me up. I want to be able to do all this stuff. And so, yeah, there's this long-range plan.

[00:52:34.090] – Allan

And then for me, the short run is okay, I'm doing another Tough Mudder. And what I found is these particular obstacle course races are requiring me to be more fit in more direct ways, meaning I have to have more stamina than I think I would ever need with a grandchild.

[00:52:54.290] – Rachel

Sure.

[00:52:56.810] – Allan

Grandchild is not going to make me do 15K running in addition to 25 obstacles in a given day. Now over the course of a month, maybe. And then the other side of it is just the physical strength and being able to do the things that I'm going to have to be able to do without knowing what some of those things are because they don't broadcast all of their obstacles. You know, some of them, but you don't know all of them unless you've already done a race that season. And then generally maybe you do. But for most of us going into the race, they don't broadcast and tell you what all the obstacles are. So I know I'm going to need strength, I need grip strength, and then I'm just going to need grit.

[00:53:38.570] – Rachel

Yes.

[00:53:41.730] – Allan

One of the things I can say my training is that my cardio came back really quickly. I've taken a break I've taken a break from training and everything to kind of just say, okay, I'm off. I'm going to take an off-season. Good long off-season. And then I said, okay, now I'm back in and I'm going to work really hard all the way up until the race. But my cardio was right back there. I'm hitting anywhere from ten to twelve and a half miles easy. I'm not doing the run the way you are. I'm literally just doing a good Huff walk. But doing that today, I think I did a little over 7 miles, but the terrain was hilly so some of the grades were up to I would probably say somewhere around 15% in places that I was going so…

[00:54:29.380] – Rachel

Good.

[00:54:31.170] – Allan

It was a good walk, particularly considering it was just the 7 miles. And I know I say just the 7 miles. Oh my God, 7 miles. I'm like, I didn't start with 7 miles, I didn't start with 7 miles. It was a progression that I did over time and then your body has some memory to it and you're able to take a break and get back at it at some level and work your way back up. And that's part of fitness. It's the ebbs and flows of working your way through.

[00:55:01.490] – Allan

Now, same way with strength. I'm back in the gym, I'm working with weights that are in my opinion pathetically low. But at the same time I know for other people I'd be like, oh my God, if I could actually do that, I would be really happy. So this is not about evaluating where you are relative to other people, it's about evaluating yourself relative to those vision. What do I need to be successful for this Tough Mudder/ and a couple of things we've talked about is I've got to lose body weight. I talked about that, what is it, two or three weeks ago? Okay, well, I've already shed 12 pounds.

[00:55:40.760] – Rachel

Good for you.

[00:55:41.600] – Allan

Okay, great. And that was again, I got into ketosis and one of the cool things is a good long walk really strikes up your ketosis levels. It's kind of insane. A good long walk for you and I that's two to 3 hours or so. And so I tell you, if you check your ketones before and after doing one of your events, one of the things your trainings, particularly the longer trainings, you'll be surprised at the change in your ketones. Now if you do a weight lifting, it's actually going to increase your blood sugar and you might not see that. So just kind of knowing that and knowing where I'm going and having the experience, which is great, but you don't get the experience without the experience.

[00:56:31.020] – Allan

So if you're going to put something together, know why you're doing what you're doing, have a plan, pay attention, do some research. And above all, if you're going to hire a coach, which I encourage a lot of people to do like you've done like I do, is ask why. Have those conversations learn from it. Because that's your ability in the future be able to do some of those things for yourself.

[00:56:58.750] – Allan

I just wish I had a coach on this island that could be in there for my workouts because I know physically if they were there, I would work a lot harder. Other than the fact that I have my way of eating and my way of doing things, I don't know of another coach for people over 40 that would know how to treat me like I was 20 when I needed to be 20, because there's things I can do that I was doing when I was in my 20s.

[00:57:28.610] – Rachel

Wow.

[00:57:28.910] – Allan

Some people in their 40s can't. Okay. But also know when to treat me like I'm in my 40s and be cool with the fact that I have a way of eating that is different than what they would encourage people to typically eat. You got to have your carbs before you work out. And I'm like, well, no, if I had carbs, I just go to sleep. I'd be in a coma. So no, I don't need the carbs before and I don't even need them during literally I can take a liter of water and I'm good. That's my 3 hours of go, go, go. A liter of water.

[00:58:07.190] – Rachel

That's awesome.

[00:58:08.630] – Allan

And I do hydrate a lot after, and I've hydrated a bit before. But all I need to have with me as I go is that liter of water and I don't bonk. There's no bonk if there's anything that's going to stop me, it's just the fatigue and the legs.

[00:58:27.630] – Rachel

Sure.

[00:58:28.510] – Allan

At that point where, OK, you push yourself to the line, which is where you need to be for this training session. Good. But I know that again, from experience, from being a coach and coaching myself. So as you're putting your programs together, I think it's just really important for you to take those lessons. Realize you're also you're bio-unique. So downloading a program off the Internet works for 80% of the people. That Bell curve. But if you're an outlier, you're out of luck. You're going to have to figure something else out. And that takes experience and time and effort and paying attention to your body and doing those things.

[00:59:09.000] – Allan

And so I just encourage people, if you don't know what you're doing, ask for help. It's not that hard. And I am opening up five slots in my training. And for these five slots, I'm particularly looking for people that want to up their fitness game. So in the past, I've really focused on the weight loss. I think I've gotten those clients in that want to really work on weight loss. And if you still want to work on weight loss, you can reach out to me.

[00:59:37.960] – Allan

But right now, for at least the next six months or so because of what I'm doing for myself, my brain has really turned on to the fitness aspects of it. So if you're looking to up your game in fitness, and that can mean starting from zero and wanting to get to level one or that can be being at level five and wanting to be level seven wherever you are, I'm able to meet you there. And we can put together training programs. You can learn why we're doing what we're doing, and we can help you get that fitness together. So if that's what you want, go to 40plusfitness.com, not 40plusfitnesspodcast.com, but 40plusfitness.com and I'll have an application link there. You can fill out the application. We'll get on the phone and we'll figure out what you need. If it's my training program to get you there, it's not a fixed program. It's custom. So like I said, if you're starting from zero and just want to get to one, we can do that. If you want to ratchet it up a little bit more, we can do that too. So do reach out if you're interested in that.

[01:00:42.330] – Rachel

And then of course if it's running that you're interested in really getting good at then Rachel?

[01:00:49.940] – Rachel

I'm here. Just ask me any questions.

[01:00:52.500] – Allan

Where should they go? You've got a website, too.

[01:00:55.100] 

Strong-souls.com. You can just reach out for me there or even on my socials. I'm on Facebook and Instagram. Just shoot me a message and I'll be happy to help you out.

[01:01:05.730] – Allan

All right. And we'll have the links in the show notes for this one so if you have any questions, please do reach out to us.

[01:01:12.440] – Allan

Also, again, we're trying to put together a Q&A episode. So if some of these questions you would rather just ask and have answered on a podcast then I do want you to reach out Allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com and just email me there. Allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com. We'll take those questions. I may reach out and see if you want to record and ask your question vocally and be on the podcast that way. Or I can just read your question from your email on the podcast. But if you have a question you'd like for us to answer on an episode, we do want to try to accumulate some of those so we can get those questions together and have a duo episode with Rachel and I answering your health and fitness questions.

[01:01:58.420] – Rachel

Sweet. That would be fun.

[01:02:00.320] – Allan

Great. Rachel, anything else you want to get into?

[01:02:02.910] – Rachel

No, this is great.

[01:02:04.460] – Allan

All right guys, have a great week and we'll talk to you next week.

[01:02:08.080] – Rachel

Thanks.

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Another episode you may enjoy

Less...

February 28, 2022

What history tells us we’re doing wrong with our health and fitness

Apple Google Spotify Overcast Youtube

A lot has changed in the past 200 years. And while we're living longer, we're not necessarily living better. On episode 527 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss what some of those changes mean to our health and fitness today. Those lessons can help you see where progress is not as it seems.

Transcript



Let's Say Hello

[00:01:11.770] – Allan

Hi, Ras. How are you doing?

[00:01:13.680] – Rachel

Good. Allan. How are you today?

[00:01:15.680] – Allan

I'm doing well. It's kind of an interesting week. I'm in the process of doing the build out for the new gym. And so we're getting into the new space. And obviously as you start doing construction and things like that, you learn things about the building you just rented. And so there are leaks and there's this and that. Just things to work through.

[00:01:37.430] – Allan

And then my wife, Tammy, we were supposed to spend some time together this week, go out to dinner and all because we're recording this over the Valentine's week, and she got a last minute opportunity to go see a specialist for nose and throat (she's had some sinus issues) in David, which means, okay, she's got to take a boat and then take a bus, and then it's a five-hour trip over. So she goes over and she's over there and I'm like, okay.

[00:02:03.870] – Allan

And then she says, well, yeah, they called me. They did get me in at 05:00pm tomorrow. I'm like, okay, well, you could have done tomorrow. But anyway, so she spends the night and then her appointments can be for us later today. And then she spends the night, comes back tomorrow.

[00:02:18.520] – Allan

And like most times when Tammy leaves and things look reasonably open, like we had three rooms open. So really low volume here for us to kind of just say, OK, there's basically three breakfast to do in the morning. One check out easy stuff. Actually, we had no check. I'm not supposed to have any check out this morning. But then all of a sudden we have two couples booking. I'm like, okay running around because I don't she usually goes picks them up and this and that. So I'm trying to manage all that and run that. So it's a little bit of juggling. But it's good juggling because it's growth and it's opportunity, new people. So, yeah, it's good. It's just kind of busy.

[00:02:59.530] – Allan

And I do have some other news. I have signed an agreement and affiliate agreement with Keto Mojo. And this is my favorite glucose keto blood monitor. And the reason I like these guys so much is that the keto strips are the cheapest you're going to find on the market. They're really expensive if you want to do blood ketones all the time, regularly. But the Keto Mojo makes it much more cost effective to do it if you want to do it every day. And the machine they have does both the glucose and the ketones. And they have their own proprietary little formula for kind of how you're potentially optimizing your glucose ketone levels. Now the new one there's, the GK Plus. It actually syncs with your phone. So you have an app on your phone and you take the readings. You don't have to write anything down or put anything like a spreadsheet. It just literally just goes right to your phone. And you've got charts and diagrams and the whole bit. It's actually really cool. And they just came out with this GK Plus. I had their old monitor. When I saw they had the GK Plus, I immediately bought it. And so I've been using that for about a week. And this thing, it's literally like having someone standing there telling you how to do it because you turn it on and it tells you, okay, put the meter thing in. And you put the meter thing in. It tells you it's in, all right? And then it says, okay, now put the blood and you stick yourself and you put a little bit of blood on there not much actually, probably less than on the last ones.

[00:04:31.950] – Allan

And then boom, it counts it down from nine all the way down. And then it gives you your reading. And like I said, then it can sync with an app on your phone and you've got that data right there. So it's a really cool thing. And the other thing that's cool about it is they're giving anyone that follows my link a 15% discount off the meter. Any of the meter kits, they got like a couple of different kits, like a starter kit, like a Deluxe kit. They can't do that on the strips because the strips are already really well priced. So they can't give you the 15% of the strips, but they will on the meter. So if you go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/mojo. So 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/mojo, that will take you to the site. If you purchase either one of the two major kits, like the starter and then the Deluxe. If you purchase one of those kits, when you get to the checkout, they'll apply a discount of 15%. So it ends up being a really cost effective meter with really cost effective strips. And like I said, it works like a charm. I love this little thing.

[00:05:39.600] – Allan

I'm using it every day now because again, the strips are inexpensive and it's so easy to use. So I'm keeping up with my ketones because I'm just now kind of cycling back into ketosis after the Superbowl and monitoring where my ketones are, because again, as I'm looking at starting to try to build up my fitness level, I want to understand if I have a bad day in the gym. Was that because my glucose was a little low? Is that because my ketones weren't where they needed to be and that kind of thing? And I also use their urine strips, even though, again, I don't think they're going to be included in the discount. But those are all available. You can go to 40 plusfitnesspodcast.com/Mojo. It's going to give me a slight little kickback on that. Not much, but it's going to give you a 15% discount, which I think is really cool.

[00:06:25.920] – Rachel

That is fantastic. What a great partnership.

[00:06:28.770] – Allan

So, Rachel, what's going on with you?

[00:06:30.940] – Rachel

Good. Things are good. You know, once a year I take a visit to my hospital where I visit the high risk breast cancer clinic. I've mentioned in the past that I've got a high risk, high family predisposition to breast cancer. And so I see this particular doctor every year, and every year, it's like a breath of fresh air to hear that I'm ticking all the right boxes. My doctor mentioned that I get enough exercise. Obviously, I eat well, of course, I eat the foods that they suggest we eat to have a healthy, reducing our risk cancer type diet and don't smoke, don't drink in excess. And I'm living the right lifestyle that should reduce my risk for developing breast cancer. And the other interesting thing is that now that I'm 50, I am eligible for breast MRIs in addition to a traditional mammogram. Although based on my age and my lifestyle, the doctor feels like it's not a really good cost risk benefit. So I probably am going to put that off for a little while longer. But the other benefit to this appointment, again, probably because I'm 50, they connected me to the hospital's cancer genetics Department.

[00:07:53.670] – Rachel

And so I have an appointment a couple of months out because everybody's backlog these days. But I have decided to pursue genetic testing to see if there are any predispositions to breast and other cancers. So I'm pretty excited to take that route. So it was a great visit. I'm glad I went. And I feel pretty good with my health right now.

[00:08:16.280] – Allan

Yeah, well, there definitely are some genetic snips, I think is what they call them that give you that predisposition to that Angelina her mother and had family history. So she went kind of radical, which a lot of people talked about, which is good. You have those conversations. We're not into October right now, but it's just don't wait until October. There's no reason to wait until October to do the right thing for your health. So glad you got that opportunity. And it will be interesting to hear how your foray into the genetics? Because obviously, the science is always getting better around some of these things. So it'll be interesting to hear what your geneticist doctor or whatever, whoever you're dealing with is going to be able to tell you what information and how things look for you on that side of the equation.

[00:09:10.170] – Rachel

Absolutely. Yes. I'll keep you posted for sure.

[00:09:13.010] – Allan

All right. So let's have a little bit of a history lesson. What do you think?

[00:09:17.540] – Rachel

Sounds great.

Episode

Today, I wanted to take a moment to give you a little bit of a history lesson about health and fitness, particularly in the United States. Interestingly enough, in the last 200 years, we've managed to extend our lives almost double. In 1860, the average lifespan for someone was 39.4 years. Take that in context to what it generally is today. And we're looking at an average lifespan of about 78.9%. So effectively doubling the life that we have on this Earth. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But lifespan does not equal health span. And I want to talk in more detail about what that means is living longer does not mean living better, and in fact, it actually probably means living worse. And so I want to take a few minutes to kind of talk about those things, how they relate, and some of the things that have changed over the course of the last 200 years that have made these things possible. So let's talk a little bit about lifespan. How have we managed to double our lifespan in just the last, really, 200 years? Less than 200 years, really. The first is babies live. In the past, more babies were lost to early death, infant death, birth death at birth.

Those things were happening on a fairly regular basis. And it was relatively hard to get a family member baby up to the age of about 15 and still be alive. There were a lot of diseases, a lot of things going on, and then just again, just the loss at birth. We fixed a lot of that. We have a lot more technology around medicine that allows us to have the babies live longer and in many cases, live full, productive lives. So that's been one good thing for increasing our lifespan. Probably the biggest overall mover in lifespan. The second would be basically safer conditions. We're aware of a lot more toxins, things that are not safe. We've changed the way we do construction. We've changed the way we build cars. Cars today are much safer than they were when they first came out. And just everything else, as far as a general lifestyle puts us in a safer position to survive longer. And now, again, labels on things typically, you know, there's a story for a reason why you don't eat the Silicon packet. And there has to be a sign on it for you to not eat that Silicon packet because you're not supposed to eat it.

But someone eventually did or obviously did, or they wouldn't have to put the sign there. So again, there's a lot more safety encouraged in the workplace, in the home and consumer products, and all of these different things that have made life longer. We've invented medications and vaccines. So the invention of penicillin, which I'll get into in more detail, the invention of certain vaccines, which I'll also get into in a little bit more detail later, they've actually allowed us to live longer. Fewer people are dying of polio and smallpox and measles and that thing. And then, of course, when someone gets sick, they get an infection. We have medications to keep them alive, and we're able to do that. And people are living longer as a result. And again, just general medicine. We're able to do heart bypass surgeries and things like that and remove tumors and do things like that that we weren't able to do 200 years ago, even 100 years ago. And as a result, people are living longer. And then there's generally food security. In the past, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people have starved due to not having enough food to feed their family.

We have much more food security today, which is allowing us to grow healthier. Babies have healthier lives. Unfortunately, the type of food we now use is actually detrimental to our overall health and our overall lifespan. But no one's starving to death today. In a general sense, very few people on this Earth starved to death today versus 100 years ago and 200 years ago. So a lot of things have happened in the last 200 years to extend our lifespan. And so as a result, in the past, they would have more babies because fewer babies would survive as a percentage. So law of average is if you have ten kids, you can expect a few of them to survive. Now, we know that's not necessary. We don't have that problem. So people aren't having multiple babies. They can have one or two and generally understand that those two have a very high probability of making it to adulthood. So lifespan hasn't been increased incredibly, but that creates some problems for us on the other side. Health span. So when we look at our overall health and particularly the Western economies, some of the things we find is that we're overweight and obese.

The overweight obese category now makes up the majority of people in Western countries, particularly United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. So if you start looking at that, you realize, okay, if almost 70% of people are overweight and obese, we are not helping our health span while we might be living longer. That's leading to some pretty significant problems in what we call now lifestyle diseases heart disease, high blood pressure, autoimmunity cancer. These diseases were not a huge problem 200 years ago for various reasons, but predominantly because of the foods and the types of foods that we eat, the lack of movement, different things that have happened. And I'm going to get into that in a lot more detail coming up. But just realize we now suffer from lifestyle diseases that really were very rare 200 years ago. And so the other side of it is, though, we also by living longer, we subject ourselves to more opportunities. So someone may have died an accident on the farm at the age of 30. Now they're not working. The same individuals are not working on farms. They have much safer jobs. They're living until their 60s. And that's just given them more time for certain lifestyle problems to catch up with them on a Healthspan.

So we've increased our lifespan, but we haven't necessarily done as much to improve our health span over that same period of time. And there's a lot of reasons for it, and I want to dive into those today. So what has changed in the last 100 and 5200 years? Well, probably the biggest is convenience. We do a lot less physical work. Tools, machines, everything else. All of that has made our lives easier. So when you look at it 200 years ago, if you were going to travel to the next town, you would take a horse. Okay, well, riding a horse, if you haven't done it before can pretty much wear you out, depending on how long you ride and what the course is like, that you're riding on the path or the road or whatever. Being on a horse takes a lot more physicality than a lot of people think. If you're not used to riding a horse, you're likely to be sore after you've ridden a horse for a while. Then there were cars, but the first cars were cranked cars and required a little bit of effort to get started. They were a little bit more work to drive.

We didn't have power steering. We didn't have those other things going on. So there's a little bit more even with a car, there was still more work than a current car. A current car, you can literally start it with a push of a button or start it before you even get in the car. You can literally drive away without using almost any effort at all sitting in a seat. And when you're going the speed you want to go, you can literally push a button and it will stay at that speed until you tell it not to. And now with autonomous cars, you don't even have to do that. You tell the car where you want to go and it just takes you there. So less and less effort. And then the other side of it, well, why even get in a car when there's takeout and delivery? So recognizing that we've had conveniences thrust on us, we've taken advantage of those conveniences because it makes our lives easier. But easier does not necessarily improve health span. So the next big thing that's happened and one that's just really circling back around as being a problem is an understanding of the dangers of over consuming sugar.

In 1800, the average American consumed £22.5 of sugar per year. Now, that may seem like a lot when you look at what a five pound bag is, but let's compare and contrast that with what's going on today and realize most of the 1800 food was not processed at all. It was literally coming from fruits and vegetables. Today, that's not the case. So by 1919, we're going to see some changes in the way food is done. By that time, we were eating £99 over four times as much 100 years later. And even today at 2000, we got up to over £150 per year. That is a ton of sugar. That's a whole person worth of sugar. Now, it's trailed down in the last few years, and mainly because of an outreach of people to understand how bad sugar is. So people are cutting back a little bit on their consumption, but we're still well over £140 per year. So in contrast, we're looking at almost a seven fold increase in the amount of sugar we're eating relative to what our ancestors ate as late as the 1800. Now, one of the reasons that we eat more sugar is processed food, just a few little tidbits.

Oatmeal was invented in 1854. Now, the interesting thing about oatmeal is up until that time, it was horse food. So all this joking about taking horse meds, the real joke back then was who's eating horse food? But once it was accepted that people were willing to eat horses, the cereal market was born. So in 1877, they started making cereals. And in fact, most of the major brands you recognize today started in around that time, shortly after that time, or in the early 1900, those large companies, they started making cereals, then perfecting recipes, competing with each other, combining and forming these global companies that sell tons and tons of this stuff, a lot of it with a lot of extra sugar. And it's all high calorie, low nutrition. I mean, they add nutrition or they try to make it nutritious, but in a general sense, they have to go after taste. And so food science today is about taste and texture. It's not about your health. And so recognize that these food companies are making products they know you'll eat more of. They want you to eat more of them. And they've even done some things that really are uncool to make sure that you continue to consume a lot of these products.

But processed foods are not your friend if you're looking at health and fitness because they're not designed to help make you healthy. They're not designed to be like real food. They're designed to make you buy more, to make it taste good, to make it appealing so you buy more. Another thing that's happened in the last 200 years is we've moved to a format of industrial farming. So large farms of animals, be it cows or chickens or whatever, are raised together in very, very tight spaces, being that close to all these other animals illnesses get passed around relatively quickly. So antibiotics are introduced on a fairly regular basis. And then, of course, they want the largest possible animal they can get for the meat or basically to make sure that they're getting volume. So they're injecting these animals with hormones to make them grow faster. So the effect of all of this, the lack of space, the antibiotics, the hormones and everything else that they do these animals makes them very sick animals. Eating a sick animal does not make you healthy. So even though you think you're getting a better cut of the animal or you're farming at a better pace, the reality of is most of these animals are very, very sick and they're not healthy for you.

So let's talk about plants, because then everybody says, well, let's move to plantbased nutrition. And that would be better, right? Well, not necessarily. So fertilizer was originally invented in slightly before then, and then it was adopted as a normal thing. So we're talking about there were fertilizers probably back as far as we know, people were growing things, but we're talking about chemicals. We're talking about synthetic fertilizers, these kind of these inventions of if we add this to the soil, the plant grows faster. And that was adopted early 1861. And all the way through World War II became kind of this growing trend of using more and more of these chemical synthetic fertilizers so that the crops had a larger yield. Those fertilizers are causing some problems I'll get into in just a moment. Next, they had to develop these plants to be able to be transported. So if I'm going to try to get this avocado to you that is grown in Mexico, it has to last a little while. If I'm going to take apples that were gotten in, say, Washington state, and I need to deliver them to Florida, I have to make sure that they're transportable so they've bred the plants, the fruits and vegetables, to be more durable, not necessarily for better health, but just durability.

How is this thing going to look when it arrives at its location? And then another thing that they do to make sure that these plants are just right when they get to your grocery store is they pick them early, so they will pick them before they ripen. And then they use this technology to keep them from ripening until they get to the location. They call it delayed ripening technology. And they use this ethylene gas that they'll spray on these plants to ripen them up quickly right there at the store or right at the warehouse for that particular vendor. So they're not in the ground nearly as long as they would be if they were normal plants. If you just planted a heirloom tomato in your backyard that hasn't been farmed lately. Those plants will grow slow. They will grow a little. And when they're done and they're ready and they're ripe, they've drawn as much benefit out of the ground the minerals and the vitamins that you need that they possibly can. Whereas when you pick them early and they're ripening at the store, they didn't have nearly as much time to pick up that stuff that you need.

And then again, with the fertilizers and all the other things that are going on, they're growing very quickly and not necessarily for the right reasons, and you're not necessarily getting all the nutrition. So plants that we have today, fruits and vegetables we eat today are not as nutrient rich as plants were when our great grandparents and our great great grandparents were farming. So just realized that we're not getting as much value for the calorie as we would have in the past. And then, of course, with plants, there's the weed killers, like roundup glyphosate. Okay, this was introduced in the 19s 70s. And even though that more and more they know that this is a cancer causing element and it's in our foods. And when we eat the foods that are made with these things, if they're not cleaned properly, and even then, maybe not, then we're getting these getting this glyphosate in our body. This chemical is in our body as a function of these things. Next, I want to jump into light pollution. Now, it seems like a mild thing, but most folks don't realize that actual household lights are not something that's been around forever.

Incandescent lights were invented by a guy named Humphrey Davy, but it was Edison that kind of made these things more popular in the 1880s. And so most houses didn't have electricity for a long, long time after that. So most houses were lit by gas lighter, candles all the way past well into the 1019 hundreds. In fact, almost half the houses didn't have electric power. So you're looking at lights not being a part of the indoor or at least unnatural lights not being a part of our normal environment, really in less than 100 years. So for our bodies to adapt to night time light, that can be a problem. The next area I want to jump into as toxins. Tens of thousands of toxic chemicals are released into our environment and homes every single day. And over 800 of those are known as endocrine disruptors. Now, an endocrine disruptor basically means it messes with your hormones, in particular your sex hormones. So if you're feeling kind of blah, you're a little bit maybe feeling a little bloated, it might be that you're being subjected to too many endocrine disruptors. And your estrogen is messed up, your testosterone is messed up, and it's causing you some problems.

So where are we getting these toxins? All these toxins are out there. This is not necessarily plants pumping a lot of it in the air, although they are. It's also in your home. So if you have furniture that has flame retardants in it, the pesticides you're using in your yard, the Pharmaceuticals that we flush down our toilets that end up in our water. And on and on and on. We are subjected to tens of thousands of toxic chemicals every single day, and those are adversely affecting our endocrine system, our health, the function of our liver on and on and on. So the subjection of these toxins, which were not available, not out there 200 years ago, is another problem that's affecting our health span. And then the last one I want to talk about is stress. We live in this new 24/7 news cycle. The news is always there. This was not the case 100 years ago. Even when the TV was on, there was one news or two news casts per day. When I was growing up as a young adult, I know they had the morning news, and then they would turn off and talk about other stuff.

You'd come home, there might be a 04:00, 05:00, and 06:00 and then 11:00 news, but they'd give you one news cycle each day. It might change a little bit from the morning to the evening. But most people sat they read the newspaper in the morning, and then they watched the news that night, and that was about it. Now news hits us every single day, all day, all the time. We have notifications on our phone, notifications on our computer, and then add social media, the toxic relationships, the things that are going on there. And then just the fact that the news media is on the social media feeding you the stuff, the headlines all day and all night, it's there constant, constant, constant. And then, of course, we have to add tribalism. And this takes all of that, the 24 hours news cycle, the social media. And this literally takes up a factor of ten. The tribalism that's going on in the world today, particularly in the United States. And now we're seeing in other places like Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and elsewhere. This tribalism is exploding our stress levels, and that's really adversely affecting our health.

And so I put these in an order. As far as we're talking about our food, our food is messed up. It's not what it used to be. We're not training or working out as much as we used to or at least doing things physically as we used to. We don't have good quality food. And then there's light pollution. Cell phones did not exist, and now they do, and they're in our hands 24/7. We've got watches that buzz and beep and moan, so we're not sleeping as well. We've got all these toxins that our liver and our body is having to deal with, and we're not functioning very well with these toxins. And then, of course, the introduction of stress your job, whether you're going to keep your job, lose your job. People used to live knowing that they're going to work. They have a job for the next 35, 50 years, and nothing is going to take that away from them. That's not the case today. Too much is changing too fast, and it's really struggle for most of us to keep up with that. So with all this bad stuff that's going on, what do we do?

How do we take the fact that our bodies were not designed for the lifestyle that we live today? How do we take that step back and solve this problem? The first step in solving any problem is knowing you have a problem. So the first thing I want you to do, listening to this podcast is come to the realization that these things are affecting you, even though you might not believe that they are. They are. And so it's important for you to recognize that first and then take some actions. Now, in my kind of mindset, my opinion, the first place to start is food. It's the easiest for you to change, and it's the one that's probably going to move the needle the most for most of us. And the answer for food is get the highest quality, real food you can afford. So when I say high quality, I'm not just talking about organic, which, yes, is more expensive in the grocery store. I'm talking about food that didn't have to be transported across the world, meaning it was locally grown, it was fresh. You didn't have to go anywhere. So, you know, stayed in the ground until it was ripe, and then it was picked and then it was sold to you.

You can do this at farmers markets. You can do this at coops you can look for in your grocery store locally grown product that's typically going to be better for you than what you find in most standard grocery store aisles. The other is frozen foods. Surprisingly, a lot of frozen foods, organic frozen foods were grown all the way to ripeness and then flash frozen, so they were then able to be distributed. That's a better model than the distribution and then ethanol, Ethylene, gas. So look for foods that are going to give you the highest quality that you can still afford. And farmers markets, local farms, buying half a cow with your friends, whatever you need to do, find ways to get the highest quality real food that you can possibly afford. And that's going to move the needle the most for most of us. The second is movement. You have to make movement a priority. And the easiest way to do that is to stop leaning on basic conveniences. If you live within a mile of your grocery store, in all likelihood, you could walk to that grocery store to do your shopping most days and walk back.

You don't have to buy 15 bags of groceries. You can go to the store by a couple of bags. So you get some fresh vegetables, some fresh meat, everything fresh. Go home, Cook up meals, and then two days later, go back. Yes, it takes time, but that investment of time is going to improve your health significantly. So make movement a priority. It doesn't have to be exercise, but just make movement a regular part of most of your days and try to pull some of those conveniences back. I don't own a car here. I live on an island. Quite literally, the furthest thing for me right now is 15 km. I could walk there if I had to. So as you look at the way you're living and the things you're doing, look for those conveniences that are not serving you unless they need to serve you. So yes, of course, if you need to get somewhere quickly, an automobile is the best way to do it. If you don't, can you walk there? Can you walk there? Can you take a taxi back or a bus back? Can you walk there and walk back? Take those opportunities to add more movement to your day stress.

