Healthy and Vibrant 50+ Aging with Darnell Cox

Today on Midlife Conversations, I've got Darnell Cox. Now, she is a gerontologist, and she is 55 years old. Darnell, thank you so much for being here today. Let's, let's start with what is a gerontologist? What is that?

A gerontologist. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm obsessed with your podcast. A gerontologist is somebody who studies the actual aging process, so the psychological, social, and physical aspect of aging through the lifespan.

Okay, so I'm so glad we're having you on, because this is everything that my audience is part of and interested in and doing and wanting to know more of. How did you get into this? Like, what was your journey to become, make this your expertise?

Oh, wow. That's a very long journey. I often joke that I think I came out of the womb looking for, for chapstick and how to cure baby cankles. I mean, I have, I think I've been in the health and wellness field in some form for as long as I possibly could remember. Even before I think there was a health and wellness field, I was in the Jane Fonda aerobics, and I was juicing. I was doing, you know, I was just very excited about that field and how to look and feel your best at every age and even at a very, very young age. I've been working my whole life, and I think I bought my first wrinkle cream at the age of 15. Now, I didn't have a wrinkle on my face, but I loved the science behind that. What is this doing? What is this promising? Are the promises bullshit or are they actually effective? So I've been interested in that my whole life. Now my, my education is in psychology and then also gerontology, but since as long as I can remember, it's been, you know, what is the latest fad diet? What can I put on my skin to make it feel better? And then what is that psychological process of aging? What happens to us, to our mental state when we are physically past our prime? So, you know, there's a lot that goes on to that, and it's all interconnected. So my, I got an undergraduate degree in psychology. I went on and got a master's in psychology. And then I, you know, life happened and I moved to Singapore and I raised three kids and was just kind of doing one on one coaching. I had a lot of questions about how did you lose the weight after you had three kids? What's, how do, how does your skin look like this, you know, in your 40s. And I simply began writing stuff down for people and handing it off and saying, well, here's what I do.

Let me help you in the friend insider scoop. Like, this is what I'm doing. You're asking. Let me share and help you 100%.

That's how it started. And then of course, like, I'm still one of those people that at the heart of me, there's a scientist in there somewhere. And so I went back to school and got a certification in holistic nutrition and health coaching. I obtained a 500 hour teacher training during the pandemic. And it still like wasn't enough. I was listening to all the scientists, but I wanted to be in the conversation. And so I went back to school at the age of 52, I'm 55 right now, and got into USC in the gerontology department and got a second master's in gerontology. That's amazing. Some of these amazing scientists who I've been following and listening to for years were my professors. And so it was like I just got goosebumps from that. So it was just really an amazing opportunity for me in my 50s to be able to pivot and kind of accumulate all of this knowledge and put it all together. So the psychology degree, the social, physical and psychological study of aging, with the nutrition certification and exercise certifications, all of those come together to make somebody that I would call a healthy aging coach.

One thing that I know from, especially from working with so many midlife women is the thing that I find makes a woman thrive. Be lit up, be excited, be happy and on purpose every day is when they actually have a goal or some type of drive. So like, some women would argue, well, if I looked a certain way or if I felt a certain way, I would be this. But I think it's the drive and purpose. And I love that you just shared that because that actually just gave me a lot of insight about you because you have that forever student mindset. And like you said, you've gotten your second master's. You went back in your 50s for that. Like that just gave me a light bulb moment. I want people to hear that, that it's not always just about appearance. Like it's that hunger for knowledge and learning and being on with some kind of purpose.

100%. I think that I am going to be, I have been a lifelong learner, learner and I'm going to continue to do that. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do Next. I'm not sure if I'm going to get a doctorate, but I'm in that mindset of, you know, it's that use it or lose it. Right. We need to be able to continue to learn and continue to set goals for ourselves, because in that whole life course, we have these things to look forward to. Right. When you're. When you're 12, you want to be a teenager, you want to be 13. When 15, you want to be 16 because you get your driver's license. When you're 20, you want to be 21, because that gives you the ability to drink. There's all of these milestones, you know, and then after the age of 21, there's like the big 30s and the 40s and having a family, and there's these things that are like, we put on ourselves. But the big number milestones are simply that, just big numbers and the number of. Of candles on the cake. And if you're not striving to continue to grow as a human being, you're. You're really kind of squashing your pot. So it's not only the organ of the brain that needs to continue to accumulate knowledge and organize that knowledge for its own health, but also psychologically to have those milestones that you're always looking forward to doing, whether that's education, whether that's travel, whatever it is that lights you up. As you said, Natalie. Yes.

Okay. So when someone looks at your page, and by the way, when you go to her page, you'll see, like, she looks incredible. Looks incredible. And people have. A lot of people want to learn from her. And then some people come off with attack. I mean, I got defensive on your page, too.

That's how we met.

Yeah, but what I want to know is what do you say to the person that's like, oh, you're just chasing appearance, or this is sad, or like, what do you want them to know?

