Alcohol and Metabolic Health

Welcome to Everyday Wellness podcast. I'm your host, nurse practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow This podcast is designed to educate, empower and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives This is Bonus Monday, your most downloaded favorite podcast. I love that this community runs the gamut from medical professionals, research scientists, science writers, personal trainers, and more. These are your favorite, most loved podcasts of the last five years. I could not be more proud of The diversification of guests that appeal to all of you. Thanks for tuning in Today I connected with cooach Bronson Dant, who has been guiding and training people in health and fitness for over ten years. He hass discovered how a whole food animal based ketogenic diet optimizes metabolic health and performance. He is the author of the ultimate ketogenic fitness book And today we dove deep into his powerful pain to purpose story the value of mindset, understanding age related changes to muscle inflammation, and metabolic flexibility Three pillars of muscle health related to nutrient density, bioavailability and satety, the importance of sleep extremes of exercise, the value of stress management, understanding weight loss resistance and his study from the Journal of Nutrition, Mabolism, and Health science related to menopausal women, macros and functional movement. I hope you will enjoy this invaluable conversation as much as I did recording it Welcome, Brce, and I've been looking forward to our conversation Absolutely. So about. this is fantastic. It's been a long time coming. Yes, you are not kidding. It's been a process to make sure that we get this scheduled. I'd love for you to share with listeners a bit about your background and your journey, kind of your pain to purpose story because it's so inspiring to acknowledge that nutrition plays a large role in our health. And it goes without saying that bringing people on that have walked the walk and have been through this process can be very, very inspirational. Yeah, my pain to purpose, it really stems from two things. One, personal satisfaction in living the lifestyle that I want to live. I talk with clients a lot about Really, when we're depressed, when we're sad, when we're not happy with our lives, it's because our reality doesn't match our identity. So we have an identity about who we think we are But the life that we're living isn't actually matching up to that. And so there's a disconnect between reality and perception So that's what I went through in my mid thirties. I was thirty six, thirty seven and My daughter took a picture of me at the beach, I looked like the beach whale. and it just was shocking to me. I think everybody has that one thing that happens in their life. They're like, oh, crap, this is not, somethinghing's wrong, I need to change something. And that's what it was for me. I saw this picture of myself on the beach It was not It didn't match with perception. So I had the reality of my life butted heads with the perception I had of my life And I realized something had to change. Either I had to accept where I was or I needed to change something So I decided to change something. And for me, that started with fitness. I kind of got into looking for what was fitness about? why? Was I where I was at and what could I do to change it? So for me, I found CrossFit early in my journey and I really fell in love with that. I got into that. I ended up becoming a coach, opening a gym, doing a bunch of things. and then after Six or so years, owned a gym for a couple of years I had another the same thing happen again. I'm a gym owner at this point in time. I'm at a pool party with members of my gym who I'm supposed to be leading. to better health. And someone took a picture of me getting on the diving board at this school party and I was like That guy looks exactly like the same guy from six years ago And like what is going on here? Like I can do more and more physically fit air quotes. I'm stronger and faster. I can do all these crazy workouts and all this stuff. but I haven't changed the image that I have. physically, right? It was totally aesthetic But then when you dig deeper, I also still had IBS. I still had urgent bowels, I still was unhealthy. I was still depressed. I still had all these things. I was just in shape and sick. I was fit. I could do all this stuff, but I still wasn't really any better off in my life, my quality of life. And that's it was shortly thereafter that I was introduced to the carnivore diet. I started trying playing around with that and doing that And within a few months Everything came together And that's really where I started realizing that and this is where the purpose comes in, is that I had been so focused on the fitness piece that I didn't realize the impact that nutrition had. on the total package of quality of life. And then I work with people all the time and I hear you hear this. I'm sure you've heard this, you know, abs are made in the kitchen. You don't have to work out if you eat right and all these types of things. And that's great if you're only focused on fat loss. If you're only focused on the scale or how you look But from a quality of life perspective and this is what I really learned from the experience of owning a gym and working with people Trying to solve people's problems, I realize that Nobody's problem is being overweight The problems that people have, the unhappiness that they have in their life is the limitations that they have placed on their physical ability which has to do with weight health, strength, mobility, and all these other factors, which is a combination of nutrition and fitness And that's where the purpose comes in. I really my focus is really on getting people to understand that. you can lose weight by what you eat, but you can live a better life without physical ability. So that's the lesson that I learned myself that I really want people to understand I think it's really powerful because a lot of what you're talking about is mindset And I always say that, you know, mindset is so integral and it's not often focused on enough. You know, certainly in a provider patient relationship and a coach client relationship I can tell you that we're much more focused on doing opposed to kind of sitting still and acknowledging how we feel and moving forward On a lot of different levels, you know, you talk about this trajectory of you know seeing these two photos and those were powerful motivators, understanding that it's not just about exercise. And this is something that I used to incorrectly tell my patients, eat less exercise more, That is if more exercise was going to achieve whatever results they were really looking for, which generally were scale related.. But you touched on, you the IVS, irritable bowel syndrome, which we know based on research is generally related to underlying food sensitivities. You talked about depression. We've had many, many healthcare providers, know, Chris Palmer most recently talking about the inter rellationship between the gut microbiome and the gut brain connection you know the propensity for diet related to, you know mental health challenges that people are experiencing But I want to talk about carnivore because for so many listeners We've seen profound benefits from changing up our diets. And it's always my go to. Many listeners know that in twenty nineteen, I spent thirteen days in the hospital, almost died And when I left the hospital with a ruptured appendix because I was too sick to take to surgery. My gastroenterologist and surgeon, thank goodness, knew me well enough, they knew me personally and professionally. They said, do what you need to do because the hospital internist was like low residue diet, which for anyone that's listening, that's just a bunch of processed junk And I told them, I'm doing bone broth, I'm just eating meat. I ate meat for nine months. and it took me eighteen months to be able to really eat vegetables without my digestive system letting me know that was unacceptable. But understanding that simplifying our diets can be really important. And I think for so many of us, we've gotten accustomed to maybe we're eating some degree of nutrient dense foods, or we're