#189: Why Muscle is the Secret Key to Longevity with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Hey beautiful, it's Dr. Tabatha. I want to share something with you that I believe God is doing right now in women's health. We're in the middle of a massive movement and most people don't even know it. Every single day, 6,000 women in the U.S. enter menopause. That's over 2 million women a year, and by 2030, that's more than 1.2 billion women worldwide. So here's the thing, most of these women feel exhausted, bloated, anxious, disconnected from themselves, and the medical system is Doctors are handing out prescriptions and quick fixes, and no one is helping women heal from the root cause of their issues. That's where Fast to Faith coaches come in. As a certified coach, you'll be equipped to help midlife women balance their hormones, heal their gut, regain their energy, and reconnect their faith, the foundation that so many of us have been missing. And from a business standpoint, woo, this is one of the most lucrative untapped opportunities in the entire health coaching world. The global health coaching industry is expected to reach over $33 billion by 2023, and midlife women are the fastest-growing, highest-spending demographic in that space. Most importantly, these women stay with their coaches. They invest deeply because they are desperate for lasting transformation— body, mind, and spirit. So if you've been feeling that pull and that whisper that you're meant to do more, This is it. Now is the time to rise, to serve, and build a purpose-driven business that not only changes other women's lives but transforms your own in the process. Because when you help one woman heal, you help her family, her marriage, her faith, and her future. That's the ripple effect that we're creating with Fast to Faith. So join me, click the link to come watch this webinar. It might be the one thing that really moves the needle for you in this Next season. I can't wait to see you in there. Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Gutsy Gynecologist. I'm a triple board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyn health and your overall And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more Band-Aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome.

Thank you.

Hi, ladies. This episode is important for everybody. Okay, so stay tuned, listen all the way through. And my apologies up front, we actually got disconnected during our interview a couple times. And so if things seem a little bit spliced together and imperfect, It's because it was a little bit of a hot mess technology-wise, and we did our best to bring you this really, really important information. So, so many of you are struggling with your weight. You are struggling to step into the second phase of your life being healthy and vital, or maybe you're a little bit younger and you're just not feeling your best either. And my guest today is going to flip this idea of health and obesity and carrying extra weight on its head and break it down to the importance of skeletal muscle. She believes that muscle is the organ of longevity. And so we're going to dive into why muscle is so important for your metabolic health, your immune health, your overall health. Keep keeping your weight in check and actually reversing diabetes and obesity and heart disease and all those things based on focusing on muscle. And we're going to talk about how do you get healthy, strong muscles? What does that look like when it comes to making sure you're getting enough protein in your diet? She's going to talk about all the bad, old, old recommendations for nutrition and how the RDA, the recommended daily allowance, for things is extremely outdated. And those recommendations are based on minimal amounts to prevent outright disease. They're not actually amounts to keep you healthy and thriving. So you have to remember that. And most of the time— I've talked about this many times before with vitamins and minerals— you have to double the amount that the RDA is recommending so that you can have the body that you want to have to be able to do what you want to be able to do, like— to live and move and function and be vital all through your life until your last day. And so we need to really start thinking about things in a different way and questioning the old recommendations that are still so pervasive out there. So she's going to unpack all of that and really explain what she calls muscle-centric medicine. It is Muscle is an endocrine organ and it has so much to do with blood sugar regulation and energy production and hormone utilization and all the things that are important to us as women. And if you have seen my guest anywhere, or if you follow her, you know that she is super fit, she looks amazing, and she's extremely healthy. And so she is walking the talk. And I'm just really excited to have her on because her new book is coming out. I highly recommend you, you get this book. It's going to be incredible. So let me just sing her praises really quick. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. She is a well-respected functional medicine practitioner and a fellow DO, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. She's founder of the Institute for Muscle-Centric Medicine. She's a nationally recognized speaker. And media contributor specializing in brain and thyroid health, lean body mass support, and longevity. She's been featured on The Doctors. She's been published in Muscle& Fitness, Women's Health, Men's Health, Harper's Bazaar, and she's been on all the awesome podcasts: The Doctor's Pharmacy, School of Greatness, Feel Better Live More, The Skinny Confidential, Him& Her Podcast, and Women of Impact, just to name a few. So as I mentioned, she received her doctorate in osteopathic medicine from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine. She's board certified in family medicine, but she earned an undergraduate degree in human nutrition from the University of Illinois, where she studied vitamin and mineral metabolism, chronic disease prevention and management, and diet composition's physiological effects. She also completed research in nutritional science and geriatrics at Washington University in St. Louis. So she has studied The entire spectrum, essentially, of the adult physiology. And she is here to share with us really what she finds to be the key to longevity and the key to vitality and great health. And it really is to focus on good muscle health. So we're going to unpack all that. I'm really excited. This You guys, this has been a game changer for me. I will just tell you, like, focusing on building my muscles, getting my protein in, being strong, that has helped me mentally and physically. So it has helped so much with my autoimmune condition and my chronic fatigue picture from, you know, burning out my adrenals. Knowing how to work out correctly, but also how to nourish my muscles and my body, after working out. And again, mentally, it just helps so much with building your confidence and your resiliency and realizing that you are capable of way more than you probably realize because when you work out, you have to push yourself. We talk about this a little bit, pushing to muscle fatigue. When you push yourself, you accomplish things you didn't know that you were capable And then your brain shifts and says, oh, maybe I am capable of more. And then the windows open and you see more possibilities for life in general. It's incredible how the brain works that way. So I love exercising for so many reasons, and that's one of them we also touch on. But this is an awesome conversation. You got to get her book. It's coming out. October 17th. So very soon you can do a preorder, which she talks about, and you're going to get some bonuses, some really awesome information. So if you haven't been following her, the links are in the show notes. Grab her book. But like, let's dive into this episode with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and you're going to be so happy that you did. And then share it with all your girlfriends too. Well, welcome, Dr. Lyon, to the Gutsy Gynecologist Show.

