And there's basically three aspects to set points that I think people forget. They try to focus on just one or two of these. And they don't really get to the meat of what's going to help you break a plateau. This is your body, your environment and your mind. So I'm going to go through all three of these today and talk about why these affect your set point and what you can do about it. Okay. The first one's body, and it's kind of obvious, you know, the human body is meant to keep itself healthy. And to do that, it does a thing called homeostasis, which is basically balance. Now balance is really, really important in the body when we're talking about things like body temperature that has to stay within a very tight range or blood pH. It's like a very, very tight range. Or blood sugar.

Parts of our body basically adapt and they try to stabilize so that we can stay in a healthy state. And if it gets out of this state, then bad things happen. So how does that affect body weight? Well, body weight is also one of those systems. Our bodies were designed to store fat for famine. So we went through a period of feasting. Our body would allow us to put on this body fat for a future fuel for the times when food wasn't so plentiful cause our, our Hunter-gatherer ancestors didn't always have access to plentiful food. So they often would put on weight in the and, and in summer and fall when a plant matter and vegetables and fruits were much more abundant. And then when they weren't we would start to shed that body weight over the course of the next several months.

But if we started losing weight too fast, our bodies set wake would come in and say, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. You can't burn through all the fat that fast. We need to slow you down. And so your system start to change. And systems are basically all the things that are going on in your body to include the hormones, the, the catalyst for transactions for w there are happening in your body, their chemical reactions vitamins and minerals. Because your body is just basically this series of chemical reactions. And so if you're starting to lose weight too fast and your body senses that your hormones are going to adjust a and your body is going to start functioning differently if you have a professional athlete, women will see this a lot with professional athletes at the elite level. They start training really, really hard and they get their body fat percentage down to a very low number.

They do this because carrying weight, particularly in an endurance sport is costly. It slows you down. So losing a few pounds as an elite athlete could be the difference between winning and losing. So the women will get down to an extremely low body fat percentage and as a result they'll stop their period because their systems are basically telling them this is not a good time to rear children. If we're in a famine period, we're not going to have children. And the same kind of thing happens within the systems of men to It's just easier to explain this one because it's so apparent what's happening. But our body is a function of systems and those systems are always seeking to find that balance. And so if you've been eating a certain way and you start losing weight you body might stabilize and that's okay.

We just to have to put some strategies in place to try to break through that before I go too far down that rabbit hole of the body and talk about those solutions. Let's talk about the other two aspects of setpoint. So the second aspect of setpoint is environment. Now, every day we're in, we're in an environment of, of different things and some of them are very easy for us to notice, like the temperature of the room or if we're in an elevation, we might notice that the oxygen level is a little low. So if we walk out in the cold as many of you are experiencing right now and you're not wearing enough clothing, you're very likely to start shivering. That's, that's your body's reaction to your, your environment and it's, and it's very noticeable. If you're trying to do an endurance event and you move from from one elevation up to a much higher elevation, you may find that your performance drops.

And again, you can usually attribute that performance drop to your environment. So there are things in the environment that are definitely noticeable immediately. And then there's things that we don't notice, the chemicals, the, the pesticides, all those things that are out there in our food, in our household products. And then just general pollution. So I want to talk a little bit about that. There's a few that you know, I think are really, really important. One is the plastics, you know bisphenol a is in so many plastics and if you're heating and using those or allowing those to get warm, it's very likely you're taking in that chemical, which is a kind of an estrogen in our bodies. So it creates problems for us particularly for trying to get stronger or lose weight. So understanding if you're being exposed to things like that.

What's in your household cleaners? What's in your skincare products, what's in your hair care products? All those chemicals that we're applying to our body or using in our home they have the potential to disrupt our systems and as a result, send us into a kind of a cascade against the balance in the, in the wrong direction. So if we're trying to lose weight or get stronger and I'm going to keep going back and forth on those cause I think they're both very, very important. And I think you can do both at the same time. You're going to want to start paying attention to your environment. Another part of the environment that we don't pay a whole lot of attention to is light and UV rays. If we're not getting adequate sunshine during the day, which again, during the winter that's, that's a little bit tougher, then our bodies are not going to react the way that they should.

Our circadian rhythm is just not gonna flow the way that it should, which is going to disrupt our hormones. It's going to disrupt, potentially disrupt our sleep. So we might find that if we're not getting the sun, we're not getting the vitamin D, we're not getting all the different things that our body needs. So getting good natural light during the day turning off the computers earlier at night, all of those are environmental things that could potentially be disrupting your, your systems and, and if you're not taking care of those, very likely it is jeopardizing your performance and your ability to lose weight and get stronger. The final aspect of setpoint that I'd like to talk about is the mind. And you know, the mind is probably the most powerful aspect of the, of them all. Because if you don't believe you can do something, you absolutely can't.

It's just, you're not gonna be able to do it. So if, if you're stuck and you feel stuck and you say, well, I can't lose weight, I always lose weight and then I gain it back, you know, that mindset is going to hold you back. So if we're going to police our mindset, we've got to look at two things. The first is the things that we're listening to, things we hear, the things we see, the things we read. If you're on Facebook, reading all these articles about obesity and the crisis and how you know, this is making you fat and nights making you fat, and it's all that stuff's driving you crazy and it's, it's actually stressing you out. Stop. Just stop. The best way for you to know what's going to affect you is to just try it. Whole foods, natural foods, people will tell you, you can try this supplement or try that thing or take this pill.

None of going to be a longterm solution for you. So what's your listening to? What's your, what's your reading? What's your seeing? Let some of that go, you know, focus on the things that will definitely move the needle for you. You're in a plateau right now, and if that's the case, you need some action. You need to find that big rock as we say, and, and go ahead and start working on that. But if you're on all these little goose hunts about, should I be taking vitamin D, should I wait? Should I be vegan or wait? Should I, you know, drink eight glasses of water a day? If you're running around looking at all those tactics, it's very easy to get yourself lost in them and not really see which ones might be actually beneficial to you. You can't throw 13 things that at, at this at once and understand what's going on in your body.

It's just the too much and you don't, you can't parse through that data. There's too many confounders. So slow down. It's cool when you like to read and understand health and fitness. Believe you me, I'm reading about a book a week in health and fitness and I'm much more as far as I go on the internet and read blog posts and things that are going on there so I can keep kind of stay abreast of what's going on. But as it comes to applying it in my own life, I like to keep it simple. So I'm not necessarily acting on all of these activities and all these things that folks are talking about in their articles or to me personally, I try something. If it works, they use it. If it doesn't, I, I throw it out. And then finally within the mind, there's the inner dialogue.

How do you talk to yourself? What's going on in your head when things aren't going your way? You're in a plateau or you know, for weight loss. And so you haven't lost a pound and maybe even you went up a pound last week. And what's your inner dialogue telling you right now? Is it being nice to you? Is it, is it forgiving you? Because the step forward for any stumble at all is three. It's three things. The first is you have to forgive yourself. And then you have to come up with a plan of action to go forward. And then you have to act. And if you don't do all three of those, you're, you're destined to repeat exactly what you just did. So don't beat yourself up so much. Try to have a kinder, nicer inner dialogue. And if you find yourself, you know, not hitting a PR when you go to the gym every time, that's OK.

You're going to have good days and bad days. The fact is you were there and that's better than most. So look for the good of what you're doing and try to have a nicer, kinder inner dialogue. It's going to go a long way towards helping you be successful. So we have the body, we have the environment, and we have the mind where, where should we spend our time if we want the most bang for our buck. And I'd say, if your mindset's off, I would start there. I really would because if you don't have a good mindset, a lot of this stuff is just not going to happen for you. You don't, when my book, I go through wellness GPS and in there I'm very specific that you've got to have self-love to do this. You've got to make a commitment to yourself. You've got to want this really, really bad.

And when you do, then you have to just wake up and you gotta say, okay, self-awareness. You know what, what is going to hold me back? What has held me back in the past? Have I lost 20 pounds and then plateaued and then just gave up. And you know, pizza party for everybody is if that's how you've approached it in the past, you need to put in some strategies to kind of think about, well how do I reverse that trend? How do I not cause then I'm going to hit a plateau. It's going to happen. There's no way around it that, you know, any kind of changed. Your body is just not going to be linear. It's just going to balance out. It's going to plateau. That's what our bodies are designed to do. So if we want to break it, we gotta change it.

And so at some point we, we know we have to adapt, our body adapted. Now we have to adjust, adapt, adjust, adapt, adjust. And that's the path forward. So starting with the mind, get that right first. Now, once you're comfortable that you have a good mindset for what's necessary to break this plateau. Now we want to focus on the body. What are the tactics and things that we're already doing and are there any other tactics that we should consider doing? For example maybe a, I've lost down to a certain weight and I, and I want to lose a little bit more, but I'm not. And I say, okay, well, you know, I, I noticed that I pay attention when I drink milk. I feel a little bloated. And now that I've been having more milk I feel bloated more often. And so maybe the, I've got a problem with milk.

And so I said, okay, well I'm gonna eliminate dairy products for three to four weeks just to see if, if that makes me feel better. And low and behold, what you might find is three weeks slit, well eight are you weigh less and then you go ahead and you have a glass of milk or some cheese and boom, a pound hits the scale. You're like, Oh got it. I have an issue with dairy. And if that's the case, you probably in weight loss is your goal. You probably want to start eliminating dairy and keeping it out of your diet or at least keeping it to a very, very low amount such that you're not hampering your results. So, and maybe what I'm finding is I'm just not getting stronger and so it's time for me to mix my program up cause it's got kind of plateaued on my, my squad, I've kind of to it on my bench press.

So it's like, okay, well I'm going to go ahead and do now is I'm going to do more a weighted dips. I'm going to get on that leg press, I'm going to start pressing some really heavy weight. And I'm gonna start doing some front squats so I can really get my core strong. And by doing those things for a period of time, I'll cycle back around and find out my squat has now improved. And so periodization is what we call that in the weightlifting world. And so if you're, if you're stagnant, things are not happening. It might be to change up just your lifting programs. Something as simple as that, but your body is going to adjust and I mean adapt and then you adjust. And so when you do that adjustment, now you're putting your body into a different series of events and your body will likely change.

So that's the body. Now, the last one, the environment, those things that you know are around you. Let's eliminate those. You know, make sure you're getting good sleep. Make sure you're turning off the computer early enough. Make sure you're getting enough natural light as much as you possibly can to keep your body in good function and in a good circadian rhythm. If there's chemicals around your house, consider changing those out, get some, get some cleaner cleaners. You know a lot of people around here on this Island particularly like to make their own cleaning solutions and their own care, hair care and skin products. So that's not uncommon for people to do that with essential oils and coconut oil and things like that. Lemon juice and you know, vinegar, they make a lot of their own stuff and so that can come out to be a lot healthier for you in the long run.

The more of these chemicals that you can eliminate for your life because that might be one of those kind of like final things. It's probably not going to be your big rock initially, but at some point it might just be the reason that you're plateauing. So take the time to go through all three of these. That self-awareness practice that we do in the, in the wellness GPS is exactly geared for you to take the time to do this. So if you find yourself stagnant, it's time to pull that GPS back out and go through it one more time. Get yourself really set, get that self-love going and then start getting into the self-awareness of what do you think is actually the problem that's keeping you on this plateau. And then now you're ready to set some proper strategies to go forward.

Patreons

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

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somsky	– Ann Lynch
– Wendy Selman	– Jeff Baiocco

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Breaking a Weight Loss Plateau

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• New Orleans,
• Asheville, North Carolina,
• Asheboro, North Carolina,
• Merrillville, Indiana and
• Pensacola, Florida.

So if you're in any of those areas, hit me with an email, Allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com. Love to spend just a little bit of time with you, get to know you a little bit better and we can talk shop health and fitness of course, but as we get into the holidays and things are going, typically what happens is our whole schedule kind of gets turned on its ear. Our whole routine, the things that we do on a day-to-day basis become very, very different as we're spending time with family, as we're preparing meals, as we're doing office parties, the whole bit. And so I'm going to go through each of the four kind of pillar areas of fitness and health. That's gonna include food, exercise, or training, sleep and stress because all of these can be adversely affected by the things that are going on during the holidays.

And as I have this conversation, you're going to hear me kind of go back to two basic tenants. The first one is that we need to plan. If you don't plan, you know, the quote, failing to plan is planning to fail. Okay. So we're gonna talk about planning for each of these and then we're also gonna talk about strategizing because your approach to things could be very, very different than my approach to them based on our needs and based on our past. So let's go through each of these and kind of talk about what's going on with each.

Okay, I'm going to start with food cause that seems to be the big one that I think a lot of people struggle with is that, you know, now there's all these kinds of different foods. There's the, the cookies and the pies. And the potlucks and the parties and the, you know, the family get-togethers and all the traditional meal things that we would, we're eating that we wouldn't eat normally. Okay. Plus just the volume, you know, it's very easy to overeat. It seems to be a basic theme that happens every Thanksgiving for most people.

And so as I said with food, you need to have a plan. Okay. And that plan needs to include what you are going to eat and what you're not going to eat. Because to say that you're not going to eat aunt Mabels dessert is probably a falsehood. You are going to eat it, but you need a plan to make sure that you don't overindulge. So how do we do that? Well, that's where we fall back on the strategies. Okay. Now what I know is if I go in to Thanksgiving dinner or a potluck or a party, I have to be very clear about managing my plate.

Okay. And how do I do that? Well, one is I make sure that at least 25% of my plate is a protein source. So I'll look for a Turkey or ham. I'll try to make sure I get something that doesn't have all the glazing and all the other stuff on it. And so it's just basically trying to get a meat. Okay, that's 25% of my plate right there. 50% is going to be vegetables and not vegetables with goops and stuff on them. You know, there are none of these, uh, the onion crumbles and that kind of thing or not mixed up in some kind of a soupy mix. Basically vegetables. And if I can't find the vegetables then that's going to lead me to my next one though we're to talk about. But I'm going to try to fill my plate about half of it with vegetables and that leaves me with about a quarter of my plate where I can kind of sample some of the other things.

So if there's a, you know, a little bit of yam, it's got a little bit of a marshmallow on it. Okay, fine. I'll have a little bit of that. If there's a dessert Aunt Mabel made, I'm going to have a little bit of that. But at this point I'm showing her I don't have much room on my plate. So they're little dab of that. That way people see the you're at least paying attention. You're enjoying yourself and it doesn't look like your not eating or not participating. So manage your plate. I know it's very difficult all that food's in front of you, but if you have this strategy in front of you where you say, okay, this is the lineup for my plate and I'm allowing myself this little quarter to have those little indulgences, that's your detour. That's the detour that you chose to take and it's a much better one.

Now, I talked earlier about what if these foods aren't available? Well, I typically like to either try to host or bring a dish so when I go to my mother's for Thanksgiving, one of the things I'll do is I'll request that I make turkey. Okay. And this way I know how it made the turkey. I know you know that I've made it in, in the way that it's a better quality turkey, typically organic. So I know what I'm getting with the turkey. And then so I'll have the turkey, my mother will also cook a ham, so there'll be ham there and they'll be Turkey. And I typically just stick to the turkey. I will probably have a little bit of that ham, but as I said, that's my quarter where I can kind of go do a little bit of that. And then I will often also bring a vegetable dish.

And so this will be something like where I'll go out and I'll, I'll steam some broccoli and maybe I'll go ahead and make a cheese sauce that they can pour over it if that's how they want to eat it. But I'll do mine without that. Maybe I'll put a Pat of butter on there just to give it a little bit of flavor, sprinkle it with some garlic powder, something like that. So basically at that point I have my vegetable. I also, and I sent this recipe to my mail list and you should have gotten it a couple of days ago. About about two weeks ago was on a cauliflower rice. And so sometimes I'll do things like that, make a cauliflower rice or something like that that'll go with my meal pretty well. And so if I'm doing those things, then that's three quarters of my plate and now I can go around and I can have some of the other things that my family traditionally makes for Thanksgiving and it doesn't look like I'm not participating, I'm there with them and I'm enjoying the meal.

So have a plan, have a strategy, know what's made you fail in the past and try to work things out that are going to help make sure that you're staying on track. We get invited to a lot of things. Just because you get invited to something doesn't mean you absolutely have to go. If you have to show face like Christmas party with the company, you kind of need to be there. Great. But try to manage what you're doing while you're there. Go in with that plan. Go in there with that strategy so you know that the foods that you're eating is not gonna derail you too much. Okay. It's a, it's a departure you've chosen, but don't just go wild.

