The Importance of Building Muscle in Midlife with Tara Garrison

Today, I'm here with Tara Garrison, who I just met recently in San Diego. And by the way, when I met her, I was a girl crush fan from afar. I was following her on TikTok and Instagram and all the things, and I was just so amazed by her muscles. I was like, how is this girl so ripped, yet so feminine looking like she looks so good. So captivated by her videos. And I would. I definitely geeked out on her social media and would scroll all the way back. And I learned that at one time she was £175 and she was not into working out or weight training or any other things. And she basically redefined herself in her late 30s and got herself in shape, started a business, all the things. And then my friend was out here in San Diego with me and was saying he had introduced me to his friend and it happened to be her. So I completely geeked out on that. Loved getting to know her. The more we chatted and hiked and spent time together, I thought I had to have her on the show because she's got a lot to share about midlife. A lot that's going to help us here. So thank you so much for being here today.

Yeah, thank you so much, Natalie. And I've been geeking out on your stuff too. So it was so awesome to meet and wow, we had a blast. So, yeah, I'm excited to share with the ladies today.

Yeah.

That I have learned.

Yes. And I taught you something, too. I taught you how to do a handstand with me.

You did. You pushed me way out of my comfort zone doing tricks on the beach.

We have proof. We have proof on our social medias that we did it. We even got the guys to do it to it, too.

It was pretty fun.

Okay, so. So take us back a little bit for those just listening, because there's a lot of women listening that have not been in shape. They've never been in shape, and they think, is it impossible for me? So talk to us about the 175 pound you and what happened then.

Yes, ladies, I get it. I get it. I was overweight my whole life. I was in that. Like, I'm not obese, but I'm overweight since third grade. Right. And I was running marathons. I started. My mom was a pioneer in women's running. And so when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, my mom would sneak us onto the track of the high school tracks. There were no gyms, and so I was exposed to running, but I was always you know, we all were, we were all eating standard American Twinkies and chips and Taco Bell. And unless you had some crazy parent, you know, like, we were all eating. So I grew up on that. We were kind of poor, so it was like all the fast food, cheap stuff. So my whole life I was overweight. And, you know, I had four, I have four kids, and I've been that person that was like. Even though I ended up getting in marathon running while I was a mom, I was one of those mom runners and going to all the workout classes, the Zumba, the weight workout classes, you know, all that stuff. I was just always overweight. And it was so interesting because you.

Were doing the long term marathon.

It didn't matter.

Wouldn't even, you wouldn't think.

I, I. Yeah, A lot of my before pictures that you see on Instagram, those are like aft. Those are during my marathon days, right. And I had little periods where I'd kind like lost it after my first baby, second baby, you know, a little bit. But then after my fourth, like, it was, it was bad. That was the biggest I had ever been. And I was like, what gives? So I've been that person that's like, I guess other people can do it and not me. I wish, like, Jillian Michaels could fly to my house and just like knock the cookies out of my hand, you know, I've been that person. Yeah. And I've come on the other side and I got a message to share. So let's.

So first of all, how did you even decide to get on the other side? Like, what was that definitive moment that. Do you remember that?

Yeah. What was the first step?

Steph, what did you do?

So it was multiple factors. The first one was that I was going to Lifetime Fitness, doing the whole check my kids in the daycare thing, and then I would go to a workout class and if I didn't feel like that was enough exercise, then I would run after, Right? And so I was doing that forever. And I got sick of my whole morning, right. I go to the 10 o' clock workout class. I get out of there at like 12. Sometimes I'm just like, my whole morning is like, with my kids as being dedicated to this gym experience. And so one was, I got sick of that. And I was like, I'm going to join the little tiny gym down the street. That's $10 a month. And I'm going to put my kids to bed and I'm going to work out after now. Now, what I know about circadian rhythm I don't super recommend that. That was the option I had at that time.

And this was just because you were sick of the whole routine of the morning.

I was sick of it taking up my whole day with my kids kind of, you know. And so I was like, if I put them to bed, then I can just go work out there. And so when I got there, there were no classes. There was. It was a very small gym. There were weights and some cardio equ. That's it, right? And so I was like, okay, well, I guess if I'm going to do this thing, unless I just only want to run, like, I'm going to have to learn how to lift weight. So that was part of it. The other side of it was trauma rooted. And I share that vulnerably because, like, I feel like a lot of women have been in this place. So I had marriage issues in which I felt like my body wasn't enough. Okay, I'll put it that way. And so there was this very unhealthy driver. And I share that because one, there's a lot of women who have been in that boat. Two, I feel like I learned through that that even if you have a really unhealthy why, if your why is powerful enough, it will really drive action. And three, I feel like that unhealthy why put me on my path of my purpose, you know? And so it was a lot of things going on at once. One was, I'm not enough and I have to be enough, right? And two was, wow, this is really fascinating. I'm really intrigued by this weightlifting thing. Like, wow, I'm learning so much about my body. I'm really intrig by this nutrition thing that is absolutely crazy that I can change this, this and this. And I can feel like I'm living a completely different life. And then later on, I got my internal healing journey with all those skills along the way. So there was, you know, I feel like a lot of us, there's sometimes there's unhealthy things in our lives that are there for a reason to kick our butts into our purpose, you know, so I'm not in that place anymore. I have a wonderful, loving relationship with my body. But yeah, I was in, definitely in like a dark night of the soul when the whole thing kicked off. But I'm grateful because it helps me with a lot of clients now who are in that place and help them get into the healing path of building more loving relationship with their body.