Now, stress was the biggest one for me and it took a long time, but finally I started saying I have to prioritize this and it was the last thing I addressed. I wish I had addressed it earlier. Choose When You Let News and Social Media In So if you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is check news and social media, you're already setting yourself up for kind of a frustrating day. Something bad is going to hit you in the face every single time you do that. Now there might be some nice things. You might see a little cat video and this and that make you laugh. That's great. But just recognize that you control your consumption of social media. And so choose when you're going to let that end and do it in bite sized pieces. It does not need to be a 24 hours cycle. And if you find yourself at 200 in the morning checking social media, you already have an issue. Okay? And then the final thing is on stress is check yourself and see if you feel like you're getting wrapped up in this tribalism stuff.

It's really easy because the headline is built to set you off. It's built to set you off as a yes, that's good. Or it's built to say, oh my God, they're doing that again. Every single one of those headlines is built to do that. It is a tribal, one sided message focused on an ideology that's intended to upset the other ideology and get both ideologies reading that copy. So check yourself. If you find yourself getting drawn into this stuff on social media or just when you're reading different things, recognize when it's happening, take the step back and turn it off. You don't need this. Do some meditation do some things that help you relax and get over this, particularly if it's in the evening, if you know that it's going to affect your sleep, which is the next one. Sleep is huge, very important. I'm not going to put it over food, but I'm going to put it way up there. But I'm just going to say this is probably one of the hardest things for most people to address because you either feel like you sleep well or you don't. But I'm going to say you need to have a natural nightly ritual, something that's going to relax you, something that's going to let you unwind, something that's going to communicate to your body.

It's time to go to sleep. And that means getting away from unnatural light, like screens and light bulbs and other things, TVs and literally just saying, I need some time to unwind. And this can be a warm bath. This can be listening to music and can be reading fiction in a paper book. It can be just meditating, it can be a lot of things brushing your teeth can be a part of and it should be a part of your nightly ritual. So just set yourself up with a nightly ritual that communicates to your body. It's time to let go. Move away from the unnatural blue light, move back to the more Amber, flame based lights like candles, and let yourself relax before sleep so your body can get a good restful sleep. I know this is harder said than done, but it's really important. And then the final one is toxins. And again, toxins are all around you. So consistently take a moment and audit your lifestyle. The Environmental working group has resources@ewg.org. They've got this really cool app that you can put on your phone and it literally lets you look up consumer goods.

Just scan the barcode. So you go to EWG.org and go on your phone. You can look up EWG or Environmental working Group pull down their app. It literally lets you look this stuff up so you can see what's in the products that you're using. So your cleaners or your shampoo or your body wash or your makeup or any of that. It may be introducing toxins into your system, including some of those 800 or so endocrine disruptors we talked about earlier. So to recap this, the first step in fixing your health and aligning your health span with your lifespan is to understand that there is a disconnect, there is a problem. The first step is getting good, high quality real food, the highest and best quality you can afford. And that preferably means organic, fewer pesticides, fewer hormones and locally grown. So there's not the artificial things that they tend to do with the food and where possible, heirloom and some of those and a proper rotation of crops where they're getting all the nutrients your body needs. Again, highest quality, real food you can afford. Movement. Movement has to be a priority. Walk if you can, ride a bike when you can, don't lean on the conveniences of having a car for something as simple as taking a little jaunt over to the convenience store, the grocery store to buy something you need.

If you can take the time, walk there, walk back, ride a bike there, ride a bike back. Those things are going to help you feel a lot better. Be healthier, more fit, and align your health span with your lifespan. Anything you can do to manage stress, which means not letting some of it in in the first place. Tribalism, the 24 hours news cycle and social media are all within your control. You control those inputs into your brain. You control those stressors. So if you let them in, they're going to mess with you. Don't let them in. Choose the times, particularly in the evening. There's no reason there's nothing on the Internet, there's nothing on the television that's going to adversely affect you before you wake up in the morning. 99 point 99% of the time. So let it go. Let all that go. Find a distressed way to spend the evening. So that the final thing here. Sleep. You're getting great sleep. Have a good nightly ritual that pulls you away from those things and get your body ready for a good restful sleep. And then finally, toxins. So do an audit of your lifestyle.

What are some things that you're doing that are adding toxins to your life? I talked about the website or the app from Environmental Working Group, but also just other things like if you smoke or if you drink alcohol, those are toxins and so they're adding to your toxic load. So think about the toxins in your life. Do that lifestyle audit and do what you can to reduce those toxins. So if you do these things, you will make sure that your health span is more in line with your lifespan and you'll spend less of your life unhealthy. And in the end, none of us really wants to live longer if we can't live better. So focus on aligning your health span with your lifespan and you'll be happy, healthy and fit. Thank you.


Post Show/Recap

[00:41:28.850] – Allan

Welcome back Ras!

[00:41:30.590] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. You know, way back when I was taking the NASM certified personal trainer course and test, they had said that at that time, 66% of Americans older than 20 are overweight, 34% are obese. And it was such a high percent to me that it was just really it just stuck with me. And then they went on to say that, of course, the World Health Organization thinks that lack of physical activity is probably a culprit of that, which I kind of agree with as well. But based on your history lesson, that is certainly not the only reason that our country is overweight or obese.

[00:42:12.650] – Allan

Yeah. A couple of things come to mind. One is it's worse now that textbook was not that old. But every year the number gets bigger on both sides, the obesity and overweight. So the number is getting bigger. And we're not being given necessarily all the data we need to resolve that, because you're absolutely right. The movement aspects of it are a park, but it's like part of a car. You're not going to get anywhere with the chassis. You need the wheels and everything else you can look at and say, okay, this is part of the problem, but you could take and fix part of the problem and not really fix the whole problem. It's all of it. It's nutrition, it's movement, it's stress management, it's sleep. Yeah, it's all of those things. And the frustrating thing for me is that I could pull 100 people off the street and say, if you needed to lose weight, what would you do? What would you do? What are the things you need to do? And so it's like if you put them out there, like the squares where you can fill in more than one, okay, everybody's going to know it's diet.

[00:43:32.290] – Allan

And the term they would probably use in the survey would be exercise, better sleep, stress management, take a pill. And a small percentage would click, take a pill, of course. But they all know you change what you eat, you move more, you try to get better sleep, you try to manage your stress. Those things are going to help you lose weight. Now, they may say exercise is the most important and we can go back and forth. I've had doctors tell me sleep is actually maybe the most important. And I personally believe the food is the most important, but we can go back and forth on that. But I think everybody generally knows those are the things you have to do.

[00:44:12.260] – Rachel

Right.

[00:44:12.680] – Allan

The problem is this is the guidelines and things that come forward. And we've seen that in history, is that it gets skewed. It gets skewed by politics and people being involved. And so the nutrition rules that we've been given, the things we think we're supposed to do, they're politicized. And as a result, they're not right. They're wrong. And in many cases, they're so horrifically wrong that we now have an overweight and obesity, 70+ percent of Americans are overweight or obese. It's like 39% of Americans are obese. That's insane.

[00:44:56.180] – Allan

And it's based on data that was skewed. And even if new data comes out, the guidelines barely budged. And if they do budge, like they recently decided to drop saturated fat or cholesterol from being the bad food, the bad guy, but they didn't announce it and say, oh, well, guess what? You should actually probably eat eggs and bacon for breakfast. No, they didn't. They just quietly shoved it to the side. No harm, no foul. And there is harm, and there is a foul, but it's this quiet back away that occurred two or three generations later, and we're suffering the consequences of that.

[00:45:40.330] – Allan

Now, what does that mean for the go forward? And unfortunately, we are repeating history again, and we will continue to do so until we learn from history. So with Covid and this frustrates me more than anything. So if I get a little rowdy, I apologize and I have to bleep some of my language out, which kind of happens. I apologize.

[00:46:03.170] – Allan

But you do not hear the leaders anywhere explaining to you the best thing you can do for this disease is to be healthy in the first place. And so anything you do to improve your health and fitness makes you a better combatant against this virus. This virus kills the weak. I'm sorry, but that's what happens. It's people over 85. It's people with comorbidities. That's who it's killing. It's not killing generally healthy people. Now, if you see someone who thought was healthy and they died, you probably can look around. And if they did some workouts, they might find some other things that just weren't visible on the outside. We know people who have type II diabetes, but they look completely healthy. We know people who have heart problems, but they look completely healthy. We know people who have lung issues, but they look completely healthy.

[00:47:07.070] – Allan

And so it happens. And yes, it can be hit or miss if you're already healthy to know those things. So a good check up and making sure you're dotting your I's and like you said, checking off the boxes you're supposed to check off. We have this within our power if we do the bare minimum, which okay, so per the World Health Organization, you keep your sugar down here. Per the government guidelines, US guidelines, if you move intensely for 75 minutes per week, that's enough. Okay. But that's low bar thinking.

[00:47:44.660] – Rachel

It is.

[00:47:45.450] – Allan

Yeah, I'm just going to get by.

[00:47:49.310] – Rachel

I agree.

[00:47:50.750] – Allan

It's the same thing as like if you sat there and said, oh, well, here's this chart. And as long as my BMI is 29 and not 30, as long as my waist is 39 and not 40, I'm okay. And that's low bar thinking.

[00:48:06.820] – Rachel

That's a good point. I think that's absolutely right. I think the information or the guidelines that are out there are just that just guidelines and not necessarily the right things. And I think my main takeaway would be to consult with your doctor and get some more information or…

[00:48:30.170] – Rachel

The Standard American Diet is an old diet. It's been around and it's hardly changed over the years. But maybe it's time to experiment. Maybe it's time to try a plant Forward diet or a low carb/keto-type diet or the Mediterranean diet. I think it's worth changing or switching things up to see if that benefits you in any way.

[00:48:52.570] – Allan

Well, the standard American diet has drastically changed since the 1950s. As we talked about the introduction of cereals, we talked about the introduction of carbs, and as a result, people started eating more of those things. They were cost effective. More sugar was available, it was cheap, it was easy, and it was delicious. So more of that was being eaten. And then there's more processed food. So it's calorie dense, nutritionally weak.

[00:49:23.010] – Allan

And we kept doing that and kept doing that. And then they're like, well, why the heck are we having heart attacks? And they asked the wrong guy. They literally asked the wrong guy. And everybody got in line. And the corporations that were benefiting from it, they paid off scientists. They did the things they had to do to make sure they were on the bottom of that pyramid to make sure that they were the ones that got the most juice out of the whole thing and noone will back away completely from it. You can look at the Canadian guidelines, relative, the US guidelines, and kind of see the divergence. Canada is going in the right direction with nutrition. The United States is not going fast enough.

[00:50:06.830] – Allan

And as a result, we are suffering this crisis. And we have to learn from this. We have to learn that the guidelines and things that are put forward to you while rudimentary and right can be great. So Covid, wash your hands.

[00:50:22.620] – Rachel

Sure.

[00:50:23.570] – Allan

Try to avoid touching your face and stay away from sick people.

[00:50:29.360] – Rachel

Yeah.

[00:50:30.100] – Allan

Those are excellent. But then as soon as the vaccine was introduced, they stopped talking about that. Up until that point, that's all they talked about those three things. It was like over and over. I actually walked around and took pictures of different sinks I was washing my hands in. It kind of became a thing. And that was it. Just remind people, wash your hands more often. And then beyond that, all they had to say was, we noticed the data says the people who are older and have comorbidities are the ones that are dying the most. You can look at a chart, it's easy as you see it, and it's like, okay, so if you have a comorbidity, that is a lifestyle disease, like diabetes, like heart disease, like being overweight those things, you can do something about it. If you're listening to this podcast, then you know you can because I've said you can. But beyond that, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't know there was an answer.

[00:51:27.400] – Rachel

Right?

[00:51:28.420] – Allan

You're wanting to change something. So to change something, you got to do something. And all I'm saying is from this whole prospect is learn from history. You are your advocate, you are the right person to take care of you. And you know in your heart exactly what you need to do. You need to change the way you eat. You need to change your movement, improve it, do more.

[00:51:49.120] – Allan

You need to look at this all holistically and say, what do I need to do to make myself healthier? And that is going to make you more resilient. And that's going to help you beat this. Yes. You can go get vaccinated. And I encourage you, particularly if you're in a high risk group, go do that. Yes. Stay away from sick people if you need to. If you can. Do what you have to do to protect yourself, for sure. But the most important thing you can do to protect yourself is to just be healthier. Get your vitamin D, get outside, move around, find joy in your life, sleep well, eat well, do the things you know that are going to make you healthier and happier. And that's going to help you get past this.

[00:52:33.900] – Rachel

Absolutely. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I work really hard to maintain as healthy of a lifestyle that I can because I want to suppress as much as I possibly have under my control, the chances of me getting breast cancer. That is my biggest health fear, because that's what I've been dealt for genetics. And so I work really hard at that. But that translates to everything. I'm also working hard to reduce my risk for diabetes and heart disease and survive illnesses, whether I get shingles or the chicken pox or even Covid. So I feel like the healthier my body is, the healthier I'll be able to respond. And I think that's the key takeaway that everybody should take home today.

[00:53:19.070] – Allan

Yeah. Because when I went into the hospital here and got tested, because Tammy tested positive first for the next day, because you have to go in the morning. It's like a two hour window for testing. So I went in the next morning, and I got tested, and I'm sitting out there, and the doctor calls me over, and he said. “positivo”. I'm like, “okay.”

[00:53:39.780] – Allan

And he's like, no. I'm like, okay, I got it. I'm going to go home. I'm going to stay home for a couple of weeks, and then I'm going to get over it. But he's looking at me. He's like, no, I know what he's thinking. You're 56 years old and you have Covid. You're going to die, right? And he's like, no, Positivo. This is solemn Positivo. And I'm like, okay, I know this is not good news, but okay. And then I just said to him, I just go home. And he's like, no. He says, you have a ride? And I'm like, no, I was going to walk home, and I think that hospital is something like about maybe a mile and a quarter.

[00:54:23.680] – Rachel

Okay.

[00:54:24.390] – Allan

No, maybe 2 miles. Maybe close to 2 miles from my home, from Lulu. I'm just going to walk home, and then I'll be there, and he's like, no, you have to go in the ambulance.

[00:54:34.990] – Rachel

Oh, gosh.

[00:54:38.570] – Allan

Right. Well, I had Covid, so in their minds, I was done. My blood oxygen never went below 95.

[00:54:47.160] – Rachel

That's good.

[00:54:48.420] – Allan

Most of the time I was sitting right around 97, 98. I was never in any danger. I was never anything. I was fatigued and lost taste and smell and I still don't have my smell back. But that makes me capable to do a lot of jobs around Lulu's that most people wouldn't want to do.

[00:55:07.490] – Rachel

Oh, gosh.

[00:55:09.350] – Allan

But all that said, and I don't mean to joke about it because I know it's a very serious thing, but I ate well, I slept well, I managed stress. And while during that period of time because of Covid, because everything else I couldn't do the things I always did, I had put on some weight and so I was at a higher weight than I would normally like to be within the normal ranges that I bounced around. I was maybe about 5 or 8 pounds over what my normal roof was for a feasting period of the year. But that makes sense because I stretched a normal feasting of like 4 months into 16, of course. But that said, even when I feast, I tend to eat really good food, I go for the higher quality stuff, I eat a lot of vegetables, I eat meat, I don't eat a lot of processed stuff, I don't eat a lot of bread and other stuff.

[00:56:08.050] – Allan

When I'm on my feastt, I tend to eat a little more of it. But now I'm back in a famine and I don't. It's just meat and vegetables, that's it. But that's the point. If you want to learn from history, history tells you that the guidelines that are out there are not what you necessarily need to be following and in many cases they just don't go far enough.

[00:56:31.010] – Allan

So find your lines. Yes. If you're not getting the 75 minutes of intense exercise or 150 minutes of moderate exercise, set that as your next goal. A lot of people sit there and say due to that 10,000 steps you're looking at, I'm only doing two. Now that seems like a huge well then just make a five. Just start with something.

[00:56:50.540] – Rachel

Right.

[00:56:50.960] – Allan

Set it at 5000, start with something. And then when you get to five, look at ten, you get to ten and say, Well, I wonder what 15 would feel like.

[00:56:58.780] – Rachel

Yep.

[00:56:59.520] – Allan

And that's how you get there. But if you just sit there and say, oh, well, I'm at ten, I'm just going to stay at ten, and then that's not enough to help you get to your goals, you'll give up on it. So just realize that those guidelines are fine. The rules of thumbs are simple because we love simple. But life is more complex than that. Our biology is much more complex than that. So take the time, but be your own advocate and don't just settle for what the government or what the standards say you should do. Do what you know you need to do for yourself.

[00:57:35.220] – Rachel

Yes, I think that's great. Great takeaway, Allan.

[00:57:38.370] – Allan

All right. Well, as I'll talk to you next week then.

[00:57:41.250] – Rachel

Sounds great. Take care.

[00:57:42.620] – Allan

You too.

[00:57:43.500] – Rachel

Thanks.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch– Eric More– Leigh Tanner
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Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

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February 21, 2022

How to be a younger you with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald

Apple Google Spotify Overcast Youtube

We grow up celebrating birthdays, marks of our chronological age, but that can differ drastically from our biological age. In her book, Younger You, Dr. Kara Fitzgerald shows us how we can slow and even reverse our biological aging.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

Ra

[00:01:13.450] – Allan

Hey, Ras.

[00:01:14.590] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. How are you today?

[00:01:16.190] – Allan

I'm doing all right. Good and bad. Like I said, the last time we talked, there were some things going on with me here with the gym in particular. My landlord decided that it was time for them to Mark up my rent. What they felt was full market on the space. And in the past, the agreement had kind of been that they wanted a gym next door, that it was good for them to have a gym next door. And so they agreed to a moderate reduction in what would be considered market rent. But now they just full out want market rent. And we've been open over a month, over a year since covid. We just had a year when they decided to do this. And so it was just bump. There's a 45% increase in rent. And I can tell you, the gym business is not a high margin business. In general, you have members, they pay. There's no contracts here. So this is not like I've got people locked into a year and they pay and they don't show up here. If they don't pay, they don't show up. They don't show up, they don't pay.

[00:02:20.310] – Allan

And so it's just that I can't. There's no way you tell your members, okay, rent went up 45%. I need you to pay me 45% more. I would lose all my members. So I decided it was a good time for me to go check out this thing called the market. And he was absolutely right. They wanted to mark it up to a market price and all that. I'm like, well, that's great. But I knew if I paid market, I could probably get something better, something that was more suitable. They've been having issues with their hostels. What they are hotel hostel. And so some of their members are right on the other side of the wall of our gym. And so people are in their lifting weights or the music's playing maybe just a little louder than you need it. And so they get complaints, and it happens about once every four or five months. Someone will send me an email saying, you guys got to cut the music off and move away from the wall. And I'm like, no, I'm done. Anyway, and also the gym doesn't have a bathroom, so now I've found a space.

[00:03:24.940] – Allan

We're going to have a bathroom. It's going to be a fair amount of space. It's not as big as what we have, but it's something we can make work and it's still right in town. So I think it'll be a good move for us from the perspective of having something solid locked in and then be able to run the gym, at least with some expectations that our landlords not going to come after us. Rent increases.

[00:03:50.350] – Rachel

Ouch.

[00:03:51.050] – Allan

Yeah. So how are things up there?

[00:03:53.300] – Rachel

Good. I just got back from a race, and my training that I've been doing with the trainer has been paying off. I had a great race day. And I'm excited for what's up ahead. My marathon will be in a few more weeks.

[00:04:08.090] – Allan

Oh, good.

[00:04:09.100] – Rachel

Fingers crossed.

[00:04:10.990] – Allan

no, not fingers crossed. You've got this. Put the work in.

[00:04:14.970] – Rachel

Yeah.

[00:04:15.420] – Allan

You put the work in.

[00:04:16.190] – Rachel

Yes. Doing the work. Making progress. That's right.

[00:04:19.650] – Allan

It's not luck. This is dedication and investment.

[00:04:25.630] – Rachel

Absolutely. My trainer has been really great, so it's definitely paying off.

[00:04:30.850] – Allan

Good. All right, well, you want to have this conversation with Kara?

[00:04:34.670] – Rachel

Sure.

Interview

[00:05:17.080] – Allan

Dr. Fitzgerald, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:05:20.050] – Dr. Fitzgerald

It's great to be with you today.

[00:05:23.050] – Allan

I'm going to admit I'm a health geek. That's why I do what I do. And your book Younger You: Reduce Your Bio Age and Live Longer Better. I so geeked out on this book. I don't want to scare anybody away. It is a great book for a geek, but it's also very easy to understand. You've written things in a way that anyone can go through and kind of pull this together and say, hey, all those words that were out there that used to just kind of confuse me, they now make so much more sense.

[00:05:59.350] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Got it. So appreciative to hear that. That's very high praise. We worked hard. Kate Hanley worked with me in writing this, and she really got in there and translated so that it is understandable and the analogies make sense and people can do it. So thank you.

[00:06:16.470] – Allan

Now one of the quotes, the good books. I'll just say when I find a good book, I'll usually find something in it like this, just this nugget of quote. Typically a quote or it might be a stat, but usually a quote that I'll say, okay, this is important, and this is something that needs to be shared over and over and over again. And here's the quote I'm taking from your book. When you give your body what it needs without beating it over the head with Pharmaceuticals, synthetic hormones, you empower your body's own innate wisdom to lead the way. And that is such a powerful statement.

[00:06:53.610] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah. Just allow trusting the body wisdom.

[00:06:57.640] – Allan

Yeah. And your younger you program. That's exactly what you're doing.

[00:07:01.500] – Dr. Fitzgerald

That's right.

[00:07:02.460] – Allan

So I want to start out with some definitions because this is a technical issue. When you start talking about genetics, we're not talking about carbs and protein and fat, and we're not talking about bench presses and barbell curls and things like that. Those are complicated for a lot of people. But when you start getting into genetics and epigenetics and those things, it can seem very intimidating to someone that didn't study this or isn't really comfortable with the science of all of this. Can we talk about chronological age versus biological age or bio age?

[00:07:38.980] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah, absolutely. It's simple. Chronological age is how many years we've been here on the planet. You can't change it no matter how much we might want to be 29 again, we're not changing that. Biological age is really the measurement of our physiologic age, how healthy we are, what our wear and tear looks like. Are we breaking down faster physically than our chronological age, or are we breaking down more slowly? And obviously, we want the latter.

[00:08:15.880] – Allan

Yes. And in the book, you give us some references to places we can go to get this done, like in a lab situation. But you also give us some easy tests, like just take this test and this will give you a general idea, plus or minus how well you're doing. So I appreciate you making that easy for someone to go out there and just say, okay, Where's my starting point? And then after going through some of this, actually be able to see progress, because progress is what makes us what motivates us to keep doing these things. So I appreciate that being a part of this book.

[00:08:47.240] – Dr. Fitzgerald

We have it online now. So that biological age subjective questionnaire you're referring to is online. And I'll give you the link. It's youngeryouprorogram.com, and then you can just do it yourself. Easy peasy. And as many times as you want. And it is fun and it is illuminating.

[00:09:04.330] – Allan

Now, let's talk about what genes are and what epigenetics is.

[00:09:11.320] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah. Okay. And I want to make sure that I fold into that at some point how we actually measure biological age, because that's tucked into this epigenetic conversation. Our genes are hardware basically. They're just kind of tucked into the nucleus of the cell, really not doing anything unless they're called upon to turn on. So we've got about 23000 genes, far, far less actually than most plants. Our genome is relatively simple. And when we mapped the genome out back in the early two thousands, there was a belief that we were going to be able to find a genetic cause for all of the chronic diseases that we are swamped with. And upon completion of the genome, it was clear that it was too simplistic of a goal and that ushered in the era of epigenetics or epigenomics. Epigenetics has been around for a long time, but there's a lot of attention here now. And what that is epic is above and genetics is our genetic material. So above the genetic material or how we regulate genetic expression. And this is where the rubber meets the road. This is how our diet and lifestyle habits, our mental and emotional experience, our stress, our toxins, et cetera, all of these things that we're interested in in the health space, it influences genetic expression.

[00:10:57.850] – Dr. Fitzgerald

And you're looking at those changes right here in epigenetics. So it's where environment meets genetics.

[00:11:07.030] – Allan

The way I kind of understand it is okay. I used to think a gene was either on or off, but as I understand, it's sort of like a dimmer switch and the epigenetic aspects of it are kind of okay, is this more on, more off or all the way off or all the way on? And some of these genes, like you talk about tumor suppression genes that over time kind of get turned more off, more off, more off as we get older or as we deal with toxins or we just don't take care of ourselves. So the epigenetics aspect of it is really kind of almost toggling on how much is the gene working versus not working?

[00:11:41.740] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah, perfect. That's exactly right.

[00:11:43.990] – Allan

It's different then I can't toggle my different colors by messing with my epigenetics. Some of these things are hardwired, but a lot of the health aspect things that we're seeing, like cancers and other diseases of age, mostly diseases of age and lifestyle, we're seeing those are controlled by epigenetics.

[00:12:02.290] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yes, that's right.

[00:12:04.790] – Allan

Okay, now you're diving one layer deeper. Okay. So we're going to take this next step down and this is a very important step because this is the basis for how you've organized everything you do, and that is DNA methylation. Can you first tell us what methylation is and then what is DNA methylation?

[00:12:25.220] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah. So methylation is a process that's happening and really everywhere in the body pretty much all of the time. This isn't scientifically correct, but it's like oxygen. We know we need to be breathing all of the time or will die. Methylation is like that ubiquitous and really maybe more so. And it's a methyl group is a carbon with three hydrogens. It's very simple, very fundamental. We're making methyl groups in the methylation cycle, and then they are carted off in the structure of a compound called S adenosine methionine. People might know it as Sam or CME. So this compound, CME, hangs onto a methyl group and then it goes off to the myriad enzymes that use a methyl group and just engages in a whole lot of biochemical reactions in the body. We use methylation to detox. We use methylation to make hormones, things like adrenaline or dopamine or noradrenaline. What else do we use methylation for? To make really important fatty acid associated compounds like phosphatidyl choline, and choline? You know, just on and on. I think at last count there were over 300 reactions requiring a methyl group.

[00:13:53.290] – Allan

Okay. So the way I like to look at this, just from a simplistic and maybe it's not simplistic, but to me it's simplistic because I didn't grow up around computers, but I spent a lot of time with computers is I look at genes is kind of being like you said, it's sort of the hardware and the operating system. You bought an IBM, you're an IBM or you're an Apple. You operate a certain way. And then the epigenetics is sort of the software we decided to put in there. So do I want to do graphics work and I'm going to be over here doing cad and working with drawings and things like that, or am I going to do crunch big numbers and do spreadsheets and databases? So you use a different software that is going on in that sort of deciding how you're operating and you're doing things. And the methylation is the data entry. It's the bits and pieces that go in there to say, okay, so if this, then that well, now what's the if? What was that if? And it's like if you ate whole food, then this, if you ate crap, then this.

[00:14:50.270] – Allan

And so the software is already there and we're affecting the DNA methylation, hitting that kind of stuff with our lifestyle and our food and everything else.

[00:15:02.530] – Dr. Fitzgerald

That's interesting. I haven't thought of it in that way, and I'll have to ponder it a little bit. There are a lot of biochemical processes involved in epigenetics, involved in gene regulation, and DNA methylation is one of them. So I have to ponder your analogy. At a glance, really it makes sense, but it's one of the software programs and I think it's one of the big guys software programs to regulate what's going on in us.

[00:15:38.650] – Allan

Okay, now you have a formula in there, and this formula, I think, kind of helps us drive how we approach this whole your whole younger you program is built on.

[00:15:48.360] – Allan

Okay. We've got this group of things. We got to think about this group of things and this group of things. So you put them into three buckets, but it's a plus plus plus. And then that's going to equal where you are with your younger you. First is methyl donors, which, as I understand, is basically things that are going to help, that are going to be donating the things that are going to go into that process, the DNA methylation adaptogens, which are going to kind of be the enzyme, but things are going to make that happen. And then the lifestyle practices that are going to define how well it happens.

[00:16:21.910] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yes. So donors help with fundamental methylation. We need to be effectively methylating all the time, and we need to supply the body with the ingredients in order to do that. And as we age, we actually do it way less efficiently. The adaptogens are foods or compounds that sort of direct where they go. And I think that that's what you said. And our lifestyle pieces also influence what is happening at DNA methylation as well. So maybe they're refinements. I look at them as further all important support in regulating optimal genetic expression.

[00:17:06.070] – Allan

My thought process goes like this. It's like I can't really control methyl donors. It's not like I could have a switch on my shoulder or something. It's like turn it on or turn it off or make it move here, make it move. The same thing with the methylation adaptogens, but the lifestyle practices, I have a little bit more control now. I do have control of my food, which is where a lot of these donors and adaption come from. So let's talk a little bit.

[00:17:30.910] – Dr. Fitzgerald

They do. They all do. So, I mean, I would challenge you on that. I would say you do have control over what you're putting in your mouth.

[00:17:37.910] – Allan

Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about the food. You have a lot of different aspects to it that I think are really important. Can you talk about food and this approach and why it's giving us the methyl donors and the DNA methylation adaptions?

[00:17:59.350] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah. So going back to that first quote about giving our body the ingredients it needs for optimal chain expression, our food is information. It's extraordinarily complex information, actually. Scientists are really just unpacking it. They were just learning how extraordinary it is. And it's not just the isolated ingredients. It's the interaction between the ingredients that are on your fork and then the interactions with your gut, microbiome, et cetera. It's just the food matrix is beautiful and extraordinary. And my appreciation is always sort of expanded as the science grows. So we want to be consuming foods. So we want to be consuming these methyl donors that we need a lot of instead of an isolated vitamins. Actually, I shouldn't say instead of because there are times when we need isolated vitamins. So I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting we stop isolated vitamins as needed, but eating as many in a food matrix will yield more bang for our buck. And so that means leafy Greens, that means spinach, that means kale, asparagus. That means mushrooms like shiitake or Inake that are just maitake that are just loaded with Folate and B.12 If you can do it, have some eggs.

[00:19:29.650] – Dr. Fitzgerald

If you're a fan of eating eggs, eggs are loaded with choline, beets. I try to have a couple of small beets every day. They're packed with the methyl support nutrient Batine. Another methyl donor superfood is liver. We like people to do about three servings of liver per week, so not loads. And the eggs we look at in a weekly serving as well. So you don't have to have them every day, but maybe five to ten eggs per week. We do have a vegetarian/vegan program that one can follow. We just didn't do our research study on it. So you'll have to stay tuned. We're actually continuing to research. So stay tuned there. But this original study was used using animal products. So those are methylation adaptogens. And then those are the methyl donors foods, and then the methylation adaptogens. These are the beautiful polyphenols that seem to direct how the methyl donors behave and where they go. Top ones include green tea, the catechins egcgb most famous. Rosemarynic acid, and Rosemary, quercetin, curcumin, luteolin. What else? Resveratrol. All of the beautiful compounds and blueberries and berries in general. So think andanal methane, sulforaphane.