What I want them to know is that aging takes on many different forms, and our body is aging in. We're all different. We're all aging in different ways, but there's. All of our organs are aging. Why are we not looking at skin as the biggest organ? Because that's what it is. We're not giving ourselves permission to look our best. Right. And as somebody who has a graduate degree in psychology, I know that the outward appearance is very much connected to how we feel about ourselves. Our skin is our largest organ. It is our outward facing organ. It is that organ that we present to the world along with our Weight along with our hair, along with everything else that you can see. But that initial thing of like, here's who I am and here's how I'm presenting to my, myself to the world. It's our only organ that you can actually see. And so why are we justifying spending hours in the gym to support our bones on our muscles and circulation and our brain and our cardiovascular system. And anytime anybody says, hey, here's how we can improve our skin, all of a sudden it's like, ah, you're not growing old gracefully. I call BS on that because it is our, our skin is so important. Not only does it show how internally we're taking care of ourselves. Right. If you think that your skin doesn't, doesn't shine from your internal health, give up drinking for three months and see how your skin changes. Your skin will vastly improve. And that's because how you treat yourself on the inside, and I mean with superfoods, you know, optimal nutrition, exercise, sleep, grounding, meditation, all of that internal dialogue, everything that we're doing for our lungs with our breath work, all of that shines through your skin because that's the organ that shows forward. So my approach is an inside out approach. Let's figure out all of the stuff that can make our skin shine from within, but then let's also address the exterior organ itself and give that the respect that it deserves. Deserves. So, yeah, that's how I. Yeah.

Okay, so let's go into skin for a minute here. Because you're, you're my age. I mean, I'm 50, almost 52. So we're, we're similar. We grew up in the same time frame. Did you do the bad things that I did? Like, did you lay out with the, in the, and tan and fry your skin and go to tanning beds? Because I did all that and I regret it now. And I did. I, I feel very fortunate that in my mid-20s, I found out I had basal cell carcinoma. And that scared the heck out of me. And that's stopped all like tanning. And I love the sun, but in a different way now. Like, I like the 15 minutes, not get my skin tan. Yes, but I, but all those spots come out later. Did you have that experience and is it possible to reverse that, change that?

Yes, I absolutely did have that, that experience. We are the Coppertone babies. You know, all of it happens. We're just bombarded with all of that marketing of, you know, being tan when we were, you know, going through high school in the 80s. And ironically like I fried my body, but I was super conscious about my face.

Yeah.

So I would lay out. But did you lay out with a towel?

Always covered my face. Always. For some reason. I don't know why, but I did.

That's the same, the same thing. And I, people would say like why, why are you covering your face? Why are you laying out with a towel on your face? And I would say, well, the sun gives you wrinkles. So I was still like even in, in high school, aware that there is a, you know, the time is moving on and there is going to be a time when we can look back and we're going to be regretting or being thankful for the lifestyle that we led in our youth. So I always say there's. You're never too young to think about getting old. Whether that's talking about your muscles, your mobility in your joints, your skin care, your health, all of that. Like how you behave today and what lifestyle practices you have today are greatly going to affect your health span, not your lifespan necessarily because modern medicine is just throwing a bunch of medicine and surgeries at places. So we're expanding the number of years on the planet, but we're not necessarily expanding those number of healthy years that are free from disease and disability. So if you, you know, the lifestyle that you're leading now, if you've got listeners that are in their 30s and 40s or what you're doing now, those choices that you're making now greatly affect you in your 80s and 90s and beyond. And how are you functioning in such a way that you are independent and you're free from disability and you're, you have really freed yourself from those age related diseases that are so prevalent when we, when we hit certain ages.

What can we do if we are, we didn't do the preventative stuff or we did like what, what I did like was tanning. Like right now my face does not have spots on it. But I'm also very fortunate that I use great products and I do get IPL done. I've used red light. Like there's some things that I do, but I've not been yet able to reverse that on my body. So like we're all have brown spots on. Is that something that people can reverse if they already. If they have, if they have. Let's talk about wrinkly skin also spots on skin. Like what is actually can be reversed, what cannot be reversed, what's. What can people look for for that. Those types of things.

Okay, well I did a whole, I'm Going to show you, but your listeners won't be able to see it. I did a whole, whole protocol on how do you fit in treatments at home in 30 minutes a day. And the reason why I did that is because a lot of people just focus on your face. So you're looking at your face, neck, and your decolletage. That's not where your skin ends. Your skin covers everything. And if you look at skin as an organization, you know, when we pay money to go and get our spots removed or we do IPLs, we're focusing on the part that we can't hide with clothing. And my thought is the whole health of the skin is what we need to address. And there are ways to do that. So yes, you can do IPL on your, on your arms to get the sun spots off, on your shoulders, on your back, yes, you can do all of that stuff. But when we're talking about the loss of collagen and the loss of elastin, which happens when we hit our mid-20s, when we hit our mid-20s, that's the best skin in terms of functioning skin that you're ever going to have. Now, you might thrash it and you might be out in the sun, but the way that the skin functions in the mid-20s, you've pretty much peak. So what we have to do, just like we trick our muscles into not having sarcopenia, where the fat infiltrates the muscle and it's really hard to lose weight after that. We need to trick our skin into behaving functioning like it did when it was younger. So that has to do with creating micro traumas and thickening up the skin. Have you ever seen like an older person, probably your parents or grandparents that always have, like they nick their skin and they just bleed. Their skin becomes paper thin. You brush up against something and all of a sudden you've got a bruise or you're bleeding. That is a loss of collagen and a loss of elastin in the skin. There are things that we can do to build that skin up, One of them being microneedling.

