Muscle Doctor: The Shocking Link Between Muscle and Dementia

Alzheimer's is type 3 diabetes of the brain. You can always improve muscle, and you can always improve brain. Strength becomes a responsibility. Alzheimer's dementia, it's not separate from the muscle. What's good for muscle is good for brain. You have to start before you're ready. You're never going to be able to be ready for the thing that you never did. Let's say someone, they're in traffic and someone cuts them off. When you do resistance training, you improve your inhibitory control. You actually become better At being able to control that impulse. It's the only organ system we have full 100% voluntary control over. We are designed to grow and change. We're evolving dynamic beings, and adaptability is the name of the game for humans. Help improve neuroplasticity, help improve cognitive function and executive function. That is one of the early indicators of impaired cognition. To be fair, when people say, I don't have time to train, can you imagine having time for illness? There's Characters and values, and those are non-negotiable, and those are how you do everything. Number one, take action before you're ready. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to create excuses.

Can you imagine going a couple days without working out?

No. Aging is inevitable, but how we do it is within our control.

What is discipline to you?

The first level of discipline is—

Let's talk about growing your muscle to grow your mental muscle. A lot of people have this, this myth that maybe that jocks aren't that smart or have the brainpower. That's not something that I subscribe to, but we're gonna talk about unraveling those lies, those limiting ideas that we entertain. And we're gonna talk about the science of building muscle to build more brainpower, brain fitness, if you will. And I'm really excited So excited to be here live at Limitless Live with one of our keynote speakers, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. And she is— the CV, this would take the whole episode if we talked about this. She's a board-certified osteopathic doctor who's also a researcher, bestselling author. And welcome to the show.

I'm so excited to be here.

Yes.

You got it right. Mo' muscle, mo' brain.

More muscle, more brain. And so our audience, they're avid learners. You know, they are brain enthusiasts. And so, I wanted to talk about the science behind it. And you have a new book coming out.

I do.

And it's— is it a compendium to the original book? Because I know a lot of our audience has Forever Strong.

This is the book that I wish that I was able to write the first time.

Okay.

It's the playbook. So, it's all of the science distilled down and more. You know, You mentioned brain, and part of what is so important is how do we bridge the gap between interest and action?

Yes.

People don't act when they're interested. They act when they're really informed and inspired and knowing that there's an outcome that's gonna be meaningful for them. And so that's why I wrote the playbook. It has protocols to build muscle, which then build brain function. It has protocols how to move fast, which we're gonna talk about in this episode, which also allows you to think fast. The faster you move through high-intensity interval training, the faster you think.

And everybody wants that, right? Nobody wants to be the opposite of that, like be a slow thinker.

Or a slow mover, right? Or a slow mover. It takes all day. But I think it's really fascinating when we think about what do we do to help maintain brain function. And you and I have chatted about this before, but I trained in geriatrics and nutritional sciences at WashU.

And memory.

And memory and aging was one of my jobs, was to run a memory and aging clinic as a fellow.

Okay. And so who's the research that you're doing and that you put in the book, who's it for?

Everybody and anyone with a brain.

Okay, that's hopefully everybody.

I could say a joke, but no one will find it funny. But yes, everybody.

Okay, so I think of a couple also as well. What are some of the myths that people believe that is not true, that the science is saying is not true?

Well, one of the things I think that people unfortunately believe is that they, if they haven't started training, that they can't build muscle. Let's say someone is in their 60s or 70s and they're listening to this, or even in their 50s, and they say, you know what, I have not spent a lifetime training. Is it gonna work for me? It probably won't work. That's not true. You can build muscle at any age. You can always improve muscle. And you can always improve brain. There's some form of brain function that I think is really valuable. Also, there's something else. When we talk about the domains of cognition, which you talk a lot about in terms of how to think about cognitive speed, processing speed, but the one thing that always gets better as we age, hopefully, is wisdom.

Yeah. In my 50s, we have 2 young children, and a lot of our students who are podcast listeners, they're global. Right. They're at different ages and stages of their life, and they come to us and they see remarkable benefits from our memory training at different, even in their 60s, 70s, and beyond, which is amazing with neuroplasticity. And I know I have this phrase that I've been saying for a few decades, as your body moves, your brain grooves, right? When you're exercising, I mean, you could talk about BDNF and all the other benefits.

Yeah. Shall I?

Yeah, I would love to. Let's go into the, let's get geeky about the science.

Well, I think the overarching theme is, in order to build a healthy brain, you have to build a healthy body.

Yeah, and 'cause your brain's part of your body.

It absolutely is. And a large portion of the brain is dedicated to movement, motor pathways. And rather than training the brain first for some of these things, if you train the body first, then regardless of the strength outcome, your brain improves. And there's a number of reasons as to why that is. So simply by saying a resistance training program, 2 to 3 days a week, very basic, say, I don't know, 8 to 12 repetitions of a handful of full-body exercises would be enough to help improve cognitive function.

