The Female Longevity Protocol: Build Muscle & Bone Density for a Longer Life | Dr. Robin Berzin

Today, I'm joined by Dr. Robin Burzin, a Columbia trained physician and the founder and CEO of Parsley Health, where she has made functional medicine accessible to tens of thousands of patients. She's been named a Top 100 Women in Business, and she's the author of State Change, where she helps women tackle anxiety and create and ignite a state of energy and flow. Today, we're going to dive into all things functional medicine, female longevity, and how you can take a more proactive approach to aging. Well, Dr. Berzin, you talked about the fact that the number on the scale is not the best marker for women to be going off of for supporting their overall health and longevity. For women who have been using that number and tying their worth to the scale for decades, what do you recommend that they measure instead? And why is this so important for supporting overall female longevity?

You know, I love that we're starting there because I think that for decades we've tied not just our health but our worth to the scale. And it is absolutely the wrong metric. We need to replace it with body composition. That's fat mass, lean muscle mass, bone density. And you can now pretty easily, they cost anywhere from like 50 to 150 bucks. But you can get a full body DEXA scan that's D, E, X, A. And a lot of people know the DEXA scan because they get a bone density look, right? They're used to that. But that is not the type of DEXA I'm talking about. I'm talking about a DEXA that looks at your full body composition. And when we really want to measure our health and our future longevity, what matters is our bone density and our lean muscle mass and our fat mass.

And when you think about a DEXA scan, because most women aren't recommended this until their 50s or sometimes even later than that, what's the age that you recommend that women start getting a DEXA scan?

I mean, I think every woman should be getting a full body DEXA scan by no later than 35 and maybe even younger. If she's dealing with hormonal issues, with weight gain, with anything off in her body, we should be looking younger. Women start losing bone density and losing muscle mass in their 30s. Women lose up to 20% of their bone densities in menopause, which the average age of menopause is 51. And yet in modern medicine, we don't recommend getting a bone density look until you're 65, unless you've already had a fracture. How does that make any sense? I think it's a travesty. You're losing bone density already in your 30s and let's face it, a sedentary lifestyle, high sugar diets, right? These things aren't helping. We're actually losing bone density even earlier. And so instead of waiting until you have osteoporosis and then establishing that, yes, you in fact have osteoporosis, let's get ahead of this and start weight training, eating more protein, building lean muscle mass, all way ahead of that moment. When in menopause, your hormones drop and bone density starts going down, fat mass starts going up, it gets a little bit harder to build lean muscle mass, although you absolutely can still do it. You just have to work a little bit harder. We want to get ahead of all of that. And so I'm recommending full body DEXA 35 and up and even younger if you have health issues that you know about and you want to get ahead of.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I feel like it is such a travesty for women who are in the 55 and up range, who have gone their whole lives with never being recommended this, and then are thrown with a diagnosis of osteoporosis and just told like, these are the drugs that have so many side effects and this is your only option essentially, in order to improve your overall health.

And the drugs, even the new classes of drugs for osteoporosis, they have rare but pretty significant side effects like jaw necrosis. They have a limited utilization life. So you can only use them for a few years and their efficacy is not great. It's not like they rebuild your bones. What will build bone is impact. And lifting heavy, that is the only thing that's going to build bone. So jumping on one of those mini trampolines, you know, lifting heavy weights using a power plate or something that creates that vibration. There's actual bone building centers you can go to nowadays that have highly specific machines that allow you to kind of get very targeted resistance against your bones in certain spots. You know, I learned earlier this year that I have osteopenia in my hips. I'm 44, my hormones look great and I feel great. I'm not actually in perimenopause yet and I'm already losing bone. I've already lost bone in my hips. And so one of the things that you know is hard is getting that wakeup call and realizing, hey, this is me too, and I need to do something about it and I need to do something about it now. But I'm really glad I learned about it. And I'm really glad I got a full body Dexa. And we really recommend them for all our patients of parsley, women and men.

And when you're talking about the centers, are you talking about Osteostrong and other companies like that?