So when this happened and you had this recognition and you're realizing this and you have this big why? What made you sort of go after weights with a vengeance? Because you, you went from somebody who worked out, that was active. My gosh, you're doing marathons and hours doing, doing all the things that you thought you're supposed to be doing. What changed? Because it's not like, you know, it's always laugh when women say they're scared to lift weights because they don't look like a bodybuilder. Like, it's hard to build muscle. This is not an easy thing. You know, you have to work it. How did that even snap in your mind and how did you know where to start and how did you learn it?

Social media. I just got on social media. You know, Instagram was kind of newer back then. The whole fitness influencer thing was newer. And I was looking at bikini competitors and I'm like, well, I want to look like them and they're all lifting weights. And so I was just like your basic social media consumer who was like, okay, I'm just going to do whatever that chick's doing. And they're all, they're all lifting weights, every single one of them, and they're all eating higher protein, lots of veggies. You tracking macros. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to do, follow patterns of success. I'm going to do what they're doing. Little did I know that it, you know, they weren't in a real healthy relationship with their body either. And a lot of those women that I followed at that time have, like, come out and said, whoa, this was like way too much, you know, for sure. But back then, that's kind of. That was the culture on social media. This is in like, you know, 2012, 2013, 2014 era. So I was just following patterns of success. But, you know, using my own wisdom and the things that came down my path for healing, I was able to get out of all that, like, not enoughness, you know, pushing the edge, but I really pushed. Natalie. I went from 175 pounds and like, you know, barely any muscle to 135 pounds and 11 body fat. Right?

So, I mean, you said you copied what they're doing. But I want to, I want women to, like, kind of hear a little bit specific because so, like, when you say heavy weights, for example, a lot of women that follow me, they know that I don't actually do a lot of heavy weights and I'm pretty fat, but I'll do. But what I do is Things like chin ups and pull ups, which is kind of that same category. If you think about it, you're still, it's still being intensity. Can you talk about the load though? Like what has to happen to actually make a dent in muscle? Because I've, I. It's not lifting five pound weights and doing three sets of 12. It's going to do it. So can you talk and speak into that?

Yeah, yeah. I'm smiling because I know from the neurotyping system that I use in my coaching that you're a 1B, which is strength dominant. So things like chin ups, pull ups, heavy, like heavy explosive type. Things like a pull up is a heavy explosive type thing. You really got to engage your nervous system to do that. So I'm smiling because I know that's going to work well for you because people who are neurodominant, that's, they will get better physique changes from that. I am not in that category, so I'm more muscle dominant. So for me, doing heavy weights with heavy slow eccentric eccentrics is, which is when you like lower the easier part, slowing that down. I recover really well from those types of workouts. And so the bottom line, to answer your question is there's got, when you're in the gym, whatever kind of weightlifting thing you're doing, there's gotta be some sort of stimulus that your body has to adapt to. So if I'm just going through the motions and I'm doing 10 reps and I feel like I could have done like 80 more, that's not enough of a stimulus for my body to have to adapt to something. Right. So however you want to do it, whether you want to do strength workouts, which is like kind of heavier fast concentrics, which is like the hard part or muscle dominant slow eccentrics, really getting that pump. Either way, it's got to be hard enough that it sucks a little bit or your body has nothing to adapt to. So you just got, you got to challenge yourself. If you're just going through the motions, it's, it's inefficient. You could get so much more results out of your time in the gym if you'll push yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit more.

Got it. Okay, talk to me about the eating aspect of it too, because I think so many times women are trying to change their body, especially in midlife, and they automatically go to, I have to eat less and move more, eat less and move more. And they're not doing the move more that you're talking about. They're not doing the. I'm focusing on heavy weights and all of those things. They're doing more of the cardio, more of that, and they're now eating less. Which I want to hear from you, but I'm assuming you had to add more to grow muscle.

