#1 Longevity Doctor: The Truth About Disease, Obesity, Muscle, Sleep & Exercise | Gabrielle Lyon

so Dr L you believe that all of us need to be focused on the health of our muscles whether we want to burn fat live longer improve our hormonal profile increase our energy or reduce the risk of getting sick in the future you believe that our muscle health is really really important why the quality of our muscle is the Cornerstone for overall health and well-being and quite frankly it's the organ of longevity there's nothing more important than skeletal musle it is different than this idea of Looking Good in a bikini and athletic performance which is you know when we think about skeletal muscle that's often what we think about I'd love to start with a story about that will really highlight where this came from I did my fellowship in geriatrics and nutritional sciences and by the way as you know as a physician geriatric is over the age of 65 it is end of life there is paliative care ha involved it is nursing home rounds quite frankly it was something that I didn't want to do but in order for me to have an advanced education in nutritional Sciences it was the deal I had to make a deal in order for me to do a two-year clinical Fellowship I had to work as a geriatrician and get my fellowship training in geriatrician and geriatrics and in the mornings early morning I did obesity medicine research and during the day I would see patients in the hospital in the nursing home in clinics in memory and aging clinics and then in the evening I would go back to doing obesity medicine research and one of the things that we were looking at was body composition and brain function and you know there's always that one patient right I'm sure you've had that one patient yeah that changed everything for you and he trainer listening we'll have that one client any other physician listening any person will have the influence of one person that really changed the trajectory of their life and for me it was a woman named we'll just call her Betty she was a mom of three kids in her mid-50s she had always struggled with the same 20 pounds we know a ton of people like that 20 PBS over a lifetime always put herself last showed up for her family showed up for uh her friends and did exactly what the medical community had told her which was eat less and exercise more and quite frankly I gave her the same advice we imaged her brain and her brain looked like the beginning of an Alzheimer's brain in her mid-50s as you can imagine it really struck me it struck me because during the day aging and Alzheimer's was very real to me and I was seeing the implications it was having on the family and the friends and and the people around individuals who have cognitive impairment I realized that she had done everything we had told her to and in the process she lost weight just as many people lose weight go through process of yo-yo dieting but she also lost skeletal muscle and destroyed her metabolism and impacted her brain so I started thinking okay how is this the standard of care so I started to really begin to put these pieces together what was the one thing that all these patients had in common in the nursing home in the hospital rounds in the dementia unit it wasn't that they were overfat it was that they had unhealthy skeletal muscle muscle first and that we had been trying to fix this obesity epidemic for the last 50 years and all of the things that ride along with obesity Alzheimer's cardiovascular disease you name it hypertension insulin resistance these are not diseases of obesity in fact these were diseases of skeletal muscle first insulin resistance insulin is a hormone release from the pancreas that moves blood sugar out of the bloodstream into the cells and I realized I had this aha moment that in order to get people healthy and if we really truly cared about longevity we had to course correct the way in which we were thinking and shift our Focus From the pathology of fat to the building the maintaining the cultivation of the health of skeletal muscle and that's really where this concept of muscle Centric medicine came from and of course I'm sure you have questions and I am going to talk to you about exactly what skeletal muscle does why it's an organ system but I think it's important that everyone put themselves in the framework of understanding that we've had a narrative of constantly focusing on uh all these other diseases as if they're out there but truly these diseases begin in our 30s it's a powerful story and yes we all have I think as Physicians as healthc Care Professionals as personal trainers we all have that one patient that one client that started to change things in our brain that made us question some of the things that we've been taught or certainly question some of the ways in which we were practicing but you mentioned their Alzheimer in the brain you've also mentioned the importance of skeletal muscle now I think for many people they're going to go well yeah I get it skeletal muscle is important but what on Earth has it got to do with the health of our brain yeah it's a really great question you originally asked me why do I believe why is my working hypothesis that skeletal muscle is the Cornerstone for health and wellness let's talk about what skeletal muscle does number one it is an organ system it is an organ system that you have voluntary control over quite simply this means it's the only organ system you can directly do something about with conscious thought you cannot exercise your liver you cannot exercise your heart specifically to tell it to beat 135 beats a minute maybe if your whm Hoff it's possible but for the rest of us we're unable to tell our thyroid to produce T4 we are unable to tell other organ systems exactly what to do skeletal muscle as an organ system is under direct voluntary control what does this mean and what does it do skeletal muscle is your metabol olic sink this means that the food that you eat primarily let's say you were eating carbohydrates 80 some per of carbohydrates are disposed of in skeletal muscle you hear a lot of people talk about elevated levels of blood glucose elevated levels of insulin these are directly related to the health of skeletal muscle How could a listener visualize this think about skeletal muscle as a suitcase I love to pack for a trip and let say I am going on a trip for four days and I pack for 30 think about your skeletal muscle as that suitcase so for example I am way overeating carbohydrates and skeletal muscle only can hold so much carbohydrates in the form of glycogen if I am not exercising that skeletal muscle or I don't have a lot of it or it's unhealthy I have nowhere to put that glucose eventually that glucose stays in the bloodstream goes to other tissues we see an increase in um fatty acid deposition all over the body not just in skeletal muscle over time skeletal muscle that is not exercised and unhealthy ends up looking like a marbled steak rather than a filet which is exactly what it should look like it becomes less efficient at utilizing energy skeletal muscle is one of the primary sites for mitochondria mitochondria which I know that you've talked about often is the powerhouses of the cell it's where we generate energy skeletal muscle is a primary site for fatty acid oxidation people are worried about their cholesterol and they're worried about triglycerides skeletal muscle is a primary site for utilization when we think about metabolism and metabolic regulation skeletal muscle is the primary site and it's 40% of our body this is just one aspect from a metabolic perspective when you talk about brain function and the health of skeletal muscle if you do not have healthy skeletal muscle you do not have a healthy metabolism the body becomes insulin resistant just as the brain becomes insulin resistant you know um Alzheimer's is often thought of as type three diabetes of the brain which means our metabolic Health has a direct impact on our brain function and we know that the lower the waistline the smaller the waistline the less body fat an individual has the better over time the brain will function it's just remarkable to think about all of the different things that skeletal muscle influences yeah as we discussed the first time we came on my show about 18 months ago many many of us for years have just thought about it as a physical thing you know dumb muscle it's you know a bit more if you want to look big and be a bodybuilder but otherwise it doesn't really matter and we very much have undervalued the importance of skeletal muscle one of the key points we mentioned in our first conversation was that as we get older above the age of 30 unless we're doing something about it we are losing our sceletal muscle every year right we did that in quite a bit of detail the first time round and Dr line my first book that came out at the end of 2017 set out what I consider to be the most important four pillars of Health Food movement sleep and relaxation and in our first conversation we covered in detail food specifically protein how important that might be for scal muscle we mentioned the kinds of exercise that you recommend you mentioned I think you like hit training once to twice a week strength training three to four times a week and a good cardio base for example walking 10,000 steps a day something like that I definitely want to revisit some of these things in this conversation but two of those pillars sleep and stress we didn't really cover so I wonder if we could start off by talking about the relationship between sleep and skeletal