Yeah, all sorts of spots. I mean, different cities have different locations for, like, almost like specialized gyms. There's one here in New York City. I'm sorry, everyone, I'm forgetting the name of it at this very second, but they train you in, like, with using sort of NASA technology, technology that was used to help astronauts, because when astronauts go up in space and they lose weight and they lose impact, they actually lose bone density really fast. Right. And so there's ways that you can specifically target this, but if you don't have access to something like that, that's okay. You don't need to. I don't want to make that sound like the Holy Grail. It's really about lifting heavy, which I have a really simple weight set in my basement. Kettlebells, free weights, like dumbbells. And I see a trainer every other week because trainers are expensive and time consuming. But I get my, like, 50 minutes every other week. And then he really pushes me. He has me use lots of different equipment at the gym, and then he's given me a routine that I can do at home on my own. And I'm weight training two to three times a week, at least. And I'm seeing myself getting stronger. I've actually kind of maxed out my dumbbel. And so I realized I need to order some heavier ones, which is awesome. Amazing, you know, but I'm really attacking this head on. And I think a lot of people just don't realize that in modern life, we sit a lot. Right. And we don't push heavy things around the way that we once did. And so as a result, our bones are not getting the stimulus, our muscles are not getting the stimulus to build the way that they would have in another era. And so, for better or worse, we have to fake that at the gym.

And osteopenia and osteoporosis can be reversed. I've seen it in many clients. Would you agree in all of the patients that you've seen at Parsley Health? Because a lot of doctors say, no.

No, you can make massive headway on this. And will you necessarily ever get your. Depending on when you're. When you're starting in life, how advanced your osteoporosis is? Like, obviously, there's a range here, but, yes, you can Absolutely. Reverse osteopenia, significantly, correct osteoporosis, and sometimes fully reverse it. It takes work, but you can do it. And when we think about the thing that gets little old ladies, right, it's the breaking a hip and then falling, and then the mortality rate once you break a bone like that just goes through the roof. And not only the mortality rate, quality of life is often permanently lost. And so we need to be building up the strength much earlier in our lives.

And I had read in your newsletter where you had quoted the statistic that terrified me, that women with low muscle mass are 63 times more likely to die early than their stronger counterparts.

Yes. Which is crazy.

It's terrifying.

But what's also really cool is that that's something we can do something about. And I think, you know, we really all can do something about it. You don't have to belong to a fancy gym, or you can use a really basic set of weights and get a certain amount of exercise in, and that can really counter all of that. And, you know, I've been surprised, and I'm often surprised in our patients, like the Delta, that they can achieve in just a couple of months of weight training, increasing protein intake to at least 0.7 grams per pound of ideal body weight. So if your target body weight is 150 pounds, you want to. That's your ideal body weight. Let's say you want a 0.7 times 150. Here, I'll use my little calculator. Right now, it's 105 grams of protein a day to really be able to build lean muscle mass. Now, what you hear out there is 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight, which is correct if you're trying to build a lot of muscle in real life. I see that most people who are getting at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day are able to build and maintain strong muscle. If you're trying to bodybuild, if you're trying to build a lot of muscle, you might need even more protein. And it's a little bit different for everyone. So I always recommend for people to just see and try. One of the things, though, that I note is that a lot of people aren't getting anywhere close to 0.7. And I would say 7 is the minimum. Right. And, you know, I'm definitely guilty of this when I look at my diet. I just had this steak paleo wrap for lunch that's got like 40 grams of protein in it. It's a great lunch. But I intermittent fasted this morning because I was on the go. Got back a trip last night, took my kids to school, ran to the office, like we all do. The first thing I'm eating is around 11am and I'm having protein with my first meal, which is critical. At least 30 grams of protein with your first meal or target 30 grams. But you know, I'm not getting enough. Like there's then I've not eaten until 10, 11am or noon. There's only so many opportunities for me to like eat again today. So then I really have to work to get to that 0.7 threshold. Right?

Yeah. I love that mindset shift to say, like, what are the opportunities that I have within every calorie that I'm eating in order to make sure that I'm hitting that goal right.

And for me that's like I need to get about 80 grams of protein a day, so I really gotta hit it to get my next, you know, 40, 50 in.

Makes so much sense. Okay, switching gears. You founded Parsley Health in 2016 and I'm obsessed with all the work that you've done to bring functional medicine to the masses. Can you explain just a high level overview what functional medicine is for anyone that's not familiar?