I love this. I love— I was thinking about this before I got on, the idea of a gutsy gynecologist. Think about it. It's kind of an oxymoron. So gutsy, right? Not talking about gut, although I'm sure that you do, but I loved it.

Yeah, I actually figured out that the only way to truly heal gyn issues is through the gut. And then leaving conventional medicine and really spreading the truth about how we're failing women is kind of a gutsy thing to do.

Yes, and it's so needed.

Yes, exactly. Well, I so appreciate you coming on and sharing your message, and I'm really excited for your book coming out, Forever Strong. It's going to be amazing, and it's really, really needed at this time for women because they're getting a lot of mixed messages. You know, I'm hearing this every day from my patients. I don't know who to trust, who to follow, what to believe, and You know, so let's unpack all of that because even though we're all individuals, I think for women in general going into the second half of our life, we do need to focus on muscle and strength and the core of it. And I'm really excited that you're a DO because, you know, way back in year one of med school, as DOs, we were taught like structure determines function, right? Like how our physical body is functioning determines how all of our organs and everything else are functioning. And you've really just highlighted this so beautifully. So let's unpack all of it. Thank you for being here. Yeah, of course.

I love that you're an osteopath. I didn't realize that.

So that is so cool.

Let me tell you a story that I think all your listeners can relate to. I trained in nutritional sciences for a total of 7 years professionally. And after I finished one of my residencies, so I did 2 years of psychiatry, 3 years of family medicine, and then I did a fellowship in geriatrics and nutritional sciences. While that seems as if they would be on 2 ends of a spectrum, they're actually not. And part of my work was in individuals over the age of 65, which, God willing, we should all strive to at least hit 65, if not 85. Right. But the other part of my training was in obesity medicine and nutritional sciences. And the deal was, in order for me to do research and a fellowship in nutrition, I had to see older individuals. And I say had to because end-of-life older individuals, it's very challenging. And when I started this research, we were looking at brain images and obesity. In midlife, 50s. And I saw this one woman, and let's just call her Betty. And she was a mom of 3. She was in her mid-50s, and she had always struggled with the same 20 pounds, maybe 30 pounds, but really struggled with this yo-yo of 20 pounds. And I imaged her brain, and Betsy was amazing. I fell in love with her, the biggest personality, and had always put herself last. It was all about her family. And it was taking care of them. And I imaged Betsy's brain and her brain looked like the beginning of an Alzheimer's brain, as you can imagine. And that devastated me.

Hmm.

I feel as if we had failed her as a medical society. We had failed her. All we had told her to do was to move more and eat less, uh, proverbial food guide pyramid. Make sure that she was eating whole grains. And, and that was pretty much it. You know, I dove into the research at the time and I had this aha moment that from the nursing home to the hospital bed, to this obesity medicine clinic and this research that we were doing, that the one thing everybody had in common, okay, the one thing everybody had in common wasn't that they were overfat. It wasn't an obesity issue. It was the fact that they were under-muscled.

Yeah.

It was the muscle component that we could address. And what was so amazing about this is that it was exactly that. It was a tissue that is very, has a lot of plasticity. It was something that we could do something about. And that's where this concept of muscle-centric medicine was born. So I created this idea of muscle-centric medicine in this Institute of Muscle-Centric Medicine to address women primarily. It started with women in midlife who had really struggled. And then one has to ask if we really have an obesity issue, if obesity was the issue, well, we've been trying to treat it for the last 50 years. And if we ask the right questions, we assume that the answer We get results, right? But if the question is wrong and the paradigm of thinking is wrong, then it's clearly the wrong question that we're asking. And so this idea of trying to treat obesity and midlife weight gain is the wrong question. What we really need to focus on is skeletal muscle as this organ of longevity, which can be leveraged decades earlier. And that's really what I want your listeners to get out of this, is this idea that They can do something about their health, their body composition, and I'm going to give them very practical tips so that they can execute on that.

