Let's Say Hello

[00:02:26.270] – Allan
Hey Raz, how are you?

[00:02:27.920] – Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?

[00:02:30.320] – Allan
Doing all right. It's been kind of busy here. My wife is getting Lula's kind of ready, you know, finishing up some of the final touches and we had a professional photographer come in to take some pictures. And it was kind of a scary moment because I walk in and I go into the living room and it's warm and all I see is a tripod sitting outside. So I'm like, OK, she's doing something somewhere else in the house.

[00:02:53.720] – Allan
So cool. I start opening things back up and she comes downstairs and says, Do you have somewhere to be?

[00:02:59.640] – Rachel
Oh no.

[00:03:01.820] – Allan
Oh. And then she says, you know, we need to close those windows and turn off those lights. And I'm like, OK, so I just went back into our little, we have an owner suite. I just went back there, shut the door, just stayed in there. So I knew she was gone. So I've dealt with some scary people, scary things before, but just her just, OK, I'm out of here, you know.

[00:03:25.980] – Allan
Do you. And I'm out. But they were some really nice pictures. And if you're on the Facebook group, I went to post a few of those out there so you can kind of get an idea of what this Lula's place I've been talking, complaining about. It is beautiful. It is beautiful, but it's been a handful to go through this major renovation of it. And but we're almost there.

[00:03:49.520] – Rachel
Yeah, it does look beautiful. The pictures came out just lovely. It looks like a wonderful place to relax for a nice vacation.

[00:03:57.560] – Allan
And live

[00:03:58.220] – Rachel
and live. You're lucky you can live on vacation.

[00:04:01.730] – Allan
Well, not exactly when I'm there. I'm not on vacation. I have to leave there and come to the gym to feel like I'm on vacation.

[00:04:09.560] – Rachel
It's beautiful, though. That's very exciting.

[00:04:11.990] – Allan
So how are things up there?

[00:04:13.610] – Rachel
Good, good. We have a mulberry tree on our property that produced a bumper crop this year. So we have jars of mulberry sitting in vodka, which we will turn into a liqueur after they set for a while and then we've got a couple of pounds in the freezer that will turn into jelly. And just after that was done, our black raspberries are coming to fruit right now. And so we've been picking blackberries. My fingers will be permanently purple, but we'll be doing the same thing.

[00:04:48.230] – Rachel
I think we'll make something to liqueur because we have so many and then we'll put some into some jelly. So it's been fun.

[00:04:55.370] – Allan
OK, good. Yeah, we don't have much space in the growing space on the property, so there's none of that for us. You know, my wife had an avocado that she had grown up and it was about three feet tall and then Buster decided to tear it out of the ground and so it died. But it looks like it's trying to reroot. It's just I don't think it's getting enough sun where so I think I'm going to have to move it.

[00:05:18.650] – Allan
But, yeah, we're not in a place where we can really grow our own food or liqueur or, you know.

[00:05:26.390] – Rachel
It's tough. Yeah. We've got a lot of space here, so but maybe some potted tomatoes or something, or at least herbs would be nice.

[00:05:33.950] – Allan
Yeah. Something, you know, we do have it's funny, we have this, it's called a Katuk plant. It's called katuk plant. Hold on, let me check it out. Yeah, it's called a katuk plant, and so friends of ours brought them over, they were staying with us while they were in town and they went over to their property and it was all over the place. And so they picked some and brought us some sprigs. And so we've been growing this katuk.

[00:05:57.800] – Allan
And it's basically kind of a nutty spinach flavor.

[00:06:01.580] – Rachel
Oh, neat.

[00:06:02.870] – Allan
And so we like we'll mix it in with eggs or something like that. Similar to spinach. You just don't wanna eat a whole lot of it because there's actually there have been some studies that, you know, if you get like a too much of it, you can get sick, and so this is kind of one of those things where it's a, you know, really good it tastes really good. It mixes well with eggs and, you know, works similar to spinach, which just don't want to overdo it, you know.

[00:06:27.270] – Allan
So obviously, whenever there's something that's good, more of something good is not always really good.

[00:06:33.770] – Rachel
No, not usually.

[00:06:36.410] – Allan
So we are growing katuk. So I guess I take that back. We do have a plant that we pick a few sprigs from and put into our eggs.

[00:06:44.940] – Rachel
Fun. That's awesome.

[00:06:46.790] – Allan
All right. So you ready to have a conversation with Vivian?

[00:06:49.400] – Rachel
Sure.

Interview

[00:07:32.030] – Allan
Vivian, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:07:34.520] – Vivian
Thank you so much, Allan. It's so great to be here.

[00:07:37.730] – Allan
Now, I have a connection with you that I didn't share with you before we got on this call. But I was a part, I joined the author academy. I didn't do the elite, but I did do that. I've been to a couple of their conferences and whatnot over, of course, covid came and there weren't the live things. So I don't know that I'm gonna get back to their next one when they do the next live one.

[00:08:01.790] – Allan
But it was just, you know, I saw that your book was from them. And interestingly enough, and I'll tell you, you tell anybody that's publishing their own book because you are self published with them is that if you don't make it easy for me to find you, I can't ask you to be a guest on the podcast. So when someone has a book and, you know, I'm going to say independently, you work with a group that helps you, but you get the book published and so many people will be published that way.

[00:08:25.850] – Allan
And then I start searching for them all over the Internet and I can't find anything. But you made it easy for me to find you. And I'm really happy and glad because this topic we're going to talk about today, your book is called When the Words Suddenly Stopped: Finding My Voice Again After a Massive Stroke. I've actually had feedback from listeners asking me to have this topic, and so I've been looking for a book on stroke and recovering from stroke.

[00:08:54.360] – Allan
And that's your story, which is awesome. Now, can you tell us, just real quickly, you know, just an encapsulation of what happened to you. And this is eight years ago or so. Right?

[00:09:10.660] – Vivian
Yes, eight years ago, it was in 2013, it was a Friday morning I woke up, I felt fine. The only thing I had a rough week. Right. It was really busy. And I thought, oh, I have to get up and go to this Girl Scouts breakfast. And then I said, maybe I'll cancel. But at that time, I was just becoming the vice president of community relations at the health care system here in Milwaukee.

[00:09:38.410] – Vivian
And I would fill tables and I would hate when people canceled at the last minute. And of course, in my heart, I knew this was really not a good reason. So I said, I've got to get up and go. So I got up, got dressed. I didn't put on my makeup, which is not totally unusual if I'm resting, I'll do it on the way at stoplights, not driving, but at stoplights and but I will even

[00:10:03.640] – Vivian
If I don't finish, I'll finish when I get to my destination. Well, I completely forgot to do that. I think in hindsight, I think the episode was starting. But I got to the breakfast, basically got in and sat down at my table. Someone asked me if I was OK and I said yes, but they said, you need something to eat probably. They gave me something to eat. And that's the last thing I remember for 10 days, nearly because I collapsed from a seizure.

[00:10:33.730] – Vivian
I was rushed to the hospital. Then they decided that I needed to go to our hospital that specializes in stroke care. I was in neurological ICU for 10 days and in the hospital for a total of 32 days. And I basically had a stroke. I had a blood clot on the left side of my brain over the part that manages your speech. It bled out, killed all those brain cells, which is why I had aphasia and couldn't talk literally for about three and a half weeks.

[00:11:02.200] – Vivian
And I wrote this book because nobody looking at me would think that I had a stroke or was in danger of having a stroke. And then I found out the cause was birth control pills over the age of 40 that caused the blood clot in my brain. And I just did not realize that that was a risk. Half the women don't realize that either, because they say, oh, I'm still over 40 and on birth control pills, the other half say, yes,

[00:11:32.020] – Vivian
My doctor told me when I was in my thirties and plus it's in the fine print. But how many of us read the fine print? I didn't. And so shame on me. But we need to obviously have this talk because doctors don't readily necessarily say that, especially if you haven't had issues with birth control pills.

[00:11:51.430] – Allan
Yeah. And we're going to get into some of the risk factors that would include this. We'll do that in a minute. But I want to start with one thing that I think was really important in your case. And you've acknowledged this a dozen or more times in the book is you had your sisters with you. You had people there at the event that you were really, really close to that immediately stepped in and did big sister stuff for you and got things moving and kept you on track and kept things working for you.

[00:12:19.510] – Allan
You had these really dear friends that then identified themselves as sisters at the hospital so they could come see you and do the things they wanted to do. And you also referred to as your posse. I think it's really important for us to have that in our lives, but a lot of people don't have that kind of support. And when you have an event like this, you've got to kind of be ready for it. And in your case, you had developed these wonderful relationships, but had a nurse said, no, I need to see that you're actually her sister.

[00:12:49.390] – Allan
Some of those things might not have happened. So can you talk a little bit about the sisters stepping in and then, you know. What that looked like from you, from a support perspective? And then so we can kind of think in terms of, OK, well, something like that were to happen to me today, how would it play out and do I have the right things in place to manage that?

[00:13:13.810] – Vivian
Absolutely, I am originally from St. Louis, Missouri. I lived in Milwaukee now more than twenty five years and I don't have fam, I'm not married, I don't have kids. And so my sorority sisters are really close to me. My sorority is Delta Sigma Theta and we have chapters all over the world. And so I'm in the Milwaukee alumni chapter. I also have other close friends as well. But because I was at this breakfast and people, I was pretty well known.

[00:13:46.600] – Vivian
I used to be on television here in Milwaukee. And so I have friends here that in television I had friends who were members of Delta Sigma Theta. And so people in this Girl Scouts breakfast knew that. And so they started calling my friends who were my sorority sisters. And so when they got to the hospital, the nurse said only immediate family are allowed in there with her. And so one of my quote unquote sisters said I'm her sister.

[00:14:19.030] – Vivian
And they told everybody else who was in my close circle to tell them that you're her sister. And you're right. They if they had said, give us an I.D., or some kind of proof, they probably would not have been able, of course, to do that. But I'm glad that they were able to be there with me because what they wanted to do was to make sure that they got down all of the information that we needed to give to my mother when she arrived to town that night.

[00:14:55.780] – Vivian
And so they wanted to make sure that I was getting my care. They wanted to make sure they got down any of the information that my mother would need. And so it was just very important for them to be there. And from this book, my friends who are single like me, they are designating people to call in there, not only in their living wills, if you want, but also in their advanced directives that health care systems give you.

[00:15:28.930] – Vivian
And so here with Aurora health care at the time, they have five well wishes. And so you list all of your wishes so that they know call this person if something happens. And of course, my mother is listed, but then also one of my sisters is now listed as well. And it's just important because, you know, we're living by ourselves and we're home most of the time by ourselves. And if somebody needs to know what's happening also since that book, one of my friends who was listed as my sister, Tracy, she's not in my sorority, but we're really good friends and went to the same church.

[00:16:16.060] – Vivian
And so now what we do is we make sure we touch base with each other in the morning and then in the evening. So we'll say good morning. We'll say good night, because in a stroke, time is brain. And so the faster they can get to you, the more positive your prognosis will be. And they have a chance to reverse things. And so it's just so important that you are just letting people in. And I know sometimes we get into our own lives and we don't let people in.

[00:16:53.530] – Vivian
We need to let somebody in so that they know what's going on with us.

Sponsor
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Haka Life Nutrition, the maker of GLX3, you know, the benefit of Omega-3 reduced inflammation, which helps with joint pain and heart health.

And, you know, you're probably not getting enough from your diet, but then you read about the mercury in fish or how the fish oil supplement you bought at Costco or Wal-Mart might be oxidized and rancid. Not good. Then you look into a plant-based solution and find it isn't very bioavailable or krill oil, which is much more expensive and isn't really sustainable. GLX3 is very different. It's from sustainably farmed green lipped mussels in New Zealand.

The 17 omega-3s found in green lipped mussels include ETA, which is not found at any fish oil. What is ETA? Not to bore you with the science, but it has been shown to be very effective at reducing inflammation and pain. Haka Life Nutrition has paired this oil with New Zealand olive oil and vitamin E to make a very unique Omega-3 supplement. I think it's brilliant. Mussels are at the bottom of the food chain and have a short lifespan so they aren't as susceptible to mercury contamination and they don't starve out other species when they're farmed in open water.

Haka nutrition is meticulous about their sourcing and encapsulation of GLX3. Each bottle is traceable all the way back to the place, date and time of harvesting to ensure you get the best quality Omega-3 product on the market. They offer a full 90 day guarantee. Go to Hakalife.com/40plus and use the discount code 40plus to get a buy one get one free deal on your first order, which gives you a two month starter supply.

GLX3 is my go to Omega-3 supplement going forward. It can be yours too by going to Hakalife.com/40plus and be sure to use the discount code 40plus for the BOGO deal.

[00:19:11.290] – Allan
Yeah, and, you know, when you went into this that you were 49 years old, you were healthy, vibrant, doing some great things, having all kinds of fun and moving forward in your career. Things were humming and they were just going well.

[00:19:27.730] – Allan
And then boom and had this happen 15 minutes earlier, you would have been in a car. Had it happened earlier in the morning, you would have been at home. And so having that preparation just to know, OK, if something happens, this is what we do and this is who we contact. And, you know, making sure that's lined up I think is really, really important, even if you feel like you're in the best of health because you just never know.

[00:19:54.420] – Allan
Now, you had some you had a couple of stroke risk factors, but they weren't stroke risk factors that you would have just readily known. One of them was your race, and then one of them was taking birth control when you're over 40 years old. Could you go through some of the risk factors that are out there? And just so people know, OK, if if this then at least something to keep top of mind and if there's something that's reversible, which a lot of these are, I mean, you obviously can't reverse your age, but there are other things in your health you can.

[00:20:31.290] – Allan
Could you go through a few of the risk factors? And I mean, just briefly talk about them a little bit.

[00:20:36.420] – Vivian
Right. Yeah. You know, high blood pressure, which is very prevalent in African-Americans, high blood pressure is one of the risk factors. So you really want to keep your blood pressure regulated. I don't have high blood pressure, and I didn't then and still don't. And so everybody would ask me, oh, you have high blood pressure. And I said, no, I don't. So high blood pressure is huge. And, you know, a lot of people have to take medication, but you can lower your blood pressure with exercise, etc.

[00:21:14.340] – Vivian
If you have a history of high blood pressure in your family, you probably do have to go to medication. But a lot of these things can be mitigated with exercise and eating healthy and that sort of thing.

[00:21:26.500] – Vivian
The history of a stroke in your family is something that you need to watch. And if you do have a history of stroke, a lot of times we don't talk about what is happening in our families. A lot of people are so closed mouthed when it comes to their health. They don't either want to know or they don't want to go to the doctor. So they may not know. Bottom line is, we're not talking about our health and we need to talk about our health.

[00:21:52.950] – Vivian
You need to find out what your history is with your health. You know, if you're smoking is a problem. It exacerbates your ability or your incidence of having a stroke. And with the birth control pills, that would be an issue as well. But I've never smoked. But this birth control pills is kind of lower on the list. And really, it was like on the third list. And but I found out that the estrogen levels in birth control pills can cause these blood clots, clots after a certain age.

[00:22:32.310] – Vivian
And so you really do have to pay attention to that because birth control pills are used for various things and they are a lower risk. A lot of times doctors don't readily talk about it. And so I think that's where I got I got caught in this conundrum, if you will. I had never had an issue with my birth control pills. I moved a lot. And so probably from one state to the next that didn't transfer.

[00:23:07.110] – Vivian
But maybe doctors weren't really thinking that I was have I haven't had any issues. And so maybe they felt that it wasn't I didn't need to know about this or maybe they didn't know. So, you know, I'm not quite sure. I don't want to indict anyone. But I just know that this is an issue that we need to talk about. And even if you don't know what's in the fine print, always ask, what are the risk factors?

[00:23:39.750] – Vivian
Are there any risk factors to whatever kind of medication you're taking into your body?

[00:23:45.360] – Allan
And I think one thing you put together there is, there's things you don't know. But then you find out if you ask the question, what's the risk of this? And then knowing the other risk factors, you can kind of look at them in tandem and say, OK, what does this mean for me? So if you're looking at a medication that you might be taking, you say, OK, am I overweight, am I inactive?

[00:24:08.700] – Allan
You know, do I smoke or do I have high blood pressure? How old am I? What is my race? And you start putting those together and you say and then put something low risk on top of all of that, it could be bad. For you, it was really you know, you were in decent shape and you said a little maybe a little overweight, but not anything exceptional. You were very active. You're moving around doing a lot of things.

[00:24:32.130] – Allan
You didn't smoke. You weren't a binge drinker, just an occasional social drink. You didn't do drugs, but you added this small thing on top of race and those risk factors that came around. And at forty nine, that's relatively early. I could see why someone in their 40s would be on birth control because you still haven't necessarily transitioned into menopause. So you're still, as far as your body's concerned, capable and a lot of people also take the like you said, they'll take the birth control pills to manage their periods, to manage, you know, just their cycles, to have a little bit more control over their lives and not thinking about or not knowing about these additional side effects.

[00:25:14.110] – Allan
So if you are going to go on any medication, get the pamphlet out. It's long. It's boring. It'll probably take a few nights to read it. You'll fall asleep a few times, but ask your doctor and then, you know, just do a little bit of basic research. It's not that you're going to be Dr. Google or anything, but just get out there and say my doctor's prescribing something that I'm going to put in my body.

[00:25:37.050] – Allan
I need to know what this does, not just what it's going to do for me, but what it could do to me.

[00:25:43.090] – Vivian
Absolutely, absolutely, and one of my friends also said to maybe even talk to a pharmacist or pharmacologist, because a lot of times doctors know their specialty, but they don't always necessarily know how medications interact with other medications. And so a pharmacist and a pharmacologist is really more in tune with those things. And so don't be afraid to talk to the pharmacist or the pharmacologist.

[00:26:15.430] – Allan
They actually have a little booth in most pharmacies. If you go in there, there's a little consultation little booth. You can go over there and they'll stop what they're doing and come over and have that conversation with you. So good tip there. Now, there are different kinds of stroke. And I guess as an individual that hasn't had a stroke or had a family member with a stroke, I guess my grandmother had one.

[00:26:38.140] – Allan
She's relatively young and she had hers. I wasn't even around yet. But there are different types of stroke. Could you talk a little bit about the different strokes and then kind of how yours was a unique?

[00:26:50.900] – Vivian
Right. So there are three kinds, there's in a ischematic stroke, there's the hemorrhagic stroke, and then there's the transient ischemic attack, which is called a TIA. And so a lot of people have had those types of strokes. And they are you know, I don't want to say the symptoms are mild, but they're milder compared to two mine. So they may have something and they may be able to walk around for a few days and sometimes they may have two or three.

[00:27:28.400] – Vivian
But those are all kind of warning signs that a major stroke is coming along. The hemorrhagic stroke, that's just excessive bleeding that happens. And then the ischemic stroke is when you have a clot that really blocks the artery. And that's what I had. And it was a major block. But this is what was really interesting. My doctor, Dr. Akram Shhadeh he said that it's called a C V T cervical or cerebral I'm sorry, cerebral venous thrombosis.

[00:28:07.460] – Vivian
And it's when the blood stays or stagnation causes pressure and then it starts to bleed in the vein. And so it's kind of inward instead of outward. And I know this kind of technical, but it was just a rare kind of stroke. And that's why it happened so quickly. And I had the see, it's characterized by a seizure. And so I had that seizure. I had never had a seizure before in my life.

[00:28:42.680] – Vivian
I had two on that day. One at this breakfast. And then they had to stabilize me because I had another one once they put me into the ambulance. So I had to in one day. And when you have a seizure, you can't drive for 90 days legally. And so I had to after 90 days, I had to take work with my occupational therapist. And we know we're going to talk about them in a few minutes. But I had to work with my occupational therapist.

[00:29:16.260] – Vivian
So they do a driving test that really looks at your peripheral vision. If you could see certain things, your reaction and they have to sign off on whether or not you are able to do that before you send it to the state and the state signs off for you to rescind your or to give you your license back, basically.

[00:29:42.110] – Allan
Yeah. Anyone that's listen to the show for any time at all knows that physical therapists are like my favorite people on Earth. I just thought if you enjoy yourself, find a good physical therapist, it's going to mean the world to you as far as how much that can improve your life. But you also then had to go to occupational therapy and speech therapy. Can you kind of talk about how they're different and why each of them was important specifically for you coming back from your stroke?

[00:30:13.520] – Vivian
So physical therapy is very important because when you have a stroke, sometimes you're one side gets weak and so this, my right side got weak and so they would wheel me around in a wheelchair because I had to strengthen that right side. So I had to go to physical therapy every day and do exercises to basically strengthen those muscles. And, you know, it's you know, when something is weak, you just have to exercise the muscle to get it back strong.

[00:30:54.020] – Vivian
And so physical therapy is so key. And we take I think we take our therapists and we take what we do every day for granted. And I just learned through my experience in the hospital that therapists are angels. My nurses and my therapists in particular were angels, because every day we would work on something. And if I wasn't doing well, they would say, well, work on that tomorrow. Let's work on something else. They're just extremely positive, just so positive.

[00:31:31.280] – Vivian
And so physical therapy just strengthens your muscles back so you can use what you've always used in the future. And then occupational therapy is really the therapy that helps you do your everyday activities, that allows you to cook, that allows you to, you know, get dressed in the morning. And so because I was out of it for nearly 10 days, I needed to shower. I needed to brush my teeth, I needed to cook. I needed to get organized.

[00:32:09.320] – Vivian
And so all of those things come in to the help that of an occupational therapist gives you. I remember being in the hospital and she take the occupational therapist, took me to this stall, shower stall to help me get dressed and showered. And then when we came back, she says, OK, go in and brush your teeth. I tried to brush my teeth. I was doing what I normally do. And then when it was time for me to spit the contents out.

[00:32:44.860] – Vivian
I didn't know what to do. I open my mouth, but I didn't know the function of actually spitting it out and she said, Vivian, you have to spit it out. You have to spit it out. And I thought to myself at that time that, oh, I probably should have known this, but I went ahead and spit it out. But just the damage that the stroke had done had taken away my ability to remember all of the actions and functions that my body had done up until that point my whole life.

[00:33:18.370] – Vivian
And so occupational therapists help you get back into your normal routine of life, whatever that may be. And then, of course, there was the speech. That was the most impacted of my abilities. And so I had to do that twice a day. And so I had to learn how to write again. I had to learn how to speak. I had to learn organization. The speech therapist also kind of gives you exercises to do. To say, what would you do first?

[00:33:51.700] – Vivian
What would you do second? What do you remember from this from this sheet with these pictures on it? And so all of that kind of works together to get your mind back into the organizational habit that it's been in for your entire life. So I too love them, just like you look at therapists.

[00:34:15.070] – Allan
And you did your work. And I think that's the core of this. You did it. You kept doing it. And even when you were out, you went back to your appointments, you got your work done, and as the result, you were able to go back to work.

[00:34:28.900] – Allan
And after going back to work and work your way in, now, I guess as of 2015, you are I don't think you'd call it stroke free, but fully recovered.

[00:34:40.920] – Vivian
Absolutely. Yes. My doctor told me that my chances of having another stroke point one percent. So I think that's pretty good.

[00:34:51.520] – Allan
I would, I would put some money on that one. Yeah.

[00:34:56.140] – Vivian
And I'm not on any prescribed medications but I do still take a baby aspirin each day. But it's not prescribed. But that's what they want me to do just to regulate my blood and the thickness of my blood.

[00:35:12.460] – Allan
Vivian, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:35:21.220] – Vivian
exercise, movement. And I know sometimes I have a lot of friends who joke about, oh, you won't find me on the treadmill. It doesn't have to be the treadmill. You know, walk outside. I'm in Wisconsin. And so, you know, it's kind of cold in the winter, but it's a little spring and summer. Get out there. You know, I'm right on Lake Michigan. I like to walk along Lake Michigan, you know, instead of saying, hey, let's go out for drinks.

[00:35:49.960] – Vivian
Hey, let's go for a walk. We get one with nature and we're getting some exercise in and chit chatting with our friends. And so it could be dancing. I was in this dance competition and I actually we danced like every day for hours when I was getting ready for the competition and I lost like fifteen pounds leading up to that competition. Now I've gotten a few pounds back, but it's still, you know, you can do dancing, you can do walking, you can do just whatever. Biking.

[00:36:24.310] – Vivian
A lot of people like biking, swimming, anything that gets you moving and that's fun. You want it to be fun. Just do that. Just have taken a walk. We all can take a walk and if we keep taking a walk and walk a little farther, we could walk farther the next time it's building up those muscles. So that's one thing. I think one thing that I do, I chat with my creator every morning and so I wake up and I just want to make sure that I'm grateful for the things that are in my life.

[00:37:03.490] – Vivian
And so just to me, thanking God for all of the blessings that I have, number one sparing me on October 25th, 2013 so that I can be here and tell this story and share this information, because he gave me the gift of communication. You know, I just thank him for that. I thank him for my friends. I thank him just for all of the blessings that all of the positive things that are in my life.

[00:37:31.930] – Vivian
You know, you need to be connected to your core. And I would say also having friends, you know, some people may not be as social as I am. I'm not a socialist. Some other people that I know, but if you have someone that you can call, whether it's a family member or a friend, connect with people because you'll find things to be grateful for just with that relationship. So those are just three things that I think you just need to have in your life so that you can live a happy, healthy existence.

[00:38:15.260] – Allan
Thank you, Vivian. If someone wanted to learn more about you and your book, When the Words Suddenly Stopped, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:38:23.390] – Vivian
Send them to VivianLking.com. If you go there, you can connect with me on my social media. You'll be able to just click and follow me either on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. You can also learn about the book there. I also have a link where if you would like to get the book, you can link to Amazon, you can link to Audible, and so you can just find anything at vivianlking.com. You can also email me and we can have personal conversations and you'll be able to find whatever I'm doing on vivianlking.com.

[00:39:07.280] – Allan
OK, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/495 and I'll be sure to have those links there. Vivian, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:39:17.690] – Vivian
Thank you so much for having me. It's just been a pleasure and I'm glad I made it easy for you to find me. Carry over with you. Really excited about that. And you know what? You talked about the conference. The next conference is coming up this October, so I would love for you to see it. I'm going. So I hope you'll be able to go too Allan.

[00:39:34.910] – Allan
I'll see what I can do.

Post Show/Recap

[00:39:41.000] – Allan
Hey Raz, welcome back.

[00:39:42.290] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, you know, it was really wonderful to listen to Vivian share her story and, you know, stroke is a scary illness. It's something definitely everybody should watch. And just like health, disease and cancer, you know, almost everybody has some sort of a tie. I've got a family member who suffered a stroke. I've got a friend who's a young lady, suffered a stroke. And her story was very close to Vivian's with having lost her speech and learning how to walk.

[00:40:10.400] – Rachel
And it's been a long road to recovery. It's a scary situation.

[00:40:14.990] – Allan
Yeah. My grandmother on my mother's side had one when she was relatively young. And so it was just things I remember is that her left side was just really not really strong. And so she had to be careful with her balance. And then she had this thing on the steering wheel handle grip thing so she could turn the car more effectively because she just didn't have the dexterity of her left side to do that thing. But she lived well into her 60s.

[00:40:42.500] – Allan
So the care that she got must have been top notch. And she did recover, you know, again. To me, the big thing is, A avoid this, you know, avoid it. In the first you know, we had Dr. Raza on last week and he was talking about cardiovascular disease being on the increase because so many people were more sedentary and gaining weight. And so we know that that's a risk factor. You know, having excess body fat, having, you know, our blood lipid numbers not look well.

[00:41:14.630] – Allan
Those are big cardiovascular risks. But, you know, if you're in a high stress environment or you're hitting some of those other risk factors, like smoking or drinking too much or those types of things, you're setting yourself up.

[00:41:29.060] – Rachel
That's right. That's a good way to look at it. Instead of setting yourself up for success, you're essentially setting yourself up for failure or some sort of an illness. And stroke is one of the many diseases that we do know so many things about. I mean, it's been researched like crazy. And so if we know these risk factors, then why not discuss them with your doctor and see what we could do to reverse that?

[00:41:52.190] – Allan
Well, you know, in a lot of the books that I've read on longevity, you know, today and then it was the Blue Zones and all that type of stuff. They always talk about, you know, being active, having good social connections, all these different things that can help you live longer. And she was checking off the boxes. You know, she she was living the life that she wanted to live and then, boom, it could have been gone in an instant.

[00:42:20.570] – Allan
And she was just very fortunate to have been around friends and people that can take care of her, get her the help she needed quickly. So that's a big part of this. Is one A avoid it if you can. B have some have some plans, have some contingencies. So something happens, you know, you have people that know to look out for you. And then the final bit is. The stronger you are before it happens, the better your opportunity of coming out of this, and I truly believe that that's a big part of why Vivian was able to write this book, was because she was pretty active, pretty healthy, you know, checking off the boxes beforehand.

[00:43:00.780] – Allan
And that just made it easier for her to recover. But then on the back side, she did the work. But, yeah, she went to the physical therapist and she got all the therapy. She went to the occupational therapist and did all the therapy. She went to the speech. Even when she couldn't talk, she was still going to speech therapy. So she didn't wait and she didn't put it off and she didn't quit midstream. And a lot of times people will do that.

[00:43:26.760] – Allan
They'll say, OK, I've got the homework and they're not doing the homework. And they go to a few physical therapy sessions and are like, OK, this is kind of silly. You know, I got this little Pully thing and they're making me pull my arm up and back and do that thing like, OK, that's great, I can do this at home. Why would I pay this guy this kind of money to do the pully thing in front of him when I can do it at home?

[00:43:48.810] – Allan
But the reality is that that is the necessary action to get your body back where it's supposed to be. And whether it's the physical therapy, the occupational therapy or the speech therapy, it's just you want to recover. If you want to get back what you lost, you've got to go. You've got to do well.

[00:44:05.760] – Rachel
It's so important. And these people are all experts in their different fields, and especially with the occupational therapy, like Vivian had mentioned, was that you need to learn how to do things, how to get in and out of a car again. How does put your seatbelt on and off again. And it's not that you're learning it like a child who learns to walk from the first time. It's that your muscles are learning how those actions work. Again, it's a little different and it's kind of hard to explain.

[00:44:31.320] – Rachel
But but the faster you get into these programs, the faster your brain synapses come back together and can process this information. And like she had also mentioned, time is of the essence. If you wait too long, then you might lose some of this and make the process even harder to regain and how to heal from. And yeah, timing is so important.

[00:44:53.400] – Allan
Yeah. And I know a lot of people would be shocked at this, but she had to learn how to shop. I mean, quite literally, they took her to a store, a grocery store and I think maybe a Wal-Mart as a part of her occupational therapy so she could mock shop. So she could relearn how to shop. And you just think that's just those automatic things like spinning when you brush your teeth. And she talked about, well, you know, it's like she just forgot what she was supposed to do next, because even though it had been become so automatic in our lives suddenly now.

[00:45:26.070] – Allan
There was a missing gap, something was not there, and she had to be told to do something that she knew she needed, she knew afterwards. They said it's like, of course, that's what I would do. She had actually physically, not just mentally or remember how to what to do, when to do it, but actually physically go through the action because she had forgotten how.

[00:45:44.250] – Rachel
That's such a mystery. The brain is so mysterious that way.

[00:45:48.180] – Rachel
And it just depends on what part of the brain suffers that damage. And, who knows, it is like literally you forget things and then you forget how to do things. And it's just those random things like learning how to shop. And thank goodness for occupational therapists who could ask you the right questions and see if you know how to do these things during your recovery. It's really amazing.

[00:46:10.140] – Allan
And the last thing I want to leave this with is, OK, maybe you're not concerned about yourself having a stroke, but there are people around you that I know you love and care about. So learning what are the symptoms of a heart attack? What are the symptoms of a stroke? What are the symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke by just by knowing those symptoms and you see something out of place, you know, a drooping of the face slurring of the words when they've obviously not been drinking those just different little things that are happening that if you catch it early and they get the medical care that they need, it can mean a world of difference over how much damage actually gets done.

[00:46:50.850] – Allan
And so it's just really important for you to know some of those things so that when you see it, you can react to it. And if nothing else, it's going to say to you she couldn't have done that for herself because she was too far gone before she even realized what was going on with the people around her. Saw it. You saw it happening to her. Everything was normal. But they could see it and say, no, this is not normal.

Note: The power went out in Bocastown while we were recording.

[00:47:16.170] – Allan
All right, looks like our power went out. So I think I'm still recording, but I think Rachel has fallen off because my power went out. But so thank you guys for being part of the 40+ Fitness Podcast. Will talk to you next week.

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
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

The plant-based solution with Dr. Joel Kahn

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:04:29.950] – Allan
Hey Raz, how are you?

[00:04:31.440] – Rachel
Good. How are you today, Allan?

[00:04:33.120] – Allan
I'm doing all right. Still flipped out by that woman.

[00:04:36.670] – Rachel
It is a funny sound on that recording.

[00:04:38.910] – Allan
Yeah. So, yeah, when we go to do a recording on Zoom, they've now got this voice lady that comes in and says, you know, we're recording and then she'll say again, we're not recording. And it's just it's kind of just startling because it's louder than we are. But it's just so you can probably hear us laugh about this for at least the next year. Maybe they can give us different voices, maybe something a little bit calmer and soother to transition into these shows because it's like, don't you know?

[00:05:08.090] – Allan
But now everybody on the call, both of us, Rachel and myself, know that I'm recording. And the little red flashing dot was the indicator for that as well. But it is accessible. This is about accessibility. So I get it. I get it. I get it. But give me a calmer, gentler voice. Everybody will be fine with it, you know, just something nice. Maybe something like Mr. Rogers voice, you know, versus the lady we have.

[00:05:32.010] – Allan
It sounds a lot more like Mr. T.

[00:05:34.230] – Rachel
Yeah. Stern warning.

[00:05:38.400] – Allan
How you doing?

[00:05:39.330] – Rachel
Good. Good. You know, we've been having some rainy weather up here in the spring, which is wonderful for my garden. But I've got a new client for who's running her first full marathon. And I told her to practice running in the rain. And Mike and I just went out. We did a 10k in the rain the other weekend and it really was a hoot. It's just fun. It's fun running and jumping in puddles. And I feel just like a kid again.

[00:06:04.350] – Rachel
And plus I'm testing all my gear because you just never know what the weather will bring on race day. So that's what I want my new client to experience just in case for race day is rainy as well.

[00:06:14.010] – Allan
Just in case it rains. Absolutely. So are you going to chafe? Is it going to hurt? You know, how much is your clothes going to weigh when they're wet. All those things can be big, big deal. You weren't planning on carrying an extra pound or two of water.

[00:06:28.410] – Rachel
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's important to make all those decisions and be prepared. Plus you've got the mental preparedness as well. If it's going to rain, it will be a big deal because you've been through it already. So that's an advantage.

[00:06:42.240] – Allan
And if it happens to be a warm day, you've got a natural cooling effort that's there. So it's actually not the direct sunlight dehydration thing. It's rain.

[00:06:52.740] – Rachel
It could be a good day. Yeah.

[00:06:54.990] – Allan
It rained during my first marathon when I ran. It did. It was so funny. We came up to this hill. It wasn't raining when we started and then we came up to the hill is only one really hill in the whole marathon. Turned this corner and it's raining. It starts raining. As soon as we get to this hill and we're running up this hill and the wind is blowing in our face. As we're running up the hill in the rain.

[00:07:19.920] – Rachel
You have to laugh at that.

[00:07:21.540] – Allan
That's the whole point. I thought I was running with. It's like, I knew I was running with the right group of guys. I ran into these guys. It just start and we're running. And, you know, I knew I was with the right guys because we were just. Does it get any worse than this?

[00:07:35.130] – Allan
Like shut up…

[00:07:36.840] – Rachel
Don't say that. Don't say that out loud. Yeah. Because in Florida, you could have a thunderstorm pretty quickly.

[00:07:44.220] – Allan
Anything could happen. So it's like, yeah, let's just not tempt fate. Let's just race. But they were fun. They were fun for the first ten to twelve miles. And then we dropped down below seven minute miles and I was like, nope, that was not the race I trained for. I was not where I wanted to be. And so I dropped down to closer to my pace, which was closer to seven and a half to forty five.

[00:08:09.690] – Allan
And so anyway yeah they left their buddy. That was kind of the first thing that got me was, we're all military guys and they just, they ran on. Their buddy fell out first. I was also just going to leave him. I'm like, oh yes they are. I realized, OK, I don't, you know, I don't have any skin in this game, I'm not trying to win a race. I'm trying to finish one.

[00:08:27.540] – Allan
So. I dropped out. But, yeah, it's good to know there's different conditions when you're doing things.

[00:08:32.790] – Rachel
Absolutely.

[00:08:34.050] – Rachel
So how are things with you down there in Panama?

[00:08:36.300] – Allan
They're getting busy. They're getting really busy. You know, Tammy's trying to do some soft openings on Lula's bed and breakfast. So she's had people come in and stay.

[00:08:46.680] – Allan
Most of them are staying for a month or longer. Then she had a photographer come in. She was going to stay for two days and she was scary. She's just a scary person. Oh, I came in and I started opening up because it was hot and living room. So I started opening up windows and I'll turn on lights. And she said, no, no, no, no, you need to have those lights off and close those windows, like, OK, close everything up.

[00:09:07.230] – Allan
And I went my bedroom and I left her. But no, it was interesting because while she was doing all this, I was trying to do a deep clean at the gym. We do that about once every six months. We pull everything out. The mats and everything, and we scrub the mat, scrub the floor. So we were about, I'd say, maybe three quarters of the way through when the water ran out then, you know, Panama.

[00:09:34.260] – Allan
And I'm like, OK, I know there's tanks, but they city water and they were hostile. We should have so much water. It shouldn't be a problem. But no, they weren't pumping water into their tank. And so we didn't have water on our whole block and we didn't know just went out there. Like we're like, what's wrong? The pumps not working. Like, OK, cool. So I guess guys, we're done early goes go on home and I'll see you tomorrow at nine o'clock.

[00:09:55.590] – Allan
We'll do what we can do. I show up at nine o'clock. I put the bucket, I turn the spigot. It works. cool. They come in, the girl goes there was helping one of the girls that was helping me goes over with a bucket but it turns it on. Nothing comes out. Oh. And I'm like I got water out there. Look there's water in that blue bucket. I got water so I know it's working.

[00:10:13.920] – Allan
When it was not working they hadn't got the pump fixed and they didn't know when it was going to be fixed. So I sent my staff off to go find water in buckets and bring it in because we had to have it to scrub the mats and they found it down at the fire department and they were able to get enough water for us to finish. But just enough. I mean, literally, she went down with the bucket and came back and said, that's the last bucket, because they've now turned off the water to the whole area so they can fix the pump.

[00:10:42.090] – Allan
And so there's no more water. And I'm like, OK. And I went home. I told my wife, I'm like, yeah, we had to go the fire department to get water and we got the last of their water, just like a fire department doesn't have any water.

[00:10:54.180] – Rachel
That's concerning. That's not good.

[00:10:55.620] – Allan
I thought, dammit, I'm going to be that guy. I used all the water.

[00:10:59.970] – Rachel
Oh my goodness.

[00:11:01.770] – Allan
Now we literally probably took I would say. Forty gallons from them, so that was not put out a house fire amount of water that we were using to clean the gym, let's be real. But, yeah, we were able to scrub all the mats, get all of them back and get all the equipment out and stuff, you know, dusted off, cleaned off and put back in. So it was a tough, tough weekend, but we were able to get it done.

[00:11:26.120] – Allan
And, you know, kind of one of those things and I say this over and over, everybody on the podcast is know your strengths, know your weaknesses. You know, don't let your ego get in the way. The first the first two times when I own this gym, I did the deep cleaning by myself, hauled all those mats out, scrubbed them all out, put them all back and did it all by myself.

[00:11:46.010] – Allan
The first two times. The last time I did it, I hired three people to help me. And I was still exhausted at the end of the day, and this time I hired four, so there was a little bit more standing around than I would have liked, you know, spending money by the hour. You don't want a lot of standing around, but it was good to have the extra hand. So, like, we had to go a block away and get water in buckets.