So why aren't people doing that? Are they just interested or what's the—

Yeah.

A lot of people, like, they know they should be moving more. Yeah.

And I've thought about this quite a bit. We live in a society that allows for comfort, and we want to choose the comfortable path now. But the reality is, when people do that, life becomes much harder. Rather than choosing the harder path, and same with cognitively, you know, it's difficult to learn a new skill, and weight training is a new skill.

Yeah.

But if we turn away from that, then down the line, the path is much more difficult.

The primary reason we have a brain, the number one reason is actually to control our movement, right? Even with children, you know, learning how to crawl and movement is so very important, you know, and children, they're not moving as much, right?

Yeah, I mean, this is a huge problem. What you're really talking about is childhood obesity and how would that affect cognitive function later on down the line. Another thing that I thought was really interesting as I was preparing to come here was the idea of hot cold inhibition. So I'm going to explain to you what that is, is that let's say someone has, I don't know, they're in traffic and someone cuts them off. When you do resistance training, you improve your inhibitory control.

Wow.

When you get angry. So it's this hot control. You actually become better at being able to control that impulse. Alternatively, something called a cold control is, let's say there's something emotionally neutral, The active resistance training also improves that.

That's so interesting.

Yeah, and again, it's, what is this bidirectional relationship? Another thing that I'll say is that Alzheimer's disease, which I think a lot of your students are extremely worried about, and rightly so, well, the brain gets Alzheimer's, which is, again, there's many ways, many reasons as to why, but a primary reason is a metabolic component. There's typically a loss of volume, a loss of processing, but muscle gets its own form of dementia.

Muscle dementia?

Sarcopenia. Sarcopenia mirrors dementia of the brain.

Wow. And so, by using— so, people hear about, like, a mind-body connection, but there's also body-mind connection. that they could move in there. And then, plus, they actually— dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, all these very important neurochemicals that nourish the brain, besides blood flow and oxygen.

Absolutely.

I mean, it just goes on and on.

And what's really fascinating, and how do we reorient people to skeletal muscle as this organ system, as an endocrine organ, is that it's the only organ system we have full 100% voluntary control over. I'll give you an example. Well, you might be different because you could probably control your brain completely, but for the rest of us, I know that if I'm really struggling and in a bad mood and I can't meditate my way out of it or do any of those things, the fastest thing to move me from that pattern is a physical movement. I mean, you try being in a bad mood and cold plunging. You don't even remember what you're talking about.

Right.

But the reality is, aside from that, is it's the only organ system you have control over, and that's skeletal muscle. So, that means that strength becomes a responsibility.

We did an episode on cognitive antifragility when it comes to the brain that, I mean, you just think about our biology, you think of hormesis, like a hormetic response to heat, cold, exercise, and it mirrors, it's like through that struggle, you get strength. With challenge, you get Even with a child, you know, a baby that's exposed to more bacteria, that they have a stronger response. So they don't just, their immune system's stronger, right? So they don't just, so antifragility, when it comes to the brain, what we talk about is not just bouncing back, there's actually a bouncing forward.

I love that.

You know, and then same thing with exercise, physical exercise.

Yes, and what you're talking about is building capacity. And capacity is really fascinating. It's your ability to not just meet the challenge, but to exceed the challenge.

And that's something that, Resilience must be built.

It cannot be taught, but it must be forged through action. And in order to build muscle, and not even just build muscle, in order to move your body and really be embodied, you must be willing to go through that challenge and that discomfort as opposed to run the other way. It's required.

So it's even beyond resilience, right? Resilience will get you to the baseline, but pushing yourself, getting outta that comfort zone that you talked about, You know, I always say, even mentally, you know, life is difficult for one of two reasons. Either you're leaving your comfort zone, right? You're exercising, you're starting that business, you're doing something outside of your comfort zone, or life's difficult 'cause you stay in your comfort zone.

It's more difficult if you stay in your comfort zone. Because if you think about anything in life, as humans, we are not designed to be stagnant. So, I'll give you an example. Let's say in your 20s, you do the same exercise program and the same diet. And then you move that to your 50s, probably doesn't work.

Right.

Right? It's, we are designed to grow and change. We're evolving dynamic beings, and adaptability is the name of the game for humans. And, if you don't provide a garden to adapt to, then decay is inevitable.

It's interesting, kind of mirrors, like, neuroplasticity, right? Making new connections requires novelty and nutrition. Novelty, right? You have to have some kind of stress or stimulus and nutrition to be able to feed your brain with, you know, what's good for cognitive health. But same thing with your physical muscles.

