Simple Ways to Know if You’re Following Protein Rules in Menopause

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25 milligrams of CBD and 25 milligrams CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. If you think you've heard all that you can take about protein, give this podcast a listen. Don't go away. Even if you think we've talked about it all, I've shared it solo, we've interviewed all the guests, I think this will be a refreshing listen for some of you. So I'm joined by Dr. Jordan Robertson, a friend and a colleague who is one of our Canadian friends, and she's going to speak into really how to keep it simple and how to look at what you're doing, what's going to be the most helpful for you no matter where you're starting today.

I'm Debra Atkinson and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness and menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols. While living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve.

The protein rules in menopause change. Need I say more? We've talked about protein before, but not like this. Instead of a complicated SmartScale DEXA scan-based check your numbers hardline obsession, you're going to get a down-to-earth, easy-to-hear support for your protein roles in menopause. My guest Jordan Robertson is an evidence-based naturopathic doctor and the owner of The Confident Clinician, a software built specifically to help clinicians make research-backed decisions for their patients with nutrition, supplements, and lifestyle medicine. I think you're going to enjoy this, and stay to the end where you'll hear rapid-fire questions just for fun. Jordan Robertson, welcome to the show.

Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat with your audience.

I feel like we may or may not have just been at the circus.

We, like, literally, actually, we were actually at the circus together recently.

I'm not talking about my life. This is true, right? Yes. And the beach. All good things with you. So, which brings me to another one. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. And, you know, I think to everyone listening, you either love this conversation, you hate this conversation, you're super curious about this conversation, it makes your palms sweat. There's something to be said about this conversation. So none other than protein and protein needs. And I'm going to dive in with the more personal. Do you wrestle with this at all, with what you should versus what you do, what you used to, what you used to think about it?

You know what, I, I've always been like pretty pro-protein in my life. I'm a like weightlifter. I have spent the last, you know, 10+ years weight training. And I think, you know, there's a lot of like bro culture around using protein to grow muscle. And so I think being in that environment, there was a lot of like very pro-protein conversations happening. Mix that with my training and background as a naturopathic doctor. There was— I had this like, you know, affection for protein. But then when I started to really dive into the research on protein needs, because that's a contentious conversation, protein type, right? Because again, another contentious conversation. And then starting to narrow down the discussion for people in menopause, which is a whole like special interest group that I think requires a unique discussion here. And then it really started to unlock for me where we needed to spend some time and focus to bring the right information to the right people that are in that little group of, well, it's a very big group of people in menopause, to make sure that the information that they received was actually accurate and the right call for them based on their health.

Mm-hmm, amen. So let's go back to the, like, square one for anybody. So I know if you're an OG here and you listen, frequently, you know, this is a frequent topic with guests, with solos, quoting the literature, and we'll link to some of those episodes. But let's go back and talk about this. So it's not just what we learned in, you know, I, I keep remembering like 4, 4, 3, 2, 1 or whatever it was when I was in 4th grade. They made us recite, you know, all the food groups and what we needed. But then it was, okay, here's the RDAs, here's the food guide pyramid, here's what you need to know. Why can we not just listen to that? And why do protein needs change as we age?