Oh my gosh, I love that. And I know you're speaking to my listeners, the 20-pound back and forth. You know, I can drop 5 and then I plateau and then I gain it back, and they just can't move the needle. And it all has to do with the fact that they are not building muscle. They do not have this metabolic organ. So let's talk about how the Muscle, it looks good, right? It is about vanity in some regards, but it is so much more than that. And I love how you talk about it being an endocrine organ. So I would love for you to explain that to my listeners.

Well, the first thing I need to do is I need to tell women, you are not going to get bulky. All you ladies out there, the first thing that I have to tell you is building muscle takes a tremendous amount of work. You are not going to get bulky. In fact, as you build muscle, you will change your body composition, you will lose body fat, you will improve the tone of your body without getting bulky. So we just have to call a spade a spade and lay that out. The other thing I have to do is I have to work really hard by the end of this podcast to sell you on the importance of skeletal muscle. So let's talk about what it does. Number one, skeletal muscle is your your metabolic sink. What does that mean? That means that the food that you eat, the primary site for disposal is skeletal muscle. So individuals, when you were younger, you probably could eat whatever you want in high school, maybe even in your 20s, and up until hormones really started to change, maybe around your 40s is when you really notice something happening. And we have to really highlight this idea that skeletal muscle When you eat carbohydrates, 80% of skeletal muscle, it gets disposed of. Glucose gets disposed of in skeletal muscle. It gets stored as something called glycogen. That is important to understand because if you were to think of skeletal muscle like a suitcase that you are packing, you are— let's say you're going on a trip that's 2 days, but you're packing 30 days worth of clothes, right? Women, we like to do that. Skeletal muscle, if you are not exercising, it only has so much room. And when you are eating carbohydrates, once your skeletal muscle stores are full, it has nowhere to go. So it's going to spill back into the bloodstream. You're going to see an increase in glucose. You're going to see increase in fatty acids. So skeletal muscle is the primary site for glucose disposal utilization, as well as fatty acid oxidation. And part of the reason is because skeletal muscle is full of mitochondria. Now, when we lose skeletal muscle, which seems to happen midlife, when you are going through menopause, when hormones decline, typically skeletal muscle mass will decline with this decline in hormones. If you are not proactively resistance training, As well as eating dietary protein. So ultimately, we're going to do 3 things in this podcast. I'm going to convince you of skeletal muscle. It's important. I'm going to teach you how to eat for maintaining skeletal muscle, especially during menopause. And number 3, we're going to highlight exercise and what that's going to do. So number 1, it's your glucose disposal, your metabolic sink, insulin resistance. I'm sure you've spoken about insulin resistance, and insulin is a hormone that is released from the pancreas, and its primary role is to move glucose out of the bloodstream into tissues. The main insulin-sensitive tissues are the liver, skeletal muscle, and the brain is also an insulin-sensitive tissue. When you think about Insulin resistance. Why does this matter? Glucose is toxic at a high level.

Yes.

The definition of this is called diabetes. We see it with gestational diabetes. We see this as a risk factor for later life diabetes. Glucose is toxic at high levels. Insulin resistance is a precursor to that. This idea of becoming insulin resistant. Now, insulin resistance can begin decades earlier before you put on body weight, before you see metabolic alterations in your blood. Insulin resistance can easily begin when you're 18 if you are not exercising. If you are— and there's early work that came out of Yale, Kit Peterson's lab, that showed 18-year-old healthy sedentary college students became insulin resistant just because they were sedentary. The other really amazing part about skeletal muscle is that it functions as an endocrine organ. And when you contract skeletal muscle, it releases myokines. Myokines are molecules that function and create an inner organ crosstalk. And I'll just give you an example of what these myokines are. There is interleukin-6, which is the most famous. We've all heard of cytokines, interleukin-6, but But when the interleukin-6 is released as a myokine from skeletal muscle, it creates an anti-inflammatory effect in the body. And one risk factor for aging is this low-grade, low level of inflammation. And when you exercise, essentially over time, exercise is anti-inflammatory and helps combat low levels of inflammation associated with aging and potentially weight gain. Now, the other really important aspect is people are very concerned about memory and aging. Contracting skeletal muscle releases something called capsaicin B. Capsaicin B is a mouthful.

Mm-hmm.