[00:12:08.850] – Allan
I had the people to do it and it wasn't me doing it.

[00:12:12.270] – Rachel
Yeah, no kidding. I can't imagine the weight of all your machines and all your cardio equipment and.

[00:12:18.540] – Allan
Yeah, well, that's the other thing. When I bought the gym I had there were 350 pounds of Olympic plates in this gym. And one barbell. You know, and now I have five barbells and a curl bar and about fourteen hundred pounds of Olympic plates. So, yeah, there's a lot more equipment in here now than when the two times I did it. But those horse mats are still those horse mats are still those first mats and they're heavy and there's no real grip to them.

[00:12:49.270] – Allan
So you use a ton of grip strength, picking those up, holding them, flipping them over and doing all that scrubbing. So it's still a tough day to do the work, even when I'm only doing a fraction of it.

[00:13:00.480] – Allan
But I knew my strengths and weaknesses and what was about to get myself hurt.

[00:13:07.920] – Rachel
it's good to have that extra help for sure.

[00:13:10.380] – Allan
So my workouts this weekend had a lot of grip strength, but a lot of moving around. All right. Well, you ready to have a conversation with Dr. Raza?

[00:13:23.580] – Rachel
Yes.

Interview

[00:13:53.100] – Allan
Dr. Raza, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:13:56.100] – Dr. Raza
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[00:13:57.940] – Allan
Now, you know, as we went into covid and I have made a point on the podcast of not talking about covid a whole lot. And I only say that because there's so much that's happened around covered so many conversations around covid and it's become so political. But one of the things that really concerned me as we went into Lockdowns was the term I use, the term it's called unintended consequences that, you know, so many things are happening to us around what we're trying we're trying to avoid one thing, but we create additional problems for ourselves.

[00:14:38.130] – Allan
And it's just something that, you know, you had someone reach out to me so that you could be on the show. And I was like, absolutely, we have to talk about these unintended consequences of covid. So thank you so much for taking time to be with us today.

[00:14:53.340] – Dr. Raza
And not at all. Thank you for having me.

[00:14:55.590] – Allan
Now, you know, we went into the lockdowns and

[00:14:59.980] – Allan
Kind of the worst part of this was some of my clients were doctors. And so I was training a doctor and the doctor's like, well, we're closing down the clinic. And I'm thinking, well, kids aren't going to stop getting sick, kids are still going to need, you know, their immunizations and are still going to need their health care visits.

[00:15:21.900] – Allan
so our medical care doesn't stop just because we decide we're going to stay in our apartment or house. It doesn't stop because, you know, our office says, oh, well, you can work from home. The things that get us sick, the things that are happening in our bodies that require medical attention are better addressed if we are a little bit more proactive than if we go in for emergency care. And that's the discussion. But what we've noticed and you brought to my attention actual statistics from the CDC is that while we had this huge problem with heart disease before, it's now actually become something worse.

[00:16:04.230] – Allan
Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:16:06.030] – Dr. Raza
It has. So if you go back to last March and here in Dallas, Texas, the spring break is always like first or second week of March.

[00:16:18.030] – Dr. Raza
And so the Thursday before spring break, I remember getting my wife's cardiologist as well. So both of us got an announcement on email and text that school was going to close early and no school on Friday would go into spring break with the anticipation that school would not return after spring break. And at the same time, locally in Dallas and statewide in Texas, we also went into lockdown. In our clinic, logistically, what that meant was that for our nurses or techs or aids, they now have to consider child care issues in addition to the hospital that we're in where we have our clinic, they indicated sort of protocols for who can now come in, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:17:09.380] – Dr. Raza
And so I still remember on that Monday, March 16th, we started to do telemedicine for the first time. We've never done this as a cardiologist, as a cardiology practice, because cardiology, you have to see the patient in front of you. You have to look, listen, examine, do EKGs, et cetera. But we started off on this in April and into May. And slowly things improved, especially locally here in Texas, whereby they opened up in May.

[00:17:41.240] – Dr. Raza
But clearly what we noticed was a drop in the number of visits to the emergency room, to the hospital and to our clinics and patients who would otherwise come in for cardiovascular issues. That is both acute symptoms and chronic management issues. And this basically persisted throughout certainly the acute hospitalization and emergency room data stand down throughout 2020. And this data was not just this is not just US based data.

[00:18:13.380] – Dr. Raza
This is this was also manifested in Europe and in the U.K. whereby they have large nationwide health care system. And so it's very easy to data. But, you know, the NHS can easily look at hospitalizations for cardiovascular issues. 2019, 2020. And we don't get better cardiovascular disease in one year. It doesn't work like that. We look at data in chunks of decades at a time in the clinic, there was a little bit of a reflection whereby June, July was busier than sort of tapered off again, as we initially had a surge in the fall and then definitely the November, December, January surge.

[00:18:57.710] – Dr. Raza
And sure enough, it wasn't surprising when the CDC came out with their data last week that the deaths from heart disease had gone up for the first time in two decades. And this reflected the fact that what was happening wasn't that we had gotten better at treating cardiovascular disease. And so that's why the hospitalizations are down. That's why the rate of our defects is down. That's why clinic visits were down. It's that patients were not seeking medical attention. And so therefore there are heart disease prosecuting chronic or being we're not being managed, not being looked after.

[00:19:34.430] – Dr. Raza
And of course, the unintended consequences is downstream. You have cardiovascular events and as we know, cardiovascular events, unfortunately, to death.

Sponsor
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Haka Life Nutrition, the maker of GLX3, you know, the benefit of Omega-3 reduced inflammation, which helps with joint pain and heart health.

And, you know, you're probably not getting enough from your diet, but then you read about the mercury in fish or how the fish oil supplement you bought at Costco or Wal-Mart might be oxidized and rancid. Not good. Then you look into a plant-based solution and find it isn't very bioavailable or krill oil, which is much more expensive and isn't really sustainable. GLX3 is very different. It's from sustainably farmed green lipped mussels in New Zealand.

The 17 omega-3s found in green lipped mussels include ETA, which is not found at any fish oil. What is ETA? Not to bore you with the science, but it has been shown to be very effective at reducing inflammation and pain. Haka Life Nutrition has paired this oil with New Zealand olive oil and vitamin E to make a very unique Omega-3 supplement. I think it's brilliant. Mussels are at the bottom of the food chain and have a short lifespan so they aren't as susceptible to mercury contamination and they don't starve out other species when they're farmed in open water.

Haka nutrition is meticulous about their sourcing and encapsulation of GLX3. Each bottle is traceable all the way back to the place, date and time of harvesting to ensure you get the best quality Omega-3 product on the market. They offer a full 90 day guarantee. Go to Hakalife.com/40plus and use the discount code 40plus to get a buy one get one free deal on your first order, which gives you a two month starter supply.

GLX3 is my go to Omega-3 supplement going forward. It can be yours too by going to Hakalife.com/40plus and be sure to use the discount code 40plus for the BOGO deal.

[00:21:56.620] – Allan
I think many of us have paid attention, at least enough attention to know that if we are going through certain symptoms, you know, pain in the arm is one, dizziness, tightness in the chest, some of those basic things that were we start paying attention to once we're 40, we pay a lot more attention to it. But at this point in time, you're at home and there's this kind of a sudden, this tepid fear that this is out there.

[00:22:28.600] – Allan
The covid is out there, and we have to be concerned about being exposed. And so it's one of those things where it is kind of a counterbalance to say, do I book an appointment and go in and take a risk or is this just indigestion and maybe I shouldn't have had that second slice of pizza I ordered from Domino's or forth? So, you know, as people are going through this because, you know, I can't say this is the last time this is going to happen in our lifetime.

[00:23:00.580] – Allan
You know, this kind of talk about the different aspects of covid and the different variants and things is it's really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this might not just be a Spanish flu, if you will, where we have a three year period of time when everybody goes through this situation and then effectively it's passed and we're on, this might be a little bit more of a protracted thing. So before we move on, because I do think this is important and I really think it's important as far as the four steps that you have for how we can move forward, move beyond this.

[00:23:40.720] – Allan
But can we just take one step back and kind of talk about for an individual and, you know, heart disease is the number one killer for men and women in the United States. So as we're looking at that, and I know men and women actually have slightly different symptoms sometimes. Could you just take us back to that level of, let's talk about the symptoms of what would a man experience? And this is the time to go into the emergency room and this is the time to make an appointment with a cardiologist like yourself.

[00:24:14.680] – Allan
And what would a woman experience that could be slightly different? So someone, at least at this point thinking I haven't yet been vaccinated, but I so I'm putting off going to the doctor, putting off, going to the emergency room. What should they be looking for?

[00:24:28.810] – Dr. Raza
It's a great question that you brought up the pizza analogy because you can rationalize your symptoms in many different ways, depending on what you yourself are going through at that point. So you're absolutely right. March of 2020. I have patients tell me this, that they would have chest discomfort, et cetera, and they would say it was probably this, it's probably stress not sleeping well and so on and so forth. And later you find out that this is not the first cardiovascular issue.

[00:24:59.730] – Dr. Raza
So let's go back to, like you said, to the very beginning. So for me and for most cardiologists and we have to do a better job at public information disseminating this out to the public. If you have chest pain, chest pressure, if you have arm numbness, jaw pain, nausea, typefaces where you're sweating, shortness of breath with exertion, shortness of breath, when you lay flat at night, palpitations, unexplained episodes of passing out or even sort of seizure like activity, you should absolutely seek medical attention and you should do it sooner rather than later before you start rationalizing and then more subtle signs.

[00:25:44.240] – Dr. Raza
So if you feel more sure, more tired or fatigued at the end of the day, if you feel that, you know, I used to be able to walk up and down this corridor at work or I used to be able to climb a flight of stairs, now I have to take a break in the middle. Don't rationalize it as I'm a year older, maybe have gained 15 pounds and I'm a little heavier. It's easier.

[00:26:08.620] – Dr. Raza
It's very easy to rationalize. What you actually should do is go out, seek medical attention and then make sure it's not anything we need to worry about. All the other things. Let's rule it out first and then go with the well, I'm just a condition, I just need to lose a little bit weight, it's stress and anxiety. Those things won't markedly alter your mortality and morbidity to way heart disease potentially can. And remember, early intervention is always better, whether it's cancer, whether it's heart disease, you're going to find something more options

[00:26:45.460] – Dr. Raza
We have a better chance we have at preventing something worse.

[00:26:50.050] – Allan
And I think you hit on something really important. There's the early intervention. You know, don't talk. Yourself out of talking to a doctor. The worst case is he tells you, you're perfectly fine, go home and leave me alone. And that would be a great case.

[00:27:05.260] – Dr. Raza
we get that all the time, you know, we get patients who come in and they have chest discomfort. We do the evaluation.

[00:27:11.830] – Dr. Raza
It's not the heart.

[00:27:12.780] – Dr. Raza
What we tell them is, OK, I understand you had symptoms of X, Y, Z. What I can tell you is it's not the heart.

[00:27:19.570] – Dr. Raza
What it could be?

[00:27:20.710] – Dr. Raza
I don't know for sure. But let's take the next step at going back to your primary care doctor, letting them know that you had a battery of cardiovascular tests. You don't think it's your heart.

[00:27:30.500] – Dr. Raza
Let's go down the next thing down the line, whether it's high, whether it's whatever, X, Y, Z.

[00:27:36.760] – Allan
Well, anyone that tells me they went through the last 18 months without feeling some level of anxiety and maybe even moments where they just sat there and said, OK, I'm just beyond myself. They're not being realistic because I think we all went through those moments where we're like, OK, I'm not right. This is not right. I don't feel good. And it may not be a huge health concern, but in the grand scheme of things, if you're feeling any of those symptoms, feeling any of that, it's worth having the conversation and we've put the conversation off.

[00:28:09.720] – Allan
Because of the lockdowns, because of covid restrictions and just the basic fear that's out there, which, again, the fear leads to anxiety, anxiety leads to not some dissimilar, but then also that's confounder that could actually be causing some of the heart issues. So we kind of look at this full circle. It doesn't surprise me to see the higher numbers post covid, but for a long time the numbers looked great because, well, no one was going to the doctor, even the emergency room.

[00:28:40.320] – Allan
And as a result, it's like, you know, flu deaths are down, cancer deaths, all these things are down. And you're like, no, they're not down. They're just submerged into this environment.

[00:28:51.000] – Dr. Raza
They are. And you have this backlog of access to care. So, for example, telemedicine is wonderful, but you have to understand the limitations. So when primary care doctors or specialists like myself, we did tell you we're still relying on Internet connection folks having to either hold up an iPad or a smartphone. The angles are off, the lighting is bad. You can't really see the patient.

[00:29:18.990] – Dr. Raza
And there's a lot of value in actually looking at someone and talking to someone face to face versus over the phone. And so what would happen is I can easily see where they speak to a primary care doctor or a cardiologist and symptoms, I think that minimized lost in translation. And they say, well, we'll see you back in six months and six months passed down the line. And I miss the appointment or something else happens. And this data is has been tracked and the VA population and also in the UK where the NHS has this backlog now, I think about five million well visits of folks who haven't gone for their annual physical screenings.

[00:30:06.150] – Dr. Raza
And if you just do the numbers and add up all those patients with high blood pressure, diabetes and so on and so forth, we haven't had a checkup, whether it's in person over the phone, it's not surprising that you see these numbers. Going back to the initial question that you had. What are the differences between men and women with heart disease? That's a fascinating discussion that's been discussed and actually researched ad nauseum. The American College of Cardiology actually has a wonderful graphic on signs and symptoms of heart disease and actually tweeted it out the other day.

[00:30:41.500] – Dr. Raza
You can follow me at SadiRazaMD and what it is, is the signs and symptoms are similar, but women may have additional symptoms than men, so they may have the nausea, the diaphoresis which is sweating, the dizziness on top of the chest the pain, and the pressure down the left arm, et cetera.

[00:31:01.000] – Allan
OK, now you developed or at least presented to me kind of a four step process that you feel, and I'll guess I'll put my own title to it. And this should not just be about heart care, but in this premise of our conversation, it definitely is.

[00:31:18.310] – Allan
This is a post covid Wellness plan,

[00:31:23.380] – Allan
particularly for people over 40, because we're the ones most likely to be suffering from cardiovascular disease and dying from cardiovascular disease. So can you talk about your four steps? And why each is important?

[00:31:36.580] – Dr. Raza
Sure. So I think step one, and I'll be careful in what I say here, I think step one is try and get vaccinated. So today, I think the administration is going to announce that they've had more than three hundred million doses that have been given since the vaccines came out.

[00:31:56.320] – Dr. Raza
The US has three vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, which are MRNA based vaccine, and this Johnson & Johnson, which is one shot at no virus vaccine. Since March of 2020 to now, our ability to mask handwash and social distance hasn't improved. We're not better at wearing masks now than we were in March.

[00:32:22.450] – Dr. Raza
We're not better at being socially distant from each other now. We're not washing our hands better. If anything, societies open up and then those lockdowns and they really haven't been a this wealth of medications that have come down the pike.

[00:32:39.060] – Dr. Raza
You know, we had the plasma convalescent plasma that patients got potentially a randomized clinical trial, which showed minimal improvement with that, yes, we have the infusions, but really it's not because of medications or non pharmaceutical interventions that our covid numbers have plummeted in the US, both in the US, nationally and locally at the local level, at the city level and internationally. You look at countries like Israel, you look at the European Union and all of them, the curves start to markedly come down from when a robust vaccination program was enacted.

[00:33:20.890] – Dr. Raza
So clearly the vaccines work and for the most part, they're safe. And I say that for the most part because that's sort of just couching my words, because there'll be folks that say, well, in this case, the microdata is you're forgetting about the Johnson & Johnson, the vaccine, which is stopped briefly because of clots in the brain, et cetera. So I'm not discounting those. But out of 300 million people who have been vaccinated, the vast majority have had really no side effects, apart from the normal immune response that we expect from any vaccine with the flu vaccine in this case, the covid vaccine. We know, they prevent moderate to severe this is to prevent hospitalizations, and therefore they prevent the virus.

[00:34:12.160] – Allan
And in a person, a person that's most likely to suffer from cardiovascular event is what we would call an at risk person for covid.

[00:34:20.380] – Dr. Raza
Correct. Absolutely. And this is, again, borne out in our hospitals. If you look at, pick a hospital, any hospital in the US hospital, any hospital in the world, the folks who are now hospitalized with covid are younger and primarily those who are unvaccinated, which is markedly different from the typical covid admitted patient in the hospital that we had for the first 12 to 15, 15 months of this pandemic.

[00:34:48.940] – Dr. Raza
So step number one, get vaccinated.

[00:34:51.280] – Dr. Raza
It's very easy to do now, there's a phone number that you can text with zip code and you'll get a list of places that you can get vaccinated. It's now one of those things where you don't have to get in line. CBS, Walgreens, Walmart, lots of places have them that you just walk in. A lot of them you can pick which one you want. If that's your choice, you want to go with Pfizer or Moderna or Johnson & Johnson, they'll give you the date for the second one.

[00:35:18.610] – Dr. Raza
Get a nice card to carry. So get vaccine. Step two, got to reengage with your physicians, whether it's your primary care physician or to one physician, some specialist, endocrinologist or cardiologist, or lung doctor, we engage with them. Get back to figuring out how far away from the baseline you are. Have an honest conversation with them about the signs and symptoms that you've had recently and give them an overview of your health over the past 15 months.

[00:35:47.370] – Dr. Raza
What's happened?

[00:35:48.060] – Dr. Raza
Have you gained weight?

[00:35:49.650] – Dr. Raza
Have you lost weight? Other stressors? Were you exposed to covid? Where you admitted with covid? Let them know. Give them a full comprehensive history of the last 12 months since they last saw you.

[00:36:02.310] – Dr. Raza
Step three, get back to exercising. So if you look at data that we have from fitness trackers, the number of steps that the average person normally walks in a day that are tracked in Apple watches, Fitbit, et cetera, those fell dramatically between 2019 and 2020, because we naturally became more sedentary when malls shut down.

[00:36:28.230] – Dr. Raza
When you don't when you work from home. You don't have to park your car and you walk into an office, go up and down off this corridor, up and down stairs, go to the break room. You know, you don't have malls that you can go into, shopping, etc. grocery stores, those steps go away. And they're not replaced by walking at home. They're just not, you know, and so you have to get active again.

[00:36:53.040] – Dr. Raza
I understand the hesitancy as far as going back to gyms, but you don't have to go back to a gym to become active. This great workout videos that you can do at home. But we got to get mobile again. We got to become less sedentary. We have to do that and then set yourself targets. How did you gain weight during covid? So let's start on a plan to start losing that weight. Did your diet get altered? Were you having more comfort foods?

[00:37:20.190] – Dr. Raza
Understandable. Obviously, you know, if you go back to March, I remember our kids were off school and we did a lot of baking, cookies and brownies and cakes. And you can do those things were flying off the shelves because people were eating comfort food. So get back to eating healthier foods, veggies, et cetera.

[00:37:39.990] – Dr. Raza
And then the last thing is, make a plan to get to sort of take ownership of your own health care and set yourself health goals for the next three to five years.

[00:37:52.480] – Dr. Raza
What do I want to achieve? Where do I want to be? Whether it's a weight target, whether it's well, I want to make sure that I have my, you know, get my colonoscopy done and make sure, you know, there's a knee that's bothering me I'll go visit an orthopedic doctor, this hip that's bothering me I'll go get my hip replaced, et cetera, et cetera. And that's sort of what I would go towards as we come out of this pandemic, sort of reassess and realign our interests and taking care of our own body, our bodies our temple.

[00:38:24.880] – Dr. Raza
You know, we got to take care of it. During the pandemic, the average American gained around twenty nine pounds.

[00:38:33.970] – Dr. Raza
A lot of folks gained as much as 50 pounds. We say the covid 15, but it was actually not 15. It's more like 20 or 30 pounds on average that people gained. And there's many reasons for that. Give yourself a pass, but try and assess the fact that you did gain weight. You may have developed unhealthy habits and tried to work to correct those. Again, prevention is cure. Start engaging with your primary care doctors. Get an assessment for what your blood pressure is.

[00:39:03.130] – Dr. Raza
Have you become diabetic? You now pre diabetic? Too cholesterol or other medications that you should have been on that you stop taking because you just didn't go to see a doctor and so you didn't fill the prescriptions and so on, so forth.

[00:39:18.580] – Allan
So I kind of had three takeaways from that. One, one being what happened, happened. If you let yourself go and you put on some weight that's passed, let's let's look forward. That was an event. Let's move forward. The second is you're the CEO of your own health.

[00:39:37.120] – Allan
So you've got to be proactive. You've got to step up and do the right things for yourself. And that means making the doctor's appointments. That means moving more. That means eating better. And so making those lifestyle choices that we should have been making all along. But now going forward is our opportunity to act. We can't act on the past, but be the CEO now. Make the right decisions now and the final one. And you didn't really get into this, but you did a little.

[00:40:01.330] – Allan
But be patient.

[00:40:03.790] – Allan
There's a backlog in service. There's a backlog in what doctors are able to do. But if obviously if you become a priority patient, you're going to move to the front of the line so that you've got to be out there, you've got to get that communication with your doctor so that you're getting the care that you deserve. So get into the mix and then, yes, it there's just going to be an element of patients in that your appointment that you normally would have made next week is now maybe three weeks or four weeks from now.

[00:40:32.170] – Allan
And just realizing, OK, there are people right now that are suffering and need the care now and there's a prioritization of service, have the patients to work through that and don't give up on it. Stick with it.

[00:40:45.040] – Dr. Raza
I agree. And the other thing is, the other thing I like about the patient is you've got to take a long term view to health.

[00:40:51.640] – Dr. Raza
And as far unfortunately, all of us know this, it is far easier to gain weight than it is to lose weight. And you have to have a plan in place that has it's a marathon, not a sprint. Set yourself ambitious targets, but don't be disappointed if you don't get them quickly. Sort of a what I would say, take it not even month to month, but maybe season by season. See where you are.

[00:41:18.580] – Dr. Raza
If you walk on a treadmill every day to go as you walk for a half hour, well, the goal is to walk further and thirty pounds two months from now than you did than you do currently. That means you quickened the pace. That means your cardiovascular conditioning and so on, so forth. And the weighing scale is not the end all be all. It's not, you know, you can not lose weight but reduce fat, build up muscle, which is just as important.

[00:41:55.070] – Dr. Raza
It's about an overall level of health. But you're absolutely right. You have to be invested with yourself. I tell patients all the time I can be the world's greatest cardiologist, but I can't help you if when you go home, the diabetes isn't well controlled. If you don't take the medications for blood pressure or for your thyroid or X, Y, Z that you're supposed to, or if you're going for surgery you need and you don't follow the instructions of the orthopedic surgeon properly.

[00:42:28.060] – Dr. Raza
You know, complications, X, Y and Z. You got to be invested in your own health.

[00:42:33.160] – Dr. Raza
And together it truly takes a village. Together we can help you feeling better. At the end of the day, the goal for everyone is I want you to live life to the fullest. Spend as much time out of the hospital, away from doctors offices, doing the things that you love with the people that you love.

[00:42:51.790] – Allan
Awesome. So, Dr. Raza, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay?

[00:43:01.090] – Dr. Raza
Well, I think find something that makes you happy. Find people that you can be happy with and find a way that you can achieve those to the best way that you can. Whatever path it takes. It's about the journey as it's not just the destination.

[00:43:19.090] – Allan
Now, Dr. Raza, say if someone wanted to learn more about you and what you're doing, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:43:25.030] – Dr. Raza
so if you go to my Twitter page, so at SadiRazaMD, you'll find a link to my website or practice.

[00:43:33.850] – Dr. Raza
And I tweet regularly about cardiovascular issues, health and wellness, sports and fitness. And you can follow along and try and make it patient centered.

[00:43:43.930] – Dr. Raza
It's not really geared towards physicians necessarily. It's more towards patients know ways to get prevention, prevention, prevention. Some of it is topical. So for example, in the last week or so, you'll see a lot of posts around a soccer player that had a cardiac arrest last week. But for the most part, it's more general and topical.

[00:44:06.970] – Dr. Raza
And I am fortunate enough to be able to do media from time to time. So look out for articles or radio shows, podcasts, etc.. My wife is a cardiologist. I'm just starting to podcast for the heart doctors for that on Spotify on an Apple podcast. And we'll try and put the word out how to be heart healthy and live life to the fullest.

[00:44:34.780] – Allan
OK, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/494 and I'll be sure to have the links there. Dr. Raza, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:44:45.870] – Dr. Raza
Appreciate it. Thank you, Allan.

Post Show/Recap

[00:44:52.350] – Allan
Hey, Raz. Welcome back.

[00:44:54.130] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, what a wonderful interview with Dr. Raza. You know, it is I was kind of wondering how the covid shut down had other implications than what we commonly talk about on the news. I mean, besides the covid 15 or covid 20, that might be that extra weight we've all gained. You know, there is a real concern about our overall health, but particularly cardiovascular health. That's a pretty scary side effect.

[00:45:21.170] – Allan
Yeah, I kind of knew a little bit of this was happening because a couple of my clients, as we went into covid are medical professionals. And so when they were going to telemedicine, I was thinking, well, how does someone who was about to potentially start chemotherapy and radiation treatment, how do they telemedicine that, you know you know, if a kid needs their standard vaccinations now, granted, they're not running into other kids with mumps because they're not seeing other kids with mumps.

[00:45:53.710] – Allan
But, you know, so maybe some of that stuff isn't necessary. But it just seemed to me it's like there's a lot of well care that just didn't happen. And so you can't go to your gyms. A lot of people didn't feel like training. They was just if I can't go to my gym, if I can't get out and, you know, do the things I was doing, the sports I was playing with, things like that to keep me engaged and doing this, I mean, you give me a stat that a lot of that stuff Strava put out that the people that were doing these virtual runs was kind of going up.

[00:46:28.420] – Allan
but if you were part of a run club and that was kind of the real thing that got you showing up, was that accountability like where you belong to a gym or belong to a cross fit and things like and those things were just gone. And you're like, OK, I need five people around me sweating harder than I am for me to get my bike gear. You know, it's just I could see where that investment wasn't happening. The investment of time.

[00:46:54.190] – Allan
The investment of effort and then the investment of money. A lot of people were trying to buy home equipment, but there was none to be found.

[00:47:01.720] – Rachel
Oh, yeah, I know that probably sold out pretty quick. But, you know, down with you where you are in Panama, you had a pretty strict shutdown. You weren't even allowed to get out and get moving. And I know a lot of countries that were like that as well. And here in the United States, we did have a little bit of freedom to be outside and most of our country. But I think a lot of people were still afraid to go out.

[00:47:25.360] – Rachel
We didn't know a lot about covid. We just knew that we didn't want to get it and end up in the hospital. So, you know, I think a lot of people did stay home. And I think the level of stress went up. And we had talked about in the past about how the parents that had to learn how to work at home that had never worked at home before, plus help to home school their kids because school went virtual I mean, jeez, there's so many things that kept people from being able to go out and work out any more.

[00:47:53.920] – Rachel
So there's it's not really surprising that we have a covid weight gain or any other health implications.

[00:47:59.770] – Allan
Yeah, but the data is there, you know, the cardiovascular events and deaths from that is going up. And it shouldn't. I'm almost certain that we're going to see cancer, diabetes, those types of things, you know, where the care just wasn't there. If you're not going in and getting your dialysis, you know, if you're not, you know, going in the doctor and getting your blood pressure done and checking your meds or maybe not even getting them filled.

[00:48:28.770] – Allan
Because you didn't want to get out and go to the pharmacy because you just didn't want to be exposed.

[00:48:34.810] – Rachel
Well, that and plus, some doctors won't refill a prescription unless they see you in person.

[00:48:40.300] – Allan
Well, they were doing telemedicine. They changed medical care a little bit. But there's just so many things. It's like, OK, they can't get the labs to know. They can't do a blood pressure. And if you don't have the monitor yourself already, it's like you don't know. It's like, you know, because you walk into the doctor, they stand on the scale. They, you know, your blood pressure.

[00:48:59.620] – Allan
And that's the part of the natural conversation with your doctor, which kind of takes me to the next transition. You go to your doctor. Get your care team together. As I mentioned before, this podcast, you know, we've got to start showing our priorities with the way we spend our money, the way we spend our effort and the way we spend our time. And it's easy to audit that. Just go and look at your bank statement.

[00:49:26.200] – Allan
Look at your credit card statement. Where are you spending your your money? Look at it days time and just say, OK, how much time that I spend watching Netflix versus exercising? And maybe we're doing both. And that's awesome. You know, double dip in there. You're on the treadmill or the elliptical and you're watching your Netflix show. That',s cool. That's totally cool. But most of us aren't doing that. You know, they weren't doing that.

[00:49:49.240] – Allan
And so it's look at where you're spending your time. Look at the effort you're putting in and look at where you're spending your money and answer that question, what are your true priorities here? And it's time to shift that, because if you're not taking care of your health, you're soon enough can be taken care of illness.

[00:50:04.990] – Rachel
Yeah. Dr. Raza mentioned that too, suggesting that we, of course, reengage with our specialists and but also get back into exercising and resetting our eating habits. You know, it's it's a multifaceted way of improving our health. But we do need to focus. We do need to focus on it.

[00:50:26.700] – Allan
Now, I ran across a study this week. Thirty five chronic diseases can be traced to inactivity.

[00:50:34.260] – Rachel
Wow.

[00:50:35.220] – Allan
OK, and I'll make sure to put a link to that in the show notes. But this is not and this is not really a new study. I didn't realize this was out there. That's the first time I was seeing it. The study was done in 2012. But, yeah, they've manually, physically traced thirty five different chronic diseases directly to lack of activity.

[00:50:55.380] – Rachel
So the best thing you can do for your health is move.

[00:50:58.290] – Allan
Move

[00:51:00.990] – Rachel
Do something. Anything.

[00:51:02.150] – Allan
Well, the human body was built to move. I mean, our lymphatic system is how we get rid of toxins and waste in our body.

[00:51:09.030] – Allan
And it doesn't have a pump system, the pump system for your lymphatic system as your muscles, your skeletal muscle. So if you're not moving, then you're basically letting gunk sit there and it's poison. Your body needs to get rid of it. And the only way it can do that is if you move and push that stuff through your system to get it out. And so that's yeah, absolutely. We need movement. And then there's just so many other things that movement gets us.

[00:51:35.100] – Allan
You know, if you get the endorphins because you're doing it enough, if you know the movement patterns. And the other thing movement does is it kind of gets the the juices going with blood and flows and everything else to where maybe your knees hurt less because you're actually getting more nutrients and fluids and liquids in the knee so that'll function better. Now, obviously, if you go do some exercise and the knee swells up, you've got to talk to somebody and have that taken care of.

[00:52:02.670] – Allan
But for a lot of us, the aches and pains that we're feeling is vicious.

[00:52:08.970] – Rachel
it is. And I've said to a lot of my friends and in run clubs and elsewhere that if you rest, you rust. And it's essentially true. You just need to keep moving to keep those joints fluid, keep your balance, keep your flexibility. I mean, I'm not saying run marathons or do something crazy. Just take a walk, walk for a mile, walk for two miles and just a little bit of fresh air.

[00:52:33.000] – Rachel
And some activity can do so much good for your health overall.

[00:52:37.650] – Allan
Well, you're the one that admitted marathons are crazy, so.

[00:52:41.610] – Rachel
Yeah, maybe. But, you know. Yeah, no, you don't have to run marathons, but, you know, you can get so much benefit from just walking one, two or three miles. And if that feels good, do a little jogging and maybe maybe register for a local 5K. I've got a 5K coming up this weekend and proceeds go to the local cross-country team. So, you know, you do a little good for others while you're doing good for yourself.

[00:53:09.810] – Allan
Awesome. Rachel, so I guess I'll see you next week.

[00:53:13.120] – Rachel
Yeah. Take care.

[00:53:14.390] – Allan
You too.

[00:53:15.120] – 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
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:27.350] – Allan
Hey Raz.

[00:02:27.350] – Rachel
Hey Allan. How are you today?

[00:02:29.360] – Allan
I'm doing good, I'm doing good. We're getting close to getting Lula's wrapped up and open although we won't really open open until probably October. But at least the work part will be done. The place will be cleaned, it'll be ready. And then you know, that just means, yeah not as much dust.

[00:02:48.770] – Rachel
Yey. That's so exciting.

[00:02:51.080] – Allan
Yeah. And then we'll have our little owner suite area down there. So a little more space for us because we've been staying in one of the rooms, so it's just a room and a bathroom. So, you know, probably less than I don't know, less than maybe two hundred square foot, you know, just a standard hotel room with the bathroom. So we'll be moving into a little suite that we'll have downstairs. So that'll be nice.

[00:03:13.040] – Allan
And then a fence and it's basically concrete because we don't really have a yard but fence in the area around the back. So the dogs have kind of area that can roam around and run and not feel so stuck. But yeah. So it'd be cool and then that'll be separate from where the guests would stay. So we'll have our space, they'll have their space and

[00:03:33.170] – Rachel
Wonderful. Can't wait to see it. I have to come down and visit you sometime.

[00:03:37.070] – Allan
Yeah, you need to. You and Mike. You can bring Mike.

[00:03:40.820] – Rachel
Thanks. I don't travel well. I need a travel companion.

[00:03:45.190] – Allan
All right. So you ran a long, long race.

[00:03:51.020] – Rachel
I did.

[00:03:52.310] – Allan
Fifty three miles.

[00:03:53.660] – Rachel
It was. Yeah. Ran a little long. It was the best experience. Definitely a huge challenge, but so very rewarding. It's surreal. I still am kind of on cloud nine actually.

[00:04:09.050] – Allan
Well, good. And I mean, your legs aren't hurting nearly as bad as mine were.

[00:04:14.300] – Rachel
No, no. I felt pretty good.

[00:04:16.630] – Allan
Yeah. And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we went into, you know, recovering from injury and illness. And, you know, while in the sense you didn't injure yourself at all and it's not really an injury, I mean, illness as we would go. But this is a situation where you're doing post rehab, post healing. You're taking it easy, if you will, but you're not stopping because I saw you also did a 5K.

[00:04:46.070] – Rachel
Yeah, I can't sit still for very long.

[00:04:49.940] – Allan
Well, I did a recovery run 5K the next day. So I mean it's not unheard of. It's just probably felt you didn't have the spring in your legs that you would normally have. You're working on doing some things to recover that, right?

[00:05:04.040] – Rachel
Absolutely. Yeah. So right after we finished the run, it was about 2:00 in the morning because we started at noon. We finished and just shy of 14 hours. It was about 2:00 in the morning or so. And on the way home, we I drank a lot of water and finished my hydration, that electrolytes that I had in my pouch and finished up a snack I was working on. And when I got back, drank a little bit more and went to bed.

[00:05:33.170] – Rachel
And the next day we went to do some more sightseeing. We took some friends to a special part of Michigan up at Mackinac Island. And so we had a short drive to get there. And we walked a lot around the fort and we did a little bit of sightseeing on the way home. So a little bit of driving, a little bit of walking and just kind of cut loose that way. And that felt really good. So we did that for about two days actually after the run and continued with a lot of hydration and a lot of good protein. Healthy protein.

[00:06:07.200] – Allan
Well, good. So what's next for Rachel Everett?

[00:06:13.700] – Rachel
well, what people should be doing after a big race like this is what I call a reverse taper. So since I didn't have too much carnage, my legs were not too shredded after that race. I'm in pretty good shape. So I'm going to do a lot of walking and a little bit of running. And so it's exactly what it is, a reverse taper. So I might aim for maybe ten or twelve miles this week and maybe fifteen the next and maybe twenty the next, and just kind of ease my way back into running.

[00:06:45.920] – Rachel
It'll be an every other day kind of thing. I won't be running every day. I'll be walking a lot in between. So it's just easing back into a basic foundation of running again.

[00:06:57.680] – Allan
OK, and your next long race?

[00:07:01.400] – Rachel
It could be another 50 miler.

[00:07:04.190] – Rachel
You know, I do have a 50K, so I'll be running a little over thirty miles in October and then I might be planning another fifty miler or maybe a 100K which is sixty miler. So, we'll see what I can squeeze in.

[00:07:21.830] – Allan
50K works out to a little more than thirty one miles and a 100K works at a little more than sixty two miles.

[00:07:30.470] – Rachel
and then you never know what the race decides to throw at you. So with this fifty miler we actually started at the forty eight mile mark because it's one hundred mile course so we started at mile forty eight which anybody can math that out, you know we're going to have two extra miles to get to the one hundred mile finish line. So yeah, races like to do tricky little things like that. So you know where.

[00:07:55.760] – Allan
You had fun. Right?

[00:07:56.960] – Rachel
It was, it was a tough day but a wonderful day and a lot of fun too.

[00:08:02.510] – Rachel
It was great to run with my good friend Christa and my other wonderful friend Patrick, who was ahead of us. But he did great, too. And it was just nice to see all these people doing amazing things.

[00:08:12.800] – Allan
Cool. Well, let's get Matt and Robert on the phone.

[00:08:17.420] – Rachel
Sure.

Interview

[00:08:45.170] – Allan
Matt, Robert, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:08:49.070] – Matt
Thank you. I'm looking forward to talking.

[00:08:50.360] – Robert
Thank you, Allan.

[00:08:51.260] – Allan
You know, I've been in the health and fitness field for over six years, and it's been fairly common to hear on the endurance athlete's side where many of them are going plant-based. It's almost, as I said earlier, Keep hand in glove thing that they feel better, their inflammation is lower and they perform really, really well. A lot of plant-based athletes or some of the best endurance athletes on the planet, bar none.

[00:09:19.490] – Allan
And you profiled so many of them. But I think what was really cool is I got into the book is you didn't just stop there. It's like, OK, yes, this is great nutrition for the endurance athlete, even the extreme endurance athlete. But you went into bodybuilding and you went into Olympic sports and you even threw in a pro wrestler, which if you watch them, they're very athletic. They've got to do some pretty crazy things and hold a lot of muscle mass.

[00:09:47.030] – Allan
So, you know, the plant-based diet has come a long way in that we now understand from a human performance perspective that it is a nutritional strategy that works very, very well for a lot of people. Can you talk a little bit about why plant-based might be the route you want to go if you're looking to improve your athletic performance across the board?

[00:10:09.230] – Robert
Yeah, thanks, Allan. That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked it, because I interviewed 60 world class athletes just for this book, the plant-based athlete. And one of the things that I came across was that there was a common theme here. All of these different people came from almost all of them came from an omnivorous eating pattern before a few of them were actually vegan since birth, which is another topic we'll get into because some are Olympic athletes as a result.

[00:10:34.790] – Robert
But the fact is, dozens and dozens and dozens of athletes all shared the same thing, that they saw their energy go up and they saw their recovery get better. They saw a decrease in inflammation and they sped up the recovery process with which improved their performance. So whether it was a world champion boxer and Olympic skier, a world class power lifter or a marathon, you know, record holder, they experienced the same things. And one of the things that's really, really exciting is that I come from a bodybuilding background. Matt comes from a long distance and ultra running background.

[00:11:11.210] – Robert
We have a different body types, different sports. And what we found was that the same diet, the plant-based diet, high in complex carbohydrates with modest amounts of proteins and fats from good quality Whole Foods sources supply the nutrition required, whether you're a bodybuilder or an endurance athlete or whether you are a NHL hockey player or NFL football player or NBA star like Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan and Hedgesville McGee and go down the list or you're an Olympic figure skater because a plant-based diet gives you naturally gives you energy, the very high energy diet.

[00:11:49.400] – Robert
It is easy on digestion. It's a low calorie but high nutrition. So high nutrient, a calorie ratio and it is super antiinflammatory. And you're not eating pro inflammatory foods. So you reduce inflammation, you recover faster, you improve, your endurance gets better, your muscle soreness often gets reduced and you just continue on. And one of the great byproducts of that is longevity. You know, some of the athletes in the book are in their 50s, almost 60, and competing at world record pace like Rip Esselstyn set a world record at age fifty-nine, I believe, in the 200 meter backstroke and swimming.