Yes, and—

You need novelty nutrition.

You do. And one of the things that you said was so interesting is you said BDNF. When you contract skeletal muscle through exercise, whether it's the duration or intensity of contraction, there are thousands of different myokines. One of those is BDNF. So the contracting skeletal muscle connects to the brain Beyond just the nervous system, but actually the chemical messengers, the chemicals that are released from muscle into the bloodstream that pass the blood-brain barrier to help with neurogenesis, to help improve neuroplasticity, to help improve cognitive function and executive function. So if we think about working memory, the ability to do a tip, so let's say you're at the restaurant and you've got to figure out how to do a tip, your working memory is holding something in your mind while trying to then improve something. And these are all things that can be improved through physical activity and must be.

And I like having this conversation because sometimes adults, they need to know the why in order to have some kind of purpose. You know, without reasons, we don't normally, you know, go for the results.

I totally agree. And I think that's very wise because it's much less impactful to be told to do something. So if I say, okay, well, you have to train to be strong, If you don't understand that aging is inevitable and strength is a responsibility, and here's exactly why it's a non-negotiable and it's a standard that you set, then you will continue to do the same thing over and over again, right? You can't eat a bunch of processed food because, you know, you know too much. You can't just, you know, you're not like downing red dye going, oh my God, this is so good for me. You probably look at that and go, you know, this is probably not the best decision.

Right.

And you can't unsee it. And so I think the same is important for understanding why we do something.

I had a friend, a family member who, senior, had an accident and broke their hip, and so lost a lot of their ability to move, to do stairs, to do their exercise. And then I saw, spending time, that there was a brain decline in terms of performance.

Yeah, that is one of the early indicators of impaired cognition. So when I was a fellow at WashU, one of the things that we did is we did a handful of physical battery tests. So it was a sit and stand, and it's a gait speed.

Yeah.

When those begin to decline, and also, frankly, low muscle mass is an indicator of early potential cognitive impairment. And so in the playbook, I actually put in Foundational exercises, not training, but ways that you can move your body that's also isometric mobility and things. So if someone is 70 who's listening to this and going, you know what, I'm not ready for that, we have a handful of prehab or things to prevent injury to help with balance and stability.

And in society, and this is anecdotal, but through observation, you know, we do scan the brain, we check, doctors check, You know, for the heart. But, what is being done? How are people testing muscle though, right?

Not very well.

Okay.

I'm hoping in the next handful of years that we fix this.

So, I would think, like, especially leg strength would be so very important.

So, leg strength is related to improved cognitive function, right? The stronger— that's why I don't know where the dumb jock came from because I'm thinking this guy's jacked. You know, you've got Naisima on here and I'm thinking this guy's got to be a genius, right? He's so strong.

Right.

Leg strength is one of the biggest correlators of cognitive function. When we think about versus anywhere else in the body, it's leg strength. And, it makes a lot of sense. Is it potentially because that's where all your muscle is? Is that the site of, again, largely insulin resistance? Because Alzheimer's dementia, it's not separate from the muscle. What's good for muscle is good for brain. And, Alzheimer's is type 3 diabetes of the brain.

Wait, say that again, for— that's worth repeating.

Alzheimer's dementia is often thought of as type 3 diabetes of the brain. So it's insulin resistance in the brain. And typically insulin resistance in skeletal muscle happens before insulin resistance in the brain.

Interesting.

So what is good for muscle is good for brain.

So, like, after a meal, considering those glucose spikes, managing insulin resistance, do you do, like, a workout or do you—

No, just get moving, just get walking.

Yeah.

It doesn't have to be major. And then the other thing is that—

But just having muscle will help with those.

Having healthy muscle will help.

Healthy muscle.

Having healthy muscle. And this is actually the new frontier that I'm just starting to talk about, is that, number one, the amount of muscle that you have is very important. People will say, well, it's just strength. Well, no, because it's your glucose disposal. So when you eat carbohydrates, it has to go to somewhere. I currently still see patients, and sometimes patients will come that look fit, 18% body fat, but they don't have enough muscle, and they've got elevated triglycerides, elevated glucose, elevated insulin, not because they're overweight or not because they have a high body fat, but it's because they have low muscle mass.

And those glucose, that affects your brain, obviously.

It affects the brain. Again, what's good for muscle? Muscle is a reflection of brain. Low muscle mass typically precedes low and changes in brain volume and just brain activity. So how do we begin to think about recalibrating that? You asked a question about carbohydrates and do you go for a walk after? And one of the things that I'm starting to teach is something called carbohydrate tolerance.

Okay, what's that?

It's just as we think about designing a diet or nutrition plan, how many carbohydrates can we have, not just in a day, But on a per-meal basis to protect brain and to protect muscle.