still eating processed protein bars. We're still having paleo or keto junk food and not realizing that the very things that we're eating that we perceive are healthier can be contributing to weight loss resistance, which I know we're going to talk about, it can contribute to eral bowel syndrome. I know as an example I don't tolerate a lot of the sugar alcohols that are in a lot of the paleo and keto products. And I was saying to my husband, I'm so intolerant of them now that if I start to feel that bloating discomfort, I'm like, oh, I need to go back to my roots, which is back to carnivore ish is kind of what I describe how I navigate. But really It's a great way to describe it. Yeah. Yeah. because I was like, I do like vegetables. and I do like meat, but I don't want to have one without the other So I think it's helpful for people to know that you can be very healthy and metabolically flexible, even in middle life eating a diet that is really leaning into animal based protein that is predominantly unprocessed and as clean as possible. And if you follow Bronson on social media, he'll show that he'll have like eight eggs and like a big steak as his first meal, which for most women listening, that would be like way too much food. I wouldn't eat the rest of the day. But kind of leaning into that nutrient density, really leaning into protein and to not be afraid of it. A hundred percent, hundred percent I think one of the things you touched on there is is and I actually just had a post about this today. Well, today when we're recording this, not by the time anybody hears this, I've been impressed lately that we still and it really kind of bothers me I know it's not going to change overnight. The discussion around basing your food on calories. I've had a lot of conversations over the past few months with so many different people where J the power of changing your mindset around calories versus nutrition and understanding that Okay, calories, I understand why we use it. I understand that it's a great it's an easy easily accessible way to help people understand how much food they should be eating. The problem is is it It changes your mindset around food from something that is simply energy based And it removes any of the concepts and discussion and nuance around actual nutrition and what your body can actually do with the food When you talk about people getting stuck with keto treats and things that are labeled healthy and processed, that are just processed replacements of crap And not eating whole food with nutrient density, bioavailability and satety, those are my three pillars for nutrition Th should be the focus for what everything we're doing nutrition wise because they're thinking about it from a macro perspective of calories and how much fuel am I getting How is my body actually using this food becausecause that's really what matters. Your body can't use calories Your body uses protein. Your body uses fat, your body uses carbs and they have different effects on what your body does, how well your body performs the stress that you add to your body, the efficiency that your metabolism can run, and all of these things. So it's not about fuel. And that's one thing I definitely want people to understand is fuel is such a small percentage of the big picture how all of these things interact with each other. Yeah, I could not agree more. I always say that you know there's the calorie model or hypothesis that really is devoid of helping us understand what is a proper portion of protein? What is a proper portion of healthy fats And it begets the fact that our bodies are far more sophisticated than just calorie counting. And it was interesting. I was listening to a podcast with Stephen Gundry and Sean Stevenson literally just three days ago. and Sean was talking about the advent of the calorie in terms of nutritionally and when that was emphasized and how there was suddenly all this shame around food. like, o, if you're hungry, it's a good thing It's a sign that you're being strong. You know, you're going to work through your hunger.. And it's evolved into now there are definitely different camps. There's the carb insulin hypothesis, which I lean into But it also I always feel like it's always kind of evolving because there's also this, you know, we're really looking at the amount of toxicity in our environment, our personal care products, our food, our nutrition, and the impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals, which is another added layer. So if you're just focusing on calories, you're missing opportunities to talk about the hormone piece to lead into these chemicals we get exposed to in our environment our personal care products and our food that really have profound impact on the way that we you know, are able to maintain a healthy weight. I think that's the healthiest way to say it. I think it's You know, unfortunately for women, I think there is very much a focus on, and I hear this often and I'm sure you do with your clients, I want to be the size or the way that I was at eighteen or I want to be the size or weight of what I perceive this starlet in Hollywood is. And I always remind people like healthy is not about being skinny And unfortunately, as we see people age, and I see this in men and women, but more women than men peopleeople can be very thin, but they look very emaciated. They' muscle wasting. It's important to understand that along with that calorie debay, the insulin carbohydrate hypothesis that many of us embrace, it's the understanding that it's way more complicated than we give it credit for. And it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be, but we've made it more complicated than. Absolutely.olutely. And going to the skinny and emaciated or sick. that's the second half of my story and my pain to purpose Before I understood this relationship between fitness and nutrition I went through We've all had, I don't know, not everybody, but you know, all of my grandparents have passed I was very close with my grandmother and process of watching her deteriorate. through her life to my grandfather passing and then she passed a few years after that watching her the last time I saw her She was laying face down into bed. She couldn't barely hold my hand. to say goodbye. I knew it was the last time I was going to see her and just watching that deterioration. of her body just completely fade away and become a shadow of the woman that I knew growing up, the woman that was one I mean, you know, not everybody has that I would hope everybody would have a chance to have somebody with her experience in life that could be as close and impactful on them. So just watching that happen and realizing that there was nothing I could do to help her. to several years later learning the things that I learned, having the experience that I have and knowing that having that, honestly, there's a little bit of regret of saying, I wish I had known this stuff earlier so that I could have prevented maybe not prevented her death, but maybe made her death faster. And there's a phrase that I heard on social media recently called spepeed of morbidity, which I love it absolutely love it. Like Live as long as you possibly can as well as you possibly can and die fast. Like if you die eighty years old, then it should be you go to bed and then you don't wake up, like you die overnight U to that time, you've have done everything you possibly can. You can still experience life, you can still be physically independent, you can still be mentally aware And you can still be healthy and vital and impact people's lives, and then you just don't wake up one day. Like so basically, I want it to take as long as possible for someone to pass, but when they do, I want it to be quick And unfortunately, a lot of people start the process of dying in their forties They start deteriorating and then it's twenty, thirty, forty years of them just wasting away. And that's really where my passion comes in helping people pro prevent them. Something I hear constantly from women in our community and something I understand personally is this Nothing about your effort has changed and yet our bodies are responding differently Your midsection feels different. Y blood sugar is much less stable and your cravings may