Yeah, well, I will say at first it was less. I was eating a lot. A huge caloric excess. Spaghetti, you know, salad with kool Aid, I admit, you know, caloric soda. I mean, it was a lot of calories, right. So. But it wasn't so much of eating less, it was eating smarter. So instead of, you know, spaghetti and garlic bread and soda and cake, it was a huge plate of like a veggie stir fry with eggs and guac and, you know, full of protein and fibers and sure, I still had carbs, sweet potat potatoes, bananas in my protein shakes, but it was real food, very little. You know, my only processed food during that transition was really like protein bars and whey protein, you know, everything else was real food. Right. So for women in midlife, okay, I coach a lot of these women as well. So it's. This is like, if there's word to the wise, you're in a state in your life in which you're very sensitive to excess stress. So if you are starving yourself and over exercising while your body is already going through a stressor of menopause or coming up to it or, you know, tailing out of it, your. Your ability to recover one is going to go down. So it's going to make it very hard to get those body composition changes you want. You're going to feel like crap, it's going to wipe you out. You're pushing yourself towards adrenal fatigue is kind of the term we use for. And what does that actually mean? It means, so there's a thing called your HPA axis. And I'm not going to bore you guys too much with, but I want you to understand this. HPA is hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis. So starts in your brain, okay, the hypothalamus pituitary in your brain, and it goes down to your adrenals. When this system senses a bunch of over stress, it starts to shut down, starts to dysfunction. And that's when we start getting all sorts of hormonal issues, thyroid issues, because the body's like, I'm overstressed, I'm overstressed, I'm overstressed. Right. So it's more about small doses of stress, which Weightlifting is great for that. Think about the dose of stress when you're doing a weightlifting workout versus driving yourself into the ground in a class for an hour and then running for an hour. And like all of this heart thumping thing, and this is the hardest thing for women to get out of is I'm not working out unless my heart is bursting out of my chest and I'm sweating. It's this burn calories mindset. And if there's one thing I can tell women, especially in perimenopause age, that is the last thing that you want to do. Because as Dr. Mindy Pels, who came on my podcast, was teaching me, when you are in that state, the job of your adrenaline, of your ovaries, your ovaries are starting to kind of like close down for business and they turn their hormone producing job over to the adrenals. So now your adrenals are already getting taxed double time, all the time, just in general. And on top of it, you're doing these adrenaline inducing workouts that your adrenals are just like, holy crap. Which then goes up that chain to your brain and your brain's like, shut down, shut down, shut down. And that's when we start to get issues. So small doses of intense exercise, recover like crazy. Small dose of intense exercise, recover like crazy. Get your sleep, say no, have boundaries, get out of the drive yourself into the ground mindset and your results will go up like crazy. Sleep is huge. So, yeah, in this age demographic, I just, I can't emphasize enough how much better results you see A lot of these women on social media, they comment on my stuff all the time. They're like, I'm 45, I'm 55, I'm 60. Weightlifting is the only thing that actually got me to the place that I want to go. I was driving myself in the ground. I get these comments all the time. It's, it's that slow, low burst, low amount of time of burst of intensity, recover like crazy.

This is so interesting what you're sharing. Everything you're saying I agree 100% with, and I actually listen to that episode you're talking about. And I, and I loved it. This is what drives me crazy, though. I think there's a lot of doctors, a lot of naturopath, a lot of MDs that don't fully understand this and they're giving partial information and it's incorrect. So what will happen is I'll talk to people about these short bursts and they say, my doctor told me not to do that. It will stress my adrenals. They have it backwards. They're not understanding.

Yeah. So think of adrenals and producing adrenaline. Right? Adrenals, adrenaline. So think about the adrenaline level that comes from doing an hour long workout class like orange theory or F45 or 1 at your gym, versus the adrenaline producing effects of a weightlifting workout in which you're walking around and just doing a heavy set.

No, it's completely correct. But it's interesting that doctors have picked and they heard part of that and they're saying wrong information. So the way you just explained it was perfect because I've been trying to unexplain this to people for a while, that they're different things. They are different things.

And let me say, let me say I went to Metabolic Health Summit this year and this is all doctors and researchers. I listened to a cancer researcher completely flip our paradigms on its head, in which they have a lab in which it's a, it's a gym, their research lab is a gym in which they are taking women in their 70s and even 80s, I kid you not, who have never lifted a day in their life, who have breast cancer. And they're taking them through very controlled environments. They have, you know, trainers, very skilled trainers with them the entire time and they're lifting weights and they're getting improved outcomes on these women, shrinking their tumors and having no return of cancer. And what do you think with a cancer patient? Oh, I mean, me, until that presentation, I was like, oh my gosh, no, you don't want to overstress them.

Right.

That's the, that's the paradigm. But what they're showing is the metabolic upgrades that you get from lifting weights increase the overall flow of the system. But when you're driving yourself into the ground like crazy, like you're trying to do push ups to squat jumps to. Not to mention the injuries you're probably going to get for the long term.

Not even just the small burst. You're talking the long term when you're doing it for the hour and whatever.

It is, muscle improves, improves metabolic health. End of story. Period. And that is why now somebody who is overweight, definitely overweight my whole life, I'm now the annoying person who can, quote, unquote, eat whatever she wants and not get fat because of the muscle that I built. It gives you a huge leeway. Yeah.

So let's talk more about that too. Because in addition to that, Metabolic health, I want people to understand this. The more muscle you have, the more calories you're going to burn at rest overall. So the better your metabolism is going to work. But in addition to that, the more muscle you have, the leaner you're going to look overall. So that's why you look tiny even though you are. Are super muscular, right?