Most of our nutrition recommendations are built off of the, like, anti-deficiency theory, right? So when we build those RDAs, the goal of them is for you to not die, not have ultimate wellness, or have have, you know, the, the best performance. Like, there's lots of things we want to do with our body other than just not die, but our nutritional foundations and our recommended daily intakes are built off of this don't die philosophy. So, and what I mean by that is that below the recommendation, there is a like really well-established health consequence. And so we draw the line for where we want you to be just above that number, right? So I've always used the example of vitamin C. You know, the RDA for vitamin C is about 80 to 100 milligrams depending on where you live. Below that, you get scurvy. So we drew a line just above scurvy. Oh my gosh. So that we knew that, like, by and large, people were not going to get scurvy. But nowhere above that number do we talk about, well, what would be the best? What would be the best for my skin? What would be the best for my gout? Right? We don't have that conversation. We just say, make sure you get enough so you don't end up in the hospital. And the discussion around protein has been similar. So our original guesstimate on how much protein you needed was based off net nitrogen losses. So we watched how much nitrogen your body wasted in a day, which was about 0.8 grams per kilo per day. And we set the protein target to be just above that so that we didn't have a net nitrogen loss. Because we assumed if your body was wasting that amount of nitrogen per day, then that means you must require that amount per day. But what that doesn't take into account is what you're doing with your body. It doesn't take into account that, you know, I always say a 21-year-old man can turn a grilled cheese into muscle and a 55-year-old woman has a hard time turning chicken into muscle. And so what those numbers didn't take into account was who you were, what your life stage was, if you had digestive issues, if you were an athlete, if you were having what we would consider now to be called protein resistance, which is as you're aging, your body's utilization of protein starts to change a little bit. So nowhere in that 0.8 grams was any consideration of who you are and what you need. Now the conversation is different and Truthfully, the number is not heroically different now in terms of what we're recommending, but it is higher than that, right? It's taking us above that sort of like basement recommendation. And we're going to sit somewhere now between 1.2 to, I'll say, 1.7 grams per kilo per day. And that depends on who you are, what you're doing with your body, and how much space we want protein to take up in the rest of your diet. Most of our diet we talk about in terms of percentage. Percentages, percentage calories that are carb, percentage of your calories that are coming from fat. Protein is this one where we actually have a hard gram number that we're trying to hit. And for some people, that is going to take up, you know, if we, if we use that higher end of the calculation, it actually gives them a bit too much protein to take up space in their diet. And so lots of things to consider, which I'm sure we'll unpack over the course of this recording. But we actually want you to sit somewhere in that 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilo per day, which is a very easy calculation for you to do.

Say more when you say a very easy calculation.

Yeah, so I want you to take your diet—

your weight— because I was the girl, by the way, you should know, I was the girl who sat for hours at the dining room table doing math.

Okay, so take your body weight and you're going to divide it by 2.2. So if you're coming— if you're, uh, not a lifter, you probably weigh yourself in pounds. It always drives my husband crazy that our scale is set to kilos, but I'm a weight class athlete and I compete in kilos, so our scale is set to kilos already. But if you have measured your body weight in pounds, you're going to divide that by 2.2 to find your weight in kilograms, and then you're gonna— that will help you figure out which weight class you'd be in if you decided to become a master's weightlifter like me. And then you're going to multiply it by 1.5, so that's giving you that average number that falls in the middle of the recommendation foundation I just gave you, that's the number of grams of protein that would be your ideal target, um, for the day.

So let me, let me give you a sample. If you're listening and you're walking, or you too like me sat at the dining room table for very long nights with your stepfather, um, let me ask you this, Jordan, because I've heard recently, um, Dr. Donald Layman is an advocate for protein and one of the world-renowned protein experts, and he will say that for metabolic health, we all need to like tip the scale at about 100 grams, or, or we may not get metabolic benefits. That's if you're— you weigh 100, you weigh 200. But if I do the math for this just now, and I'm rounding just a little bit to make it easy, so if I end up a 130-pound woman, 60, um, is the kgs and I multiply it, I get 90. So I'm not quite hitting that metabolic benefit spot. What do you say to that?

Yeah, and that's a good question. And this is where we get kind of stuck in that we can calculate your nutrition needs in a lot of different ways, right? We can say you have a total caloric need to keep your body in balance. So let's say like all things equal, we're, we're trying to keep our weight exactly the same. There's a number there that where we want to stay eucaloric. That is a different number for a 130-pound woman than it is for a 215-pound man. So to use a broad stroke like everyone must get 100 grams minimum, we are doing someone a disservice and maybe both of those individuals a disservice by giving them that number. I think, in my opinion, the number needs to be more individualized than that. And we also have to remember that everything we eat is replacing something else we could have eaten. So for many petite people, if we use higher numbers and higher, like, upper limit levels, we're doing two things. One is we're making their diet feel literally impossible. And I am very pro-sustainability. So if we give you a number right off the bat, that's very difficult to stick to. You probably won't stick to any number for very long. And I need you to do this forever because we're talking about a forever change. The other piece is, is that that protein starts to take up a lot of space in your nutrition, and that probably means you're doing less of something else that is also healthy, that also belongs in your diet. So if you are eating protein at the cost of vegetables or eating protein at the cost of olive oil or eating protein at the cost of nuts, I don't think we're better, right? I don't think we're that much healthier. Having a more individualized number that's based off your personal body needs is actually much more important. And when we look at the percentage of people that actually hit those numbers, it's not very many people. Like if we survey people walking in the park, nobody's eating enough. And so having people eat even more than that, I don't think needs to be the public health or that widely discussed goal. I think I think having people eat enough is the priority.

