The Zen Of Aging: How To Stay Fit and Look Amazing As You Get Older.

Hey folks, Ben Greenfield here. Today we're going to be talking about aging, aging, exercise, hormones and basically everything that happens as you get older. So this is a double interview special. Our first interview is with Kerry Nosler, a 65 year old super fit guy. And our second interview is with Elizabeth Ruiz, an older female triathlete who specializes in growth hormone. So without further ado, let's jump right in. Hey folks, this is Ben Greenfield and today, today we're going to be talking about aging and exercise. I have a real expert on the call today and his name is Kerry Nosler. Kerry has been a health reporter for close to 30 years. He's based out of California and really health and fitness have been something he's been involved in since he was a teenager. And you're how old now, Carrie?

65.

Gotcha. So Kerry's been doing this a while and he's been pursuing his own quest for better health and really broadcasting lots of interviews with prominent folks in the health field. He has a radio show down in California and we'll be sure to link to that from the show notes. It's called the Wide World of Health. It's for those of you who listen in. It's on KST E Talk 650. But what Kerry does is talk to people every week about health. But he also has had exercise as a lifelong passion and knows quite a bit about kind of what happens to the body as you age and you're trying to stay fit, what goes on mentally, what goes on physically, what goes on from a motivational perspective. And so those are some of the things that we'll be diving into today. So, Kerry, thanks for coming on the call.

Ben, thank you. I appreciate it very much.

So, you know, in terms of, you know, the length of time that you've been in fitness, you know, 50 some odd years I would imagine. Do you still find it easy to stay motivated to exercise? I mean, do you, do you kind of, kind of run into, run into barriers or do you just kind of hum merrily along?

I guess there's two parts to that question. One is I'm a very persistent fellow and I learned some time ago that it was better actually to keep exercising even when your motivation wasn't that high than it was to stop and let other forces come into play that might derail you from your, from your goals. I'll give you an example. Most of the time I set my exercise schedule pretty much the same. I know when I'm going to exercise. I know pretty much the schedule. I'm going to do and all those kind of things. If for some reason there's an interruption there, I have just some event that I have to do and it just won't allow me to exercise for a couple of days. All of a sudden, Ben, things that never got in the way before show their ugly head. And pretty soon I've got other calls scheduled or I have other events scheduled. And it was like nature abhors a vacuum. You know, if you have a program, and again, this is just my personality. If you have a program, stick to it and realize that there's going to be ups and downs. You're going to have times when your motivation is high, other times when it's not, when you don't quite have the same enthusiasm. But overall, what you're looking at is long term. And if you stay with it, then you'll have the opportunity to continue and grow.

And you found that one way to do that is to be exercising at the same time every day.

Well, I find that convenient for me. And again, it's just my personality. But that way other things don't get in the way. It's very easy to have something come up and all of a sudden you have a plan for it, and the next thing you know, well, you've missed a couple of days, then maybe a week. And the hardest thing, Ben, as you get older, the hardest thing to do is to come back from an illness or an injury. You don't recover as quickly as you age, so that you have to be very careful to make sure that you don't allow things to kind of get in the way of that process.

Now, you know, for example, I remember that I spoke with Art Devaney a few months ago, and he talked about how his workout routine was extremely random. He'd pull over on the side of the road and run 10 by 100 sprints and do things like that. But, you know, as far as your own workout routine, do you have kind of a week to week routine? Do you mix it up a lot? Or what have you found to be successful as you age in terms of keeping your body fit and relatively uninjured? Hopefully.

All right, well, here's where it gets down into your own personality. This is a key part, Ben, of the kind of thing that I've discovered. You have to be true to yourself. You have to be true to the kind of things that really feel good to you. And I've read Dr. Devaney. I've been influenced by his writings, as I am pretty much really into the Whole paleo thing to an extent. I mean, we all have our modifications. So he's one of the people I read and I actually tried doing some of the things that he's talking about, doing the randomness or just, you know, if you don't feel like exercising or like Mark Sisson, just lie down on the ground and look up at the clouds. That's cool. But it doesn't fit my personality. I found that when I did that, I was just, I was miserable. I wanted to exercise. I love to exercise. You know, that's the way I approach it. And if you have a different philosophy, well, stick to it. And that includes the type of exercises that you do. But you have to be, you have to be aware of who you are and what really gives you pleasure or you're going to be doing things that don't fit you. They may be something that you've read about that has a lot of followers at the time or something that they say that you should do, but if it doesn't feel right and it doesn't work, don't do it.

So in terms of you specifically, what's your exercise routine look like? What do you do?

Well, I've done two things. First of all, I've been involved in weight training for a long time and that is something that I've always enjoyed. Four days a week I do a weight training program. It's a push pull program. Mondays and Thursdays pushing exercises, Tuesdays and Fridays pulling exercises. On Wednesdays and Saturdays I do a high intensity interval program. Again that lasts what, about 20, 25 minutes for the interval program. And that's another aspect then, a personality. You know, folks like yourself who like to compete, for example, in longer events, you have a personality that allows you to enjoy doing that. I've always been kind of a short burster type of person. I like to have a short term goal. I like to get it done and then kind of move on. So for me, while I used to run a lot and run long, longer distances, it just didn't fit my personality. As part of going back to what I said before, you know, if that's something that works for you, do it. But for me it's always been weight training and now interval training that seems to give me the best results.