Yeah. I'm like, I don't know what I weighs. I don't weigh myself, but I'm usually somewhere around like £150. And people are surprised. I'm five' seven. People are surprised to hear that because they're like, but you look, you know, I'm like, no, I'm like, not. I'm not small. But it's more. It's more than just the metabolic rate. It's more than that because when you're consistently lifting, you're. What you're doing is. So let me try to explain this as simply as I can. So these muscles that I have on me, I like to call them my carb sponges or my calorie absorbers. Because where do you store carbs? Does anybody listening know where you store carbs in your body? What happens after they go in? What happens? They have these huge sponges, and they are your liver and your muscles. So that I wrote this in my book. I have a book called short term Keto. I specialize in keto, but I'm kind of like the. It should probably be called stop doing keto. Because I'm explaining in that book why you don't need to do keto forever. Okay. I'm a huge fan of the ketogenic diet for people who are temporarily. Right, but like, what about after? And that's what the book is about. But I talk about this. So there are. The average person can store a little over a hundred grams of carbs in their liver and like 300 grams of carbs in their muscles. But the more muscle you have, the bigger your carb sponges are. Right. And so elite athletes, they've said, can store up to 800 or 900 grams of carbohydrates and their muscles. So what does that mean? If you're eating carbs and they're going into your liver and muscles, guess where they're not going? Fat. Body fat. It's only when your muscles and your liver are full that your body has nowhere else to put those extra carbs except body fat. It's actually saving your life by doing that. Because your blood sugar would feel so high you would die. Right. So what's the ticket? Have big sponges. Have bigger sponges so they can hold more carbs. And then Use the carbs that are in those muscles by doing weightlifting workouts with intensity. Now, I will say cardio can't, you know, glycolytic, that heart inducing stuff can also dump glycogen out. But again, we don't want to overstress our adrenals that HPA axis. So there's a couple ways you can do that. You can do cardio and run and all those things, but you're not making bigger sponges when you're doing that. You're now becoming dependent on that exercise every day to empty out your sponges. But when you're weightlifting, you're using up what's already filled in your sponges and you're making a little bit bigger sponges. So you're getting like a two for one.

So good.

So that. And, and fat. Unless you're keto, unless you're in an actual state of ketosis, when you eat fat from food, there's no middleman at all. And I just like people to know that, especially me coming from the keto world, there's this like, carbs will make you fat. And I'm like, no, actually eating an excess of dietary fat is way more likely to make you fat if you're not in a ketogenic state. I don't want to make anyone afraid of it, because you need it to make your brain, you need it to make cell membranes, you need it, you need it to make your sex hormones, you need fat, you need fat. But eating a huge amount of fat without being in ketosis, it has nowhere to, besides those immediate things. A little bit for energy, making your cells and all that, it has nowhere else to go. So it goes.

It's been increasingly becoming a problem. And I'll tell you that, especially in the midlife community, it's, it's confusing for people because years ago it used to be everything was fat free, that we remember that. And that was the extreme opposite end of the direction. But then here everything swung to keto friendly. So you look at foods and it's keto friendly, keto friendly. And people automatically assume it's healthy. But these are people that are not living in ketosis. So now we have too much fat for our bodies to process and it's making everyone fatter. And they think, but I'm not eating carbs. They say, I'm not eating carbs. But this is a problem.

That's one of the main reasons I wrote the book, because people comment, they're like, when I hear people say I eat a keto ish lifestyle. I'm like, how's that working for you? Because I know it's not working for you. And what also happens is you're eating low carb all the time, but you don't have ketones for energy because ketones are energy. Right. That's the energy source you run off when you're keto. But if you're just eating low carb now, you have low energy from not enough carbs and low energy because you don't have any ketones. So we call that low carb limbo. It's horrible. It's. I don't have any energy. So if that's you, I highly, highly recommend lifting weights, boosting your. If you're not going to go full keto, boosting your carbohydrate. And I really, honestly, for women, like eating carbs unless you have high blood sugar. Okay. If you have high blood sugar, I really do recommend doing like a phase of keto to help fix that. Right. But other than that, like, we need carbohydrates for healthy hormones, for, you know, for especially the thyroid.

Tara, share. Because I think your carbs. You define carbs the way I define carbs. Wheat.

Oh, yeah.

Can you explain in your perspective the types of carbs? Because she's not talking about donuts and muffins.

No, thank you. I always forget because I don't even think about those when I think of carbs. My mind's going to nature carbs. Carbs, yes, Nature carbs. So fruits, sweet potatoes. Potatoes. Even rice. I eat rice. I ate rice yesterday, you know, and trying to. Yeah, vegetables, you know, but vegetables aren't a very dense source of carbohydrates because they have so much fiber, which. The fiber is great if you have the gut health to tolerate fiber. The more the merrier for your mental health, for everything but real carbs, real healthy carbs from nature. You know, I love purple sweet potatoes, Japanese sweet potatoes, just all. All of those kind of nature carbs. Oh, my gosh. And you full. Especially if you're adding vegetables and you're eating higher protein. And that protein will boost your mental health too, because you make, you make serotonin and dopamine out of the amino acids that are in proteins. So if you're boosting those, man. And then just add some healthy fats, some avocado, some, you know, olive oil to your salads. Like just, you know, you don't have to go crazy with it.