Yeah, I see you that a lot. Can you talk more about that and how. I've only seen that for face until I started watching you doing it on your whole body.

Yeah. So I. Part of my protocol is every Sunday I do micro needling and you can't micro needle your face every Sunday, but you can pick a different body part and then once that month is done, it circles back around so that every four to six weeks you're microneedling the Parts of your skin that need to be thickened and the parts that need to be, you know, built up. And it does help with fine lines and wrinkles. It helps with the creepiness of the skin. So I microneedle my face, neck and chest. I microneedle my arms, the back of my arms, my abdomen, my knees. Those places to me that I feel are lacking in the collagen. And it's really those places that move a lot. So even when you look at your face, the parts that show our age the most are around our mouth because we're constantly moving around, our eyes, because we're constantly moving those eyes. Our neck, because we're rotating our neck around. So those are the places that the collagen thins the quickest and those are the places that show our age. So for me, I grew three human beings in this stomach. And you know, you think that the skin is great once, you know, the stomach pops back and all of that stuff. And you work really hard in the gym and you build up the abs, but then you hit menopause. And that once kind of a trickle down of collagen, that's 1 to 3% decrease per year. In your mid-20s, all of a sudden it falls off a cliff, right? And so what do we do then? Because what we're looking at in the mirror is affecting our self esteem. What we're presenting to the world is affecting our self esteem. And my thought is, don't copy off your neighbor's paper with this. You don't need the skin of a 25 year old. You don't want to, you know, not everybody's skin is the same. And you don't need to necessarily copy what somebody else is using. You need effective skin care for yourself and you need to create those micro traumas that happen when we microneedle. So microneedling is basically what you're doing is you're creating perforations in the skin, little puncture marks in the skin. And what, when you do this, it doesn't tickle? I mean, it is, they are needles. There are various ways to do them and I wish I would have had all my little products here. But there are rollers that you can roll across your skin.

Okay.

There are stampers that you can stamp in your skin. And then there are the, the automated, you know, the ones that you plug in that need power. And those ones are like the electric ones that kind of create those that are more similar to what's used in office. So when you're using things like that what it's doing is you can kind of equate it to. If you're a kid and you fall, you riding a bicycle and you fall down and you skin your knee, your body is calling on collagen and elastin to come to that rescue and to build that scab and to report and to repair that area. Well, if you're doing controlled micro trauma, which is what microneedling is, you're controlling the amount of depth that you're doing, the amount of trauma that you're having. And so what it's doing is it's tricking your body into thinking that the skin is still growing or the skin has some trauma to it and it needs help. It's waking up those stem cells, it's coming to the resc, creating collagen and elastin. And so when that skin grows back and it. It takes about 30 days for skin to kind of completely rejuvenate. And so that's why consistency is super important. If you're doing a microneedling treatment in an office at $800 or $500, to be able to do that weekly on various body parts is outside of people's economic. You know what, what they're able to do economically. And so to have a consistent schedule at home where you're controlling those, that, that trauma and calling on that collagen to produce more elastin and more collagen, basically what you're doing is you're thickening up that skin. So you're. The function of your skin is reversing.

So it's not that you all of a sudden see a big difference when you do this. It's just that over time, the practice of it is going to condition your skin to be strong longer.

Yes, but you will see a difference. You will see. If I microneedle my face on a Sunday, it takes me about three days to heal because I'm not doing it as deep as I am in an office. I'm doubling up on my collagen. I'm blasting it with red light therapy, another one of those modalities at home that I use. And within a week, you do see a difference in your skin. I can, I can literally see a difference, especially in the thinner skin, like above the eyelid. Okay, as long because you can microneedle above your eyelid as long as you're staying on that occipital bone. So you don't, don't go right above your eyeball, but you can pull that skin up and stay on the bone. And you'd be surprised how far down that bone comes on your eyelid. If you can microneedle there, which I do every month, you're, you're. It's basically creating that trauma, calling on that collagen, tightening that skin, and it's lifting and tightening all around that area. So you can see pretty immediate differences within a week of microneedling. But it's that consistent once a month to every six weeks that's really going to change the whole function of your skin.

No, sometimes when you post about this, I see estheticians comment or somebody will say, well, this is dangerous. You shouldn't do it for yourself.

You should.

What, what is. Is it really dangerous? Is it. What's the reason they chime in and say that?