[00:12:27.020] – Robert
John Joseph is competing right now, like maybe literally next weekend or within weeks at another Ironman triathlon, full Ironman distance at age fifty-nine, almost Sixty. Fiona Oakes has multiple Guinness Book of World Records and marathons. And she wasn't even supposed to run in the first place because she was born without a kneecap and a right leg and was not even supposed to run and has set multiple records. And she's in her 50s, Christine Vardalos in her 50s. So many athletes are forty-plus and still performing at a world class level.

[00:13:00.440] – Robert
And have to be honest with you, Allan, to me now in my 40s, that was one of the most exciting things for me to read about, to connect really emotionally with Rich Roll, Scott Djuric, Brendan Brazier, John Joseph, Rip Esselstyn, Christine Vardalos and Fiona Oakes, just to name some of them. It's just so inspiring to me that the benefits of a plant-based diet have contributed to incredible longevity in addition to athletic success, whether it's strength.

[00:13:32.270] – Robert
Endurance, power, whatever your sport is, the benefits are there to be had.

[00:13:36.230] – Allan
Now, and we've always thought of those. It's so funny. We've always thought that there's this three completely separate things. You train very specifically for your sport. And so you're you're not a power lifter out there doing, you know, 30 mile distance runs on the weekend just to, get your miles and you train very specific for your sport. And so we've always just assumed, OK, well, you're going to have to eat very specific to your sport.

[00:14:00.200] – Allan
And the eating now is I'm kind of wrap my mind around the book and everything was on. We're looking to lower inflation in the body and we're looking to give it the nutrition that it needs to heal well, and with it healing well and not having the inflammation, you're therefore able to train harder and longer. You recover better. And you perform better.

[00:14:25.220] – Matt
And not to mention the longevity benefit. You mentioned, information, healing your body, healing yourselves. That's what preserves you as you get older too. So to me, it's amazing that you have these three different sport disciplines and the longevity benefit often the same thing. And in fact, it seems that it's the same exact mechanism. It's recovering faster and it's having lots of nutrients in relatively few calories compared to other diets. And it makes it easier on your body.

[00:14:51.590] – Allan
And one of the things it's funny because if I said the word vegan or vegetarian to somebody, they immediately know what it is. I'm going into the produce section when I walk in the grocery store because they just know they're going to be at the farmer's market, they're going to be the frozen section at the grocery store. And so, in a sense, I think those two diets, more than most of the others, maybe paleo, but those diets, more than anything else, kind of drive you to better food quality.

[00:15:20.120] – Matt
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's all there is. I'm I probably spend 80, 90 percent of my time in the produce section. You know, the number of packaged foods I bought that actually in a box is so few now. It's maybe pasta. Sometimes I buy things in cans, but even that you get in the box so, yeah, that's one of the great kind of things. It's been like a journey. This has been, I've done this for 12 years now and every year I get a little bit better at eating more and more real whole foods and less and less processed foods.

[00:15:48.590] – Matt
You don't need to be playing to do that. Like you said, you could be eating a different diet. Paleo will sort of encourage that move towards very Whole Foods in the book, The Plant-Based Athlete, we write a couple of pages where we talk about how much paleo is in-plant they have in common, we're the weirdos out of a group of people, the ones who insist on eating whole foods, not for packages, don't eat dairy.

[00:16:09.530] – Matt
We disagree on the meat, but they're not. They're more alike than they are different. So, yeah, lots of guys can push you down that road. And that certainly plant-based diet does do that for you.

[00:16:17.390] – Allan
Yeah. And I've interviewed now well over three hundred people for this podcast. And it's kind of that's the thing that when you say why is your diet better? Well, it's Whole Foods. It's OK. And that's it. That's actually why it's better in most cases.

Sponsor
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Haka Life Nutrition, the maker of GLX3, you know, the benefit of Omega-3 reduced inflammation, which helps with joint pain and heart health.

And, you know, you're probably not getting enough from your diet, but then you read about the mercury in fish or how the fish oil supplement you bought at Costco or Wal-Mart might be oxidized and rancid. Not good. Then you look into a plant-based solution and find it isn't very bioavailable or krill oil, which is much more expensive and isn't really sustainable. GLX3 is very different. It's from sustainably farmed green lipped mussels in New Zealand.

The 17 omega-3s found in green lipped mussels include ETA, which is not found at any fish oil. What is ETA? Not to bore you with the science, but it has been shown to be very effective at reducing inflammation and pain. Haka Life Nutrition has paired this oil with New Zealand olive oil and vitamin E to make a very unique Omega-3 supplement. I think it's brilliant. Mussels are at the bottom of the food chain and have a short lifespan so they aren't as susceptible to mercury contamination and they don't starve out other species when they're farmed in open water.

Haka nutrition is meticulous about their sourcing and encapsulation of GLX3. Each bottle is traceable all the way back to the place, date and time of harvesting to ensure you get the best quality Omega-3 product on the market. They offer a full 90 day guarantee. Go to Hakalife.com/40plus and use the discount code 40plus to get a buy one get one free deal on your first order, which gives you a two month starter supply.

GLX3 is my go to Omega-3 supplement going forward. It can be yours too by going to Hakalife.com/40plus and be sure to use the discount code 40plus for the BOGO deal.

[00:18:45.620] – Allan
You know, one of the things I think someone's going to be concerned about is they go over OK and see the kale that scores very well as a high nutrition, low calorie density food. Of course, then this cruciferous vegetables, all the leafy greens, all of that, they're always going to wonder, OK, well, am I getting enough protein?

[00:19:04.980] – Allan
Now,I know myself that there's protein and all of that in various ways and you compare it together and get all of the amino acids you need. But can we talk just a few minutes about why a plant-based diet and how a plant-based diet can provide the protein needs not just for a normal person walking down the street, but we're talking professional bodybuilders that are trying to put on, you know, 10, 20 pounds a year as they're bulking up and becoming these super these great athletes that you see on the stage.

[00:19:36.790] – Allan
How can they get the protein and do that? How does that work?

[00:19:39.910] – Robert
Yeah, well, first starts with the fact that plants have all the essential amino acids that we need. The amino acids are the building blocks of protein. You eat a variety of food. You're going to get the amount of amino acids you need and the amount of protein you need if you consume enough calories based on your real calorie needs. That's a big thing, right? So if you're a figure skater, you weigh one hundred and five pounds, you're going to have a different protein needs than a power lifter who is 240 pounds.

[00:20:05.970] – Robert
and so you have to understand and I like that we talked about that a few minutes ago, Allan, it's the same essentially the same diet for all sports. It's just a different calorie intake and maybe a slightly different macronutrient breakdown. A little more protein here with more fat here, a little more carbohydrate here, depending on the type of sport. But it's the same diet. It's still sweet potatoes and blueberries and lentils and oats and potatoes and kale, like you mentioned, and walnuts.

[00:20:33.210] – Robert
And it's all the same foods. It's just getting the right quantities. And so for protein, yeah, you can eat more foods that are considered more protein rich, like nuts and nut butters and tofu and other soy foods and legumes tend to be higher in protein, though still very much a carbohydrate food, beans and lentils and such and leafy green vegetables. But there's also some tricks you can do. I mean, everybody knows in different types of athletics that you can do things like smoothies.

[00:21:02.160] – Robert
Right. You can put nut butters and smoothies. You can put a bunch of greens in there. You can even believe it or not, and we mentioned in the book, you can even put like tofu or white beans in smoothies because you're adding raspberries or blueberries or peanut butter and chocolate and you're making you're giving it a flavor that is enjoyable and palatable. Well, it's packed full of like, you know, imagine if you just put it in a bunch of pumpkin seeds or cashews or whatever.

[00:21:29.940] – Robert
Nuts and seeds are your favorite or use a powder, a powder supplement if you want, but you can do it totally whole Foods. And so a smoothie is a great way to add extra protein, if you like. You can also just make a conscious effort. So let's say you're having oatmeal. Well, why not put some walnuts on it or something else? Protein rich, you know, with your oatmeal. If you're having a salad, why not put garbanzo beans all over it?

[00:21:53.790] – Robert
You know, in addition to the leafy greens and the peppers and the mushrooms and whatever else you have in your salad, why not add some of those things? One thing I like to do, even just with a rice and vegetable dish, is add cashews on top, add peanuts on top, sometimes other nuts. And so you can you can make this conscious effort to get one more protein here and there in very tasty, very accessible. I mean, a peanut butter sandwich is as simple as it gets, right?

[00:22:19.830] – Robert
It's not difficult. And one of the messages I really like to make as clear as possible is that if you know what your calorie needs are and you can use the Harris Benedicts calculator, Harris Benedict equation to figure that out and use chronometer, my fitness pal, to determine what your intake actually is. If you meet your calorie needs, you are almost absolutely sure to reach your protein needs because nobody, not a single person, you know, eats only celery or only grapefruit or only oranges during the day.

[00:22:50.130] – Robert
We all eat a variety of stuff. We all eat to some form of variety, maybe a little bit of legumes here, a little bit of grains, a little bit of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds or omnivores, some meat or dairy, whatever. We all eat a variety. And that's how you get the amino acids and then your body pools all those amino acids and uses them throughout the day. You don't need to have like a complete protein in a single meal.

[00:23:15.300] – Robert
And because we don't do anything in a single meal, you don't reach all your nutrient requirements in a single meal. You don't reach your hydration requirements in a single meal or your fiber intake in a single meal. Very, very rarely. It's accumulation of everything that we consume throughout the day and on an ongoing basis, on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis. And so that is how you reach your protein needs by having adequate calories based on what your calorie needs are, finding foods you enjoy.

[00:23:44.140] – Robert
And then eating them on a regular basis and seeing the results.

[00:23:49.180] – Allan
So if someone was training, let's just say for one reason or another, they do find that they're doing this heavy training. They're trying to accomplish something special and they're not quite getting there with protein. Be one of the things that they should maybe take a look at just to make sure that they are hitting that. Or do you just really feel if they're hitting their calorie needs, it's done?

[00:24:12.640] – Robert
Yeah, you could you could take a little bit of close look at protein, but I really don't think it's as big of a factor as people think. I think it's the total calories. And also, you have to look at the other aspects are baggage that comes with any kind of macronutrients or foods that focus on a singular macronutrient. And so what you can find is the benefits actually of complex carbohydrates are increase of carbohydrate intake as you might find more anti-inflammatory properties there.

[00:24:40.720] – Robert
You might find foods that help with aiding and recovery. There you can focus more on things like turmeric and ginger and Tartary juice and beets and nitric oxide, rich leafy greens. And you can find some increased circulation and increased blood flow, increased nutrition to cells throughout the body. So there's other things besides just that one macro nutrient that I think are worth considering, even when you are that body builder or power lifter who's looking for that, just that little edge.

[00:25:08.090] – Robert
I really don't think a few extra grams of protein is the key. I think you have to look at it holistically in its totality and you look at the utility of all the other aspects, all the other components of nutrition. And you could even say something as simple as this, like, well, if they would have just had a little bit more caffeine, maybe in supplement form, they would have had more energy to get the lift better and got stronger and built more muscle.

[00:25:29.980] – Robert
Or if they would have just, you know, use this for anti-inflammatory properties and had reduced soreness, they could have pushed it further. So there's a lot of different ways to look at it. And I really, you have to do in this for quarter century, I just don't think it's protein alone that needs to be the focal point here. I mean, what if they would have got a little more sleep, you know, rested a little bit better and nutrition can help with that or had better digestion, you know, those kind of things.

[00:25:55.270] – Robert
So and Matt, I'd love to hear your thoughts on expanding on that.

[00:26:00.160] – Matt
Yeah, I mean, I, I the very first thing I would look to is total calories. I encounter a lot of people who try have these diets and they come back a month later and say, well, you know, I did it for a while, but then I didn't have the same energy. And the thing is that it's so easy. I mean, if you're really thinking about this carefully and you're looking at all the nutrition, the macro nutrient numbers like Robert has suggested, then you're not going to run into this problem.

[00:26:19.090] – Matt
But a lot of people who just dive into something new. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I really like gradually starting something new. And that's how I went vegan over the course of four years, actually. But people they just removed the animal products and they don't think about replacing it with fairly calorically dense sources because lots and lots of plants are not calorically dense. And that's a great thing for the most part because they have lots of nutrients and relatives, few calories, like I mentioned earlier.

[00:26:42.880] – Matt
But if you just replace all the meat and dairy and everything with leafy greens, for example, you could drop 30 percent of your calories from your diet. And so I think more often, especially for people who are new, that's usually the bigger problem. They just didn't eat enough calories. I've got two young kids who do this. They're both athletes. My son trains. He puts in twenty training sessions a week, it seems like. I mean, he's crazy and I don't I just don't think about working with him.

[00:27:06.160] – Matt
We eat so many whole foods like you mentioned earlier, like so many vegetables. And I'm confident that protein is in all of these things. And he eats almost entirely Whole Foods. So I'm not worried about the processed foods that have the protein remove like a bunch of added oils or processed sugar. So I just don't think about protein. I think about calories. I always urged him to eat more calories. But protein is really one of the last things on my mind.

[00:27:27.370] – Matt
It's just it's about getting the fresh stuff that I know is going to help. And the antioxidants, the anti inflammatory contents, all these things are going to help him recover for the next workout. And protein is just one of many things.

[00:27:37.870] – Allan
Yeah. And I think, again, that was the kind of the takeaway here was that as we as we look at these things, we can fine tune. I mean, you guys do a great job as you went through the book of looking at, OK, let's look at protein. Let's look at fat. Let's look at carbs. You know, they're in there and just recognizing that we can get all that we need from them and, you know, kind of push this way and that way a little bit to fit our needs.

[00:28:02.110] – Allan
But beyond that, there are some things that as a vegan, we're just not going to get. We're not going to get the B12 because it's just not in any plant-based food. A lot of folks that go vegan also have some issues with their vitamin D, and there's a few other supplements that you talked about in the book. And I think it might be also worth talking about lysine, because that is one of the amino acids that's not as common in plant foods as it is in animal-based foods.

[00:28:31.480] – Allan
Can you kind of talk through some of those supplements and considerations for those?

[00:28:35.470] – Matt
Yeah, I can take a shot of that. So I have a supplement company and I'm only saying this not to advertise, but to make a point that we make a vegan supplement and it's actually has seven nutrients in it. And people think, well, you've got to get, there must be something wrong with your diet if you have to get those seven nutrients. But we made that so that we didn't have to take this full megadose multivitamin that I was taking before I went plant based.

[00:28:56.740] – Matt
Because a lot of people do that sort of mindless. You just pop a multivitamin to cover all the bases. But as I started to think more about food and as we talked about earlier, start gravitating more towards Whole Foods and thinking more about what I was eating, I realized that I was getting tons and tons of these common vitamins because they're in so many different fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, grains, beans, those things are loaded with micronutrients.

[00:29:18.000] – Matt
So I said I don't I don't need to be overdosing on all these and taking megadoses of these vitamins. So we made a more mindful that doesn't have all those. It's called complement. And because that is like it's a complement. It's not a supplement. It's something less than that. But the point is, like, I think vegans who are eating varied diets probably need to supplement just as a whole less than someone who's eating a standard American diet.

[00:29:42.120] – Matt
You're not going to have tons and tons of areas where you might be running into trouble. Now, as you said, there are some things that are actually, you know, like a B12, for example, can become a serious problem if you don't supplement when you're eating a 100 percent plant-based diet. I'm not at all trying to deny that. And that's why we have this. That's why there's this reputation of all a plant-based diet must be incomplete or unnatural if you've got to supplement it. For me,

[00:30:03.570] – Matt
I just look at the empirical evidence. You look at the long term studies on people who live the longest without health problems, the longest health span, the best number of active years. And if that's a plant-based diet plus a B12 supplement or a B12 and a few other things supplement, then it doesn't matter to me at all whether or not that's quote unquote natural according to someone's theory. I'll I'll take the diet that helps you live the longest, even if it means I have to take a suplement with it.

[00:30:27.940] – Matt
So that's where I come out of it. As far as lysine you mentioned, Allan, that's a great point. And that that is a nice bit of nuance that you should think about as you think about protein. People know that as the limiting amino acid on a plant-based diet. And the idea is that you don't have to worry about protein at all as long as you're meeting your lysine needs, because if you're meeting your lysine needs by default, you're going to be getting plenty of other kinds of protein.

[00:30:50.970] – Matt
But lysine is just one that doesn't show up in all that many plant-based foods. And if you want to supplement with it, if you want to go take a protein powder, that's a very, very easy solution to make sure you're meeting your lysine needs. But you don't have to do that. You could also go to more of an in between way where you take eating some say satay, which is like a wheat gluten that people use to make a lot of meat substitutes that if I actually love the taste of Satay and Robert doesn't like it that much, he gets a digestive problems I think and they get a lot of people don't, but a lot of people do.

[00:31:17.550] – Matt
And it's more and more common these days as the meat substitutes are showing up all over the place in grocery stores and fast food restaurants and everything. So that's loaded with lysine. So is tofu. And Teppei, those are two also like kind of halfway processed foods, although I don't really even think of those processed because they're so nutritious. And then if you want to really be pure about it and say, I'm just not going to take anything processed or supplement, you can you can get it by trying really hard with with lentils, with quinoa, with amaranth.

[00:31:44.130] – Matt
I mean, it's in foods. It's just you got to be more mindful the more and more you're kind of insisting on the purity of one hundred percent Whole Foods.

[00:31:51.000] – Allan
And you said something, I think that was really important there, is this is also about being mindful. It's about knowing the food that you're putting in your mouth and and thinking about it, not just eating what's there. Actually saying, OK, I'm going to have a plan and I know what I like. But and I think for a lot of people, we tend to eat simple. I think most people actually do. We probably pick five or six meals and that's it.

[00:32:19.830] – Allan
That's 90 percent of the calories that we're going to get are going to come from just a very small select foods. But I think as a vegan, you really have to be mindful about the selection and the organization just to make sure you're getting the calorie load, because it is very easy to say, OK, I'm going to have this big salad and I may throw some beans and nuts on it or something like that. But you still to get the calories you need, you kind of need to have a plan.

[00:32:45.480] – Allan
And once you have a plan and you know what you like, you guys have broken it down. I think Robert has his three hours, OK, for the shopping. And I think, again, it's just the better you lay these things out. You guys do great job in the book of giving some structure. If someone is considering transitioning to vegetarian or vegan, you give them a very good structure to say, OK, here's how you can structure your meals so you can make sure you're hitting your bases.

[00:33:13.530] – Allan
And again, we're not just talking about everyday vegan, but it works for them and it works for somebody who's also focused on performance because you don't necessarily want to take a couple of seasons off to get your nutrition right. You're doing this on the fly. So do you guys mind talking a little bit about meal planning and then your approach to shopping for food to make sure that you're getting the variety to hit your all your buttons and bases the way you need to?

[00:33:39.150] – Robert
Yeah, I want to. I think it's an interesting thing. You talk about mindset, or being mindful about it, because I think it's a common idea that we've got to have this mindful approach to plant-based eating. And I think it's obviously good to have a plan. But it's also I think if we think about it, most people are not super mindful in general. It's that there's a fast food restaurant on the corner that I'm craving something oily and salty and meaty.

[00:34:09.030] – Robert
And I want to shake with it as well. And then maybe. Have some pizza later on or I want some cheese on this or that, and, you know, and we could probably be more mindful there, you know, with fountain sodas and with standard American diet food. And so I don't want to say across the board we have to have just elevated levels of mindfulness with plant-based eating compared to where we're coming from with.

[00:34:32.540] – Allan
Oh, no, no, I didn't mean that at all.

[00:34:34.240] – Allan
What I what I meant was that I think we're where most people approach this way of eating is that one that a lot of people are doing it for not just selfish reasons of saying I want to feel better and perform better. And they're actually they have some more emotional ties to how we're handling our meat production and eating something with a face concept. And so I think know a lot of people are going at this saying, I want to be a more responsible ethical person.

[00:35:04.990] – Allan
And so I'm going at it for those ethics reasons. And so I think they're already starting from a I need to be mindful of this. And then that kind of balances into a, so now when I go forward, really focusing on the variety and the quality of the food that I'm eating so that I am nourishing my body, and particularly if you're looking at it from a performance perspective.

[00:35:27.880] – Robert
Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I was just about to get to, is that most times we're not super mindful, you know, plant-based or not. We're just until we get into performance related aspects. Because when you're working so hard for something, Allan, like you're working so hard in the gym or running, I mean, you're putting in this effort, this work, and you want to get a good return on investment from that. Right.

[00:35:49.930] – Robert
You want to be rewarded from that. And that's where I was going to say that's where the mindfulness comes in with a plant-based diet where you want to get the most nutritional bang for your buck. And that's why we have this certain approach, like I write in the book, that you've got to list your favorite foods in every category, your five favorite fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds, because you want to have those readily available.

[00:36:11.410] – Robert
You want to have them for pre workout, for post workout, for snacks. And so you make these mindful decisions like I'm working so hard athletically and for some people, training hours a day, I want to get the most mileage out of my diet as well to support that. And so and some people just may not be aware of what their favorite foods are like. Maybe they have a couple they go to. Like you said, we eat the same kind of five or six meals, and I totally agree with that.

[00:36:36.880] – Robert
But if you could just add a few more things in there, add some seasonal berries, add some seasonal stone fruit and some, you know, some other seasonal crops, you know, winter squash or whatever the case is and have your staples as well. You don't have your whether it's brown rice or tempeh or tofu or lentils or black beans or whatever the case is, your oats have your staples. And then from there, that's where the very particular or specific or mindfulness approach comes.

[00:37:03.670] – Robert
You and that's one thing that I like to talk about and write about is that if you have your staples there, whether they're batch cooking and you have them for the whole week or whatever the case is, you can always call upon that. So when you're craving something, when you're hungry, like sometimes I, I often finish workouts that are two or three hours if I'm doing weights plus cardio plus sauna or whatever the case is, I come hom, man, I am hungry, but I've got to make the most intelligent decision and I can't just say, OK, I want, you know, hurry, order something from the local Thai restaurant which is going to be loaded with oil and all this stuff, because I've got something already prepared at home that I know is going to serve my needs post workout.

[00:37:42.250] – Robert
It's going to help replenish carbohydrates that were burned through exercise, gonna help bring in amino acids and repair muscle that was damaged through exercise. It's going to replenish electrolytes, lost through sweat and then hydration, you know, those lost when you sweat. So I actually I we have an entire section on that. I think Matt and I both agree that mindfulness apart is really, really key. And that's how you also get into habit building and developing behaviors that can be something that you can build on.

[00:38:11.680] – Robert
And then and then it takes the willpower away. Like Matt talks about, you know, when you're trying to follow a really sound nutritional approach for your sport, at first it's a lot of willpower. Like I almost like a burden or a requirement. I have to do this to get this return. And that's for pro athletes and amateur athletes alike. But you do it enough times. You develop these habits and it takes the guesswork out. So I just want to make that early point that I think mindfulness in eating is just not exclusive to plant-based.

[00:38:39.220] – Robert
It's for anybody. And then it just gets accentuated when you get into the athletic world.

[00:38:44.140] – Allan
Yeah, because you're really trying to nail it. But you guys, like I said, you put a structure out there and then you had that really cool the hours, you know, so you're going to get three seasonal vegetables and three seasonal fruits and then you're going to get the kind of your standard things, your apple, your pear and your orange, because that's always there. You call them annuals or.

[00:39:04.720] – Robert
Yeah. Like the rule of three of three different foods, packaged goods, beverages, things that. It's designed to add diversity because diversity is diversity of amino acids, diversity of antioxidants, diversity of vitamins, minerals and other nutritional components, and that's what it's designed to do.

[00:39:24.310] – Allan
Yeah, and then Matt you had a whole different approach to shopping. Do you mind going into that a little bit?

[00:39:29.930] – Matt
Yeah. So I'm much more of a recipe maker. I tend to like cooking, so I will look up recipes. I will almost never go to the store and just pick out the staples that I'm missing. It's more like I make a little bit of list of what the recipes I'm going to make this week are and then I'll go get those things. But I do have a framework that I started to apply over the past eight years, begun just eating like when I'm eating at my best, I find myself falling into this pattern, which is that I will eat a smoothie in the morning, which is loaded with nuts and seeds, flaxseed walnuts, especially bananas, berries, frozen berries, some of the best, most antioxidant rich foods you can have add some greens in there as well.

[00:40:08.120] – Matt
So I have a smoothie in the morning. If you don't like that, you can do an Oatmeal version of that and just don't like smoothies. And that's totally fine. You can do almost the same thing with the same things in your oatmeal and now you get an extra serving with whole grains as well. For lunch. I do a big giant salad with beans on it, either oil and vinegar for dressing like a nice extra virgin olive oil or a nut based dressing which will eliminate the oil entirely, which is one less somewhat processed food in your diet.

[00:40:32.390] – Matt
The beans on there, a great danger to such a healthy food that if you can get a big serving of those every day, you absolutely should. And putting them on a salad for lunch is one way to kind of ensure that you do. And then finally, for dinner time, I always do a grain, a green and a bean. And so many of the foods that we're used to eating turn out to be a grain, a green and a bean.

[00:40:52.070] – Matt
You think of tempeh or tofu, tacos or any kind of bean. Refried beans on a taco. If you have some vegetables on top, you have a grain, a green and a bean. The green being the shell of the bean the filling. And then you get your toppings stir-fry, you got the rice, you have either beans or tofu. If you want that, you've got vegetables on top. So it's very, very easy to make a grain, a green and a bean. Stews, soups.

[00:41:15.140] – Matt
These often take that form. It doesn't have to be this big, mushy, big bowl of vegan sadness that people think of when I think grain, green and bean. And to that simple, like when I look at the cupboard and I have a bunch of stuff, but I have not planned a meal, it's like it's very hard to think of even when you so many choices, it's hard to get your mind to focus in on a meal. But if you can apply a little bit of a constraint that says grain, green and bean, which of those do I have here and how can I make those do well?

[00:41:41.150] – Matt
What condiment can I put in there to make a style of food or a certain cuisine? That structure works really well for me. And what it does enables me to get the seven or ten most important foods I mentioned beans, berries, nuts and seeds, greens, the foods that I'm trying to get every single day. They very naturally fit into that framework. So that's the one that I will typically eat when I'm at my healthiest.

[00:42:01.730] – Allan
And you've made a little easier for us in that you've put some recipes in the book. So we've got a head start.

[00:42:08.000] – Matt
Yes, absolutely. And those recipes, in fact, many of those were contributed by the athletes themselves that we interviewed, which I think is so cool, because to me, like ten years ago when Scott Jurek was doing this, he was ultra endurance athlete. I was an aspiring ultra endurance athlete. And I remember like there was a book, Tim Ferris's for Our Body came out, and I had a few of Scott Jurek's recipes in it, or maybe his grocery list.

[00:42:29.030] – Matt
And then Scott's book came out and to me those recipes were like gold back then. I was like, wow, this is one of the this is a legend in his sport, at my sport. And this is exactly what he eats. And he eats a plant-based diet like. I just could not get enough of having that. So to be able to put sixty recipes in here from elite Pro olympian plant-based athletes, I think that's a really special part of the book, not to mention the day in the life section at the end where they all twenty five of them list exactly what they eat like I just did.

[00:42:54.530] – Matt
They list how their day looks. And what's interesting about that is there are really very different approaches. Some of them really do focus on the meal planning and the macronutrients and they make sure they hit those numbers. Some of them like Dotsie Bausch, Olympic medalist, they just listen to their body. They just and I think as you do this longer and longer, you can get back to the mindfulness and you can actually start to just do it naturally without thinking so much about it.

[00:43:15.020] – Matt
So it's really neat to see that there are so many ways to make this work and not just work, but work for extremely high level performance in sports.

[00:43:21.050] – Allan
Yeah. So it's not like flipping a switch, but figuring you're way out, going through it and getting what works for you, finding the food you like, the food combinations, you know, putting those things together in a way that works. And then over time you just you make it better, you make it work better for you. And then particularly with performance athletes, they're always tweaking. You're always tweaking. So because we've got to find that half inch, we're got to find that half a second we've got to you know, we've got to do those things.

[00:43:50.390] – Allan
And that's the same way with the food. And so just taking your time, going through this book, like I said, gives a really good structure for someone that's looking to go this way, figuring out how to put it together, how to make it matter and do it without harming their performance. In fact, probably most likely going to see performance improvement, definitely if they're moving away from a standard American diet. They're moving away from inflammation, and so the recovery and their pain, that's all going to get better with this way of eating.

[00:44:19.270] – Allan
So, Robert, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:44:29.320] – Robert
I think you've got to find what your passion is in movement and exercise, and it doesn't have to be something super hard core or something that everyone else is already doing. It could be hiking. It could be taking your dog for a walk. It could be being out in nature. But I think you've got to find what you love to do. And when you find your passion or something you're enthusiastic about, you're going to find ways to make it happen.

[00:44:50.590] – Robert
It's less of a burden. It's less of a chore. It's something you look forward to. And I and I love that you said that because that's one of my signature lines, too, is to be healthy, happy and fit. And I think it starts with doing the things you're spending the one thousand four hundred and forty minutes we have each day doing what you enjoy. And the more you can smile, the more you can get enjoyment out of your exercise, then I think the better.

[00:45:14.470] – Robert
And that's what I would encourage everyone to do, is to get out there, move, find what you have to do and just keep doing it.

[00:45:20.850] – Allan
OK, Matt, again, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:45:30.040] – Matt
Great question. So my first one is, I guess kind of I'll go from broad in there. Broad one is take really small steps when you're creating changes. Typically diving in overnight change. Flipping a switch is not the best answer. It might seem like it for the first five days while everything's cranking along and your willpower is not been taxed yet, but it is getting that. And then the day is going to come along when your friends are going to the happy hour or whatever it is, and your perfect setup that you've been this fantasy you've been living, that everything has changed and you're now different, that will come crashing down because that's what happens.

[00:46:01.970] – Matt
But that's what happens with willpower. When it when it goes, it goes. And then because you've lost your perfectionist fantasy, you now think, well, I'm done now. Now it's not worth even having this next meal because I already messed up. So I took four years to go from omnivorous to vegan. Nobody has to take that long. But I tend to think that if you take a month to do it, you give yourself maybe a week like where you just having your breakfast

[00:46:23.140] – Matt
It's plant-based another week or it's now breakfast and lunch and so on or go you go try a few weeks where you're plant-based at home and you're still omnivorous out and then after that, make it so you're only omnivorous out on the weekends and so on and so on. These small steps to me, they give you a chance to learn the new habit. They give you a body, a chance to adapt. They let you learn how to handle things socially.

[00:46:44.290] – Matt
Obviously, I'm speaking right now about going plant-based, but it could also apply to running. You don't have to go out and run a mile five times a week to become a runner or to become fit. You can start with two minutes a day and you're not going to get the progress in the first month. It's going to seem like you're really not going anywhere. But if you look a year down the road, I think the person who starts with two minutes a day is much more likely to be someone who has now run consistently throughout the whole year at increasing amounts.

[00:47:07.000] – Matt
Obviously, because progress is an important part of this. You can't just stagnate at two minutes a day, but starting small and having the patience to accept that you're not going to see physical results, but you are building this invisible habit in your head. I think that's probably the most important tip I have for wellness. So that's my general. A very specific small steps approach for me that I really like is to drink a smoothie and eat a big salad every single day.

[00:47:29.740] – Matt
That's a pretty small step. It might be too big of a step for most people or for most for some people. And if you think that seems like a lot, if you find yourself struggling with even a couple of days of that, then just do one of those things. Just have this really just have the salad, do the oatmeal instead of the smoothie if you want. But those two meals to me, they help keep me on track, because if I kind of just mess up, if I go out and have whatever kind of vegan fast food I happen to have, if later I get back to have a salad, like it just kind of gets me back on track.

[00:47:54.880] – Matt
So I like that as my small one and then my very most specific habit. This is just something that has worked for me paying attention to my sleep, like getting a sleep tracker. I'm not really into trackers and data and stuff like that, but I've realized in the past few months that paying attention to my sleep, it's one of those habits that I think of it as like an anchor habit sort of pulls everything else in the right direction, just like the smoothie in the salad.

[00:48:14.560] – Matt
Like I said, once I started paying attention to my sleep, I started paying attention to how I ate and how I drank in the evening hours before I'd go to bed. So suddenly there was this benefit. I started noticing that when I worked out in the day, I would sleep better. So then I have this extra reason to actually work out in the day. And so it just one of those things. It's like a little game.

[00:48:33.580] – Matt
And if I'm trying to maximize how well I sleep, it turns out that I'm also maximizing how well I am living throughout my day. So maybe sleep, isn't it for everybody. But if you can find that anchor habit, that one that just pulls you to make the right choices, then that's that can be life changing. So it's been sleep for me look for years.

[00:48:51.880] – Allan
Excellent. Thank you for that, both of you. Well, this is episode four hundred ninety three.

[00:48:59.950] – Matt
congratulations.

[00:49:00.910] – Allan
So the show notes are going to be at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/493, but if you guys want me to send somebody somewhere and have links in the show, notes for that, where would you like that to be?

[00:49:13.250] – Matt
They can go to my sites at nomeatathlete.com, Robert what's your site's domain? veganbodybuilding.com, and we have a dedicated book page, at book.nomeatathlete.com, if they want to go there and see a bunch of endorsements and all that's in the book.

[00:49:26.900] – Allan
OK, well, the book is called The Plant-Based Athlete and the subtitle and this is a game changing approach to peak performance. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot from the book because, as I said, I've always known that endurance athletes do very, very well with the vegan diet plant-based diets. But this was kind of the first time I've seen how broad and how wide the performance improvements can be across all these different disciplines. And you've got the case studies in there.

[00:49:55.340] – Allan
You've got the athletes themselves speaking to how they've done this and sharing their own recipes and how they eat in a given day. So you can't ask for much more than that. This is great book, guys. Thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:50:08.300] – Matt
Thank you, Allan. Appreciate it.

[00:50:09.650] – Robert
Yeah. Thanks, Allan. Appreciate the opportunity today.

Post Show/Recap

[00:50:16.570] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:50:18.160] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, what a fascinating interview, especially when you're talking about endurance athletes, that's kind of my thing, but the plant-based endurance athlete is pretty amazing.

[00:50:30.140] – Allan
Yeah, and I knew, you know, when I started reading it. And Matt is an endurance athlete. And, of course, you know, some of the people that a lot of the people they profiled, you know, the rich rolls and those guys that are you know, they're just diehard vegan athletes and their endurance athletes. And you look at them and say, yeah, they look like vegans physically. But then, you know, it's power lifters and it's bodybuilders and it's all that stuff.

[00:50:59.530] – Allan
And I'm like, OK, you can. And I think that's really kind of the magic of what I came away with. All of this was you can be vegan and be a bodybuilder, you can be vegan and eat keto, you can do those things. Now, is it the easiest way to do it? And the short answer would be no. And is it the optimal way to do it? And that I think the jury's still out because we just don't have enough of them high enough up in a sport. Now,

[00:51:31.560] – Allan
Arnold Schwarzenegger was on the game changer documentary. It was on Netflix is probably still out there. And, you know, it was he basically said this is the way he's eating now. It's more vegetarian or vegan. I'm not sure exactly which one, but he's in that realm of a plant-based diet and he believes that's the way it should be. That's why people should be eating. Now, would Arnold Schwarzenegger be Arnold Schwarzenegger if he had been a vegan when he was eight years old, 18 years old or 17 years old when he was coming over the United States?

[00:52:01.180] – Allan
The very beginning. And I don't know. I you know, I don't know that he could have accomplished what he accomplished. Being vegan or vegetarian, now, you can get your protein, but I mean, they're eating a ton of extra calories and fiber. To get that done, but it's doable, and I think that's what they've proved in their book and what they might find is with what's happening with all of these big and vegetarian athletes, is are they living longer?

[00:52:31.180] – Allan
Because a lot of the, you know, muscular athletes, really muscular athletes to see, you know, offensive lineman in college football or pro football or you see the bodybuilders or the pro wrestlers, a lot of those folks and a lot of it's lifestyle. It's not necessarily that they just put on so much muscle or what they did or what they ate. But these athletes are trying to do this not just for performance, but for longevity. And so that's their eating style is looking at it from a health and a performance perspective.

[00:53:05.890] – Allan
They don't want to sacrifice performance, but they want to make sure they're not harming their health. So it will be interesting to see how these athletes fare because it's not uncommon for bodybuilders to die younger, professional wrestlers, power lifters, they get big hearts. You know, they don't eat well. They pack on a ton of muscle and often fat in the off season. And so it's just, you know, it's not bodybuilding and powerlifting and those, they're not healthy sports or not, you're not getting into that for health.

[00:53:40.870] – Allan
And in a sense, a lot of times ultra marathoners are not getting into it for health. There's a limit. If you just ran, you know, even it was just like three miles a day or five miles a day, your body would be fine. You'd be healthy. A lot of times when you push yourself too hard and, you know, it's the thing is that you can push yourself past the point of health. And so that would be my only concern is if these athletes are still physically pushing themselves there, does this mitigate some of that health risk that they would have had if they were meat eaters?

[00:54:18.100] – Rachel
That's the interesting question to ask. You know, all these plants that we tend to eat salads and vegetables and all these legumes and beans, they all have some nutrients in there in them that are so important for our day to day life. And getting the right combination of them could very well support our endurance activities, whether it's running or biking or swimming or power lifting, I can imagine. But, you know, the one thing about diets that's really fascinating is that I look at it as a fueling strategy.

[00:54:54.880] – Rachel
You know, I eat certain foods because they agree with me and they support what I'm going to do, athletically speaking. But, you know, people with a nut allergy, for example, no matter how great walnuts and pecans are for you, they can't simply eat them. So there must be an alternative for that person or somebody with the lactose issue or a gluten issue. You know, our bodies, just because you want to eat something may not tolerate it well.

[00:55:22.930] – Rachel
And so the point is just to find what eating style works best for you. And I'm amazed by people like Scott Jurek and Rich Roll and some of the other endurance runners that can live on a vegan diet. Clearly, that's working for them in some way or another. So, yeah, I read a lot of it. It's a trend right now, in our running community, a lot of people are turning to more plant-based diets and there's something to it, obviously.

[00:55:49.030] – Allan
Well, and like we mentioned in the show, it's nutritionally dense food. And so, you know, getting your body, the vitamins and the minerals that you need that you might not be able to get from a full carnivore diet. so, you know, making sure you're doing that. But the end all be all. And, you know, I mentioned this a couple of times on there is. The reason I think that vegans and vegetarians tend to do

[00:56:15.930] – Allan
Better health wise, and I say it over and over when they talk about their studies and their interest in their books because they're eating Whole Foods.

[00:56:24.330] – Rachel
Amen to that.

[00:56:28.830] – Allan
so they equate eating Omnivore as a standard American diet. So to them, it's there's no difference. They don't look at red meat and processed meat and say it's any different. It's meat. And it's so they don't look at it different. If they're going to do a study about the health effects of meat, they're going to just say, do you eat these? And they're going to include the two together.

[00:56:51.720] – Allan
You could come back and say, well, I only eat grass-fed grass, finished beef, pastured chicken, pastured pork. And under these circumstances, but they don't nobody breaks the science down to that level of detail. And even if they did, most of this is just what people say they're eating. Right, and not necessarily what they're eating. So, you know, we've got these athletes now. They're going through this process. And if they stick with it for the long haul, because there's a there's a lot of vegans that fall off the wagon, there's you know, there's a lot of people that go hopeful, that whole food that fall off the wagon.

[00:57:26.880] – Allan
There's a lot of keto people that fall off the wagon. So, you know, if they stick with it, then we might come up with some stories. Some of course, it'll be anecdotal stories, but some stories that demonstrate that that way of eating is sustainable for the long term. It works for their performance, it works for their health and longevity, because that's why they're doing it. They're doing it because they believe that's the healthiest way to eat.

[00:57:50.280] – Allan
For many of it's also an ethical concerns. But almost everybody that I've talked to, and particularly with Robert and Matt, it was really about longevity and health.