muscle most certainly you know it's a it's a very interesting um tie sleep and skeletal muscle and I'm going to highlight some of the emerging research which I think is quite fascinating one thing to keep in mind is that the research surrounding skeletal muscle has largely been based on performance which is why we've truly missed it as a medical profession which is why the world still thinks about skeletal muscle as this performance organ and it's so much more than that it interfaces with you know the brain the other endocrine organs just everything and sleep and skeletal muscle is interesting here's what is commonly thought about when you get good sleep you will have better recovery this is the time that growth hormone is released it allows for optimization of hormones we do need to get into deep rest it also is a time where the brain cleans itself the gal cells of the brain clean itself we do know that sleep deprivation over time has significant effects on cognition one night of sleep deprivation can impact muscle protein synthesis by 18% so it can decrease your ability for your body to create this robust response and muscle protein synthesis is a physiological process in which amino acids are incorporated into skeletal muscle it's what we would consider a biomarker of the health of skeletal muscle it's one of the ways in the literature in which health you know skeletal muscle health is measured and also that muscle is doing what it should be doing from a muscle protein synthetic response um skeletal muscle is highly plastic and highly responsive to diet and exercise when you have surprise muscle protein synthesis and 18% is a pretty robust suppression with one night of sleep deprivation and that I think that this the the data was four hours or less impacted the ability for skeletal muscle to respond to again muscle protein synthesis and this could be thought of in the or under the influence of both amino acid influence or training influence because those are the two two ways in which we stimulate muscle now here's the catch a lot of the military operators will go through periods of time where they have sleep deprivation and what some of the data suggests is that if you go through a few days of sleep deprivation one way to counteract the influence of sleep deprivation on skeletal muscle is actually pumping up your exercise which is completely counterintuitive you would think that if you have gone through a week of sleep deprivation you should probably just rest and in fact that's not what some of the data suggests some of the data suggests that an individual should really kick up their training during that time to protect metabolism and to protect and counterbalance the influence of lack of sleep because a whole host of other things so muscle protein synthesis is just one portion of what muscle does we know that with lack of sleep and we see this in shift workers there's an increase in insulin resistance there's an increase in blood glucose all of these things I believe to be centered around the influence on skeletal muscle it's really interesting that if you don't sleep well you decrease your sensitivity to the stimulus of training the next day right you mentioned muscle protein synthesis goes down as you say you could then make the case where one shouldn't train but that that new bit of data there that's fascinating that actually you sort of insulate yourself from some of those negative effects by training when I spoke to professor Matthew Walker on this show a few years ago I remember one of the things he said to me was if you're losing weight and your sleep deprived then the majority of that weight will come from muscle as opposed to excess body fat so the whole system the whole body is connected right and that's why I really love these four pillars as a way of looking at everything including skeletal muscle is because each one of those four pillars influences the other ones yes it does you know we don't exist in this Silo and um and I'm I'm so glad that we're talking about stress because it's often something that people don't necessarily ask about but I I think that it's a a critical importance sleep definitely influences the way in which our metabolism Works skeletal muscle has probably the biggest influence by the way on our entire homeostasis if you were to ask me what did I what do I believe is most important is it food or is it training or is it uh name something ice bath Etc I would say the influence of exercise trumps nearly everything because of it influence on all other body systems that is how impactful training is for people and when we talk about stress I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a loophole here when I say stress where you say stress that could mean I don't know the kids are home for Thanksgiving that could mean I have to go to the DMV the department of motor vehicles and I don't know if I have my right paperwork it could also mean the death of a loved one or the sickness of a family member we have one word to define various different states or experiences or life um tragedies you know on any scale nowhere in the human language do we have another word that describes all of these different things yeah and you know and I will say the evidence supports that how we imagine and think about stress truly does influence our physiology yeah I think there a paper I wrote about if you consider the stress to be adaptive for you as opposed to harmful it has a different physiological effect which is absolutely incredible the way you think about that stress or will determine its effects on you I have seen this in real time in my patients and I I have to say it's one of the topics that is not discussed but is probably one of the most critical when we hear stress we typically think of what do you think of when you hear stress what is the response I mean normally it's a negative word isn't it because I think we're talking about this chronic unrelenting stress that we never switch off from we never allow ourselves to recuperate from but of course not all stress is bad we need stress to be our best sells don't we I think the problem for most of us these days and why stress has such a negative connotation is because you know we're no longer having our stress responses activated now and again because there a wild Predator approaching our camp we're having it activated chronically by the state of our lives our email inbox the kids were having to look after the elderly parents were having to care for the negative comment we saw last time we went online whatever it might be these are the multiple stress SES that are firing themselves at us and a lot of the stress researchers would argue that the way your body responds is very very similar whether it's say physical stress or a psychological stressor yeah and I would say that I absolutely agree with you what we hear is stress and then we hear fight ORF flight fight ORF flight is the stress response that we are all taught about there's an increase in catacol Mees there's an increase in blood pressure there's a very sympathetic response now I would also say that that is an initial stress response and that stress response is a physiological iCal response there are two other stress responses there is tended befriend which is somewhat of an Attunement response and this is for example I have two very little kids when I see them in distress instead of going into fight ORF flight I go to tend and be friend what can I do to make their life better some people when they are stressed rather than go into fighter flight will turn to reaching out to help people I would say that that is my initial stress response this does a few things it increases serotonin it increases oxy um oxytocin it allows us to bond the other stress response which I see with a lot of individuals is a courage response and there was and the courage response is actually something that can be cultivated and how is this important and how does this relate to the health of skeletal muscle well I would love to tie that all back in and the courage response is something that also can be trained I'll give you an example my husband was an elite military operator he was a Navy SEAL for 10 years he loves jumping on of planes which is insane if I were to get up and jump out of a plane I am sure that my blood pressure would be 500 over 300 I would be so uh scared and there would be a whole host of things going through my head and it would certainly be a fight ORF flight response my husband getting out ready to jump out of a plane might have a slight bump in blood pressure he might have a slight increase in some of these Cate col means but his response is courageous it is much more facilitating it is of action and that is another stress response that we are often not taught about and there was a very interesting uh study that took individuals who were deathly afraid of snakes put them in an MRI machine put a very large snake on a conveyor belt that would then move towards an individual's head I'm freaking out just hearing this okay uh right I would be too and initially everybody had a fear response and they were they were looking at fmri images they were also measuring um you know various aspects of their body chemistry but what happened was the second time the individuals were coached up into what could be considered a courage response and what they saw was different aspects of the brain lit up and they were mounting there was evidence that they were mounting a different stress response and this was one of Courage so this goes back to saying that fight or flight is a