It's because, people, I'll tell you why. Because you are dealing with needles. And so anytime that you're puncturing the skin, sometimes you will get little droplets of blood. I don't feel is any more dangerous than shaving your legs or your face, because at any time you can nick yourself. And the way that I do it is I have a microneedling protocol. So anybody who's on my social media, and I'm mostly on Instagram, but you can direct message me the word protocol and I'll send you how I fit in all of the modalities in a calendar way so that you get everything in no more than 30 minutes a day. You can also DM me microneedling protocol, and I'll send you the whole protocol. And it starts with safety first. And this is what everybody's concern is, because they think, oh, you're just, you're going to be just running around with these needles and stabbing yourself all over the place. And it hurts. And it's, it takes, you know, you need to know what you're doing. And so following the protocol is super important. But in addition to, like, the safety part of it, part of my microneedling protocol has the different links, different needle lengths, different cartridges, different speeds that you would use on every single body part. Because again, like I had said earlier, our skin doesn't stop at our neck, right at our face, neck and decolletage. It's our whole body. And so when we're looking at the health of the skin, you want to address it just like you would your heart health.

Now, what about now? That would change the texture and help with collagen production. How can you actually change what people call them, liver spots or brown spots on our skin? Again, age spots as we can. Those be reversed.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of different. If you do an ipl, it's targeting those, that's an intense pulse light laser and you're targeting the melanin in the skin. So that will obliterate that. And within a month it kind of lifts it up and sloughs it off and gets rid of it. But there's also a lot of other stuff that you can do at home. Red light therapy, anything that doesn't have heat. So if you're somebody that has a lot of sunspots or you suffer from melasma, which is very hormonal related, you want to stay away from heat. Like things in a radio frequency device, which is also in my modalities. The modalities that I use at home in terms of at home treatments are microneedling, microcurrent, radio frequency, red light therapy, dry brushing. And all of this is done in 30 minutes a day or less. Really, once you get the hang of it, once you understand the devices. To do 30, to spend 30 minutes a day on your skin exactly is, is nothing. You know, we'll spend 30 minutes a day scrolling through social media. You know, we can spend 30 minutes a day listening to a podcast. I oftentimes listen to a podcast and microneedle my skin while doing it.

Yeah, yeah. And plus, I would imagine your skin health, aside from appearance of it, you want to protect your skin too, because it's your biggest and that's where other things are going to come in from. Like, I think people forget that too. Like if your skin's not in top priority health, you're going to, that you're going to be more likely to get toxins in there. Like there's all kinds of things that you can attract into your skin.

100%. Yes. And another way to thicken your skin is with retinoids. So it does have to do with skin care as well. So in my, when I, when you're looking at my protocol, when you're doing microneedling, the skin care that you have to use post treatment, but also for the next two days has to change. You don't want to create a micro trauma and then all of a sudden put an active, like a retinoid on it or a vitamin C on it, you're going to be damaging the skin. So there's a lot of, there's a method to the madness. You know, there's, there's a reason why you follow certain modalities with certain things that are going to then speed the Healing and really increase the health of the skin.

Okay, what about hydro? Am I pronouncing it right? Hydro, hydroquinone and retinol. Are those, do you use them? Do you think they're toxic? Like what. It gets confusing on what we should use or what we shouldn't and use.

There's no toxicity with retino. With retinoids, you know, there's a whole. It starts with the tretinoin. You've got the retinol, the retinoid, the retinaldehyde. There's a lot of different processes that happen when you're talking about prescription strength tretinoin. It is actually the number one ingredient in all active anti aging skin care. And I hate that word, but that's what is used today. It literally will help with everything. So if you have melasma, you want to use retinoid. If you, if you've got sunspots, you want to use a retinoid. If you've got fine lines on your.

Wrinkles too, not just your face, on your body.

Yeah, our skin's everywhere. So you should be using, not should, because everybody has their own process. But if you're wanting to look and feel your best at every age and you're talking about your skin, retinoids are something that I use daily. So how do you use a retinoid in such a way that you can cover your whole body? Well, there's, there's several different retinols that are available for your whole skin, but you can also take something like a prescription strength tretinoin and make little dots everywhere and rub it in and then use your favorite moisturizer over the top or mix them together and use them on your full body. So that is something that I do in terms of hydroquinone. You really need to be under a doctor's care for that. That's mostly used for melasma. And there is a big hormonal component to melasma. That's why a lot of women get it when they're pregnant or when they're going through menopause. And that's kind of that masking that you see where you've got large chunks of skin, particularly on the face and the cheeks that are discolored. If you're going to do something like a hydroquinone, that is very effective for melasma and very effective for sunspots. But you, those are one of the things that you need to be under a doctor's career because you can only use a hydroquinone for about four months at A time. And then it starts doing more damage than good. And once hydroquinone turns your skin black, there's no coming back from that.

Turn it black.