Then the next thing I wanted to talk about was activity. Obviously if you're traveling out of town or you're off work, you kind of set your routine different, maybe the gym that you work out at as closer to your office and not so close to your home. Maybe the gym's closed certain days that you would normally like to work out. So again, it's the plan and strategize and the planning means I, if I know the gym's closed on a particular day, maybe I need to do a body weight workout. Maybe that's a good day for me to consider doing something cardio or balance or mobility related that I don't do on a regular basis. But that need to do, I know I need to do more. Then I'll do those things. If you're traveling, pack those a resistance bands and plan yourself a resistance band body weight workout in your hotel room before you go over to the family or in your bedroom before you come out and spend time with family. Go on one of the Thanksgiving Turkey trot runs. Uh, that happen almost everywhere. Do some things like that that you wouldn't normally do, but do them with a plan.

And then the strategies would be if there's things that would typically keep you from working out, again, have that accountability, have those strategies, whatever that might look like for you. You know, you might tell a friend, okay, we're having the week off and we're both going in these two directions and we were going to promise each other that we're going to work out three times this week, even though this is a holiday week, we're going to do three workouts, and then you email each other or text each other and say, Hey, did you get your workout in? Yeah, I've got mine. You got yours. Okay, great. I'll call you on Wednesday. Those kinds of things. So you've got an accountability, you've got a strategy that's going to keep you moving forward rather than falling back into that quicksand that the holidays can often become. So just make sure that you have a movement plan as you go into the holidays so that it's not just sitting around and talking to family.

I used to set up a football game with the kids after the meal and sometimes my brothers and sisters would come out and play and that was so much fun. But as the kids have gotten older, as we've gotten older, fewer and fewer people would go out there. And so standing up there by yourself with a football in your hand isn't a whole lot of fun. So I'll probably be going on, probably doing some cardio work and probably do some mobility work during that time, uh, because that, that tradition went away. But have a plan, have a strategy and know what's gonna work for you as you go into the holidays to make sure that you're continuing to move. You need that movement. Okay.

Sleep. Often during the holidays, there's a lot of activities going on, but we have days off and so I'd encourage you to use this as an opportunity to focus on the quality of your sleep. This is a really good time of year to do that. The sun setting, you know, the days are shorter. This is a good time for you to figure out a good time to go to bed, to wake up when you want to wake up. And so I'd encourage you to take advantage of the time off. Don't make it all about chores, all about family going around and doing all this stuff. Try to figure out your sleep. Sleep is highly under utilized as a tool for health. We are mostly sleep deprived. If you're not getting seven to nine hours of good quality sleep each night, you are sleep deprived. Even if you say, I don't need as much. I'm telling you, you probably do, you just don't get as much. You can still function but you're not functioning optimally. So when we start talking about plan and strategy, okay, the planning would be trying to figure out the bedtime.

The plan would be trying to know that you, you want to avoid certain things that are going to disrupt your sleep. Like staying up watching TV too late, having the lights on instead of using more of uh, natural light. And then of course alcohol. If you're having more alcohol during this time of year than you normally would, that's probably adversely affecting your sleep and it's just something to consider. So as you get into the strategies, it's like, okay, how do I not sit down and binge Netflix or the lifetime channel with all of the Christmas movies, which I'm pretty sure my wife's gonna start playing pretty soon here she can find a Netflix series where she can start watching all this Christmas stuff. I'm pretty sure that's what's going to be happening around my house. So let's not binge on the TV and the Netflix.

Let's use this as an opportunity to really get to sleep earlier, get the sleep we need, try to figure out a strategy or an approach that's going to not only work for us during these holidays, but something that we can actually carry forward into the new year and say, okay, when I go to sleep, it's at 8:30 I typically wake up between four and six and I feel great. I get a good night's sleep, I get the good sleep cycles in and I feel really good. So 8:30 is my bedtime. Now, do I always go to bed at 8:30 no. Sometimes things come up. My wife wants to do something. We want to go out and have dinner and dinner kind of stretches a little long. So I don't make my 8:30 all the time, but generally I now have that routine and that's, that's more normal for me than not. And the holidays are really good time for you to try to figure that out. What works best for you?

Okay. The final one is stress and the holidays in and of themselves can be very, very stressful. I for one, can put my hand up and say, yeah, first time I made broccoli or bought broccoli to cook for Thanksgiving dinner. And my mother was a little frustrated with me. She's like, well, we all have all this food now. We're going to have all this wasted food because you're making an extra vegetable. And I was thinking, well, I still want these vegetables. So I did. I cooked the broccoli low, frustrated, but there was a little stress there. And so just recognizing that getting together with people, going to office parties doing this and that is kind of stressful on the body. So take some time. You know, a lot of us do holiday time, we get vacation, we're away from work.

We're away from a lot of the stressors in our lives. But in the background that stress still runs in our head. I know if I'm going to be away from work for two weeks, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to pay the Piper for that one because there's gotta be a lot of work to catch up on when I get back to the office. I was one who liked to work right up to Christmas day and most people had taken those days off that week. I like to work those days because the office was slow. I was able to get in and get a really well organized going into the new year. And that actually allowed me to enjoy my Christmas a lot better. So my plan had always been go ahead and work up to new years, I mean Christmas Eve and do these things that are going to make the next year easier. So that was scheduling, cleaning out my inbox, answering any like lingering little things that I had put off and it was a very, very productive time for me.

So that strategy paid off, you know, go on into the office, work your regular days right up until that point. And then when I took the week off, I felt so much better. Now when it came to family stress, I just had to realize what I can control and what I can't control. And then I also came up, you know, I use this mantra and I've talked about it a few times I'm sure, is if something is not going to be affecting you in five years, then it's not worth worrying about for five minutes. It just isn't. There's nothing that's going on now. If it's not going to be affecting you and your not going to remember it in five years, it's not a big deal. It's a, it's a little deal. And you're making a big deal out of a little deal. So take some time to think through what are the, what are the real things that matter in your life?

That's, that's one of the cool things about the holidays is the time with family and a time or doing these things. It really is a great opportunity for us to get our straight to get ourselves organized, to find ways to maybe have less stress next year. And so if you can do any of those things, then that's a win in your health and fitness. So try to stay in control, try to be relaxed during the holidays, enjoy the holidays, don't let stress rule you. And then when you get to a point where you can get ahead of stress, boom, now you've got something going on. So that's kind of it. You know, as we go into these holidays and I call it the holiday quicksand, you get into there and sink, sink, sink, sink, sink. And unfortunately most of us as we get into the holidays, we're going to gain some weight.

We're not going to move as much because our routines busted. We're not going to sleep as well. We're not gonna, we're gonna be even more stressed because there's still the office stuff and then the work stuff and then there's everything else that we've got to get done and everywhere else we gotta be, you know, you'd think 3000 miles of driving, I'd be all stressed out about it. Not a bit. I'm going to be downloading all kinds of audio books and podcasts and I'm going to enjoy that time. And yeah, that's a lot of time to be sitting in a car. But I'm going to make sure I have movement built around that. I want to make sure that the food that I'm taking in nourishes my body. I'm going to still be getting all the sleep that I would normally be getting the same way I would get it.

You know, just I'll get up early and we'll hit the road. My wife can sleep in the car, I can get the driving done and we can get to our next destination in time for me to get to bed in time. And then the stress again is, you know, just have, I have plans and strategies, things I'll be doing. For me, sometimes driving is actually more meditative, particularly when you're on the interstate and you're just driving down the interstate. It's just for me it's just a good time to get into my head and just relax and think about all the good things that have happened this year. Like you like having you on this podcast. A podcast has grown this year and I'm just really excited about that. We're going to coming up on our four years of of doing this podcast and this is, this is episode I think 408 so pretty excited good things are happening and I want you to have a wonderful holiday season.

Patreons

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

– Tim Alexander	– Judy Murphy
– Randy Goode	– Debbie Ralston
– John Somsky	– Ann Lynch
– Wendy Selman	– Jeff Baiocco

Thank you!

Another episode you may enjoy

Making it through the holidays

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Allan: 02:22 Oh you got the rights back to him. Okay, cool. That's totally cool.

Denise: 02:25 They're all on my website now, which is so cool. I picked my favorite 200 shows that I did and, and most of them of course are in the Caribbean cause the water's so turquoise so beautiful in the background.

Allan: 02:40 Oh yeah. And that must been hard picking your top 200 cause I know I just recently went through an exercise trying to pick 10 out to talk about on episode 400 of the show. And it was like, you know, choosing my favorite baby, its hard.

Denise: 02:56 I know, and it makes you look at your career too. It's like wow, I did this many shows.

Allan: 03:02 And helped and helped thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Maybe millions. I mean as like I said, your shows were at, your shows were totally awesome. And like I said, it was just one of those things where I knew that people of all ages would just feel really, really comfortable doing what you are asking them to do because of the approach you had. Uh, and then even now, today you still focus on helping everybody but a little bit more bent towards folks our age, the 50s and sixties range. Uh, but still it's over 40 is great. Um, and, and so, you know, in all this time, I mean, it's over 30 years. Uh, you've been in the fitness industry. Uh, things have changed from, you know, we're no longer were that girls are no longer wearing leg warmers and, uh, your, your videos are no longer on VHS. Um, but what else can health and fitness has been like what you'd say is the big changes over the course of the last 30 years.

Denise: 03:54 Well, the biggest change now is all about wellness and recovery and taking care of your body and really tuning into, um, being, you know, gentle like yoga, pilates and foam rolling and really, uh, you know, yoga, a little more meditation. That, to me has been the biggest change. But of course I'd been through all the different trends from high energy aerobics to step aerobics to, you know, all of the trends in the last 30 years. But the key thing is, you know, we have one body, we have to take good care of it. We have 640 muscles of the body to keep strong and tone and firm and um, to find something that you enjoy in exercise or it becomes part of your lifestyle. And to me, walking is one of the best and most easiest ways to really get in great shape. And you truly could get in wonderful shape if you walk fast for 30 minutes. So I'm really into walking and I come back into my house and I do some targeted exercises for my arms, my tummy, my legs, and then stretches too. So all three components are important. And throughout the years they've just changed up mainly through, you know, boxing was hot for awhile. So there's been so many forms of fitness, which are all great because they kind of keep you motivated.

Allan: 05:24 Yeah. You know, I actually miss a step aerobics. I, when I was in the army I would, I would take a step aerobics class. It's just a way to continue to improve my fitness beyond what we were doing as our normal training. Um, and I really miss, I kind of miss it cause I still see the steps sitting around as some of the gems but they're not being used for the same thing anymore.

Denise: 05:43 Yeah. Now it's more used for interval training, jump box. You know, you jump up on it and do lunges off it. It's not as choreographed, which is fine too cause you're still working your hips, thighs and butt step. So my daughter now is falling and my fitness footsteps and she uses my old step that I used to use in step aerobics. Now she uses it as a prop for, you know, some pushups, more targeted exercises but more like interval training.

Allan: 06:15 And I think you touched on something that was really, really important and that is finding something that you enjoy. You know, the variety that's been offered over the course the last 30 years from, you know, now there's the hit training or like you said, some of the box and the jumps in the pile of metrics to some of the old stuff like now that they can log onto your website and see some of those, those videos, uh, you know, they've got their 30 years worth of, uh, some really cool variety to keep themselves engaged. Plus, like you said, um, you're really big on the walking, and just the normal movement to keep yourself in shape.

Denise: 06:48 Yes. And also, um, I really think it's important that everyone knows that how important stretching is to keep our muscles and our tendons and the bones and the joints healthy and stretching and target toning, lightweights are so important. It really makes a difference, especially as we age to stay strong and keep our joints healthy and the muscles surrounding the joints are so important. So that's why I do, you know, all new workouts also for her, for women and guys after 50. And those are more straight training and more stretching. And then you could get your cardio from so many variety ways. And then long as you're getting two to three times a week, some type of targeting strength training for your muscles.

Allan: 07:39 And I think that's one thing I read as I was going through some of your stuff is that, uh, you're not, you're not one that says, okay, we need to spend two, three hours a day, uh, doing this to get fit.

Denise: 07:52 I only work out for 30 minutes a day, but I do it most every day and I'm very consistent. And consistency pays off, I promise. 30 minutes, that's all it takes in a, usually you're awake about 16 hours of a day. So what's 30 minutes for your health, your well-being, your mental, your emotional. It truly is a, one of the best ways to get rid of stress, to help fight heart disease, exercise every single day if you can, it is fabulous. I truly do try to get 10,000 steps in a day. And when I do, I feel so proud to go, you know, 12,000 steps. I'm like, yes. So it's also a great way to, you know, track yourself to see how well you're doing and keep, you know, challenging yourself.

Allan: 08:40 Yeah. Now you've, you've always generally taken care of yourself, that was your career. Uh, so you don't want to know first I guess you were an athlete, you're an athlete in college, and then it was your career. And what has changed the way that you train today versus when you were in your 20s and 30s?

Denise: 09:01 Well, you know, I pay attention to my body every day, more in a different way than I'm 62 now. And I feel fantastic. I can do everything. I still do cartwheels and hand stands and, but I, I truly do believe I, uh, I've changed just as simple things such as recovery, things like I do use a foam roller. I love to stretch. I use stretch bands. I do love a massage every month, I tried to get a massage. So self care is important and especially as you age and if you're exercising, you want to feel good. And these are some of the easier ways I take an Epsom salt bath. Never did before in my life. So there's these little things I do, but the main focus is the same that I continue working out most every day. And I honestly feel like I change a little that I do more yoga, I do more pilates for strengthening of the abs and the course as it is, you know, menopausal time for women is so important to keep our abdominals nice and strong, keep our tummy flat and it keeps your back healthy.

Allan: 10:16 Absolutely. Now let's talk about nutrition. What's, what's changed in your nutrition since you 20s and 30s had any major changes there?

Denise: 10:24 Yes, of course I eat differently in the way of, I made sure every day I have a little bit of either chia seeds or flax seeds cause it's Omega three that they're so good for us helping inflammation. I also make sure I have anything Omega threes in my diet. I'm really into salmon twice a week and I eat mostly in the certain, you know, top 10 organic fruits and vegetables. I make sure that I'm eating the good clean ones and I eat 80% very well and very healthy and then I still have 20% treats and that would be a glass of red wine. It would be a little bit of ice cream. So I do enjoy treats and I do, um, treat myself every day and little something and I don't overdo it though. Portion control as I age is very important and um, as we all know, you know, our metabolism slows down as our muscle tone slows down. So we need to up the muscle tone and you know, lessen the amount of calories you eat. So portions are very important to me now and I do watch them more than I ever did.

Allan: 11:41 Okay. Do you, do you track macros or anything like that?

Denise: 11:45 Yes, I eat healthy most of the time anyhow, so I'm very aware of um, the proteins I'm eating, how many grams of protein I eat. I try to eat 70 a day, um, and I'm trying to get more plant protein, but I do have once in a while. Um, you know, grass fed red meat once in awhile and I only buy organic chicken and grass fed chicken and grass fed eggs. And, um, I love avacado I love healthy fats and as you age, I believe in, you know, nuts. I do eat a lot of nuts and more plant based. I will, I have a uh, lettuce grow, which is like a farm stand at my house outside and I pick everyday basil and I'll just eat it right. Leaves the, uh, also parsley. So I make sure I you get a lot of greens and of course of a day more than I ever used to. So, you know, we know now through research how important eating and food is medicine and as we age it's even more so. So I've been very conscientious about that. And um, all my new eating plans on my website have included some new ideas. I have a whole eating plan. If you're a vegetarian, if you're gluten free, if you want to eat heart healthy. So I have seven different ways of an eating plan for 10 weeks to give it a try.

Denise: 13:18 Or you can eat just like me. Very portion control and eating many of the food groups, but everything in moderation.

Allan: 13:26 Yeah. I tell people, I'm basically food agnostic. As long as you're getting good quality whole foods, you can be vegan, you can be, you know, carnivore if you really want to. But just making sure you're getting good variety, making sure you're getting good quality. Um, and then, which recognizes food cause so much of what's available to us in the grocery stores. Um, it isn't, um, that's another big change in the last 30 years is you walk into a grocery store and I don't know that my great grandmother would recognize 90% of the grocery stores as actually food.

Denise: 14:01 Well, I know, and especially, I love it now because I tried different foods, you know, Swiss chard and I do, Oh, of course, kale. And I look at my older books that never had any of those types of vegetables as part of my meal menu plans. So, um, I have updated everything because it's so hard to find good foods, you know, years ago I never ate lentils. I love lentils and humbleness. So many, um, new foods that I enjoy more than I ever used to or more than I knew about. So that's the beautiful part about now.