Interesting. So then what is— let's say we panned out here, or if we just, you know, followed you, you know, in a typical day, what would that look like in terms of—

Lots of pushups.

Lots of pushups. Yeah.

Okay. I joke, my jokes are not funny, but yes, lots of pushups. I wake up pretty consistently at the same time, not on purpose, because I have kids kicking me in the face. So they're like jiu-jitsu at night. Still working on, in all honesty, still working on getting them out of the bed, 4 and 6. But, I wake up pretty much at the same time every day. So, it's 6 o'clock, a little bit before 6 in the morning. And then, I get up and I'm usually active really fast.

Okay. And, what does that generally look like? And, is that adaptable for people of different—

It is. So, it doesn't matter what or where you are, you can do something physical. So, I typically, I get up and If I'm taking my kids to school, they have a little, we have a little training plan. For the kids?

Mm-hmm.

And, it's, so we have a whole little chart for them, and it's pushups, sit-ups, handful of sprints. Again, we don't force them, but they love it. The brain and humans love structure.

Right.

So, we do that. And, if it's, so that is 2 days a week, plus Saturday and Sunday. And then, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I start training by 7. And I do an hour of resistance training. So I do a prehab workout, some kind of stretches. I do those twice a day, sometimes 3 times a day, and then 3 days a week of full-body training. And then the 4th day is a bit of a high-intensity day.

I'm always looking for ways to keep my brain and my body performing their best. And the older I get, I'm in my 50s, the more I care about my cells, because your cells are where your your energy, your strength, and your focus actually comes from. If your cells are slowing down, everything slows down with them. So recently I started taking Timeline's MitoPure Longevity Gummies. They're yummy, and I've noticed a big difference. These are the first gummies designed to support your cellular energy, so you feel stronger, clearer, and more vibrant throughout the day. For me, the biggest shift was energy. I could actually feel, not the quick spike and crash, just steady sustained energy that helped me focus longer and even recover better after my workouts. And because they're gummies, they're very easy. I look forward to taking them every morning. MitoPure is backed by gold standard clinical research, and it targets a key area of healthy aging, mitochondrial decline. Think of it like charging your internal batteries every day. so you can stay active and mentally sharp no matter your age. If you've been feeling a little sluggish, tired, or you're not recovering the way you once used to, I really encourage you to try these. And right now, Timeline is giving our listeners 35% off your 1-month subscription of MitoPure gummies. So it's a real no-brainer. Just go to timeline.com/kwik35. That's timeline.com/kwik35.

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While this offer lasts, your cells will thank you. Now back to the episode. So a lot of, a lot of people who are listening or watching, they tend to be very sedentary, right? More and more and more because they're on their devices all the time. They say sitting is the new smoking. I mean, what would you— so if somebody's watching and they're just a 9 to 5 and they're sitting behind a computer the whole time, which is probably not what we, you know, are meant to do.

Yeah, I think that Setting an alarm and getting up and moving. And it's something called VILPA, actually, and it's vigorous, intense physical activity bouts. So it's—

It's not time intensive so much.

No, no, no. So you could actually be— this is, I think, another big myth, is people think that they just have to have dedicated training program time, and then that's where all the magic is going to happen. That's actually not. Let's say you don't have 45 minutes. If you are doing a handful of high-intensity actions during the day, it's extremely beneficial. And Martin Gibala is the godfather in this, and he's all about high intensity at McMaster University. And, you know, he has like the 1-minute workout. But again, it's intense enough where you're extremely challenged, but it doesn't have to be 45 minutes. And I will also say this, to be fair, when people say, I don't have time to train, can you imagine having time for illness?

Good point.

You don't have time not to train.

Yeah.

Because it's—

Even if you have money too, it's that, that's one, I was having a conversation at breakfast with some of the executives that are here at this event and they have financial means, but you can't buy a fit body.

You cannot buy a fit body. You have to earn it, right? You have to earn it. And people don't have time not to do it. And I think that that's a really big myth and people are always trying to hack more time or, I'm so busy. We are all busy. But the reality is either you find a way or you find an excuse. Let me tell you about my husband. So my husband is in his second career, and he is in his third year of urology residency.

Okay.

So he's a surgical resident, and he's gonna focus on men's health, and he works 100 hours a week.

Wow.

This last week, he had 3 24-hour calls.

Okay.

He's like sleeping in his car one day. Okay. And I did find Chick-fil-A in his cars, which is gross, but I just am saying. And—

Not one of our sponsors.

Better not be.

You're out.

And it was pouring rain, and this was midweek. I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. He'd already been up for 24 hours. Not just 24. So he was up for 24, but he had done 2 other shifts prior to that.

Exhausting.