It can turn it black. And it. Yes, and there's a very fancy word for it, which I can't think of right now, but it does. It will. One of the bad side effects is if you're not under a doctor's care and you're getting this stuff. You can get anything from Amazon these days. I swear, it's, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of crazy what they're, what they're offering. But if you're using that without being under a doctor's care, you really can thin the skin, which we don't want to do. And you really can. You know, it can make the skin dead and cause it to turn a dark color. And it's, it's, it's really tragic. But you, there are things that you still need to be under a doctor's care for, and melasma and hydroquinone are one of those things.

Okay, so talk to us about. So some of the external things you do are red light, micro needling. And we're all going to go get your, we want to all get your guide and so we know how to follow that. What are some of the internal things you do? And you talked about grounding. Can you speak into what that is for my audience? Like how and what do you do there? And like how is it, I mean, is it literally just you walking barefoot on your grass every day or what. What happens and tell, tell everybody what that does?

Well, I've, I've been obsessed with grounding, I think, for decades now. And I, I can just tell when I sit barefoot on the grass or in the sand or I'm in a connection with the earth. I'm very in tuned with my body and I can feel my blood pressure dropping. In a good way. In a good way. So we're supposed to be out in nature. We're supposed to, you know, the way that we're designed from the beginning is that our feet are supposed to be in contact with the Earth. Earth. And so our body has a certain electrical charge and the Earth has a certain electrical charge. And there is that transfer of electrons that happen that are, that work as an antioxidant for your whole entire body. So it's really quite a profound and easy health hack. And there are certain ways that you can do this as well. If you don't live in a place where you have access to even just a small structure strip of grass or even cement. Because if cement is on grant, if. If cement is on soil, cement is on the earth. Cement is a natural material. So I have like a little grounding thing that I hold. It's a grounding regulator that I hold or tester. I'll hold it in my hands, I'll plug it into the third port of a electrical outlet. Because all third ports of electrical outlets are grounded to the earth. Earth. Otherwise, we walk around our house and we'd have static electricity and we'd shock ourselves every time we touch something. So that third port in any standard electrical outlet is grounded to the earth. They have grounding mats where if you put in you ground, you put that in that third little port and stand on a grounding mat. It's the same thing as standing on the earth.

I didn't know this. Okay.

Yeah. So I have a grounding mat on my bed because when I was at usc, I did a study on. They had massage workers who were on their feet all day. And, you know, that's not an easy job to do to be working on somebody all day. And they wanted to test yet it was a very stable environment in that the music was pretty constant and relaxing, the lights were a certain level. And so they took people that worked in these massage places and tested their cortisol levels through saliva. And their cortisol levels stayed a certain way for the month. And then they took half of those people and put a grounding mat on their bed and had them sleep on a grounding mat for eight hours a day. And their cortisol levels, those stress hormones were completely decreased. And it's really. If I, you know, if there's one thing that you can do to improve your overall health, because stress is a. Is a hidden killer. It's a silent killer, you know, so. And that's all tested through our cortisol levels, those fight or flight hormones that happen. We have these. You know, it used to be that our cortisol levels were at a certain level. And now with everything else that the world is throwing at us, we're always connected. We're always plugged in, social media, answering machines, cell phones, all of that, that we've increased that set point. So our level of what we feel is normal amounts of stress is not the same as it was for our grandparents. And so to get back to that kind of baseline of, okay, I'm now grounded to the earth, my cortisol levels are stable, my sleep weight patterns are more regulated It's a way to really prolong your life and your health span with, with zero money.

Yeah, I love that. I also, I just ordered a pair. It's funny, I went, I went and bought old school like moccasins because I wanted, because I walk so much outside and I thought one of the most damaging things I think we've done in the last several hundred years if you think about it, is man made shoes.

Yes.

You're getting away from that. So if you have leather bottom shoes or something, then you are still connected to the ground. So I went and ordered like what we wore in sixth grade. Those moccasins.

Yes.

Literally just so I was like, if I'm walking, I'm going to walk in those. Just so I'm, I am grounding when I'm walking.

I love that, that, that's absolutely true. With our, with our high stress levels. We start, we have rubber soled shoes so people can go years without actually even touching the earth.

Which is crazy. And it's crazy too because I walk all the time and I'm not doing that. So other than when I walk at the beach. So yeah, so I think that's super important. Talk to us about like what, what are some non negotiables when it comes to how you eat, how you move and how is that helping?

Non negotiable is weightlifting three days a week, like no matter what. Because we start losing our muscle mass in our mid-30s. Sarcopenia happens. Once that fat infiltrates the muscle, it's so difficult to lose weight and it kind of coincides with our fluctuation of hormones. So there's, I mean I have so many non negotiables. I really have so many non negotiables. But when it comes to exercise, it's like three days a week, no matter what I'm lifting weights, I'm really tearing that muscle fiber. I'm rebuilding that muscle fiber. So lifting weights is a non negotiable for me. Meditation, even if it's five minutes a day, if I'm sitting out in the front yard barefoot, just cross legged and I can take five minutes and just think about my breath and doing a little bit of breath work, concentrating on the in breath. And kind of what I do is because I'm a very visual person, my meditation is often walking meditation, I'm a mover and I'm a visual person. So I'll pace around the yard and I'll count my breath with my footsteps because a lot of people can't just sit in one spot and think about your breath.