have shifted And let's be honest, your energy probably isn't what it used to be As a nurse practitioner with over twenty five years of experience, I want to be completely transparent with you about why Estrogen is one of the body's master regulators of metabolic health. It influences how we store fat, how our tissues respond to blood sugar changes, and how efficiently our metabolism functions at the cellular level Eestrogen shifts during perimenopause and menopause, the same lifestyle choices, diet, exercise, sleep, genuinely do not produce the same results. This isn't a failure of effort. It's a precise biological transition, and most solutions don't address the root causes That's why I want to tell you about mit acute hormonal metabolic control It's formulated with S equL, which is a highly bioavailable phytoestrogen that supports healthy estrogen signaling. We know that eighty percent of women cannot produce S equL naturally because it requires specific gut bacteria most of us just do not have. This formula bypasses this entirely. It also includes a particular bacterial strain B breve, which works via the gut hormone access to support estrogen pathways and help ease occasional bloating and chromium to support healthy blood sugar balance. This is a targeted cellular support for the transition we are all in and it's designed specifically for women in perimenopausea menopause and built around what actually is effective Go to wWW dot mitoQ dot com slash Cynthia and get ten percent off your first order Again, that's M IT OQ com slash Cynthia to get ten percent off your first order We've talked before about why skin really stands out as a skin carere company. It's not hype or just fancy packaging. It's real science. And listeners of this podcast know how much I value that The founding team are longevity researchers who ask a deceptively simple question, if many visible signs of aging like wrinkles, fine lines, and loss of elasticity are driven by so called zombie cells What if you could actually reduce those cells to slow the aging process down instead of just covering it up? That research led to OS one, One skkin's proprietary peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off those damaged senescent cells, actually slowing skin aging directly at the source This is serious science that fits easily into my existing skincare routine. and every time I use one skin, I'm giving my skin a clear signal to repair, damage cells, support collagen and strengthen my skin barrier I have been using the eye cream facial cleanser for the past eighteen months And I recently swapped in the lip mask. I absolutely love them. It's simple. The products last a long time, so it is very cost effective. And for me, being science oriented, I love knowing that I'm actually helping to reverse visible signs of aging and doing so in a way with a really clear clean option. And this isn't just my experience. One skkin's products are backed by extensive lab and clinical data, including four peer reviewed clinical studies to validate their efficacy and safety on all skin types Plus, they've got over ten thousand five star reviews Born from a decade of longevity research, One skin's OS one peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now as you age For limited time, try one skin with fifteen percent off using code Cynthia at Onekin. CO slash Cynthia. That's fifteen percent off oneeskin. CO with code Cynthia After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them We sent you Well, and it's interesting that you say that about your grandmother. I too had a really close relationship with my maternal and paternal grandmothers And it was interesting. My paternal grandmother, she was a nurse and she had a knee replacement when she was in her late forties and she was not obese But back then they would just replace knees or they would remove your patella and you know, the morbidity impact of that on her life and her trajectory. and then for me to watch patients in cardiology for sixteen years and prior to that as an ER nurse I think there's so many limiting beliefs about age. I know that you hear them 'm using age as an excuse. I use that in ear quotes because I say that in a non pejorative manner people assuming that just because you're thirty five, forty, forty five, fifty, that you're supposed to be obese, inflamed, have terrible sleep be weight loss resistant, have pain when you move, that should not be the norm. In fact I was listening to another podcast this morning and they were talking about how osteoarthritis is not just arthritis, that more often than not, it's inflammation related to insulin resistance and some degree of leptum resistance that is driving that pain. And I was like, oh my gosh, just thinking about these aches and pains that people assume are the norm donon't have to be your normal Yeah, And also I just saw somebody had put out recently there was a study. I don't know if it was a new study, but about the fiber gut relationship to arthritis as well There's some stuff going on there I think I think it was on Rob Wolf's social media. I recall because it was saying high fiber was bumping up Prevatella, which was impacking rheumatoid arthritis rate Y. And this is definitely one of those nuances of saying like Bio individuality, not everyone tolerates a ton of fiber and that's okay. I'm still at a point where I can't eat like I love Brussels sprouts as an example. But if I eat Brussels sprouts, I can't eat them the next day. I just can. My gut is like time out, too much fiber. I can eat them three days later But it just goes to show you can have a healthier diet But understanding that just because someone tells you that as an example, cruciferous vegetables are good for all that it means it's something per se that you're going to tolerate every day or tolerate with frequency Now, I know that we're kind of dancing around this circopenia. So I know both of us embrace, you know, muscle is an organ of longevity. Dr. Gabrielle Line is a good friend. I know her work has influenced both of us. but really helping people understand how important it is not to lose muscle. And so we really become at this You know, North of thirty five, certainly women as they're getting closer to menopause hormonally are at a disadvantage unless they are aggressively working towards maintaining and not losing muscle mass. And this happens to men too. My husband's a former college athlete who is still doing jiu jitsu and up until the pandemic was still playing Lacrosse. And he's a very active middle aged guy But even he is noticing you changes relative to fluctuations in testosterone. So How do we come to you know, some middle ground about Talking to people before they are forty years old about the importance of muscle and what muscle does for us in terms of metabolic health. How we talk about it, really is there's a bunch of different ways I think we could approach that. I think the number one thing to look at is when I try to explain to people The importance of muscle, I like to start with where people are at now So when we look at, okay, general, we know, what is it seventy percent and climbing of Americans people in the world. I don't know how we want to look at that number are obese or metabolically unhealthy. And part of that is low muscle mass. If we look at the general population The average man is about thirty five percent skeletal muscle mass. The average woman is about thirty two percent skeletal muscle mass. Okay. The research that I've done And I talk about this in my book. There's thirteen different studies that I found where They look at the minimum amount of muscle that you can have before someone is classified sarcopenic or unhealthy has an unhealthy level And that comes in at around thirty two percent for men and twenty six percent for women. So if the average woman is at thirty two percent skeletal muscle mass, And sarcopenia is twenty six percent Most women are closer to not having enough than having more than they need And I think that's really one of the biggest things that we can look at is if we look at the averages And we say, okay, the average woman is at thirty two percent, but also seventy percent of most people are obese and unhealthy, maybe that's not where I want to be So then where do