[00:20:57.800] – Dr. Fitzgerald

So cruciferous vegetables. We want you to just be just fill your cup with these nutrients. And I think together they just pack a really profound punch. So I'll just stop there and see if you can.

[00:21:09.730] – Allan

No, that's great, because a couple of things that are there is yes. If you eat keto, if you eat vegetarian, if you eat Paleo, if you eat Mediterranean, all of these stack on top of the way that you're approaching this. But you're just saying there's some very core things here. High quality whole food. You didn't say Twinkies or Twiskets or anything like that. These are high quality whole foods. It is plant forward because a lot of these methyl donors and the adaptogens that we need, they're going to come from plants. In fact, I think this week was the first time I've ever bought fresh Rosemary in my entire life.

[00:21:52.650] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Well, good. Oh, it's great. Cool.

[00:21:56.150] – Allan

And a lot of the foods that you mentioned, I love. I love beets, I love liver. And so those are normal things. But it just kind of reminds me to make sure that they're in the rotation enough that I'm getting enough methyl donors. As you say, one thing that I think is going to be kind of interesting to a lot of people is that your approach is sort of keto leaning, not necessarily all the way to ketosis all the time, but at least leaning towards keto and utilizing intermittent fasting.

[00:22:23.650] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yes.

[00:22:24.220] – Allan

So why are those two a part of this? What do they do?

[00:22:27.780] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Well, we know that ketones are extremely helpful. Before I jump into the answer those two questions, I just want to underline the comment that you made about how stackable this is. We used this in clinic practice years before we got to research it. And so we layered these principles into the myriad very individualized diet program. So if we had a strict keto protein restricted keto with a cancer patient, we could layer in these principles. If we have somebody with profound allergies or on a fodmap or any of the myriad diets that one might use in clinic practice or even out in the world, that the diets that people might be exploring, these principles are designed to be layerable layerable layerable. This is not exclusive. The only time you might consider doing this and following it exclusively is if you really want to get the results from our study. And that's an eight week chunk of time. And so that's when I would say.

[00:23:31.930] – Allan

But it is a reduction of over three years of bio ages which you are finding in your study. It is eight weeks and it's restrictive and it's intensive. It's called intensive. We're going to talk about it a little bit more detail later, but it has some pretty profile. At least it was a small group. But to be fair, pretty profound findings from just that small trial in just eight weeks. I think anyone here can sit there and say, I can do anything for eight weeks, particularly if you see the benefits that I think you'll see if you do this. And then the other side of it is if you're eating a certain way and you hear about some of these other foods, you might have thought, okay, well, I'm in keto, and beets are root vegetables, so therefore I shouldn't be eating them. You can still stay in ketosis and eat beets. I do it all the time. It's just a function of being aware of how much you're eating, how many carbs you're taking it and what your tolerance is. And if you get your insulin resistance under control, which is a part of what this diet does as a part of the anti-aging aspects of it, you will probably be able to tolerate more natural sugars from things like beets.

[00:24:39.310] – Dr. Fitzgerald

That's exactly right. That's a great point. Yeah, right. Absolutely. And you can figure out when you may consider eating your beets, perhaps after you've done something cardio. And we're not talking about a ton of beets. I think two medium beets a day, so you can cut them in quarters and just have a bite of beet if you're working with blood sugar issues. So ketone bodies are important. I think epigenetic signal molecules. And I think the data around ketones as epigenetic regulators is just emerging. So they're included. We wanted it to be keto leaning for that reason, but also just the potent anti inflammatory potential of having background ketones, their brain fuel. I mean, they just serve so many having some circulating ketones, having our bodies exposed to some circulating ketones daily, even for a limited period, I think is really important in long term health and longevity.

[00:25:49.150] – Allan

When someone gets the metabolic flexibility to be able to use Ketones in addition to glucose, what I found is that the cravings for glucose go away because the energy source is always there. We carry enough body fat to pretty much function for a long time. And we already have enough blood sugar and basic available sugar to last us for a couple of hours of even intermediate level work. So for most of us, if we get that metabolic flexibility, we're not constantly hungry, not constantly hungry. And so having the ability to utilize Ketones gives us that capacity to choose give us some freedom. For a lot of people, then that also leads into the intermittent fasting and how easy it becomes once you're adapted to using Ketones.

[00:26:39.770] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah, that's right. And of course, we know that Longo has done lots of research and data continue to come out showing the benefits of different fasting structures. And we wanted something doable. We didn't want this study to be about intermittent fasting or fasting. We really wanted this program to be easy to be doable for a large population. So it's 12 hours on, 12 hours off. It's very gentle. But the data on fasting, on time restricted eating and biological age is just growing. And I think it's good. It's impressive.

[00:27:20.020] – Allan

Yes. And these are not extremes and these are not low calories. Eat cardboard stuff.

[00:27:28.390] – Dr. Fitzgerald

That's right.

[00:27:29.310] – Allan

You're eating healthy, high quality foods. You're not trying to blast your body with a bunch of supplements. You're supplementing as necessary. So this time of year up north, probably some vitamin D if you're vegan, probably some vitamin B12. Just kind of making sure that you're putting the right things in your body. If you can't get it from your nutrition or your body can't make it itself, then you do some supplements.

[00:27:56.960] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah, we do. In our study, it was very simple. We didn't want to lean on supplements. But I agree with you. And there's actually in the book there's a supplement section in the book where I talk about just some workhorse nutrients, as you said, like vitamin D or if you're vegan, B12, and possibly iron in some circumstances, fish oil. There are some basic things we want in our background if we're not adequately consuming them in the diet or if we're not consuming them at all. But in the study, we only used a Greens powder to get just another little hit of those all important polyphenols that I mentioned. And we used a probiotic Lactobacillus Plantarum. And the reason we use Lactobacillus plantarum is this particular strain has some nice science on it for a variety of healthy gut reasons. But it's also been shown to be able to increase bacterial production of folate. And we make a lot we make a ton of vitamins. A healthy gut makes lots of vitamins that we need. And we know. So beyond just making vitamins. We know that the microbiome regulates host epigenetics, and it plays a lot of roles and it's just continually being unpacked.

[00:29:10.700] – Dr. Fitzgerald

We're just starting to wrap our arms around it. So we know that a healthy gut microbiome is an essential component. So those were just the only two things we used in our study.

[00:29:19.240] – Allan

Yeah. There were a couple of things that I took away as you got into this as far as supplementing and things like something as simple as put your mushrooms out in the sun for a little while and they'll have some more vitamin D.

[00:29:30.090] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Isn't that cool? Like an easy mushroom hack? Yes.

[00:29:33.740] – Allan

Just put it out there. If you got high quality sun, put it out there for an hour or so. If you can put it out there longer and it's going to soup up the vitamin D you can get from those mushrooms. Also, you talk a little bit about how folate but typically when we get a supplement for folate, we're getting folic acid, which is problematic.

[00:29:55.330] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah. I do want to acknowledge that food folic acid fortification, grain fortification has reduced birth defects in this country and other countries. So we have to acknowledge that public health success. But we also have to acknowledge that that means there are some people get ingesting a lot of folate, be it folic acid and fortified foods or the other so in grains, but also in milk, in alternative milks. And it's a huge issue how much fortification goes on. If you buy soy or almond or cashew milk, etc. That's been any degree processed, it will be fortified with various vitamins. And so we need to keep our eyes open. Folate exists in a U curve. And actually, let me finish the folic gas piece first. Folic acid is synthetic. It's not bioidentical to the folates that we use. And so it has to be active. And I think your listeners probably know you've talked about this I'm sure that it takes a few steps. It takes more steps, and we don't all activate it equally well. And circulating folic acid has been associated with issues as far as DNA methylation goes, imbalanced methylation isn't going to come from folic acid, though, so I don't follow that thread in the book too far.

[00:31:20.230] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Imbalanced DNA methylation can come from folic acid has to be activated into a body usable, a bio dentical form, and then it could go on to influence DNA methylation. So any excess forms of any I think isolated vitamins can in some people probably be problematic. And it is not black and white. This does not mean that you throw your supplements out at all, but it does mean that you recognize if there's excess and you're paying attention and if you're taking isolated vitamins, you're doing it for a reason. You know why you're taking that much? Are you taking it long term? If so, why is someone managing that, et cetera, in the age of epigenetics. So in the Omics era, where we can see our genome, our microbiome or epigenome, et cetera, in this era, we are able to see nutrients, lifestyle vitamins, influence on our physiology more than at any other time. And because of this, I don't think we can any longer say we'll pee out the vitamins we don't use, et cetera. I think we need to be a little bit more mindful.

[00:32:35.890] – Allan

Yeah. And you're wasting money

[00:32:39.010] – Dr. Fitzgerald

right.

[00:32:43.450] – Allan

so let's jump into some of the lifestyle things. And in there, you had pretty much four things. And the reason I want to talk about these four things, in addition, is this is the message that we hear over and over. You can take this back to Buettner when he was talking about blue zones. Doctor Day, the probably the last, I would say the last ten episodes if we didn't talk about these four or five things. We talked about food, we talked about exercise, we talked about we talked about stress management in some cases we talked about toxins, which I kind of lump in with stress management. So it's emotional stress or actual chemical stress and then social connection. Those four things, exercise, sleep, stress management, and social connection are so important. But they're affecting us at this level. They're at this level. This is not just, oh, I feel tired because I didn't sleep. We're doing something to DNA methylation.

[00:33:39.450] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yes, it's pretty crazy. So here we are in this era where we can see what the heck is happening. And, yeah, we need these lifestyle practices for a reason. We evolved moving our bodies. We evolved getting a certain amount of sleep, and you can see that people. So originally it was animal studies. There are animals and human studies, but most still are animal. But just one poor sleep session. In an animal model, damages the central nervous systems. There's neuronal damage, the regeneration of neurons or the maintenance of neurons. It becomes problematic. And we see in humans insomnia being very proaging, as measured by DNA methylation. So sleep is important. And then just going beyond specifically looking at DNA methylation. So we see that it's disruptive there, but we see that poor sleep is linked to all of the chronic diseases, which are all fueled by aging. So it comes full circle. So, yeah, it's essential for us to get sufficient sleep for those of us who want a healthy longevity and a good health plan to go with our longevity, we really need to be considering sleep. We need to prioritize it. I talked a lot about sleep in my book and how to do it because I was a bad sleeper.

[00:35:08.190] – Dr. Fitzgerald

I think of all of the components of our program. Sleep was the hardest for me. And so how did I improve it? It was a lot of little steps. Probably the biggest one was going to bed early enough to actually allow my body to get 8 hours and not staying up in this anxious state of ‘oh my gosh, I'm not going to fall asleep' and we're going to talk about meditation in a minute. That's a great way to bring the body down into a sleep place. Making sure my room is dark enough. I put an air conditioner in the window in my bedroom so the rest of my house wouldn't be cold to turning down the central air because I sleep better in a really cold room. I think most people do, so just little hacks along the way can add up to good quality sleep. I love using a sleep tracker. I wear an aura ring that motivates me because I'm a data Hound. I like looking at it. I feel excited when I get sufficient deep sleep and REM. And I can also track did I exercise too late? When I exercise a little bit too late, my heart rate doesn't drop and I tend to be a less efficient sleeper.

[00:36:16.210] – Dr. Fitzgerald

I'll have more disruption if I exercise in the morning. However, I can really get fabulous sleep, so it helps me, but there's a timing component and I just kind of move through some of those things when I wake up at night. So I have a toddler at home. Honestly, I wake up most nights with her and then I need to be able to fall back to sleep. And one of the ways that I've done that actually an important tool. I got this from her, right? I would play white noise for her or rain sounds, et cetera. And I just started doing that for myself. And now it really makes a difference when I need to kind of bring myself back down into sleep in the middle of the night when I've been woken up.

[00:36:56.170] – Allan

Yeah, I also use the white noise and keep the room cool. Now that my wife is menopause, she agrees with me. The room should be colder. Before we were ten degrees difference in where we wanted the temperature of the room to be. We're much closer now, but it is that what is something. And so mine was an internal dialogue. Meditation, if you will. It's a very different thing and that I just visualize myself doing something. At first I was struggling with stress of being under a house, a dad of a house, and then it's very expensive house. We're having troubles with contractors and everything. So it was stressing me out. I actually was laying there when I think that I'm under the house, but it's on sand and so all I have to do is just start digging and I would dig out and I would see blue light and then I would feel the Sunshine, smell the air, hear the noises of the waves and the birds. And then I'd climb out and I'd start walking and I'd be asleep. And what I found was every morning then I found myself. It gets easier and easier to dig out.

[00:38:06.640] – Allan

I'd be out and I'd be walking down the beach earlier, and I would sleep better. And then one night I was just already standing on the beach.

[00:38:15.190] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Well, that's pretty cool.

[00:38:16.400] – Allan

And so I'm not going to call it a dream as much as just when I was just sitting there thinking about my state of mind and where I needed to be and where I was and what was going to take it was going to take me digging through the sand. And so every night I would just kind of mentally dig myself through the sand and just say, okay, this is easy. I'm just digging through sand. I can do this. Blue light. Okay, great. I'm moving in the right direction. I'm doing the right things. And then I'm asleep. So it's just for me, it was a unique thing. Now I don't have that house. I don't have those problems. So now I just visualize myself.

[00:38:48.460] – Dr. Fitzgerald

And you live on a beach.

[00:38:49.550] – Allan

I live on a beach, but I've just visualize myself somewhere I want to be that I would enjoy. And I start thinking about the sun on my face and how that warmth feels and how the air smells fresh and you can just kind of feeling in the waves and all of that. When you start doing that, it kind of clears your brain of anything else because you're trying to sensory perceive yourself somewhere. Everything else just falls apart. So if there's things that are bothering you over the day, it's like that guy cut me off in traffic. Damn it. I should have got his driver's license. He should have his plate number and turn them into you're not thinking about that anymore. You're thinking about the sun on your face, or maybe you like skiing and it's the brisk and the cold and you can see your breath and those types of things. For me, the big point of sleep is to just find a way to turn and yes, white noise is a big part of that, too.

[00:39:42.910] – Dr. Fitzgerald

I think the take home what you're doing, it just sounds perfect, is that we can succeed at this for people who have struggled with insomnia. And I am right there. Stress induced insomnia, like what you're talking about. I've absolutely struggled or just being woken up a lot because of my daughter. But both varieties, simple steps, we can do it. And there are times I know we have other areas to talk about, but I want to just say that because I know people listening are going to say this or think this any insomniacs out there. Yeah, that won't work for me. Yeah, that won't work for me. There's just this discouragement. And I've also been there. And the fact of the matter is it can work for you if you continue to return yourself to whatever the exercise is like. Ok. If you return yourself to the stand and to the blue light, and then your mind goes right back to being under the house and stuck under that debt. It's so overwhelming. Then just return. It is a meditation practice. It's not like a meditation practice. It is, but you just have to keep with it.

[00:41:01.050] – Dr. Fitzgerald

I'm sure there were times when you didn't do when you failed at it, and then you'd have to keep returning.

[00:41:06.080] – Allan

Yeah. Other things were going on. Yeah. And then I'd get stuck again. But the other thing I found was, okay, if there's something you can't do, what's important is for you to focus on what you can do. So if when I injured my shoulder. Okay, well, I couldn't exercise the way I wanted to exercise, but I could exercise some ways. I didn't feel like I was making the progress, but I could really focus on my nutrition. I could really start focusing on my stress if I can't be in the gym for an hour and a half, because that's what I enjoy doing now, my basic workout because I can't work parts of my upper body. My workout was done in an hour. I now have a half an hour. What do I do? I go home and I sit down and I just do a quick meditation, a 15,20 minutes meditation before I take my shower. And I use that 30 minutes to change something or I made sure I made good meal prep. So I know my lunch is packed and everything is ready to go. So I've had a good breakfast. I'm going to have a good, healthy lunch.

[00:42:03.740] – Allan

And so it's just do what you can with what you have, where you are.

[00:42:07.160] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yes, that's right. Amen to that. Okay. Do we want to move on?

[00:42:13.880] – Allan

Yes, we're going to move on. But the only reason I said is I want to back up a little bit because earlier I talked about the software piece, and you got the hardware with the operating system, the software and the data. And in my mind, the food, the exercise, the sleep, the stress management and the social connections. That's all information. And the information is not just something that's out there. It literally goes to your genes. It goes to the expression of your genes. It's the information that makes that stuff happen, good or bad.

[00:42:43.880] – Dr. Fitzgerald

That's right. That's exactly right.

[00:42:45.330] – Allan

You talk a lot about trauma in the book and how trauma carries forward all the way to our DNA to the point that we can take it forward to the next generation.

[00:42:53.470] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah.

[00:42:54.090] – Allan

So this is not a little thing. This is the information that drives your life. And it potentially is driving future generation. A lot of us are not of age where we're going to have children again. But just be thinking about it in terms of your daughter's, son looking at having children. If they start using some of these practices, they're setting that child up for a much better future because their DNA is made of their DNA, which means that all that encoding is some of it's going over. And the more we can clean that up now, the better.

[00:43:29.490] – Dr. Fitzgerald

That's right. And we do the best we can. And it does exist on a continuum. So you can see changes after one healthy meal or one exercise event. But clearly you're going to see stronger and more deeply rooted favorable changes on DNA methylation or the epigenome with continued practice. I just want to say, because it's so cool, is there's a study looking at exercise and the heritability of that and you've can pass some of those beneficial genetic changes down. I just think it's so cool. I mean, we know this for food, and I think trauma has been probably better studied than almost anything the heritability of trauma. But it's just if you're doing your crunches and you're going to conceive, I mean, go you. You're doing your power lifting or whatever, you can hand some of that down and actually just thinking about exercising in older people, they get more of an epigenetic bang for their buck than younger folks. So you had brought up those tumor suppressor genes. These are cancer fighters in our body. And as we age or if we have cancer, these genes get really kind of turned off. And exercise helps with re-expression. So it's neat. It acts like a methylation adaptogen.

[00:44:52.370] – Allan

So now I want to quickly talk about alcohol because you talked about an adaptogen and everybody thinks, oh, great, I can have a few glasses of wine every night and all I'm doing is putting antioxidants in my body and I'm good. Maybe the story is not that clean.

[00:45:13.420] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah, it's not. Sorry, guys. I feel for you. I'm not a drinker at all. But I appreciate people who want to have a drink. It inhibits methylation. I mean, it's not via a variety of mechanisms. It kind of shuts methylation down. So I think if you're going to drink well, if you want to do our intensive and if you want to get that three year biological age reversal that we got on our study participants, just like offers eight weeks, just eight weeks after that, we've got an everyday program that you can resume drinking if you like to, but it's modest. We don't want you pounding back the sauce a lot because you will mess with methylation and DNA methylation. You can have some wine. So have some dark red. I think it's helped. That's a good variety, a good type. Have it be low glycemic or do some clean, gluten free vodka or something like that. But keep it modest. And maybe if you're into it, consider having an extra serving of some methyl donor food that you particularly like in conjunction with that. Just to support it.

[00:46:29.430] – Allan

Let's get a little into the program, because what I really liked and part of the reason that your book is as thick as it is is that you gave us every tool imaginable to make this manageable for everybody. Meaning there is an intensive program you recommend eight weeks. That's how your study was designed and got great benefits. There is an everyday version, which is kind of a light version of this is a little bit more leeway to do some things. But even in the book, you talk about how you can walk your way into this by just picking one or two things to do a little differently and get there. You provide meal plans. If someone wants to follow something stringent, you give us kind of guidelines. If we want to have a little bit more give and take of eating the kind of foods in a way we want to, you show us how we can layer it across different ways of eating, like vegan, vegetarian, keto, Mediterranean paleo, which pretty much is already paleo if you really map it out.

[00:47:31.210] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah.

[00:47:31.790] – Allan

And then at the end, you give us a bunch of recipes to kind of make all this work and shopping list. So you didn't leave anything out. It's like you literally take the shopping list going, okay, here's the recipe to make this dish. This is my meal plan for the week. And quite literally, you've laid everything out. It made the book over 490 pages, I think. It's weightlifting, just think of it that way. You pick it up off the ground, use your legs. It's a big book, but it's got everything in there to kind of walk us through this program. So is there anything else you want to talk about with the program that someone should know?

[00:48:11.410] – Dr. Fitzgerald

I appreciate you highlighting that because I have an amazing nutrition team in my clinic practice. We have a nutrition internship program that's world recognized, and it's competitive. So we get just the best and the brightest nutritionists. And they did a lot of the heavy lifting and establishing our recipes and doing tasting and establishing the macro and the micronutrient on each of the recipes. And we worked so hard together as a team. And I just always need to give them a shout out. And our founding nutrition director, Ronald Hodges, actually worked on birthing our original program back in 2015, 2016. And so, yeah, it's been built by really brilliant minds. And so they'll certainly appreciate you just giving all of this work, this hard work a call out. In fact, you're the first person who really has brought it to light.

[00:49:08.510] – Allan

No honest truth. I've done over 325 of these interviews, and almost every one of them, they'll do their book and they'll have a plan or program eat these foods, do eat this way, and then they follow it up about a year later with a cookbook. So you bought the first book and now you buy the cookbook. So if they have a best seller with the first book, then the cookbook is going to be a best seller, too. That's typically the way that math works. You've just put both books together, but you've done it very well in that it's completely thought out. I'm not going to say it's dummy proof because you still have to go to the grocery store. You still have to find these things. You still have to Cook it. All those are good things. This is going to teach about nutrition. This is going to teach you about cooking. You're going to have some delicious. And I wish I had been in the tasting rooms when you guys are putting these dishes together. You guys had some great meals, I'm sure.

[00:50:03.450] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Yeah, we did. They're so good and they're satiating. I want to say that the dummy proof program is in the app, so you can link to that in the show notes. It's the three YY program, but you can find it at younger youth program. You can find a link to the book and then a link to the app. And that's where we'll really hold your hand through doing it. And then all of the sort of next generation younger you content that we're interested in will be in the app. And actually, we're going to continue to research in the app. So if anybody is interested in participating, that's where you want to go. I want to say one more piece here. Just given your appreciation of this nutrition component and the attention we gave. So we ended up needing to create. I just had to and I'm so glad the publishers let us kind of nudge it in what we call the younger you hybrid. It's half the intensive layered some of the everyday principles in. It's for when you're getting ready to conceive for men and women, because if you read the book, you'll see men in the world of epigenetics, yeah you're a big player in what happens with your baby, both in utero while your partner is carrying the baby.

[00:51:20.260] – Dr. Fitzgerald

But then the genetic expression pattern that they inherit, you play a huge role here. So how do we prepare for conception, men and women? What do we want to be thinking about during pregnancy and breastfeeding? And so we designed this younger you hybrid for that. It just seemed such a hugely important time in DNA methylation and demethylation. It's such a huge important time that I just couldn't leave it out of the book. So that information is in there as well.

[00:51:53.920] – Allan

So it's going to be a great reference for you today, for your kids today, for your grandkids, tomorrow. Now, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:52:08.350] – Dr. Fitzgerald

I love it. I love that. I think that's just such a beautiful, you know what? If somebody's going to be the healthiest fittest and happiest, I think that they're going to be epigenetically young as well. When I read your definition and just sat with it, what I thought was get into the driver's seat of your genetic expression. When we age in this country, in the United States, the final 16 years, we have at least one diagnosis and most of us have two. We're on multiple medications. We end up turning over our life savings and all of our hard work to Pharma, to skilled nursing care facilities, to hospitalizations. Like all of our hard existence, we just fork it over to the medical establishment. And it's just so sad to me. So aging is the biggest risk factor for all of these chronic diseases that we just want to avoid with every fiber of our being. And it looks like these diseases, the whole aging journey, take over our genetic expression like they get in the driver's seat. And so I would say that we want to be in the driver's seat of our genetic expression.

[00:53:31.840] – Dr. Fitzgerald

We want to take it back from these chronic diseases. We want to take it back from the aging process and do it. This program will allow you to do that. So I would say bathe your genes in methyl donors and adapt in the healthy way we outline. Get enough sleep, exercise, and well, this is more I'm going beyond your three, but community connection would be the final.

[00:54:01.570] – Allan

Right. Dr. Fitzgerald, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book Younger You, the Younger You program and the app that you spoke about, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:54:15.250] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Very simple. It's just youngeryouprogram.com.

[00:54:19.500] – Allan

Great. Well, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/526, and I'll be sure to have all the links there.

[00:54:26.540] – Allan

Dr. Fitzgerald, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:54:30.340] – Dr. Fitzgerald

Oh, it was my pleasure. It was really great talking with you today.


Post Show/Recap

Post show with Rach

[00:54:40.970] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:54:42.470] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. What a really interesting conversation with Dr. Fitzgerald. We've always been told how eating and moving and all these lifestyle changes are good for our health, but now it sounds like the science is out there to kind of prove it. As far as our genetics go.

[00:54:59.470] – Allan

Yeah. I think people feel like they are genetically wired to be a certain way.

[00:55:05.520] – Rachel

Right.

[00:55:05.860] – Allan

Obviously, you have blue eyes or you have Brown eyes and that we know why that happens, but there's a lot of things out there that are not so solid state, and they can be changed over time through the process called epigenetics. And the mechanics for that is this process called DNA methylation. And so basically what she's showing us here is that the lifestyle and the food all blend into that communication. It's the information that drives our epigenetics that makes our genes do what they're there to do. We used to buy an IBM computer. It had all these little dip switches on the back. So you'd read the manual and you'd set the dip switches for different things. And it felt very complex. And of course, they made software that started doing that stuff. And now with data, you can say, okay, and I'm user Allan or you're user Tammy on the computer. And it's a whole different experience. And so it's just the complexity of all that is there in our genes. So it's just a function of saying if you do the right things and she goes into detail in the book how to do that with her program, then you're going to be able to slow the aging curve and be biologically younger.

[00:56:33.420] – Allan

And it's fascinating with how quickly some of that change can be seen and measured as far as your genetic age, your bio age, it can be flipped really quickly.

[00:56:48.530] – Rachel

Yeah, it was really fascinating how you described it as also a dimmer switch. You're right. I've got Brown eyes and Brown hair. But our overall health can kind of vacillate. It can kind of change based on our lifestyle habits.

[00:57:05.450] – Allan

Yeah. Well, it's things that we knew. We knew genes were going to drive us to be certain limits, certain things. And we knew that, okay. If you have a particular gene, when they first started doing the coding of that and getting the whole code, the map of the human genome, when they started putting that all together and it took a long time and a lot of money, they thought they were going to have the answer to everything. They thought that this $3 billion in years and years put into this program to get the first one done and now $100, $125, you can have that done over the course of a week or so. But that didn't answer all the questions. And then they realized, well, okay, jeans can be turned on and turn off is what the initial premise was. For a long time, that's what we thought. And now they're realizing, no, some genes are always on. Brown hair, Brown eyes. Some genes are set on dimmer switches. And those ones that are on these, like dimmer switches, we have some control over based on things that we do, what we eat, our stress management, our movement, social connections.

[00:58:26.690] – Allan

And if we put good practices in, we put good food in, it's this information that goes in and says, hey, slow this process down and speed this process up. And so it allows our body to age slower. It allows our body, in some cases to reverse age biologically now, not chronologically. You're still 56 years old. I am 56 years old. So I can't reverse that. But I can reverse my biological age. If I take the time to implement these strategies that she has, you can see that difference. She can measure that difference.

[00:59:15.110] – Rachel

And the strategies are the things that we talk about all the time, which is eating high quality nutritious foods, having some level of movement, getting good sleep, reducing stress, which is not always easy, but is important. And it's all these things that make for a healthier lifestyle, which it's interesting to see that actually show in the science.

[00:59:39.490] – Allan

Well, you go back to the blue zones. I mean, when Buettner wrote The Book Blue Zones, It has to have been 15,20 years ago now, I think. But he wrote the book about why are people living past 100 in all of these different areas? And he tracked what they ate and how they lived and it was the social connection. It was low stress. It was high regular movement. Not necessarily intense stuff, but just they're walking and they're moving and they're doing stuff and then it's the food. And so you go through that process and you say, okay, if I go ahead and start improving these things, I'm going to slow my aging curve. And it goes even a little bit beyond that. It's also about not just living longer but living better. And that's also in the subtitle of the book Is that most of us will get to an age and then we'll just decline really quickly and that's the aging curve. And it's a scary slope when it starts to happen that way you can delay that and have that slope happen later in your life if you take the time to do it.

[01:00:47.450] – Allan

We live longer because it keeps us alive longer, but it doesn't keep us healthier. Medicine doesn't do that. So what we have to do is do the right things with the foods we're eating movement, the sleep, the stress, doing the things that put good information in so that the dimmer switches are turned on and off in a way that help us live longer and better.

[01:01:09.490] – Rachel

Yes, that sounds great. What a fascinating interview.

[01:01:12.500] – Allan

Yeah, it's a good book if you're interested in the science of all of this. She did a lot of research on these different things and even some of the kind of more fruitful things that are out there that you can try, but this is just a real good solid. Okay, this is how it works. Understanding this formula, you go through the process and you start trying to eliminate bad things and add good things and it works.

[01:01:39.170] – Rachel

Awesome. That sounds great.

[01:01:41.570] – Allan

All right, well, talk to you next week.

[01:01:44.130] – Rachel

Great. Take care, Allan.

[01:01:45.570] – Allan

You, too.

[01:01:46.420] – Rachel

Thank you.

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Another episode you may enjoy

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How to rock your midlife with Ellen Albertson

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Many people look at midlife as the beginning of a downward path to the end. In her book, Rock Your Midlife, Ellen Albertson shows us how to make our last chapters our best chapters.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

[00:01:34.290] – Allan

So, unfortunately, we're not going to have Rachel on the show this week. But she'll be back next week, I promise.

Interview

[00:04:58.400] – Allan

Dr. Ellen, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:05:01.130] – Dr. Ellen

Thank you, Allan. It is so awesome to be here.