That's me. I can't do that.

Yeah. And I think, Natalie, you're the same way. Like, you pace a lot when you're working, right? Okay. So if you just took your shoes off and went outside or wore your moccasins outside and went for a walk instead of just let me walk and let me be on the phone and let me think about something else. If you inhaled for five steps, let's say. And I'm just going to give it, because I don't know what your pace is. But let's just say, for example, you inhaled one and you're stepping two steps, three steps, four steps, steps, five steps. You hold it for one steps, two step, three step, four step, five step, exhale. And that way you're having this very organized way of breathing that's difficult while you're counting to think about what you have to get at the grocery store, of course, you know, it really helps to, you know, if you're just being stationary and thinking about your breath. Breath, your mind can still very easily drift off. And so walking meditation has become a big part of my practice where I'm counting the breath and I find that I. It keeps me in there a lot longer. And you know what, you can do this from your car on the way to the grocery store if you park far enough away from your car. You know, people say, I don't have time to do this. You can, you do. You just need to. To follow through and actually implement. So park at the very corner of the grocery store, of the parking lot, and on your walk into the grocery store, inhale for three steps. Let's say hold for three steps, let's say exhale for three steps and continue that until you get into the door. And that just brings you back into your body.

Yeah, I love that.

Right. We're oftentimes way up here in our heads. We need to kind of bring ourselves back to our body. So whether I'm walking or whether I'm sitting in the front yard, there's usually a counting involved when I'm meditating.

Makes sense. What about your non negotiables when it comes to eating? Okay.

I. I think I've tried just about every fad diet out there to the point where I'm really keen to what is a fad diet and what's not. Not a fad diet anymore. I was sucked into that whole thing of, you know, low fat in the 80s.

Oh, yeah, I did that too, too. Yeah, we all did that. In the 80s. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, the, the non fat Fig Newtons were like my, my, yes. But it caused us to eat so much more. So I'm really in tune to like what is the, what are the scientists saying? Not what the, what the companies that are saying what, not what's marketed to us as healthy. Because sometimes you know, health food stores are like the least healthy place to shop because we, we assume everything in there is good for us and it's not. There's still processed food and health food stores. So my non negotiables are I really try not to eat ultra processed food. Unless yeah, I'm at somebody's house at somebody's birthday. I'm not going to be rude. I'm going to eat whatever's in front of me when I go to somebody's house. But when I have control of it in my own home, I'm really, really strict with my diet and I don't mean strict in that I'm deprived. Yeah, I, I have been intermittent fasting for 30 plus years.

And your intermittent fasting is not like you're eating everything in four hours or do you do six hours or eight hours or what's your intermittent.

I do eight hours so I have a 16 hour fast and an eight hour window of eating.

I do an eight and 16.

I feel that my body and I work out on an empty stomach.

Yeah.

Even after I work out, if I'm working out in the morning, I won't, I won't take that hour right afterwards and eat because I don't feel if that's what our bodies are normally made to do, do. So I will, I'll still keep my, my 16 hour fast in my 8 hour window of eating.

Like I eat like a 10 to 6 type of eater.

I am like I, I'm like a, I, I probably stop eating like around like I'm a little bit of a snacker at night. I'll have raw almonds, I'll have some popcorn. That is my time to kind of decompress and I will like watch a show with my husband. So I, I do kind of snack at night but if I stop eating at like midnight, let's say that's not the case. But let's just say, let's say I stop eating at about 10. I won't eat until probably about 1.

That makes sense.

Sometimes 2. It just, my body is so used to like when I'm, when I'm hungry, I don't wake up starving. My liver is already making its own glucose. So my body is really used to running like this where I'm, I'm reaching into those damaged cells and creating, you know, that autophagy where you're those damaged parts and it gives your body that chance to, you know, disassemble those and re, and reassemble them and use those for spare parts so that we're not having these zombie cells and these senescent cells. And you can only really get that when you're doing a long fast, like a 16 hour fast. So I, every day is a 16 hour fast and I usually end that fast with a mushroom coffee. And the reason for that is because I figured, you know, you've just helped your whole cellular clean out of these damaged cells. Give it now something that's going to help with that neurogenesis, with building those neurons in the brain, with keeping your, your mind smart. So I always end a fast with a mushroom coffee. And I literally, it's very, very rare that I'm not eating something organic because there are so many pesticides and so much junk in our food these days that I, you know, I do follow the EWG's environmental working groups, Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen. So if you don't know anything about that, make sure you go to EWG.org because they will give you a list of the Dirty dozen. And these are 12 fruits and vegetables that you absolutely should not be eating if you can't find them organic. Yeah, because what people, the misconception is that people think, think that you can just wash the stuff off the surface. And a lot of the plants. Yeah, the plants. It depends on the plants. Some of the plants you can. And that's the clean 15. Those are the ones you can wash off. You don't have to buy them organic. You can buy those commercially farmed, but there's a whole slew of others that the plant takes up those chemicals in the root system. It's in the flesh of the plant. And so if I had to choose between eating a commercially farmed blueberry or not eating any blueberries at all, I wouldn't eat any blueberries at all.