[00:58:01.590] – Rachel
Yeah. And you mentioned Whole Foods. It's I think that's the essential key to this part of the formula is whether you're eating a whole vegan type of food or a whole keto kind of food. The point is getting real foods. You know, Oreos, I guess, are vegan, but they certainly don't have any of the nutrition that you need on a daily basis. So, you know, just making sure that you're eating a healthy, actual nutritious item and not going to the chips and the pretzels and the cookies, that just because they're vegan. It counts, I guess.

[00:58:33.870] – Rachel
But, you know, you still need to eat the nutrients you need to eat. But the other point about diets that I'd like to bring up, too, is that sustainable is such a slippery slope of a word for me, because I just trained, for example, for a 50 mile race. What if I decide that I'm going to focus on a triathlon? Or what if I decide to do bodybuilding as my next big challenge? You know, then I will probably change the way I eat to address that activity.

[00:59:04.440] – Rachel
So, you know, whether people stick to a vegan or keto or any diet in between, you know, as long as it's supporting your health and your activities, then I would say go with what is working for you in that moment. You know, I don't get hung up on being sustainable, being vegan to the end of the days or being keto for the end of days. You know, we go through these trends in life. You know, things happen.

[00:59:31.140] – Rachel
So eat how it best supports your health in that moment. This is my point.

[00:59:36.240] – Allan
Yeah. Because in the end, food serves three purposes. OK, first purpose is it's nourishment and fuel for your body, OK? Your body needs certain oils and fats. It needs certain amino acids. And in general, we tend to do a little better if there's some fiber involved, you know. So, you know, those are kind of the bare requirements and then getting the vitamins and minerals that we need. That's our nutrition. The second thing about food is if you do it right, it's delicious.

[01:00:11.040] – Allan
Yes. And so, no, if you eat Twinkies all the time, a strawberry isn't going to taste very sweet. All right. But a strawberry is actually very sweet as our carrots and tomatoes and beets, you know, those very sweet, even a sweet potato. I don't you know, I can put cinnamon just flat on a sweet potato and eat it. I don't need to add sugar, which you go into a restaurant and you order a sweet potato, all their cinnamon is going to be mixed with sugar premixed.

[01:00:44.270] – Allan
That's how they get it. And I don't want the sugar. So, you know, I end up eating it plain, which is with butter. But my basic point is, is you should enjoy your food. So you shouldn't be this. Oh, this is horrible. I have to eat this five pound salad every day. No, that's not how it should be. It should be enjoyable foods that you find appealing that are bringing all the different things, the textures and the tastes and all the things that you like and avoiding the textures and taste that you don't like.

[01:01:15.790] – Allan
And then the final bit is we use food for social things, for celebrations, for parties, for going out, for, you know, eating with somebody has special meaning to us. I think some people go a little too far with that. And it's like, you know, OK, I got to have the cake and got to do this for this party and we got to do that. And the food goes a little off the rails for some of these celebrations.

[01:01:42.190] – Allan
But that said, sitting down and having a meal with someone you care about is an important part of life. Having those conversations over a dinner table with your family is an important part of life. And those are not moments to be missed out on because, you know, oh, they're eating pizza. And I can't sit at the table while they're eating pizza because I might want a slice of pizza. So I'm going to eat in the other room.

[01:02:07.630] – Allan
So I'm not tempted by the pizza. And it's like, well, one, get to investigate your relationship with food and then two, what is it intrinsically about the pizza that's the problem? Yeah, you know, and would having a piece of pizza actually ruin your life?

[01:02:27.020] – Rachel
Yeah, you know, as long as it agrees with you, I always go back to allergies because I have them. So, you know, as long as that pizza agrees with you and it's not going to start a cascading way of terrible dieting and eating over the next few days, then enjoy it, enjoy that family time, enjoy that celebration or that birthday cake or whatever it is, as long as it agrees with you. And just get back to it the next day.

[01:02:53.380] – Allan
And if you want to make it keto, just make the cheese and meat over and vegetables over into your bowl and your plate and toss the crust into the dog's bowl. I mean, there you go.

[01:03:05.320] – Rachel
Yeah. Your dog will be happy.

[01:03:07.390] – Allan
Yeah, the dog's happy. You're happy. You're sitting with the family. All good. All right, Rachel. We'll talk next week then.

[01:03:14.650] – Rachel
Sounds great. Take care.

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
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

The engine 2 cookbook with Rip Esselstyn and Jane Esselstyn

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:01:04.370] – Allan
Hey, Raz. How are you doing?

[00:01:06.080] – Rachel
Good, Allan, how are you today?

[00:01:08.300] – Allan
Good. I get a chuckle out of that voice when we go on Zoom here to do these recordings. Now, when you record on Zoom before you just hit record in your recording. But now there's this female voice that wants to tell everybody on the call that they're being recorded and and then when we get off the recording it does the same things. Call is no longer being recorded. It's just funny because it's in the headphones. It's really, really loud.

[00:01:33.470] – Allan
So it's like we're having a nice conversation, good conversational tone, and all of a sudden this woman's yelling at me. Recording this call.

[00:01:41.300] – Rachel
Yeah. I've been warned.

[00:01:43.130] – Allan
And I have been recording this call because this is our welcome for this podcast. And how are you doing, Rachel?

[00:01:50.480] – Rachel
Good, good. Things are great up here. We've had some beautiful summer days. It's nice to get out, spend some time outside. Our vegetable gardens are growing really well. So, yeah, it's a perfect time of year up here.

[00:02:03.410] – Allan
Yeah. You have your little animal kingdom with your pond.

[00:02:06.350] – Rachel
We do.

[00:02:07.610] – Allan
Posting the other day with a snake and a frog. Or snake versus frog. Is that what it was?

[00:02:11.990] – Rachel
Yeah. And he was back. My husband Mike just saw him the snake again today and he had a bulge in his belly. So I know he ate another one of my frogs. Need to make..

[00:02:23.090] – Allan
maybe he's also eating rats.

[00:02:25.580] – Rachel
I would like to think that.

[00:02:28.250] – Allan
It was a rat. We're gonna call it a rat. Lacking any other evidence to the contrary. It was a rat.

[00:02:34.610] – Rachel
Makes me feel better. That would make me feel a lot better. How are you doing?

[00:02:39.890] – Allan
I'm good. Yeah, we actually have a new houseguest. It's a crab. It crawled into the kitchen late last night, so I was there shutting everything down and I'd like you know, we leave things open because we don't do the air conditioning for most the house. It's just our bedroom. It's air conditioned. When I was walking in and right there by the refrigerator here's this crab and it's not a huge crab.

[00:03:01.970] – Allan
You know, it's probably about the size of my fist. And I'm like looking at the crab. I'm like, I'm not going to get you to walk out of here right now. And he just looked at me with his pinchers up and I was like, OK, so I went, got a pan thinking OK, I'll just try to go scoop him in a pan and then toss them out the back. And then he ran back behind the refrigerator.

[00:03:17.630] – Allan
And I'm like, I'm not moving the refrigerator.

[00:03:20.000] – Rachel
Oh my gosh.

[00:03:21.470] – Allan
Clean up after yourself and we're cool. And so I went back to bed. Apparently he's still out and about. And so my wife saw this morning, so, yeah, we have a pet crab now. I haven't named it.

[00:03:32.630] – Rachel
I'd say. It's so funny.

[00:03:36.200] – Rachel
Well, I hope he doesn't stay too long.

[00:03:38.600] – Allan
Yeah, well, Buster is pretty excited to have a houseguest. And so if I think of Buster, Buster has an opportune meeting with him. Yeah. Not going to go well for the crab or I don't know, maybe the crab, the upper claw and Buster will not want to deal with crab.

[00:03:56.870] – Rachel
Well, oh boy.

[00:03:59.360] – Allan
So I have wild kingdom in our house too. Just like a different set. I think the mammal's going to win this one.

[00:04:05.520] – Rachel
Oh my gosh. Well, good luck.

[00:04:07.670] – Allan
Yeah. All right. So let's talk to Dr. Aviva.

[00:04:11.240] – Rachel
Awesome.

Interview

[00:04:48.500] – Allan
Dr. Aviva, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:04:51.840] – Dr. Aviva
Thank you for having me here. It's a delight.

[00:04:54.540] – Allan
Now your book, Hormone Intelligence: The Complete Guide to Calming Hormone Chaos and Restoring the Body's Natural Blueprint for Well-Being. I've read a few books on this topic, and obviously I don't have to deal with women's health issues myself, but I am a husband and I'm a father. So it is something that I try to stay at least somewhere of. And being the host of this podcast, I've had several authors on to talk about menopause, hormones, and women's health.

[00:05:22.710] – Allan
This book is maybe the most comprehensive complete guide I've ever read. You didn't leave anything out and you really kind of I don't know that there's a question I've ever would have had with my wife and all the things that we've dealt with over the years and my daughters that wasn't answered in this book somewhere.

[00:05:43.350] – Dr. Aviva
That makes me so happy to hear I was truly driving my publisher crazy because they would like, Aviva, this is too long. We have to shorten it. Like, yeah, but if a woman comes in, she's going to ask this question and they said, well, that's the problem. And the beauty is that because you're a physician and you're actually working with women, not just, you know, how a celebrity writing a book, you already anticipate the next question.

[00:06:05.770] – Dr. Aviva
So I'm glad that came through in a positive way.

[00:06:09.110] – Allan
It did. It did. It's you know, so it's an in it all. It all fit together in a way where, you know, as you're reading through it, it's both informative and then it's this reference guide. You just you put it on yourself and you know, when you start feeling something's going on, a hot flash or, you know, your periods are too painful and you're trying to understand what's going on, pull out this book. And there's a section in the book specifically with protocols for how to deal with that particular issue.

[00:06:37.230] – Allan
So it's like I said, really the most complete book I've seen on this topic. So thank you.

[00:06:43.650] – Dr. Aviva
Thank you. I'm hoping it'll be part self-help, how to and part one of those books that you do have on your shelf year after year and you kind of, you know, this may come up or that may come up and you go to it or you're just going through normal transitions in your life and you just want to hear, OK, well, what can I expect? What can I do? And I kind of have this dream that it's that book that mom's always wanted to actually have something to pass onto their daughters that's meaningful as well. Say, OK, you know, this really helped me.

[00:07:11.370] – Dr. Aviva
And now here it is to really help you.

[00:07:14.140] – Allan
Yeah. I mean, like I said, with my daughter's taking her to the gynecologist, going with my wife, to her appointments and these things, there were things that came up that I want to talk about during the podcast that I was just like, I really wish I knew this going in because I would have asked smarter questions. And that kind of leads me to the first thing is you start the book and you're talking about these tips for dealing with Medicare.

[00:07:37.590] – Allan
And it's so interesting because we don't want to be advocates for ourselves sometimes. And from reading your book and kind of just general knowledge, women especially are kind of put into this. Oh, well, that's just normal girl stuff. You know, go deal with it. But when we go to our doctor, we have to do a few things. Can you talk about those six tips for better medical care?

[00:08:00.140] – Dr. Aviva
Yeah, absolutely. I don't have the six in my book, kind of in my mind in order, but I can give you the tips and why it's so important, you know, on an individual basis. I've really honestly, in all my decades of working in women's health and being a physician and studying with, you know, numerous mentors and through my medical training, I've never met a physician that wasn't well-meaning and well-intentioned and didn't care about their patients.

[00:08:25.190] – Dr. Aviva
But the system of medicine is based on a lot of inherent biases that most physicians never learn about or think about. And a lot of those biases, unfortunately, play out in women's health. One of the biases and it's misinformation is that, you know, as women, it's just normal to have miserable periods to blow through boxes of tampons, you know, because you're having heavy bleeding or to be bent over with period pain or to have to take ibuprofen for a day, a month or three days a month or, for PMS to just make you miserable.

[00:09:01.070] – Dr. Aviva
And then things like chronic pelvic pain, weight gain, depression over things that can have to do with polycystic ovary syndrome, or there are a lot of these biases that end up causing women to go to the doctor and being told by their doctor, oh, that's just normal. And what we're taught in medical school is, OK, it's normal, but let's just give the pill or let's just tell her to take more ibuprofen or let's give her an antidepressant.

[00:09:30.470] – Dr. Aviva
And while those things may be helpful at times, one, they have side effects that are just, you know, unfortunate kind of byproducts of taking pharmaceuticals on a regular basis or even on a short term basis, but they also don't get to the root of the problems, things like chronic inflammation, stress, things that we can change in our diet that we never learned about in medical school. So there's that one set of biases that this is just normal. Just take a pharmaceutical.

[00:09:59.100] – Dr. Aviva
So when you go to your doctor and you ask for something different, hey, I heard about this herbal hey, can I try this diet or I read about that a lot of women get dismissed or an eye roll. And I've had many patients who have been told something like, well, where did you get your medical degree, doctor google? There's this very dismissive attitude. Also, physicians have kind of learned as part of the institutionalization of medicine that we only have seven to 15 minutes to spend with any given patient.

[00:10:31.430] – Dr. Aviva
And so we tend to get right to the symptoms, not really hear what's going on in a woman's life, not really ask the questions. And when a patient starts asking questions, it can really cut into the time that we think we have to get all this information from them. And so patients who start to push back or ask questions or look for alternatives are sometimes labeled as difficult patients. So when you go to the doctor's office and you've got concerns and a lot of women don't even go to the doctor's office for these concerns because they've been treated with dismissal before, or they just think these symptoms are normal.

[00:11:07.430] – Dr. Aviva
But when we do go in, we really need to be prepared and preemptive in order to get the answers that we need. So one of the things that can happen to any of us when we go to the physician's office, but especially to women, is that there can be a huge power differential. Right? You're going in. You're vulnerable because something's going on in your body that you're concerned about. You're worried about. You're already thinking it's the worst thing it could possibly be.

[00:11:34.730] – Dr. Aviva
And now you go in and you go into the waiting room. You know, you're in the waiting room waiting for however long. Then you finally get to your doctor's office and the nurse comes in and says, here, put this on. And it's a little Johnny with the back flapping open and nobody feels empowered. They're wearing one of those, but on top of it, then your doctor comes in and is dressed up in their in their office professional clothes with their white coat and their stethoscope.

[00:11:58.790] – Dr. Aviva
And all of a sudden this power differential becomes really intimidating. So one of the things that I tell people go into the doctor is keep your clothes on until the part where you get the exam, because the first part is usually the talking to. Right, the conversation. Keep your clothes on, have the conversation first, and then when it's time for the exam, you can have your physician step out and get into your Johnny and then get that part done.

[00:12:25.460] – Dr. Aviva
So that really helps you be heard. That's really important. Another thing is before you even go to your medical appointment, write down all of your concerns. Really great like a script card for you up yourself. It can be just bullet points. But when you get into that moment and you're in that power differential, even if you've kept your clothes on and your doctor is clearly in a rush, and we know that on average, medical doctors interrupt their patients after 60 seconds of their patient talking.

[00:12:55.580] – Dr. Aviva
So you've got 60 seconds and then your concerns aren't hurt anymore. So when you're in that pressured environment is very hard to remember to say, oh, well, I wanted to talk to you about this pain I'm having every month, let alone I want to talk to you about this vaginal itching that's really driving me crazy. Right. That's even harder to say. So have your script card there and say to your doctor, I really want I know this is weird, but I really want to use these notes I brought to make sure that I cover all the things that are really important to me.

[00:13:25.590] – Dr. Aviva
Also trying to get all of that squeezed in when you're going in for your annual exam can be really tough because, again, a doctor only has a certain amount of time. They have things they're supposed to check off their list to ask you for their own, you know, medical licensure and all of that to stay safe that they want to ask you, are you depressed? Is this going on? Is that going on? Maybe hard to get to your actual concerns.

[00:13:49.530] – Dr. Aviva
So if you're having a concern that is intimidating, you may forget to ask it. Having that little cue card there with you really helps to make sure you're getting through that. But having an appointment set up separately just for those concerns can really make a difference. Another really important point is to bring an advocate with you. And it sounds like, Allan, you've gone to the doctor with your wife and you're with your daughter to the gynecologist.

[00:14:15.600] – Dr. Aviva
And that's so important for someone to know there's someone out in the waiting room for you. But obviously, it's going to be a little more awkward for a dad to go into their daughter's gynecology appointment with them. But it's really important for women to have someone there, especially if they get intimidated in that setting who can kind of elbow them and nudge them and say, remember, you wanted to ask your doctor about that. It just gives you a lot of confidence and support and it makes sure that you're getting your concerns heard and your doctor's more likely to be on their best human behavior if there's someone else in the room as well paying attention.

[00:14:52.740] – Allan
There was one thing, though, that you put in there that I think was really important for the men to consider here is that there is this power structure you were talking about, and we need to be an interference to that and making sure that our wife or girlfriend is being heard versus being in there and saying, but the doctor said, suck it up. And, you know, that's not the approach we want to have. But sometimes you end up on the wrong side of the fence defending the wrong issue.

[00:15:22.120] – Allan
So go in there with your eyes open, know what your wife or significant other know what they're dealing with so that when they're asking the questions, all you really want to know, the doctor is hearing her. And then is giving a response, and she's thinking the response is reasonable based on her experiences, because you're not experiencing that. So that's really, really important to not..

[00:15:45.920] – Dr. Aviva
Yes, in the book. I talk about being careful about bringing in a male partner, especially if it's a male doctor, because it's so easy for the bro thing to happen.

[00:15:54.650] – Dr. Aviva
And the male doctor is like, you know, giving you the look like, yeah, right. She's got this PMS thing going on. I bet it's driving you crazy too like all the like the inside joke stuff. And I've seen it happen. So your point is so important and I talk about that in the book, which is like don't let the bro thing happen. Your job is to be there for her or your partner and to validate her and make sure she is heard and not to, like, partner up and take sides with the doc.

[00:16:21.040] – Allan
Now, there are a few things that you said in the book, and I was like, you know, just they just hum to resonation, as you were saying. And the first thing you said that I thought was just really important for people to hear is that hormones are messengers. If they're not there just in a certain amount at a certain time for just no reason at all, they're there to do something very specific and sometimes not having enough of them or having too much of them is a signal to our body that something else is wrong, not that we need more of something added just to balance it out or there's something going on in our system that's causing that imbalance.

[00:17:02.530] – Allan
And that's what we want to get to the root of.

[00:17:04.840] – Dr. Aviva
Exactly. So hormones literally, as we define them in medicine, are chemical messengers. And I jokingly I think they say someone, don't shoot the messenger. But as women and as men, we're always like, oh, she's hormonal. I'm hormonal. Like, we blame it on the hormones and the hormone imbalances. Or in the worst case scenario, as women, we blame ourselves like there must be something wrong with me or I must be doing something wrong because I feel like crap for my period every month or I feel, you know, doubled over in pain because of my endometriosis.

[00:17:37.900] – Dr. Aviva
And so instead of blaming our hormones and shooting the messenger, what is it that these imbalances, these symptoms are trying to say to us as a reflection of that there is an imbalance going on, like what is the message happening with PMS? What is the message happening? Why are you having these painful periods? And that kind of starts to get under the hood of what some of the answers are to then starting to solve some of those problems?

[00:18:09.190] – Allan
Yeah, I don't think we can get to the answer unless we're actually looking at the problem. And the problem is not the symptom. The problem is, is the underlying issue. And then the other thing you had in there that I think is just really important to take home is that, you know, more and more, yes, doctors will just say, you know, take this pill, get on antidepressants, do this thing, or let's get this hysterectomy, because it's so common that the issues that we're talking about are so common with women.

[00:18:35.410] – Allan
But common doesn't equal normal.

[00:18:38.520] – Dr. Aviva
Exactly, you know, when there's a saying that if all you have is a hammer, you see everything as a nail. And I can tell you from having spent seven years in medical training that we are basically never taught to do anything but give pharmaceuticals and do surgeries when it comes to pretty much everything in women's health, whether it's fertility, something going on in pregnancy or birth, whether it's a mental health problem, another gynecologic problem or menopause.

[00:19:11.790] – Dr. Aviva
And I'm not, you know, as I say, so open mind that my brains are falling out. I think there's an absolute time and place for a pharmaceutical and a medicine and a surgery. And, you know, I think it's also important to meet women where they are. If a patient comes to me and she's like, I really just want to take the pill from my PCOS acne, I'm not going to judge her or withhold that. I'm going to say, look, I just want to make sure you understand the ramifications of taking this.

[00:19:38.730] – Dr. Aviva
And would you be open to possibly trying these things first or instead? To me, it's you know, it's like if you had to kill a mosquito, you wouldn't get out a cannon, you would use your hands or get a swatter or something like that. Hopefully I'm not offending any Buddhists or someone who doesn't kill mosquitoes. But point being, we tend to go after symptoms in medicine with the biggest guns rather than looking at what can we do to maybe reduce stress or shift the diet or add in a particular supplement.

[00:20:16.080] – Dr. Aviva
And there's so much judgment in medicine, all those things don't work. But that's not actually true. Not everything that's touted out there in the natural medicine world works. But there are actually some substantial interventions that are natural, that have been shown to be phenomenally effective. And so most it's like, well, try that first and then if we need to progress to this, that or the other, we always can do that.

Sponsor
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Reel Paper.

A little over two years ago, my wife and I moved to Bocas del Toro, Panama. It has opened our eyes to many things that you don't get exposed to in the United States. One is how much waste we humans create, and another is how impoverished people often live in unsanitary conditions. Reel Paper is a company that's working on both of these issues. Reel Paper sells toilet paper and paper towels made from 100% bamboo, which grows faster, requires less water, creates more oxygen, a.k.a. less greenhouse gases, and doesn't require replanting after harvesting.

Yes, sustainable toilet paper is available for you now, conveniently shipped for free to your home. Not only is the toilet paper sustainable, all of the packaging is as well. Living on an island, we're in a constant battle with plastic. It's everywhere and it takes decades to decompose. Reel Paper is also working to tackle the sanitation problem by providing composting toilets to impoverished communities. That's another thing I was introduced to here in Bocas. You can take something that would otherwise be unsanitary and spread disease, but when you treat it properly, you can take it and make something useful, fertilizer. Reel paper is partnering with a company to do just that.

I often joke that my health and fitness vision is for me to be able to wipe my own butt at 105. If I have any say about it, it'll be Reel Paper on the toilet roll. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/reel and use the discount code, 40plus to get 25% off your first order.

We must begin treating the planet better and you can do it by going to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/reel and get 25% off with the discount code, 40plus. Thank you for supporting the show by checking out this wonderful company.

[00:22:49.550] – Allan
My wife was really having some heavy periods and in a lot of pain and, you know, a lot of women will think, OK, that's just normal stuff because it's just so common. But hers was not normal.

[00:23:02.480] – Allan
And we you know, we went into the doctor and, you know, the doctors kind of like, well, you can be on the pill. That would help. And then we finally opted for the ablation. And so she went in for the ablation surgery. And I got called into the room because the doctor was surprised by a fibroid that she ran into while she was in there. And it startled her a little bit and being startled, she startled my wife then my wife is under, you know, a little bit of sedation.

[00:23:28.100] – Allan
So she's not completely there. So they brought me into the room to discuss this. You know, that there's a fibroid, that there's nothing wrong that's normal. It's there. We knew about it, you know, just. It was there. Again, had I known about fibroids and what they're indicative of, I would have started asking a lot more questions. But I didn't. I didn't have this book back then. And so I want to kind of talk about fibroids a little bit because we just went through now having to have that fibroid removed with a hysterectomy because it had gotten so big.

[00:24:04.610] – Allan
It was scary big. When I actually saw the picture was, wow. We even named it Elmer because it was so big. Can you talk a little bit about fibroids and what as an outward symbol of fibroid would indicate is going on with us or with the woman? I'm sorry.

[00:24:26.210] – Allan
Yeah. So, you know, there's sort of like these meta levels of things, right? So fibroids are a result medically of high levels of estrogen. Women post menopause. Once our estrogen levels go really down, fibroids tend to shrink on their own. And we don't have fibroids before puberty because there's no estrogen feeding them. So fibroids are a result of high levels of estrogen and then usually a result also of something called insulin growth factor and other growth factors, which can happen as a result of a little bit of insulin resistance.

[00:24:59.810] – Dr. Aviva
It can happen as a result of just other hormonal imbalances. And so that's the meta level of there's too much estrogen, usually too much insulin like growth factor and maybe some insulin resistance. And then cortisol may play a role in triggering stress hormones that actually feed the fibroids as well. So catecholamines may feed the fibroids and that those are breakdown products of adrenaline and stress. And so that's sort of like the immediate medical. We know that from an upstream perspective physiologically or pathophysiological.

[00:25:34.370] – Dr. Aviva
We know that. And then there's sort of like the next level question is, what's causing those things? Why did your wife have high levels of estrogen? Why might she have had elevated levels of insulin like growth factor? And then we started to get to even a level above that, you know, as upstream as we can go, if you will, which is we know that environmental chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, for example, or plastics that leach out of our Tupperware's that we all ate out of growing up or may still out eat out of.

[00:26:01.100] – Dr. Aviva
Now, the plastic water bottles that were so popular in the 80s and 90s that we were all drinking out of. Our cosmetics and these things where you may just be getting nanoparticles like the most tiny little particles of these different environmental chemicals, but they act as estrogen disruptors. So they actually are contributing or adding to our estrogen load. And when you think of tiny little nanoparticles, well, you only have nanoparticles of estrogen anyway. It doesn't actually we don't have that much.

[00:26:31.810] – Dr. Aviva
It's is very potent. And when it finds to our receptors so environmental triggers can cause these high levels of estrogen, chronic stress can cause those high levels of stress hormones. And it's not that your wife is necessarily some stressed out person either. It's just the chronic normal stressors that we're all facing 24/7. And then there are a lot of dietary factors. One, the packaging that our food does come in which leaches plastics into it. But also most of us aren't getting the amount of fiber we need.

[00:27:04.340] – Dr. Aviva
You know, paleo diet was really popular and it still is. And it's not something I subscribe to necessarily. But we do know that our paleo ancestors got about 100 grams of fiber every single day. We know from the American Cancer Society that we should be getting thirty grams of fiber a day just to prevent colon cancer, like just basic good health for colon cancer prevention. The average American is getting fifteen grams of fiber a day, but fiber is critical for maintaining estrogen balance.

[00:27:33.020] – Dr. Aviva
So there are a lot of factors that go into why so many women are experiencing fibroids. Then from a medical level, there have been some really significant studies looking at how women with fibroids and other gynecologic concerns, heavy periods, et cetera, even women in their late 20s and 30s, let alone in our 40s and 50s, go in for treatment. And particularly fibroids is one big area. This happens and end up with a hysterectomy without their doctor ever providing them with the list of alternatives that they can and should be able to do long before surgery.

[00:28:14.570] – Dr. Aviva
And when I'm talking about alternatives, I'm not talking about herbal medicine or detox or something like that. I'm talking about pharmaceuticals. So one study, for example, done in the state of Michigan, and it was a multicenter study, meaning they looked at patients, they gathered data from patients at five different major medical centers. And aggregated that data and found that only a small percentage of women who were going in for a fibroid or another reason for a hysterectomy that was non cancer, cancer would be an appropriate reason, but only a small percentage were ever told that there were other medical things that they could do, including medical things they could do to shrink the fibroid, so that if they did ultimately still need to go into surgery, they can have the fibroid removed and not their whole uterus removed.

[00:29:03.070] – Dr. Aviva
So there's a lot of lack of knowledge among physicians that there are alternatives. And not to be callous, but I am a doctor, so I'm speaking for my own profession. There's a huge amount of financial incentive to choose to do a surgery over recommending a pharmaceutical. It just it's night and day when it comes to what ends up in your pocket at the end of the day. And it's not just your pocket, but it may be the hospital you work at gets much more money from you having more patients get surgery so that there's a lot of incentivization that's built into the system that we don't really

[00:29:42.980] – Dr. Aviva
Think about or know about as individual patients, and it sounds almost conspiratorial when I talk about it, but it's actually very real. So, you know, it comes back to what we were talking about before, which is how do you manage your own medical care? How do you be the CEO of your own health? And I think it's really tough. You know, I think as women, as human beings, we shouldn't have to be. We should be able to go in.

[00:30:08.120] – Dr. Aviva
You know, when you go to your car mechanic, you don't have to know everything about your car to make sure your car gets cared for properly. You don't have to research about your carburetor. You hope that your mechanic knows what they're supposed to do and does it. But when it comes to heavy bleeding and whether you should get that hysterectomy or not, first of all, it's terrifying because sometimes the word cancer is tossed in there even when there's no cancer.

[00:30:33.200] – Dr. Aviva
But like, well, if you do it now, then you have to worry about cancer later. Well, OK, I'll take that. I'll take door number three, you know, and if you're not told that you can use Generation inhibitors or other pharmaceuticals to shrink a fibroid, how are you supposed to read that? You know or learn about that one? Half the words aren't even that pronounceable. And there's so much noise on the Internet.

[00:30:57.410] – Dr. Aviva
Where do you even go and trust? So I think it gets really the burden ends up falling on the person who's got the problem to sort it out. And then you go to your doctor and you're like, well, can I try this medication first? And they're saying, well, where do you get your degree, doctor google? You end up just shutting up and going in for the surgery. And I'm not saying that the surgery is wrong.

[00:31:16.220] – Dr. Aviva
I've sent patients with fibroids and for hysterectomy too at times, you know, they're just they're anemic. They're exhausted, they're bleeding. They're peeing all the time because the fibroid is so big, it's sitting on their bladder or sitting on their bowels and they're constipated. Sex hurts. They have pelvic pressure all the time. So there's a time and a place for sure. It's just that we're jumping to that as step number one when it should be step number five.

[00:31:39.710] – Allan
Yeah, and that's one of the cool things about this book, is it does give us some tools to understand the problem. Better to ask the right questions and know that there are alternatives because you discuss them very clearly in the book. The other one I wanted to get into because, you know, women were in their 40s and their 50s. They go through this period of time. It can be three years. It can be eight, almost 10 percent, I guess.

[00:32:01.910] – Allan
But it's this perimenopause period of time, and it's when things are changing. And you said you said something that was just actually kind of kind of funny and little brilliant when you said we should celebrate that the same way we celebrate puberty. It's another phase of life. It's an interesting phase for a lot of women. And as you kind of put it, it's that point where, you know, I don't want to use language, but just we don't have you can kind of let go a little bit.

[00:32:32.300] – Allan
You're wiser, stronger, more powerful person. And you can own this. You can own this process. Can you talk a little bit about perimenopause, some of the basics of how someone should approach this and what they should be looking for as far as if things are going well or not going well?

[00:32:52.160] – Dr. Aviva
Yeah, so you know, as young girls, right, were 11, were 12, I mean, it may be a little intimidating to go through puberty.

[00:33:01.400] – Dr. Aviva
And it can feel like a roller coaster, of course, but we're excited because we're becoming women. It's something we look forward to. It gives us new privileges in our life, new things that we're allowed to do. And then so that's one big life transition. Then when we become mothers, that's hopefully celebrated. You know, you're welcomed into the Mom Club when you hit perimenopause. You know, the way it's described in our culture. You know, just because our estrogen is declining doesn't mean we're going downhill.

[00:33:33.290] – Dr. Aviva
But it is like it's been described as over the hill. Well, the only thing over the hill is downhill. Right? Our grandmother's house, I guess. But it's downhill. And we're historically considered not sexy anymore. Not fertile anymore. Kind of washed up. Now, I think that so many women are changing that paradigm. You know, when you think about it, like Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, I'm just thinking of a few women like women who would sort of.

[00:34:04.580] – Dr. Aviva
Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek, I'm just saying, you think of the women who we would undoubtably you'd have to be blind to not think they were hot, sexy women who are still considered hot, sexy women who are now in their 50s. And I think about thinking about it that way. The paradigm is changing and half of women in the US are now 50 or over. But internally, psychologically, and have just gone into menopause myself a year ago.

[00:34:31.040] – Dr. Aviva
So I'm solidly on the other side of it. I'm turning 55 this year. You know, if I could curse, I would say it was a mind, something that starts with an F to go through menopause. In our culture, we don't necessarily have that. Oh, now I'm a woman or we don't necessarily have that. Now I'm a mom to look forward to. It's like now I'm what fifty five are now I'm older and I'm middle aged or, you know, all that stuff.

[00:34:57.560] – Dr. Aviva
And now nobody's looking at me. They're looking at my daughter when we walk up the street together. So you really have to be willing to embrace a new way of thinking about your body, a new way of thinking about yourself. And it's also a time in women's lives where their life definition may be changing. Right. It's a time when often our children are finally going off to college or depending on how old you are getting married or having their own children.

[00:35:25.320] – Dr. Aviva
So now you're not just you, you're grandma. And that can really start to affect your self concept if we think about a certain age in a very old fashioned way. But if we think about going through this transition, as Helen Mirren has a quote, which I said in my book, which is basically, you know, if there's and she's in her 70s, you know, if there's anything I would tell my younger self is to not give enough a lot more often.

[00:35:52.130] – Dr. Aviva
And I think there is something liberating about walking into this phase of our life, feeling really empowered and looking at what we've accomplished and looking at all the met, you know, the sort of like massive skills we've accumulated at this point. And often, you know, that maybe you were a stay at home mom and now your kids are grown and you have major, you know, social management skills and time management skills and you've raised adult human beings.

[00:36:18.260] – Dr. Aviva
Or it may be that you're at a certain point in your career, which may be quite accomplished at this point. And I think that we're also at a stage where because we're not sexualized in the same way, it does give us room to redefine what sexy means to ourselves. And what does that mean to be sexy for myself? What does that mean in a bigger context of life? It's not just about reproduction, it's about actually full ownership of ourselves.

[00:36:44.150] – Dr. Aviva
So I think if we can embrace this new experience, it can feel really empowering. And so then if you are going through some physical symptoms, they're easier to appreciate. But interestingly, some studies from the sociology and anthropology world have shown that when we enter menopause with more embracing attitudes about it, we actually have fewer physical symptoms. And we also know medically, when you have more stress, which can happen from being really stressed out about your stage in life, we have more hot flashes.

[00:37:17.060] – Dr. Aviva
So it's a win win to to reframe this time of life. How do you know things are going well? Well, when we enter perimenopause, we can start to have really irregular cycles. And as you shared from the book, you know, perimenopause can happen for up to eight years before we're going into menopause. So from a medical perspective, you shouldn't enter menopause before age forty two. If you do, that's considered premature or early menopause and that can have some medical consequences.

[00:37:45.590] – Dr. Aviva
You might need hormone therapy to support your bones in your heart, etc. But any time in your 40s that you start experiencing some changes in your menstrual cycle, which can be you skip some periods once in a while, your periods get further apart, your periods get lighter, they may be heavier on occasion. That's actually all normal. You may experience some more mood changes that may hearken back to when you were a little bit, you know, in puberty, your hormones are going up and down.

[00:38:18.170] – Dr. Aviva
You may just experience some different shifts. You may have PMS when you never had it before. As estrogen drops, you may even experience migraines if you've never had them before. Any symptoms that you're having then are mild, not really interrupting your life. And you're kind of going, huh, that's a little different is usually a normal symptom of menopause, which shouldn't be happening is miserable hot flashes day in and day out or hot flashes waking you up all night or several times a night.

[00:38:47.360] – Dr. Aviva
Anything that's making you not sleep all the time and exhausted, you should not be having, heavy like, you know, just gusher menstrual cycles. You shouldn't be having really, really heavy periods. You shouldn't be skipping periods for more than a few months in a row. Until you actually get into the year where you're going to stop, so menopause is actually defined as one year of not having a period. So let's say you don't have a period for eight months and then you have a little vaginal bleeding.

[00:39:16.490] – Dr. Aviva
You're not in menopause. It starts over again another year. But once you've not had a period for a year after that, you shouldn't have vaginal bleeding. So if you have vaginal bleeding after that, it's important to go to your gynecologist or your family doctor and nurse practitioner and get a workup to make sure everything's OK. You know, if you're experiencing extreme depression or depression, that's just getting in your way of your life really significant sleep problems. It's normal to gain five pounds in perimenopause, menopause, our estrogen, the kind of estrogen we're producing most of our lives, shifts to one that has less metabolic activity.

[00:39:55.490] – Dr. Aviva
So we might put on a few pounds, but the symptoms, they may be they may get your attention, but they shouldn't make you miserable. If they're making you miserable, then there are things that you can do about that, whether those are natural therapies or whether they're pharmaceuticals to help you get through that time. And I think, you know, another thing is some women experience a little bit more vaginal dryness and so that can interfere with sexual pleasure or wanting to have sex.

[00:40:23.620] – Dr. Aviva
So if a person is in a partnership, it's really important to be having those conversations and it's really important for partners to be incredibly understanding. You know, I really had to talk with my husband. We've been together for thirty seven years now and I really had to explain to him, look, my self perception is and I didn't have like really significant physical symptoms, but my self perception is really changing. And I need you to understand that this is hard.

[00:40:53.540] – Dr. Aviva
There's some part of me that is mourning and grieving, being young, the way culture defines being young and my kids are grown. I've got grandkids, you know, it's just different. And I need that deeper level of support and understanding. You know, in our culture. I mean, you can age as a man, you can be bald as a man. You can be short and squat as a man. And you can still be you know, I always remember what was Dudley Moore with Bo Derek.

[00:41:25.040] – Dr. Aviva
I'm old enough to remember Dudley Moore was Bo Derek, and he's this five foot tall, you know, average looking guy who's with this, you know, ten, right? That's what she was ten. I think it was Dudley Moore. You know, we see that. But in our culture, women were just treated differently. The standards are different. So as we go through physical changes our skin, changes our hair changes, our facial structure changes, our bodies change, it can be really tough.

[00:41:50.640] – Dr. Aviva
And so having a lot of self compassion and having your partner be really supportive is so critically important for this time. And yes, have celebrations, you know, I mean, do it on Zoom. Do it with your girlfriends, you know, buy yourself that thing that you wanted as you enter menopause, you know, the way you would celebrate your daughter getting her first period or your daughter having her first baby do some special things for yourself.

[00:42:14.680] – Dr. Aviva
It's I think it's really a beautiful thing to do.

[00:42:17.760] – Allan
Dr. Aviva , could you take just a moment and walk us through your six week hormone intelligence plan? Because I really like some of the lifestyle things that you have in there as far as a way to support women's health as you go through and actually many of those things are things that men should be doing, too, but..

[00:42:34.620] – Dr. Aviva
Peopla ask all the time can men do your books. And I'm like, absolutely, you have gonads. We have ovaries.

[00:42:40.350] – Dr. Aviva
And a lot of the environmental factors, the dietary factors, the stress factors, they're affecting all of us and people who have a uterus, who don't identify as who, you know, who are men. So we're in a time with gender fluidity so anyone can really use the book. And I've had men who, with my last book, Adrenal Thyroid Revolution, did the book with their partner, which is great because it's supportive for the woman doing it.

[00:43:04.620] – Dr. Aviva
But men get phenomenal benefits. So, yes, you can. And so the six weeks are based on six, if you will, root causes or things that we can do and look at supportive areas. So the first thing is it starts with what we eat because what we eat is such low hanging fruit and our diet can be one of the most phenomenal things that we do to support our hormones and our overall health. So the diet is really very simple.

[00:43:31.890] – Dr. Aviva
It's based on a Mediterranean style diet, which all evidence shows is the best thing we can do for ourselves in terms of eating. And it's not restrictive. It's based on eating plenty of plant based foods, but also fish very low on red meat. I'm not opposed to eating red meat, but we know that red meat can contribute to inflammation that can contribute to period pain and Demitrius as chronic pelvic pain, et cetera. So it's good quality protein, mostly plant based, but also fish and poultry, lots and lots of vegetables, nuts and seeds, good quality fats, very simple.

[00:44:08.400] – Dr. Aviva
And like five weeks of meal plans that come with the books of the recipes are done for you. And they're really, really wonderful. I mean, I created all of them except for two that I asked permission to use, but they're all from my own kitchen. I love to cook and they're just formulated to be really great for our hormone health. The second part, the second and the third week, are based on our stress response and sleep and circadian rhythm, which are interrelated.