response and courage is a choice and if we can readjust our understanding of stress humans are very interesting and I'm going to tie this back into this obesity narrative once we hear something over and over and over again humans believe it to be true and we believe that that is the framework for understanding just like with an obesity epidemic that we've been trying to fix for the last 50 years we focused on the pathology of fat and I would argue that if we ask the right question then we'll get the right answer and I think that that can be translated to stress I think that we have been taught over and over again that we have this one stress response and we should reduce stress and it's a fight ORF flight response I would say that that is a repeated narrative that we can readdress and make individuals much less I don't know if the word is fragile but much more resilient in the way in which they interpret their environment and what becomes so important I know that this is really about medicine and kind of this muscle Centric approach is that when we do things like train this does create for some people an initial stress response we begin to cultivate courage we begin to cultivate behaviors that allow us to acquire skeletal muscle which take drive and a different way in which we interface with the world and I hope that that's not too esoteric but truly the message that I'm trying to deliver is one of strength and with that message of strength I'm going to challenge the way in which we have traditionally thought about medicine but also challenge the way in which we thought about mindset and I believe that stress can be enhancing and I believe that when we recondition individuals to also believe that then they can have a different control of their physiology which will allow them to take Massive Action I just love what you just said I really do in fact one of the things I enjoyed the most about your latest book Forever Strong was how you covered the psychological aspects of change as well as the physical ones because what I'm writing about the things I think about more are these mindset issues because actually once you've got the foundation of mindset right I find that those Downstream behaviors of food and movement whatever it might be so much easier for people to incorporate into their lives when they have these self-limiting beliefs it doesn't matter how many podcasts they listen to how many books they read they don't take action so I was going to bring those things up with you during this conversation because I think you given master class in that in Forever Strong the other thing I just wanted to comment on you mentioned your husband who was a former Navy SEAL I think this is a really important point if he was jumping out of a hel I opter 30 years ago right I imagine he may have been really really scared but by training it by practicing it by developing his confidence in it he's now at a point where he can actually enjoy it whereas you haven't done that so you or me we're going to freak out when that happens what does that tell us it tells us that the stress response or much of it is internal the same external event is happening with jumping out of a helicopter but how we interpret it is determining the impact on our bodies and how we interpret it depends on our experience our level of confidence what we practiced and again you can tie that into exercise you can tie that into muscle the more you practice exercising the more you train you are working out your stress response system and therefore whatever that stressor is in life that comes before you you better able to handle it I have to tell you something I am so grateful for you and your openness to have this conversation it's actually one of my most favorite topics because as a provider as a physician who still sees patients you know a a good clinician is really good at recognizing patterns of diseases we can all agree on that but an effective physician is good at recognizing patterns of people and I have been a physician since 2006 and I will tell you I have seen what makes individuals successful and if you allow me I would love to share some of the aspects that I have seen that really change the narrative for people and every single person listening to this podcast will be able to take what I am saying and implement it immediately yeah please okay I'm GNA tell a quick story time we have plenty of time I have one entreprene rur who hosts a massive event in Las Vegas every year thousands of people and every year I wait for the call the call that comes after the big event and that call is I am depressed I'm not motivated to train by the way he's super fit I am eating junk food and I just I don't even want to see people I just want to to lay in bed and every year he's shocked by this he is shocked by his own human nature and you're thinking okay so let's break this down everybody's striving to do things whether you are Mom trying to get your kids to a big event or you are a business owner or you are a doctor or you are a writer everybody has some level of thing that they are working towards and once you are at that Pinnacle right so let's say when your next book comes out you will be spending months and months and months prepping for this thing and then you will be at the top of the world you have this high level of dopamine drive and obviously other neurotransmitters but we'll just related it to dopamine and at that Peak at the Pinnacle of success is where people are most vulnerable and right after they reach their most successful moment is their second point of vulnerability I am going to circle back this all relates to mindset and what these individuals listening guys out there listening guys and girls out there listening what you can do as high as an individual is going to go is as low as they are going to go it is predictable and it is human nature the best of the best are very neutral and they practice neutrality and they practice ways of dopamine preservation if we think about the neurotransmitter dopamine related to drive and motivation again to say it simply when you have a big event this is your place of vulnerability you will look for the next car to buy the next thing to do the next food to eat the next thing to buy at the peak of your success there is nothing that will take you off track faster than not understanding this as high as an individual is going to go is equally as low as they were going to go I did this massive push here for the book Forever Strong how pumped up do you think I allowed myself to get before the day before the book release I would imagine extremely pumped up extremely neutral here's why because I knew that as high as I was going to get with this book release would be as low as I would go you hear people that go off and do some kind of physical event following that physical event whether it's running a marathon or taking a test or doing the thing that they had trained to do become extremely depressed afterwards have you heard that I have heard it I've experienced it myself and I'm delighted to hear that you have presumably gone through a process to get to this point where you're able to maintain neutrality even the day before your very first book launch which for many people is a hugely exciting moment but I totally agree with you I've had it before when I wasn't emotionally neutral and I'd had the highs and lows and for the last few years I say the last two or three years I feel generally pretty neutral a lot of the time it doesn't mean I don't enjoy life I I enjoy life more now than I ever have because of that neutrality people will often say yeah but I want the highs you know I don't mind the lows but without the lows I don't get the highs you can have it just not with that same amplitude and it's much more sustainable for me Dr lion a lot of that is coming from I guess the sort of things we were talking about related to your husband jumping out of a helicopter it's come from the fact that I understand deeply that a huge part of my response is down to me and I've worked very hard and cultivated the skill I don't think it's something you're necessarily born with I think it's something you can get better at one of the ways I've done it is by looking at every day as a school day so every time for the last years when I would get emotionally triggered by the thoughts or the words or actions of somebody else instead of thinking they were the problem I would reflect it back on to me and go why is this bothering you rangan do you expect to walk around the world and expect everyone to say the things that you want to hear no that's completely unrealistic so therefore I can't control other people's words and behavior and actions but I can control my response and so by doing this as a diligent daily practice I've now got to the point where a lot of that is default and bringing it back to health for people tuning in who want to have more Vitality they want to live longer they want more energy they want to lose weight whatever it might be I like you Dr L believe that this is one of the most important skills because if you can maintain that neutrality it's easy not to go to the alcohol it's easy to not Comfort eat the sugar or the ice cream because those things are in my experience anyway they are usually Downstream consequences of these kind of Upstream patterns it's so brilliantly stated and I will say congratulations because the best of the best have that level of neutrality again I take care of patients that are the best in the world at what they do they do exhibit that neutrality and it is something