I think that's so important, and you said that so nonchalantly that I want to point it out to everybody that that was potentially the mic drop right there. You survey people walking through the park, we would find out that most people are under-eating, not overeating. And so you may or may not be able to tell from Jordan's lovely accent that she is Canadian. So I can safely say this because I live in the United States, that we are the most over- that an undernourished country on the planet— I mean, in the United States, we've done that to ourselves. But it's true for a lot of people. And one of the places that I like to start with somebody, because most people have no idea— so before I ask you, what do you find is true for most of the patients that you work with, I like to start them like tracking. Like, let's not even give you a target. Let's first find out what you have been been doing, because we know those are habits that got you to where you are today, and we just know we're going to change those before we even talk about numbers. Because unfortunately, that's the first question. Do you find that people are saying, how much should I eat? So speaking to that, you see lots of patients on average. Do you know what are they, what are they consuming?

Yeah, I would say the problem with people's protein intake is the lack of consistency. And so And what that does is if you haven't tracked, you remember the good days, right? You don't remember the bad days. And that this is true for all nutrition, right? You don't remember like the venti frappuccinos. We don't remember the—

is that the big one? Is that big?

That's a really big one. Yeah. You don't remember like the rhubarb pie. You remember the like salad that you slaved over or like that's the part we remember. And so we definitely have some recall bias when it comes to protein. And we even have research on this that we will overreport our protein when someone asks us. And then if we like snuck behind you and actually like peeped over the side of the counter, you eat less than you report. And so usually I start by having people track, but then, you know, I'm comfortable giving people numbers right out of the gate because it helps them create that target. And, you know, people are always so interested in getting better like 5 days ago. Right. And so I always give people numbers right out of the gate so we can try and meet their lack of patience and expectations at the same time. But typically what people will notice is that they have very well protein days and then it's followed by many days of low protein or they're like, oh geez, that was a day that I grabbed it. Peanut butter sandwich before going to a hockey game. So even though in my mind I think I have meat at dinner, that should catch me up. Look at how many days a week you don't eat at home, or you don't eat dinner, or you eat on the run, or whatever it is. Usually those things that we actually consider to maybe be, uh, not frequent in our schedule happen more frequently than you think. And then when we start to add up all of those times, we've realized that maybe 3 or 4 days a week you don't hit that number, and that's where we can't get the outcome we're looking for because it has to be quite consistent that you get that number.

Such a good point. That was really a good point. I'm going to throw something out at you that I hear a lot, and, and I always dig a little bit on this, but do you hear this? Getting in the protein is hard.

Totally. Yeah, there's, there's, and there's And I think that's for two reasons. One is that people's— the way that we grew up. Right. And again, it depends on your culture a little bit in your background. But the way that we grew up is that the protein-containing meals were time-consuming. Right. So if you imagine like a high-protein dinner, you're like, okay, that was like a roast that we had on Sundays. Right. Or that was my mom made this casserole and it was full of chicken and she was in the kitchen since 2:00 'clock this afternoon. That was our— that's our vision of what high protein looks like. We don't have a lot of experience with high protein fast food. And by fast food, I could mean something like scrambled eggs, or I could mean something like a protein shake or something like Greek yogurt, where those are fast foods that would actually really beef up your protein intake that do not require cooking.

Cooking.

But when we prescribe more protein, for most people, that equates to more cooking. And so then they feel like it's difficult. The other piece is, is that we have a hard time making nutrition changes, period, right? We're very habitual. Um, most people don't identify as having a ton of time and zero stress, and yet we're asking them to make a change that happens 3 or 4 times per day. And so when we look at that mountain of change and we're asking you to make almost a culture change in terms of like how you eat every day, I don't know about you, but when I get sick, I'm like, I make a grilled cheese, right? Like, this is just what happens when you're sick. You have a grilled cheese. We revert back to our sort of like cuisine of origin or our comfort foods under distress. And given how challenging most people feel about their workload and their life load, it's, it's hard to sustain a change that really is anti to your culture. So having a mix of the fast foods, which I listed a few there, in with the, you know, cooking and all of the higher protein meals that require effort and prep, I think is really one of the ways to help with success. Whereas if everything— if you imagine having to cook every single meal that has protein in it, you will quit on day 2 because nobody has time for that.

So true. So many good points in there. And, and I laugh because otherwise you would cry because it's all very true.

The outcome is the crying.