And ibersen, both of which stimulate the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF, in the brain. Again, skeletal muscle exercise is not about looking good in a bikini. That is a very small—

Yeah.

benefit. That is one benefit, but really the primary benefit of skeletal muscle. There's just a multitude of other high-impact, high-need things that happen.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Also, it releases interleukin-15, and these myokines, specifically interleukin-6, play a role in the way in which the liver utilizes substrates. So it becomes very important for the utilization of the food that we eat. The other aspect, the other 2 really important aspects of skeletal muscle, and there's many, right? It houses mitochondria, which is associated with energy and actually, quite frankly, the energy that we feel. The more healthy mitochondria we have, the more energetic we're going to feel. It is also the body's armor. Skeletal muscle plays a role. If you get sick, you need to utilize the amino acids and it will pull from skeletal muscle to rebuild and repair the body. The other component is we all care about being strong as we age, and specifically women also care about bone health. Skeletal muscle is the lever to push on bone health, strength, and mobility. So those are just a handful of reasons why skeletal muscle is so critical. And again, we often see skeletal muscle decline around menopause when we lose hormones— estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

Right. And we think that we're getting fatter, but it's just that our body composition is changing so drastically. We're losing the tone and the, you know, the bulk of our muscle. And I'm glad that you hit on this idea of When we are sick, we lose—

Wow.

We use those stores from our muscle and we lose muscle mass. I mean, you just lay in bed for a week, you'll feel it. You know, I had COVID, I could feel I lost so much muscle and so much strength. And I think that's really important for women going into menopause. And unfortunately, a lot of us, we've, you know, been doing desk jobs, we've been very sedentary. And so this is even a new idea, or maybe we were active worked out in our 20s and 30s, but we've kind of, you know, pulled away from it raising our kids and doing our careers. So how do we even get back into it now, knowing how important and vital it is, not just to manage our weight, but so that we don't end up with these disease processes going into the second half of our life?

Yeah, I want people to really understand that obesity is These— obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's diseases, we think about them as something out there. But in my opinion, and there's just so much research that would indicate that these are diseases of skeletal muscle first, even PCOS.

Yeah.

PCOS. Yes, there is obesity related to PCOS, and there's also lean PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. There's a clear relationship to the health of skeletal muscle and the function of skeletal muscle. In essence, I would go as far to say that PCOS is, in part, a skeletal muscle disease.

I was thinking that when we first started talking. I was like, oh, this is totally a PCOS issue. It makes complete sense. These people are usually sedentary, they're not physically active, and it's driving this insulin resistance.

Yeah. The other aspect to think about is that when we age, we really have to begin to pay attention to the foods that we eat. There are two— there's two ways to take care of skeletal muscle, and that is improving nutrition through dietary protein and resistance training. Let's talk about exercise. The other way to stimulate skeletal muscle is through exercise, and this becomes Again, another challenge for women because oftentimes if you go into any gym, you'll see women on the treadmill. Ladies, I know because I see you there all the time doing the same kind of cardiovascular activity. While that is wonderful and important for mitochondrial health and heart health, you cannot discount skeletal muscle and resistance training is going to be the key for looking the way that you want and aging the way that you want. And it's super easy. To start. And I know that you're probably thinking, well, is it really? No, no, no, it is. And there, you know, you can start as simple as, as 3 days a week. 3 days a week. I outline this, I put together a whole training program. It is not as intimidating as one would think. You also have to understand that confidence is earned from being in the arena. And as you become more capable and confident at doing it, you will be less intimidated. And it could be easily 3 days a week, 10 sets per muscle group. You could start with bands and then move to weights. You are not going to get bulky. And there's multiple— there is so much evidence out there that shows the combination of increasing dietary protein plus resistance training changes things for people. Changes body composition, protects against sarcopenia, protects against obesogenic sarcopenia. Really important aspects.

Yeah. So 3 days a week. You're saying just start with 3 big muscle groups. You don't even have to, you know, dive in and do all of the other things, just some basic stuff. What about post-exercise fatigue? What is your favorite way to combat that?

Well, you're going to be tired if you worked really hard. You're going to be tired, and that's okay.

Yeah. Are you usually drinking electrolytes? Just—

I think electrolytes. Yes, I do drink electrolytes, staying hydrated, and then having dietary protein depending on what kind of exercise you did. Dietary protein is a non-negotiable. But if you've done some kind of exercise where you feel that you need to replete muscle glycogen, Also very, and that would be in the form of carbohydrates. I would say it's very important as to how you dose carbohydrates. I don't recommend higher than 40 grams of protein at one time or carbohydrates at one time unless you are really doing some kind of intensive exercise. But you are going to be a little bit tired. You should feel good. Again, if you're hitting it 3 days a week, that's great. The other thing is adding in some kind of high-intensity interval. Women are busy. We don't have a ton of time. How do we make up for time? We add in intensity.