Yes, absolutely. My favorite question, I think a lot of people today, unlike when I started Parsley almost 10 years ago, our 10 year anniversary is coming in a few months, which is crazy. Then very few people have heard of functional medicine. I think today more and more people are hearing about functional medicine and longevity. But when you ask folks like could they explain it to a friend, the answer is usually no. So you know, functional medicine is really an, it's its own specialty. So just like we have cardiac cardiology and gastroenterology and psychology, we have this growing specialty called functional medicine, which is a different way of looking at the body and looking at medicine. We use all the same tools as regular doctors. All of our providers at Parsley are board certified, trained originally in either internal medicine or family medicine. These are real doctors, everyone. And they go through an additional training in functional medicine, which is looking at the body as a whole and finding and treating the root cause. So what do I mean by root cause? Let's give a simple example. You could have a migraine headache. Migraines, huge problem. 75% of migraines occur in women on the rise. And yet the solution to your migraine, or, sorry, the root cause of your migraine is not a painkiller because your migraine is not caused by a Painkiller deficiency. That is not the root cause of your migraine. The root cause of your migraine could be a dairy sensitivity. Believe it or not, dairy is a big trigger for people. Magnesium deficiency, too much caffeine, chronic stress, hormonal changes in the menstrual cycle, estrogen dominance, uncontrolled high blood pressure. There's a lot of root causes. And I went to Columbia for medical school and trained in internal medicine in Mount Sinai. Amazing institutions, but I wasn't trained at them to think root cause most of the time. So when it came to a migraine, what was my solution in those in my training days for a migraine, you know, here, try this painkiller. And if that doesn't work, try this painkiller. And if that doesn't work, okay, go do Botox or a neurology center or further pain control. And that's controlling the symptom, but it's not treating the cause. And so what do we do differently in functional medicine? First, we do a much more in depth look at the why. I call it the medicine of why. Why do you have these symptoms? Where did they come from? When did they start? We go back in time all the way to your childhood. We look at your family history and your genetics. We look at your blood work much more in depth. And we look at things like hormones and thyroid and toxin levels and nutrient deficiencies, things that your regular primary care doctor just doesn't test for ever. And we take that data set. We also look at what are you eating, how are you moving, what are your relationships like? Do you have meaning and purpose in your life? We really look at this much deeper and broader set of data on you than any regular doctor ever does. And then we use that very broad and deep data set testing, understanding your life, understanding your diet. And we use that to do an analysis we call the root cause analysis, where we figure out, okay, what are the things that are most likely driving your symptoms? And what's beautiful about that is if we figure out, hey, you've got a dairy sensitivity, eliminate dairy for 30 days and see what happens, and your migraines go away, well, wow, you no longer need the painkillers and the Botox and the visit to neurologists and all the lost days of work and all the drugs, because we figured out why and we got rid of the problem. And that root cause holistic view is what, from my perspective, was deeply missing in medicine at large. Even though I trained at wonderful places with fabulous doctors and smart people who really care, it's just that that thinking is lost. And so functional medicine is a field that has brought that thinking in a systematized, data driven way, evidence based way to medicine. And so what you're seeing is more and more people are seeking out functional medicine doctors either to replace their primary care, which we do a lot at, or maybe these keep their primary dog for, you know, that annual checkup, which the fact is there's a lot of data saying the annual checkup is totally worthless. But fine, keep that. Check the box for your health insurance. Right, all good. Have that person if you want them. But functional medicine is really what's going to treat the root cause and help you optimize your health. Because we're here not just to help you, keep you alive, we're here to help you thrive. And that's a really big shift from what people are used to in conventional care.

So amazing. Yes. And I feel as though that in the time that you had founded Parsley Health in 2016, because I remember when you guys founded, I was at the Cleveland Clinic center for Functional Medicine when you guys found it and it was like, oh my gosh, I felt like at the Cleveland Clinic we had really brought it to the masses. But you really brought it to the masses because you were doing it outside of just one particular hospital system. So I'm so interested in, obviously the intention was likely that you were seeing this rising tide of chronic disease that the medical system just wasn't equipped to handle. But what was that, like, final straw moment or the time, like, what were you seeing in your exam rooms that was that final straw that you were like, I need to burn this down and build something just so much more comprehensive.