I want to go? Why do you know, what should I be at And when we talk about recommendations of skeletal muscle mass, for women, I say forty percent skeletal muscle mass is a great starting point So if you're wondering how much muscle do I even need be optimal and to be generally healthy. forty percent is a really good number. And what that is is basically How much skeletal muscle that doesn't include cardiac muscle that doest include internal organs and things like that. That's muscle attached to bone And how much muscle do I have that actually helps my body move and function? And that's what we're talking about there. So That's a little different than lean mask. So lean mass is basically all of the weight of your body that's not body fat. And then so we take that and then we say, okay, how much of that is actual muscle? And then that's what we're talking about So forty percent is a great place to start for women Muscle itself and this is one of the reasons why I'm such a big proponent of good nutrition and good fitness routines and habits before a lot of biohacks and doing all these other things because you can get a lot of the benefit of many of the things that people are focusing on as a biohack or as an add on or a supplement to their lifestyle, just from exercise So when you build muscle, increase your strength, you increase your immune system, the efficiency of your immune system, The muscle isn' an endrine orggan. so it stimulates different hormones Muscle improves mobility and physical independence So there's a lot of aspects that people do like, you know, fasting. You're big on fasting. and I think fasting is a fantastic tool I think people tend to overdo it. We can talk about the extremes and how everybody likes to go to extremes all the time. And I think people use it the wrong time. So I think, you know, for a lot of this stuff You know, From a nutrition perspective, bioavailability, nutrient density satety, from a fitness perspective, move well, move often and move weight. those are the things that should be the foundation for everybody's lifestyle before we start looking at all these other things because there are aspects of fasting, for instance that you can get by exercising. So if you're not exercising, should you be fasting? I think that's an individual thing, but there's a lot of benefits that exercising can give you from an immediate impact to your quality of life. That doesn't take healing time R? If I'm getting stronger, if I'm working and my exercise routine consists of walking up and down the steps so that it makes walking up and down the steps easier. thenen the day I start doing that, I'm immediately improving my quality of life I don't have to wait for the healing process So just looking at how this stuff works, I think muscle has a much more immediate impact. than a lot of other things that people are focusing on I couldn't agree more and it's interesting. Rob Wolf and I talked about this on the podcast last year. It's hard for me to say last year because it's now twenty twenty three. But the understanding that a lot of people are more interested in the gadgets, They want the Aura ring, which I love my Aura ring. Don't get me wrong, the sleep gadgets, the Apple Watch You know, they want the PMF mat. and they're not focused on the basics. and I agree with you wholeheartedly that that's really a good place to start from. And then once you've mastered that, then you can add in these other strategies to see what is working well for you. And I think And obviously, we'll dive deeper into this when we talk about weight loss resistance, but those extremes that you're kind of alluding to I'm starting to see an evolving, I call it the triad. It's overve exercising, over fasting, over restriction of macros And that is what I'm starting to see, which as a clinician I find incredibly concerning because I would imagine for many of these people, they think that if a little bit of Exercise is good more is better. The little bit of fasting is good more is better. a little over restriction, and by that, I mean, you know really skimping on your protein, really you know, kind of dialing down on your carbohydrates, Maybe you're eating the wrong types of fats and really understanding that if your body perceives that you are starving, it's not going to allow you to release weight. L that is not going to happen And so I see a lot of these predominantly women that are getting themselves ratcheted in and they' if they were to track their macros are probably having nine hundred or one thousand calories a day. and I'm like, that's not how you build muscle That's not how you improve longevity That's not how you get to a point where you're going to improve your quality of life metrics. In fact, I would argue that you're going to do the opposite. Yeah. And that's the thing is the reason we go to extremes is because we're not looking at the right things Everybody wants to lose weight and they'll do anything possible to do that. It's about weight loss for most people. and I challenge anybody listening to this to ask yourself one question seeven times Why Why do I want to lose weight? Whatever the answer to that question is, ask yourself why that answer? I want to lose weight because I don't feel good about how my body looks. Okay? whyy don't you feel good about how your body looks? And dig and dig and dig and keep working yourself down to something that actually matters that helps you understand One, why you think weight loss is going to solve a problem in your life. And two is something that's emotional and brings up, I don't care what emotion it is somethingomet that makes you happy, something that makes you sad, something that makes you regret, something that makes you mad whatever it is, something that's emotionally connected to the reason why you want to lose weight and then realize that the weight loss isn't the problem. The weight loss is a symptom of something else that's going on in your life and then figure out how to solve the actual problem. which will prevent you from going to the extremes because we will understand then Iproving my quality of life is the goal doing things that are actually adding stress and complexity to the solution is itt improving my quality of life? I tell clients all the time. If what you're doing to move forward is adding stress to your life then you're not doing the right thing. The whole idea is to make things easier, to make your life better, to improve how you feel and think about your body, your food and your life. So if you're doing things and you're stressing out all the time about a It's twelve o'clock but I'm hgry I can'tat til two And you're freaking out and all you're doing is now thinking about when your next meal is. That's the opposite direction that you should be moving We want to get to the point where food isn't on your mind all the time We want to get to the point where exercise is just something you do. So these are in sleep as you enjoy your sleep in, it's not stressful to find it to figure out how to get the sleep in. all of these different things. So the idea of two things minimum ive dose and improving the process that you're going through. It shouldn't be stressful. It shouldn't add stress. So net positive or net negative to the process I think that's really important for people to understand. you know, Benzatti always says you get healthy to lose weight. It's understanding that dialing in on why you feel the need to be X pounds or fit into a certain clothing size or be the weight you were at eighteen, or you know, have a certain dress size if you're a woman or you know, shirt size if you're a man, really understanding what is contributing to why you're feeling the way you do is very likely really not about the weight, It's something much deeper Now, as we're talking about metabolism and muscle and understanding what happens with age in this role of sarcopenia, you also get You know, you've decreased strength with age. That's another normal function of aging if you're not working against it people understand what we need to be doing consistently to be able to maintain and grow muscle mass. Now, let me be very clear I talk very openly about the fact that I didn't know tntil I was in my early forties the whole concept of sarcopenia. I