[00:44:35.580] – Dr. Aviva
So we know that stress has a huge impact on our hormone health. It also makes our lives not as fun and wonderful. So there are some really actionable, straightforward tips. And, you know, I know we're all busy human beings. We don't have time for a crazy, complicated plans. So it's really simple things that you can add into your everyday, like spending a little less time on Instagram before you go to bed or checking your email before you go to bed or just adding in five minutes of breathing exercises.

[00:45:03.870] – Dr. Aviva
When you wake up in the morning, it's getting out in nature once in a while. It sounds very simplistic, but it's really simple shifts that I know women can incorporate because I work with women all the time that do actually make a difference. And then with sleep, it's about how we get better sleep and why we need better sleep. There's a chapter on gut health. The relationship between our hormones and our microbiome is phenomenal and fascinating. And it's how you can use your diet, your stress release, your sleep, but also very specific things that we can do for our gut to get our gut working for our hormones.

[00:45:40.470] – Dr. Aviva
And also, 90 percent of women have some gut symptoms, whether it's IBS, constipation, gas and bloating, premenstrual bloating. So it's specific tips to get all those things in line as well. Then there's a chapter on detoxification, not like a juice cleanse or detox, but actual how do we use our diet and supportive supplements and botanicals to make sure that our liver detoxification pathways are working optimally? Because that's where our hormones, after we've used them and the ones that we pick up from the environment that I talked about earlier get broken down and packaged for elimination.

[00:46:19.440] – Dr. Aviva
So we're literally enhancing our bodies are supporting our body's ability to do that. And in each of these chapters, I talk about, well, why are these things not working optimally? What is it about our world that's affecting each of these? And then the last of the six weeks is really novel specifically to my book, which is how to support our ovarian health and our ovarian function. So we're supporting how the ovaries literally work through mitochondrial health and how that can help us have an easier, healthier menopause, easier, better fertility, but also more normal and regular cycles throughout our reproductive years because ovulation happens there.

[00:47:00.720] – Dr. Aviva
And then the book then has a whole separate section, which is advanced specific protocols. So you do the core plan, but then let's say you do have endometriosis or uterine fibroids or you do get urinary tract infections all the time or you do have PMS. There are also very targeted plans that you can add in to the core plan to help you with those specific conditions and symptoms.

[00:47:25.810] – Allan
So, Dr. Aviva, if I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be, what are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:47:37.540] – Dr. Aviva
Well, I think, one, as women, I think we can start to think that we're not healthy people. If we have fibroids, if we have PMS, there's something wrong with us. So the first thing I think to get healthy and fit is to actually recognize that you are not defined by your symptoms, that you are healthy, your body is doing the best it can. And so really reminding ourselves every day that my health is not defined by this, that I can be a healthy person with my attitudes, with choosing things that make me happy.

[00:48:09.550] – Dr. Aviva
And then I think the next thing is something that a psychologist that came in and taught us when I was in medical school said to me, I've been a psychologist for like 50 years, and it was such simple wisdom. He said, figure out what you love and do more of that, figure out what you don't love and do less of that. And I mean, obviously, we all have to pay our taxes and, you know, we go in for our pap smears every five years.

[00:48:32.500] – Dr. Aviva
None of us loves that. Those are the things that we have to do. But what are the things in our life that are just making us miserable that we can actually take off of our To-Do list? And what are those things that you know, that make you happy that you're always putting on the back burner that you can just do more of? And it can be picking one thing from each category. You know, I really, really don't love X, Y, Z.

[00:48:54.910] – Dr. Aviva
I don't love getting together with those people every week. So I'm just not going to force myself to do that anymore. But what I really love is dancing to loud music, and I hardly ever do that. So I'm going to put it in my calendar that every day for ten minutes I dance to loud music. So, you know, whatever those things are for you. And then the third thing I would say, and it's kind of almost like a take your pick, either add in a little bit more exercise, a little bit more time in nature, making sure that you're getting better sleep.

[00:49:23.950] – Dr. Aviva
You know, there's sort of this smorgasbord of things that are really important for daily basic wellness and just start with one, but then aim to do a few. So if you're not getting seven hours of sleep at night, aim to get those seven hours, if you're not exercising or moving your body, figure out how you love doing that and do it. And it can be a walk. I just bought myself a hula hoop. I bought myself a two pound weighted hula hoop.

[00:49:49.750] – Dr. Aviva
I can I tell you, I'm laughing my way through my exercise. And apparently thirty minutes of hula hooping, which goes by in a minute, if you put on great music, is equivalent to like thirty minutes of salsa dancing or other aerobic, gentle aerobic types of exercise but solid gentle aerobic types of exercise. So I think those are three things. Yeah. Love yourself, do more of what you love, less of what you don't love, and add in some healthy habit that you really make a commitment to good sleep, good exercise, good eating, any of those.

[00:50:24.670] – Allan
And all that. Get this book.

[00:50:29.110] – Dr. Aviva
Yes, that would make me happy and healthy.

[00:50:30.880] – Allan
It will definitely make them happier and healthier because there's a lot in here. Dr. Aviva, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book, Hormone Intelligence, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:50:42.220] – Dr. Aviva
So to learn more about me, go to avivaromm.com. Tons of free resources for you. I mean, you can spend hours in there learning things, enjoying things, finding great recipes of delicious foods to make and learn about me. If you want to learn more about the book, go to avivaromm.com forward slash book. That's the easiest way to find out about it. And that's right on my website. So you can still link over to all the good stuff and then also my Instagram, just avivarommmd. I'm on there a lot and put up, you know, I try to always like add a lot of value to my Instagram.

[00:51:14.710] – Dr. Aviva
So it's fun stuff, informative stuff, moving stuff, empowering stuff. Those are the main places to come hang out with me.

[00:51:21.750] – Allan
You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/490 and I'll be sure to have links there. Dr. Aviva, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:51:31.210] – Dr. Aviva
Thank you so much for having me, Allan. This is a pleasure.

Post Show/Recap

[00:51:40.260] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:51:41.640] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, wow, I don't even know where I want to start with your interview with Dr. Aviva, but I do want to highlight and amplify her six tips for dealing with medical care, because as she read off every one of those six items, I was just nodding my head, shaking my head. I think I've experienced every single one of those situations, which is an unfortunate situation.

[00:52:06.450] – Allan
It is. I mean, you know, we grew up kind of in that I would say we're in that gap, the nexgen gap, you and I are. And so for us, we're a trust but verify kind of people. And so we're not as maybe as likely to believe the white coat means the world than maybe the generation before us was. And why not? So, yeah, when a doctor walks in and says, you have to do this, you know, I think particularly when I was younger, I know the answer was absolutely doctor.

[00:52:38.250] – Allan
But then as I got going, I started realizing, OK, he's the guy who I went to medical school and yeah, he's preg ty smart. But I actually have to answer some of these questions myself. You know, I remember going in and I mean, I had no money whatsoever as a kid, young guy going into the doctor. And I had these moles and I went in and I said, OK, you know, these moles on my back.

[00:53:03.060] – Allan
And I said, they keep coming off when I'm playing football and I'm bleeding all over the place. He's like, yeah, I guess I could burn them off, but they might come back when it was five dollars each to burn them off. And I mean, I had hundreds of these. So there's been a whole lot of money. And then he's like. So I said, you really can't tell me what's causing it or what I could do to make it go away.

[00:53:21.660] – Allan
And he said, no, I'm like, OK. And then I walk out and give the nurse fifty seven dollars and I'm like, you know, and I'm fifty seven dollars now doesn't sound like a whole lot. But then that was, that was a week's worth of pay. I mean that was a lot of money when you're making 3.25 an hour giving someone 57 dollars to just tell you I can't help you.

[00:53:42.480] – Rachel
Sorry.

[00:53:44.250] – Rachel
It's disappointing.

[00:53:45.810] – Allan
It is. So but that was actually probably a really valuable lesson to say, OK, you know, I'm going to have to make decisions for myself. I can't rely on the doctor to know everything. And I can't rely on the doctor to tell me what to do. I can ask the doctor questions and then I have to make the right decision for myself. And the right decision was to just let football keep taking them off, which it did.

[00:54:15.390] – Allan
so it's a pain as each one got ripped off my back as I was playing football. But it, they came off and they didn't come back. So that was the good thing. And I didn't have to pay five dollars apiece. I got to play football to do it. But you know, but it was fine. He just he said, you're not in danger. You're not you know, it's sometimes it seemed like it with a white jersey, like I was going to bleed out.

[00:54:38.280] – Allan
But in a general sense, it was just, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there. And it was not that much pain, but it was pain and it was what it was. But it was over, you know, and so they were gone. And so I think, you know, even though that's not relative directly to women's health, it's just one of those things to say the doctor can give you information.

[00:55:00.380] – Allan
and then you have to process that information, and if what the doctors told you doesn't answer all your questions, you have to ask those questions. That's going to be a normal thing for all of us.

[00:55:12.110] – Rachel
That is true. I also like Dr. Aviva's analogy where she mentions when you take your car to the mechanic, you're not a mechanic. You're trusting your mechanic to tell you all the things that might be wrong with your car. And then you make the decisions and what you need to do. And similarly, you know, I didn't go to medical school. My doctor went to medical school and she's got years of experience with patients. And the interesting thing about women's health is that we literally have generational levels of data regarding menopause and perimenopause.

[00:55:45.980] – Rachel
This has happened to every single woman for a really long time. So you would think that there would be a whole ton of data in that you would think that it would be a lot easier to figure out what's going on when it's going on. But it still seems to be a mystery.

[00:56:02.090] – Allan
Well, for one very, very important reason. And this is the key. This is the magic bit. We're talking about hormones.

[00:56:12.020] – Rachel
Right.

[00:56:13.280] – Allan
OK, and your hormone profile is different from every other woman that's ever gone through perimenopause. It just is. OK, you're a long distance runner, you eat a certain way, you sleep a certain way, you have stress, you're in a certain part of the country, a certain part of the world. You're exposed to different toxins than other people might be less than some more than others. So your hormonal profile is slightly different than everybody else.

[00:56:46.470] – Allan
And as a result, your experience of all of this will be different than other people. Now, within a range of opportunity. So perimenopause, as it goes, tends to have some similarities. And that's where you kind of start looking at it. And that's why some of the things we got into, you know, like fibroids and those types of things is like, what are the things that if this were happening that a woman should

[00:57:17.100]
Consider or be concerned about and so it's not so much comparing yourself against another woman. I don't understand, she went through perimenopause like it didn't even happen. She popped into menopause. Bouncing around. And, you know, she's my running partner and she didn't have any of these problems that I'm having. So what's going on? Well, you're different. Have a conversation if she's available, have the conversation with your mother, because genetically, she's probably the closest individual that you have.

[00:57:45.720] – Allan
If you have older sisters, they're a good source of information for you to have conversations about what their experiences were because, again, they're genetically similar to you. So there's likely to be some overlap in how you are affected. But beyond that, where you really want to spend your time and this is what was in Dr. Aviva's book is comparing yourself to you.

[00:58:09.720] – Rachel
Right.

[00:58:10.800] – Allan
You know, if things are changing. So if your flow is a little heavier now or you're experiencing a lot more PMAs or things like that, well, those changes are indications that something inside is changing. Something in your hormone structure is changing. And there are some some remedies and things that you can do that are natural and there are some that you definitely need to be speaking to a doctor about and those that's going to be the information that you process.

[00:58:43.760] – Allan
So you go into a doctor's visit with the right questions.

[00:58:48.860] – Rachel
I think it's been about two years I've been dealing with changes. I'll be turning 50 in July. So that's right around the corner. So for the last couple of years, I've noticed a whole lot of changes. I was on birth control that wasn't working, changed it. It's not working. I've been seeing my doctor different hormonal changes and fluctuations. I also had the ablation procedure pretty recently. So, yeah, it's been helpful to keep a journal of what happens to me every month.

[00:59:24.830] – Rachel
And I write everything down. I write down the days that I'm moody or craving chocolate, all the classic symptoms. I have bad cramping days where I just can't seem to get anything done and which is all strange. And this is why I want to mention this, is that this has been a notable change in my life, which means something's different. And so when I go to a doctor and I say this is not right for me, something is going on right now, then they can help me pinpoint, you know, what blood tests do I need to do?

[01:00:01.400] – Rachel
What hormone tests can we get done? And the more information I can give my doctor, the better she can prescribe a remedy. And that's how it's been going for the last two years. And perimenopause is one of those things. It's not an overnight situation. It's not like you got the kind of colds. You take some antibiotics and you'll be done in a week. This is a very long process, a very long hormonal change.

[01:00:25.370] – Allan
Yeah. I mean, because it can go on eight, ten years. Someone can go through a little quicker, but it can be up to eight to ten years is where I think most of that kind of falls, that your body's just changing its hormone profile. You're getting past your reproductive years and you're moving into the next phase of womanhood. And much like, you know, I've had several women on. But it's somewhat you know, it's just a moment for you to celebrate that you are who you are and, you know, you've had children.

[01:00:57.410] – Allan
And so it's like now, you know, you're you're moving on to a phase where, you know, they've got some college to do. But then I'm assuming that there's probably some grandbabies like the third, mike the third coming out.

[01:01:10.610] – Rachel
Fingers crossed.

[01:01:13.190] – Allan
You know. And so that's just kind of this is a transition in life. But that said, you deserve adequate medical care. And the way you get that is by educating yourself and then not so much depending on Doctor Google, but with the information that you're able to kind of understand.

[01:01:32.830] – Allan
Having an empowered conversation with your doctor.

[01:01:35.740] – Rachel
Yes, yes, that's perfect. I think do your Google research, ask your mom, ask your aunts, go online, see if any of it makes sense to you, and then ask the professional, ask the doctor for added insight. And if you're not happy with your doctor, it's time to change. If you're not getting good answers, it's time to change. There's got to be somebody out there that can help you.

[01:02:02.650] – Allan
Yeah, and I've had doctors that I'd meet with and we'd have some conversations and then I'd be like, oh no, he doesn't get it right, you know, or I don't get him. And therefore, if I don't feel like he understands my situation well enough or is taking it to the right level of seriousness, then I'm like, OK, I have to move on. Yeah. Because I, you know, for most of you know, the last I'd say 10 years or so, 15 years maybe I've been more concerned about well care than sick care.

[01:02:34.420] – Rachel
Well, yeah.

[01:02:35.050] – Allan
When you try to make an appointment with a doctor and they're like, OK, what's the problem. And I'm like, I don't have one. I just want to I want to get these labs. I want to get labs done. I want to sit down, talk to you about them. And they're like, well, OK. But I don't you know, it's like they know they don't have time to sit down and talk to you about your labs.

[01:02:56.860] – Allan
so what they're really going to do is they're going to sit there and say, OK, what's high, what's low? OK, you need to be on a statin. And your blood pressure was a little high this morning. And, you know, so maybe we need to watch that. OK, and how much are you going to bill me for that? and it's more than fifty seven dollars

[01:03:18.280] – Rachel
in this day and age. It is, that's for sure. But the other thing I want to mention too, is, like you just mentioned, cholesterol and and statins is that there is a bell curve like most people have certain levels of iron in their blood or certain cholesterol levels. I mean, we all know what cholesterol means. But just because your numbers are high or low or in or out of that bell curve doesn't mean that they're not normal. I mean, my iron is always low, which means I'm usually fatigued.

[01:03:50.620] – Rachel
It's in the healthy range of iron, but it's always on the low side of the healthy range. So I still will take an iron supplement to fix that because that's what I need. And going back to where all individual, that's just another one of those examples.

[01:04:06.640] – Allan
Yeah. And that's one say you just you know you and then that's kind of your job. Number one, as you're looking out for your own health, is to say, OK, what do I know about myself? What are my tendencies? What are the things that I've seen in the past? And then as those things change, that awareness, I love the fact that you're doing a journal that's that's brilliant because that's going to give you that data to flip back and say, well, you know, I was really stressed out this time last year, you know, because of stuff going on in the world.

[01:04:39.910] – Allan
How does that relate to how I'm doing now? and you start seeing some similarities. You're like, oh, OK. You know, I might my son just went got his first intern job and we moved him there. And it was a tough weekend. And then I'm feeling this way. My energy is low. What was going on a year ago when I felt the same way and it's kind of I call stress and I realized my Iron's low well have I've been taking my iron lately or getting enough for red meat.

[01:05:09.250] – Allan
It's like, no, I haven't. So there we go. OK, maybe that'll help. And so it kind of gives you that that information of who you are and how your body works, because most of the time it's going to follow particular patterns. Menopause is one of those weird things where your body is now changing over. So there is an opportunity for it to be quite different.

[01:05:33.130] – Rachel
Yeah.

[01:05:34.240] – Allan
And this is also important. You know, we talked about this and probably aren't very many men still listening to this show at this point. But this is just as important for you to understand as it is for her, because in the end, if she's going through something, you're going to be in a better position to recognize the change and you're going to be in a better position to remember objectively what she did last time.

[01:05:59.940] – Rachel
Yup, it's helpful to have another set of eyes.

[01:06:02.460] – Allan
If there's not a journal involved, it is really hard particularly when we're dealing with hormonal issues to be objective.

[01:06:12.030] – Rachel
That is so true.

[01:06:13.380] – Allan
I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but I'm just saying, if you're struggling with some things, with PMS, with heavy bleeding, with some other things that are going on as a woman, women can never wrap our minds around that. And I'm not ever going to try. But all I can say is I know that's not a time for my wife to be rational. All I can say is, hey, how about you try this iron supplement and I'm taking us out to Último Refugio tonight to have steak, how's that?

[01:06:43.010] – Rachel
That a good idea.

[01:06:48.360] – Allan
You know, and just knowing, OK, what did I just do. I got to start upping her iron. And you know, at least at that point, I'm not being, kind of stepping in and say, well, you know, the last time I mean, that's not I'm not Dr. Allan and I'm not trying to be that person. I'm just trying to be supportive and say, OK, I see a pattern and I know what helped last time.

[01:07:13.380] – Allan
And so I'm going to try to make sure that is at least in play here to see if that does some good.

[01:07:19.890] – Rachel
it's helpful for sure. You know, these are frustrating times. I mean, even for myself, this has been a frustrating couple of years because I know I don't feel good on these certain days. I know that some days I could run for days and some days I just can't barely get out the door. But and it's frustrating. And so that's frustrating for me then it becomes difficult to manage the rest of what I do on a day to day basis and help my family.

[01:07:46.260] – Rachel
So, you know, we could always use a little bit of empathy when we're having those types of bad days.

[01:07:52.680] – Allan
Yeah, that's a good word, empathy.

[01:07:54.990] – Rachel
Empathy. Yeah, that sounds like a great book. I might have to read it myself.

[01:08:02.370] – Allan
You know, that's one of the things I try to make. I make a point of about once a year trying to have a book on women's health in this area. I'm in a particularly menopause, perimenopause. And so this was one of the better ones that I've read on the topic. And she's, you know, she's really walking you through it from the medical perspective. Of course, you know, I've had other authors on that have talked about it from an emotional perspective.

[01:08:27.180] – Allan
This is this is a really good one to get into because she really is an advocate for health care for women and that you're not getting necessarily the health care you deserve all the time. And you and your spouse, partner or anyone, you're going to go to the doctor and talk to the guy who's got to go in with the united front. Yeah. Get you the best health care you can get.

[01:08:49.500] – Rachel
That was a great, great tip for sure.

[01:08:52.060] – Allan
Yeah, right. Well, Rachel, I'll talk to you next week.

[01:08:54.750] – Rachel
Great. Thanks. Take care.

[01:08:56.670] – Allan
You too.

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
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

How to thrive during menopause with Amanda Thebe

Less...

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:00.830] – Allan
Hey Raz, how are things going?

[00:02:02.240] – Rachel
Good, Allan, how are you today?

[00:02:05.000] – Allan
I'm on a mend, I'm starting to feel a little bit better, still have almost a whole nother week of quarantine. The way they do it here is, you if you test negative, I mean, test positive, then, yeah, I passed. Then you have to spend two weeks going through quarantine. So, I mean, I have been pretty much locked upstairs at the bed breakfast for a little over a week and a half now. So we're on kind of the wind down days.

[00:02:37.010] – Allan
We're recording this on a Monday and so on Thursday, technically, I think she can go in and get tested. And then Friday would be my day to go back in and get tested. So I'm not sure if we're going to try to go together or how exactly that's going to work out. But anyway, we'll go back and get tested and hopefully everything will be negative then. And we can resume our lives. But yeah, feeling better and slowly getting back on my feet.

[00:03:02.990] – Rachel
Good.

[00:03:03.530] – Allan
Getting things done. Fell way behind on everything.

[00:03:08.210] – Rachel
For sure.

[00:03:08.990] – Allan
But you know, because you can't sleep 20 hours, 16 hours a day and be productive.

[00:03:14.810] – Rachel
Right.

[00:03:17.630] – Allan
I was eating or sleeping. That was pretty much it for about three or four days there, so.

[00:03:24.430] – Rachel
Wow. Well, I'm glad you're feeling a little bit better, and that's good.

[00:03:28.550] – Allan
How are things up there?

[00:03:29.870] – Rachel
Oh, good. We're finally getting some good weather. I'm he acclimating getting ready. I'm looking at my taper now for my fifty miler will be coming up in a couple of weeks. It'll probably be very close to when this airs. So I'm kind of looking at the taper phase right now, just taking it down a notch and getting used to running in the heat so that it's been good.

[00:03:51.050] – Allan
Hydrate.

[00:03:52.220] – Rachel
Yes, lots and lots.

[00:03:55.010] – Allan
Hydrate. Hydrate. And if you need to go back and listen to the last couple episodes, because, you know, there's a couple out there and hydration is one of the keys for making sure that you're in a good state to get your fifty in.

[00:04:08.180] – Rachel
That's for sure. Yeah. Thanks so much.

Interview

[00:04:48.290] – Allan
Sal, welcome to the 40+ Fitness.

[00:04:50.900] – Sal
Awesome. Thanks for having me on.

[00:04:52.250] – Allan
Yeah. You know your book, The Resistance Training Revolution. I think if we stopped right there, you'd lose a lot of people. But then you had this subtitle, so really cool subtitle that says The No Cardio Way to Burn Fat and Age-Proof Your Body in Only 60 Minutes Per Week.

[00:05:08.660] – Sal
Yes.

[00:05:09.230] – Allan
That rings a bell.

[00:05:11.120] – Sal
Yeah. You know, it's funny, the publisher, actually the publisher really wanted that in on the cover. And I was slightly, no pun intended, resistant to it because it sounds a little bit like a lot of the stuff we hear from the fitness space whenever they're trying to market a new diet or new workout plan. But I knew I could back it up with the information in the book. And you're right, resistance training, you know, to people like us in fitness, we know what that means.

[00:05:39.140] – Sal
But the average person. Probably doesn't have an idea, or if they do, it's not the right idea in terms of what I'm talking about. So, we put the whole thing there. So it made sense to people who had it who didn't know.

[00:05:51.190] – Allan
Yeah. And when you get into the book, it'll make a ton of sense to you. Why he put it that way and exactly what we're after here. But let's just kind of dive right on it. You know, a lot of people will hear terms like weightlifting and workout and, you know, they walk into a weight room and honest truth, most of them never make it past the treadmills. You've run a gym. So, you know, the treadmills are always in the front of the gym because that's about as deep as three quarters of the people are going to make it.

[00:06:20.380] – Allan
And they don't really see changes in their body or their health or their fitness over the course of even maybe years of only going that deep into the gym. Why is resistance training so good for us?

[00:06:33.280] – Sal
Well, resistance training, first off, to define it right. It's utilizing resistance in a specific way to build strength and muscle. So it's not just using resistance. Right. It's using it in a way designed to build specifically strength and muscle. So you could, you know, walking uses resistance because you're using your body. So does running, so does swimming. But none of those are done in a fashion to really focus on building strength and muscle. So resistance training, that's kind of the umbrella term.

[00:07:05.830] – Sal
And there's lots of different ways to perform resistance training. In that way, you can use just your body weight, just your body weight can provide most people with sufficient resistance, especially with the right workout plan to elicit those types of things that talk about strength and muscle. You could also use, of course, weights, dumbbells and barbells. You could use machines and resistance bands and pretty much anything that'll give you resistance that you can use in the ways that I outlined can be classified as resistance training.

[00:07:37.570] – Sal
Now, why is it so valuable? Resistance training elicits an adaptation response in the body that is extremely protective and directly counters all of the chronic health issues that are result of the modern lives that we live in. So if you look at modern societies, and especially if you were to compare modern societies to pre modern societies, you would see that we have some pretty unique chronic health issues. The most obvious being obesity. Obesity was largely a non-issue for most of human history.

[00:08:16.930] – Sal
It wasn't a problem. We didn't die from eating too much or having too much body fat just didn't happen. But because we've made food so easily accessible and palatable and because our lives are so extremely sedentary and because and I talk about this in the book, we've become very weak with very little strength and muscle. Obesity now is a reality for a majority of people that live in modern societies. And obesity contributes to quite a few chronic health issues. Diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's, heart disease, the list goes on.

[00:08:56.080] – Sal
And then even without obesity, dementia, Alzheimer's, diabetes, there is a significant portion of people who will suffer from those things who are not obese, but they are also oftentimes the result of modern life. And so understanding this and there's much more that goes into this, right. So modern life is very busy at sedentary. Most people will not dedicate more than two or three days a week of exercise in their schedule. It just doesn't work for most people.

[00:09:24.250] – Sal
I've learned this through decades of training people. When you consider all these factors, there's only one form of exercise that really is effective at helping us. And it's not the one that most people do or the one that most people pick or even the one that most doctors have recommended in the past. The one form of exercise that's best for all of this is resistance training. And of course, a lot of people, when they hear that, especially when I say lifting weights, they picture bodybuilders or people with extreme bodies.

[00:09:54.430] – Sal
And that's unfortunate. And really, that's the result of a lot of misinformation, stereotypes and stigma that are almost entirely false, that really don't apply to the average person. So the goal with the book was to illuminate that to change, to get the average person to understand the value of resistance training and to pick up some weights or do some form of that exercise in pursuit of improving their health or even just to look better.

[00:10:21.820] – Allan
Yeah, and being over 40, you know, you brought this up in the book as well. There's things happening in our body that weight training, resistance training is going to specifically address, such as hormone imbalances, particularly with testosterone. It's going to address some other issues like osteopenia. Can you go a little bit into those benefits,

[00:10:41.900] – Sal
yeah, so let's start with bone loss or bone weakening, which is actually quite a big problem, even it affects men, affects more women, but it also affects men.

[00:10:51.070] – Sal
So this is the weakening of bone, osteopenia. And then, of course, when it gets real bad, it becomes osteoporosis and this can become quite a big problem. Resistance training, remember the the the primary adaptation that resistance training causes in the body. And this is, by the way, a good conversation that we can get into a little later in terms of when you view exercise, you want to look at the workout and then understand the adaptations that the exercise or workout is causing in the body, rather than just looking at the calories burned while performing the exercise.

[00:11:24.640] – Sal
So when we look at the adaptations, which are to build strength and muscle, it also directly does that to bone because muscle anchors at bone. So studies will show that most forms of exercise have some positive effect on bone, but usually it's very little. For example, people with osteopenia, if they run or walk or cycle, they'll notice a little bit of an increase in bone mass in the lower extremities, not much in the upper extremities swimming you'll see really small incremental changes with resistance training.

[00:11:59.860] – Sal
It's like, night and day, like nothing comes close to the bone strengthening effects of resistance training. Now, you mentioned hormones. A lot of people like to hear about this one because, you know, as we get older, we start to feel differently. Maybe libido drops a little bit. It's not as easy for us to burn body fat our skin. Does it look the same? We don't have the same vigor. And some of that is a result of just getting older.

[00:12:25.570] – Sal
And some of that as a result of changes in hormones, for example, and men, testosterone levels start to decline right around in our thirties. And it just continues that way until the day we die. Men and women, aside from menopause, they still get imbalances with estrogen, progesterone. They also have issues with their own testosterone, both men and women. Growth hormone, which some doctors will call the youth hormone, will decline as we get older.

[00:12:55.300] – Sal
And so a lot of people are interested in ways to naturally improve our hormone profile because it makes us feel good, right? If you give an older man testosterone, he starts to feel amazing and younger and has more vigor. If you balance out a woman's hormones artificially through either utilizing estrogen, progesterone or even growth hormone, she'll feel the same way. She'll feel more vigor, younger, more energy. So a lot of people are interested. How can I do that naturally?

[00:13:25.630] – Sal
Well, improving your health generally well can positively affect those, but it's not a huge effect. In fact, some forms of exercise tend to have a negative effect on hormones. For example, cardiovascular activity has been shown in some studies to lower testosterone quite reliably in men, in my experience. And women, especially when women are already present with some hormone imbalances or symptoms of hormone imbalances, cardiovascular activity can actually make that much worse. Resistance training is the only form of exercise that has been shown to reliably raise testosterone in all men.

[00:14:03.190] – Sal
So whether your testosterone is low in the middle or even high, you'll get a raising of testosterone. Not only that, but it also increases the density of androgen receptors in the body. So these are the receptors that testosterone attaches to. So you want to think of testosterone. It's like a key and the receptor is a lock. And if you have a lot of testosterone but you don't have very many of these locks, it's not going to do much in your body.

[00:14:26.890] – Sal
So more androgen receptors makes your testosterone just more effective. Well, resistance training not only raises testosterone, but also increases androgen receptor density. In women, It's been shown to balance out estrogen and progesterone. In both men and women, It raises growth hormone levels, brings them up to more youthful levels. In both men and women, muscle is by far the most effective way to improve insulin sensitivity, which is a very important thing, right? Insensitivity is insulin or insulin resistance ultimately causes things like diabetes.

[00:15:04.060] – Sal
It leads to cognitive dysfunction, excess body fat storage, especially in places that may be in store body fat before. So if you notice, as you get older, you as you gain weight, you notice your body fat is kind of being stored a little bit differently, could be result of hormone imbalances or insulin resistance. And so resistance training positively affects all these things. And so you might wonder why why does why does lifting weights or using resistance bands or doing body weight exercises to build muscle strength, why does that have such a positive effect on our hormones.

[00:15:38.620] – Sal
Again, it has to do with the specific adaptations that it asked the body to do so resistance training really is the only form of exercise that we could categorize as being pro tissue. So pro tissue in the body. Most other forms of exercise and in particular cardiovascular exercise, which includes running, swimming, cycling and those kinds of workouts. Those are anti-tissue. They tend to be, they want your body to get rid of active tissue. So let's start with that for a second.

[00:16:14.530] – Sal
So what does that mean? When you do lots of cardiovascular activity, when do you do any form of exercise? Your body aims at becoming better at that form of exercise. And so it adapts. That's an adaptation process, right. So if you go running and it's your first time, it's really challenging. A half a mile is very exhausting to you. Your muscles burn, your lungs burns really hard. Your body senses this. It's a stress.

[00:16:40.180] – Sal
It's a stress on the body. And everybody says, OK, we need to get better at doing this so that next time the same insult, the same stress won't bother us as much. And so you become more fit. You get better at that type of exercise. That's what adaptation is. Now, what does specifically speaking, what does what happens to the body when your body is trying to get better at endurance type activity, which is what cardiovascular exercise is, whether you're on an elliptical or running or riding a bike.

[00:17:13.050] – Sal
In order to get better at endurance exercise, it does a few different things. One is it learns to become more efficient with energy or more efficient with calories, OK, because cardiovascular activity burns a lot of calories during the time that you're doing it. So during an hour of cardio, you're going to burn more calories than doing an hour of other forms of exercise. So within that hour of exercise, you're burning all these calories. Your body's like, OK, we need to get better at being efficient with calories, not unlike a car that could adapt to your driving habits, becoming more of a hybrid or a one cylinder engine trying to burn less gasoline.

[00:17:52.980] – Sal
Also simultaneously, your body says we need stamina, but we also don't need strength. We just don't need much strength at all. We just need endurance. And so what your body does is it actually reduces muscle mass. Studies are very, they show this very clearly that if you lose weight through diet and cardio, so if that's your formula, that roughly half of the weight that you lose will be muscle mass. So in other words, if you lose 10 pounds, five of it will be body fat.

[00:18:25.950] – Sal
Five of it will be muscle. And what this does is it slows down the metabolism, makes you more efficient with your calorie burn, and it makes you better at cardiovascular activity. And so over time, your body burns less calories. You'll notice at first you lost weight and then you stop losing weight and you plateaus how people experience cardio with diet when it comes to weight loss and they end up with a slower metabolism. But nonetheless, one of the primary adaptations is even right out the gates is to reduce muscle mass to make you better and more efficient at this particular activity.

[00:19:00.190] – Sal
So it's anti tissue. OK, now think of the hormones that are involved with reducing muscle mass or at the very least, what hormones would combat muscle loss. Right. What hormones get in the way of losing muscle? Well, testosterone. Testosterone makes your body want to keep muscle. So this may be why cardiovascular exercise or endurance exercise in men has been shown to reliably lower testosterone. Your body wants to get rid of muscle so it can't have all this testosterone floating around.

[00:19:30.360] – Sal
Growth hormone is another one. You start to see over time a reduction in growth hormone. In women, you see a spike in cortisol. Cortisol is great for energy, but it's terrible for muscle. So when your cortisol goes up, you get a little bit hyped and energy. This is the fight or flight hormone, but over time it burns away muscle, making you more efficient at your activity. So anti tissue. OK, now let's look at resistance training, resistance training while you're performing, you don't burn a ton of calories, at least not in comparison to other forms of exercise.

[00:19:58.140] – Sal
But that's OK because we're not worried about the calories we're burning in that hour of workout. In fact, even with cardio, it's still insignificant, even though it's more still not that big of a deal. Well, we want to look at is how is this telling my body to change? What are the signals that it's sending to my body? So with resistance training, my body's sensing we need strength and we need muscle. That's what we need right now.

[00:20:19.800] – Sal
We're not worried about being efficient with calories. We're not worried about tons of endurance. We need strength and muscle. And so you end up building muscle as a result. Now, studies show that resistance training in combination with diet. So a lot of these are the same studies you see on cardio. And so we'll compare the two resistance training and diet results in all fat loss or in some cases, you'll see fat loss with a little bit of muscle gain.

[00:20:47.610] – Sal
So if you lose ten pounds doing resistance training, it's all body fat or you might actually gain some muscle in the process. Right. Now, think of the hormones that are involved with building muscle. You need testosterone. You need growth hormone. You need to be sensitive to insulin. Insulin can actually build muscle or when you utilize it efficiently, effectively. We can't have cortisol levels that are too high all the time. And in women, we need a balance of estrogen and progesterone.

[00:21:19.830] – Sal
So through the the adaptation signal, the direct adaptation that resistance training is asking the body to engage in, your body optimizes its own hormones in order to adapt. So resistance training from a hormonal standpoint is incredible. It's superior. So if you want if you're getting older and you want to feel younger through the method of having more youthful levels of hormones, resistance training stands head and shoulders above any other form of exercise.

[00:21:55.140] – Allan
Yeah. Now as we get into this, for someone that hasn't lifted before, I think basic terms can be really important. But beyond that, you had some specific thoughts on pretty much each of the terms that I'm going to bring up. Can you talk a little bit about reps and sets? And why those are important or how we would use those?

[00:22:15.580] – Sal
Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up, too, because I did write the book for there's a few different people that I thought of when I wrote the book, a few avatars. One of them are the coaches and trainers as a way to arm them, because this is something that we're constantly having to communicate and battle with whenever we're talking to potential clients. So it's a great tool. I also thought about primarily the average person, the average person who, when they think of exercise, if their doctor tells them to workout or whatever, they don't think of resistance training.

[00:22:45.130] – Sal
They think of going for a walk or running, swimming or cycling. So they don't know what these terms are. They might have heard reps and sets, but they don't know what they are. So a repetition is when you perform one full motion of the exercise. So let's say I'm doing a curl, right. This would be a curl, like a rep would be bringing it up and then bringing it down. So that's one. So one repetition.

[00:23:06.670] – Sal
A set is a number of repetitions that are performed together before I rest to perform another set. So let's say my workout today consists of 10 reps of the curl. So then I'll do my ten reps. Once I'm done with my 10th rep, I put the weight down. That is a set. So if your workout says, do you know three sets of ten reps of bicep curls, you know, you're supposed to perform this exercise with four, ten reps rest and that's one set.

[00:23:39.790] – Sal
And then repeat that two more times.

[00:23:42.010] – Allan
OK, another phrase you got into was range of motion. And I think this is an area that's really, really important because using proper range of motion can be huge. And I see so many people in the gym that they don't. And so can you talk a little bit about what range of motion is within the doing the exercise and how that's important to us?

[00:24:04.330] – Sal
Yeah, so range of motion really just refers to when you're doing the rep, you know how far you go down, how far you go up. So just to put it quite plainly, right. So again, to do the curl all the way down, all the way up, that's my range of motion. Now, range of motion, there is an ideal range of motion for every exercise, but there's also a range of motion that's individual to the person when they're working out. The best way to get the best results, to gain the best results, the best benefits, all the benefits of resistance training,

[00:24:39.370] – Sal
You want to train in a full range of motion that you own for your body. In other words, the range of motion that you have control and stability over. OK, so if I'm doing a squat, for example, and I can go all the way down and go all the way up, but with good control, good stability, I have you know, I'm connected to my muscles and I feel like I'm in control in the entire rep, then that's the best range of motion for.

[00:25:06.550] – Sal
Now, let's say you're doing a squat and I could go all the way down and all the way up. But at the bottom, my low back rounds and my knees cave in a little bit and I just don't have lots of stability at the bottom. Well, that's a range of motion. You shouldn't train and we're going to stop you and have you trained above that. So essentially, you want to train within your fullest range of motion to the fullest range of motion that you have the most control and stability in.

[00:25:30.820] – Allan
now doing so, you'll gain strength within that range of motion. And if you find that you can't perform a full range of motion because you don't have the control and stability over time, challenging yourself again within reason will elongate your range of motion and will increase the range of motion. So there's a common myth around resistance training that it is not a good form of exercise for flexibility. It's not a good form of exercise for mobility. And it makes us tight.

[00:26:02.860] – Sal
Right. People say, oh, if you lift weights or you do lots of resistance training, it's going to make you really stiff and tight. In that myth. And it is a myth. It's a complete myth. Probably comes from the extreme bodybuilders that work out and they move around like they can't move very well. And in popular media probably doesn't help when bodybuilders or people with big muscles are depicted in movies, are typically depicted as being very stiff and very tight.

[00:26:28.750] – Sal
The truth is, resistance training is one of the best forms of exercise for functional flexibility. OK. So functional flexibility is the flexibility that you have strength and control over. Right. So flexibility is just range of motion. Functional flexibility is, do I own that range of motion? Am I strong in that range of motion? So to give you an example, I have a six month old baby at home. Right. So new baby, six months old.

[00:26:58.870] – Sal
He's very flexible, like most babies. I mean, I could take his legs and I can put them up by his head and put them in the splits. And it's no problem. But he has very little functional flexibility. In fact, he's very unstable. So although I can take his legs and bend them all over the place, he would be prone to injury if you were to try to move within those ranges of motion or even with load, right.

[00:27:19.310] – Sal
He's got very little control. Resistance training because you're training with resistance to strengthen your body as you train within your ranges of motion and as those ranges of motion improve and increase, you own them, you control them and you're strong within them. So it's the difference between somebody who can sit in a squat versus someone who can sit in a squat and their kid can jump on them and it doesn't hurt them or they can jump out of the squat and it doesn't bother them or they can hold something or they can do it with load.

[00:27:49.970] – Sal
So functional flexibility, which is the kind of flexibility that you need when none of us need extreme ranges of motion, you know it's not doing the splits is cool. But the average person, there's really not a lot of value in doing the splits, but there is a lot of value in being able to twist and turn and bend over and lift a box and move the couch and play with your kids. And, you know, you step off a curb and catch yourself.

[00:28:15.650] – Sal
Those are all functional flexibility. And that's what resistance training provides that other forms of exercise really don't. They don't provide resistance within ranges of motion, or at least not in a way that builds strength within those ranges of motion.