[00:05:04.170] – Allan

Yeah. As you got into your story and some of the things that you've done, it's really kind of fascinating because I'm not going to say there's parallels in our lives, but it's like you were a fitness trainer and then you kind of went on and started doing coaching and doing a lot of things online and offline and just kind of building a practice, if you will. Your book is called, Rock Your Midlife: Seven Steps to Transform Yourself and Make Your Next Chapter Your Best Chapter. And I like the title well enough. But there was a quote in the book, and I have to read this quote out loud because this is pretty fascinating and really touched me in a way that I'm like, okay, this is why I do what I do. And it's this, at midlife, you're gifted with an entire second adulthood to know and love yourself on a deeper level to figure out who you are and what you want. And I just thought that's magic. If people would wrap their mind around that one quote, their midlife, the after midlife, after 50, after 40 age, suddenly they're like, hey, this isn't a downward thing I'm facing. This is an opportunity.

[00:06:17.710] – Dr. Ellen

I love that you started with that quote from my book. And thank you. I'm glad it touched you because you were sharing a little bit of your story. And I think we're both finding that I'm having a gas. I mean, I'm almost 60 and I feel fabulous. Why it's so important that there are people like yourself who are telling people, this is how you can be healthy. I've met so many people who are at the healthiest in their 40s, their 50s, even their 60s, and then deciding who do I want to be when I grew up? Because I know my story and I think a lot of us, we were like, climbing this ladder of success, but it was up against the wrong freaking building. You're clawing your way up, you're sweating, you hate going to work every day. And what you can do at midlife is take everything that you've learned, really get to know yourself, what you love to do, what your talents are, the genius you're here to share with the world and create an incredible next chapter. I think that's what we're really here to say, that we're changing the pace of midlife.

[00:07:12.070] – Dr. Ellen

It's not about crisis, it is about difficulty transformation, often with people. But you can really create an amazing 20,30 decades.

[00:07:22.750] – Allan

As I got into my journey because I was in my early, late 30s when I realized I had a massive imbalance in my life. And I was so focused on career that my relationships were sour, my family life was sour. Everything else in my life, fitness and health, everything else, I was just not even scoring zeros across the board. And then career 100. And I was like, So this is not working for me. But it took me about eight years of hitting this, trying this. And I realized one of the problems that I had the whole time through was that I was focused on an outcome of weight loss, thinking that was kind of what I needed to do. And I think most of us approach this problem of midlife. It's weight loss. And most of my clients say, hey, I need to lose weight. But the reality of it is that's a byproduct or a side effect of you actually just getting your life in order. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because you brought up that concept in here. We're focusing on the wrong problem.

[00:08:33.220] – Dr. Ellen

Right. The reason we focus on way, honestly is it's such a specific, easy metric to look at. Like, how do you measure happiness, right? Like, that's really subjective weight you get on the scale. And people are like, wow, I lost 10 pounds. I feel good about myself, but as you said, and I have a lot of clients coming to me too. The first thing they want to do is lose weight. And we start with looking at their life because the reason that they're having that threesome with Ben and Jerry's or that Chardonnay Cheddar cheese have it in the evening is because they're not enjoying their lives. And so by the time 5:00,6:00 hits cocktail hour is like the thing that makes them feel good. So during the day, we're experiencing so much stress, especially right now with so much uncertainty and the pandemic still happening. So what happens when we get these cortisol rushes all day long? All cortisol is the hormone of fight and flight. So we're feeling stressed out, we're feeling tired. We're not very happy. And rather than saying, hey, what do I need to do to manage my stress, to create a life that I love, to find purpose and meaning? We're leaning into dopamine.

[00:09:38.020] – Dr. Ellen

Dopamine is the chemical of reward. It's the sex, drugs, rock and roll, food, alcohol, gambling, shopping, all of those kinds of things. And so again, like with weight, it's easy. We lean into the dopamine. I'll just have this threesome with Ben and Jerry's. Instead of looking at my life and going, okay, what's not working? What do I need to feel more fulfilled? And so when I start to work with people, it's so interesting. We start to work from the inside out. The self talk, the self compassion, the self care, all of these things about treating yourself well and feeling like you're enough. And then come 5:00, 6:00, they're not interested in the food because they're feeling good and they're feeling energized all day, and they're giving themselves what they need throughout the day. But again, I think we're leaning into weight because we think that that's the solution. And I think there's so much in the media about these quick weight loss solutions. You'll feel good about yourself. And particularly for women, our self worth is so much based on our appearance. And when we're happier, we don't feel confident, when we don't feel very good about ourselves.

[00:10:43.070] – Dr. Ellen

But I also tell people, too, that weight needs to be an outcome, not the goal, because we don't have control over it. I've seen people, I'm sure you have as well, who are eating right, who are moving their bodies. And the scale isn't budging. They feel a Plateau. And what happens is if we make weight the focus of our journey, when the scale doesn't go down, even when we've been doing the lifestyle change, we feel bad about ourselves. And then we're just like, screw it. I'm going to go ahead and just eat whatever I want in this vicious cycle of beating yourself up and being good and then not good. And I just work with my clients. It's just like, get rid of the diet books, get rid of the weight mentality, and let's focus on health and happiness.

[00:11:27.190] – Allan

Yeah. I remember going to the gym when I was actually doing things right. And so about every third day or so, I would be on the elliptical just burning up a sweat, doing some hit training or something like that. And there was this one woman, and she'd been coming in there for roughly the same amount of time I had. She'd been in there five, six months. And every day she came in and got on the elliptical and just killed herself for the whole hour and a half I was in the gym. So one day I'm finishing up my hit training. It's 20 minutes, and then I'm done. And she just says, what are you doing? You're losing weight. You lost a lot of weight over the course the last little bit of time. And I said, well, I stopped actually paying attention to weight. I actually started paying attention to other things and things I enjoy doing and making myself be myself. And you have a seven step program that is in a big part. I think I stumbled into it. It took me eight years. Someone now can buy your book Rock at Midlife, and you pretty much have given them seven direct steps that will take them the same path.

[00:12:36.970] – Allan

Can you talk about the seven steps and briefly what each step does?

[00:12:41.170] – Dr. Ellen

Yes. And I went through it myself, too. So I've lived it. I've lived with my clients, so I didn't just get there overnight. But the first step is authenticity. And authenticity is so important because if you don't know yourself and if you're not being authentic, there's no way that you can create a midlife. The next chapter that's going to feel fulfilling and good for you. Because if you're being someone else, if you're wearing a mask, if you're trying to live someone else's story or agenda, you're going to keep running into those walls. Why don't I feel good? Why am I not enjoying my life? So what I do is I take people through this is stuff that I've worked on through my PhD and through years of working with positive psychology. Lots of journaling questions and prompts. People can ask lots of various tests that people can take. Like a lot of my clients, I have them take the VRA test, which is a test that looks at various character strengths. It's free. You can get it online to really see what am I really good at? What do I really love to do? What have I always been curious about?

[00:13:46.360] – Dr. Ellen

What did I want to be when I was a kid and sort of just really getting to know yourself, just like you would get to know a good friend. And I think a lot of people don't really take the time to figure out what do I love to do? For me, I had an older sister who is a very accomplished musician and artist, so I kind of didn't do that in my own life. But I always wanted to do more art, more music. So I just bought a ukulele. I just got myself some pencils, and I'm drawing and rediscovering these kind of varied parts of ourselves. So the first step is authenticity. Really get to know who are you? And it's also about embracing your flaws. We're not all good at everything and figuring out what am I really good at? What do I need some help? What do I love to do? What lights me up? And it's a really great initial Breadcrumb on this quest to make an amazing next chapter. That's step one. Step two is to love yourself and really learn to treat yourself like you would a good friend. And this I grew from my studies of self compassion, which I was fortunate enough to study with a woman named Kristin Neff.

[00:14:54.850] – Dr. Ellen

She's kind of a pioneer in this area. A lot of people like question, how do you love yourself? And this self compassion is really the how of loving yourself. And so it's really all about learning to treat yourself like you would a good friend. And when I start working with people, I have them think about when a friend that you love goes through something, how do you treat yourself? I'm sorry, how do you treat them? And then how do you treat yourself when you go through something? And the whole idea is to start to put yourself in those sort of befriending shoes or pretend that you had a wise friend and ask, how would she treat me? And then do that thing. So that's step two, loving yourself is such a game changer, because when you love yourself, you attract what's in your best interest. So you go to the gym, not because you're punishing yourself, but because you want to be healthy, you want to have a healthy life. Personally, I love to exercise. I don't know where we got on this whole bandwagon of exercise is punishment. I woke up this morning and I went cross country skiing first thing in the morning.

[00:15:57.720] – Dr. Ellen

It was a blast. So you start to eat right, take care of your body, get in relationships that are positive, do more things that light you up because you love and care about yourself. So that was a game changer for me. I'm curious, have you practiced much self compassionate for men? It's kind of a different ball of wax.

[00:16:13.580] – Allan

It was. And I'm going to say this word if it bothers you, if there's kids, cover their ears. But I literally thought of myself as a fat bastard. That was literally the words that were in my head as I was going through the beginning of my journey. And that was the wake up. The wake up was, who am I? And I woke up, I was actually I was hungover and I was in Malaysia. And I've been working on this for eight years, this and that, and then just failing over and over, I was back in the same spot. And I just remember waking up and thinking, why can't I do this? Because I'm so good at everything that I have ever wanted to do. I wanted to be good at football in high school, I was good at football. I tried out for the tennis team. I made the tennis team. In College and high school, if I wanted to make a grade, I made the grade. If I wanted to pass the test, I passed the test. When I wanted to get a job, I got the job. I almost had no failure. And I was like, why did that always happen?

[00:17:14.910] – Allan

And then it's not happening in this facet of my life, what is different? And then I realized I woke up. I'm like, nothing's different. The only difference is I'm not treating myself well and I'm not committed. And if I were committed, I would treat myself like someone I love. And the way I kind of equate it is, if you told your spouse that you were going to be at the airport at 05:00 in the morning to pick them up, guess where you are at 05:00 in the morning? And if you treated your spouse the way you treat yourself, you always do that. You never do that. If you use those words, you can't do anything right what you're saying in your head to yourself. But if you ever said that to your spouse, you're probably facing a fight or a divorce. We can't divorce ourselves. So if we really think about self compassion and love, then we stop using those words. We catch ourselves when we're doing it, and we say, I would never, ever say that to a friend. And if a friend ever said that to me, it would really hurt my feelings.

[00:18:18.870] – Allan

So as soon as you can start getting past those words, then you can open up to the possibilities of who you're really supposed to be. That's where we get to the next few steps, where you're talking about getting energy and reprogramming and empowering yourself and doing those things. But until you get past this point, because I think in my opinion, a self love, self compassion piece you have to do this step.

[00:18:45.430] – Dr. Ellen

And it's a beautiful story. And it all starts with that self talk. And the interesting thing is that self critic, as you said, I think you said the fat bastard. We developed that inner self talk before we're ten years old. We developed this inner critic because our caregivers criticize us, right? They tell us to finish everything on our plate and keep our room clean and get good grades. And if we don't do these things, we are in danger of not being loved and cared for. So when we get to be adults, we internalize the voice of our early caregivers. That inner critic becomes very real in our lives. And we think and this is an interesting thing that I realized in so much of my research is that we think that we need the inner critic to motivate us, like you said, to get on the tennis team and to get that job and be successful at work. But the research really shows that the self criticizing actually undermines motivation. Because when you criticize yourself, you shut yourself down, you generate cortisol, you feel bad about yourself. Whereas with self compassion. We want to do those things because we want to be happy.

[00:19:51.970] – Dr. Ellen

And actually, self compassion is very energizing. And unlike self esteem, which for a long time, psychologists really emphasize self esteem, self compassion actually is not contingent on anything. You can love yourself and support yourself regardless of how well you do at the gym, at your job. It's a muscle that you can build that constantly grows. That's why it's such a focal point of my work and the book that if you don't love yourself, you can't create a next great chapter. And it really comes down to being kind yourself rather than critical. To be mindful when you're struggling and suffering. So to stop and notice and say, oh my gosh, that was a tough time right now, particularly the kind of days that we've had. I've talked to so many clients and friends who have had so many losses. And with Covid it's been really difficult, extra challenging to stop and say, what do I need right now? And treat yourself like a good friend. And also to understand this concept of common humanity that we all make mistakes, we all fail. It's part of the human condition. So I'm so glad that you have been discovering this yourself.

[00:20:55.810] – Allan

Yeah. So now the next, the third step you have is about energizing yourself.

[00:21:02.290] – Dr. Ellen

Right. So if you want to have a next great chapter, you've got to take care of your body. So in this chapter, I really just summarize my 30 something years in the health and wellness field. So diet, it's not complicated. The media wants you to think that you have to go on some crazy diet and eat really weird foods or cut certain things out. But it really comes down to eating more plants. So really personally, I try to get between seven and ten servings of plant foods every single day. Plants are so important, they help to reduce inflammation. If you are trying to lose weight. Plants contain fiber, which is the part of the plant that we don't digest. They fill you up without filling you out. If you're going through menopause, those plant fibers can help you with menopause symptoms. And it's really in my work, I've really found if people add more plants in, it crowds out other things. So eat more plants. Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't have eaten. So really sticking to whole foods, foods that aren't processed, staying away from things like added chemicals, added sugar, and then eat until you are satisfied, not stuffed

[00:22:11.510] – Dr. Ellen

So if we did those three things, if we ate more plants, ate more whole foods, really didn't stuff ourselves, we would really be healthier and get to a healthy weight. Certainly with movement, I recommend at least 25 minutes a day. I think at midlife, less is more. We still need to build muscle. At midlife, we start to really lose our muscle mass after 30. If people don't do strength training, their muscle mass really erodes at a very quick level. It's also one thing I found so interesting in my book is that women at midlife need more protein. So the protein requirement in general is .8 grams/kg. At midlife, we need one to one and a half grams per kilogram. So we actually need more protein to support that muscle mass. The lower estrogen levels we think about bone loss, but we also can have muscle mass loss due to the estrogen. So the bone building is really important. Stretching is also really important to do that with your exercise and of course, cardio. And as far as nutrition, D is very important. You live in Panama, so I'm sure you get plenty of D.

[00:23:18.520] – Dr. Ellen

But here where I live in Vermont, I take vitamin D every day. Most people living in the north are deficient in vitamin D, but 50% of people are. So it's super important for your immune system, for bone health, for even how your mind functions. And then I think rest is really important. It's so important to rest between workouts, giving your muscles time to heal and grow stronger. It's also really important to make sure that you are managing stress and resting during the day and also getting 7 to 8 hours of good sleep and of course, also staying hydrated. So things we've heard before. But I think again, just having really simple, smart goals for yourself, maybe getting an accountability buddy, hiring some help, someone like yourself who can help people get that accountability and hit the mark is so important. But taking care of your health is really important. A lot of people are just blaming it on I'm getting old, I'm getting tired, I'm gaining weight. But you really can reverse any kind of health challenge that you're experiencing at midlife. So that's number three and number four is to reprogram your brain. So I think at midlife we do start to not be quite as sharp.

[00:24:29.860] – Dr. Ellen

I know myself sometimes it's hard to remember everything. I think part of that is that our minds are so full of so many things and we're not as mindful as we could be. So we're not just focusing on just doing what we're doing while we're doing it. So mindfulness is really important for your brain. It's interesting to note that at midlife and at any point in your life, you're always making new neural connections. So your nervous system, your brain, your neurons are always making new connections. So if you've experienced issues in your life, whether that's trauma, depression, memory issues, you can reprogram and rebuild your brain through things like mindfulness, through taking time and writing things down, which helps commit things to long term memory by really doing more of what lights you up, what's important. And of course, exercise is super important for your brain. And eating right is also important for your brain. Your brain is one of your most nutrient hungry organs in your body. It uses about 20% to 25% of your calories every day. So taking care of your brain means taking care of your whole body. There certainly is a brain body connection.

[00:25:44.450] – Dr. Ellen

And also a lot of interesting things I talk about in Rock your Midlife, about the microbiome. I don't know if you have come across some of the research which is this. We have an organ that's not really part of our body. It weighs about 4 pounds and it's made up of microorganisms. So bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, a lot of them are very good for our health. They help with our digestion. They actually can help with your immune system and with your mood. And you can build a healthy microbiome again, eating more of those plants, eating less sugar, having less alcohol, less additives, and then also eating what's called probiotics. So you're eating some healthy organisms yourself, so you can take a probiotic supplement, or you can also eat things like sauerkraut, kombucha, yogurt, which contain these microorganisms. So that's step four is reprogramming, working on your brain.

[00:26:40.930] – Dr. Ellen

Step five is about empowering yourself. So for me, your empowerment really starts with that step one, authenticity. So knowing that this is who I am and this is what I'm meant to do in the world, it's all about having power from within. So often we look from power from without, so we look to other people, we look to our job or organizations to make us feel good.

[00:27:05.340] – Dr. Ellen

But empowerment is really drilling down and saying what makes me happy? What do I want to do in the world? What are my geniuses and what are my strengths? And also I combine in Rock your Midlife this idea of authenticity with the law of attraction, which is simply this idea that, like attracts like. So the energy that you put out attracts energy to you. So if you are positive, if you're working on yourself, you're practicing that self love and that self compassion, you're going to attract opportunities and people in your life who are going to feed your soul and feed what you want to do in your next chapter. If you're walking around complaining and feeling bad about yourself in your life all the time, then that's where you're going to be stuck. It doesn't mean that you need to be a Pollyanna. And difficult things happen. And we need to hold ourselves when we're sad, when we're grieving, when we're frustrating, but we need to not sort of push those emotions down, but really take care of the difficult emotions. And then we can sort of get to this neutral ground with things like gratitude.

[00:28:14.540] – Dr. Ellen

And then we can really work on more of those positive emotions, like joy and happiness. And so that empowerment is some emotional up leveling, as well as really being yourself and putting yourself out in the world in the most powerful way you can.

[00:28:29.140] – Dr. Ellen

And then moving to step six. So I love step six because what happens is after you've done step one through five, you start to change. It's like you've been that Caterpillar, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm coming out of my Chrysalis. I'm the butterfly. My wings are drying. The only problem is the people in your life might see that and think that you're still the Caterpillar, and you're like, no, no, I'm a butterfly. Can't you see? Like, I'm colorful and I'm flying and I'm eating nectar. And so in this chapter, which is called Rehab Your Relationships, I give people three specific techniques to really work with the people in your life. So the first thing with that is really to get your people pleaser. And you're a good girl. A lot of us have people pleasers. It kind of goes back to what I was saying before about early caregivers, wanting everybody to like us.

[00:29:20.850] – Dr. Ellen

So really saying yes when you mean yes and know when you mean no. Putting yourself first, it doesn't mean that you're selfish. It just means you've got to put on your own oxygen mask right before you can support other people. I teach people something called the nonviolent communication. So specific techniques to communicate with people, which really involves getting your needs met and then also setting boundaries. So really, I have people go through an exercise where they create a personal bill of rights, where they really decide, this is what I stand for. This is my bottom line. And if you cross it, these are the consequences. And I think we don't do that a lot. I don't know how good how it is with men so much because I work mostly with women, but having a bill of rights and just deciding this is what I stand for, whether it's with work, whether it's people that you're in intimate relationships with. But it's super important to get your needs met, to set boundaries and to really work on those relationships.

[00:30:21.130] – Allan

I think with me, like you talked about men, and I think the reality of it was that I was so focused in one facet of my life that those relationships were gone. Any of them that I still had were the toxic ones that just seemed to cling on because they'll cling on till the end. And I was like, okay, I have to get rid of the toxic people in my life, particularly the ones that I can, because there were some that I couldn't because they were like my boss. Get rid of some toxic things and then start looking and seeking out the people that bring you joy, the people that you know are good people for you, the people that are going to support you. Jim Rohn says you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. And 15 years ago, if I would have put that list together, wrong people. And so now I make a point of spending the time, my time with the people that I care about the most, and I know care about me. And so they're lifting me up versus tearing me down all the time.

[00:31:31.230] – Allan

And so even as a guy, you might not think about it a lot. But if most of your time is spent with your drinking buddies at the bar after work and you guys are just tearing down beers, buying each other rounds, and that's all good and fun, but that's your path. That's who you're surrounding yourself with, and that's going to leave you stuck. So you've already done these things. You're trying to beat us butterfly. Maybe not a butterfly for a guy. Maybe we're moths, I don't know. But you've become something better than that and it's time for you to move on.

[00:32:06.650] – Dr. Ellen

That's awesome that you did that. It's difficult, though. I know myself before I made these changes, I left 25 year marriage and substances were a part of our social life, and now I'm so much more judicious. I mean, I might drink occasionally, socially, occasionally have a glass of wine, but my new man in my life may be on say, we practice kind of yoga together. We go cross country skiing, we got a tandem bike, and we have a tandem kayak. And I think that's really the relationship thing is so important because often when I start working with people, I'm sure you noticed this, too, Allan, is that people are really scared. If I make these changes, what's it going to do for my relationships? If I lose the weight, how am I going to go out to that restaurant and order things and say, well, I don't really want to drink, I don't enjoy doing this anymore? Or what's going to happen with my primary relation, my marriage? If I lose weight and I get in shape and I change my lifestyle and my husband or wife stays the same, what's going to happen? Am I going to lose friends?

[00:33:04.060] – Dr. Ellen

And so that's a difficult question that I think a lot of people when they're sort of thinking we're sort of at the beginning of the year and people are thinking about change, and I think covid made people really reevaluate their lives. A lot of thinking, gosh, if I change, what if, what if this happens? And what if that happens? And that's again, I talk about this a lot before the steps, talking about getting unstuck and immunity to change. Often we have something deep seated. So I'm sure it was hard for you to think about, gosh, if I change my life, if I'm going to get up at 05:00 in the morning and get to the gym, well, that means that I can't go out for those drinks with those guys. And if I say, Gee, I really want to start finding new friends, what's going to happen with those relationships? But I know myself when I cleared away some of the old relationships, new relationships is space for new relationships. And there's lots of really amazing people out there who can support you and love you, who want to have a healthy lifestyle. But there's a lot of fear, I think around.

[00:34:00.670] – Dr. Ellen

And that's something that I also, when I work with people looking at this immunity to change. I've had a lot of clients who don't do the self care because they want to be available 24/7 for the grandkids. And they think, well, if I join the gym or if I take that yoga class or that self development thing, then I won't be available to babysit all the time. And they don't even realize that they've got this underlying belief feeling like, well, I won't be needed then. So sometimes you have to really look very deep. And I think this weight loss spiral keeps people in a very stuck place where they never have to look at what would happen if I really did change, what would really happen if I stopped dieting? And I just said, you know what, I'm going to start focusing on my lifestyle and really make some deep changes.

[00:34:46.070] – Allan

Let's talk about the 7th step on this. And then I do want to jump in and talk a little bit more about fear, because I see that a lot.

[00:34:53.230] – Dr. Ellen

Sure. The 7th step is enlightenment. So enlightenment spirituality is really all about connecting with your passion and purpose. And we're all here for a reason, and there's a lot of problems in the world. So we all have talents and gifts to share with people. So this is really all about how to connect with your soul and your spirit. You might want to rediscover religion that you experienced when you were younger or just experience a new spiritual path. So I give people a lot of specific things they can do to create a spiritual practice, to create a relationship with their soul. I like to say that you are a soul having a human experience, maybe flip that around, said thinking, I'm a human, I have a soul, and I kind of go to Church on Sundays, and I experience it to see what's it like to connect with your spiritual self. I mean, for me, a lot of that is doing various yoga practices, certainly being out in nature, nothing to me connects me more with all that is than just being outside and seeing the birds and the snow and the trees. So lots of specific things that people can do, because I think when we get to the midlife, we're wiser and we want more of that type of connection.

[00:36:08.520] – Dr. Ellen

And hopefully we've created more space and time. And we know that so many people at midlife are quitting their jobs. Right. They're just thinking about gosh, you had that same experience saying that, I don't want to do this anymore. It's not making me happy. So the big piece of being happy is finding your passion and your purpose, connecting with things like gratitude, so I really dig deep into spirituality as well as sort of the positive psychology behind things people can do to really be happier, more joyful.

[00:36:38.960] – Allan

Yeah. Now with fear, you had two acronyms, and I think these kind of sum it up of the kind of the two sides of this. And the first acronym was false evidence appearing real. And the second was face everything in rise. And the two sides that I see there is the first one is most of the fear we have is not rational. And it's more of like a worry, something like you said, the what if, what if this were to happen and then you're afraid. It's like, well, I don't want that to happen, so I just won't do this. Or the other side of fear is just a point where you sit there and say, you know, I've put up with being this way or being unhappy, and I deserve more. And you talked in the book about how there was, like you of happiness down to midlife. And now we're in this bottom of the trough. And as soon as we recognize that, then the fear should start to dissipate because of the opportunity, like I said, the opportunity to go back up the other side of that view of what we see over the course of most people, not everybody but most people is that opportunity to find the same kind of joy we had when we were children.

[00:37:53.330] – Allan

So can you talk a little bit about fear and a little bit how we can overcome fear?

[00:37:58.070] – Dr. Ellen

That's a great question. Yeah. Well, the first thing is to understand the neuroscience behind fear. So we have this living brain, which is our amygdala that's in the back of our brain. It's the primitive part of your brain that is there to protect you from danger. It doesn't care if you're happy, doesn't care if you're fulfilled. All he wants to do is keep you from being eaten by a Saber tooth Tiger. So it's great if it's 100,000 years ago where, yeah, you could get eaten. You had to protect yourself. There was danger around every corner. But in today's world, if you're listening to this, you're not in any danger of getting eaten right now, right. Where you're perfectly safe. But we have to understand.

[00:38:39.900] – Allan

Well, the lady at the PTA meeting might shoot my head off, but that's about as bad as it's going to go.

[00:38:44.800] – Dr. Ellen

Yeah, exactly. We've got this part of our brain that is really trying to protect us. And then we've also got what's called the default mode network that runs down the center of our brain, which is constantly scanning the environment for what could go wrong in self definition. So again, your brain is just looking around, and this part of our brain evolved again hundreds of thousands of years ago when we were in tribes. There was a lot of social comparison where you had to figure out where do I fit? So maybe somebody was good at cooking and somebody's good at hunting and somebody's good at healing and somebody's good at creating clothes. So we all have to sort of figure out where we fit. But now we've got this crazy social comparison where we literally can be online with millions of people comparing ourselves to other people. So we're constantly scanning the environment for what could go wrong? My check could bounce. I could lose all my money, or I could lose my job or I could lose my marriage. So we're constantly worrying about that. Worrying about where do I fit in, what's my status? So the first thing is to really just call it out.

[00:39:49.910] – Dr. Ellen

Just fear is really in your mind. So what I like to say is name it you tame it. Just say, this is just fear. This is just my brain. And a lot of times it shows up. The worry shows up in rumination, which rumination comes from the root of it is ruminants, which are I live in Vermont, so I don't know you probably don't have a lot of cows in Panama

[00:40:10.070] – Allan

there are some

[00:40:12.590] – Dr. Ellen

we've got goats and cows and sheep and ruminants chew their cod. Right. They chew the grass and then they chew it again. So it's chewing things over and over in your mind. Again, the neuroscience we do this because if I think about my problems all the time, if I think about 04:00 in the morning and I'm worrying about, like, my boss and I didn't get this assignment on time and what's going to happen to me? We think if we worry about it, we're going to solve it. But Ironically, what happens is it keeps us stuck and out of problem solving mode because all we're doing is chewing the problem over and over again in our head. So the first thing is just to name it, just to call it out and say, this is just fear.

[00:40:51.350] – Dr. Ellen

It's just part of being human. May be giving yourself a little self compassion because you're having this thought mindfulness can be really helpful. Learning how to focus your thoughts. Whether you start a meditation practice just you just have to be long. Just watching your thoughts for five to ten minutes a day or finding ways throughout the day to sort of focus on your breathing. Calm yourself down. So the first thing is name it you tame it and then feel it you heal it. So where's fear showing up in my body? So emotions are felt experiences in your body. So often fear will show up maybe it's a tightness in your throat because you don't want to speak your truth. Or you might feel it around your heart because it involves a relationship or often it's in our bellies. Right? We're afraid. So name it you tame it and just let it come and go. And then a couple of other tricks that I like to use, see if you can change fear into excitement. So fear and excitement or anxiety and excitement are very similar in terms of the physiology. So when we're excited or we're anxious, our pulse might go up, we might sweat, we might flush.

[00:41:56.360] – Dr. Ellen

But if we turn that into excitement, like when you're in a roller coaster. Right. You're like, this is scary, but you know that you're safe. So see if you can just flip it around and say, you know what? For me, I love public speaking, but it also creates a lot of anxiety. So I turned into excitement. I'm really excited to speak today to share my truth and my passion for midlife. So change it in excitement if you can. And then I think my favorite technique is just focusing on breathing. So even the Navy Seals use this four X four X four X four breathing. They call box breathing. So what happens is when you breathe in for four, hold it for four, exhale for four, hold for four. It calms down your physiology. So what happens is you turn off that fight and flight, that cortisol, and you fire up your rest and digest. So simply doing a few minutes of deep breathing or simply breathing in really long exhalation, the long exhalation really helps to help you reset your physiology. There's so much that we can do. Listening to music is another powerful thing.

[00:43:08.300] – Dr. Ellen

So if we listen to music, that either you could listen to Rocky. Right. If you wanted to turn that fear into excitement, or you might listen to something that kind of calms down your nervous system. That's really helpful. And essential oils are really great. So those are just a couple of techniques. But I talk about fear a lot in the book because frankly, it's something that keeps so many people from moving forward. If you look at the research, it's so interesting that children, they have their fear animals, they get over it. Right. If you see an animal that's fearful, they go through their stress and then they reset. We don't do that as much at midlife. Right. We stay in this chronic stressful situation, which, of course, is creating a ton of inflammation and is really at the root cause of so much of our health. So maybe for motivation, see if you can really work on your fear and anxiety and your chronic stress as a way to help yourself heal and feel great in the coming year.

[00:44:03.500] – Allan

All right. Now, for a lot of us, this is never going to be a straight line. So even if we go through the steps and seems kind of linear because there are seven of them and some of them might take us a little longer, I think we all know that. But eventually, as with all things, issues are going to come up. And one of the things you said in the book that I thought was really interesting because I used to say this about my brother that he was happily miserable. But you used the term comfortably uncomfortable. And that kind of touched me because I was going to go one of those moments that you're saying for a lot of us, we don't want to get outside our comfort zone. Now in the book, you had 21 tips for getting unstuck. Can you just share some of your favorites?