But that's not a free food, if I'm hearing you correctly, too and what I would say, fat's not a free food. I mean it's not.

Yeah, no, it's an energy source.

The keto ish diet people or that keto looking at keto friendly. We're not, we're not watching. I'm watching people have handfuls of nuts adding tons of cheese. Like that's still fat that you're process.

No, I don't eat that stuff because it doesn't fill you up very much. And people say fat is satiating. So I would like to share this because I dove really deep into the research on. I read so much research for my book. So when isolated, when the macronutrients are isolated by themselves and macronutrients are fat, protein and carbs. When isolated fat is the least satiating oven micro macronutrients in research, carbs has the most immediate satiety effect and protein has the longest lasting satiety effect. So when we eat all three of those together, you are going to get the most satiating effect. And that is actually how I lost weight when I was in my. I thought protein, fat, carbs, protein, fat, carbs. Right. So my order of operation to this day is protein first. What's my protein going to be? Okay, let me add some veggies and some healthy carbs to that and then let me top it off with a little bit of fat.

So that's what I teach in my programs. In fact, we use the, even the hand model for carbs portion at that. I say is your thumb really. So people aren't realizing that like that's, that's about a tablespoon of fat.

Yeah, that's all you need. You don't need a lot more than that.

You're gonna, your body's gonna have to process it. Okay, talk. So, so we've. Gosh, you've covered so much. I have so many more questions though. Talk to me a little bit about what biohacking means to you, especially in midlife. Need to know about that. Like which because a lot of it can get, can get a little cuckoo extreme. We've got some friends that are cuckoo extreme. I'm not gonna lie. Then there's like the happy medium. And I mean I'm not, I love trying some of this stuff, but yeah. What are like the biohacking things that people need to know about and need to be applying?

So Dave Asprey actually defined biohacking. He's the guy from Bulletproof. If you've heard of bulletproof coffee, that's Dave Asprey. And he defined it as, I'm paraphrasing, but changing your internal and external environment for improved health outcomes. So this is anything from cold therapy, infrared sauna, having an air filter, filtering your water supplements, nootropics, testing labs, like anything to get improved health outcomes. Okay. So for me, the biggest hitters I say that are like, you got to do it. And these are the ones that I do with my clients are first blood labs. If you have not checked your blood, like, think about it, you check on your car, your car gets a mandatory check in every year. Like, you check your freaking blood labs. Okay. And then second, hair mineral analysis. You talked about our friend Barton, that's. I use his company with all of my people because hair is going to give you a longer snapshot of your mineral levels than blood will. And it's like four to six months. Ish. They say that you're getting from that hair sample versus like just that day on blood.

Do you suggest the live on urine as well?

I don't do urine, but I know some, some coaches and doctors do and that's great. I, I personally don't do that one. But yes, anything. I'm like, why? It's not that expensive to test and find out what's actually going on in your body. And for me, when I met Barton and I did his hair test, I was so magnesium deficient. I was the most magnesium deficient of anything I ever had. So it was like life changing for me to get my mag levels back up. And by the way, I was taking magnesium, it just, I wasn't absorbing it. Right.

You didn't have upgraded magnesium.

I started using his. Yeah, because it's those nano, nanoparticles. I was excited to meet him because I knew the advantage of getting nanoparticle size and your minerals and your, and your vitamins. So, yeah, really helped me a lot. And then I also do DNA. I, I wouldn't say DNA is like a have to, but what's cool about it is like I use a software program that like, and it takes your 23andMe and goes deeper. Like 23andMe is like cutesy information. So if you can find something like that, it's what's helpful is like if you have a mutation that makes you very high risk for, let's say vitamin D, right. Like, and, and then you check your blood labs and you're really low vitamin D. Something about that side by side is like, like, hey, I need to actually be on top of this and take care of this because I have that genetic risk to be low vitamin D all the time versus just getting a blood lab and seeing your low vitamin D, you're like, okay, I'll get it back up and then kind of forget about it. Right. So I like that side by side, genetics is very emerging field. But I have found some really helpful information for people on like, are you high risk to have imbalanced dopamine levels? Right. And like, do you have an addictive personality? And what can we take taking tyrosine and phenylalanine and things to get your, your dopamine levels better all the time. So I like that one there.

And tell me how do you to the dopamine? Because that's, that's something that comes up a lot too with women especially because I tend to attract a lot of ADHD women. So yeah, it's a big thing. So how did, what was a test that you said you'd do for that?

So. So I have like a practitioner software that I use. There is a company coming out that I'm looking at called the DNA company. They might do that one. You guys could check out the DNA company. There's also another. Oh, there is one I think that people might like. It's called Self Decode.

Okay.

I think I've got some coupon for them. I'll see if I can find it if you want it. But he came.

I'm also thinking pretty much everyone has got a dopamine problem right now with cell phones and all the things that are.