Okay.

And that could easily be, you could, you could get as much work done if you can really push yourself. You could do it in 4 minutes, but that's really hard and it's hard to do by yourself. But you could also do a high-intensity interval at 80% VO2 max. So really push it. But you're not, you know, at the maximum output and it's doable and you could do 1-minute intervals or less and it could take you a total of 20 minutes. Maybe you'll do 10 intervals.

How many days a week are you doing that?

Just do it once.

Nice. Okay. And that's all we need. That's incredible.

Yeah. And again, it doesn't get easier. You know, you had mentioned something earlier that when you had COVID and you were on bed rest, You felt like you lost weight. The studies indicate that you could lose 2 pounds of skeletal muscle in a week. Wow. But when you're young, you can get it back. If you have dietary protein and you are resistance training, you can get it back.

Yeah, that's—

you have to put on the muscle so you can protect yourself when that time comes.

And so when we talk about lifting weights and trying to put on muscle, are you Are you an advocate of lift heavy, or are you just an advocate of lift? Like, I would love to hear that.

The evidence supports that if we're really looking for muscle growth, that you don't have to lift heavy. There's this strength continuum. It's a great paper out by Schoenfeld that talks about this reexamination of the hypertrophy rep range. It really is pushing the muscle for adaptation.

Okay.

Going towards fatigue and pushing that muscle. It doesn't have to be heavy. It just has to be worthwhile.

Oh, I love hearing that because honestly, women struggle with lifting heavy. Their pelvic floor does not like all that Valsalva-ing, all that pressure downward. I get a lot of women who have bladder leakage and organ prolapse, and, you know, so they're really shying away from the heavy lifting. I love the idea of just doing it to muscle fatigue and really breaking that muscle. And that's all you need. You don't have to be crazy heavy.

Let's talk about how women should be eating. One of the most controversial macronutrients is dietary protein. And I think we can all agree, from plant-based to animal-based to the environment, there is no lack of extreme confusion. Right? Right. And we have to recognize that because it really does a disservice to the individual who's really trying to figure out, who really wants to do the right thing for themselves. Now, I'm here to tell you, which is super exciting, is that there is no lack of evidence that dietary protein above and beyond the RDA is extremely beneficial for body composition. And I actually worked on some really early studies when I was in my undergraduate regarding this. And, you know, there's a great paper, there's a randomized controlled paper Again, there's multiple papers, but there's one that came out in 2013 and it looked at the RDA for protein, which is 0.37 grams per pound. So for example, if a woman weighs 115 pounds, her protein recommendation would be 45 grams. And for the listener, they're thinking, well, that sounds okay. Well, actually, the way in which protein recommendations have been laid out, they're the minimum to prevent a deficiency.

Exactly.

The RDA is the recommended dietary allowance for the minimum to prevent deficiencies. That number is based on nitrogen balance studies that was put into effect in 1968, and it has not changed since that time.

Right. So it has nothing to do with us being vital or healthy functioning women.

And quite frankly, the decades of data support that at least double the RDA shows an improvement in body composition, meaning weight loss and the maintenance of lean body mass.

Yes.

And that would be, again, double the RDA, so closer to 0.7 grams per pound. Okay, so that is totally doable. So what does that look like? We could calculate it out. If— let's see, where's my calculator for an individual? Well, anyway, you know what I'm saying. So this is double the RDA. So for example, if a woman was 115 pounds times 0.7, she would be eating 80 grams of dietary protein. That would be a more ideal number. And just to put this into context, when an individual gets sick, the RDA for vitamin C is 60 milligrams.

Right.

Oh my God. But when someone gets sick, people will double, triple, quadruple that, or even take way more than that, 100-fold more than that. They might take even 6 grams, right? But people don't often think of dietary protein as something that is necessary when you are getting sick, or perhaps your hormones are changing, or you're struggling with weight. Dietary protein is the macronutrient that is going to be most beneficial for you.

And women often don't even have it for breakfast when they're breaking their fast, and so they're setting themselves up for failure for the rest of the day. I found that to be true for myself. Like, if I started the day with carbohydrates, I was hungry an hour later, I was tired, I had brain fog. It wasn't until I really started breaking my fast with good quality protein that I actually Wasn't hungry and was able to make it through the morning time. So let's talk about— I've heard you talk about this on other podcasts— how important those first and last meals of the day really are.

Yeah, I love that you are saying that. One of the really important aspects of it is that the first meal— all the studies in dietary protein are focused on that first meal, and that's what we know from the evidence. And why is that first meal so important? That first meal is you are coming out of an overnight fast and skeletal muscle is primed for nutrients.