[00:44:47.810] – Dr. Ellen

Sure. I would say it's interesting. There's so many things you can do. One of the greatest things to do is create a new habit. So if you take a look at the research on breaking habits, making habits, it's better to replace a habit that is not serving you with a new habit. So I'll give you an example. Let's say, for example, every day at 03:00, you get hungry, which is kind of your cue to eat. You go to the vending machine and you have a candy bar and a soda. And then the reinforcing reward is you kind of get a little bit of a lift from your fatigue so you could create a new habit. So instead of that habit, you can go ahead and stock up and have snacks in your desk, things like healthy portions of nuts, fruit, maybe sugar free yogurt and water to stay hydrated. And so when 03:00 hits, you get that hunger sort of fatigue thing going on. Instead of walking to the vending machine, you grab your healthy snack, you grab your water bottle, and you go for a 10,15 minutes walk. And your reward is that you feel energized, you feel good, but it's not this kind of energy that comes from sort of the sugar caffeine high and then crashes.

[00:46:03.440] – Dr. Ellen

So creating a new habit is a really great thing to do. Another unstuck thing I love to do is declutter. Declutter a drawer, declutter a closet, declutter your garage. It is so freeing and energizing to declutter some aspect of your life, and it creates space for something new. It creates a sense of accomplishment. I think we all love to do it. So just put something on your calendar for some time that you're going to do a little bit of decluttering.

[00:46:32.330] – Dr. Ellen

Another thing is to just do something new. So go somewhere new, drive to a new place at work, read a new morning newspaper, make a new friend. Just create some newness in your life. Create a new hairstyle, change your hairstyle, change your hair color, wear a color you don't normally wear. But just doing anything new, I think, again, we are creatures of habit. It's so interesting when you look at the literature, something like 45% of the things we do every single day are automatic. Things like we tie our shoes, we make our coffee, we take our shower, either first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. You've got to shake it up and try something new.

[00:47:12.230] – Dr. Ellen

I really also like rising with the Sun, super energetic to really get into the circadian rhythms where you are living. So I get up usually with the sun. I love watching the sun set and the sun rise in the morning. You actually have more energy when you're kind of on those vibes with the sun. So just really just trying to do some new things. And I give 21 tips in my book, so if you're feeling stuck, just do something new. Getting accountability buddy, is really awesome as well. So having somebody who's also trying to make some changes in your life, learning something new. So I think I was saying earlier in the episode, I just got myself a ukulele, and so learning to play the ukulele, I'm creating those new things, those new brain neural connections in my mind, which are so awesome. Make a bucket list. That's another awesome thing to do. Make a bucket list. Actually, we don't even have to call it a bucket list. We can call it the next chapter list, right? So it's not about things I want to do before I leave the Earth, but things that I really want to do in this next chapter, I think we have space and time.

[00:48:21.960] – Dr. Ellen

Kids are empty nests. Maybe we're downsizing a little bit from our work. We're downsizing our home. But don't just fill it up with the same old, same old. Do something new because there is really a million things to do in the world and everything is so accessible right now. So get really conscious about it too. Maybe a little bit less television. I think it's so tempting to fill our days with TV. So maybe being a little more judicious with your media time and really picking something that you want to learn and do this year.

[00:48:50.810] – Allan

I love all of those. I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:49:01.610] – Dr. Ellen

the first thing I would say, progress, not perfection. So we haven't really talked about perfectionism. I talk about it a lot in the book. Rock your midlife. But perfectionism will just kill any wellness strategy because let's say, for example, you set this goal and you say, I'm going to work out every single day or I am going to eat this perfect diet. I've got this diet plan. I'm going to follow it. If you are a perfectionist, if you mess up what happens? You give up. You're just like, okay, I didn't do it right. I feel bad about myself. And I see this all the time with a lot of the people I work with are recovering chronic dieters. We see this. They go on these diets, they do it perfectly. They fill out their Journal, they do all the things, and then all of a sudden they blow their diet. They have one dinner out, or maybe they have a little bit of alcohol and inhibitions go down and they have slip up and then they go right back to the same old crappy, standard American diet, same thing with workouts. You miss a workout and then all of a sudden you miss too.

[00:50:06.960] – Dr. Ellen

And then you stop working out completely. So focus on the progress that you're making. Focus on the fact that I'm going to just carry an Apple in my bag and when I need a snack, I'm going to eat that or I'm going to start a walking program and I'm going to walk for 25 minutes every day. Maybe you'll do 45. And I love this idea, too, of set smaller goals to say, I'm going to just do three push ups. And while you're down there, you'll do ten, but you've got to sort of start out with small things that I love. You're probably familiar with Mel Robbins, who talks about the five second rule. Another great way to get over fear is just count to five and just do it. Do something small and focus on the progress you're making, not perfection. And when we're talking about goals, it's so important to set smart goals, which I'm sure Allan, you help your people set smart goals, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time sensitive. And these are things that you have control over. A lot of people set goals like, I'll lose 25 pounds. Well, that's not a smart goal and you don't have control over.

[00:51:10.290] – Dr. Ellen

But you have control over something. Like every day after lunch I'm going to take a 20 minutes walk or something I've been working on. One of the things I struggle with is eating late at night and my fiance and I are really trying hard to eat earlier in the day and just say, okay, we're going to not have anything after 08:00 and I'd like to move it to seven. But setting a smart goal, maybe even like three nights a week, we're going to have dinner at 07:00 and we're going to stop eating by 08:00. So set smart goals. And then I would say a thing too is and this is something that I focus so much on in my work and my book. Have fun. We've got to get away from this punitive attitude around weight loss. When I started my career 30 years ago as a registered dietitian, people would come into my office and I would say, Why are you here? And they said, well, my doctor told me I had to see you. And then I would ask them, what did you have to eat last night? And they would say, Well, I knew I was coming in to see you.

[00:52:11.730] – Dr. Ellen

So I had a double stuffed crust pizza, an ice cream or a steak. And they didn't want to be there and they weren't at the stage of readiness to make change. And it was all because you've been bad. So now we're going to punish you by eating this diet that is this draconian, 1200 calories or 600 calorie diet. And you're going to be miserable. Healthy eating is really fun. Like my partner is an amazing gardener and I am so inspired by what he grows and what I can Cook and we love to work. I don't even want to call it work it out. I mean there's nothing we like better than getting on our town and bike and going to the next island and biking for three or 4 hours. You're exhausted but it feels fabulous. I love doing yoga and I love lifting weights and I love eating healthy. So just get away from this attitude that being healthy is some punishment for your earlier sins in life. And I guess at a fourth, no matter where you are at, if you are breathing more is going right than wrong. You have like 32 trillion cells and all they want to do is keep you alive.

[00:53:21.650] – Dr. Ellen

So thank your cells. I like the dog barking to emphasize that right. Thank your cells. Treat your body. Weld stop beating your body up and learn to love yourself, practice and self compassion with my research really showed is that it really will help you with your body image. Focus on your function and feeling good. Don't worry so much about how you look. I think we also need to focus too on you can be sexy and beautiful. I'm at 60 and I feel more beautiful and sexier and healthier than I've ever felt in my life. I'm slowing down a bit but I think I'm gorgeous and I love my life and I'm having so much fun.

[00:54:01.470] – Dr. Ellen

Thank you, Dr. Ellen, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book, Rock Your Midlife, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:54:09.720] – Dr. Ellen

Just go to themidlifewhisper.com and I'm easy to find. That's my website and I'm the only midlife Whisperer in the universe as far as I know. Also you can just go to Amazon and put in Rock Your Midlife and the book will come right up for you.

[00:54:24.730] – Allan

You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/525 and I'll be sure to have links there. Dr. Ellen, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:54:34.330] – Dr. Ellen

Thank you, Allan. It's been such a fun conversation. I'm looking forward to more conversations in the future.

[00:54:39.640] – Allan

Absolutely.

Patreons

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Another episode you may enjoy

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February 7, 2022

How to have a super gut with Dr. William Davis

Apple Google Spotify Overcast Youtube

We know that the health of our gut greatly affects our overall health, but fixing the gut can be challenging. In his book, Super Gut, Dr. William Davis gives us the solutions.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

[00:01:16.030] – Allan

Hey, Ras, how are things going?

[00:01:18.110] – Rachel

Good, Allan. How are you today?

[00:01:20.140] – Allan

I'm doing okay. It's been kind of a weird couple of weeks. I don't want to go into it in too much detail because there's still some things I'm working on that I can't really reveal out loud right now because if I don't get what I've got to get done, done, then I don't need anybody knowing about it. So, yeah, a lot's going on, good and bad and just kind of working through some things, but otherwise healthy, doing well. The gym is doing okay. Lula's is doing okay.

[00:01:51.320] – Rachel

Good.

[00:01:52.140] – Allan

We're just plotting along.

[00:01:54.430] – Rachel

Nice. That's awesome. Good to hear.

[00:01:56.120] – Allan

how are things for you?

[00:01:57.470] – Rachel

Good. Burying myself out of the snow, but I am excited because I'll be taking a vacation down in Florida very soon. So I just ran a half marathon over the weekend in the snow, and next weekend I get to run a little over a half marathon on the beach. So I'm pretty excited.

[00:02:15.910] – Allan

Just watch out for that lip and the sidewalk, okay.

[00:02:18.930] – Rachel

Right. I know.

[00:02:20.710] – Rachel

I'm telling you, I'm already nervous about it, but, yes, I will definitely be paying attention this time.

[00:02:27.550] – Allan

All right. Well, you're ready to have a conversation with Dr. Davis?

[00:02:31.050] – Rachel

Sure.

Interview

[00:03:17.890] – Allan

Dr. Davis, welcome back to 40+ Fitness.

[00:03:22.030] – Dr. Davis

Thank you, Allan. Glad to be here again.

[00:03:24.730] – Allan

I didn't realize it's been over three and a half years since we talked about your book, Undoctored. That was episode 251. If anyone's interested after listening to this, that they want to go catch another episode with you. It's episode 251, so you can go back and find that there. But we talked about Undoctored, and I really liked the book. I liked the concept of it, and I've used that in talking to people about how they manage their healthcare and help manage themselves. But today we're going to talk about Super Gut: A Four Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight. And when I heard Super Gut, I was thinking about a superhero with a beer gut. But that's not what we're talking about.

[00:04:11.110] – Dr. Davis

Right. It's kind of a goofy name, I know, but I'm kind of the King of goofy book titles. But it's a serious book. I think it's got a lot of fun stuff in it, too. But it's a very serious book that I think really packs. I'm very mindful, Allan, that it's not just descriptive telling you how the microbiome has gone wrong and all the nasty things, but I want to make sure that people are given solutions also. So people who read this book, it's very prescriptive also.

[00:04:42.440] – Allan

It is. And that's what I wanted to get into as we got into this is it's a full week program in the book, and each week kind of has its own purposes, but the whole concept of SIBO and CIFO and all the other stuff that's going on with your microbiome, this is not a simple if then this puzzle that we are trying to solve, this is a 16 sided Rubik's Cube, if you will, of symptoms and things going on. And that's why it's been so difficult for doctors to diagnose this. And most of the times it just gets kind of lumped in with, oh, you've got IBS, and it just becomes this nebulous thing of, well, let's try that, or let's try this. And then you have the FODMAPs and you got that, you got this. And it is just for a lot of people, trial and error, and you kind of line it all up and say, okay, here's some things, here's some tools, here's some approaches to how we can solve this problem. But you also do a really good job on the front end, in my opinion, of helping us understand why we're experiencing the things we're experiencing.

[00:05:50.950] – Allan

Because a lot of us thought the gut is the gut and the brain is the brain and the liver is the liver. And they, I guess sort of need things because the liver is going to get food from the gut and the brain is going to get food from the gut. So we know there's some relationship there, but I think we've always kind of simplified it. And you brought up some things in the book that just were fascinating because I've talked about SIBO before, but I always just thought, okay, yeah, it's food particles and getting into your blood, but it's actually much more toxic than that. Basically, the bad fungi or bad bacteria we have, they actually get into our bloodstream and cause a whole mirror of things. It's called metabolic endotoxemia, and it's caused by these lipopolysaccharides LPS. Can you kind of talk about that whole process? Because I think as soon as we start to understand that having the bad bacteria is a huge problem, if it's getting up into our small intestine and then the fact that it's not just little food particles or other things going in, it's bacteria we're eating.

[00:07:08.240] – Allan

It's bacteria that we have coming up through the bottom, the whole thing. Can you just kind of just summarize that for us?

[00:07:15.950] – Dr. Davis

A lot of us have suspected this thing called leaky gut for many years. But I finally got validated with good science in 2007 by a French and now Belgian group, Dr. Patrice Canyon and his team. They showed that the microbes in the GI tract, there are trillions of them, of course, Alan right. And they live and die in the space of a few hours. They don't live very long. So there's rapid turnover of trillions of microbes. And when they die, a lot of the debris of their little cell bodies enters the bloodstream. And as you point out, that's called endotoxemia, because the walls of these microbes have something called endotoxin. Endotoxin is extremely toxic to humans. If you inject nanogram quantity, you can kill somebody. So it doesn't take much. But there's been an across the board increase in endotoxemia in modern people because of what we've done to the microbiome. We've dramatically disrupted the composition. We've lost microbes that did important things for us, and we've allowed proliferation of unhealthy microbes to take their place. But also, as you point out, then, ascend many people in my estimation, one in three people, Allan, over 100 million people.

[00:08:31.640] – Dr. Davis

This is bigger than the pre diabetes type two diabetes epidemic. It is a silent but very widespread epidemic where microbes have proliferated and descended up into the Ilium to a denomin stomach. So you can imagine 30ft trillions of microbes living and dying rapidly and their debris entering the bloodstream. So it's both a cause for numerous health conditions as well as a fact that makes many conditions worse. And as you point out, it's something that's not being addressed by the great majority of mainstream physicians.

[00:09:10.610] – Allan

As I thought about this, we've talked about antibiotics before. I'm on the show quite a bit. It used to be you'd go to the doctor, you'd have the sniffles, and the doctor would say, well, here, even though I know it's probably a virus, you're not going to be happy unless I give you something. So here's a prescription for an antibiotic. And that sort of became the norm for a while. But that is sort of like dropping a nuclear bomb on the village, isn't it?

[00:09:37.490] – Dr. Davis

Absolutely. Most of us by age 40 have taken 30 courses of antibiotics. And yeah, you don't really recover from antibiotics. Many people do not recover a normal microbiome you're left with because if you kill something, it doesn't just reappear. People used to think that rats came from a pile of rats, right? That's not true. You have to have rats to make rats. And so if you lose important microbial species, you've lost them probably for life or at least for a long time. 

[00:10:09.720] – Allan

And I guess we know we still have some individuals out there, tribes and whatnot people that still live basic lifestyles very similar to what we did when we were Hunter gatherers, because they're Hunter gatherers and they're not taking the antibiotics and they're not eating and drinking the diet sodas and the eating of that. How different is their microbiome to ours?

[00:10:37.670] – Dr. Davis

It's fascinating. Several research groups have done this work, and I give them a lot of credit because this is not an easy thing to do to get the stool specimens from people living hunter gatherer lives. And you can imagine what an odd request that must seem to them. But the stools have been analyzed from the anomaly in the Brazilian rainforest, the Matzo in the Highlands of Peru, the hazard in the Savannah of Tanzania, the Masai in Kenya, the Malone and East Coast of Africa. So primitive groups, as you point out, are Hunter gatherers, don't eat modern food, don't take antibiotics, and don't have exposure to such things as emulsifying agents and ice cream. So they have very different microbiome. They have microbes we don't have we have microbes they don't have there's very little overlap compared to modern people. But the interesting thing is if you compare the microbiome composition of all those primitive or Indigenous populations, even though many of them are on different continents, have never met each other, they have very similar microbiomes, which has been interpreted by these groups to mean that they must have the microbiome handed down through the generations, so called Stone Age microbiome.

[00:11:53.040] – Dr. Davis

And it is very different. What's not clear is how much do we mimic? Should we try to mimic? Do we need more Prevotella like they have? They have a species called Prevotella. They have something called spirochetes. They're loaded with spirochetes. The only spirochetes that modern people have is the one that causes syphilis. And we have to remind ourselves also these people who have a different microbiome also have no constipation, no hemorrhoids, no colon cancer, no ulcerative colitis, no Crohn's disease, no Erobile syndrome, virtually unknown to have autoimmune conditions, no coronary disease. In other words, they have other problems, right. They've got infections and injury and worm infestations because of their lifestyle, but they don't have the so called I always find this amazing, the anthropologists actually label the diseases we suffer from, like type two diabetes, hypertension, coronary disease, Alzheimer's, dementia, etc. They call this diseases of civilization? Well, there's got to be some important lessons. If these Indigenous people have virtually none of our diseases, they have different diseases. Those diseases that they suffer from, like malaria, dengue fever, we're pretty good at dealing with that. The modern healthcare system is pretty good at dealing with that.

[00:13:14.080] – Dr. Davis

But modern health care stinks for taking care because for a number of reasons. But one of the reasons is they're very profitable because they're chronic treatments. If you have pneumonia and you need antibiotics for a couple of weeks, that's a two week profit opportunity. If you have high blood pressure, that's a lifelong profit opportunity. That's why there's so much focus on the diseases of civilization.

[00:13:38.150] – Allan

Well, and they just get bigger and bigger every year. I see the reports. The percentage of people that are obese or overweight, it goes up every year. It doesn't go down despite people knowing that eating whole food and not over indulging in ice cream and those kinds of things is going to be better for you. It's just really a struggle living in a modern environment and not having some of those problems. And you talk a lot in the book, and I want to just mention it, is that we start building our microbiota through being born, coming through the cervix and being born, and then later with breast milk and all of those types of things. And a lot of that has stopped happening. And because we're over 40, it's not like we can go back and redecide how we were going to be born and bred. We are who we are now. You have a four week super gut program, and it's very broad. I mean, it goes through a lot of different things that you have to think about with regards to managing what you eat, how you live, what you do. It's not the shortcut we think.

[00:14:51.440] – Allan

Why can't we just get a fecal transplant? Because that's the thing. Can you kind of go through the steps of your four week super gut program and why each one of those steps is important?

[00:15:06.030] – Dr. Davis

So people don't get overwhelmed with this. I think of cultivating your microbiome is just like having a garden in springtime in your backyard. So if you have a garden, let's say you lay out 10×10 plot. You've got to prepare the soil. You pick out the rocks and stones and debris, and then you plant seeds, and then through the growing season, you water and fertilize it. The intestinal microbiome is very, very similar. So we clear the soil, prepare the soil by not getting exposed to things that disrupt your microbiome. There's a list, as you know, such things as minimizing antibiotics. There's a time and place for antibiotics, but as you point out, not just in case kind of usage, other drugs, statin, cholesterol drugs, those horrible class of drugs that make a lot of money for big Pharma, does almost nothing for the public health. Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen, Naproxen, diclofenac, massive disruption of the microbiome. The most fine agents in common foods, like salad dressing and ice cream, synthetic sweeteners in diet sodas like aspartame. So we kind of clean up our garden by avoiding those kinds of things. There's a long list in the book.

[00:16:21.440] – Dr. Davis

Of course, it's not unmanageable. One of the things we all do is we go back to real food. We don't buy the crap that's got 35 ingredients that are unpronounced. We buy avocados and eggs, a pork chop, and then we plant seeds. The seeds come in several forms. The best seeds are fermented foods like Kimchi, fermented sauerkraut, fermented veggies. And you can do this on your kitchen counter. It's virtually no cost. It's delicious. But people have forgotten that fermented foods are so healthy for you. In fact, they view fermented foods with suspicion or disgust because it may be like a cloudy soupy mix with your veggies. But once you learn how to do this, it's virtually no cost. It's delicious. And it's one of the most powerful ways to seed your GI tract. By the way, the seeding process, based on some very interesting research out of Stanford by a husband wife team, Erica and Justin Sonnenberg, showed that frequent consumption of fermented foods has dramatic changes in your microbiome. But oddly, it's not the microbes in the fermented food. No one knows why. If you eat a lot of fermented foods, the microbes that take over in your GI tract are not the microbes in the fermented food.

[00:17:42.010] – Dr. Davis

For the most part, it's other microbes. Where did they come from? Were they latent in small numbers? Did you acquire them from your environment? Nobody knows. But there's a dramatic shift and increase in healthy microbes with consumption of fermented foods. Probiotics also. But unfortunately, commercial probiotics are really kind of primitive right now. They're getting better, and there's a lot of problems with them. There's an emerging short list of probiotics that I would recommend only because not that I have any relationship with them, but they have specific features, like the strain is specified, you can't take a probiotic unless the strain is specified. To illustrate, you have E. Coli. Your listeners have E. Coli. I've got E. Coli. But what if you ate lettuce contaminated with E. Coli from cow manure? You could die of kidney failure and sepsis. So same species, e. Coli. Different strain. So strange differences can make a life death difference. So you must know the strain. And another problem with commercial probiotics is they often don't include what are called Keystone species. That is, species so much like plankton in the ocean. If plankton disappeared, whales and jellyfish, so many animals filter feeders would just die off because plankton are Keystone species.

[00:19:02.290] – Dr. Davis

That little those little creatures support tons of other creatures. Well, you have the same biological phenomenon in your GI tract. And so when you take a probiotic, you want to make sure there's at least a handful of these so called Keystone species. But probiotics can be helpful. And lastly, that's the seeding of your GI tract. And, of course, that's where we also throw in some of our fermentation projects, where we make some really cool yogurts. Particularly, it doesn't have to be yogurt. It could be other fermented foods. But my favorite microbe in the world, Lactobacillus rotori that I think introduces an age reversing effect, including ladies go berserk for this. They lose their skin wrinkles starting within four to eight weeks. And then we water and fertilize our garden. That's the things that microbes like to eat. These are mostly so called prebiotic fibers, polysaccharides, polyphenols, a lot of healthy things in mushrooms and onions and garlic, as well as some commercial preparations. And that causes healthy species to Bloom. And so it sounds like a lot, but I try to break it down week by week so that this week we're going to talk about diet and cleaning up your garden.

[00:20:12.470] – Dr. Davis

This week we're going to talk about seeding your garden. This week we're going to talk about water and fruit to try to break it down so it's manageable.

[00:20:19.410] – Allan

And I think it's really important to think of these in that order because it's fine if you start throwing the food and water in there. But if you don't have the seeds, it might not do you what you want to do. If you haven't cleaned your garden first, then you might be growing the species you don't want to grow or the strange you don't want to grow. And you're not really solving some of the bigger problems. Like, why is this in my little intestine anyway? Because it doesn't belong there. And so kind of dealing with some of those things early on. I do want to dive a little bit deeper into your week one to prepare the garden or prepare the soil, because I think for a lot of us, this is really where we're going to see a big shift in how we look and feel. Because if we're doing these things, it's like this is a list of try these things and watch how well you feel. Watch what happens to your weight. Watch all the little things that you want to use to measure health. These are going to move the needle. Every single one of these will move the needle for you in one way or another.

[00:21:27.810] – Allan

I sent you over a list of the ones you talked about in the book. Could you kind of just go through each one? And why is it important for us to either limit that or eat that way?

[00:21:38.190] – Dr. Davis

Let me pull up your list.

[00:21:39.820] – Allan

Okay. 

[00:21:40.740] – Dr. Davis

Okay. Here we go. So sugar, sugar is something we absolutely avoid. That is added sugars because sugars cause a Bloom in all kinds of nasty species. People don't know that three days, let's say you go on an all expense paid vacation in Mexico, all inclusive, and you can't resist all the margaritas that you can drink, right? Well, it takes three days of that kind of sugar exposure. You've already got irritable bowel syndrome, because what the sugar does is it feeds the microbes. It also feeds fungi. So fungi like the various Candida species, candida tropicalis, candida global Alpaca malassesia. There's about 200 different fungi that live in the human GI. They love sugar and oddly, fungal overgrowth. Somehow these microbes, these fungal microbes release some kind of factor that affects your brain and causes you to crave sweets. So it's an odd, vicious cycle. Fungi produced in metabolite that causes a sweet tooth. You eat sweets, you feed the fungi. So you've served your purpose to the fungal world that's sugar, the synthetic sweeteners like aspartame, saccharine and sucralose. Very good evidence that they massively disrupt your microbiome, even if you're a slender, active, non diabetic person.

[00:23:05.870] – Dr. Davis

By using those synthetic sweeteners, it gives you the microbiome of an obese type two diabetic. And that microbiome thereby pushes you towards weight gain, obesity and being a type two diabetic, major disruption.

[00:23:18.720] – Allan

Now, you recommended other things like stevia and Monk fruit and things like that. So if you want to move to a lower calorie, you want to look at some of the more natural choices, right?

[00:23:30.630] – Dr. Davis

Absolutely. So we just have to be a bit more discerning in our choice of sweeteners. So as you point out, stevia and Various forms mung fruit. Alulos erythritol is pretty safe. And we still can make all kinds of great stuff like cupcakes or cheesecake. We're going to use non grain flowers, by the way. Also, because of the massive disruption of the GI tract, that's the whole course the theme of my Wheat Belly books as well as the Undoctored books. I didn't want to dwell on that too much because it's covered in other books. But as you know, growing wheat and grain free is a huge advantage in health, despite the fact that they are the centerpiece of all official government guidelines and diet. The worst possible advice you can possibly conceive of is cut your fat, eat more healthy, whole grains. It would be as bad as people saying, Allan, you know, smoking a pack or two of cigarettes is not go ahead, it's good for you. No, it's not. Right.

[00:24:28.290] – Allan

They did because for a long time they did. And I think it's probably the same mechanism for why grains are such a prominent thing in our government's guidelines for food. It's a great way to get a lot of calories then, but not necessarily going to help your microbiome.

[00:24:51.790] – Dr. Davis

Now, we try to eat organic whenever opportunity and budget permit. We don't really know how effective that is. We are all filled with herbicides and pesticides. Unfortunately, if we tested all your listeners, for instance, for glyphosate, the Herbicide and Roundup will all test positive blood, urine, hair, skin, everything. So it's kind of hard we can't avoid. Unfortunately, we can only minimize. And so choosing an organic whenever possible, it makes a contribution. We filter our drinking water because most cities chlorinate or chloraminate. I'm in Milwaukee, where they use chloramine, they're very proud of that because it lingers much longer, so much so that you can't even boil it off. You have to boil it for three to four days before it starts to be reduced. So it's very persistent. But these are antimicrobials. They kill stuff, and they also disrupt the mucus barrier and thereby caused shifts in the composition of the microbiome species composition. Of course, avoiding wheat and grains, that alone is a huge advantage in health. That was the whole base of the week belly books. Of course, people lose weight because you no longer exposed the insulin raising effects of the envelopectin a. You rid yourself of the glycoprotein'derived opioid peptides that are potent appetite stimulants.

[00:26:16.520] – Dr. Davis

You get rid of the potent bowel toxic effects of wheat germaglutin, which is completely indigestible. But as it courses from mouth to toilet, it is extremely destructive, inflammatory to the human GI tract. Short list of things wrong with wheat and grain. And of course, it's gotten worse because farmers and agribusiness scientists have selected strains for their purposes. So not because they are evil, but because they wanted strains that were resistant, for instance, to pests like molds and insects. So they selected strains of wheat that were enriched in wheat germaglutin, bowel toxin and phytates, which are great pest resistant compounds. But they're also binders of magnesium, calcium, zinc and iron. And you poop out those minerals in the toilet. That's why, for instance, iron deficiency anemia is very common among people who eat grains. And then we limit alcohol because alcohol likes to entice fungi to proliferate. It doesn't mean you can't have glass. Mine just means don't overdo it. And then nonstrough anti-inflammatory drugs. These are dispensed like candy, of course, even over the counter. So a woman might take, for instance, Motorin for menstrual cramps. Or somebody might take the proxy from knee pain.

[00:27:36.070] – Dr. Davis

For one thing, Allan, I can't tell you how many times I put patients on dialysis for kidney failure from those drugs, how many times I've had red blood thrown up in my face because they had a bleeding ulcer. How many times people passed black, partially digested blood in their stool from bleeding, intestinal, ulcers. These are nasty drugs, even though they can be over the counter. But they also disrupt the microbiome. There are other ways to deal with pain that don't disrupt the microbiome. That's a whole other conversation, of course, but you can do without them very easily. And, of course, antibiotics. If you're sick and you can't breathe and you have pneumococcal pneumonia, you need an antibiotic. But as you point out, you just got a cough and a viral tracheop bronchitis, you don't need an antibiotic. So you want to really question any physician who tries to prescribe an antibiotic when it's not really clear whether you have a bacteria infection or not.

[00:28:31.840] – Allan

Yeah. And I think you do a great job in the book of simplifying this each day be thinking about something that you're going to incorporate and use. But really in the simplest sense, and you say it in the book is eat real food, single ingredients, and avoid things that you know are not going to be serving you, like alcohol, the medications, the antibiotics, those types of things, because you need that microbiome to be healthy so you can be healthy. And if you start getting to the point where, as we call it, leaky gut is happening, it's because the mucous membranes not intact. It's because other things are going on. And now you're introducing toxins into your body that are going to recap it across your whole health, not just your gut. So you might feel fine and not have any kind of bowel symptoms, but still, it's your gut that's the cause.

[00:29:31.870] – Dr. Davis

Absolutely. It's funny. If anyone ever has a few free minutes, take a look at all the studies. For instance, in irritable bowel syndrome, and you'll see they ask questions like this. What proportion of people with this very common condition shared by 60 to 70 million Americans called Irritable bowel syndrome, where you have usually diarrhea and cramps and Bloating? Well, if you look at those studies, you'll see that people with IBS or irritable bowel syndrome, typically 40% to 84%, it varies with each study, how they chose their participants have SIBO. But then look at the healthy control group. You'll be shocked at how many of the healthy control group it's not uncommon to have 24% of a healthy, controlled people also test positive for siblings, for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. So it's everywhere. And I show people how I came to that figure. I wrapped that figure of over 100 million people in the US with SIBO. Of course, similar situations outside the US, too.

[00:30:34.990] – Allan

Well, if you're eating sugar or the non caloric, artificial sweeteners and emulsifying agents, like you said in your ice cream and drinking your local water, yeah, you probably have done some damage down there. And it's worth doing some things to make that environment a lot more hospitable to the good bugs we want in our gut.

[00:30:58.750] – Allan

Dr. Davis, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:31:06.580] – Dr. Davis

Well, you know, I saved the best for last in the book because as you point out, if you do things out of order, bad things can happen. So if you say, I'm going to start with the prebiotic fibers because it's too much, the probiotics are too expensive, or I don't want to deal with the SIBO, you can actually make yourself ill if you do it out of order. So I presented a very specific order for your safety and for greater effectiveness. But I saved the very best for the last. That is pinpointing microbes that most of us have lost. And my favorite, as I mentioned, is Lactobacillus rhetoric. 96% of people have lost it due to all those factors we talked about when you re implanted. And we do it with yogurt fermented in a very specific way. Please don't let your leaders get confused. This has nothing to do with store bought yogurt. Store bought yogurt is garbage. It has almost nothing in it. Because when you ferment yogurt or any other food, bacteria don't have sexual reproduction of course. They have what's called asexual reproduction. They don't have Mommy and Daddy microbes. They just double.