Yeah, a lot of it. But if you have a genetic risk, like that was life changing for me. I have a 88. This is from Self Decode. Okay. I have a 80. It says I'm in the 88th percentile likelihood for having ADHD. I have, my mom has schizophrenia. We've got autism. And you know, all of these things that are from dopamine in my family. So here's a way you can also test it without even having to do the DNA test.

And tell us what you do about it too, if you want.

So I take a. This supplement is through my practice. Oh, people could use this one. It's called Dopa plus from Pure Genomics. So I, I have it on the main page of my pure. It's called pure cat appspro.com coachtera. It's right there. So it's a dopamine building supplement. So it has like a clinical dose of tyrosine and also phenylalanine. Those two are like precursors to dopamine. So you could start taking that. It's not going to be like you feel like you took Adderall or something. It's not going to be like caffeine level of noticeable. But take the whole bottle and then go off of it for a little bit and see if you notice over the course of that month and the month after. And then try getting back on it again and notice your life. And it's like if we're. If you were like, felt more on top of it, better mood, getting stuff done, like, and then you started feeling kind of like, yeah, apathetic, frazzled, I don't really care. Like, that's a great way that you could just test it yourself without doing the DNA testing. So.

Sure.

And then eating lots of protein. Sorry.

Speaking of which, that personality. I know we're getting a little off topic here, but I'm adhd and I'll tell you that the one year in my life, the one year that I did do Adderall years ago, it made my life a lot worse. Because you think you're focusing, you think you're. You're better. We start focusing on things that are not actually relevant.

Yeah.

And it not only does it affect your adrenals in a crazy way, but also ages you faster. There's a lot of negatives to doing that. So when we turn, when we turn to just stimulants to cope with that, I think there's bigger problems that we create. That's just my, my thought on it.

100. You're right. You get, get tunnel vision into just like this is the most important thing in the world and you're not able to prioritize your time is what I've found with people. So if anybody listening is on Adderall like I have, you know, obviously talk to your doctor, but I've worked with people on this and titrating that dose down while boosting dopamine and serotonin through honestly protein, making sure you're eating a lot of protein, but then also supplementing with a supplement like Dopa plus, which I believe also has five htp, which boosts serotonin. I use a different one, but it. They can't get that one. It's through a private practitioner account I have, but I believe Dopa plus could help. But you could try boosting more natural ways of boosting dopamine and making sure you're getting plenty of sleep, too. That's big, you know, because when you're on Adderall, shoot, dude. You're like, probably it's hard to go to sleep when you're coming off of methamphetamine.

And I know people might not like what we just said here. They're going to say, well, I need.

To talk to your doctor. I'm not trying to like replace. No, no.

And I did the same thing. But I, I think everyone should talk to a doctor. Just my own personal experience. And then working with ton tons of clients around this, I think it's. There's other ways to address it versus creating another stimulant on top of what we already have an issue with there.

Well, and my favorite question for anybody using like outer something from Adderall to alcohol is what is it helping you cope with? Because if you address the thing in your life that makes you feel like, oh, I need Adderall for that or I need alcohol to deal with that, when you address that thing in your life, that's when you start to be able to. It's like, you know, I had somebody was, I was working with getting off Adderall and it was his work. He's like, I have. Whenever I sit behind the computer, it's really hard for me to focus on that. And I'm like, how can we get you off the computer? He runs a company. I'm like, who else can do that stuff?

Or what can you focus on? That actually lights you up there.

Right? So making those shifts. He's off it now. He's off it now. Right.

It's interesting. Almost every entrepreneur I know in my friend, like it has easier close to or has adhd. And what I found trend wise with a lot of them is that, but me included, when you're not doing that and you actually start working with your unique ability and your unique interests, you'll thrive at that. Because the other part about ADHD is you, you, you can hyper focus and then be not focused. We tend to not focus on the things we're not interested in. So that's why school would be harder. If it's a subject you're not interested in. I was that student in school that would have an A or a D, you know, if I was interested, it was an A. If it was a D, I was not. You know, so but when you can start working with, working with that personality, like let me use the hyper focus on the things I'm great at or I'm interested in, you actually could truly thrive with it. It not. I don't look at it as a disorder. I look at it as a unique ability, actually.

Totally. And when you get rid of the things you're getting a D on in life and you're trying to force yourself, you carve out more time for the things you get an A in. Right. And then, yeah, the need to medicate yourself starts to drop a little.

Okay, so Tara, talk to us about. So it's interesting. You've, you put on all this muscle, you changed your whole body, you changed your whole career, you're helping all these people. Now how do you, what has changed from building to maintaining? Or has it been similar? Been the same? And like, what will, what will you continue to tweak? Like, like in your 40s and beyond? Like what, how do you think you'll navigate that?