saw plenty of muscle wasting in my patients, but I was like, oh, if I just keep lifting, it'll be fine. I didn't realize you need more protein you know, more stress on the muscle, high quality sleep. And then understanding there's no shame in this. Women in particular, you may need some hormone replacement therapy as you're transitioning, men sometimes as well, and there's no shame in it. I want to be very clear about that. But there's multiple things we need to be doing Do you feel similarly, you, when you're working with your middle aged female patients that it's the similar types of mindset shift because they've been indoctrinated into SkO and chronicardio and not sleeping enough and they think oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead I've had women tell me that I want that. Sleep is important Yeah, absolutely. I think you just said all the things, right? The most common Mindset shifts that I have to make or work people through is being afraid of protein being afraid of getting bulky. Being afraid that if they don't work out. I have one client just as an example who came to me and said that she was trying to get forty thousand steps a day. She was walking for three to four hours a day And I was like, okay, that's we definitely don't need to be doing that. And then wondering why her body was falling apart. Like we didn't do blood tests, We haven't done blood stuff yet, but I can't imagine what her cortisol looks like. L just the amount of stress that she was putting on her body So I think People get there's so many misconceptions about what needs to happen, and I think you nailed it You need protein. You need stimulus of the muscle, as much muscle as possible. and we talk about what that means, and you need sleep. Those are the three main things. It's not about how you're fueling, if you're the fourth thing that I would maybe throw in there is It's not about what you're adding, it's about what you're taking away. So the more things you cannot include in your lifestyle, stress carbs, processed foods, seed oils, those types of things. Now you're giving your body a chance to actually benefit and do the things it needs to do with the protein and those strength training and the sleep So you're you're making it easier to develop and to grow. So I think that's probably be the fourth thing that I would add to that conversation. Protein, we talk about quantities and everyone's got their own different thing. How much protein does somebody need I think for me, I recently madeade a little bit of switch. I I usually start people off with one gram per pound of lean mask. If you weigh two hundred pounds and you have twenty five percent body fat then one hundred and fifty grams of protein is what your target should be And that's a starting point. I want everyone to understand too that because this is another belief system perception that I see with people is they hear one person say something and then that's the rule, that's the law. then they hear something else say something and then they don't know what to do because that conflicts with what someone else that they werere listening to says And anything that I say, anything that you say, I want people to understand is a guideline based on our experience There's nothing that we're going to say that is a hard and fast rule that should work for everybody. It is a starting point. If you're not able to or willing to experiment and make adjustments along the way, then you're going to get stuck. And if all you're doing is jumping from what one person said to what another person said, You're going to get stuff. You've got to take this information and start playing around with it yourself Self experimentation is the one thing that most people are missing Everybody wants to just be told what the solution is and it just doesn't work that way We can give you a starting point, but you've got to figure out where that takes you and if it's working for you or not So that's just a little side rent. So I'm going to recommend it's a guideline for people to start one gram of protein per pound of L mass If you're a woman and I have a lot of women Mostly women, I'm sure there might be some guys, but many women who are petite And their lean mask may be eighty pounds they may have eighty pounds of a leean mask and it's like Is eighty pounds Is eighty grams of protein really enough So what I've started doing and it's really been working out well for me is Id say one gram perpound ofly massk or a minimum of one hundred grams of protein. for the smaller women because in a lot of cases, eighty gams isn't enough And if they're that petite They might need a little extra protein to try to get them and recover some of that lost ground of building protein, a building muscle So that's where the starting point on protein is. On the strength training side of things If you are not stressing your muscle and I like how you said that. it's stress on the muscle. If you're not stressing your muscle, your muscle doesn't know that you want it to do something and grow. So you have to tell your body And here's the thing. I see a lot of women who come to talk to me and they share what they're doing for their exercise. And either it's the excessive cardio over training or it's the excessive high intensity interimal training or the excessive crossfit or the combination of all of the above which is one thing to work with. The other extreme of that is the, yes, I'm lifting weights, but I'm lifting five pounds thirty times. And then I put the weight down and then I say I did my workout for the day. I'm great There's no strenuous, It's not intense, there's no sweating, there's no grunting, right? And we need to understand the idea that muscle doesn't grow without stress intensity effort Challenge. If there's no point in time in your workout where you're questioning can I lift this? then you're probably not going hard enough and you're probably not going to see the muscle growth that you're really trying to get. So don't be afraid add some weight. Don't be afraid to go more intense. Don't be afraid to Maybe instead of doing twenty reps, find something that's challenging for five reps inccrease the weight. If you can't lift it five times, that might be where you need to be for a little bit So there's a process of understanding what it really means to stress the muscle and to push through. and it's a word that I don't think we talk about enough in the space and that is developing grit We need to be able to push through challenging effort, challenging work Develop that grit, develop that. I know this is hard, but I'm going to do it anyway And that's really where that what we need on the strength trading side. And I think sleep is It's kind of self explanatory. We need sleep. Sleep is the most anabolic part of the day. So it's not just that it's recovery time, but what does recovery time mean HDH is higher. testosterone is higher. IGF one is higher All of the inflammation is lower, Cortisol is lower. All of these things that are happening to help your body repair, recover, and growow. and be able to perform the next day, that's when that's happening. So if you're not doing that And you're wondering why you have high cortisol, and you're wondering why you're losing Lee mess and you wonder why I'm a le it's one of the biggest things I see with people who say I'm a hard gainer air quotes hard gainer is they're not getting enough sleep. Well, if you increase your sleep, I think you probably would see a more the result of your exercise. I love that. And I think for a lot of people, understanding that cortisol, when it's dysregulated is actually catabolic. It'll actually break down your muscle. And so so many of these women that will end up in programs or connect with us on social media, and I really emphasize like stress management, is not five minutes of meditation once a week As a middle aged person, it really is something you're doing every day, like you were saying, donon't add, subtract, know leaning into the sleep piece. One thing that has been wonderful over the last, twelve days is in my world, I didn't set an alarm clock. I woke up when I woke up every single day. And today was the first day I set an alarm clock to go to a six AM Pilates class, which is my norm on Mondays But