[00:32:15.010] – Dr. Davis

One becomes two, two becomes four. Like that. Well, if, let's say, Rotary doubles every 3 hours in commercial yogurt fermentation, they ferment for 4 hours. Nothing happens. That's why you see ingredients like gel and gum, xanthan gum, guar gum added to thicken it up because there ain't nothing in it. So we're going to ferment for 36 hours. We allow the bacteria to double twelve times. It's just like that kid's Riddle. Which would you rather have? A million dollars or a Penny that doubles every day for 30 days? Kids always say, I want the million dollars, not knowing that the Penny will become over five and a half million dollars by day 30. But if you look at the curve, the money doesn't really start to increase $0.01, two cent, $0.04, right? Go nowhere. But it's our I'm sorry. It's day 26 27 where you start to get those really big millions of same thing happens in bacterial reproduction. If a microbe doubles every 3 hours, it's not about our 33. We start to get really big numbers. So 36, we performed a test called flow cytometry on our yogurt. We're getting around 260,000,000,000 counts of microbes per half cup serving.

[00:33:31.220] – Dr. Davis

So people eat this half cup or so of the reuteri yogurt. It's rich and very tasty, and skin starts to lose its wrinkles. There's a thickening of dermis, dermal collagen. There's an acceleration of healing. There's a restoration of youthful muscle and strength. There's a preservation of bone density. It's one of the most important things ladies can do to preserve bone health and prevent osteoporotic fractures. It deepens sleep. I'm a chronic Insomniac Allen. I used to sleep three, 4 hours a night. I have to force myself. I now sleep 9 hours a night straight through deep, vivid drains. It suppresses appetite, puts you in absolute control over appetite and impulse. And because it works, this microbrotride, by stimulating oxytocin release from the brain, it stimulates empathy, a desire to understand other people's points of view, desire for human connection, and a reduction in social anxiety, of course, occurring even pre-pandemic at a time of record social isolation, divorce and suicide. That's one microbe. So that one microbe makes a delicious yogurt. And so we do this with other microbes. So we purposefully reimplant specific microbes like Lactobacillus reuteri like bifida bacterium like Bacillus.

[00:34:58.300] – Dr. Davis

This sounds like a lot. It's actually a heck of a lot of fun. And you can get it's amazing what microbes, how they influence our behavior, our internal dialogues, our skin, not just whether you have gas or bloating, whether you're going to have Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis or whether you can't lose weight and we're going to become obese. Microbes are the answer.

[00:35:24.860] – Dr. Davis

So the answer to your question. Three things. So one would be aware that you can reimplant lost microbes. We don't know all the microbes, but that list is growing virtually every day, by the way, Allan. Two, though it's not directly influential on the microbiome that dietary change of banishing all wheat and grains, particularly modern wheat and grains that have all kinds of problems. In Richmond, wheat germaglutin and phytates, they're glyphosate laced. So getting rid of grains and vitamin D. I advocate that people take certain nutrients because they're lacking in modern life. So, like, for instance, magnesium, we take magnesium because we all drink filtered water. We have to if we drink from a river or stream, it's got sewage, it's got farm runoff. So we have to filter our water.

[00:36:18.700] – Dr. Davis

But water filtration is very effective at removing all magnesium. And when you become magnesium deficient, as all modern people are, unless they are supplementing, it leads to higher blood pressure, muscle cramps, higher blood sugar, heart rhythm disorders, osteoporosis, et cetera. So we have to replace magnesium. And so it's not because I want you to take a whole bunch of stuff. It's because modern life has caused it. But I didn't realize that whole list of nutrients we advocate, vitamin D, magnesium, Omega three fatty acids and iodine all also have very important microbiome implications. For instance, Omega three fatty acids, fish oil activates a very important enzyme that lines your intestinal wall called intestinal alkaline phosphatase. And that enzyme helps deactivate that endotoxin we talked about that comes from unhealthy microbes. I'm not sure I answer your question.

[00:37:17.110] – Allan

No, you did. This sounds like a lot. It is. But he really outlines us really well in the book. He has the recipes for the yogurt and the Kiefers and all the things he's been talking about. So he makes it very easy for you to start this protocol to go through and understand and know what's happening and why maybe you feel a certain way at a certain part of the program. So it's really well put together there.

[00:37:41.020] – Allan

Dr. David, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about your book Super Gut or Undoctored or any of the Wheat Belly books, because there's a few of them in the series. Where would you like for me to send them?

[00:37:52.750] – Dr. Davis

I made the mistake, Allan. Every time a book came out, I'd have a wheat belly Facebook page. We have Wheat Belly blog. I finally consolidated everything. It's going to launch in the next couple of weeks, I should say it's going to launch in December so that people listening to your podcast can see it when you do. That new site is called drdavisinfinitehealth.com that will kind of incorporate everything, including a new blog. We'll bring all that content. There's 2000 articles on the blog. So a lot of stuff in there. I also have a membership website where we actually do this, like you and me talking via Zoom. I do that every Wednesday night, usually with about 70 to 100 people. And we talk about these microbiome issues, other health issues, two way interaction. People get a lot of hand holding, so that's all going to be drdavisinfinitehealth.

[00:38:49.050] – Allan

Okay, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/524, and I'll be sure to have the links there. Dr. Davis, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:38:59.950] – Dr. Davis

Thank you, Allan. My pleasure.


Post Show/Recap

[00:39:09.350] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:39:11.210] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. It was nice to hear from Dr. Davis again. I know he was on your podcast before, so it was good to have him speak again on another topic about the super guts. But there's a lot to talk about here. But for starters, I think a lot of us know that antibiotics can destroy our gut, and they're still very heavily prescribed. And sometimes you have to take a course of antibiotics to heal from a cold or illness of some sort. But I guess I didn't realize that there are other things that can destroy our gut, meaning alcohol and other drugs, like statins he had mentioned and other things. So it was a really eye opening discussion on that.

[00:39:52.980] – Allan

Yeah. There's really only one thing to feed your gut, and that's whole food, pretty much anything else that you put into your mouth isn't food. And as a result, there has to be a downstream effect. It's sort of like you have a river and you're like, okay, I can throw live fish in the river, and that's cool. I can Overstock it. But generally I can stock a river just by adding new fish. And not just species that will eat each other, but just fish. And you can kind of stock something like stock upon or stock a river. But then you start saying, well, no, now I'm going to go in there and I'm going to throw Coke cans and bottles, and I'm going to throw this other stuff in there. And now you're polluting the water, and we have to think about our internals and the gut all the way from the mouth to the butt as our river. It's our health river. It's our second immune system or our main immune system, if you will. It's a second brain. And so every time you throw crap in there, you're harming yourself, and there's no other way around it.

[00:41:01.850] – Allan

People say, garbage in, garbage out. And I'm like, no, it doesn't come out. It just stays in there. You're poisoning yourself. And sometimes, like, you said with an antibiotic, it makes sense. You've got a bug that you have to kill. There are some bad ones out there that can kill you if you don't do the right things and take the right things, get through the whole course, and hopefully that course does what it's supposed to do. As soon as you finish that, though, it's time to start restocking the river. It's time to go in there and say what are the things I need to do to clean up the water? I need to make sure there's food for the fish that I'm going to put in there and I put the good fish in. And so it's kind of his process of walking you through the planting of the garden, sowing and feeding and nurturing and then planting and doing those things in a way that builds a good flora. And he does sell kits, all the process for how you can make your own yogurts and kind of really get geeky on. Okay, exactly what do I want to put in here?

[00:42:09.410] – Allan

Maybe not completely necessary, but when you're thinking about if you're really struggling, if you've got IBS and you're struggling and you take an antibiotic course and things just go south with all that stuff. Now, granted, whatever you took the antibiotics for is okay, the infection is gone now, but now you've got to do something and you might have to go through and really be meticulous about how you're repopulating. And most of the things I've read up until this book were really just eat some yogurt, some kefir, and go on with your life. And what he's saying is you might want to be a little bit more diligent and a little bit more direct and a little bit more specific for how you do these things. Because one of the things that we have to think about is now we're well into 2nd 3rd generation of antibiotics. Penicillin was invented in 1928. And so we're fairly long and how now we've been using antibiotics to kill off species in our gut and then so there's probably species in our gut that no longer exist.

[00:43:20.990] – Rachel

Yeah, it's sad to think that.

[00:43:23.450] – Allan

And so the best you can do is the best you can do. It's like an overused knee. If you were really bad on your knees when you were younger and now your knees are hurting you, there might be some limits to how much you can repair the damage that was done. But there are things you can do. And I think that's what this book is really about with regards to the gut is to really take a methodical approach. He has a very good approach there. When you're talking about bacteria, the names get long and I don't even try to say them out loud, but he walks you through to say these are the strains of what you want to start with. This is how you want to make sure they have the food they need. But again, whole food, most of it is going to be build the good gut with whole food. And then you start worrying about adding the plants, Adding the flora.

[00:44:22.170] – Rachel

Sure. He mentioned kombucha and other sauerkraut and some other fermented foods and then paying close attention to the type of probiotics that you might find at the store to make sure that they had some sort of account or type of the bacteria that are in those prebiotics. And just to pay attention, you mentioned taking onions, garlic and mushrooms or other good fibers that the gut bacteria likes to eat. So just like you said, whole normal foods.

[00:44:58.520] – Allan

Now, one of the big things we'll say is with yogurt and things like that, the vast majority of them are not going to have enough. All they have to do is say there's some in it and then they get to sell it as what it is. He's talking about taking that same yogurt you buy in the store and adding this bacteria and letting it sit for longer than they would. They're going for a few hours. You would go particularly maybe for a day or so, two days, three days maybe, and let the bacteria multiply, multiply, multiply. Then you're really adding an opportunity. And the other side of it is, I have to believe that your stomach acid is probably going to kill a lot of these things going through you. So just recognize when you're talking in terms of billions, just like baby turtles, only a small percentage of them are probably going to make it through. But that's an approach. And it's not that you have to go do a fecal transplant or anything crazy like that, but just recognizing that what you feed grows. And if you're feeding the bad bacteria with sugar and processed foods and bad attitudes, Then they're going to be the ones that live, and then they're going to be the ones that propagate and they're going to be the ones that move up into your small intestine and cause SIBO and irritable bowel syndrome and all of those problems.

[00:46:21.690] – Allan

Those are, whether we want to admit it or not, Predominantly self inflicted Based on our lifestyle and what we're eating. And maybe, yeah, we got sick and we took some antibiotics and set ourselves up for that. But in a general sense, we can beat that back down if we're methodical about what we're doing.

[00:46:39.540] – Rachel

Yeah, this sounds like a really helpful book to have handy in case these types of things are happening to you right now.

[00:46:45.950] – Allan

Absolutely.

[00:46:47.130] – Rachel

Cool.

[00:46:48.160] – Allan

Alright. Well, I'll talk to you next week.

[00:46:51.010] – Rachel

Sounds great. Take care.

[00:46:52.510] – Allan

You, too.

[00:46:53.320] – Rachel

Thanks.

Patreons

The following listeners have sponsored this show by pledging on our Patreon Page:

– Anne Lynch– Eric More– Leigh Tanner
– Deb Scarlett– John Dachauer– Margaret Bakalian
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Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

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January 31, 2022

How to lose weight, feel great, and enjoy food freedom with Lisa Moskovitz

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Weight loss seems hard, especially when we don't have a good relationship with our bodies or food. In her book, The Core 3 Healthy Eating Plan, Lisa Moskovitz shows us how to change our approach toward food in a simple, structured way.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:25.690] – Allan

Hey, Ras. How are things going?

[00:02:27.980] – Rachel

Good. How are you today, Allan?

[00:02:29.950] – Allan

Doing all right. Doing all right. Tammy took a weekend off with a friend to go to Boquete, which is another task town here in Panama. They were having some kind of festival, so she didn't know that when they booked it. But then she was going to go and we had our deep cleaning at the gym. So for me, it was a very busy weekend running Lula's and pushing the team at the deep clean to get that all done and walking back and forth between the two because I think they're about a third of a mile apart. Get up in the morning and get everything going. At Lula's, everything's good. Then walk over to the gym, get things going there, walk back to Lula's, make sure everything's where it needs to be, and then back to the gym, make sure the crew is doing everything, help them a little while, then back to Lula's.

So, yeah, I did all this walking one third mile increments back and forth. But we got everything done, got the gym clean and reopened this morning. So that's all good. And Lula's is doing well. We've got some guests that are having a good time and check in, check out. Things are going well.

[00:03:39.320] – Rachel

Good. Glad you got your mileage in, too. That's awesome.

[00:03:42.610] – Allan

How are things up there?

[00:03:44.890] – Rachel

Good. I mentioned a while back that one of my non fitness resolutions for the year was to read a book, a non health and fitness related book. And I just finished The Radium Girls by Kate Moore. Have you read that one yet?

[00:03:58.840] – Allan

I have not.

[00:04:00.620] – Rachel

It's a good book. It's an easy read, but it's also a difficult read. But back in the twenties, these girls were painting, using radium and watch faces for the military. And then we at that time didn't know that radium was as dangerous as it really is. And so these girls developed all these terrible health problems from eating radioactive material.

[00:04:25.990] – Allan

I thought you said this was fiction. Is this actually a historical fiction or actual fiction?

[00:04:31.120] – Rachel

Okay, it's a historical, legitimate book. And in fact, it wasn't until 2011 that a monument was put in Ottawa, Illinois, where one of these radium facilities were to memorialize these girls. Because really what they did was sadly the earliest days of learning what radioactivity was, how to measure it and what it does to the body and so a lot of what we know today about radium and radioactive material is from the work that these girls did, sadly. But it was a good book. I definitely would recommend it.

[00:05:07.760] – Allan

Good.

[00:05:08.630] – Rachel

Yeah.

[00:05:09.090] – Allan

Well, are you ready to have a conversation with Lisa?

[00:05:11.790] – Rachel

Sure.

Interview

[00:06:00.190] – Allan

Lisa, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:06:02.750] – Lisa

Thank you for having me.

[00:06:04.230] – Allan

So the book is the Core Three Healthy Eating Plan: Discover the Simple, Sustainable Way to Lose Weight, Feel Great and Enjoy Your Food Freedom. I like those last two words, food freedom, because I think so many of us, the relationship we have with ourselves, the relationship we have with our body and the kind of the way we look at food and the way we classify food, it really sets us up to kind of almost have this master-servant relationship. And it's not a good one. It's a mean master because food doesn't care about you. It's either going to serve you or not. It's about the nutrition you get because that's one of the things. As I started going and different times that I've been eating, it's like, well, how do you avoid eating this or doing that? I don't even think of that. When I walk in a grocery store, I don't go in the middle aisles because there's no food there. It's like, why would I walk down the diaper aisle? I don't need diapers.

[00:07:03.670] – Lisa

Maybe not yet, right?

[00:07:07.390] – Allan

I'm almost 56 years old. I'm two days away from my 56th birthday as this one comes out. So no, the kids are done. In fact, my daughter just turned 29, and we have another daughter who's 28. Those are our babies. Our babies are 28 and 29. So, no, our days of worrying about diapers is sort of over, at least from this perspective. Now, there might be some grandparenting situations where I'm in the diaper aisle, but on a normal day, I don't find myself on that aisle. I don't find myself on the crackers aisle. I don't find myself on the chips aisle. I don't find myself in the candy aisle. They're just not places that I find myself. So I really appreciate the word food freedom. I think that's one of the key takeaways that I got from this. And you had something else. I wrote it down, but I'm going to use it because that's me not being on this.

[00:08:02.840] – Lisa

Yes. And even while you're looking for that food freedom, I just want to say too, is kind of used a lot, sometimes even misappropriated. And it's very important to understand when we're talking about food freedom, what we're really referring to. And that's just the unconditional permission to eat. That you could eat without any stipulations, without any caveats, without any compensation later and without any punishment. And a lot of times I hear and I do honestly cringe, and I try not to cringe, but people say, oh, that was so bad that I ate that I need to go for a five mile run tomorrow morning to burn that off. And I just think that, sure, exercise and exercise does burn fuel and burn calories. But by looking at, first of all, exercise that way, you're looking at it as a punishment and by thinking that you need to punish yourself for enjoying food, it just doesn't bode well. And I think that does set people up for this very dysfunctional, chaotic relationship with food and connection to it. And it kind of sets the precedent for other issues down the road. So that's why I thought it was very important to touch upon that.

[00:09:10.400] – Allan

Yeah. And what I think is, again, why I think that's important is that because of the way things have worked out with what the foods that are available and the way we think about foods and what we've been taught about foods and the calories in calories out, let's do this diet. Let's try that diet. We have distorted looks at food, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. But this is not something that's intrinsic to us now. It would have been as Huntergatherers, because what did you get today? Well, I got a rabbit. Well, what did you get? I got some blueberries. Hey, let's sit down and have dinner.

[00:09:43.450] – Lisa

That's delicious.

[00:09:44.330] – Allan

Yeah. But we've lost that talent or whatever it was that that's how it worked. And we were okay with it. And you put in a book, just pull this little quote, wellness is a skill. We've got to relearn these things

[00:10:01.820] – Lisa

totally. And that's what I really wanted to touch upon that specifically and highlight that. And I use that when I counsel clients one on one, too, because people just think there's a magic wand or a magic potion or give me a meal plan and I'll follow the plan or give me an exercise plan and I'll follow it and all of these things. But it's a skill that you have to practice. If anybody could just go on a diet and lose weight, but to really sustain it for long term and to reap all the benefits, that's something you have to practice. It doesn't just land in your lap. It's not just, oh, I'm going to pick up this book and my life is going to be changed. I mean, that's the hope. Right. And I hope this book does change people's lives, but there is some work that goes into it, but it's very rewarding. Anything that's worth in life achieving, we have to work towards.

[00:10:54.390] – Allan

Right. And the first thing and I'm glad you put this first, because I say this over and over. It's kind of a mantra when I'm working with someone is you have to think about how you look at yourself, your relationship with your body, your relationship with your mind, how you think about yourself, that voice in your head that tells you different things. And sometimes that voice is actually mean. If we don't start with ourselves, then really a lot of this other stuff just wasn't really going to stick. And so I'm glad you started with your relationship with yourself. Can you talk about some signs that someone would know that they have an unhealthy relationship with their body?

[00:11:39.410] – Lisa

Sure. And I think that's very important. I think a lot of people don't even realize that they don't have a healthy relationship with their body and with food. And so when you look at what makes a healthy relationship with your body, it means that you show signs of respect. It's almost like a relationship with another person. What is the fundamentals and the foundation of any health relationship? It's trust. It's respect, it's enjoyment, and it's feeling satisfied that you're getting something in return for what you're giving. And it's just like mutually beneficial. And so it's really important that you think of you and your body as a team and you work together. And it's not this constant needing to change or fight against it or deny and deprive and again, punish when you feel like it's not living up to either your expectations or society's expectations. Because let's face it, that's a big part of the reason people struggle with specifically body image issues is that there's that comparison to this person, this celebrity, this person on social media, this friend or neighbor or family member. And it's really hard not to compare. But the more you do that, it gets to the point of no return, diminishing return, because you just kind of feel worse and worse and worse and worse.

[00:12:58.460] – Lisa

And it's hard to get out of that phone. So I start off with talking about healthy relationship with your body, because if you don't have a healthy relationship with your body, inevitably it's going to affect your relationship with food. And if you don't have a healthy relationship with food, that's going to affect how you eat. So you can know everything there is to know. And believe me, coming not that I know everything there is to know at all. There's still so much to learn in the world of nutrition, but you can everything there is to know. But if you don't have that ability to listen to your body, trust your body, trust food. It takes knowledge, hunger, and fullness. So many people do mindless eating and they overeat and portion issues and they don't realize that they're looking externally. But it's got to start internally or intrinsically and we need to practice that. So when you have this unhealthy relationship with your body, some signs and symptoms are maybe you avoid social situations because you're afraid of putting on a bathing suit or you don't have anything to wear. Or maybe you do spend a ton of time trying to find ways to change it or alter it.

[00:14:08.140] – Lisa

Maybe you spend a lot of your paycheck trying to do the same. Maybe it interferes with your relationships in life or with putting yourself out there with getting a new job or finding a romantic partner. If you feel like almost that it affects your mental health, you feel down, you feel depressed. So those are just a few of the things that might come up if you don't have that healthy relationship with your body. And it brings on a lot of negative thinking, a lot of negative feelings. And those feelings and thoughts turn into very firm beliefs. And you don't realize a belief is just reoccurring thoughts. So you might believe that you're not good enough or you don't look good enough or you're not going to find someone that you can love you back and love you just as much as you love them because of your body. But that's stuff that you implanted and it's not your fault. But I think it's very empowering to know that that might not be true. It's just stuff that you've told yourself and told yourself or maybe other people have told you, which also is another whole conversation.

[00:15:11.190] – Lisa

But now all of a sudden you believe that to be the case and you haven't really given yourself a chance. So it's very important to work on that relationship with your body, especially for really everything, especially wellness, fitness and overall health.

[00:15:26.810] – Allan

Yeah. The way I like to look at it is if this was your friend, so you're sitting next to your best friend on a park bench and you notice that your friend is down and they're like, what's going on? It's like, well, I'm not really happy with how much I weigh and with my weight, my health. What conversation would you have with your best friend? How would you word it? What words would you use? And my guess is they'd be encouraging, they'd be coming from a place of love. And really, yes, you can acknowledge that they've got some work to do, but it's not acceptance in the way that you would say, okay, we're just going to live this way. It's like, okay, well, what's your plan? How can I help you? What do we need to do to make this work? So it's coming from self love. It's coming from that position of help, of being there, and we need to do the same thing for ourselves. We need to step up and say, I love myself and I want this to happen.

[00:16:29.750] – Lisa

Yes, I love that advice. And I've given that, too, for people that have a really tough time with negative self talk, and it's just constantly putting themselves down or putting a lot of pressure on themselves and just feeling like they never live up to that. I'll say, what would you say to your friends? Sometimes I hear, well, I would just and I hope none of my friends will do this right now, but sometimes I'll just tell my friends something to make her feel better. And I don't necessarily, but I still think that's important for ourselves. Even if you don't believe it in that moment, even if you're not really feeling it, you have to still talk to yourself and practice that positive self talk and those positive affirmations, because over time it's not going to change overnight. But over time, they will replace the negative thoughts, and that can be the only thing in your way. Sometimes people are like, oh, I don't have the motivation to go to the gym or I don't have the motivation to eat healthy, and I don't have the motivation to do all these things for myself. And they don't realize the biggest obstacle is themselves and their thinking patterns.

[00:17:34.410] – Lisa

And that's why I love psychology and I'm not a psychologist, but I believe that food can be very psychological and health and wellness can be very psychological. And that's why I really wanted to incorporate that in the book, because it's not something I see all the time is diet talking about the psychology. It's okay to want to lose weight, but you really have to focus on your relationship with food and your body first. It's paramount.

[00:18:00.020] – Allan

Yeah. And that's why I'm glad you put this in here, because I do read a lot of diet books and a lot of them are just like, okay, here's what we're going to eliminate, here's what we're going to include. And this is how you're going to eat. And here's the plan. And it's 28 days and you're going to lose to 12 pounds and you're going to feel great and you can like, well, you skip the step. You skip the big step of not knowing ourselves and our relationships and why we got where we got. Because if we don't address that first, then we're going to come back around after we finish this wonderful diet and we're going to start punishing ourselves again, we're going to start doing the things that we used to do. We're going to fall back on those messages.

[00:18:38.990] – Allan

Now, the next step then is looking at your relationship with food. And in the book you identified four distorted eater archetypes. Can you talk about those four? Because I think anyone that's ever had issues with food and with their weight is going to find one of these that just like, oh, that hit me in the gut because that was me.

[00:19:02.850] – Allan

And I think that's important for self awareness.

[00:19:05.560] – Lisa

Yes, absolutely. Part of the reason I did that was because I wanted to resonate and I wanted it to feel relatable. And it's also not uncommon to identify with more than one. And that's not an accident. There is a reason for that. So what I ended up doing after writing this chapter and really thinking about the things that I see in my practice is I was able to come up with a lot of the most common traits I see when people have these distorted or dysfunctional or even disordered views of food. And it ended up just falling into these four groups, these archetypes, like you said. So we have the erratic eater, the dependent eater, the judgmental eater, and the obsessive eater. The erratic eater might have a very hectic lifestyle. They might even thrive under stress, having a very busy schedule. Food could often be an afterthought. There is probably very little structure in the day. And for that reason, some of the pitfalls could be overeating later in the day or not eating enough, not eating enough food groups, not eating mindfully. And so that was a very important part of this, because I want people to say, oh, this is me, these are my issues, and this is how I can resolve or remedy them.

[00:20:32.280] – Lisa

And all four of these, too. I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But all four of these also, they're not all negative. It's okay that you're not someone that eats all day long and you don't constantly have food on you and you're not maybe like thinking about food until your body asks for it. That actually can be beneficial, because maybe in that sense you don't just eat for any reason. You're not someone that's, like more of a dependent eater. And that's the next archetype. The dependent eater is somebody who's almost the exact polar opposite. Food is a focal point. There might be thinking about dinner before lunch even comes. Plans and traveling plans and holiday plans and any social events might all revolve around food. There might be more emotional eating. There might be more eating for not just emotions and comfort, but stress to sort of enhance any type of experience. Like you go to the movies, you might not be hungry, but a big bowl of popcorn would make the movie more enjoyable. So you get the popcorn. So again, like the Erratic eater, yes, there's clear pitfall, but also that's not a bad thing either, to enjoy food.

[00:21:44.020] – Lisa

It's just the amount that you're doing it. And if you don't have anything else to look forward to, you don't have any other coping mechanisms to deal with emotions and stress. That's when it becomes problematic. That's when people can feel like they are overeating. And weight gain, of course, is one side effect of that. But other issues, too digestion issues and high cholesterol, high blood sugars. So all of those can also follow suit. And then we have the judgmental eater. This is the type of eater that I find has the most experience on diets. They kind of go from a cereal dieter. They just go from one diet to the next, always looking for the next best thing. And that's not anyone's fault. They're just looking for something that they can feel is working for them. That gives them some kind of hope, that makes them feel productive again, like they're doing something about their weight. But what happens is they end up kicking up on some of these what I like to call food rules. Where this is good, this is bad, you can't eat this at this time. You can't eat fruit with anything else.

[00:22:45.760] – Lisa

It's got to be by itself. No eating after 06:00 p.m.. And I included that in the book, too. I kind of break down those food rules. The most common ones I hear. Why they are quite kind of I don't want to say, like fully irrational, but some of them are kind of irrational and they come from places that make sense, but they just get just blown up and they snowball into these actual fears that people develop too, around food and then everything else unravels after that. So the judgmental eater, they might even do some food policing, not just of themselves, like oh, don't eat that or don't eat that. Or if you eat that, there's consequences. They might even do it. Project those judgments onto others as well. So those are some pitfalls of the judgmental eater. And like I said, they're not all bad. That comes out of them. With a judgmental eater, you might be somebody that knows a little bit more. You might know all the ins and outs of healthy eating and balanced eating and what foods are going to be more health promoting and what aren't going to be as health promoting.

[00:23:46.510] – Lisa

So that can work in your favor. You just have to know how to use that, what to do with it, and have more of a flexible approach with food as well. And then the fourth and final type is the obsessive eater. And this is someone who just spends an exorbitant amount of time looking at food labels, researching diets, feeling afraid. This is when the food fears come out. The obsessive eater really is meant to be the type of eater that's most at risk for developing a full blown eating disorder. And I had a big Disclaimer, and I wanted to make that very clear. This is not a book for anyone with an eating disorder. This is not to diagnose anyone with an eating disorder, but eating disorders are very prevalent and continue to be. And a lot of people that have them tend to go for diet books. I don't want to use this word term specifically, but it's kind of like the low hanging fruit a little bit with diet books is the ones who have the most issues with food might be the ones reading. And that's why I thought it was so important that I make that very clear that this might need a higher level of care intervention, because it's kind of running that thin line between what's distorted and what's actually distorted and what's actually an eating disorder.

[00:25:07.190] – Lisa

So those are the four main types. And then in that chapter, I do specifically focus on those strategies like mindful eating, which, let's face it, nobody's going to eat mindfully all the time. It's just not happening. We can't unless you have absolutely nothing in your day other than to sit with your food and pay attention to it and check in with yourself, it's not going to happen. But we eat mindlessly when we're not paying attention, when we're distracted, and we also eat mindlessly for a distraction. Some people will eat so that they can distract themselves from something else. And so those are the two different ways that that mindful eating can exist. And it's really important to address that, at least to be a less mindless eater, not a fully 100% of the time mindful eater, but a less mindless eater.

[00:25:53.290] – Allan

Yeah. And I think you'll find when you are focused more on your food, it tastes better, you know, when you're full and you stop. So it solves a lot of problems that we would otherwise have of picking something up and eating all of it versus going through. Like I said, I saw a few things on myself. I used to like Girl Scout cookies, the Thin Mints. And I say, okay, well, what's the serving of Thin Mints? You look on the box, and I think it's like three cookies or something like that. So I take the two or three cookies, whatever it was, put the package in the freezer, go sit down, eat the three cookies, get up, walk back to the freezer, get another three cookies, and put the package in the refrigerator. And then by the third trip, I'm just standing in the freezer, right with the freezer open, eating the rest of the pack of cookies. I was judgmental, but I set a rule for myself. And then I immediately say, okay, well, I'll have another serving. And then at that point, I was like, well, screw it, Allan, you want the rest of the cookies?

[00:27:01.310] – Lisa

I hope I'm saying it right. But if you're going to eat standing up in front of the fridge, you might as well pull up a seat, something to that effect. And it's just funny because I think everybody is at some point finds themselves doing that, eating over the counter, eating from the refrigerator, or eating a small serving or what they hoped would be enough. And it's just not. And there's other reasons behind that. But sometimes it's okay to just I ate a little bit more. But that's okay. Maybe I needed it. Maybe I need to get it out of my system. Maybe I'm done with the Girl Scout cookies for now. And I can put that to bed

[00:27:36.160] – Allan

because the box is gone. So, yeah, at that point.

[00:27:39.590] – Lisa

One way or another.