You know, I really, I saw two things in my medical training at Columbia and Sinai. Again, amazing, amazing hospital systems. And this is not a criticism, it's just a fact, right? Which is that those types of health systems are designed to keep people alive, to treat end stage disease. And yet the exam rooms were filled with people with high blood pressure and high blood sugar and joint pain and headaches and fertility issues and gut issues, the vast majority of which were caused by how they were eating, how they were moving, how they were living their lives. And yet none of that was on my prescription powder in my training. And I looked at our healthcare system crumbling and like buckling under the weight of this, with no way to catch up and the cost soaring, not just for the healthcare system, but for all of us as individuals. And I said, if we don't find a way to scale Functional medicine and make it truly available nationally and more accessible. Nothing's going to change. You can change the payment methods that we do a lot in healthcare and the industry side. You can change the data, you can slap an app. None of that's going to matter if you don't change the actual medicine. And so then I was fortunate enough to train in functional medicine with some of the top doctors in the space and train with the Institute for Functional Medicine. And what I saw in those exam rooms was also equally problematic, because in the functional medicine exam rooms, it was exorbitantly expensive. Thousands of dollars an hour for a visit. It was way too many supplements and tests and sort of this overwhelming experience that the average person's just going to do or come back to. It was no data, no outcomes tracking, no smart technology. Right. Like, nothing that would make this, in my view, coming from incredible institutions like Columbia and S. Ready for prime time. Right. It was Dr. So and so doing his thing and Dr. So and so doing her thing, but not really, like, a systems view. And I wanted to build something that would take the best of everything I learned in my conventional training, plus the best of what I learned with working with fabulous functional medicine providers. Because what I did see in those exam rooms, I will tell you this, is I saw outcomes. I saw people getting better in the functional medicine exam rooms in a way, I did not see them getting better in the conventional medicine exam rooms. But what I saw in the functional medicine exam rooms was sort of a setup that wasn't going to work at scale. Parsley was really sort of my brainchild to say, how do we bring this beautiful medicine? Because functional medicine is so beautiful and effective to a lot more people in a way that you don't have to travel to the Cleveland Clinic to get. You don't have to travel to some random place in the middle of nowhere. You can get really high quality, trustworthy, and accessible, actionable care and get the benefits of it.

Yeah. It's really so amazing what you've built. I mean, I hope that you realize just how incredible it is. And I also would be so interested to hear, like, what is the difference from when you started to the receptivity that you're seeing today? Like, there has to be a large shift.

Yeah, it's huge. You know, I think in the past couple of years, you know, for the first few years, it felt like I'm just sort of out here in left field a little bit.

Yeah, I know.

Like, hey, I'm ready to catch the ball. Does anyone know I'm here and you know, but just building and now, you know what's really interesting is that a lot more people have heard of functional medicine. A lot more people are engaging in functional medicine testing. Parsley just launched our own functional medicine testing nationwide through Quest. You can get our Parsley baseline labs that we've used to help 50,000 people transform their health. You don't have to see a doctor. You can get our labs where that in depth look at your body, that holistic in depth look at your body is available to you. And this is the Parsley panel. Right. Everyone's offering labs to today. Parsley's been offering these labs for a decade. Parsley's been testing APOB for heart health and HSCRP for inflammation and in depth thyroid markers. Like all this stuff that you're hearing, everybody cotton onto now.

It's so true.

Yeah. So long and you know, I love it. It's amazing. But what you have is just this kind of coalescence of awareness, the longevity movement. Amazing doctors like Peter Attia and Huberman really coming to the fore and speaking about longevity and science in a way that I think has really galvanized a huge population to be interested in this idea of health optimization. I think you also have this response to Covid where in the pandemic we were forced to look at our health in all of these new lenses and lights. And so this idea of health and living longer is really salient right now at this moment in history. And then you also have this kind of, of technological acceleration where you can get these labs much more easily. I'm on the medical advisory board of whoop, which is one of the big wearable companies. WHOOP and Aura are sort of the two biggest players in the space, but there's others obviously as well. And I love my Whoop and this wearable data boom where, you know, 10 years ago when I started Parsley Wearables told you like your steps and you were like, great, thanks. Like, so true. It just wasn't that interesting. And now 10 years later, they're telling you your VO2 max and your heart rate variability and your menstrual cycle insights and helping you time, fertility and sleep in a really in depth way. Like they give you so much actionable data. They look at your biological age in one way. We at Parsley Labs, our Parsley longevity labs, we look at biological age in a different way. You can kind of put those two data sets together. So we have this moment where, where thanks to wearable data, thanks to people like Atiya and Huberman, thanks to one small silver lining of the pandemic, is this sort of recognition about how precious our health is. I think you're seeing the confluence of all of these things. And at the same time, I think the record increases this year in healthcare premiums is real for people. And so people are like, I am spending so much money on health insurance and yet this money is not making me healthier. People are really looking for alternatives that give them what they want in the market.