even saying to my instructor It was easy to wake up this morning. You want to know why? because I got so much good sleep over the last twelve days, but how many of us are doing that? How many of us are allowing ourselves to go to bed at, you know, nine or ten o'clock at night and sleep until you wake up. It's amazing When you allow yourself to sleep then it's eight or nine hours worth of sleep And I think for for many of us, we've been conditioned to believe that sleep is unimportant and I would be hard pressed to argue that it's not it's absolutely foundational to our health to get hundred h of sleep. one hundred percent, I like that too because I actually this holiday season has been the same. I think three or four days this the last couple of weeks, I woke up at like ten o'clock or morning. It's like, oh my God, I feel so stinking good. This is crazy. You touch on something and I want to this is one of the things I'm really passionate about and I may actually be digging into more in the next year or two. And that is the idea of what stress management actually is And we think of stress management and all the I've been digging into looking for books and watching different videos and trying to looking into courses for understanding stress management more. And it's crazy how most of the stuff that I'm seeing has to do with The tactics and tools that we can implement in our lives to help manage stress. And much of that doesn't include anything we eat or what we do with our body It's all about meditation and sleep and this and that. mind work and and that's all good stuff. I'm not saying that that's not effective and it doesn't help because I do think If we look at our lifestyle There's mindset, there's nutrition, and there's fitness. and those three things kind of come together. That's what quality of life is all about. So I think the mindset, activities and tactics and tools that we have there to help manage our mental capacity for managing stress is great But I think and this is something you saw in my book, I'm very big. and this is one of the reasons why I look at fitness and nutrition as being fifty, fifty in the equation Nutrition can help remove and manage internal stress, biological stress It helps our body do the functions and do the things that it needs to do fitness, being physically capable helps our bodies manage external stress, and the two are related to each other you know, Nutrition can help with some things physiologically And fitness can help with some things biologically. Again, like muscle is an endocrine organ, so it can help with some biological function and vice versa But we got to understand that stress, no matter where it comes from overlaps our physiology, our biology, and our neurology So we need to have tools in place in all three of those areas in order to manage stress as effectively as possible. Our nutrition isn't on. then our stress is going be higher than it could be. If our fitness isn't on then our stress is going to be higher than it could be. If our mentality and the work that we're doing with the mental tools and exercises to manage our mental stress, then we're not going to be as stress free as possible All three of these things are needed total equation of improving volume Friends, I think there's so much value in being open minded to trying new things and that's why I'm happy to share with you pure electrolytes I really wanted to try something new that was super clean and has become a real integral part of my day to day life It's made with coconut water and pink Himalayan salt doing the work, not sugar It's super light and refreshing, and it's perfect for these hot, humid summer days It tastes like real fruit and my particular favorites are lemonade, grapefruit, and blood orange. A really unique flavor profile and one that keeps me really well hydrated It has no added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and nothing you can't pronounce. fllip the packet over, you can actually read what the ingredients are Just coconut water, pink him land sal and a burst of real fruit Cure hydration is officially available. You can get twenty percent off at cure hydration dot com with code Cynthia Go to CURE hydration. com slash Cynthia and get twenty percent off your first order with promo code Cynthia. I'm telling you These are delicious and they are completely in alignment with my clean living attitude and focus. When we talk about perimenopause and menopause, the conversation often focuses on hormones. And let me be clear, hormones absolutely matter But one thing I think we don't speak enough about is muscle Women can lose significant muscle mass and strength during the perimenopause to menopause transition, and that loss impacts far more than just our appearance Muscle influences metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, mobility, healthy aging and more And the good news is there's so much we can do about it. Strength traing and adequate protein intake are critically important. And increasingly, we're learning about the role mitochondrial health plays in maintaining muscle quality as we age That's why I've been paying attention to the science behind Might Aure from Timeline. Mitipure contains relithin A, a clinically studied nutrient that supports mitochondrial renewal through a process called mitophagy Think of it as supporting the energy systems that help keep your muscles functioning at their best For women who want to remain strong, capable and resilient for decades to come, this is an essential area of research worth knowing about Visit timeline. com and use code Cynthia for twenty percent off your order. Again, that's timeline d. com and use code Cynthia for twenty percent off your order This is one of my foundational supplements that I never miss Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I always say that the more disconnected we get from an ancestral health perspective, and that may look different for everyone the more issues we're going to have, whether it's You know, we're in climate controlled environments twenty four seven. We're exposed to artificial light. We don't get connection with nature. We're not moving our bodies. We're not sleeping. We're eating hyperpalatable, highly processed foods. I mean, all these things eventually at some point are going to adversely impact metabolic health, disease states, et cetera Now one of the most common questions I received from individuals that knew that we were connecting was What's your take on weight loss resistance? Obviously, I have some strong bias here. But how many of your clients that come to you and just say, I am doing everything I can and I can't lose weight. And for me, there's always a couple variables and dials that almost always are contributing to this But I always like to get my guests take on this. Yeah. there's a handful of things. Talk about the mindset piece first. And I think the number one thing is there's a lot of people who say they're doing everything they can and they're not They think there's definitely an aspect of qualifying that statement with I'm doing everything that I think I can right now and changing that and reframing that conversation to, well, Is that enough? is one question to ask, are you doing the things you actually need to be doing ninety percent of the time there is one or two things that people are just so resistant against doing I have people who literally will fight me N tooth the nail to not give up diet sodas And the minute they give up dietotis, things start happening And it's like, lookook, I'm not saying you have to give it up for the rest of your life. I'm saying try not having that. thirty days and just see what happens. Then you have the knowledge to know it worked or it didn't work. And then you can make the decision for yourself, what do you want to do? Is this important to you Or is what happened in your progress more important to you? So that's one thing. Are you doing what it takes? The second thing is, are you doing the right things? The plan that you have in place, is it really the right plan This is where we get into my explanation and helping people understand that. if we know that calories aren't The thing then why are we basing our nutrition plan off of ratios of calorie percentage or ratios of