Exhausting, right? Exhausting. And he looks exhausted, and he's strapping on his normal backpack, 'cause he wears a backpack, it's like 20 pounds, and it's pouring outside. And I'm like, honey, what are you doing? He's like, well, I'm running to work. I'm like, what do you mean you're running to work? He's like, listen, I have 2 choices. I can either set a standard, and every time I don't feel like it, I just decide and change my standard, or I set a standard, and regardless of what I feel like or how the weather is, I'm gonna execute.

I like that. You think that's transferable to, to people?

My son has it.

That's amazing. And it's not through necessarily genetics. This is because of learned behavior the way you—

I think there's cog— I think there's both.

Okay.

I think that we all have certain attributes. And Rich Deviney, a former commander SEAL, a very dear friend of ours, talks a lot about that. We all have certain attributes. We all have a certain amount of grit and resilience and capacity. And how we behave will either train that up or train that down. But I think ultimately who you are at your lowest point, when, you know, when all bets are off the table, this really exposes what is someone's level of grit, what is someone's level of capability.

And what's their standard.

And what's their standard. And during that time is when you train for it, you know? So you practice for it before the moment, But then in the moment you tell yourself, you know what, I got this.

And it's almost like an identity. Like it's just who you are.

It is.

As opposed, like even when we teach people reading and such, or, you know, doing a little bit each time, they start developing an identity. Like, I am a reader.

I love that.

And, but somebody, I'm an athlete, or I am—

I love that.

And it's who they are.

I think it's extremely valuable. And then I think putting yourself in positions that are uncomfortable, And continuing to do that. So for example, I'm so excited to be here at Limitless. You asked me, I dropped everything and here I am. And my team laughs at me because I made a special talk for you. And my team's like, you cannot recreate a— like, you have a book coming out, you've got 2 kids, like, you're in a medical practice, you cannot do this. And I'm like, listen, I don't wanna cheat myself and I don't wanna cheat—

You don't wanna just mail it in. You do deliver.

I don't wanna cheat myself and I don't wanna cheat Your audience that has a very special interest.

And it shows up different also.

And it would have been much easier for me to talk about protein or something else.

Right.

But again, it's—

You're doing the hard.

It's not comfortable. I'm like up just going, okay, well, should I put this study in here? Or does Jim's audience want to do this? Or I'm going to do this joke, this video better work, you know? And but I think at the end of the day, if you choose the more uncomfortable thing in the moment and you have to think about it beforehand, So it's kind of like Friday night comes and you're kids and you tell yourself every Friday night, I'm not gonna have that, those Cheetos or that ice cream.

Right.

But then Friday night comes and there you are underneath the counter eating Cheetos and ice cream.

And also the message we're sending to ourselves that we break our own promises, right? That we're not in integrity with our own—

So I think nothing derails people faster than that.

'Cause it's kind of like when you tell somebody, I, I, I tell my wife I'm gonna do the mow the lawn or whatever it is, and I just don't do it. And I do that a couple times. that kind of breaks the trust in a relationship. Imagine what that would be to ourselves when we say we're gonna do this exercise or something, we don't show up to do it. Even when we're tired, even if the kids are sick, even if, you know, 'cause everyone, we can definitely make excuses, but it's hard. We have a pattern and I'm, I'm guilty of it also. We, we can't complain about the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do.

Totally.

Right. And, and do you believe that how you do anything, like how you treat your fitness, How you do anything is how you do everything.

No, not at all.

No, I don't.

My husband is extraordinary, and that man cannot put away his socks for the last 10 years. Yet he's a former Navy SEAL surgeon who's gotten veteran coverage for all of the VA for bladder cancer exposure. I mean, extraordinary. So I think that we have skills that we should cultivate. And we have strengths that should be cultivated. And the weaknesses, well, you can account for that, but I don't know about spending time on, you know, if he, there's dirty underwear on the floor, like whatever. I mean, okay. But if the standard is you're gonna get up, you're gonna be in integrity, you're gonna be honorable, you're gonna execute X, Y, and Z, then those are the things that matter to me.

Right.

But I do think that at the underbelly, Aside from the action is that there's characters and values, and those are non-negotiable. And those are how you do everything versus, say, the action of socks or something little. But the core and how those things play out are really important.

Like how you brought that same ferocity, fierceness, and focus to your training, you brought to your, to doing your presentation.

100%. But if you ask me to cook something, I'm out.

So there are lines of development, right?

So like, I mean, listen, I do have a ton of recipes in, in the playbook, but they're all easy to cook because if it's, I mean, so there are certain things, it's what are you good at? How do you further develop that? Because those are your unique skills. So I do think, you know, we were listening to Jamie Kern Lima, who's just a dear friend, and she's extraordinary. Right? You know, she has surpassed any kind of challenge and just kept believing in herself. And there are unique skills to her. And we all have that. And I think rather than spending time not being good at or trying to develop something that, like, I'll never be a good surgeon. I don't care how many years in fellowship, like, I just don't have that skill.