[00:28:28.670] – Allan
Yeah, the way I like to put it is I want to be able to wipe my own butt when I'm 105, you know, which is a twist and it's a stand up from a seated position all on my own without a bar, without assistance. So and I think that's really important because as we look at strength training through the full range of motion means every rep, you're going to get more value out of it.

[00:28:51.230] – Sal
Right.

[00:28:51.520] – Allan
Not wasting energy, going in there, doing half motions.

[00:28:54.380] – Allan
You're actually getting the most out of that exercise. Another term that I think is really important when we're talking about the value of a rep is tempo. Can you talk about tempo?

[00:29:05.390] – Sal
Tempo is just refers to the speed that you perform the repetition, really. So back to the curl, right, if it takes me three seconds to go down, three seconds to go up and maybe a one second pause at the top or whatever, that would be referred to as a three one three tempo or whatever, we don't get that complicated. The average person does, it's not that not super important. What's important is to know that you want a controlled tempo.

[00:29:32.790] – Sal
When you do resistance training, OK, so there are definitely cases where a fast tempo is valuable, but really that's relegated to athletes who need speed and power. The average person, there's not a ton of value in doing fast repetitions. They tend to increase risk and oftentimes decrease what's called the tension on the muscles of someone not as good a results. Right. So you want a controlled tempo. I tend to tell people you want to take at least three seconds on the way down and at least three seconds on the way up.

[00:30:08.290] – Sal
Just you want to be controlled. So if I'm doing an overhead press, I'm pressing like this and then coming down, rather than throwing it up and down and having kind of this loose tempo and tempo is important. Like I said, it reduces risk and it stimulates the muscle and the body in a more effective way. So generally speaking, for most people, for most people's results, especially if your goal is fat loss, health, sculpting your body, you want a controlled tempo.

[00:30:35.350] – Allan
Yeah. Because otherwise momentum's doing a lot of the work for you and you're not really in control of that weight, which is kind of dangerous. And then the final one where I think people really struggle is the concepts of intensity and failure. And I kind of lump those two a little bit more together. But you talked about them separately in the book. Can you talk a little bit about intensity and failure and why we've got to find the right mix of those and why failure isn't really the goal?

[00:31:03.550] – Allan
Like you would have heard this in the past. No, no pain, no gain. You know, you've got to train to failure if you want to grow. All those were kind of mantras in the gym 40 years, 30 years ago. And I still hear them today. And so that's kind of what's kind of scary is even in my 40s and 50s, there's still people training that way.

[00:31:23.800] – Sal
Yeah, intensity is an important factor in your workout, right. Because it needs to be hard enough. So that your body thinks that it needs to adapt in order to get better, otherwise your body has no reason to adapt and adaptation takes energy, it changes your body. And your body doesn't do that for no reason, especially not building muscle. Muscles are expensive tissue. You're only ever going to have as much muscle and strength as your body thinks you need.

[00:31:51.490] – Sal
You'll never have more than it thinks you need. It costs calories. It takes up energy. Remember, we evolved for the most part in environments where calories are very difficult to come by. So your body doesn't want to just make you burn more calories for no reason. It's going to need a reason to. So intensity is important because I have to give my body a reason and intensity is part of the formula in order to change. OK, so that's true.

[00:32:19.420] – Sal
So there's a vein of truth in the no pain, no gain slogan. Now, the problem is people take it way too far. And the problem is that the intensity is quite individual. And what I mean by that is if I take somebody who's never worked out, it takes very little intensity to get their body to change. Their body is used to doing nothing. And so a few sets of body weight squats at a moderate intensity where they can feel it a little bit, they can feel their legs burn a little bit.

[00:32:48.130] – Sal
That's about it. That's enough. That's enough to get their body to change. Now, somebody who's extremely advanced, who's been training for years, who's very strong or very fit and gotten their body to a very high level, to get their body to change even more, they're probably going to have to train much harder than the person I talked about earlier, because their bodies again, it needs a reason. It's already adapted to a certain level of intensity and whatever.

[00:33:14.590] – Sal
To go any further, I need to find ways to train harder or to send a different signal. By the way, and this is true for intensity, but also for how long you work out, how many exercises you do and all that stuff. The right dose for your body is going to get you there the fastest. More than that won't get you there faster. In fact, it'll get you there slower. And sometimes you won't get there at all.

[00:33:40.680] – Sal
And less than that will get you there slower. So it's the right dose. More not good, less not good. And the right dose is different from person to person. And it's different for you as your fitness improves, as you start to get better at the workout. So remember that. So the when you go into workout or you're working out your training, think about what have I done before, oh, I'm just getting started. It's not going to take much.

[00:34:08.280] – Sal
Now, some people have trouble with this. And they said, well, how do I gauge, you know, the right intensity? One way to know that you might have gone too hard is by if you're sore, if you get muscle soreness. Now, most people think muscle soreness indicates that they had a good workout. So if I get really saw that was a great workout. I worked out my legs and I can barely walk today. That means I must have had a great workout.

[00:34:33.690] – Sal
It's actually the opposite. You should you should feel no to little soreness after your workout. In fact, my goal with people is to have them feel no soreness when they're training. Now, that's pretty hard because once you're kind of testing the intensity, you might go over a little bit and get a little sore. And that's OK to get a little sore. But if your soreness lasts longer than a day, you went too hard. You need to back off a little bit.

[00:34:56.050] – Sal
Now, you mentioned failure. Failure is a term that's used in fitness and resistance training to mean that you lifted a weight or didn't exercise until you could no longer perform another repetition of that exercise. Right. So back to Curls, right. If I did Curls to failure, well, I'm just going to keep going until I can't curl the dumbbell with good form anymore. And so now I've hit failure. And so the value that has been preached around failure is well, if you're trying to figure out what the right intensity is, then, you know, you've at least hit it if you've gone to failure because there's nothing beyond that.

[00:35:32.560] – Sal
And so you're going to be OK. But remember what I said. If you go too hard, you'll get there a little slower. Now, studies also show that failure, even for people who train at an advanced level, is usually too much intensity. In fact, it stresses the body too much and it results in this prioritization of healing rather than adaptation. So what are those two things? Healing is recovery. OK, so let's step away from exercise for a second and let's just talk about skin.

[00:36:04.330] – Sal
So let's say I handle a rough object and I, I scratch my skin or I make my skin a little raw on my hand so my body will heal the skin. That's the healing part. That's the recovery part. And then when it's done with that, my body may say, let's make this skin tougher so that next time it's not going to cause the same damage. And so then I start to develop a callus. Right. The callus is adaptation.

[00:36:34.360] – Sal
The healing was just getting me back to where I was before. Well, if you train with too much intensity or too long or too hard for your body, your body will only prioritize healing because that's what it has to do. It has to heal. And it can't even think about getting resources to add new tissue, to add muscle or to get you to adapt. And so what ends up happening when you do this is you end up getting really sore or tired and then you heal and then you go back to the gym again and do the same thing over and over again and you never improve.

[00:37:07.360] – Sal
So it's like I get sore, my soreness goes away, I work out, I get sore, soreness goes away. Nothing changes. I don't get stronger. I don't really build any muscle. I don't really burn body fat. I'm just cause it's like, again, like the skin. I'm just constantly waiting for it to heal and then I mess with it again, never allowing my skin to develop a callus. So that's why it's very important to be judicious with your intensity and to apply the right intensity.

[00:37:34.840] – Sal
If your goal is to get your body to change and adapt, then do it smart. Don't just do it hard.

[00:37:42.710] – Allan
Now, I want to get into one more concept before we get into the actual what the workouts are kind of about in this, I thought I thought this was brilliant in talking about why people don't follow through. You know, they'll start a training program. They'll say they want to lose weight. And then they don't necessarily follow through. In the first day, you know, they sign that gym membership and they buy the 12 lessons and, you know, they're ready to go.

[00:38:08.330] – Allan
And they make the first lessons and then they're ready to quit three weeks. You called this motivation versus discipline. I mean, you know, the two concepts of why motivation doesn't serve us, but discipline does. Can you talk about those two concepts and how we can put that and get the right mindset going into the gym or in our home gym?

[00:38:27.710] – Sal
Yeah. We're especially when it comes to fitness, we are obsessed. The average person is obsessed with motivation and the fitness industry doesn't help this. It promotes motivation is the key to long term fitness success. So everything is market around that. It's exciting. It's fun. It's motivating. We're here to inspire you and all that stuff. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with motivation. I love feeling motivated like anybody else. It's an incredible feeling.

[00:39:01.760] – Sal
But like any other state of mind, it's fleeting, OK? It doesn't exist permanently. You can't permanently stay motivated. So the challenge is never, how do I stay consistent with my workout? How do I stay consistent with my nutrition when I'm motivated? That's never an issue. Never. That's not a problem. Never had to convince a motivated client to workout or to eat right? Right. The challenge is when that state of mind goes away like it always does.

[00:39:35.120] – Sal
It always will. It's inevitable. OK, so how do we maintain long-term success? Well, it's not through focusing on motivation. Now, you can welcome motivation when it comes. Have fun with it. That might be when you push a little harder. That might be when you get a little bit more dedicated. That's probably when you can have the most fun doing what you're doing. But really, we want to focus on how do we stay consistent when that goes away.

[00:40:03.830] – Sal
And the way to do that is through developing the skill of discipline. So the good news is that what will keep you consistent is the skill. It's called discipline. And like any skill, you can work on it and make it better. You can actually develop it so that you can have a tremendous sense and skill of discipline. So someone might ask, how the heck do I do that? How do I develop the skill of discipline? Well, to put it plainly, when you're ready to get started and there's a little bit more complexity to this, but I'm going to simplify it. When you're ready to get started on working out, when you're ready to get started with, you know, looking at your diet and maybe cleaning it up, ask yourself the following.

[00:40:51.860] – Sal
What is one step or change I can make now that I know I can maintain forever? And you want to use the context of forever. It's the only way to do this. And you have to be very honest with yourself. OK, remember, by the way, when you're doing this, you're probably in a motivated state of mind. So when people start to do this, they're in that motivated state of mind. Remember that you're in that motivated state of mind.

[00:41:16.880] – Sal
OK, if you ask somebody what their goals are when they're motivated, they're always different than when they're not so motivated. I'm super hyped and, you know, I want to build a business. And what's your goal? I want to be a Millionaire in the next year. And then you ask him five months later on, the motivation goes away and you find that it's much different. Same thing with fitness. Right. So you might remember that you might be motivated state of mind.

[00:41:38.330] – Sal
So talk to your normal self and ask yourself what's one step I can take that I know I can maintain forever now? It still needs to be challenging. So it can't be like an easy step for you because otherwise it doesn't have any meaning. It has to have some kind of meaning, but it does need to be something, you know, you can maintain forever. Start there once you do that consistently and once that becomes something that is now easy and doesn't really require you to utilize your skill of discipline, then you move on to the next step.

[00:42:13.700] – Sal
And this looks very different from person to person. You know, I've had clients where the first step that we took was to have them drink an extra two glasses of water a day. Like that's the first step that we took where I've had clients, where the first step was to read one page from a nutrition book or to do fifteen minutes once a week of exercise. That's the first step that they had. But as you work on this, you actually start to get this kind of

[00:42:41.410] – Sal
a snowball effect, and it starts to happen faster and faster, and what you'll find is, although you won't get those fast initial results like you might when you're hyper motivated and you throw everything at yourself but the kitchen sink, what you'll find is the results have a snowball effect. So although initially you might have seen this with your results, like, oh, I lost 10 pounds and then I plateaued and then, five months later gained it back and then some with this you might start real slow, but then it starts to accelerate, accelerate as if it's fallen off a cliff and then it's permanent and then it becomes permanent.

[00:43:16.720] – Sal
And I know people when they hear me say it takes a little longer initially to think, oh, my gosh, I don't want to wait any longer. I'm ready right now. You know, it's not as long as you think. It's definitely not as long as you think. Little changes, boy, do they add up over a period of time. You know, if I took two parallel lines that were perfectly parallel and I moved one a half a degree away from the other one just a half a degree, you wouldn't even be able to tell by looking at the lines with the naked eye.

[00:43:44.260] – Sal
But if you followed them for a mile or two miles, boy, the distance would start to become quite massive. So that's how you develop the skill of discipline. Slowly pick one thing at a time, wait for it to stick. Oh, that feels good. I think I'm ready for the next step. And by the way, again, this is the only way that I have ever seen as a trainer, and I've trained people for four decades,

[00:44:07.600] – Sal
This is the only permanent way for success. All the other hyper motivated. Let's do this and crush it and whatever. I'm that's it, I'm starting five days a week and I'm doing this crazy diet. That approach has a 90 something percent plus fail rate. OK, everybody fails doing it the other way. So it's a guarantee. So even if you you're thinking yourself like, oh, you know what? I just want to get those quick results, you'll fail.

[00:44:37.040] – Sal
So it's a waste of your time. It's complete waste your time. And I'll even add that when you fail, each time you fail doing it that way, you set your body up for more challenges in the future through slower metabolisms, less muscle, more hormone issues. And psychologically, if you failed at losing weight four times through that old method, at some point you're just going to want to give up. I don't want to do that anymore.

[00:45:04.130] – Sal
I know what happens every time I do it, it sucks and I disappoint myself. So I'm not doing it. Develop a skill of discipline. Take your time. And again, there's a little more to this than what I'm saying. But this is very simple explanation. And your chances of success are significantly higher.

[00:45:21.910] – Allan
Absolutely. Now, the resistance training revolution workouts, you have three kind of different levels there. One of them is body weight. Only one of them is body weight with dumbbell. And then the third one is with a little bit more equipment, like a squat rack and a bar and so a little bit more advanced. But something I think that's really cool because someone can get started with pretty much just themselves and a few little implements that you can pick up practically anywhere.

[00:45:50.470] – Allan
Amazon will have it at your door tomorrow kind of stuff. And I think one of the cool things I liked about the exercise is that I want you to kind of get into as you get into it, is you use this concept called priming. This is not like they go warm up or go stretch before you do these exercises. But we're going to do some specific work before we do the work to make sure that we're in the right posture and right range of motion and all of it to be able to perform this work safely.

[00:46:18.850] – Allan
Can you talk a little bit about the workouts and in particular why priming would be so important?

[00:46:23.610] – Sal
Yes, all the workouts are traditional resistance training. They're all designed to give you those benefits that I talked about earlier. Right. Speeding up the metabolism, making your body more efficient, fat burning machine so you burn more calories, balancing your hormones, shaping sculpting your body. You're all designed to do that. But I gave three workouts because I wanted to make sure that people who had no equipment had a workout that they could perform. And then I did workouts with basic equipment because as you become stronger and more advanced, you may want to utilize weights to augment your workouts.

[00:47:01.000] – Sal
And free weights in particular are extremely versatile. They fit and mold any body, whether you're young or old or whatever. And again, they're very, very inexpensive and effective. So I gave three workouts so people have those options. Now, and by the way, dumbbells and barbells, very inexpensive pieces of equipment. It's incredible how much money people spend on ineffective, crappy pieces of equipment and how inexpensive a pair of dumbbells is. I mean, I used to tell my clients, this as a trainer.

[00:47:32.860] – Sal
You know, I'd say you can have the most fancy gym in the world. Give me a pair of dumbbells and a bench and I'll train anybody and I'll get them in phenomenal shape. And any good trainer will know exactly what or will agree with me and they'll know exactly what I'm talking about. All right. So let's talk about priming. So priming is another term for warm up. Now, the reason why I don't say warm up is because it's different.

[00:47:54.640] – Sal
Now, the goal of a warm up in a lot of people don't know this, right? People think when you're warming up, what you're doing is you're making the muscles warm. Therefore, it makes them more elastic or more pliable so I won't hurt myself. That's really not what's happening. Your muscles are not made out of rubber, so they don't become more elastic or less elastic because of hot or cold. Unless you froze your muscles, you went in subzero temperatures, actually froze your body.

[00:48:23.290] – Sal
If you're if you're alive, you're that's not what's happening to your muscles. What actually happens, and the reason why when you get warm or warm up, your body feels looser. And when you're not warmed up, you feel tired or whatever. Really what's happening has very little to do with your muscle and has everything to do with your central nervous system. So the central nervous system, which includes your brain, really is the control center for your muscles.

[00:48:49.330] – Sal
So any time you move a muscle, it's the central nervous system that's telling the muscle to do something. And warming up is trying to get the central nervous system to be ready for exercise. Priming just does this in a superior way. So we'll talk about, for example, the more common way that the average person probably tries to warm up, which is just static stretching. Right. So in classes do this still to this day. Right.

[00:49:19.660] – Sal
So I'm going to work out or I'm going to run or whatever. Let me do some hamstring stretches. Let me, so I touch my toes, let me stretch my quads. So I'll grab my ankle, pull it back and let me stretch my calves and I'm going to be warmed up or whatever. Well, first off, not a great way to warm up, but you may be wondering. Well, I do get more flexible. I know when I stretch my hamstrings, I all of a sudden can if I hold that position, I can touch my toes more after about thirty seconds.

[00:49:49.990] – Sal
Well, what that's doing is it's sending a signal to the central nervous system that's telling central nervous system to kind of relax that muscle and allow it to elongate a little bit. OK, so now you have muscles that allow themselves to elongate more. You increase the range of motion. Why this is not a good thing before you exercise, and studies actually show static stretching increases risk of injury is because you don't want a larger range of motion that your central nervous system isn't entirely connected to.

[00:50:21.430] – Sal
So the reason why you get more flexible as you're holding that stretch is because the central nervous system is to put, I guess, to it's not entirely working this way, but this will explain a little bit. It's disconnecting a little bit or relaxing. It's signal is turning off and allowing that muscle to stretch. You don't want your central nervous system to be turned off when you're exercising. You want it to be on, because if you move in that range of motion or you have to do something quick or you're lifting a weight or whatever, you want it to be connected, because if it's not connected, that's how you hurt yourself.

[00:50:53.500] – Sal
That's how you end up injuring yourself. Like the example of my baby son, like I told you about earlier in this podcast. So the best way to warm up really is to prime your central nervous system. To turn it on and to turn it on in ranges of motion and larger range of motion so that when you exercise, it's safer, so that when you exercise, you're connected to the exercise so you can activate the muscles that you're really trying to target so that when you're squatting, if you want to feel it in your glutes, you can feel it in your glutes.

[00:51:29.110] – Sal
If I'm shoulder pressing, I want to feel it in my shoulders. If I'm doing an overhead press, my back doesn't hurt because my core is active in my central nervous system's telling my core to stabilize my body. Priming does this. OK, so what is priming look like? There's lots of there's an almost infinite number of priming exercises. I put some of my favorite ones in the book in the workouts. But to give you like a simple example, we'll use the example of, like, the hamstring stretch.

[00:52:03.530] – Sal
Right. So let's say you sit on the floor, you put your hamstring straight or your legs straight out in front of you and you go to touch your foot rather than sitting in that position, what I'm going to do is I'm going to stretch in that position and then I'm going to push down with my leg to activate my hamstring, and then I'm going to pull up with my leg to activate my hip flexor all while holding that stretch will give an example.

[00:52:25.820] – Sal
So what I'm doing is I'm although I'm stretching the muscle, I'm telling central nervous system to connect to this new range of motion, not to relax, but rather to allow me to stretch, but then also to connect to this range of motion. So priming does this. And I gave an example of I didn't even put that movement in the book because that's a silly priming exercise. There's much better ones. Ninety ninety is a good example of one.

[00:52:50.710] – Sal
There's Frager's and lots of other exercises that are excellent. So in the workouts, what's included are your 5 to 10 minute priming sessions that then prepare you for your workout and they make the workout safer and more effective.

[00:53:05.800] – Allan
OK, Sal, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:53:15.230] – Sal
OK, so wellness requires balance, it requires balance, you can be too extreme with fitness and nutrition, and that's dysfunctional and unhealthy and you can also be too extreme in the opposite direction. So for me, wellness is always meant balance. OK, so one step to achieve balance is to enter into an exercise program or nutrition program from the mindset of self care and self-love. So I'm doing this workout not because I hate my body, not because I think I'm fat and I'm gross or whatever, but rather I want to take care of my body.

[00:53:53.910] – Sal
I want to take care of myself because I'm someone that deserves those things. Now, why does that provide balance? Because taking care of myself most times means I'm exercising. Most times it means I'm eating pretty healthy. I'm not eating lots of junk food. I'm not drinking less alcohol. But sometimes taking care of myself means I'm not exercising. Sometimes taking care of myself means I'm enjoying some pizza with some beer or I'm enjoying some time with my friends not being active and having some drinks or whatever.

[00:54:29.360] – Sal
So when you go from the state of mind to self care, then you naturally start to find some balance which leads to wellness. What's another thing that I think another step for wellness? Remember that wellness is a sphere that includes much more than just exercise and diet. Wellness includes the relationships that you have with the people around you. It includes the relationship you have with yourself. How do you feel about yourself? How do you treat yourself?

[00:54:57.140] – Sal
It includes a spiritual practice which can look like organized religion. It can look like meditation. Essentially, it's a forty thousand view of forty thousand foot view of the world and life. And what is the meaning behind why and what I'm doing and that'll get you through the tough parts of things. And then the third thing is to remember that challenge actually is what gives our lives meaning. And challenge is actually a component of happiness. If you look at the studies on happiness, you'll find that we need to be challenged in order to be happy.

[00:55:38.750] – Sal
And that just frames our lives. That just puts us in a different position because life is hard for everybody. And if you accept challenge, it's still hard. So I'm not going to say it makes it easy, but accept it and understand that it brings you meaning and purpose and it's a component of happiness, then you might not add a layer of resistance to it.

[00:56:02.640] – Allan
Thank you. So if someone wanted to learn more about you or the book, The Resistance Training Revolution, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:56:10.730] – Sal
So the book you can find any bookstore, you can find it anywhere they sell books or you can go to the resistancetrainingrevolution dotcom. You can find me on my podcast that I host with my two co-hosts, Mind Pump, and that's on all podcast platforms. And you can also find me on Instagram.

[00:56:28.520] – Sal
That's the social media of choice that I use. And my name on Instagram is Mind Pump Sal.

[00:56:34.630] – Allan
awesome. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/489 and I'll be sure to have the links there. Sal, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:56:44.330] – Sal
I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

Post Show/Recap

[00:56:50.770] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:56:52.430] – Rachel
Hey, Alan, you know, I am the first one to say that resistance training is super important, but this is the first time I think that I've ever heard it being better than cardio or anything else, for that matter.

[00:57:06.850] – Allan
Well, I think where a lot of people kind of lose the math on this and it can go both ways as one. Yes. If you have more muscle mass, your body is going to burn more calories at rest. It's going to burn more calories in everything you do because your body is supporting more mass. In mass times distance is power. I mean, that's where all the stuff's coming from. All this energy is going is moving you around, keeping you there, keeping that mass on.

[00:57:36.490] – Allan
Now, if you were to try to use just weight lifting and I'm just going to lift weights and try to lose weight, that's probably not actually going to happen. So there's still some nutritional things that you have to focus on. The weight loss is going to happen in the kitchen. It's not going to happen in the gym. And I think that's really the message of all this. Now, what type of exercise would be best for reducing body fat?

[00:58:06.310] – Allan
OK, not weight, not weight, fat.

[00:58:10.630] – Allan
And I think it's it's pretty simple to see that, yes, you can run. And if you're taking care of your nutrition, you're going to lose weight and you're going to lose some fat, but you're also going to lose muscle mass. There's not a marathoner out there, you look at the professional marathoners and they are bone thin. They have just enough muscle to run.

[00:58:37.570] – Rachel
Yeah.

[00:58:38.320] – Allan
And if you sat down and put them on a bench press, probably not one of them could bench press their weight because they've never been asked to do that. That's not a part of who they are. Whereas you can look at a sprinter and you can look at them and say, OK, that individuals carrying a lot of muscle mass because they're going shorter distances and they're sprinting and they're getting that done. And so that's a different type of work and it requires a different body type to be good at it.

[00:59:05.390] – Allan
OK, you could take a marathoner and have them run a sprint and they'd be OK. Or you could have someone who's a sprinter and they could probably run a marathon. But again, they're just going to be OK, the body type to do those things. And sometimes that's self-selecting. If there's a lot of conversations out there about how yoga, all these, you know, long lean women and men are doing yoga.

[00:59:33.190] – Allan
And the reality is most of them are self-selecting to do yoga because they're they're lean and thin and long limbed. And they're just naturally moved towards things you're good at. Everybody does that. You know, if you're good at lifting weights, you're going to want to lift more weights. If you're good at running, you're going to want to run. That's just natural. But when we start talking about your body's ability to burn fat, if you have more muscle mass, you're going to burn more fat in general.

[01:00:03.280] – Allan
So there is some math to it from that perspective. But the amount of muscle mass and the amount of calories that muscle mass burns is not this huge, huge number, but it's a little number over a long period of time. So if you're working to maintain muscle mass, you're putting yourself in a good position to burn fat. So you're retaining muscle mass and you're burning fat. So you've got to find that balance of those two. And that means your nutrition has to be spot on.

[01:00:34.300] – Allan
You have to be getting adequate protein to maintain muscle mass. And you've got to be lifting, you've got to be lifting heavy stuff to have that muscle mass. Otherwise your body is going to say you're a runner. You really don't need this extra muscle on your torso. It's not helping you run and your body will start to get rid of that. If you're not doing other side to side stuff and doing other lifting, certain leg muscles are going to atrophy over time.

[01:01:04.420] – Allan
And, the muscles that you use to run are going to be really strong and lean. And they're going to do what you want them to do for the running you're trying to do. And that's where your optimization is, at least from an athletic perspective.

[01:01:18.850] – Rachel
Yeah. Yeah. I can't think of any sport that doesn't spend some amount of time in a weight room lifting weights or doing or body weight training, doing some sort of resistance training. And even runners, especially when you reach my age bracket. Forty plus it's important because by doing these types of resistance training, you're putting more, I guess, focus different muscle groups, which support that sport for me, it's running, but I'm sure baseball players, football players, you know, everybody spend some amount of time in the gym.

[01:01:56.390] – Allan
Yeah, they do. But you'll notice, OK, you're not going to see this hugely muscular guy playing tennis. Right. You know, they're going to have some muscle definition, but they're not going to be a bodybuilder look, they're not going to have that look because that's not conducive to their sport. And so, you know, if you're going to do this, you're going to do come across training, you are going to do resistance training.

[01:02:24.320] – Allan
You just have to think of it in those lines. If you're naturally inclined to add a lot of muscle mass for certain sports, it's not going to make you better. I was, generally I have the frame and the musculature of a sprinter, not very fast, but so I'm a very slow sprinter. But I basically have that musculature. So when I was running marathons, I was this weirdo. You know, I didn't look like them.

[01:02:53.390] – Allan
They were all pencil thin, lean guys. And I'm coming up, and they're like, OK, you should be, you know, Body-building, you shouldn't be running Ultra's. And I agree with them, I was getting way too much muscle mass to be good at marathons.

[01:03:12.110] – Rachel
yeah, there's probably a point of diminishing returns, but I think it's still definitely important to spend some time in the gym somehow doing some body weight or weight training.

[01:03:23.000] – Allan
Yeah. And I think that's really the message I'd like to get to is unfortunately or fortunately, because, you know, this is the way gym life goes, is people will buy a gym membership, OK. And a percentage of those people will go in and they'll find themselves at the treadmills because they're the most commonly used piece of equipment. We put those in the front. OK, and then the next layer is going to be machines and then the final layer is going to be the free weights.

[01:03:51.680] – Allan
Now, that's that's in most gyms. If they have the capacity to structure their gym, that's how they're going to structure it, because they know that 80 percent of the people are never going to make it past the treadmills and ellipticals that they're going to walk in and that's their workout. Now, the other side of what we also know is after three weeks of not seeing any benefit from being on the treadmill, 45 minutes to an hour every day, five days a week, they stop coming. They just signed a contract.

[01:04:21.060] – Allan
So you're making that payment. That money keeps coming out of your checking account. And then because you get comfortable with that money coming out of your checking account, you never even bother to cancel when the year's over. And so they have a constant supply of money coming into the gym for you to not use their equipment. And so that's how most gyms are structured financially. That's how they make it. That's how they're successful is by you coming in, getting on the treadmill, not seeing results and then leaving and not coming back.

[01:04:51.780] – Allan
And well, what Sal's trying to say, what I'm trying to say is if you work for yourself a little bit deeper into the gym and start doing some other exercises, you're going to see not just an advantage for weight loss. You're going to see other general advantages in your life when you're strong enough to do things that you couldn't do before. Now, you're not dependent on someone else. And so if you've had to have someone else open a jar of pickles for you, that's a clear indication your grip strength wasn't strong enough and you lost and you're losing independence.

[01:05:30.110] – Allan
You're now dependent on someone to open jars for you. And that's just one indication that you could be stronger and you could be independent, you could do those things for yourself. You just have to focus on realizing that strength training is a very important dynamic. It's one of the first dynamics that causes people to lose independence.

[01:05:54.050] – Rachel
Yeah, that makes total sense.

[01:05:55.700] – Allan
You know, you lose strengthen your muscles and bones. You fall, you break something. And for a lot of people done and I don't really have a nice way to say it, but, you know, for a lot of people, breaking a hip in their 60s is really the end. They've literally just written the script for the last chapter of their life with that fall. So taking some time, getting yourself stronger. Look, working on those modalities that aren't calorie burning, you know, because, it can't all be about weight loss, you know, your whole life, your whole fitness and health and cannot all be about weight loss.

[01:06:39.370] – Allan
When you get into that mindset, you're kind of losing, you're losing so much of what this whole formula is about that, you know, you win or lose on one bet, you know, I'm all in on weight loss and then the weight loss doesn't come, we've lost that. Whereas if you can sit down and say, well, my goal was to get stronger, lose some body fat and feel better. Aand you do get stronger and you know, you're lifting more weight and you find yourself in an everyday situation using that strength.

[01:07:16.680] – Allan
that's that wins. Maybe you didn't lose the weight you wanted. Maybe you wanted to be down at one hundred and twenty pounds or a hundred thirty pounds. And, you know, you're stuck at 150. You're you're still stronger. More capable. You have all of these other wins and things. You've got more energy. You know, energy is life. And so, you know, yes, weight loss can be important factor for a lot of people.

[01:07:44.250] – Allan
And also I was really trying to say is don't stop at the treadmills.

[01:07:49.430] – Rachel
Right.

[01:07:49.500] – Allan
Go a little deeper into the gym. There's no reason for you to feel intimidated by that. And if you are, message me and we can have some conversations about how to feel more comfortable in that part of the gym, because, you know, a lot of that is you've never done this. You don't know how that machine works. You don't know how that equipment can be used.

[01:08:09.840] – Allan
You don't have a workout. You don't have all these things. But the reality is that's the easy part. The hard part is literally walking past that treadmill and going a little deeper. That's the hard part. Once you get that done, you can learn everything else.

[01:08:25.650] – Rachel
Well, for sure. You know, I've been that person, though. I've been that person who has had a gym membership, walks in the gym and like, you know, everything just escapes my head. I don't even know where to start. What do I do with this? But, you know, if there's personal trainers like yourself and myself and I'm sure the gym has personal trainers on staff, but if you go in there with some sort of a goal in mind or, you know, something purposeful and you can learn, learn how to lift weights and emotion that makes your arm stronger or legs stronger or core stronger, I mean, if you have a plan would be helpful and then seek strengths from that or with that in mind.

[01:09:03.300] – Allan
Yeah, and that is important is the plan. And then the other side of it is, I will say this for weightlifting and this weightlifting is probably one of the few things that where you shouldn't just play to your strengths.

[01:09:15.630] – Rachel
Good points.

[01:09:16.560] – Allan
So many people will go in there and, you know, you'll see the pictures of the guy who's really muscular upper body and has bird legs. That's a thing. That's what actually happens because people get to where they're focused on what one part of them, their strengths are.

[01:09:33.750] – Allan
Or maybe they're always doing like, I know I went to the YMCA when I was in my 20s and there was this one guy I'd come in and he was an older guy. And like, I was just he was so, so freakin strong in the bench press. But that's all he ever did. He really came in the gym and he did bench press and then he would skip a day and he'd be back in the next time.

[01:09:58.070] – Allan
Bench press and they need to skip a day and then the next day he'd be in. Bench press. And don't get me wrong, at the time, the guy could bench press as much as I could squat, but I doubt he could squat as much as I could bench press because he never used his legs. He never lifted. He only did bench press. And it looked you could see it. I mean, literally, he came and he looked worked.

[01:10:19.750] – Allan
He looked deformed a little bit. And I know, unfortunately, you know, at his age and a little bit older, he probably started having back problems, started having some issues where those imbalances are going to start playing against you. So, you know, I will just say is have a plan, please. Have a plan. Don't just go in there and start throwing things around. Right. Feels good. Don't get me wrong.

[01:10:40.720] – Allan
Throwing ahead and planning around feels great. Just get in there and start throwing stuff around and you feel like you're accomplishing something. Maybe sore as crap the next day, you know, and you're going to feel like you did something which is one of the cool things about weightlifting is one of the ways of working out where after doing the workout, not only are you tired then, but three days later you're still feeling it. Most other ways of working out don't give you that feedback, not necessarily the right feedback, but it is feedback.

[01:11:12.280] – Allan
So I'm just saying, have a plan, find a simple program, go in. If you don't know how to use a certain piece of equipment or don't know how to use a particular exercise, take some time to talk to somebody. Who knows, it can be an online trainer like Rachel or myself. It can be someone at the gym that's scheduled to do that. And, is there available to show you? But learn the form, learn how to do the exercises and know which exercises you need to do which days and and how that works for getting the work done, getting the recovery.

[01:11:46.030] – Allan
But yeah, Sal's not wrong and saying that the treadmill is not your friend for weight loss.

[01:11:53.020] – Rachel
Sure.

[01:11:53.560] – Allan
Because again you're sending signals everything you do, everything you eat, everything every movement you do, every thought you have is a piece of information for your body. OK, and so if you're giving your body the wrong information, you're going to get the wrong result. It's quite literally it works that way. So if you're training your body that you have to run every day, that's cool.

[01:12:18.040] – Allan
Your body is going to adapt to be a runner's body. And if you like, the look of the marathoner. And that's the body shape you want to have and you feel good doing it then, Run. Do it outside, though, you know. Treadmill's fine, but, you know, come on, get outside, have some fun, get some sunshine. There's other health benefits to being out in nature, in the sun and all those things.

[01:12:45.330] – Allan
Plus running outdoors is different than running on a treadmill. Very, very different. So, being a good treadmill runner does not make you a good runner at all. It can help. It can help build endurance. But it's not making you an overall better, more balanced runner. So just realize the treadmill is going to send signals to your body and it's not going to retain muscle because that's not the signal. That's not what you're telling your body.

[01:13:11.490] – Allan
So the information you put in, which is the work you do or the food you're eating or the thoughts that you have is the starting of the conversation. And then your hormones are going to pick up that messaging and their balance and everything that they're doing is going to work around that to get you where the message is sending it. So, yes, your testosterone will probably go down if you're just a chronic runner. That's because you don't need the testosterone, because you're not building muscle.

[01:13:45.060] – Allan
If you're lifting heavy weights, the signal in to your muscles are bigger and testosterone has to ratchet up a little bit to make that happen. Now we're over 40, so our testosterone is not going to be like a 20 year olds and therefore our musculature is not going to be like a 20 year old unless we're doing something in the middle to affect that signaling like testosterone therapy, steroids, his arms, those types of things. There are things you can do to disrupt that chain, put something in the middle of it, but in a general sense,

[01:14:27.100] – Allan
You're not going to get big and muscular if you're a runner, you're not necessarily going to signal to your body to lose body fat either, because there's a reason there's a term called Tofi. Which is thin on the outside, fat on the inside. You know that there's a signaling there. And so if you're chronically running, your body's getting signaling to potentially be a Tofi if you're not focused on your nutrition and other health aspects as well.

[01:15:00.380] – Rachel
Well, for sure. I totally tell everybody that resistance training is important to be a good runner. But I think it's also important for just aging and having the strength to just to live an active lifestyle as we do get older. So I think everyone should spend some time doing some sort of resistance training of some sort.

[01:15:20.090] – Allan
I obviously agree. And I would also say, if you're not working on if you're just lifting and you're not working on your stamina, you're also leaving something off the table that you should have. So you find that balance, find that thing that's going to make you the balanced person that you really want to be. And that's the strength, the bone and muscle density and thickness and mass and also having some stamina, you know, to be able to move that mass of where you needed to be when you need it to be there because, you know, you never know.

[01:15:57.500] – Allan
And have to go and do something that's going to require a lot more stamina. So building all of those to be the person that you need to be is really where all of this comes together. So don't necessarily listen to Sal or me or Rachel about what we want for ourselves. You need to have all of it. You need to have it in the right proportion to who you want to be, because fitness is not a look. Fitness is fit for tasks.

[01:16:25.760] – Allan
So decide who you need to be and then build your fitness programming around that.

[01:16:32.310] – Rachel
That's perfect. Yeah, that's very individualized.

[01:16:36.620] – Allan
Absolutely. All right, Rachel, we can talk next week.

[01:16:40.130] – Rachel
All right. Take care.

[01:16:41.570] – Allan
Bye

[01:16:42.320] – Rachel
bye now.

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
– Debbie Ralston	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Eliza Lamb	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Warrior | Theresa Larsen

Less...

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

Let's Say Hello

[00:03:33.160] – Allan
Hey Raz, how are things going?

[00:03:35.380] – Rachel
Good. How are you today, Allan?

[00:03:37.480] – Allan
I'm doing okay.

[00:03:38.440] – Allan
It's, it's been a really weird week here.

[00:03:41.200] – Allan
We, I was supposed to interview Dr. Bubbs again. I've had him on the show before and he has a really interesting book out. So, I'm supposed to interview him. And then, you know, our power company announces to turn the power off on Wednesday, the whole day.

[00:03:56.710] – Rachel
Oh, no.

[00:03:57.700] – Allan
I was like, Okay, so I have to cancel with him. I'd cancel a couple different appointments because if I don't have power, I don't have Internet, if I don't have Internet, anything. So I cancel all this stuff. And then we had this really bad rainstorm. And the rainstorm the night the day before knocked out my my phone, so I was trying to have a call with the client and then I lost phone signal in a place that I always have phone signal.

[00:04:21.130] – Allan
It's pouring down rain. I'm standing out in the rain and walking around trying to find a signal, you know, can you hear me now? The whole thing. And then, so then, yeah, the next day I'm thinking they're going to turn off all the power. But because it was raining, they didn't turn off the power. And then there was a strike on the mainland by the banana workers. You know, the workers work on the banana farms because they don't like how management's doing things.

[00:04:43.870] – Allan
They decided to cut off the ferry to the island and therefore they couldn't bring diesel to the island for the power plant. And therefore, they were going to have to cut power.

[00:04:54.690] – Rachel
Oh, my goodness, that's so crazy.

[00:04:56.190] – Allan
This time, this time it was like we were going to have to cut it and they said, we're going to cut it at six o'clock. And of course, the merchants on the island were like six o'clock on a Saturday night. You're going to cut power to a whole island.

[00:05:07.890] – Allan
And they're like, yeah, we're going to do that. Like, No, no, can't you wait till six o'clock in the morning and then cut it then. Yeah, you'll be lower in fuel, but then you cut it and we cut it till we get fuel. So they agreed to do that. And then it turned out about midnight, they negotiated a deal and they let the ferry come over. So they never had to cut the power.

[00:05:26.730] – Allan
But it was just kind of one of those. Power is going to go out because they're going to do some maintenance and the power is going to go out because there's a strike. And it's just been a very interesting third-world living on an island.

[00:05:39.750] – Rachel
That is quite an adventure. My goodness, how crazy.

[00:05:44.070] – Allan
So slightly uncomfortable.

[00:05:46.410] – Rachel
I would say so.

[00:05:48.780] – Allan
So how have you been up there in Michigan?

[00:05:51.570] – Rachel
Oh, good, good.

[00:05:52.920] – Rachel
It's been beautiful up here. We actually did a whole lot of yard work over the weekend, expanding some garden space and put down some new mulch and making it nice for the time we spend outdoors. So it's it's been really nice.