calories If calories are not a foundational concept that actually makes sense, then let's unouple How much protein you're adding? calorie percentage and how much fat you're having by calorie percentage and move those, I love how you said dials and move those is individual dials. Your body can't use calories. Your body uses fat, your body uses protein How much fat does your body need to function How much protein does your body need to function? It's like if I go to a mechanic and I say, hey Could you give me a tune up on my car? And He says, okay, great. What kind of oil, what kind of gas do you want, whatever fluids you wanted? And you say, well, could you give me percent oil and seventy percent gas. He's going to look at you like, what are you talking about? That doesn't have anything to do with each other. You need seventeen gallons of gas in your tank and you need six quarts of oil in your engine. Th are specific numbers that your car actually needs. And that's how I think we need to be looking at macros. And I think a lot of people are so stuck on findinding a golden ratio that they miss the fact that If you're not getting enough fat you're gonna to have problems. If you're getting too much fat, you're going to have problems. If you're not getting enough protein, if you're getting too protein, you're going to have problems When you connect the two, one of them is always going to be too high and one of them is always going to be too low So I really want people to uncouple the two of those things and start looking at individually how much does your body nutrition does your body actually need And I think that's probably the most prevailing right now in the space where Everybody wants to find that ratio. and I think that's a mistake for a lot of people Well, and it's interesting to me because I'm sure you get these questions. People want to know exactly what I eat every day And my team, you know, we always put things into stories and you know put them in folders so people can look. But I always say, this is what works for me. I do best with lean protein small portions of healthy fats and adjusting my carbohydrate intake based on my physical activity and how much I've lifted. And that's what works for me. But there are plenty of people that tolerate higher fat protein and they don't need as much, you know and exogenous fat. and maybe they don't tolerate carbohydrates at all. And so really understanding that it's this experiment of N of one The bioindividuality Really experimenting to find what makes you feel good, what gives you energy, which you know if you've got a CGM or a glucometer, like check and see your body's response to your meals because for so many people, they don't even make the connection with, oh, I ate a big meal and then I got tired. Well, that shouldn't happen. You know, If you keep your blood sugar stable, you shouldn't get a slump. You shouldn't feel like you need a nap. You shouldn't feel like you're running out of gas. You shouldn't be craving more food after a big meal And so really encouraging people to experiment. But we in so many ways, I feel like the healthcare provider patient relationship has been one where we tell people what to do And kind of that relationship has needed to shift, that it's meant to be more collaborative. It meant to be a little bit more encouraging our patients and our clients to experiment to find what works best for them. and to allow them to feel like confident once they've figured out what works for them and saying, that's great, whether it's Cnivore ish whether it's keto, whether it'sow carb, people always assume I'm really low carb and I tell them No, I'm not. it just depends on the day, but I'm also metabolically flexible so I can get away with You know, if I want to have a sweet potato or I want to have, I don't really eat grains, but if I were exposed to it It's not a big deal A good example is I generally don't. like my one vice in life that it's left is dark chocolate. And I talk very openly about this. And of course, there was a consumer reports. article that came out recently that was, you know, making everyone paranoid of cadmium and lead exposure And people were asking, what are you going to do about it? I was like, well, if you really look at the article itself, I'm not terribly concerned about it because the rest of my diet is pretty darn healthy. Like I'm not concerned that my intake of dark chocolate is going to be detrimental to my health because it's not like I'm eating five bars of chocolate a day. But the point of why I'm sharing this is that really understanding that we should all be experimenting. Now, in my experience, weight loss resistance can be related to mindset, as you mentioned, and know getting really honest with ourselves about what are we eating? How are we sleeping? What's our stress management like Alcohol is one and dairy is another that really for many people veryery challenging if people have a complex relationship with either. And we know that dairy in particular can be very addictive for susceptible individuals and then alcohol. And we know over the past three years that many people stopp drinking entirely. Others drank more And so I feel like the middle aged human, male or female, that alcohol can be challenging for people, and they just don't even recognize the way that our body processes it and that that can contribute to some degree of weight loss resistance A hundred percent. That's actually one of the things that really got me interested in the nutrition right before I started Carnivore, I actually I don't know if you've heard of the twenty one day Sugar detox.. Diane Sanfalippo I did that twenty one days. Now at the time, I was already wholele foods. I was already low carb. It was all pretty much green, you know, vegetables, not a lot of processed food. I was already doing like a whole thirty paleo kind of a thing So I didn't really have much sugar to cut out. the only thing I had was Three nights a week Maybe before I was doing two finger pour of bourbon every night after dinner before I went to bed. So it was like, okay, well, if there's anything I'm going to do in this detox is I'll just cut that out So it was just bourbon. It wasn't love mixed drink, It wasn't beer, like any of that kind of stuff stuff people that, you know, think, oh, it's got high carbs. Well, had nothing to do with the carbs. I stopped drinking that few nights a week for three weeks Okay, I lost ten pounds of body fat Okay, So not even total wa, I use an embbody at home scanner. At the time, I use one of the professional versions at my gym. and I lean mast stay the same, skeletal muscle mast stay the same The only thing I lost was literally ten pounds of body fat mass in three weeks, didn't change anything other than stopping the alcohol So I'm one hundred percent on board with the idea that alcohol is going to if you're drinking alcohol and you're wondering why you're not getting anywhere stop it. just try two weeks, try three weeks and see what happens. Yeah, I think it can be really powerful. We know that our body processes it as a toxin, we know that it can impact REM sleep. We know that it can dysregulate blood sugar and cortisol and leptin and grelin And so for a lot of women in particular, there's this big like Mommy drinking culture, and it was definitely a big issue in the part of Northern Virginia I lived in. And I would sometimes say like I couldn't go to these parties during the week and drink the way that a lot of people did because I was like, I have to get up early, I have to see patients. I'm going to be running in the hospital. I need to have all my faculties.. And I would sometimes be amazed that women were drinking three or four glasses of wine and then going to bed You know, then, you know, saying to me discretely the next day, like, oh my God, I'm wrecked. L I can't drink the way I did when I was twenty. And I was like, well, there's a lot of different factors that impact our ability to tolerate alcohol as we get older. Absolutely. And it's one of the things too, especially for women who are pre and going through menopause. It's like adding fuel to the fire. Like there's so many things already going on. If you're drinking through that process because It helps you manage the stress of all