We could do almost anything, but we can't do everything, right? We don't—

Can't do everything well.

Wow.

And I think that we should double down on the things that we find very valuable and be very aware of what that is. So, for example, you should do resistance training. You don't have to be the best at it. You don't have to be world class. You have to get that done. So there are certain non-negotiables. But do I expect you to, I don't know, go to the mall and sing Cha Cha Slide? Right. I don't know if you know what that is. Or Baby Shark yet. You have to be sharp. What about K-pop Demon Hunters? Are you there yet?

Oh, we—

I'm so sorry. Exactly. So, right, like, I don't expect you to be good at that, nor should you try. But all of the other things, there's a baseline of the, the most fundamental thing of value, of valuable for your skill set.

That, that makes sense. So in terms of someone listening to this, and there are different levels, there are different ages, stages, backgrounds, careers, diet, education, financial situation, gender, his History IQ, whatever it is.

So not much difference, right?

What, um, what would the message be? Obviously, people should get a copy of your new book, then we'll talk about that. What would— where's the starting point? Like, what should they do with self-audit of where they're at? Is it— is there anything measurable? Is there a medical professional that they should be—

There's a— there's 2, I think, main things. Is number one, take action before you're ready.

Oh, I like that.

You have to, you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to create excuses. You can be very neutral. Because the thing is, is if you haven't done the thing before, you're gonna try to talk yourself out of it. It's gonna be very dramatic. There's all this narrative, forget it. Neutrality is the name of the game.

And that's one of the keys to motivation, right? Because people like working out though, 'cause it's tough and they're in a state where they're not regulating their state, maybe because they don't, building their muscle, right? What would the state regulation—

And remember, muscle's just the gateway, right? It's like the ultimate personal development tool.

Yeah, I would imagine the same kind of qualities building your, your body, the same characteristics about dedication you, you can apply towards business or something else.

Anything. Anything.

So it's really forged like that.

It is. It's the only way.

Right.

You know, you become the storm. Everyone's like, oh, I'm gonna worry about weathering the storm. No, no, no, my friend.

Right.

You become the storm with the repetitions of the grit and pushing your capacity. And so if I were to leave the listener or the viewer with something is you have to start before you're ready. You're never going to be able to be ready for the thing that you never did. It's like pregnancy and birth. You're not ready, but it's coming. So you might as well, Take the action and just, there's a level of neutrality, there's no story. So do the thing that it takes to be strong because strength is a responsibility.

Yeah, in our limitless model, we have 3 things, critical things for limitless motivation and purpose times energy times small, simple steps. Meaning you need a purpose that in order to, it helps to have a reason to be able to do something, right? And then these energy, because some people don't do something 'cause they're exhausted or they're burnt out. Maybe they had a big processed meal, maybe they didn't sleep because they're kids or whatever. But also that S3, small, simple steps, that's— it's because people think motivation is something you just have, right? But by taking those small, simple steps, then you get the dopamine, which reinforces the action. So it's actually the action comes before the motivation almost.

Yes. And I think that that's very wise to point out because it's common and unexpected. People think that they should feel motivated, but it's actually the drive to do the thing.

And after you do it, like you said, And, they could start small in their own way, but there's movement. You can't steer a parked car, right? And so, having some kind of movement and they could build on it and then start getting results and it becomes like, can you imagine going a couple days without working out?

No, neither can my team. They don't wanna talk to me.

Right.

Or my kids.

Fair.

But, it's even when we think about every Monday, I start bitching about my workout Sunday night.

Really?

Still? Oh, yeah.

I do that with cold plunges.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Just, you know, it's— I will be bitching about it. You better believe it. Today's Monday. So by tomorrow night, I'm bitching about Wednesday.

Okay.

And it doesn't matter. The alarm clock goes off. I can bitch about it all I want. It's totally irrelevant. And I think that, you know, we expect to want to do everything, but it doesn't make any sense.

Right.

Right? We can't have the expectation that this is, you know, I can't wait to work out with my husband, I can't wait to run in the rain, or, you know, I can't wait to stub my toe and then pull out the hangnail. No, but you still have to take the action to make it happen. So I think one of the other things is you start before you're ready, exactly like you said, you build it, but also learning how to be neutral. As high as you go is as low as you go. So for example, if you got really amped up for Limitless, Like, so amped. And you're doing push-ups backstage. Do you do push-ups backstage?

My buddy Rick here, he actually brought a rebounder and other things I've seen backstage that we kind of—

But the good news is you probably haven't done that, which is great, because the higher you go, the more amped you go, the lower you're going to fall.

Interesting.