Allan: 14:41 Yeah. So if you were going to outline like the perfect fitness nutrition week for someone over 40, what would that look like?

Denise: 14:50 Oh, Oh, okay. So exercise wise, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would do something for 30 minutes cardio like either outside fast walking, it could be one of my workout videos that are on my website, which is 30 minute fat burning and I have over a hundred to choose from new and my TV shows. Oh. And then I would target Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays for concentrating on muscle conditioning, strength training and yoga. And then Sundays I would do a self care day, which would include a epson salt bath. I would do some foam rolling, even get some lacrosse balls or any kind of balls and you know, work out your muscles. If you can't get a massage and then eating. Eating in a course of a week, I would make sure you're getting, of course seven fruits and vegetables every day. I always strive for seven and then, um, protein, you know, in each meal and also try not to eat late at night because eating late at night is, um, I found through my own experiment and my own life, uh, that that's where I start to gain the weight is if I eat late at night. I tried to eat all my good healthy carbs in the course of a day and then in the evening slow those carbs down and make sure I'm just not eating late at night and I think it really helped.

Allan: 16:23 Good. Good. I like that. Uh, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?

Denise: 16:36 Well, the first I would say is change your mindset, get positive thinking, get rid of any negative self talk. Think about the first part is your, your mindset. How to kind of turn some of the negativity in your life into simple ways to be positive and be more optimistic. Then second of all, it comes with the food we eat because I believe in lots of water. I do drink eight, eight ounce glasses every single day. I really try to, you know, eat healthy foods, you know, lessen all the packaged process. And third is think good posture throughout the day. Posture is so important, especially as we age to really sit up and stand up tall, pull in those abs, retrain and educate the abdominal muscles to pull in like a tight corset. And the more you practice that it will be there naturally nice and flat. So I really believe good posture and everything you do when you're exercising, when you're sitting, you are your own architect by the way, you're moving and sitting in idle time. So make sure it's in a good position. Good body alignment is very important as we age. It's muscle conditioning without even picking up a weight.

Allan: 17:57 Yes. Now, anyone that's seen any of your videos knows that they can't watch one of your videos without leaving with a good, happy mindset for the day. Uh, if someone wanted to learn more about you and your programs, where would you like for me to send them?

Denise: 18:13 Oh, I love everyone to come to my website, Deniseaustin.com and there I do challenges all the time. I'm coming up with a new one next month. So go onto my website, follow me on Facebook at Denise Austin, Instagram, Denise Austin, and follow along. I do three challenges that get people started and it's a really great way, especially for men and women over 40. I really truly focus on our age group because this is the time we need to focus on. I always, I believe in good health, but now the most important time that we need, we have some time to dedicate to our bodies. And this is your time.

Allan: 18:59 Perfect. This is going to be episode 407 so you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/407 and I'll be sure to have links there. So Denise, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Denise: 19:12 Oh, I love it. Thank you guys. Remember, sit up tall on the dummy and have a happy smile. Love it. Thank you. Thank you. Stay fit.

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Forever painless with Miranda Esmonde-White

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Allan: 02:22 I moved to Bocas Del Toro and you know, there's an expat community here and uh, you know, we get together and we have dinners and go out and watch our friends, you know, perform and you know, but it's, it's kind of a cycle of things of it. All of this is always going to involve alcohol, you know, bring your own beer, bring your own wine kind of mindset to all of it.

Lisa: 02:44 We live in a boozy culture and you know, for your listeners, I'm not opposed to drinking moderately, but I think Allan, we have normalized alcoholism in a lot of ways. And what I mean by that is people, I quit drinking before I was a daily drinker and I'm around a lot of people that drink daily and I'm not talking just one drink a day. They're drinking four or five drinks a day. And they walk around saying, well, I'm a social drinker. Well, actually, yeah, that's more like getting into alcohol dependence, alcohol abuse. They may not be full blown alcoholics, but it can have a detrimental impact on a life when if you're going to work, they say 80% of alcoholics have families and have jobs. So if your life looks like something like you go to work and every night after work, especially when you live in, in the tropical place like you do, if every day your social life, your after work life is at a bar drinking for the rest of the evening, at some point, by making that choice, you're choosing not to do a whole lot of other things.

And so I just encourage people to say, is this really what I want to do or am I just going along with the flow? I know when I quit drinking, there's so many things that I have found to do. I just went to a bird lecture this morning. I mean it's kind of a nerdy thing to do, but I'm really interested in nature and the birds and things that when I was drinking, I didn't even see the blue sky or the birds, I didn't notice. I wasn't really present on a daily basis or a moment to moment in my life. So there's a lot of things that you miss too with, with the drinking. And it's just a matter of really rethinking all the drinks and saying, is this who I want to be? Is this how I want to spend my time? And I know with like the people that do get sober, there's a lot of deep heartfelt regret of the things that they missed or the things they didn't do with their family, with their children, with their spouse or significant other, because drinking can take up a lot of time.

And I sobered up in my late twenties and I literally just squandered that whole decade of my twenties when you're trying to set up your life. And I had a lot of regrets about that, but much less so than someone who waits till they're 45, 50, even 60 to get sober.

Allan: 05:40 Yeah, you had a statistic in the book kind of hit me in the face. Um, it was up 10% of the population is an addict or an Alcoholic.

Lisa: 05:51 Yeah. I mean that is true. So think about it. Here in the United States, we have about 320 million people, roughly. So there are truly about 32 million addicts and alcoholics. And that's probably, that's probably under-reported because there's a lot of people like me, I did not go to rehab. I did not go to the doctor. I knew about this disease by being raised by an alcoholic mother. So I've been entrenched in this whole thing from the time from birth my whole life.

And, and I've had siblings who are addicts and alcoholics. And now that I've been sober 30 years, I work with a lot of people in recovery. My first husband was a raging alcoholic, so I've just been around this and they say, and I'm also a registered nurse. So here's another scary stat, is 14% of doctors so I've noticed working in healthcare, there are so many doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, that end up in recovery. So that's a pretty high stat. 14% of doctors and 10% like I said, in the book of the general population. So these are people and the people that I focused on in my book are people that you would never suspect they had a drinking problem because I think that's, that's why more people aren't finding recovery. There's this stigma, there's this picture in our heads of an addict is, is the person, the homeless guy on the street, the people that are passing out in cars that we see on the six o'clock news and that is one face of addiction, but that is at the end-stage.

So I wanted to focus on the people again that were, that were more like myself or the 80% functional alcoholics. For instance, Caro, she's one of the, I have 10 stories in the back of the book of various women and, and out and a guide. Um, she was a surgeon. She was coming home every day making dinner, had two children that were well dressed, well fed in good schools, lives in a great neighborhood. All of these trappings that we look at from the outside facade and say, Oh, that's a great life. However, inside she's falling apart. Her kids are miserable. They can't stand her drinking. They are losing respect for her. And she finally one day just came home from work, started to open that bottle of wine and said, you know what, she went back, didn't drink that day, went back to the hospital, told her partners, Hey, I think I have a problem.

These are two other surgeons. And their response was, surely you jest, this can't be. So this is the attitudes of what we've got going out there and still working in healthcare a couple of days a week. I like to keep my foot in so I can tell you what's going on currently. And the attitudes are shameful. People come to the hospital, they are not getting the help they need. They get a lot of the times, all this anxiety, depression on happiness. The underlying issue is substance abuse, drinking too much, um, taking perhaps too many prescription medications like Xanax, volume, Adavan these benzos do not help a person's life go well. A lot of times they're meant to for anxiety. People get rebound anxiety, which is even worse than their original anxiety. So all of these medications are not helping. And what I'm still saying is the doctors are throwing medicine at these people.

They leave the hospital, their lives continue to spiral out of control. They're unhappy, they're gaining weight, they're losing their marriages, they're losing their children. It is a mess. And the doctors though still rarely address the underlying issue of substance abuse. And I'm saying, Allan, we need to get people clean and sober before we start labeling them with anxiety and depression diagnosis because that is what happened to my mother back in the 60s who was also an RN. She went and got on volume them, which was the pharmaceutical industry's first billion dollar drug that led into a 25-year addiction that escalated into alcohol to where she was nonfunctional. My mom was the woman laying on the floor like you would see in wine and roses, you know, she was a hot mess. So this is where it led for her. And so 10 years into my nursing career, I really started to wake up and I'm looking around and I said, my God, nothing has changed.

Nothing has changed. And let's not forget, there's children on the backside of all of these men and women who are caught up in addiction. So we are in essence cultivating a whole new generation of addicts and alcoholics because growing up in these environments with drug and alcohol fueled parents. I know as a child I was traumatized by it. My father was rather abusive. He's trying to control my mother's alcoholism, which is absolutely uncontrollable. She was incapable of parenting. So we basically raised ourselves. I have two older sisters and a younger brother and we've all been touched by addiction in our own lives. So this, you know, we're just perpetuating the mess. And so celebrating all these boozy outings and events, it's like what happens behind the scenes? Is anybody aware of that? Does anybody care?

Allan: 12:02 Yeah. And you know, from my perspective, you know the times that you know, where, where I would think, you know, I kind of get, for lack of a better word, dependent on the alcohol is I'm very much an introvert. And so if I'm going to go to a party or an event, which obviously here on the Island, just because all the time, you know, a couple of drinks makes me human. Um, from their perspective, um, when I'm not drinking and you know, there's always, my wife will get some questions. It's like, what's wrong with Allan? Just like, Oh this is, this is just half. He hasn't had a couple of drinks. I'll give them a couple of drinks and he'll be nice. There'll be a normal person in small groups, one or two, one on ones. I'm fine. But when I get into larger groups or you know, in places with people, it just, I shut down. And so the alcohol kind of just helps me loosen up a little bit.

Lisa: 12:51 Well, I get it. I think you're not alone. I think the majority, I know that I was very similar when I was drinking. It's like you have to have a few drinks before you get to the party. But when I got sober, I started to number one, be true to myself. So I'm not a big large gathering kind of person. I stopped going to a lot of them. My husband's more of an extrovert and I talked about this in the book. So how do you juggle a relationship, a marriage, whatever when one person drinks and one person's social and the other one is kind of how like you Allan. So I just told my husband there was, you know, pick a few parties that we are regularly invited to that you really want me to go to and I'll go. And the ones that are just, I don't feel the need to go anymore.

I prefer more meaningful activities, smaller intimate dinners or gatherings. Like I said, I've just had other things that I do with my time now then suffer through some huge event or gathering that I really don't want to be at to begin with. So it's, it's picking and choosing and being true to myself. And you know, I started to, when you work on your inner-self and some of the drinking was fueled by low self esteem. Some of my drinking was fueled by thinking, people are focused on me. This self-centeredness, that alcoholism breeds where we think people are going to notice us or look at us. And so we're self conscience. But the reality is is most people are in their own heads, focused on their own stuff and they're really not paying attention to us. I used to say that all the time, I have two grown sons now, but when they were in high school, my one son was always so worried what everybody else would think. And I used to say to him, they're not focused on you. Get out of yourself the, I mean, you're just another kid walking. They're not even paying attention to you. And I hope that that helped them get some of that spotlight off of thinking that people are focused on them when they're really not, when they're really not. So we can find other ways to love ourselves and just to say no, it's okay to say no and just not do certain things that I don't want to do anymore.

Allan: 15:15 Yes. Now in the book, um, you're coming from a woman's perspective, but that is in this book was somewhat written more for women and their perspective. Why, why is alcohol more of an issue for women, uh, than it might be for men?

Lisa: 15:29 Well, I don't know that, that it is actually in Raising the Bottom. I focus more on women only because I am a woman and I can intimately relate it to. But I will tell you before I scare off the guys, there's men love the book. Men love Raising the Bottom. In fact, there was a guy who founded in Seattle, he's a merchant Marine. He took it out to sea with him. He found me on Twitter months later and said it was life changing for him. And he's still sober by the way. So I think men really like it because they can read it and almost say like, wow, I can relate to all of this without feeling threatened at all. So I don't want to scare men off by reading the book, but I can relate to more of the women's issues and how we're responsible a lot of times for family and we get a lot of things dumped on our shoulders.

And I know men have stressors as much too, but I will say this, it seems like men do better at saying, Hey buddy, I quit drinking and their friends kind of respect that boundary I think better than women because I have a lot of women that tell me they really struggle with their so called friend groups who don't really want to be friends with them once they quit drinking and all this. And I find that so disheartening for many reasons. Number one, if your friend group is of that mentality, they're probably super heavy drinkers and they probably, I know when I was drinking, I hung out with people who drank like me. I was not hanging out with normal drinkers. And so I didn't realize there were people who didn't drink like I did that there were people who might have drinks a couple of times a month and then that was it.

And they were the true social drinkers who had a big life and were involved in many other things and their life did not revolve around alcohol. So the people that I socialize with were very much different and we drank every night and had parties and gatherings and we called ourselves social drinkers. So when you have that, like I said, want to boot people out or say they can't be friends or whatnot, and women seem to care about that and I tell them, well you don't need those people then find new friends. And I don't know why that's so threatening to some. And I think in order to change your life, to get sober, to maybe drink less, whatever it is that you decide you want to do, you have to be willing to face a little bit of pushback, which leads me to, as adults, why are we pushing back?

Why do we have to have this peer pressure, this adult peer pressure? When I used to go to gatherings early in my recovery and you're, I'm so uncomfortable anyway cause you feel this shame cause you're like quitting drinking and I don't, now I look back and go, Oh my goodness, what was I thinking? Um, but it's like we feel shame for doing something good for ourselves. If you go to a party and they have all these sweets and you refuse a sweet, nobody questions you. But if you go and you refuse to joy a drink, you get the 20 questions. If you're a young woman, Oh, are you pregnant? Oh, why aren't you drinking? Oh, are you on medication? I mean, it's ridiculous. And so I tell people, men and women, no, is a complete sentence, no thank you. We don't need to explain ourselves. And if somebody has a problem with me not drinking, it's usually because they have a drinking problem and they're very uncomfortable with that mirror of someone not drinking to kind of almost co-sign on their BS. So we can navigate these drinking. I go wherever I want, I do what I want. I have a very big life, but I just don't drink. And for the most part, nobody really cares. Like I said, the only people who I've ever really cared that I'm not drinking are people that ended up having their own problems with alcohol.

Allan: 19:51 Yeah. Now, this last month, uh, we ran a challenge, um, and I included an alcohol piece to it and I didn't say completely abstain from alcohol, but we're going to cut it back and continue to kind of regrets it and cut it back. I've had no alcohol challenges in the past and the turn around was relatively small. Um, so it'll be interesting as people get into, you know, the results of going through the challenge. People are improving their health there, they're losing weight. Uh, you know, that's part of the, the gist of the whole thing. Uh, so alcohol, you know, I think we all know alcohol can lead to weight gain, uh, and stopping drinking can actually help you in your weight loss journey. But there are other health things that we should consider with regards to alcohol. Could you kind of get into some of that?

Well, I mean, Oh my gosh, alcohol impacts really every organ in our body. So let's quit diluting ourselves and say, Oh, it's not that bad. It caused the seven types of cancer that's been proven definitively. Alcohol is a class one carcinogenic. So it is in the same class as asbestos. Now nobody is going to tell you that. And the research on that is when you, if you Google it, you're gonna have to dig a little bit. Cause that's not something that pops up immediately. But Oh, believe me, it's there. So in addition to like for men, there's a lot of throat cancers, esophageal cancers, stomach cancers, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, and women with breast cancer. I know when I got into recovery here again, I started paying attention and I'm like, Oh my God, so much breast cancer in these women. And then years later I'm researching, doing all this research for Raising the Bottom.

And the light bulb went out and I went, well my God, no wonder all these alcoholic women have breast cancer. It's the booze. I mean we can't say for sure that it's the sole cause, I'm sure there's environmental factors. Stress is a huge one, but a lot of people drink because they can't handle their stress because they don't have good coping skills. So it all ties in together. Um, you've got people, when I was working in the ER, people who are diabetic drinking heavily, their blood sugars are all over the place. They're coming into the hospital because now they're having kidney failure from their unchecked diabetes because they were drinking too much. They're getting coronary artery disease from their unchecked diabetes because they couldn't stop drinking so much. So there are so many ways that alcohol and the alcohol turns to sugar in our body.