I'm the same way. And then I'm assuming you do eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.

I predominantly eat fruits and vegetables, which.

Is, I want everyone to hear this too because I, so I wrote a book, my second book a few years ago was called Aging in Reverse and I don't love that title anymore, but that was the name of the book. And my whole, all my research on that was about the Power of phytonutrients. And then after that book came out, and I've sworn by that for years, that that is what has kept me vibrant at my age is the power of phytonutrients. And then all the trendy diets came out with the keto and the carnivore and this whole like you can't have vegetables because of oxalates. And I think that that is damaging people and aging them rapidly like that might help you keep your muscle, but that is not helping you fight free radicals. It's not, it's not helping you with looking well as you age 100.

I feel very strong about that. In fact, one of my professors at USC, Dr. Valter Longo is the creator of the Prolon diet, that five day fast mimicking diet. And right now I don't know if your viewers are not going to like me very much. We are in the middle of a high protein diet fad right now. Yeah, we are getting, it's, we're getting way too much protein. And you know, people are thinking you have to have protein to build muscle. You don't. Your body can help. You know, it's that whole autophagy. Go in and restructure those, those damaged proteins and use them. Harvard Medical says that you need, between, you need about 0.35 grams of protein per pound that you have. But if you talk to like longevity experts, what they're saying is a low protein diet is way better for longevity. So even something as low as 0.31 to 0.35 grams of protein per pound is what's going to help, help with the autophagy and help you live longer.

Good to know. So I do approximately 100 grams of protein a day. So I'm on the higher side. But I will tell you I eat way more fruits and vegetables than I do. Like that is my plates are built on fruits and vegetables, low glycemic fruit, vegetables, all organic, some healthy fats and then protein. So I'm really aware of that and I do teach and I teach just like you, an unprocessed natural food diet. So I want people to hear this because I've yet to talk to anybody in the space that looks really good and vibrant and healthy and is feeling that way that is not including fruits and vegetables. So I think, I think it's dangerous when people are really going to this extreme carnivore. I'm just going to say it.

Listen, I don't believe in extreme carnivore. I don't really? We should be. If you look at all the blue zones in the world, there's not one of them that is an extreme carnivore there. They're living off of organic fruits and vegetables, as much as they can get. Beans, legumes, small amounts of meats. So I microdose my meat. I don't. You know, meat doesn't take a center.

Not only 3 ounces, probably. You're probably having, like, 3 ounces of something if you're having it.

And not even every day.

Okay.

Not even every day. If I have meat, I'm having 3 ounces or less.

Okay.

And I'm not always getting my protein from a meat source. So what's your.

What's your breakfast? And by the way, if you guys can't see her on video right now, go to my YouTube and look at her. But, like, her arms are.

You've got.

She's like, lean and jack like you. Not. I don't want to use the word jacked, because you don't look jacked, but you're super lean and fit and tone. So this is, like, what she's saying is true because you're not. We're not talking to you. And you're skinny, fat, or you're. You've got, like, you're.

You're strong. So I'm strong. Yeah.

What's an example of what you have for breakfast? I'm curious.

Well, it could be anything from. I could take a half of avocado, scoop out a little bit, put that in my mouth, put an egg in, stick it in the oven for 25 minutes, and have an avocado and an egg. An egg.

An egg.

An egg.

Not six eggs.

Egg. An egg. I do a lot of salads. I'll do a lot of salads. Little tiny scoop of tuna. Or omit the tuna. Do a whole, like.

Yeah.

Half of a can of garbanzo beans. You know, just a lot of.

You're a little bit more Mediterranean. If you were to describe kind of what you're doing a little bit.

Yes. I would say that I eat a lot of lentils. I do cook for my. For my family. So I do have. I consider it to be my. I microdose my meats. So when I'm cooking. If I'm, for example, cooking a chicken breast for my husband, I might have, like, two bites of that with a giant salad full of nuts and seeds and garbanzo beans. I kind. Yes, kind of. And I. I listen. I'm very in tune to my body. So I listen to what my body needs. Needs. If I feel like my. I'm like, that. That sounds good. That looks good. I'm gonna do that. Then I'll have a full chicken breast. But it's. It's rare. It's rare because I'm. My whole philosophy is, let's crowd out the bad stuff. Right. So how many vegetables can I get into my body?

Not just all the time. I love that you said that. I say that all the time. How many? I make it a game. Like, how many vegetables can I get in?

And I don't mean by. By make putting them in a blender or juicing them, but actually because your digestion starts. We have teeth for a reason. We're not babies. We don't need to, like, pulverize everything and get it into our body super quickly, because when we do that, it overloads our pancreas. And what happens is you have a much more higher chance of having that spit out and accumulate fat around your midsection. So you're chewing. Your food is super important. So how many vegetables can I get in? How many fruits can I get in? How many nuts and seeds and raw almonds? How much can I get in? And am I still craving something that. That is going to satisfy me a little bit, a little bit more? I'll throw in an egg, you know, I'll throw in little bites of meat. But for the most part, when I. When I see how many cow. How many grams of proteins I'm getting in a day, I am well above the minimum.