And so there is this— again, I've been seeing patients for, you know, over 15 years. And as high as an individual goes is as low as they fall. No matter if it's in excitement, you crash and burn, and then you're always trying to get that dopamine back. So if you can mitigate the highs and lows, which I actually think you're very good at, very steady. Yeah. Would you say you're able to be very steady?

Yeah.

So that allows you to continue on your mission as opposed to, you know, really high and then chasing the low and then chasing the high again.

Do you see that with patients or with clients that you work with, or even just observing that they get really hyped up, but they go to an event like this and they get really hyped and then—

See, the best entrepreneurs are very steady. The best entrepreneurs in the world are very steady. I called, so do you know Ben Newman? Ben Newman, he's an amazing friend. He's a coach to all these, you know, like professional teams. And this was 2023 when my book was coming out, Forever Strong, The first one. And I called him. I was just traveling like a crazy person, doing these keynotes, doing all this stuff. And I called him like, dude, how do you do this? And he's like, do what? He's like, oh, give me a second. He's getting off the plane to go to some NFL team. And he's like, Gab, it's just another Tuesday.

Yeah.

And I was like, holy cow, it's just another Tuesday. And that changed everything for me. This is what you do. It's just another Tuesday. And the more you can mitigate the story of the high and the low, you don't have to celebrate every win. It's not negative, but you don't have to.

Right.

You are in control. And so if things can be more steady, you're able to fulfill your mission. And it's not being numb or any of those things. It's just understanding that life has these ebbs and flows and you don't have to be attached to all of them. And the more neutral you can be, The more capable you become.

Is the consistency important? Because it keeps you, as opposed to getting hyped up and you burn out or you don't get the result right away, you know, based on something. Like, I think if you're persistent, sometimes you could achieve it, but if you're consistent, you get to, you get to keep it.

I love that. You know, when you're persistent, you can achieve it.

Right.

You know, like think about earlier on in our careers, we're probably like, oh my God, do this, do this, this. And then you're just like, whoa, Yeah. Either you're like, whoa, or you quit and do something else 'cause it's just so exhausting. And so you were able to adapt and recognize that what was sustainable early to get you to a place was not sustainable to move you to the next level. And again, if impact is what you desire, impact, you know, if someone is listening or watching this and they are, you know, at the first phase of their career or life, you know, 'cause you've got all ages and generations, You know, there'll be a time where you then move to a different level and a different experience. And the behaviors and the thought processes behind and the actions that it took to get to the first, through the first level is gonna be totally different. Again, it's kind of like on a hamster wheel. The first level, when you're building and you're trying and you're striving, it's exhausting and you're also rookie at it.

Hmm.

But you can learn and teach yourself how to be more neutral. And when you are more neutral, you are more effective and you are more capable and you can fulfill on your desire to help the world.

And you mentioned like, so Jamie gave a talk on self-worth, right? And I also think that we hear this phrase, it's cliché, that self-care is not selfish, but also it's exercising, because you don't wanna get ill and, you know, you pay the price each day so you don't have to pay the ultimate price, is also a form of self-love, right?

Absolutely. People think self-care is a warm bubble bath. My friend, it's not. It's hard work. It's hard physical work.

Yeah.

It's the opposite. You know, rest and recovery are important, but true self-care is being able to put your body in positions where you push it, Right. So that you then can recover so that you can grow.

Right.

Right? Whether it's the brain, more muscle, more brain.

Right.

Or it's the body. But aging is inevitable. But how we do it is within our control.

That's a powerful reminder for everybody, because in an area where people feel like they're the thermometer, they're just reacting to the weather or the temperature in politics or environment. a thermostat gauges. It still knows what's going on, but it does set a standard, and then the environment changes, you know, around it, you know, imposing your will or your will on yourself, you know, that— how do you relate that to discipline? What is discipline to you?

Well, the first level of discipline is being discerning.

What does that mean?

It means understanding what is a relevant thought and what's not. You set a position for what are your values, what is important. And then as thoughts come in, as distractions happen, you have to determine, is this relevant or not relevant? And if it's not relevant, then you let it go. There's no discipline, there's no following it. You just let it go. So the first layer of discipline is discernment.

Mm-hmm.

Discernment, understanding if something is valuable, leads to the next thing, which is the right action.

Okay.

You discern, it's either right thought or right action.

Okay, that makes sense.

And then you move up to the level of discipline. And then ultimately, like our friend Jocko says, freedom.

Yeah.

But it's discernment, and then right action and right thought, or right thought and right action, and then discipline, and then freedom.

I like that. And then when we're talking about Jocko, is the idea here that if you're— people associate discipline as being restrictive of freedom, or you're in a prison. But the idea here is, like, if you can't do what you need to do, then you really are— you have no freedom.

You're shackled.

You're in a prison.