Got it. So in terms of the expectations that you have for yourself as you age and folks who are listening in, who maybe they're young and wanting to kind of anticipate what's going to happen as they get older, or people who are maybe older and wanting to kind of learn what to expect maybe in the short term. How do things kind of change as you age as far as your fitness? I mean, do you just wake up one day and kind of notice you're maybe not able to lift as much weight or run as fast? How do you know and how do you set up expectations for yourself as you age? I guess is what I'm trying to ask.

Okay. Well, it depends on where you're starting. If you've been involved in exercise for a long time, that's one consideration. If you're older, older and finally realized that some form of exercise is very, very positive in terms of healthy aging, that's another. I'll take the first part first. Since I've been exercising a long time, the one thing I've learned is I don't dwell on the past. I don't think about what I did when I was 20 or 30 or 40. That doesn't come into the picture at all. My goals are short term. I think of what I did the last time I worked out what I'm going to do this time and then plan for the next day. So it's a shorter term perspective. And I'm not comparing myself in any way, shape or form to a squat I did 20 years ago or a bench or whatever it happens to be. I just work on immediate goals and I stay pretty consistent that way. You're not kind of beating yourself up because you're not the way you used to be. You know, just keep, keep, keep the goal immediate and work on the things that are, that are easily handled within this, the space that you have available to you.

Have. Excuse me, have you noticed or do you kind of feel the difference in muscle fibers or the difference in strength dramatically, or is it one of those things that just kind of happens so much over time? You know, kind of like the same way that a baby grows, for example, and if you're living with them, you don't notice it quite as much as someone who maybe doesn't see the baby for two years. But do you, do you notice like day to day deficits in strength or anything like that that occurs as you age? Or is it just one of those things that you're just used to?

I'm used to it. And the research seems to support the fact, especially with strength training, you know, when they've done. I was so impressed years ago with the studies that were done when they took 80 year old people and had them exercise and found that they were actually able to get an increase in muscles size that was comparable to a person many decades younger. Now, they obviously had limitations into how far they could go, and that's more related to hormone status and growth hormone and such. But the body was able to respond to muscular stimulation at, at a very, very advanced age. And I found that that's one of the real advantages of weight training, that your strength declines are not that dramatic if you keep it up, you know, if you've been working out consistently. And nowadays, my goodness, it's not unusual to see power lifters in their 50s and 60s, you know, who are still putting up considerable amounts of weight, pulling, deadlift or squatting or bench press or whatever it happens to be. So the ability to maintain a somewhat peak muscular strength for a long, long time is still there. Ken Cooper, years ago when I interviewed him, of course, is famous for the aerobic aspect of his research initially. Now, of course, is a big advocate of strength training, said the whole point was to square the curve, not only in terms of what you do on a daily basis, but kind of where you end up at the end so that when you reach your peak, when, you know, and we all have that nice little ascending peak and then once you stay there, most people, unfortunately today, once they get to their peak, it's a kind of a precipitous decline. But by doing the kind of things you should do, including the exercise, you can keep that linear line pretty steady up until the very end. And then you just kind of hopefully drop off quickly and that, that squaring the curve, that, that relates to your muscular strength as well. Again, as I said, you're not going to be a 20 year old. You know, you got to be logical about it. But the decline can be very, very slight and can be very, very rewarding in terms of what you can do relative to people around you who are many, many years younger than you. Mm, yeah.

Now, doctors in the medical community, you know, they certainly have their recommendations on healthy amounts of exercise as you age and what you maybe should do. And in terms of balancing what people say you should do and what you like to do or feel like doing as you age, in terms of activities, how do you kind of kind of balance that? I mean, is there any fear involved that you're pushing your body too hard or you're pushing your heart too hard, or, you know, you're pushing your muscles too hard or anything like that?

Sometimes, sometimes I'll have that in the back of my mind wondering, my goodness, should I be doing this as hard as I'm doing But as you notice, and I'm sure you note very, very. Because you monitor your body so closely, it has really more to do with becoming aware of your own recovery ability and how you feel the rest of the day after you exercise. Sometimes, I admit, you know, I have a very, very difficult exercise session and I may have to l. Sometime during the day and just, I just feel like taking a short nap, you know, well, fine, I'll do it, you know, but it's, it's how you feel at night, it's how you feel in the morning when you get up. If you're recovering, whatever you're doing is working for you and then being sensible and having regular checkups and monitoring lipid levels, for example, or looking at hormone levels, whatever the factions and just regular panels, you can, you can tell what's going on in your body. But the, but no, the fear that supposedly by exercising too hard you're going to drop over and die is pretty much unfounded. That certainly does happen to some people, but it's as a general rule, no, the body is very, very adaptable and can stay that way if you give it the proper incentive.