Yeah, it's a very necessary approach for, for many reasons across the board with improving just quality of life as a whole, but also then reducing overall costs of health care. So based on the thousands, tens of thousands of patients that you have in your data set, can you confidently say that nutrition can play a key role in improving a host of various conditions, whether it's inflammatory bowel disease or asthma or migraines or IBS or pre diabetes or osteopenia or. The list goes on. But I'm interested to hear your take on that for people who still feel like nutrition can't do enough.

Food is medicine. I always say that and it's evident in our data set and it's really depending on the person, it, it's 50 to 80% of the impact. After that, exercise and building lean muscle mass and kind of everything else flows from there. Obviously we prescribe drugs that parsley health drugs are incredibly important tools. We prescribe evidence based supplements and all of those can be incredibly powerful tools. And food is really the anchor. And what I see is when people get at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of ideal body weight, when they reduce sugar intake. This is both added and natural sugars everyone to 25 grams a day or less. When they get rid of the breads and the crackers and the cookies and the candies and the pretzels and the things that come in a bag that you pop open that crunch, crunch, crunch. When you get rid of all that stuff, your body transforms. Your glucose comes down, your cortisol comes down, your testosterone and estrogen regulates, your inflammation drops, your insulin drops, your insulin resistance drops. Like your body begins to heal itself when you get at least 30 to 50 grams of fiber a day. Average American gets like 12 when you get 30 to 50 grams of fiber a day. That fiber content, massive boost for your heart health. Your blood sugar actually has been shown to help balance hormones in menopause. So it's that protein sugar, less than 25 grams a day, 30 to 50 grams of fiber and then Healthy fats. I drink a tablespoon of olive oil every day, which has been shown to improve cognitive function long term. Getting those healthy fats which are the building blocks of our cells. When you put that together, so many things in the body heal. I had a patient with a young woman in her 30s with an autoimmune esophagitis, like an inflammation of her esophagus, very similar to Crohn's colitis or ulcerative colitis, which are inflammation in other parts of the intest in. But it's all really the same disease. And for her, we did food allergy testing and food sensitivity testing, not the same thing. Looked at what she was allergic to. Other doctors had looked at allergies. No one had looked at sensitivities, different parts of your immune system, IgE versus IgG. We identified food groups that she was allergic to and sensitive to, which included wheat, dairy and legumes. In her case, we also identified that she had leaky gut, or also called intestinal permeability, to use the medical term. And through a combination of eliminating the foods that were triggering her immune system to attack her own body and through repairing the intestinal permeability with specific supplements, supporting the microbiome through probiotics, supporting the healing of the gut lining through end butyrate, using colostrum actually to help sort of the gut immune system, couple of different supplements that just helped heal that lining. Within six weeks, her eosinophilic esophagitis went away, total remission. When like the autoimmune doctors at big hospitals had fired her because she had failed all their treatment protocols. And then what was even more amazing is once we healed her gut lining and once we had eliminated for the foods for like six months and proven on repeat scope that she had completely put her autoimmune disease into remission. And her GI could not believe it because the scope was clear. We were then able to slowly reintroduce a couple of the foods that she'd had to cut out, like legumes and I think dairy. She had to keep wheat out forever, but those were things that were adding subsequent triggers. But when we healed her gut, she could add back in. So people are always afraid. I don't want to know about these food sensitivities, these food allergies. I'm going to have to like cut everything out of my diet forever. Sometimes for some of them it's just a period of time. For others, it. It is forever. Can really vary. But you know, in her Case she avoided a lifetime of horrible drugs and not being able to swallow thanks to just changing her diet fundamentally.

Oh, I love it. It's the core of functional nutrition. I've also seen many, many clients reverse their, their EOE through exactly what you're talking about, a targeted nutrition approach. And I feel as though it's just people can't grasp it. You know, they can't fully grasp the idea of nutrition being able to play such a powerful role in disease states because it's like, oh, no, this is a real disease. I need real medications for it. But this happens over and over and over again. And the other thing that I really want to take out of what you said is the combination of the nutrition and supplements, because the two, like when you're able to target the nutrition with identifying these food sensitivities, sensitivities and triggers, and doing testing in addition to then layering in the supplements, that's the catalyst that becomes the, the healing mechanism so that you can reintroduce the foods longer term. But we see a lot of people who do elimination diets on their own, and then they can't really move the needle enough because they're not doing the inner work like you're talking about with being able to target that gut lining and other underlying imbalances in order to really like create a full repair so that then they can tolerate more foods longer term term.