Yeah. So, man, it's been a journey on that. So I had to do deep healing work to get past the, like once I got fit and I'm here now, I'm 11% body fat. My social media is building, like my coaching business building. I had to do a lot of internal work to get past the like fear mindset of I can't lose this now. You know, it became kind of addictive for sure. You know, and so having first doing all that healing work but now to maintain it, which is really, it's like been such an eye opening journey because I'm like, wow, I'm not tracking any food, I'm not stressing about it and I'm still, I'm not getting fat. Who knew? Wow. And so these are the things that I do. One is I am so big on sleep. If, if I weren't big on sleep, I know I would start to gain weight. Your body needs energy from something if it's lacking from sleep. And so it's, you're going to start craving foods like crazy just to have energy. So sleep is huge. I have major boundaries around my, and I have four kids. I'm a single mom, so, okay, so, but I have major boundaries around my bedtime. They know, they, they, they've trained. Eight o', clock, we start going upstairs. All our rooms are upstairs. And by 9 o' clock it's like I'm not available anymore because the lights are off, you know, and sometimes they'll be in and they see me laying there with it and they're like, never mind, Mom's going to sleep, right? So sleep. Then intermittent fasting. So I get up early, I get up at 5, I do my morning routine, I meditate. All the things that are, you know, involved in my coaching and have changed my life. And then I go to the gym and I, you know, I bust it and then I just wait until I get hungry. Like I haven't eaten a day and currently right now it's almost 11 o' clock and that's pretty typical for me is like 11 or 12, something like that. I'm not psycho about it. If I were like starving at 9 one day I would eat. But when you work out, it's a appetite suppressant, right. So it makes intermittent fasting really easy. And then I, I just eat during the day as I'm hungry and I, I have a phrase I use in my coaching called be your own mom. And I think like that, right? Like eat your real food first. Like you can eat whatever you want, but like fill up on protein veggies.

Yeah, that's. We're actually so aligned there. I think that's interesting. It's funny what you just called it versus what I call it, but I'm realizing how aligned we are. So I talk about intuitive eating, which is basically what you just said too. But also I say add in all of the good foods first, which makes less room for the not so good.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly what you said. So it sounds like something's off limits, but get all those good things in first.

Yes. It keeps you out of that restrictive mindset you say in this, nothing owns you, you're in a mat. Like if there's donuts, it's like, well I know I can have those but like let me eat some.

Have your salad and chicken first.

Yeah, and then I can eat those if I want. But most of the time once you're full, you're like, nah, I'm good. You know, you were just hungry. And so I do that. I usually cut off eating around. It just depends. If I went ham on food at like 4:30, then I'm probably going to be done, you know. But sometimes it's six is probably about the latest I eat and then seven is like my tip off time. I have to be, I'm a night owl by nature, so like I have to be a little. These times help me, they help me stay. It's like seven o' clock is like wind down time. Like I'm not going to the store, I'm not doing anything. It's like I'm not working close.

And what happens if you're, are you an all or nothing there? So like what happens? You're traveling, you're out with people.

Yeah, I just flow. I just flow. Like I just got back from Hawaii yesterday for a week.

I was gonna say we had dinner at like Seven. Sarah.

Yeah, we had some later dinners and I did notice though, you know, like when I wake up after eating late like that it's like, like I don't feel as good. My stomach actually kind of hurts and I don't feel as recovered, you know, so. But I, I'm not like, I don't.

Sleep as well if I eat right before bed. Like I, I love to eat at 5:30 or 6 if it's later. It just, it's, you know, you're digesting all night. It doesn't feel good.

Guys. I, I can't. Ladies, I cannot emphasize this enough. If you will cut off eating two to three hours before bed out of self love. Out of. I want to recover. Like your brain actually, actually cleanses at night. Your whole body recovers at night. But when you're busy digesting food and all your blood flow is going towards your gut to try to digest food, which is not a great time to be doing it anyway because you're just laying there, it can't recover. It can't. Your blood flow is all occupied there. And so if you do it out of self love of like I want to feel amazing and live a long life, you get this awesome bonus of staying lean. Because when you ate dinner and then you're moving around for a few hours and digesting food, you're kind of using up some of that food. You're helping with digestion and then you're recovering hard. Right. So it's. I don't intermittent fast out of like body composition goals. I'm doing it more for deeper metabolic health reasons. I like to. There's a system in your body called AMPK that you go into when you're not digesting and that's when all the healing and recovery happens. So I'm just trying to provide that opportunity a little bit longer and it serves this awesome bonus of staying lean and as well.

So what I hear women do so many times, which makes this even worse. Worse is not only are they eating late, but they are now taking melatonin to sleep. So now we're slowing down your digestion even more and we're going to actually.

I'm actually a big melatonin fan, but.

Not with eating late. You didn't, you just said you don't eat late though.

Yeah.

So I'm saying that the combination with eating late and taking melatonin, you're going to slow down your digestion even more.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you're just like dropping right into that. Yeah. I will say I have to say for people who are perimenopausal. I don't want to, like, I don't want anybody who's, Especially if you're kind of in adrenal fatigue, your thyroid suffering, maybe you got gut issues, you got a lot of inflammation. I do like intermittent fasting, but not to the point of like extreme distress.