Gotcha. Okay. So, you know, as far as kind of the other aspect of this, you know, and the, the dark side of exercising a lot as you age and spending 50 years exercising is obviously, I would imagine that you get these accumulated injuries that kind of add up as you go. Do you find that that happens? And if so, how do you deal with the aches and the pains and.

Things of that nature that is very, very real? Unfortunately, it's not the things I do now that cause a problem. It's the things I did when I was much younger and didn't pay as much attention to the things that I would do now. But yes, injuries are. Everybody I would is going to pick up something. Even when they go back and look at our paleo ancestors that now are held up as an example, you know, they had all kinds of accumulated injuries, little nicks and problems and anybody that you exhume over the years, you know, you find that they had those same kind of things. So yeah, and when you exercise, it's just inevitable that you're going to pick up problems. I have two areas, have one in my wrist area that I have some degeneration. And then it wasn't helped by doing handstand push ups against the wall. Even when it hurt, you know, I went through it and it was that whole thing, you know, if it hurts, just keep doing it. So that's what I kept doing. And then there was also some piriformis issues in my hip from doing round kicks in a karate class. So, yeah, physical activity will result in some kind of problem whether or not it stays. How much it stays with you just depends on, obviously on you. But in a way, Ben, it's almost a blessing because it makes you more aware of how you're doing things and how you should tailor your workouts. You may not like it, but it sure makes me more aware of how I stand because of the piriformis issue, how I'm distributing my weight. For instance, if I do a squat or any other kind of movement where I'm bending, it makes me aware of how I hold my hand and my wrist when I'm doing different kinds of things. Barred hips, for example, become a little problematic if I don't hold my wrist in just the proper position. So, yeah, I don't like it. But, yes, it's there. And you can use it to your advantage if you, you know, if you understand the mechanics.

Gotcha. So what about the nutritional component as you age? From what I understand, sometimes the way that your body deals with certain foods can change. Have you found that to be the case? Have you found it to be harder to digest meats or proteins? Or have you found your body to do better with juicing and vegetables than it does with harder to digest foods? Have you found that it kind of feels like you're absorbing less or that you need a multivitamin or any of those things that I've heard can happen as you age?

Well, let me just put that in perspective as well. I've been eating well as long as I've been exercising. Obviously, I think you have an advantage there. Having taken care of my nutritional needs for so long and being aware of how my body reacts to foods. And so I guess consciously and unconsciously just kind of picking things that seem to work best for me. But maybe it's because of the exercise and just the attention to detail over the. Over the years. But I have a fairly, fairly robust digestive system. And it isn't so much that I can't eat things, it's just that some things on occasion I'll notice, just don't seem to work well for me. But on the whole, I should say the quality of your food is more important than worrying about your inability to handle certain things. If you're eating good stuff, you're supplying the body with the tools that it needs. And I would say, if anything, I probably have overdone certain Good things over time, like you. I mean, when you've been conducting interviews literally with thousands of people over the years who have wonderful ideas and very, very compelling evidence to support their views, I tend to start adding different things to my diet. I am a big proponent of supplements. I like supplements. I actually think they're fun. I look forward to taking certain things, but I found that I overdo it. You don't need to do as many as I probably have done over the years. Whether or not that's hurt me or whether or not this has made me more conscious of what I'm doing, I'm not sure. But if you do run into difficulties digesting food, there's a couple of very simple rules. One is don't drink liquids, especially cold liquids, with a meal. A glass of tea or a cup of tea or something like that is fine. Maybe a little glass of wine. But in general, diluting the food with too much liquid is certainly a prescription for an inability to properly digest what you're doing. And again, the colder it is, the more you stop the digestive process, because the body has to heat up again to get to the proper temperature to secrete the enzymes necessary to digest your food. And obviously, chewing is important mastication, just to break down the food properly before it enters in the other stages of digestion. So there's some very simple rules. And the one thing I would say that would probably be very logical as you age is to invest in a very good multipurpose digestant, something that takes care of fats, proteins and starches.

You mean like a digestive enzyme?

A digestive enzyme for lipase, protease, any enzyme, ase. So having the proper digestive enzymes available to your body, certainly a very logical thing. And there's been many programs where people have had different ailments, where certain digestive enzymes have been very successful in helping them to cope with that particular situation. So good digestive enzyme product taken is appropriate. And I've also been a very big proponent of probiotics for years, having again had the opportunity to interview people or probiotics were even popular when it seems illogical why we should take them. But it just didn't have the popular appeal at the time. Now, my goodness, there's all kinds of strains available, but it's very logical to have that kind of support in your digestive system.

So you found that to be important, doing things like using supplements to support your digestive system as you age?

Yep. I think that's a very, very logical strategy.

Now, from a nutrition standpoint you mentioned Paleo, that you eat a Paleo diet. Have you been doing something like that? You have been into fitness for a long time, but is that a relatively new phenomenon? Just because I know paleo kind of in the past decade seems like something that has taken off. But were you doing something similar before then?