of the things that are happening, like you're just making it worse. And when we talk about the other aspects of recovery, so let's say you're working out great and you're trying and you're getting eight hours of sleep If you're drinking alcohol, particularly in the evening before you go to bed That sleep is completely wasted you're not getting any of the recovery benefits. So you just wasted that workout You just wasted the sleep. everythingthing that you did that day to improve your fitness, improve your health is completely wasted Yeah. And I think it's important. you know, there's no judgment. We're just kind of providing the information. During the pandemic, I was never a big drinker to begin with, but I was noticing in my early forties that anytim I drank alcohol, my sleep was terrible. And I got to the point where I was like, my sleep is too important at this stage of life. So for me, it was an easy, you know, I'm just not going to drink anymore. And actually, I've come to find a lot of our friends in the health and wellness space when we go to events and we go out to dinner, Almost no one drinks alcohol. And so it really speaks the fact that for many of us, we just prioritize the fact that we really need that high quality sleep. And for many of us, it's no longer conducive to our lifestyle. And that's okay. And for those that do choose to drink and you're navigating that and you're not having problems, that's fantastic. But if you are just know that this may be contributing. Yeah. I want to add to that and help people and just to dig a little bit deeper to let people understand that it's not one of the things that really drives me crazy and frustrates me a little bit is the conversation of people saying that there are keto friendly alcohol drinks. And the idea that, okay, yeah, you can have wine and it's not going to kick you out of ketosis. It's not going to increase your Y blood sugar. Okay, great It's completely bypassing all the other benefits and the other things that you're doing to try to maintain Healthy metabolism So Yes, there are such thing as keto friendly wines. There is no such thing as healthy alcohol So I want to make sure people understand that. It's not about the carbs in the drink that make a difference. It's literally the drink itself. That's the problem Hooberman Lab did a really fantastic. as everyone knows, I love Dr. Huberman's podcast. And he did a great podcast over the summer, I believe, talking about ethanol and looking at the research. And I said to my husband, who likes to have a bourbon here and there. But I said to him, you should really listen to this because he enjoys his podcast. And he's like I'm not sure I'm ready. He doesn't have a problem with alcohol, but he said, if there's no benefit to alcohol consumption, R I'm not sure I'm ready for that message. And so I said, that's fair enough, totally fair. We'll make sure we link that up in the comments Now I want to make sure we leave enough time to talk about the study that you did that was looking at pererry and menopausal women in the Journal of Nutrition metabolism and Health science. And so This is a small study, but obviously one that we've got good information on that kind of validates your hypothesis. wouldould you like to share with listeners what you were looking at? So it was women ages forty five to fifty nine. So perimenopause and menopause. twenty four total women went through this study. And what were your findings? Overwhelmingly positive. It was super fantastic. It was one of those things We did it and it was kind of like, we think we know it's going to happen. Let's it actually happens. We wanted to prove, we wanted to verify, at least get some visible evidence to show that macros that were determined individually, not together So looking at protein, looking at fat as what someone needs versus a ratio Number one and then number two, including some difficult, challenging functional movement moving weights, moving your body and moving well. had a benefit to improving metabolic function translating into better experienceced menopause And that's really what the focus was. Let's see if these things combineed because like we said, I'm all about, I think the ketogenic diet is the best foundation for a nutrition program if you want to call that a lifestyle that we have and I think functional movement with weight resistance and learning how to move our body properly is the same thing on the fitness side. So combining the two of those together, what do we actually get? We saw increases in lean mass, We saw decreases in body fat percentage We saw an increase in physical performance. So the women got stronger, they got faster, they had more endurance. All the markers of Physical ability which is the key, right? know, you've seen people as they get older. There's a nurse Cindy, I forget what it was. She called it. There's a set of physical exercises that she was telling me about that people have to perform as they get older to prove that they are physically independent A daily ADLs. ye ADL So you know, being able to do those things and this was a great example of, hey, if you're fifty years old and you can deadlift one hundred pounds, you can probably pass those ADL's You know, A activities of daily living, right? That's what it's called. So being able to show that you know, training for functional movement and giving your body the nutrition that it needs helps your body process through things better whether that's no daily living or menopause And that's really what we were trying to show It's really exciting because one thing that I saw rowning in the hospital is how many patients were my age, so I'm fifty one. They were in the hospital. They had a bedside commote, a bedside toilet, and they could not get on and off the toilet because their quadricep muscles, their leg muscles were too weak And I used to say that's a really poor prognostic indicator. So one of the things that's really important to me and it's actually why I lift weights, but I also do pilates because I know flexibility is very important And so this morning at six AM, when I'm, you know being tortured in my pilates class, which is a good thing. I tell my instructor all the time, this is why I take your class at six AM because you're the toughest instructor. And I remind myself, it's important for me to be able to balance. It's important for me to be able to, you know work through muscle fatigue. It's important for me to be flexible as I get older And I think for a lot of people understanding that it's not just for aesthetics, that there's more to it than the aesthetics piece. And to your point about menopausal women, you know, how many women in periimenopause and menopause have horrific hot flashes? which we know based on study research is oftentimes directly related to blood sugar dysregulation and insulin resistance. L the people that have the worst Hot flashers are the ones that have the most metabolic disease and really understanding that per macros doing some strength training, challenging your body in middle age will gain a lot of improvements. And we know not just physically, but also neeurologically, cognitively, you know understanding that our brains in middle age are setting us up for our brains in older age. And Dr. Lisa Masconei, who I am I committed to getting on this podcast. It's going to happen this year. She does a lot of brain research on women's brains and menopause and perimenopause, and she talks about the fact that our brains in older age are a byproduct of how well we took care of ourselves in our forties and fifties. So really understanding that it's not just the aesthetics piece. There's so much more to it. It's a lot more substantive than what we think it is Yeah goinging back to that, there's a few things that go into that aspect of it's not just how you look. The longevity of your hospital stay is correlated to how much lean mask you have. If you're sick, if you have an injury if you have to get a surgery and you're sixty years old, and you are sarcopedic, you're probably going to be in the hospital longer than someone who's not sarcopina You just don't have the reserves. You It's not there. Like You can't repair, you can't recover. everythingthing is harder for your body to do I like that you