No, you're not gorging for four hours and then not eating. It doesn't sound like you're more, you're more flex. You're more like a flexible dieting there.

Right? Well, and there are so, so, so carbs blunt the rise of adrenaline. So there's some people especially like the one Bs, the, the, the strength dominant people, the dopamine dominant people like you are those people actually, if they eat a little something before their workouts, they'll feel a lot better because their dopamine converts into adrenaline. So like if they block that by eating a little bit of carbohydrate, they keep more dopamine and then don't convert it all into adrenaline. And if you're already, already battling adrenal fatigue, like, don't, don't let this be set in stone. If you have adrenal issues, like some consistent carbs throughout the day can be really beneficial for you. So use your amazing queen energy of intuition. You know how you feel better. Right. And if it's just driving you into the ground, then don't do it. You know, like it's okay. Don't be scared of those. Because I just have to say that for, because everyone's different and I don't want to be like, okay. Tara said the way to say lean is I have to intermittent fast. You know, come. Because for people who are battling adrenal fatigue, I actually don't recommend intermittent fasting unless like for some reason you just feel better. Because I'm worried about the adrenaline going too high from too much fasting. Too much fasting is a huge problem when it goes for too long. So some fasting, intermittent fasting, really great to get some metabolic upgrades in your body. But I see these women, especially perimenopausal, that are like doing too many like 36 hour fasts. Fasting for like, I only eat one meal a day and I worry about them boost pushing into adrenal fatigue. Too much. So don't overdo it. Some good. Too much, not good.

So what I want people to hear too, because you've said it a few times throughout, but I want to make sure it's like super Clear for people is you didn't start out by fasting and doing all these hacks and these things. You started out by lifting weights, weights, building muscle, balancing your proteins, carbs, and fats.

Yep.

And eating healthy, unprocessed, real food. I think there's too many times where women, especially those that have 50 plus pounds to lose.

Yes.

We're trying to skip to these extreme things.

Exactly.

You got to start with those basics right there.

I think when I started, intermittent fasting would have been too hard, to be honest with you, because I used to be religious and I used to fast the first Sunday of every month, and I would, like, have so much anxiety before that day came. It was so hard for me to fast for 24 hours. Like, it was. I would have to sleep through the end of it because I just, like, could not go on. Right. And now I could. I could do that, no problem. But it's because of the metabolic health that I boosted through lifting weights, eating nutritious foods. I started with my oatmeal with protein in it in the mornings. You know, like, I was eating throughout the day, just making sure that I was saying at that time, it was macros and calories at first. Right. Getting aware of that, I was like, wow. I used to eat more snacks, max calories than real food calories. I had no idea. That stuff adds up quick when you're eating M M's and brownies and cookies and, you know, whatnot, you know, so. So I would say, if you're just starting, I. I don't know if I really recommend something as extreme as intermittent fasting. Wait till you boost your metabolic health by lifting weights, changing the types of foods that you're eating, and it becomes a really nice maintenance thing later down the road because it's easier for me to intermittent fast now because I. My metabolism is such that I'm responding to. To physical hunger cues, not blood sugar cues or, you know, stuff like that.

So, so good. So good. All right. Gosh. This. This is like almost this is just flown by. I still could talk to you for hours. I have so many questions. But what do you want to. If we're just gonna kind of tie this into a nice, nice little bow for everyone. What are, like, the three main things you want everyone to know? Especially. Especially midlife women listening to this? Like what the three. If you were like, these are. Just listen to these three things. What do you need them to know?

Yep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Can I say sleep like a mother? Yeah. Sleep like a mother. Sleep, Sleep Sleep like, I cannot emphasize it enough. Like, you are not a loser. If you just. Your body needed 12 hours of sleep and you skipped your workout, in my opinion, it trumps. It trumps it. Just make sure you're watching your bedtime so that doesn't become a habit of just sleeping way late. Like, go to bed early. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Second one, Eat as many real foods from nature as you possibly can. Like Queen energy. Just throw them in. Just. Just like what? In a loving way. Like, what do you need? Body, what do you need? Oh, you're gonna love this. Here you go. Here you go. Stay out of those restrictive mindsets like fill in the good stuff versus avoiding the quote unquote bad stuff. That doesn't work. It's horrible. So sleep like a mother. Fill up on nature foods as much as you can. Nutrient dense foods, and then lift weights. Lift weights. Get into it. Look at it as a exploratory journey of learning. Make it a hobby. That those three things, you get those on lock. It's just, it's the ticket to where you want to go.

Sarah, where can they find you? Where do you want them to go? Follow you, find you.

Okay, so biggest platforms are for social media are Instagram and Tick Tock and I'm coach Tara Garrison on those. T, A, R, A. And then my website is taragarrison.com also check out my podcast, Natalie's coming on it. It's called the Inside out health podcast. It will say with Coach Tara Garrison on there. And then I think that's pretty much it. You can find my retreats and all that. I got a retreat coming up in Maui. You can find all that stuff on my website, taragarrison. Com.

Thank you, Tara.

Thank you.