So you're just getting this bombardment of sugar, which causes inflammation. Let's move on to the brain. The extended care facilities. Nursing homes are filled with people who have a long history of drinking. Lot of alcoholics end up in the nursing homes. Lot of people with longterm benzo abuse or I don't even want to say abuse, people tend to get on those benzos and they stay on them for the next 30 years because the withdrawal to get off is so awful. They just stay on them. And I think that's how they were designed by the pharmaceutical companies. So they give you this benzo when you're 25 to help you not feel anxious and when you're 60, you're still taking it and pretty soon the mind just goes to mush. So these are things that people don't really understand about how and what it can do.

In the last five years I've seen a big uptick in women that are yellow because women do not have, we lack the chemical that helps to break down alcohol. Men have more of the, Oh, I was, that's a tongue twister for me to say. It's ADH is the, the short, but we women lack ADH. Men have more of it. So that's why men can kind of skate along and drink maybe a little longer and a little harder without it totally impacting them physically. Like at, well a woman, um, women go downhill much faster. And that's, I talk a lot about that Raising the Bottom because that was instrumental for me. Why I got sober when I did, because I saw how quickly once my mother crossed that line from drinking martinis at lunch to becoming a full blown alcoholic. Her demise was Swift.

Her, she ended up looking like she was nine months pregnant, her skin was yellow, she was dying, she was, she was dying. And that happened in a span of five years. So I'm seeing a lot more of that that I didn't see 10 or 15 years ago. I've been in health care for 25 years now. So that is new and it's all attributed, I believe, to the pharmaceutical, or I'm sorry, the alcohol, big alcohol is doing a very, very good job of spending their billions of dollars in ad budgets to target women. And so the new alcoholic often is well educated. She makes a good living. She wears designer pumps and she carries a diaper bag. And this is the new alcoholic of what we're facing. So now let me ask you this, Allan, what happens to those children on the backside in this boozy mom? Well, they end up like me probably will land in their own addiction later on because when you have a mother who's all about the party time, you're not present. You're missing a lot of the nuances that I know with my twins I was able to pick up on, I was two weeks sober when I found out I was pregnant with twins and I'm so grateful that I was a sober mom who was fully present. Both my sons went on to become division one athletes. Both of my sons went to college, they graduated college playing football. And I can just assure you it would've been a very, very different picture had I not been sober. Our family would've been very different.

Allan: 26:32 Now there are a lot of people that will say, okay, you know, and I don't drink that much. You know, I just have a couple drinks here and there and like you said, social drinkers. Um, I was actually reading a study the other day or there's actually several studies out there that show that we're, we're really not good at self-reporting what we eat, what we drink. Uh, so you know, if they ask you what you had for dinner last week and in general, um, you are going to under-report your calories, um, you're gonna report more healthy food than you actually ate. Um, and if you drank alcohol, you're probably gonna report less drinks than you probably drank. But you know, this is an alcoholism is actually something that unless you self-diagnose, nothing's going to change for you.

Lisa: 27:15 And you're absolutely right. So what changed my life was getting honest with myself because the standard alcoholic answer is I had two, Oh, I only had two beers. I only had two drinks. They always only have two. Yeah. So you're right, people lie. And so that's why doctors that are tuned in, most doctors are clueless about alcoholism. Some of the stuff that comes out of the psychiatrist's mouth that I hear like, Oh, it just drives me crazy. They'll say things like, Oh, they used to be an alcoholic, but now they just, they're using meth or something crazy like that. So like they just switched addictions is what they did. But back to your point. Yeah. So we lie, alcoholics lie, we all know that. Um, if you want to change your life, be honest. Nobody can, you know, I knew two years before I quit drinking that I was drinking too much, that I was crossing a line.

I had a home bar that I loved and I knew everybody kinda like on cheers. Everyone knew my name. And when I go, we used to go in there and start asking the person sitting on my right and left, who, or by the way, drinking right along with me and say, do you think I drink too much? And of course they're like, ah, I have no, you're fine. You know, what are they going to say? Yeah, you're drinking. So, but, but that was already, that was those early warning signs. Something was not resonating within my soul. And I knew, I knew that it was not, um, I don't even want to say abnormal, but it was abnormal for me because it's like people get so caught up on quantity. Like I said, I was not a daily drinker. I did not drink a fifth a day.

However, when I drank, I get a few drinks in me. There were times I absolutely could stop and I would be your designated driver. And there were other times I could not stop. So there was that unpredictability factor, which is indicative of potential alcoholism. There was the fact of how it affected my personality. I'm a pretty even keeled person. I'm not a drama queen by any stretch. Give me a few drinks. I know we're going to have drama. It's either going to be, I'm going to create something, I'm going to start a fight. I'm going to shoot my mouth off inappropriately pick, pick anything I would just do and things that I'd never would do and say sober. So that was another clue to me. I was losing my moral compass. That was another tip off where you start to rationalize and justify lying.

You know, I don't know, it was never really a thief, but I'm sure that could have come where, you know, you take 20 bucks out of your husband's wallet, don't bother to tell him, Hey, I took 20 bucks and you start, you know, I didn't do that then, but I could see where I could have maybe segwayed into that kind of behavior. And we tend to rationalize things like, Oh, that's fine, that's fine. Well now actually in sobriety it's about getting rigorously honest, living right, doing the right thing. And so I was really losing my way that way. And I don't know that I would have saw it as early as I did had. Again. My mother was instrumental in my recovery because she sobered up when I was in my early twenties, and I saw her change dramatically. So by the time I got sober, my mother had seven years sobriety under her belt, and she had morphed into this amazing mom that I think I wished I always had.

But it can impact us in so many ways. And I just really want people to understand you've got to throw out all these old ideas that an alcoholic has to look a certain way because no, there are no demographics, there are no boundaries. And I'll tell you the worst nightmare for an alcoholic is money. There's a lot of alcoholism. My father goes to Benito Springs in the winter and I go down there. So you've got a lot of affluent people in the Naples, Sarasota area. And as a nurse I see the loose blouses and the big livers and the guys in their golf shirts with their big livers sticking out. And it's just, Oh my God, I almost can't stand it because there's just so much. Their lives are golfing and drinking and eating and there's going to be a lot of, you know, earlier deaths because this is what they do and they, this is their social life, which is fine, but it's, um, it's scary and a lot of ways to me when I see how sick some of these people look and they don't even see it.

Allan: 32:01 Yeah. Now in your recovery and in your mother's recovery, you utilize the 12 step.

Lisa: 32:07 I did. Yes.

Allan: 32:09 So even that wasn't on your plan. Can you kind of just quickly kind of go through, cause I think you kind of hit on some of those points of getting honest with yourself. Um, and, and I think the 12 steps is actually kind of that approach to actually making that happen and making it real in your life. Not just an exercise you do over the course of a weekend, uh, at a seminar. But this is something that you have to live and do over course of quite a long time,

It becomes a way of life. Allan, I know people go to rehab and I just need to throw this out there. So many people go to rehab in their families think, Oh, they're cured. No, Nope. That is just the tip of the iceberg because a lot of people go to rehab just to get people off their back and they have no intention of really doing the hard work. It takes working on the core insight issues. However you choose to do that. I like the 12 step because it gives you a roadmap to do that. And really the first step is we have to admit we have a problem. So I don't care what recovery method you're going to use, smart recovery, whatever. Um, you have to admit you have a problem because you can't, I mean, it's almost like if someone who's overweight, you have to admit, okay, I decide I need to lose weight.

Until you're ready to accept that about yourself, you're not going to change it. And then the 12 steps really help a person look at their issues. I can. So what were some of mine? I was a very fear based person, which I didn't realize that. Um, so I had to look at how as a child my predominant emotion was fear. And I covered up with that fear with a lot of false bravado. A big mouth, that kind of thing. So I had to look at that. I had to forgive my parents. They did the best they could. I didn't think they did a great job raising me. Um, since I did kind of raise myself along with my siblings. Now I have a sister who stayed in addiction 40 years because she couldn't, she liked to blame my parents as opposed to taking responsibility as an adult.

Okay. Our childhood wasn't great, but it, it could have been worse. And I'm an adult now and I'm going to make the choice to make my life better and be a different parent to my children. And, and my sister couldn't do that. So yeah, you have to. And then it's about, it really focuses too on getting out of yourself. I mean, alcoholism is, We have to get humble. It's that I'm going to do it my way disease. It's a disease that is riddled with pride. People can be almost homeless and they still think they know what they're doing. They're unwilling to listen. They've lost four jobs, they're on their third marriage and they still swear they don't have a problem that you see over and over again. Anybody who's been married more than well, even three times, it's usually alcohol is in the picture there somewhere.

One of the persons involved was drinking and my older sister, she's on her third marriage. Yep. Alcohol has been involved in each one of those marriages, so we have to get honest about, we can't blame everybody else. It comes back to what are we covering up inside of us and dealing with that and working on the issues. Having that humility to say, I can't do this. Making amends to the people that we have harmed people. Moms especially, they say, Oh, I'm not harming anyone. Well, yes you are, because your kids may be well fed and you might get them to their soccer practices. But when you're standing on the sidelines with a cocktail in your hand, you're not really focused on the present moment. You're focused on, Oh, when this cocktail is empty, I got a hall over to my friend's cooler and get a refill.

And it's just a very selfish, myopic way of life, the drinking life. And most people don't really see it until they do get sober. And then the last factor is it's about helping others and doing it freely and willingly and giving of, you know, I do, I work with a lot of women. Recovery coaching is like really big now. I don't charge because it was freely given to me. And so it's an honor and a privilege to help a woman who is struggling, who says they want to change their life and then to give them some simple directions that they follow and their lives begin to change in amazing ways. So that is a gift. So it's, it's really a way of life and it's part of my life that I've just incorporated into my life and it's just who I am and what I do.

I go to meetings three a week, I work with others and I write books and I'm still in there sometimes.

Allan: 37:17 Lisa, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get that stay well.

Lisa: 37:22 The obvious Allen exercise, eat right, but here are, here are the three that I think are really helpful. Number one, stop people pleasing because that a lot of times people, people please. Then they have resentments which fuels eating and drinking and anger. So people are very angry, so stop people pleasing. If you really don't want to do something, I mean other than things that like we have to do, like go to work or whatever, but stop people pleasing so that you're not resentful. Number two, get engaged in something outside of yourself. As I said, help others. People are depressed, they're anxious.

Well, when you're only focused on your own depression and anxiety, it almost fuels it. Whereas if you're focused on helping somebody else, getting out of yourself, the anxiety and depression is cut in half. So I would suggest find something, find a hobby, find a way to help others. And you will watch happiness. Um, quotion expand exponentially. And number three, which is no problem for you down there in Panama, get out in nature people, 89% of adults spend 15 minutes or less a day in nature. Oh my gosh, no wonder we're drinking, right? Because you're around, you're in these sterile environments, be it an office or whatever. And then you go from that to your car, to your house. And I don't think, I mean, well, let's go back to hunters and gatherers. We're meant to be outdoors. You know, the trees, the greenery. There is a chemical in this greenery called Fido signs, and it is proven in Japan.

They call it shouldn't ring Yoku. They don't give out a lot of antidepressants in Japan, they prescribed nature walks and force bathing. So this fight assigns in the trees, helps to increase your immunity, decrease depression, decrease anxiety. So why are we not doing more of these sorts of things and forth? The drinkers know this does not mean you go sit under a Palm tree and have five drains that doesn't count, but maybe go walk amongst the butterflies or I think you mentioned early, maybe before we started taking that you'd have a rain forest nearby. I mean, what a gift. I can't imagine how amazing that would be to walk through this rain for some of this nature. Chirping and chattering above your head. These are things that really can make you feel so much better. And I wonder if people just, if they decided to do something like that every day as opposed to drink five drinks, maybe have one drink after you go on a nature walk and maybe that had be enough and you just had a drink. Your life could be really different in just something as small as those sorts of little changes can have huge impacts when you realize like, wow, I took that walk and I was fully present and engaged in my surroundings. I mean, I can't tell you how many people get sober and say, Oh my God, for the first time I like, I smelled winter or I saw spring. This is what taking alcohol out of a life can do. It's like ripping off the veil or the scales. It's like you see things just totally different.

Allan: 41:06 Lisa, thank you so much. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, learn more about the book (Raising the Bottom), learn more about what you're doing, where would you like for me to send them?

Lisa: 41:15 They can go to my website raisingthebottom.com. I'm on Facebook under Lisa Boucher award-winning author. I'm also on Twitter and Instagram at raising the bottom.

Allan: 41:26 Okay, well you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/406 and I'll be sure to have them there. So Lisa, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Lisa: 41:15 Thank you, Allan. This was a pleasure. I enjoyed talking with you.

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When food is your drug with Kristin Jones

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Dr. Wilson: 02:06 So I've been working with people with slow metabolisms for about 30 years and I have seen over and over again where people are trying to lose weight and they still have trouble losing weight even though they're doing quote unquote everything that the experts tell them to do. And it's really frustrating because here's a person who's doing what their quote-unquote supposed to do and they're still not getting any results. And a lot of people will accuse them of not following the program correctly. You know, they don't want to be, take the blame for this person's poor results. So they blame the person's a lack of compliance. But anyway, I've seen these people struggle sometimes on 600 calories a day, sometimes on 1,012 hundred calories a day, and they're still not able to lose weight. So I went back to, I was trying to figure out a way to help these people and I've been trying to do that for a long time now, but there some research available now in the last 10 years that wasn't available 30 years ago.

And it's just fantastic because I call it, um, there's a lot of research done on, on hormones and signaling and messengers and, uh, so there's a lot of things talk in the literature, uh, known as signaling and chemical signals. And so I call Fastercise basically signaling exercise because it takes advantage of the signaling processes that already occur in the body. But if you understand these processes, which we haven't for many years and we're starting to understand it much better now, but if you understand those processes correctly, then you can send just the right signal at just the right time to make just the right difference to unlock the key to actually getting the results you're looking for.

Allan: 04:05 Yeah, I think that was part of what was fascinating about this is because, you know, I think most of us already know when the hormones are signaling to our body what to do. So, you know, um, testosterone is making us want to build some muscle and be more masculine. Uh, cortisol is a catabolic and actually wants to start breaking things down because we're in stress mode. But your approach is actually saying, well what are the, what are the things we can do ourselves that will cause that hormone to be in the right place at the right time.

Dr. Wilson: 04:36 Exactly.

Allan: 04:37 So as a, as a part of all this, I guess the base goal is, you know, we're, we're going to want to try to a loose fat you can gain muscle. And so as we, as we get into that, one of the concepts that you get into the book is this concept called the unfed state. And can you tell me a little bit about that and how that's going to affect our hormones?

Dr. Wilson: 05:00 Absolutely. And um, there's really, as opposed to the unfed state or non-fed state, there is the fed state. And so an easy way to conceptualize that is, it's like a charge. It's like a cell phone having two States. Number one, you can charge the cell phone and then it's in the charging state or you can unplug the cell phone and start using it. And then you, it's in the using state. And that's the way it is in the fed state. We're like charging up our energy stores and in the non-fed state we're using those energy stores. And so since the goal of weight loss or fat loss is to use up those stored energy reserves of fat, that's why the non-fed state is so critically important because that's the time that your body is uncharging or using up those to power your body.

Allan: 05:59 Okay. And so it's effectively, I mean, I guess in the book you kinda got into it from the perspective of says if we keep eating all the time and we stay in the fed state, we're kind of putting ourselves in one role of body, in one role of always charging. And we're never discharging or able to get rid of the energy that we have now stored.

Dr. Wilson: 06:25 Exactly. And it doesn't take a lot of food either. So if somebody is snacking just a little bit, let's say every couple of hours they have, even though their calories don't add up to a lot of calories in the day, if they're eating every three hours, that's enough eating just a little bit of food is enough to drive up your insulin levels or in other words puts you in the charging mode or the storage mode. And so when your insulin levels are up, you're not going to be burning stored fat and because insulin will shut that down immediately. So you do need to let those insulin levels come down. You need to be in the non-fed state so that you can encourage the burning of those fat stores.

Allan: 07:15 Now I think when, when people kind of go into, or they hear about intermittent fasting or maybe even longer extended fasting, so we're trying to get into an unfed state, although you know, they're like, well, I'm going to get hungry, but Fastercise is built and designed to help fight that hunger. Right?

Dr. Wilson: 07:33 That's right. And it takes advantage of the survival mechanisms that are normally built in the body and the body. There's two ways that the body has of surviving. One is to run off of the stored energy that you already have stored and I call that storage mode. And the other way of approaching it is foraged mode. In other words, going out and getting new food. So when a person eats, then the food that they eat, will stop, will fill their body with nutrients so that it stops their hunger and they go into storage mode. But the other option, the other way of doing it is by doing a special kind of exercise and to direct your body or to signal your body that you're actually going out and foraging for your food. And they actually go into obtain food. And when your body sees that you're in the business of obtaining more food, it stops, it mobilizes stored energy in your body. And that stored energy that floods into your system provides the energy you need to get more food and also to get rid of your hunger.