Yeah. I'm going to throw in more things to make us cry more, but here's this. So if you're working with women in midlife, a lot of times there are also gut changes, microbiome changes, and they find they're not tolerating the same thing. So if we look at sources of protein. And then we say, oh, again, culture shock and change. Like, dairy doesn't work for you, or eggs and soy don't work. We've just said that protein, not that protein, and you should have lots of protein but not those. Like, you know, I mean, can we make it a little harder? This is like Rubik's Cube for some women.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there's one thing that you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need.

You've got to do that in the kitchen.

To make it easy for myself to not only get the protein but the fiber, fruits and veggies that I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day over 30 years ago when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want hiding in most protein powders or pre-made shakes. I finally caved in after After years of saying I'd never ever ever sell supplements, look, stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning and after workouts by always being prepared. Protein plus fiber kill cravings and boost satiety and build muscles and a strong future. Use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today.

Totally. And I would say, you know, and I'm not, uh, I'm not a gut expert, but I, I have lots of wonderful people in my life and circles that are gut experts. And I would say if that list is long and you're a stressed-out individual, you know, and you feel like all of those foods are really triggering, uh, to to use that word, that, you know, that, that's actually maybe a sign that your gut is hypersensitive, not that the foods themselves are horrible. And it's, it's always a goal of mine to help people get back to some level of food freedom because you should be able to have some diversity in our diet. And so if you feel really— now I'm not saying go eat like 3 cups of legumes if you've never had a legume in your life. Like, that— there's nothing we can do about what you have just embarked on. From a gas and bloating perspective, but you should have some food freedom in foods that are not as difficult to digest, like eggs and, and dairy. And so if that's, you know, if as we're listing off all those foods, you're like, well, my diet doesn't have any of those things in it. Like, again, I'm not an expert at, at GI health, but I would really recommend that that's a great place for you to start and look because Ideally, we'd love for you to have some dietary diversity, and it's likely pointing to some gut hypersensitivity, IBS, and things that are making all foods feel so offensive.

So agree with that. And, and I think it right now is a great place to insert something that not only pertains to protein, but protein breakdown, protein absorption, but all micronutrient absorption. And if you have those gas or bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or you just checked 4 boxes. I'm so sorry, sister. But looking at that, because, you know, even if you're only eating good, quote-unquote, healthy foods, potentially it's not all going to the good of you. Very recently, study came out kind of isolating and looking at— it's not just about protein. Muscle mass versus muscle strength also is very dependent. Muscle strength is very dependent on micronutrient sufficiency. So we can't even just go popping essential amino acid pills without thinking, but wait a minute, you know, we actually need to bring this in whole foods and make sure we're sufficient in all the micronutrients that go to actually also support the muscle. And now we've got evidence where I don't know that we've ever heard that before.

Yeah, our understanding of muscle as more of a complex organ has definitely improved over the last 5 years and, and our understanding of what happens when we have like fatty deposits in our muscle. Because when, as we age and we can, you know, dive into this a bit more, especially for women in menopause, is our protein needs actually go up in order to try and sustain the same level of muscle building muscle or preventing muscle breakdown. Because as we age, we— not that we lose the ability to make muscle, it is possible, it just gets harder. Most of our efforts are towards anti-breakdown or preventing catabolism. And we know that protein is required. We know that our protein needs go up. We need to eat a bit more than our grilled cheese, 21-year-old man here in order to have that same effect. But we also know now that like having decades of, you know, like processed foods or decades of maybe hypernutrition or overnutrition nutrition that creates fatty deposits in our muscle changes that muscle chemistry. So it's a bit more inflamed, it's even less likely to be promoting anabolism and a little bit more likely to have catabolism. And many nutrients, antioxidants, fish oil, things that improve that entire, uh, ecosystem inside the muscle are actually helping prevent muscle breakdown with and it's really acknowledging that muscle is more of a complex organ than just protein.

So true. And so what's your favorite way of tracking muscle, and how does a woman know if she is losing muscle? What do you like to do, and how frequently do you like them to do it?

