Prevent Bone Loss, with Kevin Ellis

If you led a sedentary lifestyle when you were younger and you weren't playing sports, you weren't working out or doing gymnastics or anything that had you doing these short, sharp, dynamic movements in different directions to really stimulate that bone growth, all of those. If you smoked or drank excessively, then that could be a contributing factor.

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Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing five Journeys podcast. I'm Wendy Trubo. Ed's with me today. Hey, he's not always with me, so savor the moment, folks. And guess what? We have Kevin Ellis on our show today. He's one of my favorite people. He is better known as the Bone Coach. He's a Forbes featured Integrative health coach, podcaster, YouTuber, and he's also the founder of bonecoach.com, which he founded us after an osteoporosis diagnosis in his 30s, which, by the way, men don't get osteoporosis in their 30s.

Just for the listeners, us who often.

And that was really the impetus for understanding how challenging it is for the average human to get the ways towards stronger bones and prevention and resolution of osteoporosis. So I'm going to skip to the punchline and let you all know that he reversed his osteoporosis and has subsequently done it with thousands of people. So, Kevin, welcome. What a pleasure to have you here.

Thanks so much for having me here. This is going to be great. I'm looking forward to it.

All right, so if you get your bone density and you're diagnosed with osteoporosis, you're going to be offered medicine. And I think the people listening are typically people who say, you know, I prefer to avoid that. And so one question I would have is, did you wind up on medicine or did you. Medicine for osteoporosis, or did you say, no, I'm going a different path here?

Yeah, that's going to be the standard recommendation for most people. Calcium, vitamin D. Take a walk. Here's your bone medication. We'll see you in a year or two for your next bone density scan.

Want to call us if your teeth.

Fall out right yeah, right. That is. That is the standard recommendation that is woefully inadequate for me. I didn't go the medication route. I would say I am pro. Do everything you possibly can naturally before considering medication as an option. Because a lot of times, and this is an opinion, but, you know, after having over a thousand conversations with people before they've come into our programs, I really understand that the majority of the time, a medication was not the right approach for some of these people to start with. There is so much more they could have done. And a lot of times medications are prescribed, and this is on the physician's part. This is something that all physicians should be looking at, these bone turnover markers and before they even start providing a recommendation for a medication. So. Because if somebody has really low bone turnover and you go prescribe a medication that suppresses the activity level of cells to break down bone, that's not a good thing. Right. So there's just. I think there's more that needs to be done on the physician's part at the time of diagnosis. And I think from the patient's perspective, they need to operate from a place of education, empowerment, and, you know, not just jumping into the first thing that's recommended, because there's usually a lot more that can be done. Now, it is a little bit of a different story if somebody is coming into their physician and they are already fracturing multiple times from, like, really low trauma or no trauma, like they. They just fall over and shatter their hips or like, break their femur or something. That's a different story.

Right.

That is an indicator of really poor quality bone. And usually there is some kind of intervention that needs to be done right then at that point. But the majority of people are not in that position. So my recommendation is you can just say, like, look, I'm not saying no because to the medication. I'm just saying not yet. Can you help me get more information? Can you help me get more objective data to help make the most educated, informed decision? Buy yourself some time. My goal is to get every single patient that is in that position that's not in, like, a dire, you know, life's life or death situation to be able to say, give me a year. And I want the physician to say, like, okay, go to. Go to bone coach then, and, you know, get. Get your plan in place.

Right. So the thing that I'll say is, I want. The other thing I'll emphasize that you're very kind not to emphasize, but I will emphasize is that as physicians, the majority of physicians are at this point, pretty algorithmic.

Hold on. They have seven minutes to figure you.

Out, so they have to be algorithm.

Right.

It's not a. It's not a fault. It's a fact that here's your diagnosis, here's your medication, go do some exercise. Goodbye. And that's all they have time for. That's all they can think about. That's all they've been trained for.

Right.

And again, it's not a fault of any single person. It is a system's fault. And the thing that we're trying to do as another type of medicine is to really look at the person, not the disease and not. And to really help the person individually, what they need, which is what you're advocating, not. Not what their disease, what medication their disease tells you to give him. And anybody listening that's going to be looking at that. Just understand that, again, it's nobody's fault. You don't have to. I mean, you can try to fight the system, but you're not likely going to fight the system. So as you said, you want to be your own advocate and you want to really make sure to do everything you can. The thing I will say, though, is we a lot of times talk about exercise. And I've had. I've had a significant amount, and this is again, mostly women and that. But that they'll go for walks, which is great. And it's just not enough. And some people just will not take that next step for whatever reason. Maybe they have pain, joint pain, that they can't do it. Some people have work and they. Or they just can't take that next step until you take that. Like, you either need to really work your bones to reverse something. Just like if your muscles are weak, you have to work them or you have to do something else.