Allison: 08:49 So if I can just jump in here really quickly, just going along with what my dad was Dr. Wilson. It's amazing how when you tell your body, Hey, we're trying to get some food here. Yes, you're going without eating anything, but you have the ability to stay quote-unquote fed because you're not hungry. You feel quite satisfied. At least that's been my experience. And so it's not a chore. It's not challenging, honestly. It's invigorating and it's saves you a lot of time in the kitchen because you can spend your time doing other things.

Allan: 09:20 Okay. So Allison, yeah, take just a moment because you did this predominantly lose some baby weight. Um, you'd put on some weight when you had your baby and you took your father's program fast for size and you executed on it and was able to do that. Can you kind of talk us through that? How, how this would in a normal day or a normal approach that you went through as you were getting yourself Fastercised.

Allison: 09:45 Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, I, I gained some baby weight when I had my son Titus and I was probably sitting at about 35 pounds beyond where I wanted to be a thought. You know, I've got nothing to lose. Let's see how this goes. And so primarily my dad told me when you get hungry, push it off with shiver size, which is the shivering exercise for Fastercise. Push your hunger away with shivering, uh, once or twice before you eat and then after you eat, do around of tightening your muscles as hard as you can so your body knows how to develop the muscles. So which ones are most important on how is this going to help you? So I started a shivering before I was hungry and then I also incorporated a lower carb diet. You don't have to have a low carb diet with Fastercise.

Allison: 10:31 But I found that that worked well for me and I was able to lose about 30 pounds in three months, which completely blew my mind, especially considering that I was working a full time job, 40 hours a week. I was taking care of my baby, we had just moved across country and we were buying a house. So my life was kind of kind of all over the place and I really didn't have any hope of being able to lose the weight. Um, but you know, in the morning I woke up, I would shiver sized and then when I get hungry again I do it maybe once more. And then I would eat my lunch because usually I wouldn't be hungry until then. And then after ate my lunch I would do about you know, two minutes of tightening my muscles as hard as I could just going through each muscle group. And then I would wait until I got hungry again and the cycle repeat itself. So I did that about two or three times a day. And just those small changes, I was able to lose weight very quickly and then I ended up entering a bodybuilding competition eight months after delivery just with doing Fastercise.

Allan: 11:32 Wow. That's, that's pretty impressive. Now. So, just to kind of recap a little bit there, there are basically two variations or two things that you would incorporate as a part of Fastercise. One is the shiver size, which is effectively moving alternating muscles very quickly. And then the, the tighter size basically just as tight, tighter, tighter size is just basically where you, you, you contract the muscle in an isometric way to just really get an intense muscular burn. Right?

Allison: 12:02 Right.

Allan: 12:04 Okay, and it's, it's two minutes, or less typically. Right?

Allison: 12:09 Right. Yeah, so I clenched my muscles as hard as I can want like one muscle group at a time for about two or three seconds a piece. So clench my biceps as hard as I can and then move on until deltoids or whatever the case may be. It really doesn't take much time at all.

Allan: 12:25 Okay. Um, you know, Dr. Wilson I've, you know, obviously I'm in this space, I do a lot of reading and I really appreciate all the studies and the, and the links you had, uh, to, for me to go out and actually look at some of these studies because they were fascinating and I love this stuff, but I'd read a study not too, too long ago, uh, that, uh, said, you know, if you, if you walked after you ate, just go for a five, 10 minute walk. It keeps your blood sugar from going up. So I think there's, you know, there's some of that, but you know, most people will say, you know, if you want to lose weight, you got to do this, this cardio thing and you need to do it for at least 30 minutes and get your heart rate up to a certain point. Uh, but what's you're doing with this as just a very short but very intense period of time. Can you kind of compare and contrast them of why this, the shorter version is better then maybe the longer, slower cardio?

Dr. Wilson: 13:21 I think the human body is miraculous. And I think there's a lot of, a lot of things work really well for a lot of people, so I know that you know, it just depends on what you're wanting to do and what signals that you're sending the body. For example, if you think about a long walk, let's say a 45-minute walk, in a way you're, again, I'm going to go back, my point of view is that it's all about survival. You know, a lot of people talk about the balance between calories in and calories out and I talk about a survival balance between storage mode and forge mode. And I think, I think our bodies, from what I gather from reading, reading, studying, all the physiology and all the research and studies on this, if you kind of look at all of them and put them all together, to me, it leaves me with a feeling that all of these mechanisms are about survival.

And so and I like to call one, one mode of survival as storage mode and the other is forge mode. And that has all to do, that has everything to do with us preserving enough or obtaining enough energy to function correctly. So if you think about the storage mode is going to be important if there's a famine in the land and if it's hard to obtain food. Or let's say you had to walk 45 minutes to find something to eat, let's say you had to, let's say you had to run four miles a day to cover enough territory to find something to eat. So in a way you're by doing that kind of exercise, you're almost sending your body the signal that food isn't that easy to come by. But on the other hand, if you can go outside and run around for a few minutes or run out, run around for a few seconds, or tighten your muscles and contract your muscles and climb up a tree just in a few seconds, you can obtain food, then that sends the signal that that food is plentiful and it's a lot easier to come by.

So, and that foraging is working for you. And so basically you're telling your body there's no reason to store fat. And if you, if you do something different, like, um, these, these long cardio exercises, in a way, you might actually be extending your body, there's a thing that happens when you do that kind of cardio exercise. You actually, instead of your appetite going away, you can actually build your appetite because your body, you, you build your appetite and your body says, Oh, well, you know, we need to conserve energy and we need to burn some muscle and we need to store some fat and so it can be counterproductive. I mean, it's great if you're gonna if you're, if you're training four or five K or if you're training for an ultra marathon, you know, then of course, that kind of training is fantastic. But if you're trying to lose fat and build muscle in just a few minutes a day, then a cause that, that's one of the huge advantages of the Fastercise is that it doesn't take all day. It doesn't, you don't have to go to the gym any, you know, if you're standing in line at the, at the grocery store, if you're driving, if you're in a meeting, uh, no matter where you are or what you're doing, you can do this.

Allan: 16:46 Yeah. I think if I started flexing muscles and posing in a meeting, um, I get a lot of weird looks, but, uh, you know, um, you know, and I think that's just one of this, I mean, from my practical experience, you know, I know that if I, if I do that, the basic hit training and by hit training, I mean really intense and actually really short because you can't, you just can't keep doing it. If it's really high intensity, high-intensity workout after that workout, I'm, I'm definitely not hungry for an hour or two. But when I was training for marathons, I would always put on weight because I was always hungry. And then of course, because I was training, I justified that I could eat what I wanted to eat. Uh, but almost invariably, every time I did the training for a marathon, I would start putting on weight.

Dr. Wilson: 17:31 Interesting. Yeah.

Allison: 17:33 I'm just, you know, you were commenting about flexing in a meeting. Just wanted to share that. I have done that multiple times, but trick is to clench your muscles in the position that you're already seated in so you can like clench your abs or maintaining eye contact with someone and they would have no idea that you're building your muscles.

Allan: 17:55 Yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm just thinking about, you know, bicep pose tricep, but now there's a concept in the book and I actually love this concept because I tell my clients this and I, and I've actually experienced it myself. Uh, but have you talked to the calorie in, calorie out folks? They're going to tell you that you have to cut and then you have to, you know, bulk. And then so you can build muscle, which is, you know, antibiotic to add the muscle, but you're probably going to add a little bit of fat when you do that. And then you can cut and you're probably gonna lose a little bit of muscle when you do that. But by going backwards and forwards on this, you can inch yourself up to more muscle. But in the book you propose that we can do both at the same time.

Dr. Wilson: 18:39 Yes. And I think, I think there's a lot of instances, I think a lot of people, well there are studies that show the results in a number of patients who go through different programs and they'll show that as a group they've lost this much fat and they've lost and they've gained this much muscle so they can, you can see that this happens as a group over let's say an eight week period of time they have lost fat and gained muscle at the same time. So that, so we know that can happen over a period of, of, of weeks or months. But I believe it can actually happen at the very same moment. Not just the same month, not to same week, not the same day and not the same hour, but at the same moment. That you can get your, because when you have, he things that stimulate muscle growth include concentration or availability of amino acids and, and energy.

So if you have, if you have stimulation or the exercise stimulation number one, and then you have amino acids number two, and you have energy number three, then then you can build muscle. And um, the interesting thing is that we have plenty of muscles stored in fat. And one thing that I think is fascinating is to give you an example is that a lot of times one of the things we use for quick energy is glycogen. And glycogen is a stored carbohydrate that's stored in the muscles and in the liver. And when our energy supply is low, typically that's a sign that our glycogen storage is low. But they found that people, uh, when you, and then when you burn up all your glycogen and then you have to rely more on fat. But they've, they've found in research that certain, um, long distance athletes, they will, they are able to replenish their glycogen stores even when they're on a low carbohydrate diet. So even though they're not eating carbohydrate and they're eating mostly fat and protein, they're still able to replenish their, their glycogen stores. And that's largely due to something called docgluconeogenesis where the body just, uh, uses raw materials, I guess to begin to remanufacture or recycle, recycle. It's, um, blood sugar back into glycogen for energy stores.

Allan: 21:12 And, and that's typically once they're fat-adapted cause it experience, it doesn't work that way when you first start a low carb diet at all. So once you do get to that point, yes, you have the energy that you need and your body actually gets really, really efficient at using fat. So, depending on the intensity of the work that you're doing, um, you, you have the stamina to continue to use body fat and your body's going to restore that glycogen even if you're not eating significant carbs.

Dr. Wilson: 21:42 So, yeah, exactly. And so in a way, this, you know, because of this mechanism, there's a way that you can get fat adapted or you can be breaking down your muscle. I mean, I'm sorry, breaking down your fat stores and losing fat, but at the same time providing enough energy as long as you have enough of amino acids available that not only can you rebuild your glycogen at a point like that, but you can also, you can also rebuild your muscles as well.

Allan: 22:13 Yeah, and I think one key point of this that, that I think's important is that this doesn't just, this doesn't mean that you, you're always eating protein to get those amino acids. In many cases your, your body through a tophi G can actually recycle cells and pull amino acids. We always have amino acids running through our system. Um, it's just a function of making sure that everything else is working the way it's supposed to. So our hormones and everything else is in line to allow us to build that muscle.

Dr. Wilson: 22:40 Right.

Allan: 22:41 Okay, cool. So Allison, um, you guys are developing an app for this. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Allison: 22:47 Yeah, so this app is available right now with Android and Apple and we just called it Fastercise. So it's easy to find. Uh, basically it tells you everything that you need to know to successfully accomplish your Fastercised program. So we have what we like to call the laws of Fastercise, which basically tells you exactly what you need to do every day. But then we also have lots of content to show you how to Fastercise, maintain a diet management. So lots of recipes and sparking inspiration for, for your foods. We also have a journal section and a social media and resources. So with this, we are pretty sure that you could do this on your own. But then we also have the availability to have personal one on one coaching, uh, with our staff. So you can get not only the help from the app, but then on top of that help from an actual person if you have more specific questions and would like a little bit more specialized attention.

Allan: 23:47 Yeah. I liked that you, you had the videos in there so they can, they can literally look and, because sometimes you're trying to visualize. I'll work with my clients and I'm like trying to explain an exercise to them and it's just, it's, it's sometimes it's very difficult for them to get the concept of exactly what you're doing. So I like that the videos are there, uh, the support, the journaling, all of that, um, and the meal plans and the recipes. I think you've put together a really, really cool app.

Allison: 24:12 Thank you. We, we, we'd like to think so. We hope everyone else does too.

Allan: 24:17 Cool. Now I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well, and I guess that we'll start with you, Allison.

Allison: 24:30 Yeah, so for me, I think my top three strategies are first, find a way to spark joy in your life every day. I think when you can give yourself something to look forward to, it just makes your whole outlook on life so much better. Um, my second recommendation is to be intention focused, not feeling focused. So if you have a goal, make sure that you make your actions line up with achieving that goal rather than own. You know, I'm tired right now. I don't want to do that. Make sure that, that your actions are fulfilling your goals. And then lastly, stay as close to what nature has provided or intended for us as possible. One of the things that I like most about Fastercise is it lets me tap into what my body does naturally and what the world around me has provided by eating natural foods and doing natural exercises. I think that, you know, nature and the earth have done a lot to help us through the thousands and thousands of years that humans I've been hearing. And I think that it knows what it's doing. So those are my top three.

Allan: 25:34 Cool. Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson: 25:36 Thanks Allan. So my first strategy would be, uh, increasing the size and number of our mitochondria and what that the mitochondria are in ourselves. And that's basically the power plan of ourselves. And one thing we haven't talked about that I actually think is, is really huge. It touches on what you were saying about autophagy and rebuilding and refreshing, refreshing your body, uh, Fastercises is a simple way that people can refresh their fitness in just a few minutes a day. And one of the ways that we do that is by doing this kind of Fastercise, what we can do is we can use up energy faster than our mitochondria can produce it at least for a short time. And you mentioned with that high-intensity interval training exercise that you do is that you can only do that for a certain amount of time. You can't keep doing it. And the reason why we can't keep doing it is because our energy will, the reason why we can't keep doing it as that we use up ATP or energy faster than our mitochondria can, can produce it.

And that actually has a really great stimulatory effect because your body says, wow, he used up or she used up energy faster than we could make it today. So we're going to have to generate more power plants for tomorrow. And those power plants are fantastic because those are the ones that, that do refresh your body or do rebuild your body. When we sleep at night, all the chemical reactions that we build and refresh our body are using energy produced by the mitochondria. So to have to feel energetic during the day, to feel refreshed, to be rebuilding, to have your skin tightening up and for you be able to move and function and everything.

But mitochondria are, are really important for that. And this Fastercise is a fantastic way of doing it. And you know, that you've sent your body that signal quite strong is when you get winded enough from Fastercise that you have to take a deep breath if you actually can catch a deep breath that's your signal that you Fastercised enough for that day to expect tomorrow to be better. Uh, I totally agree with Allison as far as the next, my next recommendation as far as the natural foods go and natural foods and natural activities and to stay true to the design of our bodies or how they're built or the blueprint as it were. So it's so, it's so critical to try to just like, just like you want to drive a screw with the correct end of a screwdriver so you know, we want to use our bodies the way they are built to be used.

And if we go contrary to that, putting in there things that aren't found in nature and, uh, it's, it's not gonna work out as well. My third recommendation is to, uh, the adaptations that, that people go through, like whether it's diet or exercise or fitness program, when those work, as long as you're doing them. But it might take four to six weeks or more actually months and even years of training for your body, to build up all the adaptations and, and, and to develop all the, to develop all the benefits from the exercise you're doing. But when you stop that training, you can lose those adaptations or that, that progress if you will. You can lose that and as short as two weeks. So my recommendation isn't the diet and exercise that you can do that makes a difference.

It's the diet and exercise that you can keep doing. Cause you, you've mentioned like you're, you're looking for a strategy where someone can be healthy for life. So really what they need to do, I think what people need to do is they need to find a lifestyle that they can do for life, uh, health, promoting lifestyle that they can do for life. And, and I love Fastercise for that because it's simple time efficient and it can easily be done by pretty much anybody in the world. Even people who are disabled, people who are uh, elderly people who are obese, uh, just about anybody in any circumstance can, can get a lot of benefit from this approach.

Allan: 30:19 Well cool. I appreciate you sharing both of you sharing that. If someone wanted to get in touch with you, learn more about the book and the things that you're doing in the app, where would you like for me to send them?

Dr. Wilson: 30:31 So our book, uh, The Power of Fastercise is available in bookstores right now and it's also available on Amazon. Listeners can also get it direct from our publisher@chelseagreen.com and they can also go to our Fastercise website. It's fastercise.com

Allison: 30:52 Yeah. So I recommend going and checking out our website at fastercise.com. And you can order the book there. You could also go on Amazon and look up The Power of Fastercize and then you could also go to Chelsea green publishing to get the power of fast your size. If you'd like to download our app, it's available in both Apple and Android and just search Fastercize.

Dr. Wilson: 31:22 Allan, I just wanted to say one more thing about the app does that, what we had in mind when we designed the app was so that one person can tell another person so that one friend could tell another friend, Hey, just go and download the app and follow the instructions or all you have to do is download the app and follow what it says.