that they have learned over time and by doing that they don't have the highs and lows and it's exactly what you're saying it's not that you are not excited about something but it is a moderated excitement and I can give individuals very practical tools which we're going to talk about right now what they can do to begin to build that neutrality muscle over time exactly what you said just taking a quick break to give a shout out to Vivo B barefoot shoes now I've been a huge fan of Vivo Barefoot for over 10 years now well before they started supporting my podcast they are the only shoes that I wear and they really have had a huge impact on my own life and the lives of many of my patients you see when people start wearing Minimalist Shoes like Vios you can see improvements in things like back pain hip pain knee pain foot pain even things like plop fasciitis can often get better and scientific research shows us that just wearing Vios for about 4 months or so improves the strength in your feet by over 60% which is absolutely incredible one thing people don't realize about these shoes is just how flexible they are which allows your feet to do what your feet naturally want to do rather than the shoe dictating your foot's movement Vivo bfot are giving my audience a 15% off onetime code when you make your first order order and they make it really easy for you to give them a try they give a 100 day trial for new customers so if you don't like them you just send them back for a full refund I'm a huge fan I really hope you take advantage of this offer to get your 15% off codes all you need to do is go to Vivo barfoot.co.nz begin to think about what are some of the things that may be a negative experience for example for you maybe it's comments you're very much in the public eye that does take time to kind of build up that neutrality here's a couple very simple things that people could do for dopamine preservation we'll just we'll identified as dopamine preservation go through your week and don't celebrate every win I am not talking about not being kind to yourself I'm not talking about belittling yourself I am just saying that don't celebrate every win intermittently celebrate a win of doing something great flip a coin you flip a coin heads you celebrate tails you don't if you are an individual who loves loud music and some kind of stimulant before you go to workout whether it's caffeine Etc flip a coin one day have it the other day don't and you don't know which day that's going to be you begin to build up these muscles of dopamine preservation let's say you want to go shopping and you can afford to buy something you flip the coin whether you get it or you don't and over time you begin to then translate that to these big events and things that people are doing again little things will then translate to big things because it is about the long term the way in which we want to show up for our family for our work it is a long-term game and the highs and lows make people very vulnerable to human nature in a way where the habits that they create the habits that you create in your 30s 40s and 50s become much more difficult to break each defining decade so if someone is listening really begin to initiate some of these practices and you can begin to change your habits very very quickly and it won't be a habit that you have to deal with emotional eating in your fth s and that that's just one aspect that I think is extremely beneficial the other thing is people talk a lot about positivity and they think I'm going to do this exercise and diet program because I'm going to lose weight X Y and Z I would say that that is not an effective strategy what is an effective strategy is if you can collapse your future self with your current self and let's just say caring what people think if you care what people think and that consumes your mind imagine the cost of that behavior and that thought process if you do it for a year and then if you do it for five years and then you do it for 10 years imagine the cost on your life you could do that for diet and exercise let's say you have kids and Friday night you've done great all week and you sabotage yourself every Friday night because that's how you relax imag imagine what that toll is going to be if you continue to do those habits over a year each time you repeat a habit you are much more likely to repeat that habit again so when you collapse your future self with your current self and yes it does have a bit of a negative spin but it's kind of like what was that that movie um that that Christmas movie with the Three Angels do you remember G in the background he's saying it's a It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life that is an example if someone wants to see what I am talking about watch It's a Wonderful Life it will snap you out of whatever you are telling yourself instantaneously yeah you do you do you have to collapse that future self with the current self I think what we're talking about here is so so important and so so unvalued generally in the health conversation that takes place everywhere these days it's all about more information and look I'm all for giving people information and in our first conversation together you gave a master class in protein in resistance training and hopefully we can cover some of those things again today but I think people even with that information don't always manage to make change so let's imagine a scenario and given a time of year it's January and someone is thinking this year is something is going to be different you know what I'm getting my stuff sorted in 2024 and in my view if you don't take a different approach why is it that 2024 is going to be any different than 20203 or 2022 or 2021 so instead of trying to buy a new book or a new diet plan or a new Strength PR or whatever it might be sure do that but you need to go a little bit further Upstream as well so can you relate what we're talking about now to people wanting to create healthy behaviors I have a great solution for this are you ready the solution is we set standards we don't set goals standards for how we show up standards for how we execute you no longer need to set goals if you have a weight loss goal this sets you up for failure the first thing that people should do is set a standard for how they want to show up for me I show up I train it is a standard that I have set for myself I eat a certain kind of way a certain amount of protein certain kind of carbohydrate it's a standard it is not a goal and when we shift away from goals because goals are variable and you have an opportunity to meet that goal or you have an opportunity to fail at that goal but when you set a standard for the way in which you function in your everyday life and I encourage people to write it down yeah what is the standard that you are going to set for yourself and then execute on that standard an individual will find that everything else falls into place it's really interesting because you're saying set a standard right say what you're going to do and do it you know be accountable in fact there's a section in your book I think called erecting guard whales for accountability which I really enjoyed and something you said in that section was you need to know what Integrity is and what your responsibilities are to yourself that was really really powerful for me what do you mean integrity and your responsibilities to yourself nothing will under undermine how you feel about yourself if you have standards that you set and that you don't keep and for me you know there was a period of time where I was all over the place I was training a lot many hours of the day and it was taking away from the things that I needed to do and you know that might be the opposite problem some people have but it wasn't being truthful to the Integrity that I had set for myself for me training an hour day is plenty anything above that is me running from whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing because I'm quote training and I'm doing something healthy when you set a promise to yourself whether it is you're going to eat a certain nutrition plan and I don't care actually quite frankly what plan that is you can Define it which you should exactly what you are going to do if you are comfortable having a drink on the weekends that gets written out you define what it is that you are going to be doing that is your plan you make a promise to yourself that you're going to keep that plan and every single time that that you don't you come out of alignment and what is the best effective way to put something back into alignment I mean from my experience it's a consequence you have to have a consequence for your action if a consequence is big enough it'll it makes you re-evaluate what it is that you're doing if a consequence is big enough and it allows you you know it's like with a little kid if you change their focus they'll forget why they're angry and it's not that the thing that they were angry about was a you know was an important thing maybe I didn't scramble the eggs in appropriate way right you're laughing because you have kids and maybe the eggs got thrown in my face and then I show them uh some new handwriting book that I got them and all of a sudden this is the thing so it's very rarely that it's a thing and what I appreciate so much and I'm so thrilled that you're a physician talking to me about this is that I could give someone the perfect program I could say we must exercise our skeletal muscle 50% of people don't exercise maybe 24% of people are even meeting that daily