Well, the walk is good for your heart. If you walk rapidly and you get your heart rate up, that's good for your heart. That's not necessarily good for your bones, right? It's like, what are you treating with the exercise? What's the exercise treating? And make sure that you have a mix. So you get your bones, your heart, your muscles.

So what is a good exercise for bone health?

Yeah, I was, I was gonna say that. Let's talk about walking for a sec first and then we'll talk about the other forms of exercise. So because walking is part of the standard recommendation, right? That's going to be given calcium, vitamin D, walking bone drug. That's the standard recommendation for the majority of patients, walking is. It's Important, right? It's great for your health. You should be walking. Everybody or most people should be walking, right? But that can't be your only form of exercise because especially as it relates to your bones, the best it's going to be able to help you do is maintain and not lose your bone, at least in your lower half. But think about your forearm, right? Where a lot of fractures happen when people get older. How, how much stimulation is that forearm getting when you're going for a walk?

Typing doesn't do it either. Typing does not qualify, that does not strengthen your bones.

Right. So we have to think about these things. So you actually need different types of stimuli for your bones. You need muscle pulling on bone and you need impact. And the most effective interventions are using one or both of those things in combination. So in terms of walking, that is a form of weight bearing exercise. Weight bearing exercise is anything that your body and your bones are doing. That where they're working against gravity to keep you upright. There are things that you're doing on your feet and they're placing a good kind of healthy stress on your bones. There's low impact, high impact weight bearing, right. So this would be things like you're running, you're jogging, you're hiking, you're dancing, you're gardening, you're playing with the kids or the grandkids outside, those kinds of things. Or it could be your yoga, your Pilates, your Tai chi, your qigong, those are all weight bearing exercise. You want those things, that's important. But there's also non weight bearing exercise. And this would be where your body and your bones do not work against gravity to keep you upright and they're not placing a good healthy stress on your bones. What would those be? Cycling and swimming. If you do these things, it's not to say that you can't do them. Like if you're riding a bike on a trip or you like to ride a bike at the end of the day and it's really relaxing for you. It's not to say don't do that, but do not count that as your only form of exercise. Same thing is if you get in the pool and all you do is lapse and you get a great cardio and you get out and you're like, gosh, I feel great, my workout's done. No, it's not.

You gotta, your heart workout is done, your cardio workout is done. Right? That's the lane.

Yeah. You're not putting that stress and that stimulus on the bone so you can do those Things. Don't overdo those things. But you could do those things. But just don't count it as your only form of exercise. Because astronauts deal with the same thing up in space, right. When there's no gravity and their body and their bones are not working against that, they can lose bone density. Use it, you're going to lose it. So what else do we have to add into our plan to make sure we're not losing it and to actually support building it? That would be resistance training, muscle strengthening exercise. This is, this is so important. This would be your resistance bands, your dumbbells, your barbells, your machines at the gym. And this would be exercises like squats or overhead presses or. This one's a little scary for some people that, you know, if you, if you're not into working out dead lifts. I know it sounds scary and intimidating. Gosh. But it's, it's like a foundational human movement too. And if you can, if you can get some of those one. And chin ups too, right. And maybe like box jumps or jumping, those kinds of things, those are all great exercises that we can incorporate. If you don't know how to do those, you can go to somebody who can teach you how to do those. And you can, if you have pain or anything like that that's preventing you help have them evaluate your body mechanics and teach you how you can make modifications to slowly progress up to where you're providing that stimulus you need. If you're already an active person and you are somebody who's like, this is a big one. I think cardio, the cardio. The people who do cardio, and that's all they do too. This is another thing to look out for. If all you do is run or run marathons or run really long distances and you're running in the same direction and your feet are just going the same way, you're not providing any varied impact and you're not providing any other stimulus for your bones. So long term, that's not going to be the best thing. You have to incorporate resistance training. It is a must do. Yeah.

I'm going to say something people are not going to be happy with, but you touching which you're touching upon. I actually don't think people should be running long distance on pavement. If you want to go in the woods and vary your very. Yes, that's fine, dude.

Warn us before you torch the whole show. I mean, you just said something really like.

But like you said, there's repetitive. You don't. You're only strengthening A small portion of muscles, you're, you don't have any variety and you can turn off and just be in the zone, which is great, except you're actually not present to what's going on in your body. And trail running is very different and the impact is very different. And you have to make sure that you're not going to clip your ankle, which is really important, and you're going to work your ankle muscles and go, etc.