Yeah.

Skeletal muscle is primed for nutrients. You are ready to go. What do we think about that? We think that, again, I told the listener that there's 2 ways to stimulate muscle, and that is through resistance training, but also dietary protein. And I have to say, we talk about dietary protein if it's It's as if it's one thing, but dietary protein is 20 different amino acids, all of which have unique biological roles. Again, it is not just one thing, although we talk about it as this macronutrient. It has multiple roles. And when you eat high-quality protein, high-quality protein has a robust amount of one of the amino acids called leucine. And leucine is the key amino acid to stimulate muscle. When you have a 30, a minimum should be around 30 grams of dietary protein. This could easily be a protein shake. It could be a handful of eggs. It could be a lean beef patty. It could be Greek yogurt. You hit this robust amount of protein and you stimulate muscle. Not only that, not only that, not only does it stimulate muscle, but you are much less likely to overeat later on. The research shows that by prioritizing protein, you essentially augment your willpower.

Yeah, absolutely.

fMRI studies show that you are much less likely— the brain studies show you're much less likely to reach for that donut or something else.

Oh, so important. And you mentioned the amino acids, so let's talk about the essential amino acids and the difference because, you know, it makes me sad when I see these younger girls jumping on this vegan and vegetarian bandwagon. I know my older daughter, who just turned 31, did that for 15 years to the point where her health was in crisis. She was so unhealthy from being vegan, and she finally realized the importance of animal proteins. Can you explain, like, what are essential amino acids and the fact that we can't get them very easily from just a plant-based diet? And for the listeners, Dr. Dr. Gabrielle has been there. She's done that, right? Tell them where you came from, because I think that's important. Yeah.

When I was younger, there was a period of time I was vegan, and there was a period of time I was vegetarian, and I was training a lot. I was training 2, 3 hours a day, and it was great. When you're young, you have a ton of time to do that. And what happened is I ended up getting really sick. My teeth started getting loose. My hair started falling out. I was exhausted and hungry and obsessed with food.

Yeah.

The reality was I didn't know how to design a good plant-based diet. Even though I was eating rice and beans and I was eating all this food, my protein needs were unmet. They just were. And according to the literature, for example, the average vegan There was a systematic review on multiple different studies, and the average vegan protein intake is around 60 grams from plant-based sources, and they're not interchangeable. The idea that you could use a plant-based protein in exchange of an animal-based protein over time, it's not just— it's just not doable. It's just not the protein. It is a whole food matrix. Now, I'm cautious to say, could you get all your protein from plants? Sure. Could you do a well-designed plant-based diet? Yes. There's a couple caveats here. If you are wanting to do whole foods, right? So rice and beans and soy, then the amount of carbohydrates that ride along with these plant-based foods become very sticky for an individual through menopause.

Yeah.

And really at the time where she has to be very careful of her food intake because whether it's the decrease in estrogen decreasing her physical activity, whether it's she's not training as hard as she used to. All— there's a whole multitude of reasons as to why this is not optimal for an aging woman, not to mention bioavailable calcium, iron, zinc, selenium, taurine, carnitine, creatine, low molecular weight molecules that are also very important to aging well. So when you're younger, individuals seem to be able to get away with a more plant-based diet. But the idea of staying plant-based as you age is just not— and I'm sure you saw that. You saw individuals vegan, vegetarian with lower levels of iron and lower birth weights potentially, and also tend to be smaller humans, whether they have issues with bone density. There's just a whole host of reasons why If it is not your focal point. And let's be honest, if you are a mother and you are working, you cannot be micromanaging everything. It is too difficult over time.

Absolutely. And you hit on a really important point. I think we get away with stuff for a long time, you know, 20s, 30s, and 40s. And then when those hormones start to shift, it all comes to a head and we realize we cannot do the things the way we used to do it. We don't get the same results. And eating a higher plant-based carbohydrate-type diet is one of those things. We just can't get away with it anymore. And so I love this idea of focusing on the protein. And we need to eat clean protein, and where we're getting the protein from matters and how much of it. And I don't think women are hitting those numbers at all. You know, I see women all day in my clinic and they're nowhere near that. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because the average— the data would suggest that the average woman is getting probably around, I don't know, 68 grams of protein, maybe 70, and the average male is getting maybe 90. We are meeting the RDA, but the question is, is the RDA enough? And that answer is no. And the aging data would support that at least double the RDA. I mean, you could target double the RDA. is a much more reasonable amount of dietary protein. If an individual is meeting their minimum requirement or even double the RDA, the question then becomes, what is their body composition? Dietary protein supports not just muscle, but when you eat for muscle, you get all those other amino acids. Let's talk about some of the other amino acids that are important. There's threonine, for gut health, which is important for mucin production. There's tryptophan for serotonin production. There's phenylalanine for dopamine production. All of these individual amino acids have dual roles, and we have to begin to think about the importance of how do we incorporate high-quality proteins into our diet for these other roles. And that, that is what is critical because the end result The goal is how do we optimize body composition so we avoid Alzheimer's, so we avoid, to the best of our ability, cancers? I mean, obviously cancer is a very complex topic. How do we avoid obesity? How do we avoid type 2 diabetes? It is very difficult to overeat dietary protein. It is not readily stored as body fat. The body utilizes these amino acids. There is no need for carbohydrates, but there is a need for protein. So the body can generate all the carbohydrate it needs. The body has a very small essential fatty acid need, but the body cannot survive without dietary protein.