recommendation by telling people to do the thing or increase dietary protein none of that matters it's not going to happen if the brain chemistry and the initial framework for understanding is not addressed then an individual will never see success I completely agree Gabrielle when you were mentioning your commitment to yourself I think you mentioned it was one hour of training per day and you said I believe anything more than that is too much and is you trying to in some ways run away from the more important things in your life now I think that is such a key key Point many people will do this many people will not have the awareness that they're doing this and I want to tie this into this broader concept which is I think people take on too much particularly at times like January where they think right I'm going to overhaul everything I'm going to eat fantastically well I'm going to I'm going to do Dr Alliance plan I'm going to strength train four times a week I'm doing 10,000 steps a day I'm doing hits training twice a week and they do it for two or three weeks when the motivation is high and then real life gets in the way and they fall off so when I hear you saying that your commitment to yourself is one hour of training per day no more than that I think it's it's really really powerful you seem to have found what works for you it doesn't mean that's going to work for someone else that's what works for you in the context of your life and there was a section in your book when you're talking about mindset and overcoming resistance where you said you admitted to previous thought Loops that you had and you said this my thought Loops told me I would never be fit enough which strove me to train for hours per day whilst neglecting the other aspects of my life can you speak to that a little bit please I think it's really important that we understand um I will say this first that motivation comes and goes and you have to plan for that you cannot be shocked by the fact that you will not be motivated I was able to address all of that stuff many years ago there are many times now I do not feel like training I have two very little children my husband is a firste surgical resident which means he works a hundred hours a week here's what I do I am not surprised by the fact that I am not motivated to train what I do is I have it all set up for example I have training partners that I know are going to be meeting me at the gym I am not going to let them down I would never knock say I'm going to show up for something and then not show up for it I know that when I get off of a plane I will go and I'll train I don't feel like it I'm already trying to every Saturday we do this or every Sunday we do this big group workout every Saturday night I am trying to talk myself out of how I'm not going to be going and showing up for Sunday yet we're all surprised that we're going to start on a program January 1 and then we're shocked by the fact that we're not motivated by in two or three weeks plan for that you're not going to feel motivated you are going to feel motivated the first week failure to understand and plan for the fact that is absolutely going to fall off is a complete misstep you plan for that you have your teammates in place that you are going to show up for because if you're not willing to do it for yourself you will definitely show up to do it for another person and yeah that's all I can say about that I am definitely not motivated a lot of the time but I still will show up I think relating also to your one hour day of commitment to training I think is this idea that there's a cost to everything we do there's a consequence to everything so in the modern worlds and the way we're living these days many people feel time pressured all the time and then they will hear let's say you on your first podcast with you gave some recommendations that some people are going to find very tricky to fit into their life your advice was that most people need a good cardio aerobic base that could be with 10,000 steps of walking a day you thought they need some form of high intensity training maybe once to twice a week and some form of resistance strength training ideally three to four times per week now for some people they're going to go no chance there's no way I can do that let's push back on that and let's say that you truly don't have time there are ways to make it happen and let's say realistically you might not have an hour a day you can get in there then maybe you're an individual who needs to do more high-intensity interval training and that could be accomplished in 20 minutes there is a baseline physical activity that you must meet you must be out and moving we are not designed to be sedentary and we must rethink this domestication of humanity I'm with you like for most of my life until the last two or three years I would say I prioritized intensity right so for a variety of reasons um throughout my adult life I feel I've been under huge amounts of stress there's that word stress again um now I would always move my body so listeners of this show will know that I do a 5 minute strength workout every morning whilst my coffee is brewing now you may argue that 5 minutes is not enough I'll take it but I would say I keep in pretty good shape from doing that now over the last two years things have changed as I have got older and I look in detail at the research on movement and exercise I'm like hey wrong and listen if you want to be a capable strong resilient human being you got to move your body so I am now committing to 1 hour's movement a day right and I love these daily things because if it's daily it's a habit now it doesn't mean I'm going to run every day right some days it will be a 1H hour fast walk other times it will be a run or whatever it might be but by making it a rule by making it a standard that I'm accountable to myself and I want to tie that in to this time of year right even if people just commit to one thing and they do it I think that is the best thing you can do you give yourself evidence that you do what you say you're going to do you are on to something my friend and what you're also on to is shifting a narrative and a way of thinking of how we have to age does this take time commitment does it take physical effort is it sometimes uncomfortable because the last thing you want to be doing is push-ups and squats in your kitchen yeah it's a drag potentially but the outcome is so beneficial when you are leveraging this organ of longevity from a lifetime trajectory of it's like putting money in the bank you are doing what you need to do it's an organ system it is an organ system designed for movement yeah when you are sedentary your muscle becomes insulin resistant when you know it goes back to this analogy of the suitcase of going on a trip for 4 days but packing for 30 you are creating flux within your skeletal muscle the other thing that you are doing that one must recognize is that skeletal muscle is currency but it is the only currency that cannot be bought cannot be sold it cannot be traded for skeletal muscle is a currency that must be earned and you are earning it daily and through that process you are becoming a certain type of person someone who is physically strong someone who is mentally disciplined you are becoming a certain person capable of having skeletal muscle and the two are are not different yeah in that chapter I think it's chapter nine you say don't think of training as an activity with health benefits instead consider it as a baseline requirement for wellness and an essential component of maintaining health and protecting longevity that is exactly how I see it these days we'll be back to the conversation in just a moment now many of us struggle to find time to eat all of these incredible h Foods that's why I'm a big fan of good quality Whole Food supplements like this one that's been in my own life for over 3 years now it contains over 75 Whole Food Source ingredients vitamins minerals pre and probiotics and can help us support our energy focused digestion and our immune system ag1 are giving my audience a fantastic offer oneyear supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first first order you can see all details at drink a1.com forli more or just click on the link below and now back to the conversation that is exactly why on most days I'm not perfect you know yesterday I think it was 40 minutes it wasn't an hour but by having that as a standard I'm constantly having to justify to myself when I don't meet it so what's really interesting is that since I moved to this you're moving for 1 hour a day model and I'll give Helen Hall my coach huge amounts of credit for this she's an incredible movement coach who I work with it means now that even when I get 40 minutes I'm like oh man yeah but I I I didn't get the hour in whereas if I was just leaving it to do it three or four times a week then you know I may have missed yesterday because I was really quite time pressured yesterday but because my commitment is an hour I'm like you know what get just get out just just do it it was raining it was dark I was actually outside I picked up my son from school he was having a lesson an extracurricular lesson and I was waiting and it would have been easy to stay in the car it was warm listen to a podcast put the radio on whatever and I was like I had this nagging thing at the back of my mind you've you've not moved today you've not moved today so I didn't even have a raincoat with me I thought you know what screw it I'm just just going out there and getting this walk-in and you