So, yeah, by the way, I was in the gym yesterday and it was apparently like high school boy hour because it was all high school boys in the gym. And I'm this 52 year old postmenopausal woman. I'm like, huh? So I'm with the trainer, I look behind me, they have placed the, you know those box jumps that you were just referring to? They placed three boxes on top of each other so they were almost five feet tall. And I said to the trainer, this is, this is why accidents are like the number one cause of death for teenage boys. Because they were trying to jump from the floor onto the top of them with no trampoline assistance. They were just trying to jump five feet and they missed and they went sliding down the box. And the trainer was like, no, you have to connect the boxes together if you're going to do that. So you don't, you don't go crazy and break your neck. But I was laughing when you said box jumps because I was like, oh, yep. Teenage boys, which are none of the above, who have osteoporosis, but 90% of.

Your bone mass is put on by the time you turn age 18, by the time you turn 30, that remaining 10% approximately fills in. So if when you were younger you had poor diet nutrition, if you drank a lot of sugary soft drinks.

None of us do that, of course.

Right.

We have perfect diet and exercise when we're 20.

So yeah, no, I think all of us or the majority of us ate some candy. You know, I grew up in the Midwest where macaroni is a vegetable, so.

So is pizza.

Right.

Because there's tomato on it. And actually, did you, have you heard this, Kevin, that that ketchup for some kids is the vegetable they get. And I'm like, ketchup is not a vegetable. Ketchup is a, is a sauce.

And ketchup a lot of times contains a ton of sugar too.

Yes, but that's for a lot of kids, they're only vegetable. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

No, no, no. Yeah. We got to do more. We got to do more than that.

So hold on. So ketchup is not bone building. Let's just be clear.

We gotta be really.

Yeah, we gotta expand beyond the ketchup. So. We gotta expand beyond the ketchup. So the other things in childhood, in terms of diet, nutrition, again, if you're eating, you know, candy and sugary soft drink, or drinking sugary soft drinks and all that stuff, that can be a contributor. But also, if you're just not getting the nutrients you need, calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, vitamin K at a younger age, and when you're trying to build that foundation, it's going to be really challenging for you to build and reach peak bone mass if you are not exercising. So if you led a sedentary lifestyle when you were younger and you weren't playing sports, you weren't working out or doing gymnastics or, you know, anything that had. Had you doing these short, sharp, dynamic movements in different directions to really stimulate that bone growth, then that could be a contributing factor. Also, if you had an eating disorder, if you took certain medications like glucocorticoid, prednisone, for example, if you. All of those. If you smoked or drank excessively, okay, hand up. You know, I was in the Marine Corps for a while, and I. There was one point in my life where I was smoking two, two packs of cigarettes a day. This was on deployment when I was in a really stressful environment. But there was one point where that was part of my. Part of my history. And then outside of deployments, there was, you know, drinking a lot of alcohol in short periods of time. So. And, but I know that is with a lot of people. A lot of times people are. They might be drinking alcohol excessively. That can be a contributing factor too. So all of those things can prevent you from achieving peak bone mass before you turn 30. And if you still continue on and carry on with those things in your later years, all the things I just talked about, then that can be a contributing factor. Current day in active bone loss.

I want to add in the athletes, female athletes who are exercising so much that they suppress their cycles of their. Their menstrual cycles because they're suppressing the estrogen, the spikes of estrogen and progesterone. So that's another category that I want to make sure the listeners are present to. Like the kids who exercise so much or run so much that the period suppressed. That's another huge risk for osteoporosis.

Right. And I. The other thing I want to emphasize what Kevin was saying, I talk about bones as muscles. If you, you gotta exercise them or they waste away.

Use it or lose it. Use it or lose it.

It's literally the same principle. If you're not stressing it, if you're not moving, you're going to lose it.

This is the only place where stress is good, right? You're stressing your bones and your muscles, but you're not stressed yourself.

Not over stressing.

What are the things. Let's transition to what people can do. We're going to skip the medication. What can people do? What are some top things that you're recommending people engage in to reverse and slow the decline? Aside from the stuff we've talked the.