I've been involved in many different kind of programs, as you can imagine, from raw food vegetarian to a lacto vegetarian. Eat more eggs now than I did in the past, but from again, never eating meat to starting to eat meat, that was a very interesting transition. Dr. Barry Sears is a fellow that you know who did popularize what's called the zone diet. And I remember interviewing him and it was so logical hearing him talk and kind of realizing that I was probably overdoing the carbs, even though they were very good carbs, quality carbs. But at the same time I wasn't giving the body the support it needed. Perhaps with enough protein and on The Spot, a 20 some year program of vegetarianism ceased and started adding animal protein. And for me it was a very, very good start. I then moved into getting more information about the Paleo program. Again, having access to these people. Dr. Loren Cordain, who's probably the father of the Paleo movement, Colorado State University, impressed me greatly with his views. But then I also realized, again, this is your individuality. There are certain things I do that work well with me. For instance, I handle dairy products very well. Then anytime I talk about any kind of food, I'm talking about quality food. I'm not talking about junk aspects of it. That's what I've learned. The quality is as important as the item itself. Eating good quality dairy foods work for me. I handle them very well. So I kind of call myself a lacto Paleotarian.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Kind of almost like a primal diet.

With, including the primal type of batting dairy, you know, with a little addition of that particular aspect of the point, because it seems to work well in my body. But I do think that the logical thing, and this has come through in all the work that's been done for years and years, is that the key is controlling insulin. And then that's what our Paleo ancestors taught us. You know, insulin was there for a purpose. It, it helps to drive fuel into our cells, but it was done for a short period of time just because of the kind of diet our ancestors ate and the amount of food that was available to them at different times. So it was not meant to be elevated for long periods of time. And now that we have too many sugary foods and refined grains and too many omega 6 oils that are inflammatory. We've got insulin levels that are just elevated and it initiates a fat storage program. And the body never has a chance to burn the fat because you just have too high levels. So the paleo program makes a lot of sense. And in terms of reducing what I've done, I think more along the lines, fruits and vegetables are fine, even kind of moderation on the fruits, but the fruits in season, good animal products, milk products for me. And reducing excess starch seems to be a very, very logical way that my body works well.

Now, how about hormones? Do you test your hormones or use any type of supplements to support things like testosterone as you age?

Both. I think it's imperative. I think the whole idea of hormones hormone testing is so logical and has gained a lot of credibility over the years in terms of looking at the factors that result from aging and how to kind of stop that decline. You know, Ben, I think it's kind of paradoxical that you have 20 year olds that take steroids and other types of testosterone boosting formulas when that should be reserved for people my age or older. You know, you want to maintain quality of life. So it's logical to do it when those things start to decline, not when they're already at their highest point and then cause problems in terms of the body's ability to balance that kind of insult to the endocrine system. But yes, you should get your hormones balanced and find a doctor who is pretty proficient in that. Now that it's becoming more of a fad, as it were. There's a lot of people who are advocating testosterone, for example, for men and finally testing them for that. They never used to do that. And then the range by which testosterone is considered appropriate was so wide that you could have a very low so called load normal. And they say you're fine, but the guy's coming in saying, yeah, but I'm just lethargic. I just, I just don't have much energy. I don't notice my muscle just seems kind of flabby now that they realize that, well, you should have higher normal levels. It's an improvement as far as the patient is concerned. But then you have doctors who just know to do that. They'll give you a shot of testosterone because they've read about it in the journals, but they don't measure your estradiol to see if you've got any conversion. They don't look at the other hormones, dhea, how that's affected by the whole program or even looking at growth hormone. So you need someone who's got experience in that area.

So let's say that you've got a 55, 60, 65 year old listener listening to this podcast and they kind of want to envision as they age, what kind of a perfect day might look like in terms of the kind of supplements that they'll be taking when they wake up and the kind of diet that they'll be eating and what type of workout routine maybe they should be doing. If you were to kind of wave your magic wand and say, well, here's what I think based on my experience, would be kind of like the perfect day. Obviously there's going to be some amount of individuality, but if somebody wants to know some of the lifestyle practices from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed that you would kind of recommend and point people towards as far as staying really, really healthy as they age, what are some of the things that you would recommend?