Absolutely.

Yeah. These amino acid levels are maintained quite tightly.

Right. And you hit on such an important point of We use these amino acids to make important neurotransmitters. They affect our mood and how we feel and how we are able to think and process. And nobody's talking about that in conventional medicine. And I think we're really missing a big piece of the puzzle for women going into midlife. You need these amino acids. So can you also speak to— I hear this way too often. I've been told I'm going to eat too much protein. It's going to be hard on my kidneys. That's what the conventional conventional doctors are telling women now is you have to stop eating all of that protein, and they're outright telling them it's going to hurt their kidneys.

Yeah. So there's also multiple meta-analyses that have already come out disproving that.

Yeah.

In fact, it improves kidney function and it doesn't decrease it. Also, by the way, just a side note, certain physicians tell people to reduce dietary cholesterol, which also was taken out of the guidelines in 2015.

Exactly. We have to stop this craziness. All these old recommendations are harming us. So thank you for really shining light on all of this. It's so important. So if we want to break our fast, we want to focus on protein.

Dosing is important.

And dose—

talk about that a little bit more. And I talk about this all in the book. You cannot do, say, 10 grams or 15 grams of protein and still assume you're getting this muscle benefit. Especially as you are aging. Muscle, which I didn't mention before, is a nutrient-sensing organ. It is a nutrient-sensing organ and it senses the quality of protein in the diet. We have to understand it senses the quality of protein in the diet. What does that mean? That means it's kind of like pregnant. Either you are pregnant or you're not pregnant. And when you hit a leucine threshold, which is a minimum of 30 grams. Really, the optimal range of dietary protein per meal is between 30 and 50 grams of dietary protein. And again, I talk about what this looks like in my book, but it's 4 ounces of chicken or beef or something like that, again, or Greek yogurt. But you have to hit this threshold. And if you design a diet where you are focusing on the grams of protein, at that first and last meal of the day, it is going to change body composition because the mechanism of stimulating muscle is energetically expensive.

Yes.

It takes energy to leverage this muscle protein synthesis.

Absolutely. So in your book, are you talking about what foods you should be eating based on workout and all of that?

All of it. Very easy to understand and straightforward plan that will change the trajectory of all your listeners. It will. There's never been a book written like this. It will change the way in which they think about aging, what they need to do around menopause, why things are happening. And it also is unique in the way that it has a mindset component to it. So I've been seeing patients since 2006, and as you know, over time you learn a lot about the human psyche and why we do certain things. And it addresses things like, do you feel worthy enough to have the body that you want? Do you feel worthy enough for the health that you want? There's a whole host of things, but that's a portion of the book. And also it talks about where your baseline blood level should be. It has a great assessment guide, and most importantly, how you design a diet that is not a diet but a lifestyle.

Yeah.

Because muscle is so fascinating in the way that the things that you have to do to get it make you more resilient as a person, and it's available for everybody.

Oh my gosh, I love that so much. I really love that you're talking about these aspects because what I see with women is when they start incorporating exercise or working out or setting a goal of trying to run a marathon or whatever they're doing, That mindset piece and overcoming and knowing that you have to hit this challenge and you have to push yourself and go beyond what you think you're capable of, like, that growth not only grows your muscles, but it grows your mind and your spirit so exponentially. And that is worth— that's priceless.

I've never had a patient say to me, I regret being stronger.

Right, exactly.

I regret being stronger. I regret being more capable. It's never happened.

No, it's only good, amazing things. I love that so much. So your book is dropping very soon. I'm super excited.

October 17th. October 17th.

It's called— But you can get it on preorder right now, right?

If they get it on preorder, they will learn all about the exercises that I do. I have a full training library. There's multiple ebooks. There's a community. There's all kinds of things that we're offering for preorder to make it accessible and for people to start taking action right now.

Incredible. I love that so much. So we need to at least do weight training 3 days a week, incorporate that cardio once a week. We've got to get the protein in, especially when we're breaking our fast. Is there anything else we're missing for our muscles?