Allan: 31:47 Cool. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/405 four zero five and I'll be sure to have the links there. So Dr. Wilson, Alison, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Dr. Wilson: 31:59 Thank you so much for having us.

Allison: 32:01 Thank you. This was great.

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Another episode you may enjoy

The time saver's workout with John Little

Less...

Allan: 01:57 The summit is video. So you know, this is, this is an audio podcast, so you don't see me moving my arms around and you know, just doing all the things that I do while I'm articulating and talking. But yeah, had my computer propped up so I had good angle and better lighting in the house we have here in the jungle and boom, I knocked the computer over. It was, it was a moment.

Moira: 02:22 It was pretty good though.

Allan: 02:26 One of the things I like about your story that, and I really wanted to kind of get into is that like a lot of folks, you knew that eating well was, was something that you needed to do to kind of maintain your weight. So you would, you would go on a diet, lose a little bit of weight, put on a little bit of weight, and finally you kinda heard someone or resonated with you at least a little bit better. That maybe weightlifting resistance training was, it was something you needed to do.

Moira: 02:57 Yes, I had, I said being dieting, you know, you sort of do the yoyo. I was doing writing, I took exercise classes, but someone said to me, you know, if you used weights, if would change your body shape. And that was all I had to here, body shape will change. Okay, I'm in. So that's how I got started. But I didn't really know what I was doing. I had a friend show me how to use the weights and one of the small YMCA gyms that is now near us. And then when I got hooked on that cause it, it seems like fun. I was being, I was able to push a little bit more and more weight and I thought I was just really terrific. So I joined a gym and there weren't many, they weren't many gyms. There was, there were women gyms that were purely women and they had a few machines or some they aerobics and there were men's gyms.

Moira: 03:56 You know, this was going back a while, but one enterprising gym owner had opened up a women's gym above his men's gym because the men wouldn't let us work out with them, obviously. They were hardcore. So we had our own gym above there's, but we had access to the men who would show us things and, and they had some trainers who would show us. So that was really the start. And it absolutely did as I went forward because I was hooked, it did change the way my body looked, so I was really happy.

Allan: 04:34 Yeah, it is hard to explain to somebody that once you start lifting and you start getting stronger and you kind of get that rush of the pump of moving weight and feeling it, it, that it is something much like running, much like most other exercise programs, it's easy to get addicted to.

Moira: 04:56 It really is. And I was definitely, I was definitely addicted to it that I moved forward and got so involved that I did a contest. Luckily I was so naive. I had no idea what I was really doing or what I was in for that. I just followed the directions of some of the guys in the gym and just went for it, lost some weight. Put on a little bit of muscle and entered. I think that's probably the best way to do these things when you don't know too much.

Allan: 05:26 Yeah. Because there's, there's less opportunity for you to overthink it.

Moira: 05:31 That's right. Or get or find stumbling blocks because, you know, once you have a lot of information, then your mind starts telling you, Oh, but you can't do this. Oh, but you don't compare with the others or you know, Oh, but. But I just thought, I'm gonna get, you know, 90 seconds on stage. Wow. That's more than I'm gonna get for anything else. So yeah, I'm going for it.

Allan: 05:56 We did about something, and I, and I want to kind of get into this because this is one of the major objections. I'll, I'll have a conversation with a woman and invariably she'll tell me, well, you know, I don't want to get huge. I don't want to get bulky. If I lift weights, my legs are going to get just bigger and I don't need them to get bigger. I want them to get smaller. When you talk about changing body shape, you're not talking about turning into a man?

Moira: 06:20 Oh no, definitely. When I was talking about body shape, for me it was losing kind of what I thought was excess fat on my thighs, my legs, toning my arms, you know? That's what I thought about body changing. It was clear to me from an early age for some reason that women had a lot more trouble building muscle and this is borne out. We don't build muscle as readily as men. And when you do see, bulking of sorts, usually it's a little bit of muscle that's developing and women are still carrying the fat over the muscle. But once you lose that fat, you can, you get these long lean muscles. So it's hard to bulk up with a lot of muscle for women. And this you really go out and try, you know your genetics are right. You might get some help with some pharmaceuticals.

Allan: 07:19 That's where I wanted you to go with this because I think that's what they say, that there's two. I think there's two real huge misconceptions when they look in the magazines or they see one of these huge muscular girls that's a bodybuilder. There's two things that that woman's doing that you're not going to do. One is she's going to take steroids and a lot of times you can see it in their face because they're faced with structure changes. The other thing that you'll often see is, is the fact that they're in the gym six hours a day and sleeping the rest of the time. Because the sessional bodybuilders, that's, that's their job is to lift weights and exercise and get big. So they're in the gym. If they're not lifting, they're working on their posing. If they're not working on their posing, they're working on their tan, and they're trying to cut the body fat down to just is really unreasonable number that you can't sustain for a long period of time. And so they're doing these things that you just, you wouldn't do, you just wouldn't spend the time to do this because it's not your priority in your life. If you're looking to get healthy, you do need to do resistance training because you are losing muscle mass and you're losing bone density pretty much every day.

Moira: 08:31 Yes, that's right. And you know, I heard those same stories when I was, body building. You know, I was influencing friends or they were asking me and invariably the questions came about, aren't you worried about getting too big? And my answer was, I wish if I could, if I could get some more muscle, that would be absolutely wonderful because it does take, and I was already thirty-five, thirty-six. So I had age against me in terms of rarely getting a lot of muscle. So yet we don't as women, unless you get some outside assistance like pharmaceuticals as we said, you know, steroids and it's really important too. And what I found then was, okay, now I have being doing the body building. I'm not competing anymore, but I still need to maintain working out with weights. And then the motivation was because I realized that it was going to help keep my bones strong. Just keep my muscles from atrophying, my muscles strong, keep me healthy, I'm going to look more vibrant. And just the hormones that you release from lifting weights, especially if you work out, you know, reasonably hard, the hormones are going to release, they're going to just have a bearing on keeping you younger. That's definitely important

Allan: 10:03 Heavy lifting, and this as something, women do have testosterone, they don't have as much as men. That's why they can't get as muscular as men. Um, unless they, they use steroids then then anything's possible. But lifting heavy weights helps men and women release a little bit more testosterone and a little bit more testosterone is just kind of one of those chemicals in our bodies that just make us feel a lot better, look a lot better. And our muscle tone and quality of our movement is just better.

Moira: 10:34 That's right. And I, I learned recently that women actually produce more HGH, the growth hormone when they work out than men do. Men produce more testosterone but women produce more HGH, which is the hormone to keep us younger. So we've got an advantage when we workout. We may not get the testosterone, but we're gonna look younger.

Allan: 11:01 Now you said something and I, and I think this has changed quite a bit, but, um, I do want to talk about this cause I had lots of clients and lots of people I've talked to over the years and it's, you walk into the gym. And most gyms, you see the treadmills and then after the treadmills, then they have some of the machines and then after the machines over in that little corner over there and sometimes a whole section in the gym. Now you see all the free weights and yes, the big guys are back there lifting probably grunting and doing their thing. And there's now whole series is of chains and whatnot that are trying to get away from that so people feel less intimidated about the gym back, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago, it was all guys in the gym for the most part. Then they started coming out with women's gyms and most of those were like you said, not so much designed for muscle building, resistance training, strength training, those types of things. But things have changed a lot. You know, the advent of CrossFit, other things, people, we're more used to having women come back into the freeway section and lift heavy. We're seeing it more and more so it's not as different or, you know, I guess unusual, as it was 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Moira: 12:20 That's so true. I think there's still an intimidation factor for someone going in for the first time, but it's not the same as it was. It isn't just because there are men there. I think it's because the thing, all these fit people, and as you said, CrossFit, that can be intimidating for anyone walking into that kind of place.

Allan: 12:44 Yeah, I agree. I think the, you know, but what I mean by this is, and this is the point, okay, yeah. You see this, this big hunky guy, you know, he's, he's lifting heavy weights. He's grunting, he's there with maybe two or three of his buddies. You know, they're doing their thing. And I can tell you straight away they're not interested in you. They're, they're happy you're there cause you're helping to support their gym. You know, their gym membership. If it was just the three of them paying for this gym, it'd be a lot more expensive. The fact that there's 200 people that have signed up for the gym means a gym membership is affordable for everybody, and they're not all having to buy their own equipment and they can come work out. They're happy to see you in the gym. They're happy to see you do things for your health. They're not staring you down. They're not watching you. And I'll tell you just from my experience, okay, the only time I notice anyone in the gym is when they're doing something that could hurt themselves.

Moira: 13:38 Yes.

Allan: 13:38 But I, I reserve and I stay back. Now I'm, I own a gym. So if I were to see someone doing something, I thought that hurt them, I'm going to step up and say something. But those individuals are there for a particular purpose. They didn't get big and strong by sitting around watching other people are playing on their phone. They come in the gym, they do their workout. Yes, they may have longer rest because they are lifting heavier weights, but they're not really there too to watch you. They're there to get their workout done and you're just as welcome to that equipment just as welcome to being in the gym as anyone.

Moira: 14:12 That's true. In fact, I was kind of hit, you know, going to hit there that we were intimidated at one time by seeing those men in the gym. I think, I think that most people are less intimidated, especially if you, if as you said, you just realize that they are only too happy that you are joining so that they don't have to pay the full cost of keeping a gym open. But I think that there are some of us just as people were intimidated going into a new situation. Yeah. I think for, for women in particular, if it is the time, I'd suggest that you go with a friend to a gym. And especially if you're going into one of the chains, they're immediately going to offer to show you around because they don't want you doing something. It might hurt yourself and they'll offer you one or two days, maybe have some free advice, free training just to get you going. And so that's really good. It is good too. If you are going into a gym for the first time to get a trainer, to get someone to show you how to use the equipment to find out what you should be doing for your body. You know, the kind of work that you do, Allan is just perfect because you actually analyze what the person needs and then give them a program. So anyone who got that advice from you would feel quite comfortable going into a gym

Allan: 15:45 And you've hit on something that's really important there. You know the gym thrives on, on people not hurting themselves for the millennial coming in there and continuing their membership, and for them to get stronger and show improvement. And they're going to probably, when you get in there, they're going to probably ask you if it's particularly, it's a big box, you know, franchise style gym. They're going to introduce you to their staff. They're going to introduce you to the gym. They're going to, you know, probably do some general assessment work with you and that may or may not be free, but they're going to make sure that you have a, an opportunity to start and access to support of a trainer to help you do that. Now, most gyms will also do this. They will have their personal trainers walking the floor when they're not training someone.

Allan: 16:34 And it's their job to help you if you have a question now that, yeah, not going to train you for free, but if you walk up and you say, look, I want to move from the barbell over here for the bench press or want to move away from this press machine and I want to do the same exercise with free weights, with the dumbbells. Could you show me how to do this properly? And they will be glad to do so. So if you feel uncomfortable, ask a trainer that's there, asked the person at the desk if someone can come show you how to do an exercise properly because it's, that's very, very important that you not hurt yourself. Particularly when we're over 40, over 50. Those injuries don't heal nearly as quickly as they did when we were in our twenties.

Moira: 17:21 That's right. You know, things have changed a little bit. Um, I worked in a gym at the time that I was training for, or sorry, after I had completed the competitions, the gym kind of offered me a free membership. If I would work in the gym, you know, a couple of days a week or a few hours a day. So I would, I would be one of those trainers. I would train people if we had a meeting set up or my job was to walk around the gym. I find it much less so today that they actually walk around helping people. They use the up back at their stations looking at, you know, who else is signing up. So that is a shame. I just have to mention now that isn't every gym, every, you know, all gyms are different, but no one should feel intimidated to go up and find a trainer or find one, you know, one of the staff and ask them to help you with something even if they're not walking the floor because that's what they are really there for. And they will, you're right there. They will be absolutely helpful once you ask them because they don't want anyone to be hurting themselves. So don't feel shy about walking up to someone who happens to be sitting at one of the desks and ask them for advice. Just show you how, how maybe there's a machine that you don't know that you haven't used before. Ask them to show you how it works.

Allan: 18:43 Yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's funny, you know, because to me, the, that's part of the lifeblood of any gym is their willingness to help, help people without having to make an extra buck, you know, on the side. I actually, you know, with the gym now, one of the things that I've done at my gym is I actually will throw free weight lifting clinics for beginners. And I'm like, okay, come in on a Saturday, I'll come in for an hour, I'll show you how to use all the equipment in the gym absolutely free and you'll leave here with a workout program, the basic workout program to get you started. And so, you know, I did one of those and it went over pretty good. The people that came really enjoyed it. I'm going to host another one here soon at the gym. Gut I also do the online training.

Allan: 19:30 So you know, there are other options out there if the gym is not supporting you by, having the support there with people walking around or you know, you're able to afford to have personal training sessions because if you're having them all the time, which is actually really good for accountability, for doing the exercises properly and, and just, you know, somebody that is going to be there to kind of push you a little bit harder. If they're not doing that, you know, give me a call. I'll be glad to help you out.

Moira: 19:57 Yes, that's true. And I agree with you that having a train particularly when you starting out is absolutely worth the money because you want to learn how to do things properly. You want to get a program and you want that accountability. And then when you feel comfortable to workout on your own that you're motivated to go into the gym without having to, you know, show up for an appointment, then it's great. You've got your program and you can continue. I think I once wrote an article in a blog going back a while, so it's probably out of date was how to hire a trainer.

Allan: 20:35 I've actually done an episode on what to what, what to look for in a trainer. And when to fire a trainer (https://40plusfitnesspodcast.com/fire-personal-trainer/). A trainer should be listening more than they're talking. A trainer should be paying attention to what's going on with you? Um, you know, I have some clients, they're not always happy with what I tell them to do. Sometimes I'm actually asking them to do more and there's times I'm actually asking them to do less. And they don't always understand the do less part, but it's when I see a client can't handle the exercises they're doing or the form is just not right there. I'm not going to put load on them. And I think what a lot of people forget, it's like, well, I can lift more weight. And I'm like, not the way you're doing it. You're going to break and I don't want to break you. You and I have something very well in common. We both tore our rotator cuffs.

Moira: 21:25 Yes, we did. I think we we empathize with each other, but we didn't approach it the same.

Allan: 21:33 We approached it very differently. I went through the surgery and when the doctor got in there, he was like, this was a bad one. Uh, but I went through the surgery, went through the therapy and I'm in pretty good shape. All things considered. I lost a lot of strength as a result. I have a little divot in my shoulder as a result. But you know, I have full range of motion with my shoulder, and I'm able to do most of the things I was able to do just not quite as strong. But that was my path. You chose a different path.

Moira: 22:04 Yes. I think when I had, when I tore mine, I was a little older than you were when you tore yours. We won't go into detail, but the doctor I went to, you looked at me very, I thought very honestly, he spoke to me very honestly and he said that I had an 80% chance of recovery. And I know that you said that would have been a plus for you. For me, that was a minus. And I was very fortunate that I found a functional rehab trainer, online actually. He lives in Australia, but he did marvelous for me because he said to me, he looks at the MRI size and said, I can help you get your full strength back in a different way and not have this pain and not have the surgery. So it wasn't that if you decide to have the surgery, I'll help you recover.

Moira: 23:01 But he said, I would recommend that you don't. So I decided to trust him and I'm very pleased that I did because I do. I have full range of motion. I have a lot of the strength back. I won't say it's exactly the same as it was, but I just am using the muscles differently and using different muscles to compensate, and I don't even notice it anymore because I've trained my brain, I guess, to just do things in a different way. So yeah, we chose different paths. Both had success, which is, which just I think shows there's no one way, and I think whatever you believe is going to work for you is the thing that's going to work

Allan: 23:41 As long as you're willing to dedicate the time and the effort to do what's necessary. So the one thing we did have in common was I was in therapy, physical therapy. I had the surgery on Thursday, I was in physical therapy Monday. And you listened to your therapist and you did exactly as he instructed you to do and you built compensating muscles to allow you to move and do the things you needed to do. So we chose different paths for different reasons and different ways that we look at things. So I agree with you. There's a, you have to look at this and say, but the injury is not a give up. The injury is actually a flag for me, do more, but do it differently or do something different to, to fix this, to solve this, to work around this. But, so many people will injure themselves and decide, okay, this hurts. Therefore I'm going to stop.

Moira: 24:41 Exactly. It's so tempting to do that. I have to say that I have a functional trainer that regardless of what I say I've heard, he will give me an exercise to fix it so that I don't slow down. It's a, it doesn't mean I go, okay, I can't go running, you know. No, no, you can just use your leg this way. Not that way. You know, he said he does not believe in stopping for a second. And if you have someone that you trust like that, and if you're the kind of person, as you said, who is motivated to continue around, over or through what might be a challenge, then you definitely come out stronger and better on the other side.