It's kind of an old fashioned one, but I would again really, really hope that people hydrate themselves properly and not, you know, to excess, but making sure when you get up in the morning. I've always been an advocate of drinking a couple of glasses of water when I first get up in the morning, way before I have anything to eat, just to help the system kind of get back into proper fluid balance and using my urine usually as a guide. You know, if you have very, very dark, kind of smelly urine, you, you need more fluid, more basic water to help the kidneys do the things that they need to do. For example, so just having several glasses of water in the morning, some mild activity just to get the system going properly rather than all of a sudden just getting up and going in the kitchen and starting to eat way before your body even has a need to do so. Always been an advocate of having some kind of activity to kind of earn your breakfast, so to speak. Just something light, doesn't have to be heavy, but just some kind of movement or stretching and fluid replacement just to get your system prepared for whatever you're going to be doing. And then a family in the morning again, we have this and I think the Paleo people have taught us well that we don't need to start the breakfast with some type of high glycemic food that's going to have an effect, negative effect on insulin balance the morning. And for the rest of the day, rather than getting with those cereals, which I know people like a lot some kind of other program. And if you don't like to eat. I've found for years that I like a shake in the morning and again, because of my dairy preference, I find whey protein to be very positive. I like to add some type of a green concentrated food to that. Different kinds of things that allow my body's and my insulin balance to be kind of steady. And then not everybody does this. But one of the principles that's being expounded as part of the paleo movement is this idea of autophagy where you allow the body to kind of take time to reorganize itself by kind of digesting some of the byproducts of things that the system doesn't really need. It's part of what happens when you fast. Well, I've made it a practice and again, I don't know if everyone, I doubt if everyone else might feel comfortable doing that, but I usually stop eating about 8 o' clock at night and really don't eat again until perhaps 11 or 12 the next day. So I give my body plenty of chance and obviously I have very good insulin response in terms of being able to do that. But it allows my body to kind of work on getting rid of things that shouldn't be there and also to rely more on using my stored fat for fuel rather than sugar.

So you found almost kind of like this intermittent fasting type of approach has been pretty useful for you.

Yeah, and I'm also able to do my morning workout before doing that as well. And that was another thing. Mentally, I thought, oh my God, I'm going to die, I got to have something to eat before I do this. That's not the case. Again, it's very logical if you look back at our paleo existence, hunter gatherer time, let's put it that way. You know, they didn't have, you know, they're getting ready, they get up in the morning, they got to go out and eat, they got to get food for their, the group. What are they going to say, oh my goodness, I got to have my protein shake, you know, I got to have an energy drink here before I get going? No, I mean, they didn't know when they were going to eat or how often they were going to eat. So the system was very well attuned to kind of living off what it had in order to, you know, promote survival. So the idea that everything, you have to have something to eat all the time, I don't think that's true. But obviously for people who have some Type of blood sugar difficulty, they would have to work up to that. But it might be a goal to kind of find out just what your body can do in terms of helping preserve itself.

Interesting. So any other. Any other little things throughout the.

The way I do it. Excuse me. And again, this is not necessarily what everyone else should. And another little thing I think that I found. There are movements that come along. Right now we're in the kind of a vegan raw food craze. And I say craze with all due respect. There's a lot of people and there's some good evidence that we should eat a certain amount of raw food. But if you understand the energy that's available in vegetables, for example, raw foods, salads, big salads, those kind of things, they're more cleansing. But if you want building really you have to have some degree of heat applied to that food to release nutrients that don't normally get absorbed as well. It's been known for a long time, for example, that the beta carotene is more available in cooked carrots than raw carrots. Doesn't mean you shouldn't eat them raw. It just means you need a balance. So I try to have that kind of balance. I try to have a salad. My midday meal would be the salads. Good protein, for example, I would make a salad. I like salmon, some type of cold salmon or even the canned Alaskan salmon is a very good food. Like you. I'll throw in some olives, some avocado. I have no problem with the whole fat aspect of food as long as I'm keeping the carbs low. I think that's a very, very good consideration. At night it's going to be cooked two or three vegetables, a good protein source and a moderate amount of carbohydrates, usually yams, sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, something that people may not use that much. But it's a real good source of inulin, which is real nice prebiotic as well. That's a very good slow digesting starch. So something along those lines is what I would usually eat at night and then in the morning. Well, the after workout later, I guess mine would be the early, late afternoon, late morning meal would be some type of a drink. That's when I put in a lot of different goodies that I find especially good. Especially the whey protein.

Gotcha. So that's kind of, kind of your typical day.

Yep. Get myself. I've also learned over the years that you have to have times when you allow yourself to do things that you don't normally do, even if they're good things, but they're just different. So the weekends for me are that gotcha.

Like, like different workouts.

Different workouts, different food things if I want to go out to a restaurant, get something different. I used to beat myself up in the beginning so badly mentally because I felt, oh my God, I've blown it. I shouldn't be doing this. That was worse for me than what I was doing when I was eating. So now I have more of a mental. Have more of a kindness for myself mentally. Yeah, I say, okay, good, you got to make an exception, do it, no problem.

Gotcha. Well, you're certainly in good shape and have kept yourself up pretty well for you. For those of you listening in, I have hung out with Kerry down in California and seen him and he doesn't look like he's 65, let's put it that way, so the guy knows what he's talking about. Kara, I'd like to thank you for all the advice that you've dished out today. Is there anything else that you wanted to bring up before we let you go?