I mean, there's a handful of supplements, but if you start with doing the fundamentals, that's the right The first line of defense would be 1 gram per pound ideal body weight. I know it's a little on the higher end, but I think it's a great target to shoot for. 1 gram per pound ideal body weight. So if you wanna be 120 pounds, eating 120 grams of protein is great. And then how you distribute it is key, targeting the first and last meal. Again, there's multiple other strategies, but that really keeps it simple. And then understanding that there's a synergistic effect between resistance training and the increase in dietary protein, you will see changes in body composition, assuming that calories are controlled and accounted for.

Okay. And I've heard you mention on other podcasts that you don't have to get this protein in right after you work out or before you work out, right? That part doesn't really matter because I personally love Being in a fasted state when I exercise. I find that works so much better.

Same.

I do too. Okay.

I think that, again, you know what works well for you, but what is very clear from the science is that the combination, the synergistic effect of dietary protein whenever you eat it, the most important is that 24-hour period. Again, the most important is the 24-hour period and then thinking about how you're going to design a distribution. You do not need to have protein around training. Where the benefit would be is if potentially you were older than 65, then there's an increase in blood flow to muscle, and this would be a great time to have dietary protein.

Oh, that makes total sense. Okay. I love that. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thanks so much for having me.

Oh my gosh. Is there anything else we need to cover? This is so good.

Oh, actually, yes. So one of the other things is From a medical standpoint, I think that we've really covered the dietary protein aspect and the training. I do also have a podcast called The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show where I bring on subject matter experts in their domain, whether it's science, whether it's life, and we talk all about this stuff. Body composition is a big hot topic. I have a newsletter called— well, it's not called anything. It's just my newsletter and it's all free information. And we also have a 30 G's newsletter of how to get 30 grams of protein.

Oh, that's perfect. That is so helpful. I think that, you know, whatever women can do to get more protein in— and do you have a certain powder that you like or supplement, or are you trying to get all of this from food?

No, I think it's very difficult. Having a great whey protein powder— 1st Phorm makes a great natural whey. If you are not eating a ton of red meat, having 3 to 5 grams of creatine a day is also great. You can get any kind of monohydrate. If you can't tolerate whey, a rice-peat blend is also great.

Absolutely. Great. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having me.

This was fabulous. Okay, I hope you got so much out of that. I truly apologize if it was not a smooth interview, if it seems a little discombobulated. Literally, my editing girl had to piece a bunch of recordings together because our internet was acting up. I've never had that happen like that before. And Dr. Gabrielle was so gracious to keep coming back on and restarting the interview. Oh my gosh. It's very frustrating, obviously, when you're in a train of thought and you're trying to explain something and Zoom just goes out. So I really hope that you guys stuck with it because she did, I did, and I just— that goes to show you, like, done is better than perfect. I know you guys got great benefit out of this interview even though it wasn't the smoothest, it wasn't the prettiest, you know. We may have missed a few things here or there. Um, it's hard to even know when the recording stopped and, you know, all of that. So, but I know you got value out of it. And so that's just a life lesson, you guys. Like, done is better than perfect. So stop waiting to be perfect to do something and just get into action. Remember, action creates clarity. Thank you, Marie Forleo. But it's so true. And my golden nugget from Dr. Gabrielle is if you are struggling with this, like, 10, 20 pounds that keeps coming back, can't get rid of it. Stop focusing on the weight, start focusing on the muscle. Build your muscle and it will help shift the weight because your muscle has so much to do with your metabolism and what's going on with your blood sugar and what's going on with your hormones. Okay. So that really is super important. You have to build that muscle. And muscle weighs more than fat. So if you don't see the number shift on the scale, don't worry about it. Worry about how you fit into your clothes and how your body feels. And are you stronger? Do you have more flexibility, more balance, more ability to get through your day? Those are the measures that you should be focused on. It doesn't matter what the number on the scale is, necessarily. Like, data is good, but if you are hung up on that, you're missing something really important, and that is the composition of your body. The composition is what makes you healthy, not the number on the scale. So that was my golden nugget that I took away from her. I want to hear what your golden nugget was. Maybe you were like, aha, I didn't realize protein was that important. I didn't realize some of these essential amino acids I'm not getting and they're affecting other aspects of my health. What is your golden nugget? Share it with me. I want to hear from you. And then go out and grab her book, drop her a review, that would be amazing. And do something nice for another sister, right? Pass this episode on, share it with a friend who needs to hear it. Obviously, every woman needs to hear this episode, but that's what I try to bring for every episode. I try to, like, make sure it's value-packed. So let me know what else you want to hear about. I am here for you, ladies. I do this for you. Now go out, have a kick-ass week. Bye.