feel incredible you get energy yes I got a bit wet but I honestly don't care so I don't want to Sidetrack this Dr lion but I think these things are these are the important foundations we all need upon which to build our Behavior habits you held yourself to a higher standard which is incredible and you felt good about it remember we're not training to become better at exercise we are training to become better at life you are doing actions that allow you to become better at life and if people understand as they are going into the new year let's say you don't like exercise fine think about how you are going to cultivate yourself to become better at life you just talked about how going out in the rain it's dark and cold and you got your physical activity you also kept a commitment to your yourself you also put a notch in the fact that you are much more likely to go ahead and take that action in the future didn't matter that it was raining it didn't matter that it was cold you're actually yeah you're cultivating your muscle but you're also cultivating your resiliency yeah it makes you an individual who's not willing to negotiate and you're not negotiating with yourself the brain does a lot of things the brain likes Comfort the brain tells us not to do all these things but the brain is just an organ that pumps out thoughts that's just what the brain does it doesn't mean that they're relevant it means that one can be Discerning you can have all the thoughts that you want but when you commit to an action you don't wait on motivation you don't have to force yourself into doing anything you might have a a moment of negotiation which is exactly what you did but you took action you're much more likely to take action in the future and you build upon that which is exactly the goal for society how do we become stronger and more resilient as a society mentally which then begets physical resilience for that person who wants to get into strength training let's say they heard our first conversation together and we're inspired but life got in the way they haven't quite got round yet to Bringing resistance training into their lives or perhaps someone's coming across you Gabrielle for the very first time and just going wow I didn't know scal muscle was that important let's maybe go through a couple of scenarios here for someone who's never done anything and let's say they're in their 40s how would you advise that they start getting into resistance training well you had mentioned that you have a great coach and I think now that we have access to online coaches and and there's just a whole host of information find a modality that works and be under the guidance of someone or least cure rate information there's tons out there because when you start you are going to have much more of a response than someone who is who has already been training the just doing basic body weight stuff like push-ups or squats or moving your body or doing lunges this is an amazing place to start you are doing something again when we talk about resistance training moving your body weight would be considered resistance training then you graduate to bands if you want to use bands I think think that that is very very very helpful it is easy to do at home and then after you graduate from bands and let's say you are doing things I think being able to squat get off up off the floor because again we are training for life being able to do a push-up you have to be able to fall well you have to be able to push yourself up off of the ground let's say you don't want to do any of those things then you pick up a couple heavy bags and you walk and you carry them eventually you progress to kettle bells what are actions that you do within your normal life that will allow you to get better at doing those things yeah we know that people have to carry groceries we know that you have to if you are traveling on an airport that you have to put your uh suitcase overhead we know that it is very critical to be able to get off the floor if you were to fall begin to think about things within life and put actions to those things let's say I don't know you don't want to buy weights so maybe you spend $20 and you get a weighted vest on Amazon there are a whole host of opportunities and options and there's only one wrong way to do it by the way and that's by not doing it yeah I I Circle that quot in your book there is one slam dunk way to exercise wrong don't do it at all so I think that's empowering you know at the start of this conversation you mentioned how you did geriatric medicine early on in your career as did I my second or third placement as what we call the senior house officer so our second year as a junior doctor was in charge of the care of the elderly Ward at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh and when we think about these functional movements and it's hard right I get it in my 20s I wasn't thinking about what do I need for when I'm 70 or 80 right but something so practical that people probably don't think about unless they've seen it with you know like we have in our patients to go to the toilet you need to be able to squat right and it is something that people take for granted until they can't do it again I I know that may not land for someone in their 20s or 30s who's listening but I hope it does because nobody wants to be that person person when they're older no one I don't think anyone would choose to say yeah you know when I'm older um I hope that I can't get up and down off my own toilet I mean no one wants that it doesn't mean people can't have a quality life when they have that with help for sure but that's a very real thing for people to think about when we're thinking about you know functional exercises and what we need to be able to do right and it's also not if challenges are going to happen it's when it's not an if thing it's a when thing you train for life and you train for sickness and I know that that sounds morbid but the more healthy muscle mass you have the more resilient you are going to be in midlife and later on and the time to take action is now the wor the best time was yesterday the second best time is today you have to take action and you have to do it regardless it's not that it's going to get easier so if people could think about what the future is like you don't have to think about yourself you know if you're in your 20s you're thinking well that's in another 30 years and I will tell you that as someone who's not in their 30s as you and I are both not in our 30s that the actions and habits that you develop now are much easier addressed now than they are later on being strong and being capable and taking the action necessary is your your best health insurance possible it is not an if the when these things are going to happen it's a when whether someone gets the flu and they are laid up in bed uh an older person might lose two pounds of muscle if they are on bed rest for seven days Yeah the more healthy muscle mass you have going into any kind of um disease or illness the more capable you will be to fight it off also so I have never heard a patient say to me you know I regret being strong and capable I regret that never in the history of ever there's something also about strength training or exercise or training full stop that I don't think people talk about enough how it makes you feel right when you can lift something heavy when you're able to go on a 1-hour hike in the hill and you're able to do that you come back and you've given yourself a shot of resilience you feel like a capable strong human being we can talk about what having muscle mass does to lower inflammation improve the health of your immune system lower your risk of Cancer all those kind of things great but it also does something arguably more important than any of those things it gives you confidence in yourself I no isn't it amazing muscle is the Cornerstone to longevity and what is longevity it's not just living longer it's living happier it's living more capable it's being able to fulfill what you intended to fulfill you're absolutely right it makes you more confident in the way in which you show up in the world it makes you more physically capable it's incredible it also makes you more independent yeah you said start wherever you're at there's plenty of online resources now you said if you can get a trainer get one let's just think of two more scenarios okay one scenario is that person who thinks trainer you've got to be kidding me I've barely got enough money to pay the bills put the heating on and feed my kids so to them they may be thinking no chance can I afford a trainer I may not even be able to afford a gym membership so I want your take on what that person can do and then I want you to move on if you don't mind Gabrielle is to another person who thinks you know what I'm pretty good you know I've been listening to ronga podcast for a few years I've been implementing some of the advice I've got energy I've lost a bit of weight my mental well-being is better I'm now prioritizing Health in a way that I never was what is Optimum what would you ideally have me do and let's say this person is in their 40s or their 50s I wonder if you can give them your top prescription based on what I've just told you those are two great questions we'll start with a person who is really struggling financially YouTube is free I would suggest going to YouTube and finding body weight exercises there are a whole host of ways that you can get healthy if you have access to a computer or a phone or even the library so the library is free you can go to