Well, again, and I really stress this, but be true to yourself in terms of what you do, Ben. In a way, I'm almost glad that I've been exercising as long as I have and the kind of things that I pick to do and I don't mean to pick on this at all because it's a wonderful system. But for example, like the CrossFit, which I think is great, but you know, for some folks that just getting on that bandwagon and maybe exercising beyond what they should do or finding themselves in trouble because they just don't think it through in terms of their own body or what they should be doing. I'm not really as prone to fads as I used to be. You know, I'll stand back, I'll look at it and I say, okay, if I do it, what is the best way to do it? Is this something I need to do or, you know, is what I'm doing adequate? Not only adequate, but very, very positive for me. But take time to evaluate what's going on. And just one last little thing I'm going to work out today after we get done talking. And today's a polling day, so the one thing I keep my enthusiasm up, I'll find different ways to look at what I'm doing to see if I can improvement. There's a bent over dumbbell row movement that I'm going to do there I'M going to kind of experiment with kind of a twofold thing where in the beginning I'll just draw my shoulder blades back and then pull up just a little variation, whatever it happens to be. But kind of think of ways that you can kind of tweak it in a positive way that keeps your enthusiasm up because you're, you're going to try something maybe that you haven't done before and just see how it works for yourself. So kind of keeping things even though you're doing the same thing, keeping it fresh, keeping it new by, by kind of examining how you're doing something and try to do it better.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So introducing your body to some of those new things.

Yep. And always keeping an interest up, like be on the lookout for good information, how you can improve what you're doing.

Nice. All right. Well, folks, I will make sure to put a photo of Kerry in the show notes so you can see what he looks like and what it looks like when you take care of yourself and you're 65 years old. And I'll also put a link to Kerry's Wide World of Health radio show, which he broadcasts on KST E Talk 650, if you want to listen into that. And Cary, thank you so much for your time today.

Well, Ben, and thank you for the work that you do. Again, by bringing different people up and bringing the kind of information that you do, you help people have a leg up on the kind of, kind of the kind of process that needs to take place in order to have successfully aging population and enjoy your life as long as possible. So I applaud the work that you're doing.

Thanks, Carrie. That's good to hear. All right. Well, have a good one.

Thank you.

Hey, folks, Ben Greenfield here, and I have a triathlete with me on the call today, and her name is Elizabeth Rees. She is a certified strength and conditioning coach, and she coaches lots of different things, including endurance sports and triathlon. She herself has done competitive bodybuilding, triathlon, duathlon, cycling, even equestrian events. And Elizabeth is also a coach over at Pacific Elite Fitness, and she works with a variety of individuals. You can, you can go view her more comprehensive bio@pacificfit.net but Elizabeth also helps, happens to be somebody who knows a little bit about growth hormone and kind of how you can cause a bigger release of growth hormone when you're out there exercising or recovering and what growth hormone is. And Elizabeth, just so folks kind of can get to know you a little bit before we launch into this whole growth Hormone thing. How long have you been doing this? How long have you been kind of competing in sports and everything? And also you're over in Chicago, right?

Wisconsin or.

Wisconsin, that's right, yeah.

Yep. Or as we say, Wisconsin.

So you've been doing this a while?

Well, over 25 years.

Wow.

I think. Yeah. Long time.

Yeah, yeah. And always, obviously not always racing triathlon, but you kind of made the switch from other sports into triathlon recently, or has that been a while as well?

Well, triathlon was about 20 years ago, and then I specialized in cycling and really committed to that sport on a pretty high competitive level and had a bike shop with my ex husband in Miami. So I am pretty intimately acquainted with a bike racing, things like that, so. And then when I move back up here, I've sort of dabbled in road running and triathlon.

Yeah, you're being humble. I noticed you have 11 Florida state championship titles as an elite road and track cyclist, so. She knows what she's doing, folks. All right, so let's talk about growth hormone, because I know that that's kind of an area that you know a little bit about and you know how to. How to kind of get it up in men and women. And we'll talk about why that's good and what it is. But let's. Let's start here. For folks listening in who hear about growth hormone, or GH, as it's sometimes called, and don't really understand, you know, why they even need to care about it. What exactly is growth hormone and why should we care about it?

Well, growth hormone is released out of the pituitary gland, which is kind of like the master controller of the endocrine system. And what it does is it stimulates growth cell reproduction and regeneration in human beings. Unfortunately, when we are done growing and maturing, somewhere around 18 to 20 years old, the levels start to drop.

Gotcha. So in terms of kind of like once the levels start to drop or what growth hormone kind of feels like when it's up and when it's down, what do you feel like when your levels of growth hormone begin to drop? Or is there a way that you feel.

Oh, well, there are people who have a congenital low levels, and those are people that suffer from dwarfism, so they won't reach normal height after puberty. With regular human beings that don't have a deficiency, the symptoms are fairly similar to what we consider kind of midlife crisis issues. That would be loss of quality of life, loss of energy, getting more body fat, not sleeping as well, and a Lot of these symptoms are kind of associated with mid age.

Gotcha. Kind of sounds similar to, like, what you'd experience, like, as a guy if your testosterone dropped.

Right. Andropause or menopause in a female or perimenopausal symptoms, very similar.

And do those type of things a lot of times. Do you get a drop in growth hormone at the same time as you might be getting andropause or menopause?