Yeah, I see a lot of people, yo, yo. On elimination diets. They don't do this long enough. They are not working with a practitioner. So they didn't do the right testing. So they don't really know what they're dealing with. And so they're sort of guessing to some degree. They don't realize that they have to do them for longer. They don't accompany them with the right supplements. And sort of what I call the microbiome editors, sometimes the microbiome in the gut is really deranged. It's got overgrowth of bad bacteria, it's got yeast overgrowth. So we do sort of a microbiome edit and gut healing protocol at Parsley, which combined with the elimination diet as well as a mental health component. So stress reduction, daily meditation. Stress is one of the biggest reasons we develop intestinal permeability, also called leaky gut. And so combining that mind, body, gut testing360 is when it works and when it sometimes doesn't work is when people are sort of of diying it, throwing the spaghetti at the wall, and people say, well, I don't want to you know, have a functional medicine doctor that's expensive and it's like, well, the amount of money and you are spending on your DIY protocols or just being sick in general dwarfs the amount of money for functional medicine and Parsley. You know, we have the best prices in the market, but if you're in network with us, the platform fee is just 150 bucks a month. And if you're out of network, which we're not in network with insurance everywhere, we are in some states, but if you're out of network with us, it's $275 a month and that includes all your visits. And so, you know, it's not cheap, but it's not out of this world. And that's really been our commitment at Parsley is to make this the most high quality care at an accessible price.

I love it. Okay, switching gears to more of a personal thing that I'm interested in. You being a physician, a CEO, a mom of. There's so much that you're juggling and I'm interested to know how you find time to incorporate your own self care. And I want like the real version, like what it looks like on a Tuesday, not like what we see on Instagram.

I don't know, I feel like my Instagram is like pretty representative.

Oh, I don't mean you personally, I mean like what we see from a lot of influencers on Instagram who are like showing their eight step routine and I'm like, I am literally like getting out of bed and like running up to get my kids from their cribs.

Their eight step morning routine that they filmed over two hours at two o' clock in the afternoon. Irony of that, after they did not do any of that that morning. Yeah, I mean for me, three kids is super intense. I landed running a company. I landed from a flight last night and got home at midnight. I was up at 6:30, had to get my kids ready for school, get my children out the door, straight to the office today, like it's real. But for me, the things that keep me feeling good and anchored in my body and feeling strong and feeling energized, number one, what we talked about earlier, I mean, I eat this way, right? Like I, you know, BYO'd all my plain snacks, my epic bison jerky bar and my, you know, crudite and all the things that I bring on the plane, like I just, I have to eat this way. I won't, I won't buy the food at the airport. Right. And when I was, you know, My flight was delayed last night, and I was, like, desperate for a snack. I got the lightly salted pistachios, right? I went through the gauntlet of all this stuff, and I picked the thing that was like, the closest that I could to something that was high fat, high protein, low carb gonna satiate me, right? And keep my blood sugar steady through the long travel. So I eat this way. I eat this low sugar, high fiber, high protein, and high and healthy fat diet. And that keeps my energy steady. It keeps me without inflammation, and it just really makes everything better. I take supplements, so supplements can be really powerful tools. I'm pretty religious about them. I take mine at night. Everyone always asks, when's the best time to take your supplements? And I always answer, the best time to take them is the time of day you will actually take them. Because for me, that's at night. And if you tell me morning, noon, and evening, I'm like, y', all, you gotta be kidding me. Like, this is just not happening. So I throw them all back at night. And I'm taking my methylated B vitamins, which is super powerful for my mental health and energy. I'm taking my magnesium glycinate, which is important for bones metabolism, brain health, sleep, calm, recovery, vitamin D3K2 for immunity, bone mood, and actually metabolic health, health. I'm taking urolithin A now, which is for mitochondrial support. So I'm taking a. I have a bigger stack, and if you sign up for my newsletter on robinburzonmd.com, you actually, if you share it to somebody, if you sign up and then share it, you get my, like, PDF of my full supplement stack. Because I get asked this question, like, constantly. So I was like, I'm just gonna write it down and be like, here you go. Wait.