Yeah, I would say like just on, on in general, most women have measured their health their entire entire lives just based on their crude weight on the scale, right? And so if you get on the scale and you're plus or minus 5 pounds, and then you maybe feel like your body has not changed a whole lot in the last couple of years. But a very simple way of understanding your muscle mass is actually to ask the question of whether or not your body shape has changed, even if your weight has stayed the same. And, you know, easy maybe when we look at, say, like our male partner, where you remember them as, you know, having their broad shoulders and small waist in high school. And now, you know, and, you know, even remember men in my family being like, I've weighed the same for 30 years. I'm like, but the body shape has changed a lot in 30 years. And what has happened is a loss of that appendicular muscle mass, which is like arms and legs muscle mass, and an increase in visceral adiposity or weight carrying around the middle. They weigh the same, but the tissue is different. And And for women, it's not quite as easy to see. It's why I always use the male example, because we can all think of people in our lives that maybe we've watched that happen in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. For women, though, it's the same effect that have we lost appendicular muscle mass and we've gained visceral adiposity? That is a very crude way of saying, is my body composition changing with age here? Even if my weight on the scale has stayed about the same, has my pant size gone up Maybe I don't fill out my blouse like through the back shoulders and arms like I used to. That's just a very simple way of knowing if your muscle mass has changed. Now you can get into more specific assessments and some of them are functional assessments. So can you get up out of a chair without using the arms on the chair? Can you get up off the floor relatively easily? Do you find your walking speed has changed? Has changed. And if you are like sitting in your 50s, you may not yet see these changes, right? You may not have the level of muscle failure that we see in our 70s and 80s for you to pay attention to this. But technically, if you are seeing a reduction in speed and strength and power in any of your daily life activities or in the gym, then we can make an assumption that we are having some loss of muscle tissue and we're moving towards that sort of— we we call it muscle failure, when those activities of daily living become impossible without assistance. Now, you can actually do scans and be assessed with body impedance. Many clinics will have a body impedance machine that will do a pretty decent job of looking at muscle mass and body composition. The, my recommendation around that is that people actually have it tested more than once and do serial testing like over a period of time, especially if you're going to do stuff, whether it's dieting, whether it's training, whether it's a GLP medication. You really should be tracking those numbers over a period of time, not just looking at one number, because that can be quite misleading. If we just look at one number, we want to look at rate of change over time. Now, in research, we often use things like MRI, CT, DEXA to assess muscle loss. And that's not very accessible to the average person. But sometimes when you're listening to someone talk about muscle mass, they talk about it in those terms as if we all could just like go down to the corner store and get a DEXA done to figure out what's happening with our muscle. If those are not available to you, you can relatively easily tell if you've lost muscle mass by using those other more clinical assessments that I suggested. Even just looking at your body shape can make a huge difference. And understanding what's happening there.

Yeah, that was so good, so user-friendly and very inclusive of anyone who's here. So you brought up GLP-1. I don't want to make this a GLP-1 conversation. We've had some of those. If you're listening and you want to go deeper, you can find those. But I would like to ask, because I think when that conversation first started, you know, a year and a half, 2 years ago, everybody was, you know, very emotional one side or the other. This is terrible, or no, it's got a place, or it's good. Or, um, now that we've had time to see it, are you seeing many patients come back in? And, and is it true that patients or people who have been on it then tried to go off, are they in fact losing the muscle mass that, that we feared they would? Are we seeing that no, they're not, they're, they're countering it by making lifestyle changes as well, like resistance training and eating protein when they eating? What do you see?