the library you can get on online there you can go to YouTube and there are actions and ways in which people can execute immediately again doesn't cost anything to do push-ups it doesn't cost anything to do squats and what happens is over time you can continue to increase the amount so let's say when you start you can do 10 squats then you can do 20 and you continue to push yourself which would lead me to the second question that you asked so number one if finances are very tight YouTube has a ton of free resources if you do not have a computer at home you can go to the library a free public library and listen there yeah and I just want to add to that something you we were talking about before about self-limiting beliefs that individual if they go to work somewhere and they have colleagues there's always that colleague somewhere who you know takes pride in their appearance and is really buff and clearly works out regularly and likes to train we're often fearful about asking others for advice or help you know I challenge someone listening to this if you're that person go up to someone who you know trains and say Hey listen you know what I want to make this year a really good year for me I can't afford a gym I don't know where to start would you mind showing me two or three simple exercises that I could do by myself at home I think it's another I know some people get really scared about doing that but if you can lean into that fear and actually go and ask someone people want to help right people who train they'd be delighted to say Hey listen no worries I was there once before 10 years ago I didn't know either I'd start with a B and C so that's all I was going to add to to to what you just said there I I love that I love that now let's talk about the next question that you had asked is someone is in their mid-40s they're already prioritizing their health what is their optimal I love this question my challenge to them would be you should be training to get better at multiple different modalities you pick one and you train that up for 10 to 12 weeks depending on whatever your goal is for example let's say you are really great at doing a bench press Squad and you've been training in this hypertrophy Zone I would would challenge you to get better at high-intensity interval training and how would you do that well you would measure it so for example if you were going to go on a rower you would say you would test yourself find out where you're at how long is it going to take you to row 500 meters you'll get a Baseline and then you'll continue to improve that or you can do a ski ERG or a airdine bike but really understanding that the key with training just like the key with life in my opinion is that you strive to become better at the thing if weightlifting is easy for you continue to do that now pick something else maybe you're not good at yoga maybe you're not very flexible lean into that there are so many fun ways to train let's say I don't have time to go to the gym I will find a creative way to train that potentially I'm not good at I'll throw a Bulgarian bag which is a kind of off-centered bag I'll throw it over my shoulder maybe that's 35 40 pounds and then I'll pick up a kettle bell and I'll be walking in my neighborhood so I have a Bulgarian bag and a kettle bell in one hand I'll walk up and down maybe I'll lunge turn around I'll do it again might be something that I'm not good at but I'm always trying to leverage the movements that potentially I'm not good at yeah because that's what life's about you don't just continue to do the thing that you are good at you do that and then you add to it and you get creative and you figure out your weaknesses and you leverage your weaknesses because Fitness is multi-dimensional information is not enough to make change in your life you have to take action so to help you take action after watching this video I've created a free nutrition guide for you this contains the five most important practices I've seen in over two decades of seeing patients they work for you no matter what your dietry preference there's a step-by-step action plan to help you implement those changes in your life if you want to receive that free guide right now just click on the link in the description box below let's say you love training hard maybe you need to add in some yoga and get more flexibility maybe you need to add in more stability work yeah I love that you're clearly off the maybe a similar mindset to me where you're you have no problem going out into your neighborhoods wearing crazy stuff or putting you know weights on your back and going rounds okay I think that would be me whereas I think many of my patients a lot of my family a lot of my friends would go no way but that could be applied in your house right let's say you've got stairs well you could pick something up and go up and down your stairs couldn't you right you don't have to do it in public if you don't have that kind of I don't know self-confidence whatever you might want to call it or maybe you should maybe you should cultivate it and the first three people that look at you weird good keep going because then the next time you do it you're not going to feel uncomfortable yeah or maybe you know you can keep testing yourself wear uh I don't know your kids headband be crazy but it's just that initial restraint that we put on ourselves yeah you can do it we're touching on something which I think you covered towards the end if your book in the section about environment design and you talk about these four I guess avatars the performer the solar wat the chameleon and The Reluctant can you explain and how you came up with those four and just walk us through each of them because I think all of us will go yeah that that's probably me oh that's probably me that's my partner that's my brother or whatever it might be I I really loved it yeah well really these came from and by the way there's probably more but this came from just seeing patterns of people and once you figure out what kind of person you are you know how to get the best of yourself so a a soloist is a person who they don't care about external stimuli they prefer to train alone they will either turn music on or not it doesn't matter these are highly highly driven individuals that are working out their own stuff doesn't matter where you put them doesn't matter who is there doesn't matter um these are the people that will Train by like David Goggins David goggin isn't gonna care who's around right he doesn't matter it it whether someone whether there's a camera there or whether there's not that guy's getting it done a chameleon a chameleon type of patient will you can really put them in anywhere and they'll make it happen one of my best friends Don saladino who if you guys are looking for training uh online training he has many many programs this guy is such an athlete it doesn't matter he can train alone he can train in a group you drop him in anywhere and he's dominating he just loves training The Reluctant is uh a few things a reluctant a reluctant patient is they actually do want to get better but they'll tell themselves that there's no point and they've tried everything so what's the point I'm just going to stay at home and eat whatever I want and you know what's the point of me you know uh training because my body composition is not GNA not going to change um it's not really going to matter and and those are the people that there's typically a lot of pain involved right that they're just not um they haven't really identified that there's a risk that they might not achieve the thing that they're looking to achieve which by the way just taking action allows you to get better either way and I think that that's really important and what was the last one there's one more the performer oh these the performers are the best now these are a lot of the people that you will see on stage that are very much out in public that do better being witnessed meaning they can go to a gym they might not want to train with anybody or want you talking to them but they need to be in an environment where people are witnessing them and it's not this because they will push themselves knowing that they are being witnessed and again it's not this ego thing it's just the way in which they seem to function best um many entrepreneurs again they'll be so competitive within themselves but they don't necessarily want to do it solo yeah and they don't necessarily need a training partner but they will have to go to a gym to quote get the environment right yeah so so I'll give you an example I take care of a very well-known entrepreneur and he was training as a soloist how good do you think his workouts were terrible terrible because he didn't want to go to the gym he didn't want people to recognize him but for a performer to be training solo it's like the kiss of death so he' go to his home gym do a couple reps be on his phone this is boring we put him into the gym even if the gym we'd find out when the gym wasn't busy go to the gym would go there with the trainer kind of keep people at Bay completely crush his workout so knowing how you navigate your environment is crucial because you leverage your environment for Success yeah a huge part of this conversation has been about getting to know yourself better understanding yourself knowing your limitations knowing your patterns knowing when you go off track right I had planned to do a master class on muscles today with you and we've probably done a fraction of that but nonetheless I think this is so so valuable for people because