I've been loving your newsletter, and my favorite part of it is the mom jevity things, because I feel like you have. I mean, the information is, of course, so valuable, but being able to, like, take it and apply it to a real life human. And for me, my kids are very young, and so I think actually it would be helpful if you could. They're one and two.

Oh, my goodness.

So it'd be helpful for maybe us to end on how as someone that's helping other people invest in a healthier lifestyle, how do you bring that home to your house with your three kids without making it feel like they live in a wellness lab? Because this is something, as a new mom that I'm trying to always navigate and obviously it's easier to control, like, every variable when they're only 1 and 2. But I'm interested in how that looks for you.

Well, the advantage you have right now is that they're unaware that anyone else's house doesn't look like that. Now the eight year old says things to me and my husband like, why are you guys such health nuts? You're so annoying. Right? Because pairing us to the outside world and, and you know what? What I remember for myself is that normal is not optimal. And I'm not here to be normal. I'm here to be healthy. In the end, 78% of American adults have a chronic disease, and 33% have two or more chronic diseases. And I'm not here to be part of those statistics. Right. As much as I can. Now, not all of that is voidable, I recognize, but I think that's number one, just not caring what other people think so much and deciding really what's right for you and your family. Number two, I think is just leading by example. You know, we cook a lot. We make their lunches. That was painful this morning. We. We have an au pair, like, live in childcare, which with three kids in our jobs is like the only way. And she usually helps with lunch, packing lunch for the kids. And she was, she was awaited this morning. And I got home so late, and this morning I was like, oh, my God, lunch. My husband rocked it. He made, like, sauteed chicken and vegetables and rice and like popped it into their lunch boxes and thermos and we threw in, you know, cheese and cut up vegetables and so just like taking, going that extra mile, like, I know it takes extra effort and it's hard. We do a lot of grocery shopping. We cook a lot of our meals, we work out ourselves. I think just showing your kids this. And in the momevity section of my newsletter. Thank you for reading that part, by the way. I'm always like, does anyone read this part? Because the first, very light, like, tactical. Here's what you need to know. Here's what you need to do, really boiled down, like, no one has time to read a lot, right? So it's just very focused. And then Mom Jevity is this part where I really speak from the heart and just write my story, kind of what's going on that week and how I'm applying longevity in my own life as a mom and as a woman. And so I write a lot about how perfect can't be the enemy of really good. And there's days like this week When I was traveling, I didn't really get my workouts in yesterday I realized the hotel, the second hotel I was in, had a gym and I had to run to the airport. But 15 minutes before I had to go, I went to their gym and I did a 15 minute weight set and I felt so good and I felt so much stronger and I felt that metabolic boost and that kind of energy stabilization and I was like, you know what? I'm me sitting in a car and on a plane this whole thing day. And that was by no means like a perfect workout. I did like three things with weights, but I did something. Yes. And that's when I think we can all just do ourselves a huge favor and just be like, perfect can't be the enemy. Really good here. I can't wait till this perfect moment when I have an hour or I can work out with the trainer or I have all this time to cook like it ain't. The calvary is not coming for any of the us. We just do it as much as we possibly can. But for me, the rewards that I reap in terms of my energy and focus and clarity and calm and sleep and digestion and clear skin is worth it. And my motivating factor is really my kids and wanting to be a big part of their lives for as long as humanly possible.

I love that so much. Dr. Berzin, thank you so much for being here and for taking the time. You are running a huge company and, and I could not be more appreciative. Can you share with everyone where they can find you and benefit from your work?

Yes, absolutely. Parsley Health.com, parsley, like the plant Parsley Health. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, et cetera. TikTok all the places. Parsley has a great newsletter called the Root Report that's got great information in it. You can do a free 15 minute call where you can learn about our clinical services and and you can sign up online for either our labs. If you're just looking to learn more about your health and your body, understand your risk factors, figure out what those nagging symptoms are, start with our labs. If you are ready to work with one of our practitioners in functional medicine, you've got a chronic health issue or you know, you've got a lot of different things to tease out and you want to do some of our more advanced testing, sign on up for care. If you're not sure, start with labs and go from there. We'll help you figure it out. Talk to someone and then you can find me at Robin Burzenmd. And my newsletter is there and on Instagram and all the places, too.

Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. And we'll see you next time.

See you next time.