Yeah, it's a great question. And it's one of those— like, one of the things we struggle with the most in medicine is like understanding what the most important lever to pull is in someone's life. And I would say in the health and wellness community, we almost villainize every lever, right? Don't pull that one. It causes this. Don't pull that one. It's made of aluminum, right? Like, we literally will, will, will trash talk every solution, you know, and we have this almost purist mentality around on how people should carry out their health and well-being. And yet most of the people who get through their entire lifetime without medication are just genetically privileged, not that they've, you know, been better than the rest of us. And so for the vast majority of people, pulling a lever in their healthcare leads to better outcomes, whether that's less death from cardiovascular disease, less complications due to diabetes, or less other complications that are associated with obesity that are incredibly well-documented. Implemented. All caloric restriction causes muscle loss. Now, before, you know, the bros jump down my throat, you technically could preserve your muscle mass in caloric restriction if you eat enough protein and you resistance train— resistance training maybe being the superior of those two activities. But both of those really must be true if you're in a calorie deficit to prevent muscle loss. The thing is, is when we're using the GLPs is that we're talking about people that are in larger body people that have significant insulin resistance, and people whose caloric deficit is going to be larger than a bro at the gym who's trying to just lose 5 pounds before he goes to Mexico, right? The deficit becomes larger, and so some of the tissue that is lost during that caloric restriction is going to be muscle, and it's difficult to prevent it even if we put the right practices in place. Those practices really should be there to prevent as little muscle loss as possible and to try counterbalance the effect of a low-calorie diet on muscle mass, but also to create habit change and to create sustainability in the entire process. If the patient does decide to discontinue the medications at a later date, most patients who discontinue GLPs will regain some weight. At this moment, we believe that they— the weight they regain is still less than the weight that they lost in the first place, which is positive, right? When we're talking about patients at a very high risk for diabetes and other complications, all weight that we've lost, like from start to finish, is positive for those patients. And especially if we can have a weight loss of 5% of their initial starting weight, which in this moment, that group of patients really are achieving that, even if they've regained some weight after they come off the medication. But it is challenging and it's actually a cost that we're in that population we're willing to accept, right? Because it's— there is a greater benefit than there is the cost of losing some muscle. The curious part would be about patients who don't have a high risk of cardiometabolic disease. So if we're using those medications in patients who really aren't meeting some of that criteria, is the benefit still outweighing the cost of the loss of some muscle? So for the average weight woman who wants to lose 10 pounds, but she's average weight, what is her greatest health risk? Right. Some of them are osteoporosis. Some of it is sarcopenia. So now we've thrown conditions where muscle mass is actually one of the bigger predictors into the mix. So is it still the right thing to pull that lever in that patient when we know that they're going to have some muscle loss? Cost, and one of their bigger health risks is related to muscle mass, that's a harder question because we're, you know, it's, it's less clear-cut. Whereas in the patient who has a very well-defined cardiovascular profile, that patient, like, we pull that lever, right? Like, and we are totally okay if we lose a little bit of muscle along the way because we are doing so much good for that patient with that process.

Wow, very good. So many good thoughts in there. And, and I'm so glad that you brought that up, that there's always this risk-reward ratio. And for you, as you go along on a certain path, you should be touching base with that reward-risk ratio again. Like, it's not a constant, it's always a moving target. That was really valuable, I think, for anybody to look it. You know, this is what I've been doing, but is it right? And looking at how am I looking at the tracking of that so I've got data, even if it's my own physical data, my own physical evidence that I'm there. What are your thoughts on plant versus animal protein?

Yeah, I love this question, and it's timely for me because I've had to change my mind about it. And so And really, like, I like what you brought up there, Deb, because that reevaluation is really important to make sure that we still are on the right path, that we still agree with, right, the process and the path that we're on. And sometimes even as providers, we can get, you know, a little bit narrow-sighted and stick to our guns around our first decision and first ideas. Without backing up and willing to reexamine where, where people are or look at a case with fresh eyes. Right. That's something that's very hard to do even as a clinician. And so, you know, one of my goals and values is to always be as unbiased as possible, to always examine my own internal decision-making processes and then help clinicians make better decisions that are free from bias as well.. And so for the longest time, I— we thought— I'll say we, the royal we, like meaning the medical community, thought that animal-based protein was superior, right? We had calculators that said that it was superior, right? We rated whey protein basically as our standard and everything deviated from whey protein. We scored plant-based proteins as being less than. And it really started this culture of like plant-based proteins are incomplete. Plant-based proteins can't meet our needs, yada, yada, yada. And I very much agreed with that. And truthfully, that is what the information was available at the time. Whereas now we have much more literature on the benefits of soy-based protein and having a well-balanced diet that includes plant-based protein. So when we looked at all of those protein rating scales, they were very reductionistic, right? We'd look at like each individual individual protein on its own and then say, well, you know, it on its own couldn't help. But nobody just eats like lentils and then nothing else, right? They're eating it in the context of a wider diet. And for most people, plant-based protein is not going to completely replace their omnivore diet. So the addition of plant-based protein has many other health benefits. It probably has environmental impacts. Well, I know it has environmental impacts. I can't say probably because that's not my area of expertise, but it also has additional health benefits that if we replace some of our animal-based protein with plant-based protein, we can improve our cardiovascular outcomes, etc., even more. So I've changed my answer around this where I used to say, well, if you want to be vegetarian, you can, but you'll never, you know, you'll never hit the protein target. That's just not true. And so I'm happy to report that, uh, and even in my grocery Instacart last week, I got 2 things of tofu because I was like, I, I need to put this into practice in my own life. And so I air fried some tofu last week so that, uh, I could incorporate more plant-based protein.

So good.