Allan: 25:26 Yeah. I, I have a client and, um, he right now and he's, he's done so good. He works so hard and he's addicted to it, for lack of a better word. He's having issues with his elbow. So when we do any kind of pull movement, we have to be very careful, with his elbow. And he has now some arthritis in his shoulder. And so when we're doing push movements, particularly overhead, we to be very careful about those push movements and he's, you know, he's making some decisions on how he wants to deal or if he wants to deal with those medically, but there is pain involved. So we're, we're trying to modify the movements, we're trying to do all of those things that you said functionally allow him to do the things, because I told him it's basically tendonitis in the elbow.

Allan: 26:13 Rest is the primary prescription, but we've tried three weeks of rest and then the pain comes back. So it's like, you know, that this is something more than just what rest might do. He still wants to pull. So I'm like, okay, let's talk about where the pain starts, where it finishes, let's figure out ways to modify the work so that you're still able to build muscle and build strength, without putting yourself in a compromised or painful position. And he's working with me. We're diligently through that process. And it's, it is a process. And it's, it means he's actually had to work harder to get past this. And I'm so proud of him for doing it because a lot of folks would sit there and say, I don't like the pain and I'm quitting, but the pain is actually probably a signal that you need to change something and you probably need to work a little harder to make sure you're doing the right things.

Moira: 27:06 It's actually fascinating because usually we're working with clients who are putting up their own blocks, you know, missing a session, going off exercise for awhile, giving up. But you also have to be careful of clients who are the act the opposite who maybe want to push too hard, push through the pain. You have to slow them down just slightly,

Allan: 27:28 Just slightly. Yeah. Yeah. Because when he told me, I had to do a back workout. I'm like, okay, well let's talk about how you did it, what you felt, where were we, you know? And then we get into the actual exercises and I'm like, okay, let's change this exercise and do this this way. Let's change that exercise and do it that way, and then let me know, report back how that felt. And so each, each week we get on our calls and you know, where we're going through this stuff. And yeah, I've got other clients that if something goes wrong in their day, they're gonna, completely just miss a workout miss, scheduling a call with me. Something like that. And I'm like, no. So I have, I have both sides. You're right. I do have clients that, that required both and I understand both. I've been in that situation where, you know, you can't work out and you really want to, or you just, a time when you, you feel a lot of something going on or DOMS or something like that I really don't want to waddle into the gym today.

Moira: 28:27 That's right. I actually found that happening after I'd been competing, that I was kind of burned out. I would drive to the gym because it was habit, you know, the car just went there and I would sit outside and I remember there were one or two times when I never actually went in. I just thought, no, I'm going home. It was very strange. It was a very strange, I, that's why I remember it so clearly because I just couldn't get myself to go in. So I do understand people who do that.

Allan: 28:58 I've actually had that happen myself. I was working a very stressful job, at a very stressful point in time at that job. And I just like you did, I remember the alarm going off in the morning. This is back when I actually used alarm clocks and the alarm went off in the morning for me to go to the gym and I hit the alarm and I was thinking to myself, I am either going to the gym or I'm going to work because I can't do both.

Moira: 29:27 Yes.

Allan: 29:28 And it was just that understanding that, working out is a stressor. If you're already chronically stressed, sometimes the workout, you do better to spend that 40 minutes meditating or are soaking in an Epson Salt bath or something that's going to distress you, than actually getting in the gym and pushing yourself really hard. So yeah, I think there is an aspect where you do, you do listen to your body, uh, but, but, but don't let that body just to eventually talk you into, uh, well let's, let's drop by Dunkin Donuts and do those types of things. It's more of a conversation of saying, okay, I understand, you know, very stressful week. I'm fatigued, I'm not sleeping well. I would do better with an extra hour of sleep than I would by spending that hour in the gym and gave yourself that permission.

Moira: 30:25 Right, exactly. As long as it doesn't become the habit, it's a very good thing to do. I know you probably had this too. I have friends who will not miss a day. And I keep saying to them, you don't understand that rest is actually good for building muscle and rest is good for the rest of your workout. And you can miss a day. Their habit is to go in every single day and it's almost like an addiction.

Allan: 30:54 Yeah. I just tell him this, professional athletes have de-load periods. A bodybuilder will work hard for, eight weeks and then they'll take a de-load week where they don't lift. The other thing they are doing that a lot of us are not doing is most professional athletes will sleep for eight or nine hours every single night.

Allan: 31:23 And that's because they understand the value of recovery. So you need those de-load weeks. professional athletes that put like the football players. I can tell you as soon as they finish their football season, they take three or four weeks off and unless they need to go in for some form of surgery to rehabilitate for the next season, they just take an act like normal people for three weeks. And they don't go to the gym and they don't exercise and they don't train and then they let their body recover and with that recovery they go to the gym hungry because they didn't feed that desire, that work, you know, that, that, that thing for three weeks. And when they went back in the gym, it was, you know, they were ready to go. But you need that. You need that recovery time.

Moira: 32:09 Absolutely. I'm glad you mentioned that because we are, we are discussing here how to encourage people to get into the gym. But you also say everything in moderation, especially when you start out.

Allan: 32:21 Oh yeah. The way I like to put it, I put it in the book is what you need is you need gentle nudging your body, your body will change. You just have to give it these gentle nudges, the progression to make that happen.

Moira: 32:34 That sounds like a good description. Very good description. I like the gentle nudging. It sounds so much better than get in there and push.

Allan: 32:42 There's little bit pushing in there, too. You want to find that line and, and you know a lot of people you'll hear this term when we talk about resistance training of failure, pushing yourself to failure. You don't have to get to failure for your muscles to grow. You just need an adequate stimulus. Now failure is a is typically a good indication that you definitely have that stimulus. DOMS can be an indicator that you have affected that stimulus, but they should not be the objective. The objective should be where, you know, the muscle was worked, it was worked through the full range of motion and you can feel that you worked at, now you may wake up the next morning and feel just as capable of, go in and do that workout again. Most cases probably not. But as long as you're giving your body that stimulus and then you're giving it the food and the nutrition it needs and then you're giving it the rest, then you're giving full cycle for your body to grow and to get better.

Moira: 33:43 Yes. Exactly, that full cycle. And I like what you said about the sleep because when I, when I was seriously into it, during the competition, I would be in bed by nine o'clock every night getting up at five or six to go train. But I, nothing stopped me from going to bed and getting the full eight to ten hours sleep. I wouldn't, I won't say ten but definitely eight, eight or nine. I get out of that habit

Allan: 34:15 I'm in bed at eight 30 and nine o'clock almost every single night. I have not used an alarm clock in four years unless I have to catch an early morning flight and I'm just don't want to make sure that extra sleep cycle happen. I sleep until I know my body's gotten at least five sleep cycles, which is seven and a half hours. And occasionally my body will want a sixth one, which will put me up to about nine hours. But I just let my body sleep until I wake up and say, okay, I'm good to go. And where I am here in Panama's actually really nice because the days and the nights are relatively the same.

Moira: 34:50 Same, right.

Allan: 34:51 Gets dark around seven o'clock. So by 8:30 it's, it's been dark for a little while. I'm able to just go ahead and go to sleep very easily. And then it gets light around 5:30. So you know, right now pretty much it just the, just that Twilight morning stuff, you know, it's like can see it coming through the window. That's usually my spur to get up. And if I feel it, I do, if not, I'll, I'll go back to sleep and sleep for about another hour and a half, a good sleep cycle. And then I'm up really good at seven o'clock so I know every morning I'm going to be up by seven o'clock for sure. And I plan to start my days usually at nine o'clock. So no problem. I have time to shower and do all the things I want to do, but I don't use alarm clocks and I try to keep my evening activities to a minimum.

Moira: 35:38 I think that's excellent. Um, I think I got into, you know, working full time in corporate field. I got into some bad habits of working late. It was almost expected really. You just had things you did at night. And so I'm slowly getting back into the longer sleep cycles and switching earlier nights and then earlier mornings.

Allan: 36:00 Yeah, I guess I just got, when I got towards the end of my corporate I was like, you know, I've worked my way up to this point. I deserve to rest when I want to rest. And so I would sit down, I'd pull up my phone and I would check email at about seven o'clock at night and after I checked that email at seven o'clock, I'd set my phone in the, in the living room and I'd grab the bedroom and go to sleep. I don't even have the cell phone in my bedroom and so I was out of sight, out of mind. I'd go to sleep when I woke up, like I said, 5:30 in the morning, I would go in there and check my work email because I figure if they stayed up till 11 o'clock working and they sent that email and went to bed, wake up in the morning, and my email response would be there and then I didn't have to be up at 12 o'clock to answer that email if I answer it at five o'clock in the morning. So, I had my own system.

Moira: 36:47 Good habits.

Allan: 36:47 Still stress was a big problem for me and it caused me some issues and so I've, I'm still working on that whole thing, but you know, just say, listen to your body and give it the rest of needs, push it a little bit. It'll grow and it'll get better. And then it just the patients and persistence of keeping at it,

Moira: 37:05 Definitely. It's a keeping at it. That's it. To be consistent. Yeah.

Moira: 37:10 I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well,

Moira: 37:19 And of course this would be personal. You know, everyone has a different approach. So yeah, here's what I thought about this for quite a while actually. And I decided one is to do something active every day, whether it's going to the gym, taking a long walk, going for a jog, taking a hike, but do something active every day.

Moira: 37:41 Have a morning routine. And I've really gotten into my morning routine, which includes the meditation, some deep breathing, perhaps a 10 minute yoga or some exercise just for 10 minutes or something to wake me up. And then some abs. I want always do some abs in the morning, just do it then. Okay. So that's my, my morning routine and that seems to be good for what I do. And I think whatever you choose to do your morning routine should be consistent because it sets you up for the day.

Moira: 38:18 And then the third thing would be to connect with friends as often as you can because that's really one of the things that gives us the internal hormone boost that keeps us happy, content and feeling connected

Allan: 38:34 I really liked those. Thank you for that. Moira, If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the fit beyond 50 you haven't set up the website yet so I'm going to, I'm going to tell them the link actually summer [inaudible] break in and say, okay, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/fit50. Again that's 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/fit50 and that's going to take you to the signup page for the Fit Beyond Fifty Summit. But Moira if there's any other address, is there anything else that you want them to know about? Feel free to let us know.

Moira: 39:10 No, I think that that's great. Signing up there is the best strategy because they could email you or me, but I'm having, I have a feeling they're just signing up. There is going to be the easiest. And the, the, the summit is going to air on the 28th of October. I have a variety of speakers including a special speaker, Allan Misner.

Allan: 39:40 Yeah. I don't know if you cut it out, you probably said you said you might be cutting it out. But yeah, I didn't knock over my computer while we were talking. So it was a very fun conversation. Much like this one was some way. Right. Thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.

Moira: 39:56 Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I really enjoyed the conversation.

You can learn more about the Fit Beyond Fifty summit at https://40plusfitnesspodcast.com/fbf.

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Forever painless with Miranda Esmonde-White

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Very little unfortunately in the United States, but extensive amounts in China, India, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, France, Germany. So all around the world there is a tremendous amount of plant research and in many cases, this plant research, this modern plant research is confirming, although sometimes going well beyond the understanding that people have had for thousands of years of how these substances can help us to live healthier, better lives.

And one of the things that's really important to understand, a lot of people have this idea that it's sort of an either or situation. It's either Orthodox Western medicine or it's complimentary alternative medicine, herbal medicine, natural medicine. And honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Where Orthodox medicine is strong tends to be where things like herbal medicine aren't that effective and vice versa. Where herbal medicine is really strong, tends to be in areas, especially dealing with things like chronic degenerative disease where Orthodox medicine often has little to offer.

So when it comes to the individual, the patient, the client, the real win-win is understanding which is appropriate in a given situation. Herbs are not the answer to everything. Adaptogens are not the answer to everything, but then nor does Orthodox medicine have the answer to everything. So understanding which therapy, which treatments are most effective, most appropriate for a given situation, for a given person is essential.

Allan: 04:36 Now an adaptogen is not just a chemical compound they're pulling out of a plant to, to make a new medicine with its, it's actually using the whole plant. Right? Can, you can talk about adaptogens, what they are and what they do?

David: 04:50 Absolutely. And this is going to get slightly complex. Um, but I will do my absolute best to keep it as simple as possible. So initially, you know, in all these ancient systems of medicine, there are tonic herbs. So in Ayurveda they're called Rasanayas, in TCM, in traditional Chinese medicine, they're known as Chi Tonics or kidney youn tonics or blood tonics. But these traditional definitions of a tonic remedy do not necessarily equate to what we today call an adaptogen.

An adaptogen is a modern scientific concept developed initially in the Soviet Union. The initial research was done by Professor Lazaroff starting in the late 1940s. If you think, wow, they must've been very, you know, forward-thinking to do this kind of research. The reality was this was initially military research and the Russians were, the Soviets were trying to do what cruise chefs said, and that was to bury the West. They were trying to find ways to make better soldiers, better cosmonauts workers so that they could outdo us and literally win the cold war.

Basically what happens is the research eventually goes from the initially started looking at chemical substances and with Dr. Breckman who is considered the father of adaptogenic research. He switches over to looking at plants and they eventually settle on a plant called, at the time in the United States, we learned about it known as a Siberian ginseng, but the proper name for it is Eleutherococcus senticosus and that's where the initial research starts. And what they did is they first promoted a definition of an adaptogen using a very simplistic three parameters.

Number one, the plant was nontoxic in a normal therapeutic dose. Alright, so that's, that's fine. The problem with that is that describes almost every herb in the material Medica. I mean they ask, there are some toxic herbs, but most herbs are relatively benign in a normal therapeutic dose.

Secondly, they decided that these herbs would create what was called a nonspecific state of resistance to stress. So that means they help you to resist stress, whether that stress is psychological, physiological, or environmental. But the problem there is that other categories of herbs including nervines, which we think of as nerve tonics, things that are common also help you to deal with stress more effectively. So that doesn't really mean that is absolutely an adaptogen.

And thirdly that they would have what is called an amphoteric effect on the body, helping to normalize function of multiple systems, especially the endocrine system, nervous system, immune system as well as the cardiovascular and digestive systems. So that was the initial definition. And that last started, I think that was, that definition came out around 1969 so after that and the intervening where now 50 years later, the definition has changed.

Now those first three parameters are all still true, but they have added to the definition. So in the 1990s they determined that adaptogens work primarily through two master control systems in the body. One is called the HPA axis, that's the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. This is the master control system of almost all endocrine function, much nervous system function, immune function and what also what deals with chronic stress in our lives. And then the second system is called the SAS, the Sympathoadrenal System. And this is your fight or flight mechanism, which deals acute stress. So in order for an adaptogen to be an adaptogen, there has to be evidence that it is primarily working through one or both of these two master control systems. Further research showed us that adaptogens also work on a cellular level.

So what does this mean? It means that they do several things.

Number one, they help reduce stress hormone production. So that's especially cortisol, norepinephrine, and they help prevent cortisol induced mitochondrial dysfunction. So for instance, some of the conditions associated with stress induced mitochondrial dysfunction include things like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome, which is one of the reasons adaptogens can be so useful as part of a protocol for treating those conditions because underlying those conditions is basically elevated levels of stress hormones, specifically cortisol, which shuts down the mitochondria, which are the engines of yourselves. So if your mitochondria are not working, you are going to have all sorts of problems with fatigue, with muscle weakness, with muscle pain, uh, with cardiovascular issues and et cetera, et cetera.

And they do this, not only do they shut down the excessive production of cortisol, but they do it by up-regulating certain stress modulators in the body. These are noticing heat shock proteins, fork head proteins and something known as neuropeptide Y.

So in order for an herb to be an adaptogen, it has to do every single one of these things. Of course the ancients had no idea about any of these things. So when they are talking about a Rasanayas or a Chi tonic, you know, those things, some of them actually turn out to be adaptogens, but of course, many of them do not because they don't meet the parameters of today what we know is an adaptogen.

Allan: 11:02 Okay. So kind of my key takeaways from this is that that one, adaptogens don't just address one part of the body. Like I think in the book you talked about how tumeric actually supports the liver, a single organ versus actually supporting the whole body through the, you know, HPA and through the SAS Yes. Right. And then the other piece of it is it doesn't just push us in one direction. It's sort of a balancing, getting us more towards homeostasis than pushing us in one direction just because we're stressed trying to push us unstressed. It's literally just kind of trying to find that balance.