[00:06:08.370] – Allan
Heated, heated running trail.

[00:06:10.240] – Rachel
Not yet, but it's on my list. It's on my list.

[00:06:14.790] – Allan
Don't forget, winter is going to come back around. Don't forget. You know, now now that the ground's thawed

[00:06:21.060] – Rachel
Actually, we're supposed to get snow tomorrow, actually.

[00:06:25.470] – Allan
Oh okay. But that's nothing. That's nothing. Just the normal, normal load of snow shower in April. Late April.

[00:06:30.870] – Rachel
That's right. Spring springs, snow showers hopefully won't be that bad.

[00:06:36.660] – Allan
Yeah, but I saw a picture on your Facebook. You and Mike got to spend some time with family that you haven't had the opportunity to spend some time with.

[00:06:46.410] – Rachel
That's right.

[00:06:47.250] – Rachel
Yeah. Mike and I are both fully vaccinated and passed the two-week timeline post vax. That's the second vaccination for him. And my parents have been vaccinated for some time now. So we were able to meet them and have lunch. And I even got a hug. And it's important because I haven't hugged my parents since over a year ago before the lockdown. So, you know, I've been nervous to give them covid or to make them sick in some way.

[00:07:16.660] – Rachel
So we've been very careful this whole time. And and now that we're vaccinated, it's just a little bit, it's a little bit more comfortable, you know, getting in close proximity again. So it was really wonderful to be able to hug my parents again.

[00:07:30.630] – Allan
That's really cool. That's really cool. So let's go ahead and talk to Michael Easter.

[00:07:36.330] – Rachel
Yes.

Interview

[00:08:01.010] – Allan
Michael, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:08:03.950] – Michael
Thank you so much for having me.

[00:08:05.990] – Allan
You know, your book is called The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self. And the stories that you, you tell in this book could have left you well, obviously wild, probably unhealthy and unhappy had had things happened in a different way. Fortunately, yes. It's a happy ending. And Michael's still here to tell us the stories, but you've had some pretty interesting adventures.

[00:08:35.040] – Michael
I have. Yes. And I luckily, yeah, I am here to talk about them. So in reporting the book, the main arc of the book is this,

[00:08:43.460] – Michael
Thirty-three days that I spent in the Arctic backcountry, it's one of the most remote places in the world, one of arguably the most uncomfortable places in the world. So we faced a lot of crazy temperature swings and blizzards and encounters with wild animals. And it was a way to really put myself into these, I guess I'd call them evolutionary discomforts that we as humans used to face every single day of our lives. And because of this, we developed these drives always want to be comfortable, because when the world is uncomfortable, if I'm always seeking comfort, well, that helps me survive things like I don't want to put physical effort into my days because that wastes energy.

[00:09:26.930] – Michael
Right. So that's why we don't like to exercise all these all these different things.

[00:09:30.860] – Michael
And we now live in this really comfortable world. I mean, everything our daily lives have become so comfortable, everything from, you know, temperature control to our food system to the fact that we've engineered effort out of our days. Everything is easy. And so now we have these these evolutionary mechanisms that no longer serve us, because when I'm trying to always be comfortable in a world that's comfortable, you know, it can backfire on people.

[00:10:01.250] – Allan
Yeah. You know, my wife and I, we moved to Panama and some people would say that that would definitely make them uncomfortable to just sell everything they own and move to a foreign country, particularly one where they didn't actually speak the language. And, you know, my wife had only seen it for like four days when we made the decision to just sell our house and move here. So we've done some things to make ourselves uncomfortable, but not anything like what you've experienced.

[00:10:27.620] – Allan
So you've done some pretty cool things around this topic. And I'm really glad to have this conversation to to talk to you. Now, you kind of got into the fact that because we kind of have this desire to seek comfort, being comfortable is not always a really good thing for us. Can you can you talk about the price of comfort?

[00:10:50.340] – Michael
Yes. Well, I think what's interesting to think about is just how long humans lived in this uncomfortable environment.

[00:10:58.880] – Michael
When you do the math, we've spent ninety nine point nine, six percent of our time in these uncomfortable environments, over two point five million years. The comforts that now most affect my daily life, your daily life, they're all just a hundred years old. And by pushing ourselves into comfort all the time, we've lost a lot with our health, our happiness and just the feeling of being alive. So, for example, with our health, I used to be that food,

[00:11:30.590] – Michael
We didn't really have comfort food. It wasn't ultra processed. Food was also harder to come by. We actually had to put effort into getting food. Now we live in this sea of ultra processed food, but we still have these internal drives to eat sugar, salt, fat and eat too much of it. They used to keep us alive because it would help us on board fat. And then when we had lean times, we would have something to draw from to stay alive.

[00:11:53.870] – Michael
But now these drives are sort of causing obesity. They tell us to not move as much as we would as we should to burn it away. In terms of happiness, we humans tend to do well when we're challenged because it gives us a sense of accomplishment. And so as we evolved, we face challenges all the time. These could be from something like a hunt, having to having to migrate something like this. Nowadays, our challenges are often something like I have to give a PowerPoint presentation or whatever it is, right.

[00:12:31.760] – Michael
And there's just not as much reward in the challenges we face. And this is associated with decreasing levels of happiness, increases in anxiety, because if you think about the most dangerous, treacherous thing you face is that your boss might give you a bad look because you messed up on a PowerPoint. Well, you know, you're going to be anxious about a lot of things. And in terms of just the feeling of being alive, I mean, we evolved in nature for example.

[00:13:00.970] – Michael
And like I said, we would do these challenging things in nature all the time, and that's really woven into our to our DNA look at the work of someone like Joseph Campbell with the hero's journey. It's every culture from around the world has these stories about people doing interesting, sort of epic things in nature and that being a real turning point for them internally. Well, we've lost a lot of that nowadays that we've made everything as safe and comfortable as possible.

[00:13:28.990] – Michael
And I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to go up to Alaska at all. But what I am suggesting is that adding a little bit of discomfort back into your everyday life in a variety of forms can really move the dial on your health and happiness. And it's and it's about meeting people where they're at. So something that is comfortable or uncomfortable for one person, maybe totally comfortable for another, it's just slowly pushing your comfort zone. And by doing that, I think you can you can find a lot out about yourself and also move the dial on your health and happiness.

[00:14:02.170] – Allan
Donnie and Tom don't have enough space on their airplane to take us all up there.

[00:14:07.270] – Michael
Exactly.

[00:14:08.980] – Allan
But, you know, there is some value to being uncomfortable. You know, one that kind of comes to mind for me was if we were always comfortable with we came up with inventions, we came up with fire, we came up with riding a horse. We came up with a lot of different things that we do. And there's just we call it progress. So in many cases, adding comfort has been progress. And so there is a value to to comfort or seeking comfort. But there's a point, like you say, because we passed that line.

[00:14:46.110] – Michael
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's it's really about balance, so if you look at all the data on how the world is doing, I mean, I think the world right now is better than it's ever been. People live longer. Child mortality rates are down. Hunger and starvation is down across the world. I mean, just every marker, we're doing better off, but we don't we never offset that with the discomforts we need to be healthy and happy.

[00:15:14.700] – Michael
So if you ask, you know, if you ask the average person they've done polls, do you think the world is getting better? Only six percent say that they think the world is getting better, which to me suggests we're missing something that makes us happy, right? And I think it is that challenge, those elemental discomforts that we sort of evolved to face.

[00:15:35.920] – Allan
Well, I think we can all kind of agree that the best stories are the ones where there's a chance of failure. The chance of really screwing up. You know, that that hold my beer moment. Those are the best stories because there's that element of discomfort. There's that element of, in some cases, even danger. Can you kind of talk about the value of making yourself uncomfortable, but then, of course, not dying in the process?

[00:16:03.480] – Michael
Well, I think I think the nice thing, too, about the the modern comfortable world is it's a lot harder to die nowadays, right? And so I think that I think we have a lot of fears that we built as we evolved because those used to keep us safe. But nowadays, there's a lot of safety nets in life and we we even have technologies that can keep us safer. So, for example, when I was in Alaska, I had this little GPS thing that kind of had this orange button you press that things go south and hopefully, you know, it alerts someone to come pick you up.

[00:16:35.610] – Michael
Now, apparently, it takes a handful of days for them to arrive, but it's still what you know, it's know, I wouldn't have had that even 20 years ago. Twenty five years ago, like I was mentioning the work of Joseph Campbell, we know that when we challenge ourselves and put ourselves in a position where there's a high degree of failure, that when we come out on the other side of that, we are better for it.

[00:16:57.840] – Michael
It can help with a lot of fears fading away. So, for example, we get up to the Arctic. We're in Kotzebue, Alaska. It's the town that we we left out of. And I'm standing on this runway, the wind is gusting, and the guy that I was up in the Arctic with, Donny, he leans over to me. We're looking at these planes that we're going to take up there. And these planes are about the size of a pack of gum.

[00:17:22.290] – Michael
I mean, to people fair to them.

[00:17:24.570] – Michael
And I hate flying, especially when it's in a plane like that. And Donny leans over to me and goes, hey, you know. I got the best pilots that I could. I'm not saying we're not going to crash and die, that is a high probability. But but I got the best pilot I could. I'm like, thanks a lot. So, I mean, I'm terrified of getting in this plane, right? So I get in and we fly.

[00:17:47.800] – Michael
And the whole time I'm just like, oh, man, this is this is terrible. And then they drop us off in the Arctic and and in the Arctic over thirty-three days. I face all these challenges that I've just never faced in my life. Having to cover this rough terrain with no safety net, you know, seeing wild, wild animals being exposed to hurricane force winds and blizzards and just all these things that are are real challenges that have a high degree of risk.

[00:18:16.150] – Michael
When that plane came back and picked me up thirty-three days later, I wasn't afraid to get into it, you know, because now I can put in perspective that, oh wow, this is actually not that, you know, there's a pilot here who's 50 years old. He's been doing this for for 30 years. But when when your challenges in your daily life and the things that you have to encounter really are very safe, I think it can throw off your perspective on on what makes you afraid.

[00:18:43.480] – Michael
And so by putting yourself in positions of failure, you're going to learn something about fear and how a lot of our modern day fears are sort of unfounded and how those can hold us back from the things we really want to do in our lives.

[00:18:57.460] – Allan
You talked a lot in the story about, you know, that one gets a one time you were they of course, they had to shuttle you guys out there. So they just sort of left you out there at one spot where they said, well, we will be back and pick you up. You know, it's like, how well do I know these guys? You know how much I already paid them the deposit. So, you know, I'm going to make it.

[00:19:22.030] – Allan
And so you had those kind of things where you're kind of afraid to be alone. But I think the deeper thing for me was that you noticed at points in time during the hunt and, you know, having hunted when I was a kid, you're just sitting there looking at me as a pine forest in south Mississippi. But ninety nine percent of the time that you're on a hunt, there's absolutely nothing happening. And so you get really, really bored unless you've conditioned yourself to kind of go with it.

[00:19:53.650] – Allan
And I think, you know, one of the core things you brought up in the book that it was just kind of critical is we don't even know the value of actually being bored. We we want something to entertain us all the time. It's like we get in the car, we turn on the radio or a podcast, maybe this one, but we don't turn this stuff off and actually just sit there and stop and just so tired of hearing our heartbeat, because we're that bored, that we're like counting heartbeats and, you know, watching watching a blade of grass and saying, you know, I think I saw it twitch, you know.

[00:20:31.330] – Allan
Yeah. That kind of thing. Can you talk about the kind of being bored and why being bored is not actually a bad thing and why maybe we should actually lean into it?

[00:20:41.480] – Michael
Yeah, so to your point about being in the woods in Mississippi and you just kind of waiting, hunting is a lot of waiting sometimes, and that's something that I was not used to. So we in the Arctic, we would sit on these hills and we were hunting caribou.

[00:20:56.750] – Michael
So we would have to wait for these caribou to they're migrating. So you're trying to catch them as they're moving into their to their wintering grounds.

[00:21:05.450] – Michael
So you'd sit on this hill and my cell phone does not work up there.

[00:21:09.830] – Michael
There is not a lick of service within one hundred miles. So the thing is essentially useless. I didn't bring a book. I didn't bring magazines. I sure I surely didn't have a TV. So what I'm left with is I would start to read labels on my energy bars. I would start to read the labels on the clothes I was wearing. And then when that gets boring, I start thinking of ideas and I start thinking of all these other things.

[00:21:33.680] – Michael
And it was really interesting because nowadays, any time we feel bored, we have this constant ability to kill our boredom, the discomfort of boredom. Any time you feel a twinge of that, I mean, think if you ever look at a supermarket line, what is everyone doing there on their cell phones? Even 20 years ago, you would have to sort of stand there and be with yourself and with your thoughts. The brain essentially has two different ways of two different modes.

[00:22:02.270] – Michael
And in the book, I simplify it and I call them focus mode and unfocused mode. Focus mode is any time that you are focusing on anything in the outside world. So your cell phone, as you're listening to this podcast, you're having to process information from the outside world. And this is like an active it's almost like a workout for your brain. The other mode is unfocused mode. Now, this is internal mind wandering. So this is the mode that I was in when I'm sitting on the Arctic tundra trying to think of ideas and just having thoughts come into my brain.

[00:22:31.820] – Michael
And this is essentially a rest state. It rests and restores your brain. Now, we've totally tipped the balance. Modern life has tipped the balance. So we're always in this focused mode and it's just like constantly trying to work and work and work our brains. We never experience boredom this time where we have to go inward and be with that little bit of discomfort and then send our minds down different ways of mind wandering, which restores our thinking and creativity.

[00:22:59.150] – Michael
So the benefits of boredom, you know, research shows that it revives your brain not being bored enough is actually associated with high rates of anxiety because it's you know, you're just really taxing your outward system. It's associated with more creativity. And I think part of that is because nowadays, when we're bored, if we just pull out Instagram and Twitter or whatever it is, we're focusing on the exact same type of media that everyone else is. And we're not having time to come up with ideas in our own mind that are our own ideas.

[00:23:31.520] – Michael
Experience boredom is associated with more focus and productivity. But I think one thing that that is key is you hear so much today, you need to be, you know, get on your phone. Get on your phone less. If you look at the data, people actually spend a lot more time engaging with all different kinds of media, like people watch twice as much TV as they do have screen time on their phones. We've inserted essentially eleven hours, I think is the average, 11 hours and six minutes to be exact, digital media in our day.

[00:24:02.570] – Michael
That's how much time we're spending engaging with digital media. So I tend to think about it instead of less phone. I tend to think about it more as more boredom. How can I just find these spaces where I can just have no outside stimulation and allow my mind to go inward and sort of revive and reset? And if we can do that, even though it's uncomfortable, I mean, it's much easier to just go on Instagram. I think we're going to move the dial a lot on our mental health.

[00:24:26.660] – Michael
And you'll find often with with a lot of these discomforts that I'm talking about, there's an initial period where you're like, man, this really sucks. I don't like this. This is uncomfortable. But after a certain time, once you sort of get through that rough patch, you're like, oh, I see what I'm doing this for.

[00:24:45.980] – Michael
And you start to really see those rewards. I mean, nothing in life, whether it be something very simple, like not being not defaulting to TV or your computer or your phone or whether it be like a massive, massive workout or challenge is ever going to be easy. So just accepting that there is going to be that hard part and going through it anyways, you'll see that benefit.

[00:25:09.950] – Allan
Yeah, I was, I took it. I took what you put to heart and I was going for my my normal little walk around here on the island. I like walking out by the beach and I was on my way out there. Normally what I would do is I put on the podcast or an audio book and then I'd have my runkeeper that would tell me my my my split's every five minutes, you know, that's chiming in and telling me what my splits are. I just got to thinking myself, Okay, I'm still going to keep my runkeeper on, but I'm going to I'm going to turn the volume all the way down so I don't hear my splits.

[00:25:40.750] – Allan
But the pocket I put the phone in my pocket and I'm not going to pay any attention until I get to a certain point, and then I'll just want to check my time to make sure that I can get back in time for what I've got to get done for the day. And yeah, it's like where first you're going and you're kind of like just you start becoming hyper sensitive to everything around, you start paying a lot more attention and so on this walk beyond just having a good walk and enjoying some warm weather, you know, heat shock proteins, I, I noticed a lot more.

[00:26:15.930] – Allan
You know, I just I noticed, like a line of leafcutter ants walking down the side of the road with me. You know, I was about to step on them and I said, oh, leafcutters. And I'm just walking along and I'm seeing leaves and I'm like, Okay, you know, just it was a long, long trail, like maybe about quarter of a mile. These guys were traveling. And so it's just kind of one of those things where I thought, yeah, I'm opening up.

[00:26:36.420] – Allan
I'm noticing more about the world around me. I'm noticing more about myself, like how how my legs feel, how my feet feel, you know, just just the whole bit of it. And it just gives you a lot more time to actually get it. Get in your head and think versus at times we try to turn that inner voice off. And I think a lot of times it's we just don't like that guy.

[00:27:02.190] – Allan
Yeah. And then you're like, well, no, I'm going to get to know that person.

[00:27:07.260] – Allan
And only way I can do that is to be alone with them.

[00:27:11.370] – Michael
Yeah, I love that story that's so great, because the thing about those leafcutter ants, you're going to remember them for next year, five years, 10 years, I was here and I saw that rove leafcutter ants doing their thing, moving through the world. That's going to create an impression in your mind and isn't I mean, this is the stuff that we're really going to remember.

[00:27:29.850] – Michael
I mean, I think that the media is obviously amazing. It's incredible.

[00:27:35.190] – Allan
Yeah.

[00:27:35.640] – Michael
It's so fun to see what people are doing on Instagram and getting cool ideas and listening to podcasts like yours. I mean, there's a ton of value in the stuff there really is. But I think it's figuring out the balance. If our we are programed to default to always being stimulated, never wanting to be bored, and we just have the easiest out for that.

[00:27:55.540] – Michael
So I think we need to reinsert boredom into our lives because when we are evolving, we had long periods of boredom and these helped these helped us be productive and, you know, effective humans. And we've sort of removed them. And there's been some serious downsides. But but I love what you say about that. And and I think that you're smart because you're you're doing it in a way where you can still use the technology. You're just figuring out, well, how do I use the smarter so I can sort of balance it.

[00:28:22.470] – Michael
I can get benefits of boredom, but also this super cool technology that we have access to. You know, the answer isn't like we don't want to live like Luddites. That's yeah, that sounds terrible to me. But it's it's the balance.

[00:28:36.020] – Allan
Yeah, and the worst part of it was I was sitting there saying I should pull my phone out and take a picture of these ants and I'm like, no, know, that whole purpose was to to not interact with my phone this whole two hours and

[00:28:47.240] – Michael
Yeah, those ants are yours.

[00:28:50.150] – Allan
I could post it on Facebook. That's so cool. I get those likes and and retweeted all that stuff and I was like, no, no. That that breaks the whole purpose of why I'm here. I'm not here to to do a documentary on leafcutter ants. I'm here to enjoy some time with myself.

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

[00:30:52.500] – Allan
I think another thing that you got into that was really important, and it was it was thrust upon you because 33 days and I think people would say, Okay, sure, there's there's not a McDonald's up there or even a Tim Hortons or anything for you to just say, Okay, you know, let's pop in and have some breakfast and then we'll go hunting or after the breakfast, you know, we'll go by the room, take a shower, get ourselves cleaned up and have a really nice dinner tonight.

[00:31:20.060] – Allan
I mean, I hope they had that wine we had last time. That's not life. You had to carry all your food with you short of what you actually were going to then be able to get on that hunt.

[00:31:31.350] – Allan
So you started doing the math and realizing, Okay, I'm not going to be able to carry enough calories.

[00:31:39.210] – Michael
Yeah.

[00:31:39.810] – Allan
For the whole trip. And that meant at some point along the way and I don't think it was that far into the trip, you started experiencing hunger. And it's not the hunger of, you know, gee, I wish I had some Doritos. It was like real real in a hunger. Could you could you talk about being hungry and why that is important?

[00:32:01.320] – Michael
Sure. So when we did when you in the numbers, you know, we're carrying these heavy 80, 90 pound backpacks all over the place. The landscape is, you know, hilly and treacherous and we're probably burning somewhere between 4000, 6000 calories a day.

[00:32:18.240] – Michael
But if we were to bring enough food to fuel that, I mean, our packs would be it would not fit in the pack. All we would have is just a bunch of food. So we had to pare down and figure out, Okay, how much is enough reasonably to stay alive? More or less. And that was we could figure that would be about two thousand calories. So that's what we pack. So every day we're digging ourself into this hole and there's just never enough food.

[00:32:41.190] – Michael
And what happens over time, it's fascinating is you start to feel hungry and your mind starts to really focus on food. And these are these evolutionary mechanisms that we've developed to force us to find food that really compels you to find food. But feeling that hunger was fascinating because. No, my average day I eat for reasons that often have nothing to do with hunger. It could be that I woke up and it's breakfast, I got to eat breakfast.

[00:33:10.570] – Michael
So essentially the clock is telling me that I should eat, right. Or maybe I get stressed and I'm like, oh, man, I hate that email. I just received and hand goes into the m&m's and I shove them into my face.

[00:33:21.150] – Michael
You know, a lot of the data shows that as much as 80 percent of the times we eat aren't driven by actual physiological hunger. It's just because, like I said, it's a clock or stress or whatever. So re-engaging with with actual core deep hunger was fascinating because I'm like, man, I have never felt this before.

[00:33:43.860] – Michael
And I learned a lot of interesting things about hunger. And one of them, too, is that. You know, over time, it's not it's not going to kill you, you know, out there, it's like I lost 10 pounds over the thirty three months or whatever it was.

[00:34:01.050] – Michael
But I realized re-engaging with hunger is actually a good thing, because if you can figure out when this is true hunger versus this is just me wanting food, that can really move the dial. Because, I mean, right now it's I think in the US it's seventy two percent of Americans are overweight or obese. I mean, we're clearly suffering from a crisis where we're just eating too much. And that suggests to me that probably, you know, re-engaging with hunger and learning about what do I actually need food versus when do I want food can be really important in moving the dial on our health through weight loss.

[00:34:37.830] – Michael
So I would say that it just when I came back from the Arctic, I realized that a lot of times, like I said, it's just I just want food or it's a clock that tells me I want food and feeling that hunger can lead a lot of internal physical change. So I think, you know, embracing hunger is important. And, you know, I know people get really.

[00:34:59.880] – Michael
I guess I would say ideological, I don't know if that's the right word about certain diets and all that. My own opinion is that if you look at all the research, that weight loss is primarily driven by calorie balance. And so just figuring out a way that you can you can eat that will control your hunger, but you're not eating too much is important. And so in the book, I talk about ways of certain foods that research suggests tend to help us fight hunger, but also control our calories.

[00:35:28.810] – Michael
So these tend to be foods that we've often heard are not good for us, like potatoes or different forms of carbs that are unprocessed, that actually are good because they can help us control hunger and keep our calories low. It's this concept called calorie density, which is kind of a science way of saying they fill you up without having as many calories as other foods.

[00:35:50.870] – Allan
Yeah, and I think one of the things that kind of came out of it is that just as soon as you killed the Cariboo, you ate like a king. And it was one of the best meals you'd had in a long time and you even started liking the the instant meals, you know, just the reconstituted meals. You're like, it's fine. I love it. It's it's still delicious because I'm that hungry that you were truly tasting your food.

[00:36:17.530] – Michael
Yeah.

[00:36:17.870] – Allan
And and the. Go ahead.

[00:36:19.760] – Michael
I was going to say hunger is the best sauce.

[00:36:23.540] – Allan
Yes.

[00:36:24.050] – Michael
You know that if you are a person who thinks that vegetables are disgusting, that's probably because you're only eating things like Doritos that are engineered to be just like so amazing. And if you take yourself away from that for a little while, you realize that vegetables have a lot of amazing nuances that are that are great, you know.

[00:36:43.100] – Allan
Yeah. And I think that's what we miss is that, you know, like you said, we're eating all the time. We're eating things that are designed to make us eat more. We're not giving our body an opportunity to actually understand the hunger signals. And then when food is available, which here it's always available, it's everywhere.

[00:37:05.750] – Allan
We tend to overeat. And, you know, the dietitians though warn you, don't let yourself get hungry and then the food companies will take advantage of it and someone will be upset, not feeling good because they're hungry and they're going to tell them, oh, you need a Snickers. And so that's the solution to your your hunger problem. And it's not even true hunger because you haven't gone without food long enough or you've had enough food to not need that food.

[00:37:33.050] – Allan
But we haven't turned on those hunger signals. And obviously, you being out there for thirty three days, you turned on some hunger signals.

[00:37:41.310] – Michael
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways food has become a widget for a way to solve for other problems.

[00:37:48.590] – Michael
I'm stressed, I'm going to eat, I'm bored, I'll eat. And I just said boredom is good so don't just eat f you're bored. Find other ways to go.

[00:37:58.430] – Michael
But yeah, you know, we developed these evolutionary mechanisms that favor us to eat foods that are as calorie dense as possible. Now in nature as we evolved, you really don't find that many foods that are really calorie dense. I would think honey is the most calorie dense of the food you find.

[00:38:16.100] – Michael
But now we have foods that are engineered to be these, you know, globs of sugar, salt and fat that are amazing. And I'm not saying don't ever eat those, but it's they need to be balanced. You know, we need to to engage with hunger a little bit, learn that hunger and hunger is actually a good thing. Like you said, we've we've been told that, oh, don't ever feel hungry. You know, you're hungry or whatever it is. Oh, it's a good thing.

[00:38:40.640] – Allan
Yeah. And I think if you had to take several bee stings to get that high calorie dense food instead of buying it and like you said, a cute little jar that's shaped like a little bear, we probably wouldn't do it as much, but yeah.

[00:38:57.890] – Allan
So it's okay to be hungry, you know, like you said, I mean, we use the term starving, but that's not the right word. And even in your situation here, you knew you'd brought enough food to probably not starve. Yeah, but it also heightened your desire to do something. So it kept you motivated and driving rather than just saying, I'm going to go cuddle in the teepee for the next twenty days and hope I don't burn more calories.

[00:39:24.170] – Michael
Yeah

[00:39:24.830] – Allan
it got you moving. I got you guys doing more so that you could get that back, could get some food and that's that's actually a good thing. If you can find the waste are going to drive you to a better behavior, you've got to be hungry for it. And that's whether that's eating the right foods or getting your food. You've got to think of it in those terms.

[00:39:44.450] – Michael
Yeah. Yep, exactly.

[00:39:47.000] – Allan
Michael, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:39:56.630] – Michael
Well, we just talked about one of them, I think re-engaging with hunger can be important. I mean, I think that our food, how we eat today is one of the number one drivers of our health problems because people just eat too much and and they don't move enough. And I think figuring out ways to lose weight if you're currently overweight is going to be the number one thing you can do from your health, assuming you're not smoking or something like that.

[00:40:23.990] – Michael
I mean, look at the data and it's pretty overwhelming. And, you know, yes, there are people who are overweight, who are metabolically healthy, and that's that's great. But I do think if you look at most people, most of the time, some some ground can be gained by losing a little weight. And I think that food is one of the best ways to do that.

[00:40:42.710] – Michael
Number two, I would say. Is that I would love it if people would start thinking about how can I do epic things in my life? So for me it was this thirty three days in the Alaskan backcountry. I go out there, I experience all these different forms of discomfort. I'm in nature. For a long time, I experienced some hunger I have to put physical effort in. And I think that doing that can really move the dial on our health and happiness, but more importantly, it can change us internally.

[00:41:16.840] – Michael
So, as I mentioned before, it's like when I was on that runway first about to head up there. I mean, I'm just like overstressed guy. I'm afraid to get on this plane. I'm like, you got to be kidding me. We're going in that little thing. And at the end of that sort of going on this journey of having to face all these discomforts, I learned a lot about myself and it really transformed me and I would say moved the dial on a lot of things in my life, just stress levels.

[00:41:42.760] – Michael
You know, when I got back, I could see, oh, like waiting in a line is not a big deal, you know, because I had all these true dangers and things happen to me. And so I think for four people, it's, you know, what is something that you can do, get outside, exercise some way to challenge yourself that will help put all these things in perspective and also get you out and moving. So maybe that, oh, there's this mountain near my house that I've never climbed and I've never climbed a mountain before.

[00:42:12.580] – Michael
You know, it could be like a five, ten mile hike. But if you've never done that before, I think picking something that has sort of a chance of failure, chance you may not make it where you put yourself in a position where you have to dig deep physically and psychologically and emotionally. When you complete that, it's like a massive, massive confidence boost and just move your life in the right direction. And let's see, number three, let me think on this.

[00:42:39.130] – Michael
Oh, I would say to think about your death each day, which I realize that seems somewhat morbid when people hear it. But, you know, as we evolve, we really engage with the life cycle.

[00:42:51.070] – Michael
So I know for me, I went up to Alaska, we're hunting and we look for these caribou for like fifteen days and we finally get a chance where we, you know, I'm going to potentially be able to kill one. And I have the gun and I am super reticent about hunting this whole time because I'm coming from this world where our meat is presented to us. Totally, perfectly manicured death is death and the life cycle is totally removed from our lives, everything from our funeral system to how we react when someone dies and we're told to keep our mind off it.

[00:43:27.880] – Michael
So we're, you know, crawling out there and I get in this position where the animal is close enough within shooting distance. And I'm kind of hesitating, you know, because I'm like, oh, man, this is a beautiful creature. Don't ever engage with this kind of stuff. And began with Donny says, look, if you don't want to shoot, you don't got to shoot. But if you're going to shoot, you got to do it now.

[00:43:49.450] – Michael
And I pulled the trigger and the animal goes down. And my initial reaction is, oh my God, what have I done? It was this just sinking feeling. We go out and see the animal. It's down. And I just feel terrible. It's like, what what has happened here?

[00:44:05.680] – Michael
What have I done? And then we began to break the animal down to field, dress it to bring it back to camp. And my mind started to shift because you start to see that this living creature is going to provide life for me, for my family to give us food. And that death is ultimately part of the life cycle. Like it is a it is a clear realization for me that happened that, oh, you know, death is part of the life cycle.

[00:44:35.290] – Michael
And I started to research this when I when I got back from Alaska and I ended up going to doing some traveling around this and a lot of research. And when you look at the research people who think about death, which is something, you know, we're not we're told, oh, don't do that because that's morbid and that'll make you sad. When you look at the research, it actually makes people happier because it cuts out a lot, cuts a lot of the fat out of your life.

[00:44:55.930] – Michael
Right. If you just think once a day, oh, I'm going to die at one point, you're not going to get hung up on these stupid little things that we tend to get so anxious and hung up on every day, right. You start to see people start to focus on the things that are really going to make them truly happier. So I think the three things that I just named are kind of like this holistic system that can help with your mind, body and spirit more or less.

[00:45:20.200] – Allan
And I agree with all of those. Thank you. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book, The Comfort Crisis, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:45:29.020] – Michael
You can go to Easter Michael dot com, if you want to learn more about me, I'm active on Instagram as well: Michael_Easter. I try not to be too active on it because that boredom thing. But yeah, those are probably the two best ways to find it in the books available anywhere you get books. So

[00:45:44.470] – Allan
Okay. You can go to 40 plus fitness podcast dot com forward slash four eight five, and I'll be sure to have links there.

[00:45:51.370] – Allan
Michael, thank you so much for being a part of 40 plus fitness.

[00:45:54.610] – Michael
Hey, thank you for having me.

Post Show/Recap

[00:46:01.090] – Allan
Raz, welcome back.

[00:46:03.160] – Rachel
Hey, Alan, what a wonderful story from Michael and his adventure in the Arctic. My gosh, talk about discomfort. He had a lot of it.

[00:46:13.640] – Allan
He did. You know. Well, one first, we probably didn't dive into it enough in the conversation, but he was terrified to get on that little plane.

[00:46:21.850] – Allan
He was a little bit just a little bitty planes where he kind of felt like he was straddling the the pilot while he was sitting in that airplane with his equipment. And the plane he was on couldn't go and land where they needed to. So they dropped the two of them off in the middle of freakin nowhere, Alaska, and then take off to nowhere Alaska to basically shuttle these guys. And then they leave him out there. And I'm like, no, no, I would have been the second person on the plane.

[00:46:50.440] – Allan
So I'm not sitting out in the middle of nowhere by myself alone. That would have kind of got me. I mean, and I I've had some moments in my life where I was outside my comfort zone, did some things like, you know, look back on and say, well, some people would call that foolish, but, you know, damn, it makes a good story.

[00:47:12.040] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:47:12.940] – Allan
You know, like walking down into the basement with four Koreans, two of them in front of me, two of them behind me. And I'm there to catch them committing fraud, thinking I might not actually come out of this basement again. So you have those stories. And that's one of the cool things about this book, is not just that Michael sharing the stories, but he's sharing lessons about how being outside your comfort zone makes for a better life across the world, whether you're looking at your career, your relationships, your health, your fitness, everything great happens outside the comfort zone.

[00:47:49.210] – Rachel
Oh, my gosh, it's so true.

[00:47:51.070] – Rachel
He even drew a line. Right, towards adding discomfort to your life can give you health and happiness, happiness through discomfort. It's kind of a mind blowing concept right there.

[00:48:03.880] – Allan
Well, you've experienced it, so.

[00:48:05.920] – Rachel
Oh, yeah.

[00:48:06.310] – Allan
Let's talk about your first marathon.

[00:48:08.350] – Allan
How painful was that run? I mean, you know, at the end, you're that you know, you're you're at that that twenty two mile mark.

[00:48:17.520] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:48:18.400] – Allan
And you're watching other runners around. You quit. You're saying medical attention being given to people on the side of the road. And you're seeing also seeing people cheering you on.

[00:48:29.830] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:48:30.550] – Allan
But it's uncomfortable and there is be no shame in quitting.

[00:48:35.710] – Rachel
Right. Well, I'll even take it a step back and and say my first five K was out of my comfort zone, so as my first 10K, my first half marathon was in a Florida hurricane situation and my first marathon was just as difficult, although it was at the happiest place on Earth with this, which is Disney.

[00:48:58.860] – Rachel
My first full marathon was Disney. But but yeah, every single step of the way in my running career has been taking that one step outside what I know I could do, what I'm comfortable doing and seeing what can I accomplish, what can I do and and how crazy is that? And and then every time I accomplish something, I'm I'm stronger for it and more confident and and more confident when I want to try something new, like my first 50 miles, I'll be doing the summer.

[00:49:34.470] – Rachel
So that's one of the reasons why I embraced running and just share it with the world so much because it can give you so much back. It's hard and it's scary, but it gives you so much back.

[00:49:46.830] – Allan
Yeah. And we've become too comfortable to the point of, you know, we, we go for the convenience and so beyond just comfort, there's convenience and you'll hear the word comfort foods and comfort foods. Yeah. Typically are high in fat, high in salt and high in sugar, high in everything and all put together. And they make you feel good, they give you the feel good, comfortable feeling, you know, chicken and dumplings is one just comes to mind for me is they call that a comfort food and you know it's like okay, cool.

[00:50:23.070] – Allan
Occasionally having a little bit of comfort, not a problem, having it every single day, having the convenience of driving up and ordering a donut and a coffee on your way to work and then getting something from the vending machine because you're starving two hours later. And for the record, you're not actually starving.

[00:50:43.170] – Allan
You're just having a little bit of a sugar rush and a sugar crash. And that's what you're having. And it's not you're not starving. And so I think the recognition that if once we start seeing the comfort that's in our lives and we start challenging that and saying, is that comfort serving me? Or is that comfort holding me back?

[00:51:06.430] – Rachel
Hmm, good question.

[00:51:07.270] – Allan
We're almost blind to it because we're in it and it's just so easy and this is just the way it is.

[00:51:12.670] – Allan
And so, you know, the more you sit there and say, is this the right comfort for me to be in? So, you know, granted, I want my room cool at night so I can sleep better. So we have an air conditioner in our bedroom. We don't have an air conditioner in the living space of the bed and breakfast and so on. A hot day like today is probably somewhere in the 90s and it's really, really humid.

[00:51:37.090] – Allan
And so sitting in the living room with the fans going is right on that edge of comfortable. You know, I'm sitting in my living room sweating. Most people don't want to be sweating when they're sitting in their living room. You know, they're going to have the AC on. There can be very comfortable. They're not going to want to walk outside. I'll check the mail on my way to work tomorrow. You know, that kind of comfort.

[00:52:00.130] – Allan
And it's like, get out, you know, move around. Don't be afraid of it. So you sweat a little to shower before bed,

[00:52:07.570] – Rachel
Right.

[00:52:08.260] – Allan
So look at the comfort that's in your life and just say, is this this is serving me? Is just making me a better person? And there are times when comfort will there, you know, I sleep better when the room temperature is cooler. If we didn't have an air conditioner, then I wouldn't sleep as well.

[00:52:27.350] – Allan
We have a we have an air fryer. And the air fryer can do, you know, the toasting, the grilling in the baking, the the air frying, the broiling. And so it's very convenient, comfortable device to have sitting on our counter.

[00:52:42.720] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:52:43.310] – Allan
I don't use it to make Pop Tarts.

[00:52:47.510] – Allan
I use it to bake chicken or broil steak or do those types of things. So I don't get don't think that all comfort is bad. It's not it's just a function of saying, am I using comfort where where it matters.

[00:53:05.810] – Rachel
Sure.

[00:53:06.380] – Allan
You know, a good massage is comfortable. Having a comfortable bed is comfortable. Those are important things for your wellness. But, you know, having complete access to all this food, calling Uber eats every night because you can never, never getting hot, never getting cold.

[00:53:29.060] – Allan
You know, that's not how we were intended to to be. We were intended to be a little uncomfortable most of the time and really uncomfortable some of the time.

[00:53:40.070] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:53:41.060] – Rachel
I think we've lost a little of that satisfaction of doing certain things for ourselves. Like you mentioned, cooking a proper meal from scratch versus ordering uber eats or something. You know, if you can gather fresh ingredients and make this wonderful meal for your family all on your own, just think of the pride that you'll have, not even to mention the taste will be so much better than running out to a restaurant and getting some fat laden food. But you've got pride in your food.

[00:54:10.760] – Rachel
You've got a tasty meal. Plus it contributes to your health instead of taking away from your health. So it's just these little things like if you can allow yourself the extra time to take the time to get the good food to to prepare a nice meal, to take a walk to the store instead of a drive to the store, if you can just take a minute to reassess and maybe give you that little extra time to do these things by hand from scratch, just think of the satisfaction you'll have having accomplished all that.

[00:54:40.010] – Allan
Yeah. And I would even take it a step further and say, Okay, so so imagine you do this. You set up a plant bed in your backyard or a patio garden and you plant some plants if you have the space and in your city allows it, you raise some chickens.

[00:54:58.940] – Rachel
Oh, man, you know, that would be fun.

[00:55:01.850] – Allan
And maybe you go ahead in a co-op and you know, you can share in a buying a cow. You know, sometimes they'll do that like a local farm and you all go in together and say, Okay, so I'm buying half a cow and they're buying. So we all contribute our money and we buy the calves and we've paid for the food. And we have a responsibility to go out there on our days and feed the cow.

[00:55:25.430] – Rachel
Sure.

[00:55:25.760] – Allan
Take care of it. It's a co-op. We're all involved. We're all working together or we're doing it at home, raising the chickens, getting the eggs, growing the vegetables. So you're growing spinach and you've got the eggs.

[00:55:38.690] – Allan
And so, you know, you make yourself an omelet with the spinach in the eggs that you grew, that, you know, you took the little chick and you took the little seedling and you made yourself that meal from not just scratch, but from actual dirt, you know.

[00:55:59.220] – Rachel
How how amazing and how satisfying that is. That would be wonderful.

[00:56:03.810] – Allan
And it's not even just you. I mean, this was a part of your family. This is like how we spend a Saturday. You know, we spend the Saturday at my brother. They raise chickens. And so his little girls, they know how to care for the chickens. And they named all their so they have no intention of eating the chickens, but they eat eggs.

[00:56:22.330] – Rachel
That's awesome.