I— and the other thing I love that you said there without saying it was, you know, you don't just eat one thing in isolation. And that is my hope for all listeners, because I know sometimes you can go down that track, or you can feel like you've eliminated so many foods because you're not dealing with the root cause of what's going on with your gut, by the way, but the diversity of your diet. And if you are having a far more diverse— I think that's where my biggest concern lies with clients that I've seen who try to go, you know, they're going vegetarian or vegan and they're eating the same foods on repeat, you know, in order to get their protein in. And whether that whether it's somebody eating animal protein or it's plant protein, that still is problematic if we're not getting diversity in. We all need to look at that no matter which side of the fence you might be on. So thanks for sharing that. Um, okay, one more question and then I have some rapid-fire fun questions for you. What about, uh, a bolus, you know, getting 30-35 grams of protein per meal versus— so we're really talking probably 3 bigger meals with boluses throughout the day, or, you know, 5 or 6 meals throughout the day for somebody who can't either stomach that, can't get it in. So that is kind of the difference between is it important to sit down at that event and/or is the number at the end of the day most important, or is this a depends on the person sitting in front of you?

Yeah, it's a great question. I just lectured about this, um, to a group actually, and I drew this like terrible infographic. It was not even an infographic, it was just an arrow. And the purpose of the— of my arrow, um, which I at least put in my brand colors, uh, that's my— that's my like graphic design at its finest, is an arrow in my my brand colors. But what I was representing was that there is always going to be a better option. What we need to make sure is that we're doing our first option with consistency. And, and this couldn't be more true than with this protein conversation. So if someone isn't hitting that base number, the number becomes the most important. If someone isn't resistance training, then that becomes the next most important thing. If someone isn't, you know, including a diversity in protein. So there is this kind of like hierarchy that we could move towards because I often get asked the question like, well, should I have protein right after I weight train? And I'm like, if that's where we're at, then yes. But if you are not hitting that number every day, if you are not resistance training 3 times per week, right? You aren't actually meeting the previous step, and you can't get fancy until you hit the previous step. You can't get any fancier than just hit the number. But if you're hitting the number with consistency, then yes, like taking that one step up of a little bit of post-exercise timing and having it with— and, and then of course hitting the resistance exercise 3 times per that's always going to have a better outcome than just the basic hit the number. And so certainly that can be a goal that you work towards, but not at the cost of hitting those other things more consistently, right? If it starts— if your protein timing starts to consume you and you have it in a spreadsheet and like magneted to your fridge, and now that means you find other parts of your health journey more difficult, then I would focus on other things and not your protein timing. But if you are really nailing it and you want to, you know, take it that one step further, then yes, the like multiple times per day, because even at 30 grams per meal, most people are a little bit shy, right? Based on their starting body weight, they're going to be a little under what that recommendation is for them. And so they probably need to find one more, uh, meal in there per day, which could easily look like protein powder if you're finding it hard to get it in.

So glad you said that. Okay, now for the fun stuff, which was— this is a little bit more about exercise, not really about nutrition, but super fun rapid-fire questions for you personally. Walk— walking versus running Walking. Yoga versus Pilates? Neither. Don't make me come over there. You— I know you're stretching, right?

Okay, I'm stretching. Yes, I have a stretching routine, but I don't really like either of them. Now truthfully, if I had all the hours in the day, like, I would go to a hot yoga class and find that very relaxing.

Relaxing.

Um, so I guess I will say yoga, but I— at my like training volume right now, it takes up so much time that I can't find even one more hour to do a yoga class.

Early bird or night owl? Early bird. Sweet versus salty? Oh, uh, sweet. Awesome. Okay, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for giving us a new lens to look through in regard to protein in this conversation. It was so valuable. I'm glad we got to touch on GLP-1 to kind of do an update because we really have not talked about that for a long time. And it is, it is definitely a part of the conversation in this culture. Where can listeners connect with you for more?

Yeah, I like Instagram. I know not everyone enjoys Instagram, but I quite enjoy it. I think it's a great platform to share quick tips, to share, you know, some humor, some like real life personality. And so that's probably the best place to find me, which is my handle is @drjordannd. So like Dr. Jordan, and you'll find me over there. And then that's kind of like that opens up the path to like all other things, whether you are a practitioner, whether whether you are a health seeker, you can find everything you need to know there.

Fabulous. And she is, by the way, she showed you a side gig as a stand-up comic. So you probably want to go and check that out if you're at all on Instagram. Dr. Jordan, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit Flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.