[00:27:42.050] – Allan

Yeah. And they only do that once a year at that point. Okay, now you have the plan, the core three healthy eating plan. Can you just give us an overview of how the plan works and why you think it's, because I saw a lot of great things in there. I'm like, yes, okay, so I understand the structure of it, but can you go through it and then explain the structure and how it works?

[00:28:05.510] – Lisa

We talked a lot about the psychology, but I really wanted to Hone in on the physiological parts of it. Can't talk. Sorry about that. And the science behind it, because it is very much a science based approach. And again, one of the things, one of the issues I've noticed over the years, counseling clients who try different plans is it's just not personalized. And that's very important when you are finding a plan. There are no two people exactly the same, and we all are going to have at least slightly different nutritional needs. So I really wanted to respect that bio individuality. So the premise of the plan and one of the reasons that three is in the title is because I touch upon three major macronutrients. Literally anything on your plate that you are eating is going to fall under a carbohydrate, a protein and a fat. And they're essential because our body needs them for different types of functions. So I go into the importance of carbohydrates and specifically higher fiber or fiber rich carbohydrates, and explain why fiber is very important in your diet, why it's very beneficial to focus on slower digesting food in general.

[00:29:22.040] – Lisa

And I really circle in the what I think really helps people with health in general and even weight loss and even gut health and immune system is blood sugar stability. So I try to loop that in and make it very clear that the plan's premise is to eat to stabilize blood sugar. And as a result, you can feel not only more energetic, better mood, but also notice that you are potentially losing weight if you have weight to lose, which is a whole other conversation. So then I go into protein. And again, why protein is important. I find people fall into two major categories. Either they don't eat enough protein or they eat way too much protein. And so I thought it was important to touch upon that it is a little bit more of a higher protein diet. And then I go into fats and the types of fats to pay attention to, specifically the anti inflammatory fats and the fats that are not bad and not to avoid, but the ones that can potentially be more pro inflammatory. And the other part that I really wanted to emphasize and really make clear is that there is no food off limits, that the healthiest diet is an all inclusive diet.

[00:30:37.490] – Lisa

Carbs, specifically, are the most demonized. There is a war against carbs. I see that in most diets, they cut them out one way or another. They're cutting out carbs, whether they're telling you you can eat grains or you can eat so much fruit or, you know, just eat more meat and fat. And the keto diet is 5%, I believe, calories from carbohydrates. That's very, very low carbohydrate. So this is a low carb, but it's not very low. And then what happens is you are given a very clear formula that you can use to personalize it to find out how many carbs can I eat? For my specific goals, how much protein should I be focusing on? And fast. But again, even though there is a plan in there and you're given amounts and there's even tons and tons of food charts where it will list out the types of carbs, proteins and fats, what I consider to be one serving and how many servings to have in a day, I do want to emphasize the importance of flexibility. And some days you might feel a little hungrier, and some days you might be okay to eat a little less.

[00:31:49.460] – Lisa

And that's also part of listening to your body. So you are given a clear idea of how much to aim for every day, but it's also very flexible. And then, of course, it is a higher fiber diet, like I mentioned. And I do talk also about the importance of some plant based eating not only for ourselves but for the environment, because I do think that's becoming increasingly important right now is the welfare of our planet.

[00:32:15.810] – Allan

Right. Now, you also included a requirement in there. I guess I should call a requirement a recommendation. But to at least try to get 3 hours of exercise per week. And you had an acronym in there to help someone who is exercise challenged from a motivation perspective. And I love acronyms, so that's why I had to include it in this episode. And the acronym is MOVE appropriately. Can you tell us what the acronym Move means and why each of those are important?

[00:32:56.190] – Lisa

Absolutely, yes. There's a whole chapter on exercise, and I'm not that person that some people are anti exercise, believe it or not. And exercise makes you hungrier, it's not going to help you with weight loss. I believe exercise is very beneficial for a lot of reasons. Weight loss can be a bonus because we're not exercising just for weight loss. It's definitely not a punishment. In fact, the chapter is that it should be a reward and a celebration, not a punishment. So it's very important to understand that. And I think indirectly it can help with weight management, because if you're someone who is stress eating, it can help you with that. It can help you manage that stress level better. If you're someone that's not sleeping well, guess what? It can improve your sleep, and that can be helping with what you put in your body during the day. So there's a lot of indirect benefits. So I thought it was very important to touch upon that. And strength training I'm all about, I think combination of cardio, strength training and more mindful movement is really important, especially for body image. So looping back in that first part of the book.

[00:33:52.980] – Lisa

So Move is supposed to be an easy way to, like you said, get people motivated to kind of make it more simple and more approachable. The M stands for Making it More Sociable. So it's important to have we often want to do things in life and everything is more fun when we do it with people. And not to mention being with people and having more plans with people that don't revolve around drinking. And not that eating out is bad, but eating at a restaurant, it's nice to have other things you can do together. So why not kill two birds with 1 stone and make it something that's more fun for you by recruiting some friends and family and people that you enjoy? The second part is to have obtained the accountability to have somebody there. We often do things the most successfully when we stay honest with ourselves when we have somebody looking back at us and saying, have you been doing this? Where are you at with these goals? I know you really wanted to work on this, so let me remind you of that. And that can come in the form of a personal trainer and a person.

[00:34:57.060] – Lisa

But not everybody has access to personal trainers for different reasons. So it could even be like a Journal or an app or just even a friend or family member who is also wanting to feel healthier and get in shape and improve their fitness levels. So those are the first two very important parts. And then the third part is to make sure that you find something that you love. So it's really important that you aren't just doing the treadmill because you think that's how you're supposed to lose weight. People become overwhelmed. They don't want to go to the gym because they don't like the cardio machines. They don't like the weight training. They don't even like being in a gym period because there's a lot of pressure. Maybe there. So walking is an example where if you enjoy walking and you're at nature and you can listen to a podcast and you can listen to good music on your phone, you want to make sure it's something you like doing. If you do not like doing it, you probably won't keep up with it. So it doesn't have to be one specific thing. There are plenty of ways to move your body and to actually enjoy it, and then you want to ease into it.

[00:36:05.620] – Lisa

So I hear a lot from people who come to me as clients one on one and say, I just started this new workout routine and I'm going to the gym seven days a week, really, seven days a week, every single day, not even one day in between? And my response is always, that's great, I'm so happy you're doing that. But how sustainable is that? And I'm afraid I want to encourage you to keep going because you're clearly in that mindset, which is amazing, but I don't want you to burn yourself out. And that burnout is such a thing with everything we do in life, especially with taking care of ourselves and fitness. So ease into it, create some small goals. That's another reason why I said those 3 hours, because I think it's fair. I think it's achievable. I think it's something that most people aren't overwhelmed with, like 30 minutes, five days a week, or even a little less than 1 hour, three days, 1 hour, three days a week. So I just feel that when you make it very small and achievable, then we're more likely to want to do stuff. And that's again, bringing back in that like psychology, behavioral science.

[00:37:13.710] – Lisa

And so it's important that you sort of ease into it slowly. Don't jump in with both feet, because you might find that after a short period of time you're like, this is too much. I have other stuff in my life that I need to do in the gym routine. This exercise routine is not going to fit into my lifestyle. And that's a shame.

[00:37:34.410] – Allan

And the other thing about that 3 hours when we talked about it, I think what's important to know is that it doesn't have to be an hour long three times a week or 45 minutes four times a week. It could be I'm going to park further away from the office and I'm going to walk up and that's a five minute walk. Okay, you've logged five minutes. You're going to walk back to your car. That's another five minutes. You do some of that at the grocery store. You say, okay, I'm going to walk over here. And then you stop at the park and you have a nice little 15 minutes walk during your lunch hour. All those little bits, they add up. It doesn't have to be this grueling 1 hour that you're just dedicating and losing your life, feeling like you're losing your life or not being a good parent or spouse. You're just investing 3 hours per week. However, it needs to be spread out, taking a voice call, you're going to be on a conference call, just taking a walk while you're on a conference call. You might be able to get your whole 45 minutes in just during that conference call if you don't have to participate.

[00:38:35.830] – Allan

So there's lots of ways to make this happen. I love to make it social. I love the account obtain accountability, because that's really how we make things stick because sometimes we won't do it for ourselves. But if someone else is counting on us to be there at the park after work, then we're at the park after work most of the time. And the two those kind of join each other a little bit because you have a social buddy that you're meeting to go to the park and walk. You got the social aspects of it and you got someone counting on you to be there. And I agree with varying it up and finding the things that you love, because that's really to me, fitness is about being fit for task. So if you want to be a hiker and you love going out in the nature and doing hikes, well, then going out and doing hikes is maybe the workout you need. If you can't do the hikes, at least do some walks around your neighborhood because you know you're making your hikes that much more enjoyable because you've got the fitness level to do it.

[00:39:32.290] – Lisa

Exactly right. And I think the other part of it, too that I really want to emphasize because I see this being a big deterrent, is that people who and I don't know if you find this too with the people you work with, but people that do get engaged in exercise, the motivation I would say the predominant driving force is I feel like weight loss, calorie burning. And I think that's the biggest reason why people do not have a healthy relationship with exercise, which I talk about healthy relationship with food, healthy relationship with your body. And so I thought it was very important to touch upon this because it really does affect everything. And I see that being the biggest issue. And if all you're focused on is the calorie burning, then sure, five minutes isn't going to feel like a lot. It's not going to feel like it makes a dent. 20 minutes even isn't going to feel like it makes a dent, or even worse, you give up because you're not noticing the results enough with the way you look and not paying attention enough to the real benefit, which is even five minutes can boost your mood, can increase those feel good neurotransmitters that can make your afternoon so much easier at work.

[00:40:34.690] – Lisa

It can actually and this is all science based, and I do include some studies in here of why I recommend those 3 hours. It could also increase creativity. So if you're really stuck on a project and you can't get past or you can't type out that email or you can't figure out what to say or something that you're trying to create, going for a little walk around the block can really boost that. It gives you a break that can really boost that. And then guess what, not only are you doing better and performing better, but you're logging those hours of exercise too, which is going to help in so many other areas. So just know that every little bit we're not just saying that to trick you into exercising more. It really does make a big difference. Just that little bit of movement can make you feel so much better. And again, for me, one of the biggest reasons I wanted to talk about it is because I think it drastically improves the way you feel about yourself and your body image and feeling your confidence to make other changes in your life.

[00:41:27.450] – Allan

Yes, it does. Lisa, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:41:40.710] – Lisa

I love that question. And I think most people would expect me to start talking about like certain foods to eat. But, you know, I do touch upon a lot of that in the book. And I think it's very important to focus on what you're eating and how you're eating and the why behind your eating, which is something we didn't talk about today. But I fully think the intentions are the most important thing. Why are you eating those foods? But I'm going to go in a little bit of a different direction with my first big tip, which is to stop trying to make everyone happy. You're never going to feel your best if you're trying to make everyone else feel their best. And I think it's important to consider respect everyone else's feelings. Obviously, we all want to be decent humans to each other and respect each other. But you also have to put yourself first. If you try to make everybody else happy, you're never going to be happy. And that's going to affect other areas of life. Like you're not making that time to get movement and you're not making that time to grocery shop and prepare meals and focus on foods and eat mindfully because you're doing so many things to make everyone else happy, that's going to take its toll.

[00:42:45.290] – Lisa

So I really think that's super important, especially myself as a mother with a business and kids. Once I go down that path, it's really, really hard. Nobody wins because you're never going to make everybody happy, unfortunately. So that's my number one. My number two is to practice self awareness. I think it's so important to be aware of what you're doing. If you have a specific goal, if you want to feel your best, you want to be your healthiest, you want to improve your cholesterol levels, your blood sugar levels, or lose weight, you have to be aware of your habits and behaviors. What are you doing every day that's getting you there? And what are you doing every day that's not getting you there? And just kind of even if you have to Journal it for a day just to write it all down. So that awareness is incredibly important, especially that emotional awareness. Check in with yourself. How are you physically feeling today? Because whatever you do from eating and exercising standpoint, if it's not addressing some other needs, you're still going to feel like something's missing there. And then my third one is that self compassion.

[00:43:49.770] – Lisa

Nobody is perfect. We're not going to do everything that we always want to do. Some days are going to be easier than others. You might have a week where you felt like this was a great week. I got in my exercise. I feel as though I was listening to my body. I was able to do some food journaling. It was just a good week. And then some weeks are going to be a mess. And as we head into, well, I know it's not going to be the holidays, but when holidays come up, when vacations come up, when family events that are not planned come up, it's going to make things harder. And if you beat yourself up, if you make yourself feel bad for feeling bad, because that's what we do so well as humans, as we make ourselves feel bad for feeling bad, you're just going to again spiral. And it's going to be hard to get out of that funk and start making those positive changes you want to make. So I'm all about the compassion, and I'm going to cheat and add one more thing in there, which is just to have that cheating on just to have that gratitude in your life.

[00:44:45.230] – Lisa

I think that it's hard to feel positive all the time, and I think too much positivity can quite honestly feel toxic sometimes. But having that gratitude, counting your blessings, being grateful for the little things in life can instantly boost the way you feel about yourself, your mental health, and your physical health as a result.

[00:45:02.430] – Allan

Great. Lisa, if someone wanted to learn more about you or the book The Core 3 Healthy Eating Plan, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:45:11.250] – Lisa

Thank you so much. It's being sold at most major retailers online. So you have Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can go right to the Simon and Schuster website. And then you can find me at my group practice. I'm in New York City, New York nutrition group. Or you can follow me on social @LisaMNutrition.

[00:45:35.400] – Allan

Great. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/523 and I'll be sure to have the links there. Lisa, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:45:45.990] – Lisa

So much fun being here. Thank you, Allan.


Post Show/Recap

[00:45:55.090] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:45:56.770] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. What a really neat book and a fun discussion you guys had. I'd like to start off with food freedom and what a nice concept that would be to give yourself permission to eat.

[00:46:09.850] – Allan

Yes. You know the whole point. Almost every diet, almost every single diet is some form of punishment, if you will. You can't have this food. So it's like what food can I have and what foods can I not have? A few of them will say, okay, well, you can eat everything you want, but you still have to log and do that. But that's still hard because. Okay, well, I have to keep up with all of this versus just saying I want some simple rules, but most of them are going to tell you, maybe even an entire food group or several different types of food groups you have to avoid and not do. And when you're not in total control of your schedule or where you live or where you are, that can be very hard. I'm in Panama. We have access to all the tropical fruits. All of them. I can buy fresh pineapple, papaya, mango, banana. All of that is just readily available every single day here. So if I was keto all the time and be like walking by the fruit stands every day because there's four or five of them between even here in the gym, they're all over the place.

[00:47:17.440] – Allan

So if I can't have fruit occasionally, then there's a struggle. And so the question you have to ask yourself is well, one, we got to get past the first pit, which we'll talk about in a minute. But what is food for me?

[00:47:35.050] – Rachel

Right.

[00:47:35.740] – Allan

And once you define food for yourself and so for me and what I define food predominantly is it was alive, it was running around or it's a product from something that was running around or it was growing in the ground. But at some point or another, it resembles something we know was alive. So that means I don't eat pancakes and syrup, I don't eat triskets and stuff like that. For the most part, I try to avoid things that are in a bag, box, jar or can, because most of them you can't trace back to it being alive. I can know that flour came from wheat, but it doesn't look like wheat. It's just a powder. And so from that perspective, I know it's ultra processed. I know it's just going to turn to sugar when it gets in. Things that are made out of wheat are delicious, don't get me wrong. But you have to find your line, you have to find those things that are going to work for you. And when you do, then anything that's within that realm is food. And there's a tremendous amount of freedom when you're not having to make decisions every single time you run into the grocery store and you walk in and the very first thing you see is the produce section.

[00:48:59.660] – Allan

But you're like, okay, that's going to require cutting and cooking. And I don't really want to mess with that. Yeah, there's some prewashed salads and wow, they even put the dressing right there with it. I could run back and grab some chicken, grill that up real quick and have a really great dinner. Or I walk right through that produce section, right over to the aisle that sells the Hamburger Helper and look on the box. It says, okay, for this to feed six people, I need to have 2 pounds of hamburger. They run back there, they grab 2 pounds of hamburger, they got their Hamburger Helper, they start to walk out, they get to the counter, oh, they're selling my favorite candy bar. They grab a candy bar, then they check out. Their home, yes, 30 minutes. They've got a cooked meal, the chili Mac for dinner, and the two of them eat six portions between them. And for a lot of people, that's there all the time. So they're following one of the distorted eating principles that Lisa talked about and there is that they're erratic. They don't really have a plan. They haven't really defined food.

[00:50:06.900] – Allan

And not defining food then means you have no freedom. You eat what is available, you eat what is convenient, you eat quickly. Instead of going into the grocery store, you just stop at McDonald's, you're on the phone, you're texting your significant other. Okay, I'm at McDonald's. What do you want? You know, and it's quick, it's easy, and you're already eating their fries before you get home.

[00:50:37.310] – Rachel

That doesn't do anything for you. Eating that type of food and choosing healthier options takes time. It takes planning. And like you said, you got to eat what's around you. But also you need to find out what works for you. What makes you feel good.

[00:50:54.570] – Allan

Yeah. So once we get there and we know, okay, these are the foods that serve me. These are the foods I enjoy occasionally, yeah, you can go ahead and order your dessert. And you're fine with that because you've done the groundwork to have a good relationship with food. You've done the groundwork to have a good relationship with yourself and your body. And when you do that groundwork now it's like, okay, if I occasionally want to have some cake, I can have my cake. But I know what my general rules are. Once you kind of have that mapped out, and then you start putting plans in place, strategies and tactics and say, okay, my cupboard is full of this. If I get really hungry and I want something, well, here Brazil nuts right here on my desk. So you have a freedom of saying I eat when I need to, and when I'm hungry, I eat the foods that I want to eat. So I'm not a victim of food.

[00:51:50.090] – Rachel

You know, the other thing she mentioned to that wellness is a skill and that it takes practice. And I really wanted to mention that because it does take time to figure all this stuff out. It's not like you can go and buy a book and here's the diet that I'm going to follow, because I know this is going to work for me. It's not like you can choose an exercise regimen. I know this is going to make me lose weight and be a healthier person. It takes time. We need to learn these things and implement them and try them. And there's going to be some wins and there's going to be some failures. But it's something that is a skill and it does take practice.

[00:52:25.140] – Allan

It does. Pretty much every diet works until it doesn't. Almost every exercise program is going to help you get better until it doesn't. And so there's this basic Bell curve. Whenever you get a book and they're like, okay, I want you to follow the Mediterranean diet. Here's how you do it, and here's your movement principles, and you follow that book to letter. For 80% of us, the vast majority of us, it's going to work for a period of time. There's a Bell curve there's outliers that basically aren't going to respond, but most of us are going to be able to do it. And sometimes we have issues. Something comes up. Now I'm staying over at my mother's, taking care of her. And so I don't have access to what I had before. And she doesn't like the food I Cook and I have to Cook for her. So now it's like, well, do I Cook two meals or how do I put this together? That's that figure out this thing. I said, okay, my mother is not going to eat this, and she's not going to eat that. But she wants this and she wants that so what do we do?

[00:53:25.120] – Allan

I'm like, I make a modular meal. I do some batch cooking on Sunday. So I have my proteins and my vegetables ready, and then she's going to want to starch and she's going to want a dessert. Then I have those available to her. As soon as we finish, I'm like, you're going to eat a protein and you're going to eat vegetables and you're going to have a starch. And that's what we're going to have. No, I'm not going to deep Fry and no, I'm not going to buy the TV dinners and stuff like that. Occasionally. Yeah. If you want a TV dinner, I'm in shopping on a Saturday, and I go in and say, hey, can you give me one of those Hungry Man? I'm like, sure, here you go. You can have Hungry Man first. Sunday afternoon, I'm going to be eating some of the batch cooked food that I made, and we're good popping in microwave. Four minutes later, she's got her molten lava cherry bomb cake thingy. It's fine. But just recognize that. Yeah. There's a skill involved in putting together strategies and tactics, because a lot of people will start with the strategies and tactics.

[00:54:27.240] – Allan

Like, oh, I'm going to go on the Mediterranean diet and I'm going to start walking every morning for 45 minutes, seven days a week, and that works until it's snowing on Saturday and like sleeping and probably pretty dangerous for me to be out. Are you still going to go? And if you miss one day, is that your excuse? Is that the crack in your ice that says, oh, well, there's still some snow on the ground, so I'm not going to do it on Sunday either. And now on Monday, you're off, you're not doing it. So there's a skill to it, and it's setting up reasonable expectations for yourself based on that. And the other side, we talk about food freedom or exercise freedom and all that. It's just recognizing that nothing ever goes exactly to plan. As Tyson has said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And so it's kind of having that expectation that things might not go the way you want them to. And you have to forgive yourself for these interruptions, for these detours, for these things happening, and do what's reasonable through self compassion and self love to get yourself back on the path, the most reasonable and expedient way possible.

[00:55:46.430] – Rachel

Yeah. She also mentioned that knowing what your relationship is with yourself and with food like we've talked about in the past, having a mindset is really the starting point. And that she even mentioned you need to respect yourself and love yourself and enjoy yourself to be successful in any of these endeavors.

[00:56:05.880] – Allan

Yes, I wish that was a book. I have a series of four books, guys. And the first book is just going to tell you how to Fallen Back in love with yourself. The second book will start talking about falling in love with food. And then we'll start talking about exercise and diet and sleep and other stuff because so many people want to skip to chapter three. What's the eating plan? What's the eating plan that's going to work for me in 21 days. And I'm like, no, spend the first month, maybe even the first year just saying, who am I and how can I fall back in love with who I am, who I was and who I will be? Because you can always look back and you can find things about yourself that you really are proud of that you did and were capable of doing. You can look at yourself today and find things that you're very proud of about who you are and who you've become. And then when you look ahead, as one of my clients said, she wants to be that little old lady that everybody is like, how does she keep going there's this way about looking at yourself with compassion and hope.

[00:57:21.770] – Allan

And many of us lose. We don't have that hope. Our hope is sort of this wish. It's not really what the word hope. It's like I wish I were thinner. I wish I could do these things. I wish my knees and ankles didn't hurt. Those are wishes. And a wish feels like you don't have control, whereas hope is inside you. It's like I have hope that I can get stronger. I have hope that I can rebuild my immune system. I have hope that I can take care of me and live a long, healthy life. So I'm hopeful that I'll be then I'm not me, but her, that little old lady that everybody's like, well, she just doesn't slow down. So the first part is falling in love with yourself. Full stop. That's the end of the book. Don't go to the second book until you finish this book. You're going to miss the plot. The big part of the plot starts in this first book of the series, and you don't go to the second book of the series and start reading it because you haven't gotten the fundamentals. And then the same thing happens with food.

[00:58:36.130] – Allan

How do you really feel about food? What are your limitations? What are your capacities? How do you really feel and think about food? And she put in some great archetypes in the book for you to really just sit there and say, you know, am I erratic? Am I really structured? Am I someone who's dependent on food? I use it as a crutch, the pint of ice cream at night to set myself up for getting past the stress of the day. Or is it worse? Is a point where I'm right on the edge of obsessive and maybe even struggling with an eating disorder. And so until you break those things down and say, okay, do I love myself? And then how do I feel about food? And what's my relationship with food and just realizing that it's nourishment, it's enjoyment, it's fuel, it's building materials and all those things. And it's information. It's information for your body. And so it's very important. Just like you need to have self compassion, you need to be compassionate with food and say, okay, what's going to nourish me, what's going to build me better? What do I enjoy but the ways I can make it?

[00:59:53.880] – Allan

Maybe you don't like Brussel sprouts. Tammy never liked Brussel sprouts until we found a way to cook Brussel sprouts that she actually liked them. It took her a while. So just recognize that you take your time and you find that relationship. And honestly, that building the skill thing you talked about. That's what this process is that so many people want to move on before they have the skills. It's like walking out on the NFL football field and thinking, okay, I got a chance of not dying out here. That linebacker is going to lay you out because you don't have the skills and not that you'll ever have the skills to be an NFL running back. But that said, if you are working on the skills to be the best you then you will be. But you've got to get the skills first. And that is that self love, self compassion, having a great relationship with food and then strategies and tactics.

[01:00:52.890] – Rachel

Absolutely. Just perfect. Be patient. You'll get there.

[01:00:57.060] – Allan

Yeah, definitely take some patience, because it's not a straight line. It's never a straight line.

[01:01:02.630] – Rachel

Never.

[01:01:03.320] – Allan

But every day you can take a breath is a day you can move in the right direction. So you woke up, you're listening to this. You want this. Take that first step. Just take a step today. Talk to yourself about love, compassion. How do you really feel? And then when you feel like you've gotten to a point where you're good with who you are and where you're going, then you start talking about your relationship with food and do those two things. Really, then the plan makes sense. Then her plan. I'll just step in here's a plan. I'm going to stick with this plan. And when that plan works and then maybe it stops working, you still fall back on that self love and self compassion and relationship with food. And then you tweak and you pivot and you find the way. So we talked in that episode about quitting. And sometimes to quit is a good thing, but sometimes it's quit and pivot and sometimes just grind it out. Just keep doing it. But until you get to a point where you're not blaming yourself, you're not gorging on foods that you know you shouldn't eat just because you want to punish yourself.

[01:02:11.590] – Allan

In a sense, until you get past that kind of behavior, then you're not going to be able to pivot effectively. You're not going to be able to deal with a Plateau. And those are going to set you back and they're going to happen. They always happen. So recognizing that you have control over who you are in the future and then starting that journey.

[01:02:31.930] – Rachel

Yeah, all great information. Sounds like a great book.

[01:02:36.400] – Allan

It is a good book. Yeah. Absolutely. But like I said, just read the first couple of chapters, get to working on that, then go back to the book and worry about the plan.

[01:02:46.710] – Rachel

Absolutely.

[01:02:48.270] – Allan

All right. Well, Rachel, I'll talk to you and everyone next week.

[01:02:52.130] – Rachel

Great. Take care.

[01:02:53.530] – Allan

You too.

[01:02:54.360] – Rachel

Thank you.

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Another episode you may enjoy

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January 24, 2022

How to be plant-based and still eat what you love with Julie Wilcox

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If you've ever thought about converting to a plant-based but didn't know where to start, Julie Wilcox's new book, The Win-Win Diet will show you how. On episode 522 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we meet with Juile to discuss the book and plant-based eating.

Transcript

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:22.870] – Allan

Hello, Ras. How are things going?

[00:02:24.960] – Rachel

Good Allan, how are you today?

[00:02:27.150] – Allan

Doing pretty good. It's really been really busy here. Of course, we knew we were going into busy season and it's like ebbs and flows. So we had a bunch of people at New Year's, and then it kind of let up. And where Tammy is looking at the schedule and saying, wow, we're wide open. There's nothing and all of a sudden reservation reservation. And so it's really cool. Except it just means that, yeah, it's like right now tomorrow, three rooms checking in and we weren't expecting that kind of thing. You're on. It like we thought we had a day off or we thought we were going to have some time and like, no, if it's up there, it can get booked. And then I'm trying to figure out some of the back end stuff of how do I get the TripAdvisor thing to work with the Facebook thing with the Google thing with our reservation system back and forth and trying to tie all that stuff together. So I'm trying to get that a little bit better organized. So people when they come in, they're like, okay, I don't see any reviews. Well, I want you to see some reviews.

[00:03:24.260] – Allan

I want you to see some current reviews because we're a little different than the previous owners were, as far as how we're running it and what we do and how we've upgraded it. So really just making sure that they're not. Don't get me wrong. The previous owners did a great job. They have great reviews. But you start looking around and it's like we've done so much. Tammy's done so much to make the place look great and operate great. That when someone comes in, we want them to understand that there's a different way we're approaching this and a different level of service that we provide here at Lula's. That's been very busy. And then the gym has been relatively busy. And so it's been go go go go. And since New Year, literally since New Year's Eve. Boom, this is go out of the gate. So haven't had much time to look up and do much else. But it is what it is. Busy can be good. And then we'll probably block out a week or so in May and take some time off just to catch our breath before we go into this kind of the lull of the season.

[00:04:33.500] – Allan

But at some point, I think we're going to have to take a deep breath and relax for sure.

[00:04:38.710] – Rachel

Definitely see a time off here now and then. That's good. Glad to hear everything's going well with Lula's. That's so exciting.

[00:04:46.230] – Allan

Yeah, it is. How are things up there?

[00:04:48.590] – Rachel

Good. Actually, the opposite of you. It's quiet now. My kids are back to College. They had a very nice long break for the holidays, and now they're back in school. So I've had some extra time here to work on my other New Year's resolution to start reading books. So I'm reading a book for entertainment, not about running or health or fitness or anything. So it's kind of nice to have that change.

[00:05:13.510] – Allan

Every once in a while I'll sit down and do some of that. I've got three books I ordered and had because again, there's no bookstore here. I'd ordered a few books to come down. Some of them are like, these old classics. It's like you were supposed to have read this somewhere in College or high school or something. I was like, You've never read that? No, I've never read that. That was like I had to read it. And I'm like, we didn't have to. But now I want to know. So I'll go back and read those. And then there was the show, the Man from High Castle. It was on Amazon, I think. So I watched all those and then I was like, I knew it was a book. I was like, I want to go read the book and see how close the book is to the series because I typically like the books better than movies. I don't know about you, but I tend to like books better than movies. And some books are entirely different. Like, if you see Forrest Gump the movie, the book is an entirely different story.

[00:06:13.150] – Rachel

That's interesting.

[00:06:13.790] – Allan

It's the same story, but it's almost like the character is different. And I would even say, Dare say, a little less likable, but that's just my impression of it. But again, when you read a book, it's a little bit more what's going on in your head versus what the actor wants to put on the screen, the director on the screen. So I like to read the books to see how close they are to what I saw or vice versa.

[00:06:39.680] – Rachel

Sure. Awesome. Well, enjoy those reading. If you have the time.

[00:06:45.970] – Allan

I am a little head on my interviews, four or five interviews in there, and I've got three or four more that are kind of on deck. As soon as they get their interview book, then I'll be on to those. But I am trying to kind of pace myself now to say, okay, I'm not going to do more than two interviews a week. There's no reason for me to do more than two interviews a week because I can tell you three is a lot and five is too much. And that's what I did before we got to New Year. So never again in a week. But I will drop it down and try to get to two a week here and there and just keep myself ahead because we are pretty much ahead now and recording, which is kind of a good place to be other than it is. Some of these interviews happened two months ago and trying to remember what we talked about. All right. But we are going to talk to Julie Wilcox. Are you ready for that?