[00:56:23.550] – Allan
Yeah. Except for the the Fox incident. But we don't want to talk.

[00:56:27.430] – Rachel
Oh no, no.

[00:56:31.440] – Allan
But, you know, it's just kind of one of those things of this is a learning experience for them to be able to see where their food is coming from and recognize, Okay, this is you know, this is where all this stuff comes from. And it's not you don't just go to the grocery store to buy stuff.

[00:56:46.350] – Rachel
Oh, yeah.

[00:56:47.480] – Allan
You can you can do it yourself. And it's uncomfortable. It's extra work. It means, you know, a weekend where you're building something, you're putting, you know, dealing with soil and all the other stuff.

[00:56:58.950] – Allan
You're learning new things, teaching kids new things, but spending that quality time together.

[00:57:04.230] – Allan
And that's again, the value of discomfort can be the value of learning. It's a value of relationship. It's the value of better quality of pretty much everything in your life. And so that's what this book was really about. He's a fabulous writer. It's a really interesting story if you're anti-hunting while there is hunting in the book. But I want you to recognize the the concepts of it. He does talk about that because he had never hunted before.

[00:57:32.130] – Allan
So he's not pro hunting even now. But he wanted the experience. And he went out and did it while he doesn't know if he'll do it again.

[00:57:43.490] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:57:44.150] – Allan
But it was just an experience that he wanted to have. All of the meat from that animal was consumed by him and his family. So he did bring that meat home. So it was not just an unethical trophy kill that you see the pictures and you know that this was those were legitimate hunts for food when controlled by the wild life stuff.

[00:58:07.850] – Allan
But just recognize that he made himself very, very uncomfortable for thirty-three days, experienced a lot of things, has a lot of stories to tell. And he's a really good storyteller. So it's a really good book from that perspective too.

[00:58:20.750] – Rachel
Wonderful. It sounds wonderful. What an adventure he had for sure.

[00:58:24.620] – Allan
All right, Rachel. Well, I will talk to you next week.

[00:58:27.230] – Rachel
All right. Take care.

[00:58:28.230] – Allan
You too.

[00:58:29.540] – Rachel
Thanks.

Patreons

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

– Anne Lynch	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Deb Scarlett	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Debbie Ralston	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander
– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

How we really burn calories and lose weight with Dr. Herman Pontzer

Less...

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

Let's Say Hello

[00:03:29.260] – Allan
Raz, how are things?

[00:03:30.490] – Rachel
Good. And how are you today?

[00:03:32.530] – Allan
Well, good and bad.

[00:03:34.510]
I was pretty excited spending the time with my family. That's been really cool. And I also wanted to kind of make a short little announcement. I'm launching a challenge and I actually am planning this went ahead because I actually had a challenge and I didn't get a chance to announce it on the podcast because I just decided to do it sort of like on the spot jump on things and just really didn't have time to give preannouncement. But I've got another one in the works.

[00:03:58.570] – Allan
I'm going to be launching a 7-day mindset challenge.

[00:04:01.880] – Rachel
Oh, that's a good one.

[00:04:05.770] – Allan
Over seven days there will be a topic for each day and a little recorded video for each day that you get an email and all that. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcasts.com/challenge, you can sign up for the free 7-day mindset challenge.

[00:04:21.190] – Rachel
Awesome. That sounds fun.

[00:04:23.230] – Allan
So again it's 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/challenge and we've got it there. Now if you missed the functional fitness challenge which was the one I did kind of on the spur of the moment, the reason you didn't hear about it is you're probably not a part of our Facebook group. And that's where a lot of this stuff gets announced, like at the last minute, those types of things. So I would go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group and request to join the 40+ Fitness Group.

[00:04:49.240] – Allan
And that's where it's easier for me to communicate these kind of little one off things that are going on really quickly. So you'll keep up with us. Rachel's on there. I'm on there. We'll answer your questions. We have fun. We have weekly challenges. If I were across something cool, like a 90-year old woman doing deadlifts, I'm going to publish that stuff and we're going to we can talk about it. So it's a really cool place to be.

[00:05:11.110] – Allan
And, you know, my favorite group for sure. But yeah, you can go there, you'll learn about things. 40plusfitnesspodcasts/group if you want to join the group. And then if you want to check out that Mindset Challenge go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/challenge. So that's the good news.

[00:05:28.450] – Allan
The bad news is one of my staff actually has contracted covid and she's the one who works most of the shifts. So, she pulls every shift that she can possibly work and so she pretty much mans the gym. 80%, 90% of the time and my other employees over Panama City, so he's not available. And so what it means is the week that I'm visiting with my family is also a week that I'm pulling complete full day doubles at the gym.

[00:05:57.320] – Rachel
Oh no!

[00:05:57.940] – Allan
Not so much fun, but it is what it is. That is what it is. I'm just right now just hoping that my employee gets through this without any complications. She's young and healthy. So I had the strongest thoughts that she is going to get through this so easily. But it's just kind of one of those things that it's that close. It's right here.

[00:06:20.100] – Allan
Someone that was working in the gym on Saturday is now at home with covid, and she can't come back for a couple of weeks. So she's going to be tough a couple of weeks for me. I'm going to try to go ahead and see if I can't hire someone to come in and work some shifts. We'll see.

[00:06:36.390] – Allan
By the time I get them and get them trained by two weeks will be over.

[00:06:40.380] – Rachel
Right?

[00:06:41.050] – Allan
Yeah. But anyway, it is what it is.

[00:06:43.380] – Allan
But so, yeah. A little bit of sad news on this side, but I am going still going to try to make the most spending time with my daughters while they're here and it is what it is. So, you know, I can't change what I can't change. I will keep charging on.

[00:06:59.160] – Rachel
That's right. Well, I hope your employee feels better soon, and I hope you get to squeeze in some time with your family. It sounds sounds like a tricky balance, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.

[00:07:09.090] – Allan
How are things for you?

[00:07:10.460] – Rachel
Good, good. Just crushing some miles up here. Weather's been great. I did a couple of long runs last weekend testing my fueling and and hydration and feeling pretty good. So things are good. All right.

[00:07:23.970] – Rachel
So you want to go ahead and have that conversation with Dr. Cole?

[00:07:27.030] – Allan
Yes. Let's do this.

Interview

[00:08:04.680] – Allan
Dr. Cole, welcome back to 40+ Fitness.

[00:08:07.440] – Dr. Cole
Thank you so much for having me.

[00:08:09.150] – Allan
This is number three. Lucky number three.

[00:08:12.120] – Dr. Cole
Yeah! My goal is to be the top guest. The most visited guest.

[00:08:21.870] – Allan
I will say I did a thing with Jimmy Moore where I interviewed him one time. He had three books that I wanted to talk about when I was early, early on. It was one interview, but it was broken into three shows. So I think you're ahead of him by now or tied with him for a number of interviews. But he's going to have you beat for shows for a while. So sorry about that.

[00:08:43.980] – Dr. Cole
I'm just kidding. I'm not that competitive.

[00:08:46.350] – Allan
I know. Anyway, your book is called Intuitive Fasting: The Flexible Four-Week Intermittent Fasting Plan to Recharge Your Metabolism and Renew Your Health. And the thing I liked about this was there's so much information out there about fasting now, it's sort of the hot topic, if you will, and as people are looking at ways to get healthy and lose weight, and so they say, okay, have you tried fasting?

[00:09:11.630] – Allan
Have you tried intermittent fasting? Have you tried water fasting? And one guy was promoting air fasting, where you don't even drink water for 24 hours. How, I don't even understand.

[00:09:21.620] – Allan
But fasting is becoming kind of this thing that is out there. And it's a good thing. It's an important thing. It's something that's been a part of our culture forever. But with all the information that is out there, it's really difficult for someone to discern what is a healthy fast and what is just a fad/scary thing like the cleanses and the fast and things like that.

[00:09:48.710] – Allan
You're talking about intuitive fasting. Can you give us just a little bit of what that's about?

[00:09:55.310] – Dr. Cole
The book is as anything that I write the last two books before this. They're just outpourings of my clinical practice. So even right now, I'm in between consulting patients. Ten plus hour days. I started one of the first telehealth functional medicine centers in the world over a decade ago. So that's my main focus. Like, that's the context of where I'm coming from, is I get to see labs and tons of different types of people all around the world get healthy with different tools within the functional medicine toolbox.

[00:10:23.420] – Dr. Cole
So this concept of intuitive fasting is something that I've been really working on with patients for a long time. And it's paradoxical on purpose, right? That's why I called it intuitive fasting, because to the modern Western metabolism, fasting will be anything but intuitive. And it's really a conversation about two things metabolic flexibility, which is physical, physiological infrastructure, if you will, or a foundation for authentic, mindful eating because you're building satiety signaling and blood sugar balance and lowered inflammation levels and proper gut brain axis signaling.

[00:11:00.650] – Dr. Cole
But it's also from a mental, emotional, or even spiritual perspective, what's our relationship with these things? And can we bring a more mindful approach to fasting? Because you have these two worlds, you have this intuitive eating world or mindful eating world on one end, and then you have fasting, which is typically the biohacking in the alpha. The more is better and these extreme sports of wellness, if you will, that I think the fasting community really focuses.

[00:11:33.290] – Dr. Cole
But I think that the context of this is somewhere in the middle, just like what I try to do with Ketotarian, a plant-based keto. How can you make something that works for the average person? How can you really make something sustainable that leverages the amazing benefits of fasting, but in a way that's accessible for people and sustainable for people and it's a healthy approach for people. So those are the conversations that I'm having with intuitive fasting.

[00:11:57.650] – Dr. Cole
It's a mindful approach to intermittent fasting, but it's also building metabolic flexibility so you can have authentic, intuitive fasting and authentic mindful eating, meaning that fasting and eating will be more intuitive as you gain metabolic flexibility. Not because it's some restrictive, obsessive thing. You can just go longer without eating because your blood sugar is more stable, because you have more agency over your health and you can eat food because you enjoy it. Food doesn't control you. Your cravings don't control you. Your insatiable hangriness doesn't control you.

[00:12:33.260] – Dr. Cole
And that's that what but the other aspect of intuitive fasting has, what it's about.

[00:12:38.570] – Allan
Okay, let's dive a little bit deeper into metabolic flexibility. Exactly what does that mean and why is that going to make intuitive fasting easier for us?

[00:12:49.220] – Dr. Cole
So most people in the West are metabolically inflexible or metabolically rigid, so they're stuck in this sugar burning mode, right? And we're all born when we are born. We're all born metabolically flexible. It's our birthright. Babies are producing ketones for proper neurological development and they're burning sugar as well, obviously. And over time, we lose that birthright.

[00:13:13.160] – Dr. Cole
We lose that ability to burn both sugar and fat. And that flexibility is lost. And we are stuck in metabolic rigidity or metabolic inflexibility. Many people have different various degrees of this, but it's some form of insatiable cravings and hungriness and fatigue and weight loss resistance and different inflammatory problems. So that's a hallmark of the modern Western living. Right.

[00:13:40.580] – Dr. Cole
And that's what researchers are really looking at, this epigenetic-genetic mismatch that our genetics haven't changed in ten thousand years. But, yeah, our world has changed very dramatically in a very short period of time. So we're looking at this evolutionary mismatch at the heart of what's driving a lot of these chronic health problems, different inflammatory problems, autoimmune issues.

[00:14:02.900] – Dr. Cole
So those are the people that I talk with 11, 12 hours a day where we can when we start to gain metabolic flexibility again, we start to reclaim our birthright and start to get more in alignment with our genetics and decrease that chasm between genetics and epigenetics. That's when you start feeling great again.

[00:14:22.100] – Dr. Cole
That's when you start regaining energy, when you start feeling like there's a congruency between how you feel on the inside and the body that you live in. And that's what metabolic flexibility is. It's being fat adapted. It's been keto adapted. But as its name implies, metabolic flexibility. It doesn't mean being in ketosis all the time. It's ability to tip, to dip into sugar burning mode when you want to or when you need to.

[00:14:52.850] – Dr. Cole
And that's really another layer of the conversation that I'm having with intuitive fasting. It's the name of the game as far as I'm concerned for most people isn't to be in ketosis all day, every day? But it is to use it as a tool to have the flexibility to burn both. And I think that is part of the context of the conversation that I tried to have with Ketotarian that I just wanted to have in a deeper way with this book beyond just Ketotarian way of eating, but just how to use all these amazing tools and intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet really two sides of the same coin because they're both supporting beta-hydroxybutyrate. There's two different ways to produce this amazing signaling molecule to lower inflammation and improve brain function and become a fat burner if we need to.

[00:15:37.580] – Dr. Cole
But it's something that I get so excited about clinically that I wanted to share with everybody else.

[00:15:43.100] – Allan
I know for me, I do something I call seasonal ketosis. So I have a season where I go into ketosis and I have a season that I come out of ketosis. And that used to have a lot to do with college football season and then Christmas, Thanksgiving and my birthday. So I just OK, from August, the end of August until the middle of February, I get to get past the Super Bowl. I'll not worry about ketosis.

[00:16:06.530] – Allan
I still generally eat the same foods. So I just want to throw a beer in there, here and there. Someone's offering me something pretty cool at a tailgate. I'm not I'm a chow down on it. And I had that metabolic flexibility. So I know that's one benefit that you get from being flexible. But as far as intuitive fasting goes, what are some of the benefits that we could expect to get by incorporating something like this into our lives?

[00:16:31.790] – Dr. Cole
So both a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting, as I mentioned, they both support beta-hydroxybutyrate, which for people that aren't maybe fully aware, it's known as the fourth macronutrient in the research area of protein, fats, carbs and ketone bodies. So they both support this fourth macronutrient. And that's why when you look at the research of the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting, you'll see a lot of the similar pathways because they're both supporting ketogenic diet as fasting, mimicking in many ways, it's mimicking the state of fasting and then fasting, obviously fasting.

[00:17:07.370] – Dr. Cole
So I'm pairing both of those with an intuitive fasting I'm pairing as a therapeutic tool, Ketotarian, which is a clean, sort of Mediterranean ketogenic way of eating, pairing that with it flexible intermittent fasting. So when talking about intuitive fasting, I put together a four week protocol in the book that is used as a way to gain metabolic flexibility.

[00:17:33.720] – Dr. Cole
So some people may scoff at that, like he's talking about intuitive fasting and he's giving us a protocol. But the goal of it is actually to train your body, to become more flexible and to learn about your body, too. The analogy that I use in the book is this proverbial yoga class for your metabolism, if someone's inflexible, meaning their hamstrings are tight, their musculoskeletal systems inflexible, they go to yoga class and they are going to think yoga is completely unnatural. Yoga is not for them. There's something wrong with this. It's not yoga's fault. It's the person's inflexibility. Most people's metabolisms aren't flexible. So by using this flexible fasting plan in the book or gaining metabolic flexibility just like yoga classes improves musculoskeletal flexibility.

[00:18:25.920] – Dr. Cole
And we're vacillating. It's ebbing and flowing. It's not doing the same thing. Each week is a different intermittent fasting window to start to train the metabolism, train the mitochondria, train the body itself to become more flexible.

[00:18:43.620] – Dr. Cole
What I also wanted to integrate into the book is the fact that fasting can be a medicine right therapeutic tool to support this fourth macronutrients become more metabolically flexible. But we're also using fasting as a meditation, too. So how can we learn more about our body?

[00:19:05.610] – Dr. Cole
How can we learn more introspectively on our relationship with our bodies, our relationship with food and how we use food in our life and growing that mindfulness muscle when it comes to food and fasting?

[00:19:18.690] – Dr. Cole
Because in my clinical experience, when you gain physiological metabolic flexibility, but you pair that with the mental, emotional, spiritual mindfulness of using food and fasting as a mindfulness tool. Those are all the ingredients of what you need for what I call in the book food peace, the sort of inner stillness on what serves you and what doesn't serve you.

[00:19:43.020] – Dr. Cole
And you have this agency over your body and agency over food and not in a controlling way, not in a restrictive, obsessive way, but in a very resolute knowing way. This food makes me feel great. I want to have that. I can go longer without eating because it makes me feel great and I'm more metabolically flexible. And I know what foods don't make me feel good. I know what things don't make me feel good to have the discernment to see that, too.

[00:20:08.190] – Dr. Cole
And food, you're not bound by that next craving and insatiable hungriness. And I think that's really the goal of this, is having that food peace, having that inner stillness that I think most people want because most people feel out of control. Their bodies feel out of control when it comes their relationship with food. There's so much inflammation and things going on in people's bodies that they physiologically are out of control, actually.

[00:20:31.800] – Dr. Cole
And all of that stuff is proverbial noise on a physiological level. That way, when we start calming that noise, you can have that that inner discernment on what your body needs and having that intuition when it comes to food.

[00:20:48.120] – Allan
Yeah, the way I kind of experienced it was that one one. It gives you just an intense freedom. You're working eleven hour days and if something comes up and you can't eat your lunch when you thought you were going to be eating your lunch because you're metabolically flexible, you just say, fine, I'll eat during my next break, which is two hours away. And that won't upset you, though, emotionally affect you. You'll be able to do that.

[00:21:13.290] – Allan
And then the other thing that I gain out of fasting when I do it is that it actually kind of, like you said, clears up the noise. So I actually can go back and remember what actually being hungry feels like. And I can actually be in that moment and say, okay, yeah, this is this is not me wanting a Snickers bar. This is me legitimately needing nutrition for my body. And then I can honor that and have a good meal and then I can actually because there's no noise, listen to what my body is telling me about that meal. And and actually response. So I was like, yeah, instead of running on get the Snickers bar and know I'm going to feel like crap. Two hours later when I go on the sugar crash. Now I'm going to go have something more wholesome, something better for me. And then two hours later, I'm not actually even necessarily thinking about that meal anymore because I feel great.

[00:22:07.710] – Allan
And but you've kind of cleared up that noise and you have the freedom to decide, okay I'm not going to go for what's convenient and eat that Snicker bar. I'm going to go ahead wait the two hours. And I'll be fine.

[00:22:22.350] – Dr. Cole
Yeah, well said, and I think that when you start feeling so great and you start having that agency over your body and over your health in a healthy way, it's really cool to see that when you create a firm foundation and a center and you centered yourself physiologically and mentally, emotionally as well, you can pivot from that space, but you have that awareness of what your center is. And it's really cool to see.

[00:22:47.070] – Dr. Cole
Whereas maybe you maybe people, you know, have something that they know something won't make them feel great, but they will even then most for most people and they have that center, they'll be able to go there and know I can I won't have as much of this room because I love feeling great more than I think I missed something that didn't make me feel good and that can go back there.

[00:23:08.700] – Dr. Cole
Or most of the time they actually won't go towards those other things, not because it's restrictive and that they can't have it. They know they can have whatever they want, but they just love feeling great more than they miss something or they thought they missed something that didn't. That's a complete paradigm shift. So it's not about this list of do's and don'ts. It's complete free will, but it's a bad tradeoff to go towards something that makes you feel really lousy.

[00:23:32.520] – Allan
I agree.

SPONSOR

This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Naked Nutrition, what does getting naked mean for supplements? It means no unnecessary additives. It means premium sourced ingredients without fillers. So you don't need to compromise on your diet or your goals. That's what Naked Nutrition offers.

Back in 2014, a former college athlete didn't understand why protein powders and other supplements had so many unnatural ingredients. If they're supposed to be health supplements, why can't you understand the ingredient list? Naked nutrition was started with five single-ingredient supplements, including the best selling Naked Whey, which has only one ingredient whey protein from grass-fed California cows and the bestselling Naked Pea, a vegan protein made from one ingredient raw yellow peas grown in the U.S. and Canada.

The company has grown to offer over 40 products, but the vision of sourcing the best ingredients using a few of them is possible and being transparent so you know exactly what's going into your body is the same today as when the company was founded.

Whether you're working towards losing weight, having more energy or improving your endurance to become a better runner, what you put in your body directly impacts how you feel and the results you get. Naked Nutrition is committed to shortening the steps between their farms and you. Get naked. Visit naked nutrition. Today, it's nutrition with nothing to hide. Use the discount code 40plus and get 10% off your first order. nakednutrition.com.

[00:25:19.010] – Allan
Now, one of the things I think that will turn some people off about fasting is they're like, well, I'm on this exercise program or I'm training for this this 5K and I need I need that Guu. I need that that stuff. Can you talk a little bit about exercising during intuitive fasting?

[00:25:39.510] – Dr. Cole
Sure. So I talk about this at length in the book because that's a common question. So we all come in at this point of trying a tool like this at different points of our health journey. We all have different levels of metabolic inflexibility or metabolic rigidity. And it's one of the reasons why I started the book out with a quiz. And the quiz is adapted from questions that I asked patients. And I wanted people to kind of get a subjective metric for them to see more or less like how is their metabolic flexibility.

[00:26:11.090] – Dr. Cole
So if someone is severely or significantly metabolically inflexible they may want to take it easier at the start, right? And not work out as much whenever they're learning their bodies, learning to burn fat for fuel and their bodies being trained to be more become more flexible. Now, keep in mind, the specific subset of intermittent fasting that I'm exploring with. And intuitive fasting is not caloric restriction. It's time compressed feeding or time restricted feeding. You're getting all the calories that you need just in specific windows.

[00:26:48.490] – Dr. Cole
So from most of these lighter to moderate, flexible, intermittent fasting windows, it's actually not that difficult to work out. Week three in the protocol could be probably be the one that people have to make a personal decision on, that some people still will be fine. It's an almost OMAD week in week three. But it's nonconsecutive, so meaning you're doing it every other day, not every day. And OMAD is an acronym that stands for One Meal A Day. But it's almost-OMAD because I reference some studies in there, but basically making it a little bit more flexible to give you more windows to eat and not trying to get all your calories in in a one hour window, which is the more traditional OMAD, 23 to 1 fasting/eating window.

[00:27:31.870] – Dr. Cole
So an almost-OMAD approach is a little bit more flexible. So you could work out within that two to four hour window if you wanted to not be doing a Farstad workout. But regardless, that's the deepest fast that's there. So I'm not doing any multiple day long fast, which is a bit of a different thing.

[00:27:47.920] – Dr. Cole
I think one of the reasons why this type of intermittent fasting that I'm exploring in the book is so accessible is because people can live their lives. They don't have to make an overhaul of everything in their life or feel like they can't live and engage with activities like exercise. They can still do it. It may take some planning and it may take some leaning in at the beginning. I go into detail in the book, but my basic advice is if you have a certain level of activity level that you're used to still do it, you don't have to stop doing that. But I wouldn't start cross fit and intermittent fasting at the same time either.

[00:28:26.194] – Allan
New Year's resolution happening right here.

[00:28:32.020] – Dr. Cole
So many people, right? With the best of intentions. But it's not that you can't do that either, but like become a little bit more, not a master at it. But just at least you are used to doing this and then lean into it. Because we want these to be sustainable changes. This should not be a fad crash thing. I love that people get excited for this stuff. I don't want to rain on the parade, but we want this to be sustainable and ultimately to what's the paradigm shift here, right? It's about how could I love my body enough to do things that make me feel great.

[00:29:07.060] – Dr. Cole
And sometimes it's not excitement that's fueling someone to do all the things at once. And more is better. It's actually shame and obsession that they think, I just feel so low about myself that I manage to do everything. And I would rather someone start one thing than lean into it so it can be sustainable because as I talked about so much throughout the book and with my patients is you can't heal a body you hate. You can't obsess your way into health. So start the cross fit maybe a little bit later and just start the intermittent fasting and the food for now.

[00:29:40.450] – Allan
One of the cool things about your program that I really like is, as you say, you might be into week two and you're looking at week three and saying I don't know that I'm ready. I'm not feeling the energy. I'm not where I'm supposed to be. You just repeat week two. Kind of get yourself based. And once you feel like, Okay, I've mastered this level, if you will, then then I can go in attack week three and now you leave this program with kind of a tool chest to say I felt the best during week three and so I'm just going to do that or I felt the best during week four.

[00:30:13.150] – Allan
And so I'm just going to keep doing that. Or I just know that I have this tool chest of a four week program that I can dust the book off in three months and run through it again. And see where I am. I like that it's flexible. I like that it's something that's accessible and you really do a good job, in my opinion, of walking them week by week to get them to a point where they've learned those tools, learn those skills and as you said, kind of reconnected with who they are.

[00:30:43.310] – Dr. Cole
Thank you for recognizing that. I agree. It's like you're learning about your body because you've sampled all these different ways of fasting. So you will know. And that's bio-individuality. That's what I'm talking about with authentic, intuitive fasting, is you'll be able to evolve the protocol to suit you because we are all different. But on the other note, like, it doesn't have to be four weeks. I mentioned in the book, like if you want to repeat week two for two weeks, make it a five week protocol. That's OK. And these are all therapies and tools.

[00:31:12.320] – Dr. Cole
And sometimes people need to rest in a certain phase a little bit longer. It should be partially self-paced as long as you're progressing, even if it's incremental progression for any wellness tool. This is a good principle is that as long as you're progressing, even if it's incremental, sometimes it's okay to rest in one area and not feel like you need to lean into it too fast, too soon. Because that can make you feel like, oh, this is a fit, you're a failure at it and it's not. You just rushede through something or your body wasn't ready for it yet.

[00:31:43.260] – Allan
Dr. Cole, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

[00:31:52.460] – Dr. Cole
Number one, it's I think that kind of in my earlier statement, I think that I know it's a little bit more abstract and ethereal, but I really think it's important with this conversation about wellness when you're talking about food as nutrition and fasting as a tool for to heal the body, is that we have to realize why we're doing these things. It's not a way to punish yourself. It's a way to shame yourself into wellness.

[00:32:18.170] – Dr. Cole
It's a way to I love feeling great so much, I value and respect my health so much in my body, so much that I want to be good steward to that and do things that make me feel good to have that paradigm shift, because avoiding foods that make you feel like crap isn't restriction. It's self respect. I think that that's a core like genesis of sustainable wellness.

[00:32:43.800] – Dr. Cole
Number two, I would say experiment with intermittent fasting. One of the blurbs of the book is. It's from Alejandro Younger, who is a cardiologist, brilliant friend and mentor of mine. I'll paraphrase what he said, but I thought it was an eloquent way of summarizing my thoughts on this is that, like, our world is in desperate need of a pause.

[00:33:05.100] – Dr. Cole
And I think that we're always like more, more and more like do this even healthy things like more is always better and take more supplements, do more of this, do more of that. And it's all the consumerism, too, and all that stuff. And I think that on many levels and a macro and micro level, I think that the world needs a little bit of stillness and introspection and simplicity and paring down.

[00:33:31.830] – Dr. Cole
We were talking about this before we started recording, just even like on a like moving to something simpler and living a simpler life. I think that that fasting is that on a physiological level, too. How do we create just some stillness and simplicity in our life to allow our body to actually do things that will naturally do if we give it the chance to do so? So I think that that's another way to support wellness.

[00:33:54.810] – Dr. Cole
And three, I think foods that will be nourishing and are really nutrient dense, and that's what I tried to really advocate for, an intuitive fasting is not try to fast your way out of a poor diet. This should not be this disordered eating disguised as a wellness practice. I really want people to use food as medicine and use fasting as a medicine tool, a therapeutic tool, and they should go together. There are two sides of the same coin.

[00:34:22.790] – Dr. Cole
And then I would say this, too, like I'm more than three, but that many people have really impaired GI issues and they have underlying gut problems on the spectrum, this larger spectrum of these problems. And I would say focus on soups and stews, cooked foods. In the book I call them Break the Fast Meals, where they're just gentle on the gut, good transition meals out of the fast. But honestly, those break the fast meal sections I think could be way more. They could be used way more than just as a transition out of a deeper fast. They can just be used as just nourishing, gentle on the gut foods that I think would benefit most of society today, because I see it rampant as these underlying GI issues that are that's driving inflammation levels systemically, these these gut centric components to inflammation.

[00:35:14.870] – Allan
Thank you for that. I want to take one step back and I want to paraphrase what you said, because it's brilliant. I'm going to go back and listen to it again and probably write it down. And it was the moving away from foods that are not good for you is not restriction it's self self-respect. I love that. Thank you.

[00:35:33.380] – Dr. Cole
It is a paradigm shift because people are like, oh my gosh, I can't have that. No, you can have whatever you want. But do you love feeling better or do you like that food that doesn't. Like that's the freewill that I want people to have. I always say and I don't want to pick on Starbucks, right? Because I go to Starbucks. I have no problem with it. But you go in Starbucks and I had a patient tell me years ago they were like, how do you look at all the pastries and stuff in the glass thing and and not go for that stuff. And to me, I had to be like I knew that there were desserts in that, but I honestly couldn't even tell you what's in there. There's not even a thing that I even look at because it's why would I want to go for something that's not going to make me feel great?

[00:36:17.840] – Dr. Cole
And that's what I want people to get to that place of consciousness and awareness for themselves. It's not like you can't have it. It's just like that's really not going to make me feel good. Why would I want to go to something that's not in alignment with how I want to feel?

[00:36:30.620] – Allan
Yeah, it's like when you're walking through the grocery store and you walk down the aisle and you see cans and bags and they would have food in them and they're colorful labels and they say healthy. And they say all the words that our food says grass-fed beef all the things that we would want in our food. But we don't see it as food because we know it's not food. And that's kind of how I look at when I go into Starbucks and I'm looking at the pastries, I'm like, okay, that's not that's not food, in my head because I don't even equate it as food anymore. So I think that's where I'm coming from.

[00:36:59.750] – Allan
Dr. Cole, if someone wanted to learn more about you, more about the book Intuitive Fasting, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:37:06.890] – Dr. Cole
They would go to drwillcole.com. On Instagram at Dr. Will Cole, all the places that people go on social media. But yeah, there's the links to the books, the tele-health clinic there. Everything's at drwillcole.com.

[00:37:23.060] – Allan
Cool. You can also go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/484 and I'll be sure to have the link there. Dr. Cole, thank you so much again for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

[00:37:33.680] – Dr. Cole
Thank you, my friend.

Post Show/Recap

[00:37:39.380] – Allan
Raz, welcome back.

[00:37:40.880] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, that was a really interesting interview, I am interested in the fasting that he was talking about and and how that helps. Fasting is a really hot topic these days, too, and sometimes it's hard to sort out the fact and fiction around fasting. So that was a really interesting interview.

[00:38:03.410] – Allan
I think the core of it with fasting is we've got to get past this this belief system that we have to eat every waking moment. We are not cows out in the field. We were we were not meant to graze. We were meant to hunt and and gather and feast and then stop eating. That was our natural course of things. And now that there's convenience stores and fast food restaurants and a freezer full of food, a refrigerator full of food and a cabinet full of food, some of which is not actually really food is available. That nutrition, calories are just so readily available to quite literally I bet you can. You're right now probably within, I'd say, 18 steps of all the foods your body would need for a month.

[00:38:56.030] – Allan
And that's never existed in the history of man. And so having these intentional fasts. And teaching your body what it actually feels like to be hungry. Mm hmm. And what it feels like when you're doing okay. You know, that's you just you need to get used to that. That's something. Being hungry is a normal state, you know, and we just don't. We don't. And so that's one of the cool things about kind of going through something like this intuitive fasting program.

[00:39:26.810] – Allan
It's a four week intermittent fasting is that he pushes those buttons and he gets you to try a new thing. And some of it will work very well for you. Some of it might not. But you can find where you belong on that spectrum of eating all the time versus not eating often at all. Whether it's you go all the way to OMAD or you're having two meals a day. We talked with Brad Kernes not long ago about two meals a day or just some other eating strategy.

[00:39:58.610] – Allan
These are these are strategies that you can try that will improve your health, potentially help you lose weight. And there's just a lot of other health benefits to doing this just and just getting in touch with your body, being a lot more mindful about the food that you do put in your body. So you just don't say I'm starving. So I'm going to go ahead and pull into the McDonald's while I'm starving. They tell you not to go grocery shopping when you're hungry. Don't go to McDonald's when you're hungry either.

[00:40:28.790] – Rachel
Good point! Yeah. I'm Keto, like I've mentioned before on your podcast. And so when I get up in the morning, I'm rarely hungry. I don't feel hunger. And so I work out fasted and when I get home from a run, I might feel a twinge of hunger, but usually I'm more thirsty than hungry. So I usually will wait until about noon, maybe even one before I eat anything.

[00:41:00.020] – Rachel
And that's just kind of been my M.O. But sometimes I have the old habits come back where I'm like, I've got to go run an errand at ten or eleven. I better eat something before I leave, you know, it's like it's that old habit. I really should have breakfast, I really should have lunch. It's that time of day maybe. You know, I don't know what it is always. But sometimes I get that that old habit will come back like I need to eat something before I go run my errands. It's kind of a weird thing.

[00:41:31.230] – Allan
It may not entirely be habit, and it's just something listening. Like I said, once you get comfortable listening to your body, it can be one of those things of saying, well, what you don't want to be is you don't want to be in a hunger state making decisions. And so if you're out and about doing your errands and you're really hungry, what food choices are you going to have available to you?

[00:41:54.380] – Allan
And if you know that, you're just not going to or let's say, your work schedule and you really only get at a lunch hour and you really don't get breaks beyond that, despite what the regulations require. But let's just say you just get your lunch break. You need to eat during your lunch. If you know that you're not going to be able to make it to dinner, skipping that lunch, you need to go ahead and eat your lunch.

[00:42:16.040] – Allan
You may not be entirely hungry, but if you don't have another option in your schedule bound, then then eat. There's nothing wrong with that. That's one of the the cool things about getting comfortable with fasting is you can figure out where your hunger is. You can figure out what your limits are. I'm not a huge fan of the extended fast that run more than twenty-four hours. And predominantly, if you're going to do something like that, you need to be working with a health care professional that understands fasting because it's a very different animal.

[00:42:50.870] – Allan
But when you start getting to those extended fasts and some people will get into them and fast for days and weeks and I know I know I couldn't do that entirely. I probably. I could physically do it. I've got enough, you know, got enough energy mass around my my body that I would not run out of energy, but it would just be one of those things are saying, at some point my body's probably going to tell me, okay, now you're being stupid.

[00:43:19.850] – Allan
So I am metabolically flexible in a sense, you know, in that I can kind of go back and forth. And if I'm really working hard, I can eat a lot of carbs if I want to. But at the same time, I choose not to most of the time because, I don't always want to be go, go, go, go, go to burn off those extra carbs. But you can. If you're an endurance athlete, you probably could come back off that run and handle carbs, not just the leafy green carbs, but the carbs, because you you've burned through glycogen in your muscles ad your liver and what insulin is going to do when it does spike, because it still will spike when you eat that, you know, that high carb food, it's going to put it where it needs to be first and it needs to be in your liver and it needs to be in your muscle.

[00:44:14.220] – Allan
Now, if you're not active or you eat more than your activity level earns you, then, yeah, the next place for it is fat. We filled up the muscles, filled up the liver. Not here we go, it's fat. And so if you do that consistently over time, you will put on some body fat. But putting on a little fat during a day. This is not a tremendous problem for most of us. In fact, we want we want that capacity to to be able to store low fat when we need to and to pull a little fat off. So it's just really about finding the balance. And that's why I'm not someone who's going to eat keto all the time.

[00:44:53.760] – Allan
I feel fine when I'm in keto, but I also feel fine eating carbs. As long as I don't go completely berserk and do go completely berserk for months. That's that's just me. And everybody's going to be a little different.

[00:45:11.520] – Rachel
Yeah, it is. Dr. Cole mentioned bio-individuality. And we are so very different with the types of food and quantities of food that we can consume. I mean, we are very different, metabolically speaking.

[00:45:28.790] – Allan
Oh, yeah. There was a there was a study in Israel, what they did was they basically put those glucose monitors, those those constant ones, you know, the ones that constantly and they're just on them. We want you to log everything you put in your mouth, including the time that you do it.

[00:45:48.690] – Rachel
Wow!

[00:45:49.140] – Allan
So people would eat a banana. They pull the data and they say everybody that logged that they ate a banana, what was their glucose response? They were looking at the foods and one of the ways that we like to talk about foods is we'll talk about glycemic index and we'll talk about glycemic load. And so they were looking at those relationships to glycemic index and glycemic load and they were looking at people's response.

[00:46:17.540] – Allan
And what they found was all over the charts. People who were eating the banana. Some of them, their blood sugar shot up way up, and some of them, the blood sugar barely peaked at all. They they just they came to realize that we all have an individual response to food. You see it in a lot of other places where someone sensitive to gluten, they may not be a celiac, but they are still sensitive to gluten. And there's other people who are sensitive to milk because they have a lactose intolerance. So we all have these little unique caveats. And as I mentioned before, as we go through this, you need to be doing an experiment of one, you try a food and that's why I am a big fan of things like this, like fasting.

[00:47:07.480] – Allan
But I'm also a big fan of doing these elimination diets. And so one of Dr. Cole's other books is Eliminate, I think it's called eliminate (Inflammation Spectrum). But basically it's an elimination-style diet. And he has eight foods that you eliminate for eight weeks. And it's just basically an opportunity for you to learn how your body reacts to food when you reintroduce it. So you take it away and see if you feel better, which most people do when you're just eating meat and vegetables.

[00:47:42.400] – Allan
So real food, that's what it does. Elimination diets just they take you back to the essence of what we're supposed to eat, real food, meat and vegetables. Get back to meat and vegetables. Nobody got fat eating meat and vegetables. If you're overweight, you didn't get there eating meat and vegetables.

[00:48:00.520] – Rachel
Yeah, good point.

[00:48:01.520] – Allan
So you get down to that point, you start losing weight, the inflammation starts going down, you start feeling a lot better. And then maybe you can add back in the legumes, maybe you can add back in the dairy and see how that how that affects you. And so those elimination diets. And then he has Intuitive Fasting. I wouldn't try to do both at the same time, but doing an experiment like that is going to teach you a lot about how your body responds to food.

[00:48:28.480] – Allan
Everybody I've ever interviewed, whether they are vegan or carnivore or raw paleo or whatever, it all comes down to the quality of your food and it being real food. Those two those two factors, they'll say ours is better because people are eating more vegetables. Can't someone who's keto eat more vegetables. Yeah, they could.

[00:48:50.370] – Allan
It's like that's not what they do. They eat bacon. They eat all this other stuff. I'm like, not all of us. Not all of us make bacon a staple of every meal as a part of going keto. Some of us actually just have real food as a part of going keto and you know, so to break it all down, if you're eating real food, intuitive fasting can be a really good way for you to manage your food, to manage your health.

[00:49:17.140] – Rachel
Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Sounds like a really great book.

[00:49:21.850] – Allan
It was and it was kind of interesting because, you know, I just interviewed Dr. Cole not not really even I think a year ago. And it was like already have another book out. And it's like, well, it's one of the advantages of covid.

[00:49:34.120] – Allan
He's like, I wasn't seeing anybody on the weekends that we weren't doing anything. And he's like, so on the weekends I sat down and wrote a book and I'm like, I got it. Yeah. If I hadthat that kind of spare time and I actually thought to use it that way, I could have probably written a book, too. I didn't but he did.

[00:49:53.410] – Allan
And I say this very good book, Dr. Cole is really, really smart. He you know, he practices what he preaches and so he uses this with his patients. These are things that strategies that are not just founded in science because they are it's also stuff that he's doing with his patients and seeing great results. So, yeah, that's that's the other side of this is this is not pie in the sky. I looked up a couple studies that confirm what I think, and that's what I'm writing about. This is someone who actually practices medicine with people, getting them healthy, using food as a primary source of that. And yeah, his books are really good.

[00:50:35.050] – Rachel
Awesome. Well, it's nice to see this put into practice and real results coming out of it. That's pretty awesome.

[00:50:40.960] – Allan
All right. Well, Rachel, I guess we'll go ahead and give it a go and I'll talk to you next week.

[00:50:45.590] – Rachel
All right. Take care.

[00:50:46.900] – Allan
OK, bye.

Patreons

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

– Anne Lynch	– John Dachauer	– Margaret Bakalian
– Deb Scarlett	– John Somsky	– Melissa Ball
– Debbie Ralston	– Judy Murphy	– Tim Alexander
– Eric More	– Leigh Tanner

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

The inflammation spectrum with Dr. Will Cole

Less...