You are shackled. And it's fascinating to think that right now the culture is much less about discipline. And I think that by bringing things back to a structured way, it's going to be so much more powerful for people. Because they require it. Discipline is the ultimate— again, it's the ultimate freedom because it allows you to focus on the next right thought and right action. There's 100 things that are pulling our distraction in our mind. A distracted mind is a weak mind. A distracted mind is a gullible, vulnerable mind. I think that it's probably even more pervasive than obesity.

So what is really killing us Doomscrolling, like all the other easy dopamine that you could get just from where you don't have to earn it.

Yeah.

Right. Whether it's on social media or something that you're eating or the things that are online, that gives them a kind of a little bit of a high. Every like, share, comment. I mean, you name it. This is interesting, you know, like, because the methods are pretty straightforward and most people here know they should be doing these things. You know, what they should do, or, and then they certainly could use some guidance and some strategies and protocols. But, so much of what we talked about, not just the science behind it, was just the mindset behind this that you could apply towards anything.

You know, we talk about building stronger, better bodies, but, Jim, what we're really talking about is building stronger, better humans.

Yeah.

And, muscle and brain, they are the entry point. But, it's just the Trojan horse for getting people to be the best version of themselves.

Yeah, I see our work the same way in terms of the lifestyle we— for better brains, it's better humans for sure, for sure. What are you studying? Just out of curiosity, what do you see as the future? I mean, you mentioned, you alluded to it, but in terms of the future of your work?

Yeah, so right now, and this is going to be like a stark contrast because we're going to go right back into research. You know, originally it was BMI, which was body mass index, and this is really population-based, not for intervention. And then people started to then move to body fat percentage.

Mm-hmm.

I think that that's an outdated biomarker. I actually think the next evolution is fat that is infiltrated into the muscle. So while we've been hyperfocused on obesity and our diets, on what to lose, actually it's created a misrepresentation of the importance of skeletal muscle. And so even the markers and the testing that we're looking at is looking at the wrong tissue. So I think BMI is largely irrelevant. Body fat percentage is irrelevant too, friend.

Wow.

It's most likely the fat that infiltrates into the muscle like a marbled steak, and it's not the body fat percentage. That's just an innocent bystander. It's actually the fat in muscle that determines metabolic outcomes, largely, largely determines metabolic outcomes, like insulin resistance of the muscle, which leads to insulin resistance of the brain. So, healthy muscle, healthy brain. So, this is the next evolution. And then, how do we stimulate muscle beyond, you know, with the use of GLP-1? So, that's the next iteration of where we're going.

Stronger muscle, stronger brain. Where would your go-to highest leverage exercises then that would build Like, if people have, they say they have limited time, and we always, we have enough time for the things that matter, right? I mean, if we're gonna get real, like, we're all busy, as you mentioned. A lot of people use busyness as like a badge of honor.

Or a distraction, or an excuse. Listen, you come over to my house, I'm gonna give you some kettlebells. We're just gonna swing some kettlebells. Or I've been using a new apparatus, it's called Freebells, and it's like a half, A hybrid between a kettlebell and a dumbbell. You do some swings, some snatches, you'll be set. You just do, if you pick one exercise, we just do kettlebell swing. How about kettlebell swing and a pushup, renegade row? We're good.

And the important thing is they start before they're ready.

You're never going to be ready. It's never going to happen. And again, it doesn't have to be heavy weights. You start with bands, body weights, but you're never going to be ready. But again, the inevitable comes. So you might as well prepare for it.

Yeah. And you're more resilient, right? And the more you start getting the results, and you started seeing yourself as that way, you show up different in work, to your family, to everything.

Yeah, there's only one way to build strength, which is global strength. And that's to be strong. And strength is an action.

And it's a mental strength too.

It is, exactly. It's exactly what I'm talking about.

Where, Gab, do people get your book? How can they stay connected with you?

The Forever Strong Playbook, anywhere books are sold, Amazon, our website. I'm on Instagram. I have a podcast which you're going to be coming on, the Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show. I have a medical clinic, it's called Strong Medical, it's all telehealth. And let's see, a newsletter, you name it, YouTube, I got it.

That's amazing. You're not— you're not definitely not hard to find online. I would encourage everybody to to take some kind of action, you know, even screenshot wherever you're consuming this right now, tag us both, you know, make sure you follow Dr. Lyon and myself and share it and share like one takeaway along with that post. Because when we, when we share, we get to teach it and your fans, your followers, your friend, your family, your friends get to benefit also as well. This has been fun.

I could talk to you about it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you. Thank you everybody for listening or for watching. Make sure you check out the, the show notes at jimkwik.com/notes where we put all the links that were mentioned here also as well to the book, social media, and resources, and so much more. Until our next episode, remember to be limitless.

Limitless.