David: 11:42 Correct. Now I will say that turmeric by the way of course is not in adaptogens. The turmeric, it just doesn't work on the liver. A tumor has much broader implications. In fact, the majority of herbs have a wider sphere than just working on a single organ. But adaptogens you could, yes, I think your, your definition, think of them as almost systemic remedies, but they're primary effects are on endocrine nervous system and immune function. That is where, because that's of course what the HPA axis and the SAS, those are the things that they are affecting. Now of course the reality is is that the SAS also and the HPA axis also affect skin function. They also affect circulation. They also affect reproductive function, both male and female. So again, very wide ranging effects.

And at the same time you'd mentioned homeostasis. Adaptogens work in a really interesting way. So think of it this way. We, we, anybody who has had anatomy and physiology learned about homeostasis, where the body tries to maintain its normal balance. So some things are maintained in very, very tight, like your serum sodium levels, your blood serum, serum levels of sodium have to be maintained with a very, very narrow range. And so the body will work exceedingly hard to make sure that it stays there. And the idea of homeostasis is everything's tries to stay the same. Well, in reality, there is a second process known as allostasis that the body uses to maintain homeostasis and adaptogens also enhanced allostasis.

What is allostasis? So any of your listeners who have ever gone surfing, and you don't even have to be a surfer, you could go skiing, you could go ice skating, skateboarding, anything where you need really good balance. So if you got up on a surfboard and you stand absolutely still, as those waves are moving you in every direction, you're gonna stay on that board for about a second. In order to stay on the board, you start moving and shifting your body weight to compensate for changes. That is allostasis. Allostasis is the body's ability to change in order to maintain balance and adaptogens help in that process.

Allan: 14:16 Okay. So most of the book we're talking about stress, so we're talking about our body is going through, it'll can go through acute stress, which just basically means, you know, I see a bear and Oh, I've got run, versus chronic stress where my CFO is the bear and he's on me every single day. And so that stress just sticks with me and my fight or flight is basically every waking moment. Adaptogens can kind of help us with that. Right. So can you kind of talk through the stress reaction process and then how adaptogens can support us as we deal with chronic stress.

David: 14:53 They're working on multiple levels and that's where it gets a bit complicated because, just to give you an example: I mentioned earlier that among these sort of molecular chaperones or stress chaperones that adaptogens affect, we have what are called heat shock proteins. These are molecular chaperones. And so these molecular chaperones heat shock proteins protect, mitochondria from stress induced damage. Then they also regulate a chemical called FOXO. It's a fork head protein and basically FOXO basically is a neuro. FOXO is upregulated and it promotes the synthesis of proteins that inhibit the effects of stress. It helps detoxify cells. It also has been shown to enhance longevity. I also mentioned it basically up-regulates in neuropeptide Y, which is a neurotransmitter which has been shown to relieve anxiety.

It's been shown to inhibit pain perception. It lowers blood pressure, it inhibits addiction, it inhibits cortisol release. So those are just some of the compounds that it is affecting and having a broad ranging effect on the body. So when we are under stress, there is a whole cascade of cellular and organ response in the body. And adaptogens are saying to the body, think of adaptogens as sort of like a stress vaccine. Some people call it a stress memetic. In fact, what adaptogens do is they say to your body, stress is coming. So let's get ready for stress. In that sense, it's a little bit like going to the gym. So many of your listeners probably work out, maybe some of them are runners. You did the first time you ran, you didn't run a marathon, at least not if you were smart the first time you start running a short distance and then the next day you run again and again, or you go to the gym and you start off with a low amount of weights and a small amount of repetitions and you gradually work your way up to where your muscles become stronger. We are more stamina, more strength and the ability to do more

Adaptogens work very similar to this. They basically say to your body, stress is coming yet ready. And so the body builds up so that it is more prepared to deal with stress when the actual stress comes, whether that is an acute stress or a chronic stress. The one difference between adaptogens and say going to gym is that if you go to the gym and you don't go to the gym for two weeks, you may lose a little bit of strength and stamina, but you still have a significant long-term effect adaptogens to be taken regularly because the effect doesn't have a long term effect. So these are things you would take on a regular basis. And of course, which adaptogens and individual takes are going to depend on the specifics of that person because it's important to note that adaptogens are not a one size fits all phenomenon.

A lot of people think, Oh, you need an adaptogens, just take any one. Well, that's not true. There are stimulating adaptogens. There are calming adaptogens. There are heating adaptogens, cooling adaptogens, drawing adaptogens, moistening, adaptogens, nourishing adaptogens. And so the key is, and that's more of course, one of the reasons I wrote my book, is that I wanted people to understand what I would call the personality of each of these adaptogenic herbs so that you can figure out which one or ones, because remember, traditionally in all of the great systems of verbal medicine, herbs are never taken as simple as meaning one herb at a time. They're taking in complex formulas.

Why? Because we are dealing with complex people with complex problems. And so the idea is which adaptogens or adaptogens and the sort of supportive herbs or companion herbs for adaptogens such as nervines Nootropics, we'll talk about this more later, or restorative tonics that you take with them to help create something that is actually going to be beneficial and work for the individual. Great herbalists don't treat diseases. We treat people.

Allan: 19:17 Let's go ahead and jump ahead then and let's have that conversation about the nervines and the supporting components and, and, and the Nootropics. Let's get into those. Just a little bit so they know what we're talking about.

David: 19:29 Okay. So we just, we've defined what an adaptogen is and we'll talk more about them. But there are other, and I include this in my book, there are other herbs that I would call companion herbs to adaptogens. They work really well with adaptogens.

And so the three categories of these, and the first is nervines are nerve vines in England and these are calming herbs. I mentioned that briefly before and they basically helped restore the emotional foundation. So for people who are especially type A personality, for people who are emotionally labile, for people who have number ten reactions to number one problems. Nervines can be really useful along with perhaps calming adaptogens. For a person like that.

Then we have water known as no a tropics. Now I have to define this because nootropics, some people call them smart drugs.There are three different categories.

There are the chemical smart drugs, which are often designer drugs created in the laboratory with no history of previous use and no record of safety. Uh, I am very leery about these substances.

Then there are the supplement, nootropics and these include things like L-carnitine and things like that which have a very good safety.

And then there are our herbal Nootropics and there are a wide variety of herbal nootropics. These herbs tend to be neuro-protective. They are anti-inflammatory on neuro anti-inflammatories. They enhance cerebral circulation, they enhance memory, focus, concentration. And there is some evidence that at least some of them may help at least slow, if not possibly help prevent something like dementia or Alzheimer's. But that is a very, very preliminary.

Then we have what I would call restorative tonics. And these are basically herbs that are nutritive. They help to enhance overall function, but they do not meet the definition of an adaptogen. So now I'll mention a couple specifically.

We have herbs like the goji berry. Very, very popular herb. And the Chinese herb astragalus. Herbs like this are wonderful nutritive herbs, but they are not adaptogens, even though a lot of people tend to throw them in that category, unfortunately, they just don't meet those definitions.

Allan: 21:58 Okay. If I came to you as a client and generally, okay, you're just a general description, over 40 and high chronic stress and you were going to kind of put together a general protocol, what are some of the things that would be included in that protocol?

David: 19:17 Well, unfortunately, that's not enough of a definition, a description that I could come up with something because I need to know everything about you.

You know, as is somebody who is a patient of mine. I need to know not only their age and their weight and their blood pressure. I need to know their medical history. I need to know, I need to know everything I can about them, you know, and they would bring in their blood work from their physician and their diagnosis is that they have from their doctor. And you put together a protocol that is specific to the patient.

Because remember as I said, great herbalists don't treat diseases. Medical men, Western medicine focuses in on disease. We don't focus in on disease. We focus on creating protocols to help people be well, to help people prevent disease. To help people to gain maximal health, strength, longevity, et cetera. So, but what I would look at is, for instance, if you were somebody who was deficient and depleted, I might include some stimulating adaptogens and stimulating adaptogens would include things like, perhaps, Asian Ginseng or Rhodiola.

On the other hand, if you were really depleted, deficient, exhausted all the time, then I want to make sure I include some of the nourishing adaptogens. So there may be something like American Ginseng. If you were a type A personality, you know, you can't shut your mind off, then we might consider some of your calming adaptogens such as Ashwagandha or Schisandra. And so there are different ones that we would use.

And by the way, not every single person gets an adaptogen. And I don't want people to think that adaptogens are panaceas. Adaptogens are incredibly useful. Don't get me wrong, I do use them a lot, but I'm using a broad spectrum of herbs. Adaptogens are just one part of that. And I need your listeners to understand. Adaptogens are not a replacement for the foundations of health.

Foundations of health are adequate, good quality sleep, a good diet, exercise, healthy lifestyle choices. So if you are eating fast food three meals a day, only getting six hours sleep, running yourself ragged, training for a marathon, working in incredibly stressful job, and smoking, I don't care how many adaptogens you take, it is not going to make up for the fact that you are abusing yourself. And in fact at best it's going to simply allow you to abuse yourself a little bit longer until you finally collapse.

It's kind of the whipping the exhausted horse. You can make it go a little further, but it's going to collapse. So adaptogens are not a replacement for the foundations of health, but for the average American who is overfed under-exercised, not getting enough sleep, especially when it's a situation where, for instance, you're actually trying to take care of yourself, but maybe there's a new baby in the house.

You're not getting enough sleep. Or maybe you just graduated from a law school, passed your boards and you just hired on to a new law firm and they're expecting you to work 70 hour weeks. Or maybe you are in college and you're having to pull all-nighters and study, which I do not recommend as it reduces comprehension dramatically.

But you know, adaptogens under those circumstances where you mentioned the example earlier where your boss is on your case all the time and it's incredibly stressful and maybe you don't have the option to change. Maybe you're in a situation where you live in a small town where there's only one employer and you don't have a lot of options. Adaptogens can be incredibly useful. Again, helping to prevent stress-induced cortisol elevation, helping to reduce the stress-induced anxiety, helping to reduce the stress-induced elevation of blood pressure and the resultant of course, mitochondrial dysfunction that comes with elevated cortisol levels.

And I will point out that elevation of cortisol can come from lack of sleep, obesity or stress And chronically elevated cortisol levels not only basically shut down the mitochondria in the cells. Chronic elevation of cortisol is proinflammatory and of course all of our chronic degenerative disease is inflammatory in nature. It raises blood pressure, it interferes with sleep, it interferes with digestion, it decreases the immune response, and increases the growth of tissue including skin tags, benign prostatic hyperplasia in men, fibroids, uterine fibroids in women cancer, chronically elevated cortisol is really not good. And so anything we can do to help our body to reset and be at a, you know, a healthier baseline on a regular basis is going to a long term have profound positive implications for our health.

Allan: 27:31 So I guess the way I kind of take this, as you know, you can't just say, okay, I need ashwagandha. I need a Chinese Ginseng or Asian Ginseng root. I need American ginseng root and everybody needs that. The reality is you're going to have to kind of put together a protocol for yourself based on your own personal needs.

David: 27:51 That's actually true. You know, they're there. First of all, as I said, not everybody needs adaptogens, period. But if you do feel you need adaptogens, and again, that's one of the reasons I wrote the book is so that each herb has its own monographs. You can read about it and say, wow, does this make sense for me? And I often mentioned like, I often use it with this or that so that people can kind of get a sense if they don't have access to a clinical herbalist or a naturopathic physician who's trained in botanical medicine or a medical doctor who knows herbs. If they don't have access to someone like that. They can at least educate themselves so they can decide which of these things may, would be most appropriate for them. And again, not everybody needs them, but I would say that, you know, discounting cultures where they're either people are actively starving, suppressed or at war, Americans are some of the most stressed out people in the world.

Allan: 28:51 Absolutely. That's why I moved to Panama.

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

David: 29:07 Well, three, let's go back to the foundations of health that I just mentioned. In 1910, the average American slept slightly over nine hours per night. Now, the average American sleeps less than seven hours per night. In the intervening 100 plus years, we have not evolved to need less sleep. We're just chronically sleep deprived.

So number one, make sure that you get minimum seven hours sleep at night. Eight is definitely better. If you're sleeping more than nine hours a night, that suggests some issues. So somewhere between seven and nine hours is probably ideal. But the key important thing is when you wake up in the morning, do you feel refreshed? Do you feel rested? Because even if you're getting 12 hours sleep at night and you wake up in the morning and you feel tired, you're exhausted, then you have some type of sleep issue. And so it is absolutely essential that you figure out what that is.

Because, no matter what you have, if you have sleep issues, your chances of having a heart attack increase. If you have sleep issues, your chances of dying from cancer increase. If you have sleep issues, your blood pressure's going to increase. It gives sleep issues, your cortisol levels are going to increase. So sleep is foundational.

Number two, move and move a lot. We sit too much. We are not active. And of course some people are not as capable as you know, heavy exercise. I'm not talking about you have to run marathons, do what you can, whether it is swim, whether it is dance, whether it is practice yoga, move

Number three (I'm going to go beyond three). Eat a healthy diet and I'm astonished at what people think is a healthy diet. I have my patients fill out a three-day diet diary and I'll just sit there and scratch my head sometimes. Because people tell me, I think I eat pretty well. And so of course, food is foundational.

You know, they say as computers, garbage in, garbage out. Well, the diet is the same way. Garbage in, garbage out. You are dependent on your food for what Chinese medicines called the Gushi, the Gransha, the nutrients of that food to feed every cell in your body. And so eat healthy.

I am not a big fan of fad diets. I think that you need to figure out what works for you. And some people can be very healthy vegetarians and I've met people who just can't do that diet. So it's not like there's one diet that is good for everybody. You have to figure out what works for you. But what I can tell you very clearly is fast food, for instance, fried foods, a heavy, heavy meat diet, things like that are generally not good for almost anybody.

Then number four, emotional health. Emotional and spiritual health are, in my opinion, again, foundational. Having loved ones, whether it is anything from a companion animal to friends, to a life partner, to community, social networks. these are incredibly important. And I am a big believer in the power of a higher power, of having some type of spirituality in your life. I am not necessarily talking about a specific religion, but having something that you realize that you are a small part of something greater than ourselves. So having a meaningful ceremony, whether you think of it as the Gaia, the power of nature, God, or Allah, that to me is not as important. Of course for individuals I'm sure it is very important. Their spiritual and religious beliefs and that's great, but find something that works for you and works within your life.

And so for me, those sorts of things are absolutely foundational to health. And then we have other things that can add to that. And some of them, like nutritional supplements can be useful. Although I am much more interested in using herbs because I think they are more, much more bioavailable. And in a form that people can actually utilize more effectively. Those kinds of things. Stress reduction techniques are sort of built based on that foundation.

Allan: 33:49 Well thank you David. You know, one thing I'll say about the book is if anything and everything that you want to know about adaptogens, this is the book, that's called Adaptogens, but it literally you, you covered the history, you cover what they are, how they work. You know, all the different types. Cause there's, there's lots of them. You said there was 250,000 plant species that we've identified and we're just starting to learn how those can help us. But this book really, I think you could have called it the encyclopedia of adaptogens or the complete book with androgens. It really is comprehensive. And so if you're interested in adaptogens, I strongly suggest you check out David's book.

David, if someone want to get in touch with you, learn more about the book or things you're doing, where would you like for me to send them?

David: 34:33 Well, couple things. Number one, if anybody is interested in the book, they can get it. You know, simply from Amazon, if they like or their local bookstore. It's widely available. You can also contact me or reach me through to websites. There is my school, I have a two year urge studies program for people who want to train to be clinical herbalists and that is herbalstudies.net and then I also have a website which is an educational website where people can download free articles, information articles from my library, which is one of the largest private herbal research libraries in North America. Information on my classes where I'll be teaching around the world. I teach all over the US, Canada, Europe, occasionally central America, and that a website is herbaltherapeutics.net and those are the two are places that people can get additional information or contact.

I also have through, I believe it's herbal therapeutics website. I have a Facebook page where I do posts about every two weeks so people can tune into those posts and read the old posts every on thing. I'm mostly on the topic of herbal medicine and my travels and things like that. And so hopefully people will avail themselves. The book, Adaptogens, herbs for strength, stamina, and stress relief. This is the second edition and I think anybody interested in the topic will hopefully learn quite a bit and be able to make better choices for themselves in their use of adaptogens, nervines, nootropics, and restorative tonics.

Allan: 36:27 All right, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/403 and I'll have the links there for the book for David's sites and all that.

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

David: 36:39 Thank you Allan. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

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