[00:07:37.060] – Rachel

Yes. Let's do that.

Interview

[00:08:36.850] – Allan

Julie, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:08:39.970] – Julie

Hi, Allan. How are you? Nice to be here. Thank you.

[00:08:43.690] – Allan

One of the things I love about life is that if we really take our time and we think about it, we can develop a win win attitude. We can develop a win win relationship. And for a lot of people, when it comes to food, they don't think that way. Their brain is in this. I've got to win over food, or food is going to win over me. But you're bringing a plan. And your book is called The Win-Win Diet: How to Be Plant Based and Still Eat What You Love. So you're approaching this from a very good mindset of I can win and have good food and still enjoy it with a win win instead of a win, someone's got to win. Someone's got to lose.

[00:09:26.830] – Julie

That's exactly right. Yeah. The win win actually operates on several important levels. You get to reap a laundry list of health benefits while also alleviating climate change. You get to eat an incredibly healthy diet while not having to sacrifice entire food groups or foods that you love. And lastly, as you mentioned, you can personalize your diet. You don't have to conform to a fat or fit into something that's made for the masses, not for you. And how your body actually works optimally.

[00:10:04.450] – Allan

Yeah. I've tried different ways of eating over time because I'm doing this podcast. I did things for my own health, and I was like, okay, this doesn't work for me, and I would figure it out pretty quickly, but it didn't. And that's one of the things I've talked about on the podcast for a long, long time is that each of us has to eat to our own. We have to know what serves our body. We have to get rid of foods that don't serve our body and then find our place. In a sense, we're always going to have labels because as humans communicate at all, we have to put a label on the way we eat. Are you a carnivore? Are you an omnivore? Are you a vegetarian? Are you a vegan? And then there's some space in between those. And that's what I like about this is your approach, it goes into four levels, and I'll admit it's not on the carnivore keto side, for sure. But I've had vegan Ketos on, so you can do that as possible. So I'm not saying it's not there, but you're helping people go a little bit more plant based, which there's a ton of evidence.

[00:11:10.300] – Allan

You look at Mediterranean style diets, the dash diets. And then you realize that plants provide nutrition that we need and the more of them we can get in our diet, probably the better with fiber and all the other things we talked about that help you feel satiated and full. You're getting the protein and you're getting some healthy fats. Then it all kind of comes together. So in your approach, in the Win Win diet, you have four levels, and I'm going to say they're sort of stacked because as you go in, they're a little bit more restrictive at the next level, next level, next level. And it's flexitarian, pescetarian, vegetarian, and then vegan. Can you talk through those and why you structured those in that way?

[00:11:55.690] – Julie

Sure. So I think those four diets really suit a wide variety of preferences and needs out there in the world for pretty much anyone. And within those diets, there's actually a range that you can also personalize. So just to define each one of those eating patterns, Flexitarian reduces their meat consumption and eats fish, eggs and dairy, as well as plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, seeds and plant-based proteins. And all the diets share those plant foods in common. They're trying to increase the consumption of those plant foods and decrease the animal foods. The pescetarian diet doesn't eat any meat, but they do eat fish, eggs and dairy. Vegetarians eat no fish or meat and eggs and dairy, and some eat only eggs or dairy. And then finally, we have the vegans, which don't eat any meat at all. So really, there's a lot of room for personalization customization along the spectrum between the diets within the diets. So that's why I decided to choose those four. Other plant based diets, like fruitetarian, for instance. I don't think that's something that appeals to all that many people. I mean, I don't know that many people who only really want to eat fruit.

[00:13:33.470] – Allan

Well, Besides, maybe ritual, but the thing is in each of these approaches, because I don't want to use the word diet. I think that's a bad word. Actually, it's a four letter word, anyway, is that each of them allows you you're teaching them how to get an adequate amount of protein. They're getting less of it from processed foods. They're getting more fiber in each of these than they would if they were eating a lot more meat. They're moving with the flexitarian, more chicken and poultry, and fish. And then with pescetarian, they're going more to the fish. All of them are going to have some form of eggs and maybe dairy. But it's a tolerance thing because you can get vegetarian, as you said. Okay, I'm vegetarian, but I don't do well with the dairy. And so I just eliminate the dairy. And now I'm egg vegetarian, which I forgot the word for that.

[00:14:39.510] – Julie

That's ovo vegetarians. The ones that only have dairy are lacto.

[00:14:41.740] – Allan

Okay, there we go. So see, there's a place and I think where a lot of people have made a mistake, and I have, too, is that I would say it's an all or nothing. So I would literally just take and be eating the way I was eating and jump to pescetarian in my perspective. And I just jumped to pescetarian, and it was a train wreck. It's a complete train wreck. You're staggering it down. And you've got this into a series of transitions. And each transition is six weeks give or take because it's individualized and then a two week kind of stabilization. You call it a honing and maintenance. Can you talk about that transitioning process and why that's important?

[00:15:28.650] – Julie

Yeah. The transition methodology that I developed essentially asks that you allow your body to adapt to these shifts, as you mentioned, to just shock the system doesn't really ever work how many weight loss stories have we heard only to then have the follow up that people have put the weight back on? Also, for chronic disease prevention and management. You want a diet and a lifestyle that's sustainable for the long term. So the way I've mapped out the transitions between the diets starts with focusing on portion control. So let's say if you're moving from omnivore to flexitarian, for instance, and you're used to eating two sausages in the morning with a couple of fried eggs, the first step for you would be to have maybe one sausage that's regular red meat, and then maybe substitute the other one with a Turkey sausage. If you're having, then a Ham sandwich for lunch with typically four slices of Ham, reduce it to two. Add some lettuce add some tomatoes or other veggies that you'd like to again start moving more towards consuming the healthier foods, the fruits, the vegetables.

[00:16:54.950] – Allan

And as you said in the book, avocado. So, yeah, put some avocado.

[00:16:59.910] – Julie

Avocado lover. And same for dinner. If you're used to eating a six ounce steak, try for three, add another vegetable, add a whole grain. Another thing that I talk a lot about, because in the world, there's a lot of hostility towards carbs. And, yes, refined carbs. We want to be very careful about and really not eat a lot of but whole grain carbs are wonderful for you. As you talked at the beginning about fiber. They're full of fiber, protein. They have lots of vitamins and minerals, and they're really essential for overall optimal health well being. Your digestion, energy, carbs are what fuel our muscles, our brains. So the idea to eliminate them completely is not really a sound one. So you really want to focus on the refined stuff, the processed foods, the sugary foods, the foods with trans fats added saturated fat.

[00:18:07.770] – Allan

As I say, bag box jar, or can be wary.

[00:18:13.290] – Julie

So in terms of that first two weeks for any of the transition, it applies across the spectrum. So if you're moving from flexitarian to pescatarian, then you would do the same portion reduction in the first two weeks, taking the meat down and substituting that with fish and plant foods. Pesceterian to vegetarian. You're reducing the fish in favor of eggs, dairy, vegetables, fruits, legumes, plant proteins. And when you're transitioning from vegetarian to vegan, you're starting to lose the eggs and the dairy. And you want to be careful along these transitions to make sure that you're focusing on what nutrients you might be losing in the process, especially between vegetarian and vegan. So vitamin D12, vitamin D, Omega three is our big ones calcium. So you want to definitely make sure that you're paying attention to getting those from the other foods. Also, it's important to understand that I'm not saying that everybody has to move from being an omnivore all the way to a vegan. I make it very clear in the book that you can stop at any point and you can go back if you want as well. So, for instance, I became vegetarian when I was 14 years old.

[00:19:32.600] – Julie

I saw a film on factory farming and science class, and I also had a sister that was vegetarian. And as we know, the people with whom we surround ourselves have a high impact on our eating habits and lifestyles. So I became vegetarian for about ten years, and it wasn't until my 20s that I realized I just wasn't feeling my best and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It definitely had something to do with not having enough variety in my diet. I don't think I had as much energy as I wanted, and I started slowly eating fish again, and I've been a pescetarian since. So it can be different phases of your life. That one diet suits you more than another. If you're pregnant, that's a whole other set of things you have to think about. As you age into over 60. Let's say every phase of life, we have different issues to contend with. And so you really just need to listen intuitively to what your body is telling you and what it needs.

[00:20:39.870] – Allan

And that's what I liked about this is every two weeks you have to check in with yourself, go in there to do this, check in and see how this is fitting your life. And is it serving you? Are you feeling good? Do you feel like you're getting what you need? And do you feel like maybe you're ready to step a little bit further away? So you dropped one of the sausages and replaced it with a Turkey sausage. It's like, okay, are we ready to go in the next week and say, okay, every other day I'm going to have two Turkey sausages. And every other day I'm going to have two of the pork sausages and then walk your way down to a point where you're now a flexitarian and very little red meat at all. And if you feel better, if you feel good, then you did the right thing. If you're not feeling it, then you may need to walk back some.

[00:21:25.710] – Julie

Exactly. And so after the portion reduction, the next two week phase is meal frequency reduction. So if you're eating meat, say three times a day as an omnivore and you are trying to get to be a flexitarian, you reduce it by one meal in the first week, every day, perhaps, or a few times a week, and then in the second week, maybe you reduced to only one meal a day. So the idea of the meal frequency reduction is that by the end of the two week period, you're eating only one meal a day that has your transition food, because then the final two weeks before there's a honing and maintenance phase the last two weeks. But the last two weeks of the six week period is where you reduce the days on which you actually eat your transition food. So if you're eating it now four days a week, say one meal a day, then you work on taking two days away and the first week, and then the second week, another two days a week, and then you're down to zero, hopefully by the end. But then you assess yourself one more time and you say, Is this right for me?

[00:22:32.720] – Julie

Am I feeling okay now I have two more weeks to actually just be with this diet and see how it feels and make any adjustments that maybe I need.

[00:22:44.020] – Allan

But I think that self-awareness is really the important part of this because it might take you three or four weeks to get through one of these phases and really feel like, okay, I've got it nailed down, and I'm comfortable with the way I'm eating. I feel good or feel okay. And I'm ready to take the next step versus just saying, oh, no, it's two weeks, and I'm not sure you be kind to yourself. So show some self compassion and say, okay, I need a little bit more time to acclimate to what I'm doing, and then you can take that next step.

[00:23:17.450] – Julie

Exactly. And that's why, more specifically about the assessment sections, they're divided into three parts, and I ask you to really do a medical check, talk to your doctor, make sure everything is clear with your labs and your health status. In that sphere, I ask you to do an emotional and psychological check to make sure that you're really okay with those arenas. So it's a pretty comprehensive evaluation to make sure that you're feeling good and feeling better hopefully. The reason why people would theoretically be doing this is because they want to feel better and better.

[00:24:00.350] – Allan

Absolutely. Now, one of the things that's really hard for a lot of people is okay. When I'm cooking my own meals, breakfast may be the easiest unless you're in a hurry and wake up a little late and it's like, oh, no. And now I have to stop somewhere and have to buy food either at a restaurant or I'm in a real hurry, and I need to do some kind of take out or delivery. Can you give us some tips for how we can manage what we're trying to do now in those environments? Because sometimes those menus are a little hard for us to know. What are we getting here? And how would you recommend someone to go and do that?

[00:24:38.790] – Julie

I would recommend that you immediately scan menus for fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains. Ideally, you want to do your research in advance, so you want to have a few go to places where you know they have the foods that you'd like to be eating and having not only those groupings of food, but also portion sizes that are appropriate, because that's a big pitfall for people and especially when eating out or ordering in. So again, you want to learn what the proper portion size of any food is and make sure that you're curating your places and your meals properly that way. Word of mouth, talking to neighbors, talking to friends, family in the area is a great way to get ideas of where to go as long as they're on the same page as you are doing online research looking at menus. A lot of places now provide nutritional information on their menus. I'm not a big believer in calorie counting, and I think it's good to know generally what you're consuming day to day, but not really actually having to do the computations. That's a little bit more of a complicated conversation.

[00:26:06.140] – Julie

But if you do it once and you eat routinely enough, essentially, you'll know where you are and what you need to do there with the calories. I think asking questions is super important of your servers. Again, what are the ingredients in there? What are the portion sizes? Is it possible to make alterations? Can I have this? But not that? I think people need to really feel empowered to speak up and ask for what they want, and at least in the least asked questions so that they can make the decision if they don't want it and they can choose something else, you can always eat half. You don't have to eat the whole thing. I know that can be difficult, but if you set your mind up for that, take the rest home. Save it for the next day. Or if you're with someone or, you know, you have colleagues in the office that might want some or family at home. Since so many are working from home these days, take it with you. Hopefully someone will have it. And if not, put it in the fridge, freeze it. Of course we don't like to waste, but you can always get rid of it if you need to.

[00:27:14.760] – Allan

Well, one of the things I would do is if I knew I was going to a place and I knew the servings were going to just insane. I mean, okay, serving of beef is not 12oz or 8oz. That's two or three servings. So it would be like, okay, I'm going to take a container and I'm going to take my own salad dressing. And my wife kind of sometimes was a little upset with me for making a scene and doing these things. But I was really wanting to make sure I was eating better. I would bring my takeaway. And as soon as they bring out the food, I would cut the meat and I would put the portion I was not going to eat in the takeaway.

[00:27:50.950] – Julie

There you go.

[00:27:52.750] – Allan

Now, what's on my plate is my meal. And then I enjoy a nice meal and I don't have to think about it anymore. That's the way I approached it. So having a plan going in, I do I agree with you is really important in doing the research. A lot of restaurants are doing that. They're putting the information out there. They're making it available. They're flagging their foods, whether it's vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, all those different things. And if they're not, letting them know with your dollars is probably the best way to get them to change. So if the quality of their fish, the quality of their meat is not what you want it to be. Don't eat it, refuse to go there. And eventually they'll realize, oh, maybe I have to up my game to have you as a customer.

[00:28:38.830] – Julie

Right. And I just want to say that if you know also that you have a lifestyle that is going to require you to eat on the run, you can also prepare for that by making foods at home on the weekend that are good for transportation, that will stay well, that you can make a couple of batches of whether it's overnight oats or yogurt parfaits, dried granola you can always bring with the side of berries, hardboiled eggs. There are definitely a bunch of options that you can prepare for yourself at home because there's nothing better than knowing what is exactly in your food, making it yourself, knowing where it's coming from and being able to portion everything the way you should, just taking your control, your power back over that.

[00:29:32.410] – Allan

And it's probably cheaper too.

[00:29:34.460] – Julie

Yeah. Exactly.

[00:29:36.190] – Allan

Now one of the things that's coming about because veganism and vegetarian, these are not new things, but being plant based as a diet, as a dietary way of eating, a way of eating is getting bigger. It's a growing trend based on the science people are paying attention. And so now they're coming up with the substitutes so I can go into the grocery store. And there's the vegan burgers that are bean based or soy burgers or the vegan bacon, which to me, is kind of I don't know that I don't even understand. But then now the big ones impossible and beyond meat, which you can buy at McDonald's or Burger King, I guess. They're doing this because there's a market. But is this something that we should be doing? Like, should we just substitute our meat with impossible or beyond burger?

[00:30:38.030] – Julie

I think it's okay to do occasionally as you're transitioning when you're in a pinch. But I think people need to really be aware that those foods are comprised of a long list of ingredients that aren't wholly natural, and they contain saturated fat. They contain chemicals and just all different sorts of hybridizations of things. The best is to go as pure as you can. Make your own burgers with tofu or beans or vegetables. Again, you can get fewer forms of all of those they're processed a little bit just to get them to the supermarket. But you want to stay away from the ones that are flavored or trying to imitate something. So yes, the vegetarian bacon like rather just get a loaf of tempeh and slice it up really thin, throw it in the pan with some olive oil and use some smoky spices and make the flavor yourself that way. And I think that goes for any of those plant based proteins. The beauty of them is that they really absorb flavor beautifully. And so as frequently as you can use and learn about and stick with herbs and spices and making your own sauces out of natural ingredients, whether that's tahini or you want Asian style sauces with soy sauces and ginger, garlic, things like that.

[00:32:15.290] – Julie

You can do all that yourself, but using whole, pure, healthy ingredients, as opposed to things that have been manufactured on a mass scale that are basically chemically derived and made.

[00:32:30.000] – Allan

Yeah. And the cool thing is in your book, The Win Win Diet. You have recipes to help with the transition to each of these levels. So you're going to have some delicious food, you're going to enjoy it, and then at that point, find your spot in here. So you're eating healthier and feeling better.

[00:32:46.610] – Julie

Exactly. Yeah. I have 95 recipes in the book, and I think that's where I've been really successful in the field of nutrition, working with people and that once you start to actually eat the food that's delicious and you realize that it can be so tasty and amazing, you don't then need or want or crave the foods that, like meat, for instance, that maybe you should be eating less of or want to be eating less of. So I think a lot of it comes down to resources and having those recipes on hand and also having the meal plans to support them. So you understand how to put it all together again so that you don't have to be sitting there worrying about or counting your calories or your fat intake during the day because the meal plan is there for you and you do it a couple of times and then basically, you know, like this is the way I can mix and match, and I don't really have to think about anything anymore. It's delicious. It's healthy. It's whole foods, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, all those great things that are going to fuel my energy that are going to help me sleep better that are going to enhance my focus, prevent and help me manage chronic disease.

[00:34:02.170] – Julie

There are so many reasons to start to embrace the plant based or plant slanted diet, and it's really not as difficult as people think. You just need to make these incremental small changes, and that's what I really try. That's the message I'm trying to get across in this book.

[00:34:22.210] – Allan

I like that Plant Slanted. I'm going to use that.

[00:34:28.110] – Allan

Julie, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:34:36.810] – Julie

so of course, eating your plant based diet fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and plant based proteins. Sleep getting at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Exercise at least 30 minutes a day, about five days a week is about the minimum that I recommend. Those are three. I can go on and on meditation, self nurturing, really, just taking care of yourself to decrease your stress and anxiety, which of course, contribute to and drive a lot of poor food choices and cravings. Socializing, having a great group of people around you that uplift your mood that support your goals that help you when you're struggling. All those things are really important.

[00:35:26.550] – Allan

Awesome. You just regurgitated Buettner's blue zones again.

[00:35:34.290] – Julie

Love him.

[00:35:36.030] – Allan

Okay. If someone wanted to learn more about you and the book, The Win Win Diet, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:35:42.990] – Julie

They can go to Amazon or Barnesandnoble.Com and order it as a pre sale right now. It actually drops on January 18. They can follow me on social media. Instagram juliacockswellness. LinkedIn Julie Wilcox. Facebook Also Juliewilcoxwellness, I have a website, juliewilcoxwellness.com. I try to keep people updated on all of these channels. I have a newsletter that they can sign up for on my website, so those would be the best channels.

[00:36:18.290] – Allan

Great. You could go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/522 and I'll be sure to have the links there. Julie, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:36:29.190] – Julie

Thank you. It was wonderful speaking with you. Thanks for having me on the show.


Post Show/Recap

[00:36:40.090] – Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:36:41.620] – Rachel

Hey, Allan. Wow. What a fun conversation. And how can you not want to win and win with your diet what a really interesting interview about plant based or no plant slanted diet. That was pretty cool.

[00:36:55.250] – Allan

Yeah. Whenever someone says plant based, I think almost everyone's immediately vegan. And the reality is the whole concept of food and eating food is really a continuum. And it's a continuum of whether you're going to be more meat based or more plant based or a little bit more balanced. And then from that, there's kind of the tweaks of foods you're just never going to eat. So there are some people I sit there and say, I happen to love liver and onions. And in a few weeks we're going to talk to someone about why that might actually be good for you to have in your diet. But most people are going to sit there and say, no. Not going to do the organs. And I would say, then it comes to the mind of if you want to be carnivore and you're not going to eat organ meat, you're going to have to supplement because you've made a decision to be in a restricted diet, very restricted diet. And the only way you're going to get the nutrients you need is really to eat hoof the Horn. I mean, you got to eat the whole animal to make that work.

[00:38:08.280] – Allan

And it's kind of the same thing with other levels here where you're going flexitarian all the way down to vegan is you are eliminating something, or you're at least significantly reducing it. And you have to think about the nutritional ramifications of making that decision. So for vegan, you're not getting B twelve. There's no food, there's no vegetable based food, plant based food that gives you B12 enough B12 anyway to matter, and therefore your body can't create it, and therefore you don't have it. And that can be a big problem. So you may have to supplement if that's the way you're choosing to eat that far on that continuum, and the things you start deciding you want to eliminate, you have to figure all that out. And as we were talking earlier, you can want to eat a certain way. But if your body says no, then it's probably going to be no.

[00:39:09.350] – Rachel

Yeah. And we all know about the most common food allergies. There's peanut allergies, seafood allergies. And there's even some that maybe people haven't heard about. I think I might have mentioned on our podcast before that my mom is allergic to blueberries and other really dark skinned fruits, and my brother has to me the worst allergy. He's allergic to apples and Apple juices, which is in a lot of different products out there. And he also has a sensitivity to the pit fruits like peaches and nectarines, those things that have pits. So, I mean, not very many people have heard about those types of allergies. And again, like we mentioned before, you could tell me all day long that fish is good for me, which I can eat fish. But if I had a seafood allergy and couldn't eat it, well, then that's the problem. I can't eat it. So you're right about finding other ways to get those nutrients in and the fiber and the other vitamins and minerals and these different types of foods.

[00:40:09.020] – Allan

Yeah. And then some of it's just availability. Here in Bocas, if I decided I wanted to be vegan, now, there's lots of restaurants that I could go have vegan meals, but I can't necessarily walk into the grocery store and find Tempa or soy. I can find maybe some edamame, but I'm going to get really tired of eating edamame every day as my protein source.

[00:40:34.120] – Rachel

Right.

[00:40:34.800] – Allan

And if you have sensitivity, some people just really don't tolerate beans or they don't tolerate night shades. They don't tolerate a lot of those things. And if you have not just allergies but intolerances, you're really going to struggle to get the nutrients that you need. And some of the things you're eating are actually anti nutrients and pulling away from that as well. So the closer you can get to a balanced diet where you feel comfortable, you're kind of balancing out your ethical concerns or concerns about the planet and just recognizing, okay, I'm probably not killing the planet by eating a little bit of meat, and I might not be killing the planet at all. I don't know. You can show me a study. You can show me a statistic that tells me. Okay. Yes, one cow destroys the Earth, and I'd say, probably not now, millions and billions of cows and the process that we're doing, and obviously in industrial farming is terrible the way they treat the animals because they're a product. And I know that sounds horrible, but it is what it is. And if you want to eat those ways, you can. What I've found is a lot of people end up substituting and doing all this machinations to almost pretend they're not eating that way.

[00:42:02.110] – Allan

And I don't think that's any better. And as we discuss with Julie, it's like, yeah, some of those substitutes are probably worse for you than had you just said. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and eat some chicken and just be a flexitarian. I'm going to go ahead and eat a little bit of beef, but in real moderation, maybe once a week or twice a week thing, and you're flexitrian most of your food. Most of your nutrition and calories is coming from plants. Then you're moving. It may be a way that's more healthful for you, but you have to figure that out. As you said, everybody's going to be a little different what you eat. I don't eat what I eat. You don't necessarily eat everything. But you probably won't eat, right? Because I eat just about everything. I'm not afraid of any food. And if I know I need someone, I literally went to the Butcher where I buy most of my meat. And I said, okay, I want to see if you can get me some organic liver, give me some organic kidney, give me some organic heart and get me some thymus.

[00:43:05.620] – Allan

And I had to spell thymus, and she had to look it up to figure out what it was. Oh, it's in the neck. Yeah, it's really good. I didn't want to call it. Tell her sweep, right? I don't want to confuse her, but she's like, brain. I'm like, no, that's the one thing I don't want to eat because there's been some stories of people having issues with brains and stuff. I avoid eating brain, but that's just a line because I've seen if they don't take care of the animal, that's how they're going to get you. But, you know, if you're willing to eat anything, then you're going to be able to get the nutrition you need as long as you're paying attention and just not eating stuff. That's where people get in trouble. Is that elimination, right.

[00:43:48.180] – Rachel

Well, I love how she made it a four level kind of way to move, being flexitarian, pescetarian, vegetarian and vegan and then sliding to those different ways of eating as your body responds to it. But I also appreciated how she said to try something and sit there for a couple of weeks, like, just don't go from a to Z. Start with making smaller food swaps, or instead of eating meat five days a week, eat it for a couple of meals a day or a couple of days a week and just kind of switch from beef to chicken to fish and just kind of make these tiny swaps, but then sit on it for a couple of weeks to get your body used to that and see how it responds. And I really appreciate, too, because if vegan is too difficult or you're not feeling great being vegan, you can slide back up again and have a meal that has fish or chicken in it and slide back down again and see how your body responds, because at the end of the day, that's what's the most important thing is you feeling good and having enough energy to do what you want to do.

[00:44:55.230] – Allan

Yeah. Well, in a sense, with any of these things, when you go to a publisher, if you sat there and said, this is the four month plan, they would say, no, no one's going to buy a four month plan. But to be honest with you, two weeks was just enough for you to kind of kick the tires a little bit. You're not really even taking it for a test drive. So she encourages even go a little longer if you need to. So if you're going from full meat eater to flexitarian, then not just on a couple of weeks. But you may want to sit there for a good long time and just say, okay, I'm comfortable here. And now when I'm comfortable, I can consider going to the next level. When you take that next step. And she talks about that a little bit in the book. But she couldn't say the four months plan to figure out the best way for you to eat. And then the other side of it is, okay, so maybe you get yourself to a point where you're full vegan, okay. And you're going full vegan, and then you're out with friends and they don't have the vegan options.

[00:45:57.840] – Allan

But they have a deal where you can do something that's like vegetarian, and you take that step and say, okay, well, I'm going to have a vegetarian meal. You're not going to die. You're going to have your vegetarian meal, enjoy the heck out of it. And then tomorrow, when you fix your own breakfast, it's your normal vegan fare, and you're back to normal. And so just recognize that it's that strictness. It's that feeling like you've got this electrode fastened to you that if you do something wrong, it's going to shock you and your body might. I mean, I can tell you if you are eating vegan, and then you go out and decide to have a big eight ounce juicy steak. You might have some difficulties the next day or so where your body is trying to say, what the hell did you just do to me? That was a little too bizarre if you do that jump. But if you just say, okay, I normally would eat vegan, and some are predominantly plant based. And, oh, there's a little bit of fish. I'm going to have a little bit of fish.

[00:46:59.780] – Allan

And I'm going to go on about my day. So I get some protein because I had the fish and then I had the salad and I'm good. It was a meal. I think a lot of people kind of get lost. And once I define as something, then I have to eat that way. Or the gods of veganism or the gods of Carnivore are going to get it down on me because I see it every day. Like I'm on Facebook and someone being a group and they're like, Well, am I allowed to have this on the carnivore diet? And it's just so funny that they're asking people on the internet permission to eat a plant to have coffee. Can I have coffee on the carnivore diet? And I'm like, Are you really asking permission from people on the internet like, they're the rulers of carnivore? It works the same way. It works the same with vegan. It's the same thing if they cook my vegan meal on a plate on a pan that was cooked meat. Am I not vegan? And I'm like,

[00:48:00.370] – Rachel

Well, it's unfortunate that people are so mean about it. That people are saying, if you're going to be vegan, this is how you're going to eat till the end of time. And again, it doesn't have to be that way. You need to eat based on how you're feeling and what your energy level or energy needs are for that day. And what you eat today or ten years from now could be vastly different. And that's okay. I just don't see how people can be on top of each other like that and be so rude.

[00:48:31.970] – Allan

It's the tribalism. It was the whole reason I had that guy on to talk about tribalism. His first name was Allan. It was Dr. Buchanan. That's why we talked about tribalism, because I really wanted folks to understand that you get into this ideology. It's an us versus them thing, and they're using it now everywhere. If you don't follow their ideology, you're wrong and you're evil. And so they create this us versus them. And I would just say, don't buy it, don't buy into it. Just don't even identify with how you eat. If that's an Identifier, that might be an indication that there's a problem. If you just say, I eat real food.

[00:49:19.280] – Rachel

Yeah. End of story.

[00:49:24.570] – Allan

I know it was alive, and if I'm hungry for something, I eat it. And that might be like, I'm going to have a big salad with some. I found this product here called Black garlic, and I'm obsessed with it. Basically it gets really kind of sweet because the way they handle it, I don't know the whole scenario how it's made. I probably need to look that up because I'm eating something, and I don't really understand. But if you've ever had a salad and it has dried cranberries in it or something like that, like that and kind of get that texture of a cranberry in with your salad. So it's just a different texture in your salad. Like I'm doing that. I've got olives, I've got different spices and things that I'm putting in it. And then I'm throwing in. I'm just doing vinegar and oil, balsamic vinegar and oil on this big salad. But these things come in beets, and it's like they come in as just a different texture. So there's the beets, and then there's the lettuce, and then it's Rosemary that I put on there. And you guys will hear the episode on that not too long in the future, but some foods that she talked about in her book, and we'll get into that.

[00:50:33.950] – Allan

Like I said in a few weeks about these different foods. I've started adding them to my normal diet just to see how I feel eating that way. But I found these things, and it's kind of like now I don't need raisins or dried raspberry things that cranberry things that I would normally have on a salad. I do this. But again, you try something new and you learn something, and I have to do a little research to figure out how they make black garlic or whether it is because it can't just be a garlic. There's something they're doing to it that makes it this versus just being garlic. But it's delicious. And I'm pretty much having it about once every other day or once every day, maybe two days in the last week. But I haven't had that big salad with that. But you buy Lettuce, it's like lettuce and arugula and this. And I need to work through this before it goes bad, yes. Five times out of the last seven days. But no, it's just try new foods, try to learn something new. And if you want to kind of go down this plant based approach, then here Julie Wilcox is kind of giving you a guidance and talking you through the transition from one level to the next to make it sustainable and make it easier so that you can find where you belong.

[00:51:58.990] – Allan

And if you go a little far, you can take that step back. Or if there's a day or a celebration or something going on, and you're kind of like, well, I really want that. Then you go ahead and have it, and then you just recognize your body might not appreciate it as much as you did. And then you just know, okay. This is my like you said, there's a dish that you always have at Christmas time. If you found your body just said, okay, that's just a reality of December 26. It just is. And so that's how we want to live our lives is food serves us, not us serving our food.

[00:52:39.110] – Rachel

Yeah. What a great book. Great interview.

[00:52:41.850] – Allan

All right. Well, Rachel, I will talk to you next week.

[00:52:45.200] – Rachel

Awesome. Take care.

[00:52:46.550] – Allan

You, too.

[00:52:47.470] – Rachel

Thanks.

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