Well, I think over the years, it's just kind of a steady dropping level. But as we were genetically programmed, I don't think we were meant to live to be 80 years old. So I just think as part of our adaptation as human beings, when you're pretty much beyond that midlife crisis, then you don't really need to regenerate as much. We're not continuing maturing and growing, or.

At least we're not meant to be reproducing and doing triathlons when we're 80. No.

Although I have an uncle who did it well into his 70s.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Pretty amazing, though.

So is there a way to test for growth hormone levels?

There's a couple forms of testing. It involves screening blood and giving people or patients either arginine. Or they test insulin levels. And then if your doctor would suspect a real issue involving the pituitary, then it gets a little bit more involved with imaging because a lot of times what makes for low levels is tumors. Pituitary tumors.

Gotcha. Okay, so let's say that somebody either tests and they find out that they're low in growth hormone, or they're experiencing. They're just getting older and they're experiencing kind of a drop in performance or, you know, that natural decline in maybe the amount of watts they could produce on a bike or the amount of weight that they could lift in the weight room or. Or how fast they're able to run. You know, obviously we hear about cyclists going the illegal route and getting these growth hormone injections and doing things that they shouldn't be doing, and that could be dangerous in that regard. But in terms of natural ways to get your growth hormone levels up, I know that's kind of, you know, the practical method is what you specialize in. How is it that folks can get their growth hormone up through their training or their nutrition or otherwise?

Well, with training, it involves a certain protocol, and it tends to favor not so much the slow twitch specialist, but exercising to a level where you start producing that lactic acid. And that will actually, that protocol used in the training regimen will help elevate those levels. But one of the more entertaining ways, I think is through sleep.

And you say entertaining because why?

Well, personally, I really enjoy sleeping. My husband kind of makes jokes about me about how I can drop off in a nap and within three to four minutes I'll fall asleep and then I'll wake up and I'll start telling them about a dream that I had, which is not normal. So in order to really start releasing the human growth hormone, you have to get into that deep, deep sleep where you're starting to dream. And then your body will start producing the human growth hormone through really deep REM cycle type sleep patterns. So the quality of sleep and sleep hygiene is really important when you're training athletes. I emphasize that a lot when I work with my clients. It's not so much the training, but how well are you taking care of yourself post exercise?

Okay, so rewinding just a second and going back to your recommendation that if you want to increase growth hormone that you have to produce lactic acid. Does it matter if you're doing track repeats versus doing weight training or can pretty much anything kind of work?

I think you can work in various modalities as long as you're getting the work to rest ratio right in between the sets.

What does that mean?

It means, for example, if I had a client who was doing deadlifts and I prescribed a certain rep range and weight, I also prescribed to them a rest ratio. So if it takes one minute to do the set, then they need to actually recover for a certain amount of time before they embark on the next set.

Okay, got it. So as far as frequency, like how often folks should be doing stuff like this, producing lactic acid or through harder cardiovascular intervals or by doing weight training, how often do you need to do stuff like this to kind of stave off the declining growth hormone or bump up your growth hormone levels?

You know, that would have to be a case by case kind of scenario depending on the athlete's age, their training volume. Because you don't want to prescribe too much because then it leads to over training and cortisol levels. So that's where working with a coach and being supervised and not self medicating workouts is a good idea because too much is not a good thing.

Okay, gotcha. So training, you want to make sure that you're not doing basically just only long slow aerobic workouts. What about nutrition? Are there things you can do from that standpoint?

Yep, there's a lot. First of all, I think the number One thing to avoid is really high glycemic index, carbohydrates, and I don't know if your clientele, your listeners know what that is, but basically try to stay off of the real fast releasing sugars.

Okay, so those are associated with a decline in growth hormone levels after you consume high amounts of them.

Yeah, I mean, after training, yes, you need it after training for recovery, but just generally meal by meal to sort of modify that. And in addition to that, maybe helping the process a little bit through some amino acid supplementation. And that would be arginine, ornithane at night and glutamine during the day.

Arginine, orthonine and glutamine.

Yep.

Okay, so in terms of, you know, like that morning glass of orange juice that'd kind of be out.

It depends on the individual. But generally speaking, I tend to avoid real high glycemic carbs in the morning and a lot of that depends on the individual as well because some blood types tolerate orange juice, whereas others don't. But I would try to move them more towards a more steady releasing form of sugar in the mornings.

Gotcha. So I'm going to go way out on a limb here and do something that my mom told me no to do, but. How old are you, Elizabeth?

I just turned 48 last week.

And you're out there smashing triathlons and doing these cycling races and stuff like that.

I don't bike race anymore, so I still compete. I'm still pretty competitive, although I'm not training the way I used to because I do have other interests in life.

Right. So what's a typical day of. Because I'm. I'm looking at a picture of you. You look great. You're ripped and everything. What's a typical day of eating actually look like for you?