Okay.

I'm a little bit in that range of what Dr. Longo suggests for a longevity diet, which is about. About zero point. I want to say 0.32 to 0.35 grams. He says 0.31 up to 0.35 grams.

It feels very refreshing because I think, as you said, I mean, we're just getting pounded into, like, the protein. The protein, the protein, the protein. And I think it's. I mean, everyone's body is different. So you have to look at, like, how you're feeling and reacting. But what I'm taking from what you're saying is if you've not felt good cramming in protein, like, listen to your body. Like, listen to what feels good for you. If you're driving on it, that's different. But, like, like you said, you know, what feels good to you, and so you're sticking with that.

Yeah. And guess what? Guess what happens to excess protein in your body? Gets stored as fat.

Yeah.

Everything in excess Gets stored as fat. And so it doesn't work the way that people think. You can't say like oh I want to build a bicep, let me eat protein. Yeah, it doesn't work like that. Proteins throughout our body. So my thought is your muscles are built in the gym and then you'll feed them and it will, they'll end up growing. But your muscles are built in the, in the gym. You can't just pile on all this protein and think that it's going to go and build bigger muscles. Just like you can't microneedle your whole face and think that if you, if you, if you drank collagen, for example, let's say you didn't microneedle. Let's say you drank collagen. Your collagen is not going to automatically go to your skin. It doesn't work like that. It gets processed. You, you, you know, it goes through the whole digestive tract. But if you're creating that opportunity of micro traumas, then you want all the precursors in your body to be able to go to that rescue and build that. The same thing when you're in the gym. You want to tear those muscle fibers so that they can rebuild and you want the precursors, you want all the protein in your system to be able to rebuild that. But that doesn't necess. Rarely take more than 0.35 grams of protein per pound for your body to do that. I, I'm, I'm a living proof of that. And if you look at, if you ever watch like the documentary the game, Game Changers, that's all those athletes that are completely vegan. I'm not one that is a, that is a proponent, proponent of any sort of like just be all vegan. But it, it is a, a way, it does kind of give you that there is a way to build muscle without necessarily needing to depend on high amounts of protein and high amounts of meat to get that protein.

That makes sense. Yeah. And I think my personal opinion, this is not a science based anything but the reason I think people will go to fight with I feel so amazing on vegan or I feel so amazing on carnivore or it's because what the commonality is is they've given up unprocessed food sometimes. So 100 if you do that, you're going to feel different. So I don't think it's a vegan versus carnivore. Like so I think, think if you can just in moderation, in whatever way you, you are working from start focusing on an unprocessed natural food diet and playing that game of how many vegetables, how many phytonutrients can I get. You're going to feel better regardless.

100%. Yeah. Most of the time when people say, I lost so much weight on keto, or I lost so much weight being a vegan, look at what your diet was prior to that, and it's probably you're getting rid of the breads and the croissants, and you're getting rid of the old stuff, the. The ultra. The pasta, the ultra processed food, and that's what's causing you to lose weight. But that's not what's going to cause you to live longer and to expand that health span.

I was diagnosed with celiac years ago, like 25 years ago. And I think it's one of the best blessings that ever happened to me because I learned about unprocessed food eating when that happened, because that was before people made everything gluten free. So I had to eat unprocessed. But that knowing how good I felt eating unprocessed kept me on that. That on that trajectory. So. So that's the commonality. Well, Darnell, this has been fascinating. Today, I've got to get where can. Okay, so where can people find you and where can they get those? Those. Everyone's going to want your protocol now, of course, for both those things. How do they get that?

You can go to live young lifestyle.com so the microneedling protocol is up there as a blog. So liveyoung lifestyle.com you can also find me on Instagram at Live Young Lifestyle. You can DM me the word protocol to get the skincare protocol that shows you how to fit in and all those modalities. You can DM me microneedling protocol to get my whole microneedling for that, and.

I want all of that. And do you share, like, where people can find that stuff if they need to get them? Like, people are. I'm like, I wouldn't even know where to get a micro needle. Like, do you have resources on where to get them?

I do. I do have resources on where to get all of those products. So if you're interested in microneedling, if you just DM me micro needling protocol, I'll not only send you the protocol, but I'll send you a link to, like, the. The microneedling pen that I use.

Amazing.

And also people that, like, you know, sometimes people get these devices and I always say the best at home, skincare device is the one you're going to use, so don't let them collect dust if you're afraid to use them. You can always book a one on one with me as well. Or you can join the Instagram club that I think is like $4.99 a month, where all of the tutorials live in that club. So you can go back and microneedling your. You can go back and micro needle your abs at the same time that I'm doing it. So it works kind of as a, as a tutorial as well.

I love that. Thank you so much, Darnell. Thank you.

Thank you so much.