this is really where it's at if you want to make changes so in the remaining time then um I wonder if we can go through a few sort of almost like a quickfire run through different topics that may be of used to people so you you are you've been practicing medicine for years now yes yeah what are the top five blood tests that you would recommend people do on themselves to get a snapshot of their short-term and their long-term Health uh F now in no particular order understanding your fasting glucose levels understanding your fasting insulin levels understanding your triglycerides so that's three understanding your hormones whether you believe in hormone replacement or not really getting a sense of where your free hormones are for men what is your free testosterone for women what is your estradiol depending on um you know where you are your progesterone also is helpful looking at apob which is a very important marker for cardiovascular health also knowing your LP little a this is a genetic marker and this also helps you understand your risk for cardiovascular disease those are just a handful of things a full thyroid panel that's important that's important for energy metabolism muscle function most people don't correlate thyroid with u muscle Health but I will tell you um early on in my career I had a lot of Hashimoto and hypothyroid patients and one of the things I started seeing with the volume of patients that I was seeing is they would constantly be getting tendonitis they would be getting issues with tendons and one of the things that can impact tissue turnover tendons is thyroid hormone so looking at what your thyroid hormone is I think that there's some argument to be said for an omega3 index I typically like to see my patients around 10 um another vitamin D number would be great there's a whole host but the top numbers I would say if you just wanted to do a few would really be the ones related to metabolic Health insulin fasting insulin fasting glucose triglyceride levels those would be really the top three if I had to pick yeah mine are pretty similar as well and of course depending on where you live depending on which country it is depending on where you are in the world you will have different level of access to some of these tests like an omega-3 index LP little a APO B these are not available everywhere certainly they're not available currently in the National Health Service in the UK you you have to pay privately to get those tests and many people would argue that they are well worth paying for if you have the resources to do that but I completely agree there is so much that we can learn just from a fasting glucose maybe a hba1c your average sug about that there you go triglycerides even those three you get a lot of information from uh again insulin fasting insulin is not that commonly available here in the UK I hope that changes given how prevalent metabolic health is okay so there are some blood tests that people can think about doing what are some of your favorite strength exercises Dr lion definitely squats are important um and it could be a regular Squad it could be a Sumo Squad um again just depends on the positioning of your feet I also think um uh some kind of kettle bell activity is important and that could be a Turkish getup which is a little bit of a complex movement um but you could start with a kettle bell swing or kettle bell carry I like it because the kettle bells you know make me think of um ways in which we move that are not as easy as say like a dumbbell I do think um a deadlift is really important animportant because that's a full body exercise and that can be done with a Sumo deadlift or a regular deadlift and then I I think adding in some unilateral activity which would could be a walking lunge moving things into motion and you know I've thought a lot about what exercises are best and I I don't know if I if I have an answer because it really depends on how the person has been moving for their life uh many people are very sedentary we don't have strong glutes so really working on your glutes and posterior your chain are important I do think umper body strength is extremely important for both men and women and that could easily be a plank or a pushup and I I'm I could go on and on but to just bring it back bring it back home definitely be able to do some kind of squat yeah definitely be able to do some kind of deadlift and definitely be able to do a kettle bell carry or a swing yeah thank you dot line just to finish off this conversation there is so much you have shared in the first conversation with me on my podcast in this conversation and of course in your brand new book Forever Strong which is just a phenomenal resource for people who are wanting to improve the quality of their lives right at the end of this conversation for someone who has decided yeah that's it now I'm sick of not prioritizing myself I'm sick of not putting my health and well-being first the time has come now for me to change things given everything you know about health and well-being and you can cover stuff from our first conversation as well in terms of first meals protein all that kind of stuff could you just list off some of your very top practical tips that will help anyone at all if they're in the business of improving their health yeah one thing that one 100% of people do is eat so getting your nutrition right 100% of people do that that would be prioritizing dietary protein whether you're animal or plant-based it doesn't matter I want you to prioritize dietary protein my recommendation would be one gram per pound ideal body weight your next question is going to be what is my ideal body weight I'm going to say I don't know your ideal body weight the last time that you felt great in your own skin is where I would start and that's one gr per pound ideal body weight the way that I would distribute protein that first and that last meal are really critical the first meal having between 30 and 50 grams of dietary protein when you are coming out of an overnight fast this is great for any age whether you are in your 30s or 60s this is the way to help maintain the health of skeletal muscle that last meal of the day is also critical because you're going into an overnight fast again the goal is how do we protect skeletal muscle nail those that first and that last meal priority number one get enough protein you do not have to go as high as one gram per pound ideal body weight you could do 7 to one gram if that made you feel more comfortable getting that first and last meal of the day appropriate I would also say that for carbohydrates one way to think about it is is to understand are you carbohydrate uh sensitive do you have a good body composition um and again how would you test that out you would look at your body fat percentage if you felt that you had weight to lose calorie control is critical most people will say it doesn't matter how many calories that you consume I I disagree with that understanding how many calories you are currently eating to be at the current weight that you are and adjusting appropriately I typically recommend no more than 50 gram of carbohydrates per meal depending on what your total carbohydrate intake is you have to determine that the current recommendation is around 130 grams but the way in which you mitigate insulin a robust insulin response would be to have a tight amount of carbohydrates per meal and what works really well is if you do a Ono one protein to carbohydrate ratio to make it super easy if you are someone who enjoys carbohydrates a onetoone protein to carbohydrate ratio so that means in the morning if you are having 30 grams of dietary protein you can have 30 grams of carbohydrates with that the next thing that I would say is you have to train if I were to prioritize what kind of training that would be my first recommendation would would be to do some resistance exercise two to three days a week I'll give you a a day less so I'll say two to three days a week and the less you do it the more you're doing full body the more you do it the less you have to do on that third day but resistance training is a non-negotiable and then I would say the last thing is know your weaknesses don't be surprised by them plan for them they're coming and they're totally predictable you cannot be shocked by your own human nature and when you plan for that then you can follow the first first three or four recommendations I just gave you Gabrielle fantastic advice I really appreciate what you are doing you're spreading the message of health and well-being you're spreading the message that sceletal muscle is really really important the new book Forever Strong a new science-based strategy for aging well is fantastic thanks for coming on the show again thank you so much for having me if you enjoyed that I think you are really going to enjoy this conversation about the most important things that you can do right now for your Health and Longevity if at 37 your limit is just being able to run that 30 minute park run at 75 you're going to have a very difficult time getting around

Channel: Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Views: 67,135

Keywords: the4pillarplan, thestresssolution, feelbetterin5, wellness, drchatterjee, feelbetterlivemore, ranganchatterjee, 4pillars, drchatterjee podcast, health tips, nutrition tips, health hacks, live longer, age in reverse, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, motivation, inspiration, health interview

Id: 21k_PsLYv7M

Length: 88min 9sec (5289 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2024