Oh, the morning starts out with eggs and maybe a protein source. Being from the Midwest, we love our sausage, as they call it here. So I have a nitrate free, nice kind form of meat or something like that. And I have a slice of like Ezekiel bread. I kind of stay away from wheat, thanks to you.

Yeah, me too. Thanks to me.

And that's breakfast number one. And then I get up and then I go and I do horse chores. We have a few horses out at the farm. So I, I kind of joke about the barn as my gym. So I do that and it involves lifting heavy bales of hay and five gallon buckets of water and mucking out stalls. And then I come home and I have breakfast number two, which is Oatmeal or a hearty wheat free, like quinoa type of mash with low glycemic fruits such as blueberries or strawberries. So I have that as breakfast number two.

Wow.

And then I work, and I work most of the day, and if I'm lucky in the afternoon I get in my exercise, which for me is kind of like exorcism. I'm pretty much wired to be very active. So if I don't get my workouts in, it's not very happy at home. And so I put in my exercise being cross country skiing, cycling, little bit of weight training mixed in there, running. I like to partake in a lot of different forms of exercise now that I'm not just on the cycling schedule or I'm not just a triathlete.

Right, gotcha.

And then I make dinner and then it's time to put everybody to bed, usually me first. And before I go to bed, if I'm feeling kind of hungry, I will have some raw almond butter or peanut butter or something like that to sort of hold me over at night. Because if a lot of times, I don't know if you go through this, but if you've been training hard and you don't eat a whole lot or you not quite topped off on your fuel, it's very hard to go to sleep. So sleep is really important. So I take in a snack of maybe some yogurt, Greek yogurt, not the stuff with a lot of sugar in it, and have a little nut butter or something like that, which will allow me to really sleep well through the night because it's so important to start dreaming.

Right, Gotcha. Okay, cool. Do you take supplements?

Since I'm not trying to crush the competition, I basically take fish oils just to make sure. As an insurance policy. I take a multivitamin, but I divide it in half and take that throughout the day. I really try to get it in through food, my nutrition. And after training I'll take some glutamine or if I'm planning a really intense workout, I'll put it into my bottle of whatever I'm drinking. So I don't partake a whole lot in supplements because I'm not racing twice a week or three times a week like I used to when I was cycling. So it just doesn't make sense to me.

So as far as growth hormone goes, kind of coming back full circle to that because I wanted to kind of hear how somebody who seems to be doing pretty well on the growth hormone side of things, is eating throughout the day. I wanted to make sure that we cover this just so folks know. I mean, if you're looking on the Internet for like growth hormones and stuff like that, how do you know if something is illegal or something is dangerous or is there a way to know what you should or shouldn't be doing from that perspective?

Well, I think all of them are illegal. The NFL, the National Baseball League.

They'Re.

Really trying to hammer down on athletes who are taking these drugs and they're developing better and better drug testing methodology where they can go back over 21 days and see if someone has been taking a source of human growth hormone beyond what your body naturally produces. And I just would recommend, no, don't go there. Just try to do it naturally. And if you, if you are really deficit, if you're really struggling, see a qualified doctor or endocrinologist. I would not advise someone to go online and try to get human growth hormone because there's some risks involved.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess the way I think about it is anything that causes cellular growth you want to be kind of careful with, because cellular growth basically is cancer.

Sure. Could include that.

Yeah. It's not like you don't need some of this stuff for recovery. But yeah, dumping inordinate amounts of growth hormone into your body versus putting your body in a state where you can produce it naturally.

Sure.

Two totally different beasts. Cool. Well, folks, for you listening in, I've got a little infographic about human growth hormone that I'm going to put in the show notes to this podcast episode over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com that kind of shows you some visuals of HGH, some of the benefits of HGH, kind of what happens when athletes take it. What kind of a very surprising industry is behind a lot of the illegal HGH that's out there on the market? I'll also put a link to Elizabeth's coaching page if, if you're looking for a coach for endurance sports or for fitness in general. Elizabeth is really good and I would recommend you hook up with her. And we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And Elizabeth, anything else that you wanted to mention?

Basically, don't get sucked in by what Hollywood star is doing to fight aging. I mean, we all get older. I just turned 48, so I'm right there at the end of the baby boomer generation and trying very hard through drug free means to sort of stave off the aging process. And it's not just going and attack it from one side in one direction. It's really a lifestyle change.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, human growth hormone, we didn't touch on this too much, but I mean, a huge, huge market there is not athletes but the whole anti aging sector. And I think what you've touched on today, like as you age, doing hard stuff, lifting heavy stuff, not eating really sweet stuff. I mean, those three things just together are really, really powerful in terms of naturally keeping your eating, your growth hormone levels up. So yeah, good advice and yeah, hopefully you got something out of that, folks. And again, check out the show notes for an infographic that I'll post over there and a link over to Elizabeth where you can see a picture of her running down the beach looking really athletic. Thanks, Elizabeth.

Thank you, Ben.

Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that double interview, super special on aging. And remember, if you have questions, comments or feedback, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and leave what you have to say in the show notes for this podcast episode. And until next time, this is Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

SA.