Fir one of the first ones is diet. Digestion, absorption, those are all big parts of this and big pieces of this anti inflammatory diet. Lean proteins. Protein is actually so important for your muscles and your bones. Like minimum 30 grams of protein. Try to get 30 grams of protein per meal if you possibly can on that first and last meal of the day. If you've got more protein, 40 grams or so, that's great, right? That could be really, really helpful. And having quality protein too is also important. And then in terms of other nutrients, you know, omega 3 fatty acids are a great addition. Vitamin D we talked about earlier, calcium, magnesium, vitamin K. But not just any, not just like the K that you would find in your plants. Also you want to get K2MK4, K2MK7. Those are going to help with activating the osteocalcin and matrix GLA protein which are going to help the calcium go and be directed to the bones to help with mineralization, but also to help prevent that calcium from going to your soft tissues like your kidneys and your arteries. So that's another important nutrient. You can get K1 in your dark leafy greens. That's a great source. You can get K2 MK4 in you know, grass fed beef liver or you know, pasture raised chicken or egg yolks. You can get MK7 vitamin K2 MK7. You can get that from fermented foods, hard cheeses, sauerkraut, Bacterial fermentation in our guts can actually be a source. So if you, if you've got a healthy gut that can help with the production of these nutrients. Vitamin C also is another important nutrient. I think everybody understands vitamin C is important for our health for a lot of reasons. But in terms of actually helping that collagen protein matrix that is your bones, vitamin C is stimulating pro collagen. It's Enhancing collagen synthesis. And it's stimulating that alkaline phosphatase activity, which is a marker for bone building cell formation. So there are great sources of vitamin C that you can get that are natural whole food sources. Also, in addition to supplementation and berries, citrus fruits are some great options to get your vitamin C. And then if you're looking at the veggie side, you know, and you can't tolerate peppers because you're. It's a nightshade and you've got an autoimmune condition. But go with steamed broccoli or steamed brussels sprouts or sauerkraut or those kinds of things to help you get that in. And then exercise. We touched on that super important. You need to be doing those things. You need to do it to a point where you're providing the stimulus you need to become stronger. If the weight is light enough to do 50 times, chances are that's too light, right? You're not providing that stimulus. And if you're not actually feeling it a little bit after you're done, chances are the stimulus is not there. And then stress and sleep, you need to reduce your stress. You need to improve your sleep. It's pretty well documented poor sleep quality is going to reduce your bone density. So prioritize those things.

Actually, let me pause it for one second because I want to make sure you brought a really good point that I want to emphasize, which is vitamin D. Because everybody now is afraid of the sun and put their son, are afraid to put their kids in the sun. So everybody's either covered up, doesn't go outside, or uses sunscreen, all of which prevent vitamin D. So majority of people, in fact, well, 99%, don't get their vitamin D and they're low on vitamin D. So the thought that when you're younger, you would get your vitamin D, it's just. That's an errand thought.

Do you remember when we were studying for the ifm, the boards, when we took our functional medicine boards, I was like, we learned about vitamin D. And you know, you think about, okay, yeah, whatever.

It's.

It's good for. It's good for bones, but it regulates the tight junctions in the gut as well as supports the immune system.

Insulin also.

And so when you're looking at how are you building bone, if you have higher insulins of zonulin, you have higher leaky gut, you have the on early onset or the beginnings of the blunting of your vill high, and you're not absorbing your minerals and Nutrients, you might need more even to flood the system.

Our genetic polymorphism.

Are we telling my story again?

It's not all only about you. It is a lot about you, but it's not only about you.

Like, oh, I got that issue.

So if you have vitamin D snip, you also need to double your vitamin D intake. So I'm sorry we left. I just really want to emphasize that because I think that gets really lost in people's like, oh, I go outside.

And with a hat and long sleeves.

And sunscreen, sunscreen, you don't get any vitamin D. And just full disclaimer. You may want to put on the sunscreen during the summer from like 11 to 3. But in the morning or in the afternoon, you really want to get out in the sun. Make sure you get your natural vanity because it's not just vitamin D you got, you get all the things that you can't get through the pill.

In terms of vitamin D also, like for kids, a lot of times you're right, people like vitamin D is. Or in terms of sunlight, it's one of our best sources of vitamin D. But if you're slathering your kids with chemical laden sunscreens or you put those long shirts on them, you know that cover everything up with the hoods all day long, you don't let them get any sun on their skin. That's not a good thing. So how can we get them some sun exposure where it's, you know, they're getting enough before they're burning and then at the point that they might be going to get red, then you put a little bit of zinc oxide sunscreen or something like a natural mineral based sunscreen on them after that. But let them get a little bit of that sun first. That's going to be helpful.

Got it. I feel like we're scratching the surface here, but I've deliberately asked you fewer questions because it's such a big topic. So I think what we should pivot to, A, for the listeners, thanks for listening and B, how can people find you you because this is, this is the, the start of the conversation at the end of it. So how do people find you and follow you? And we'll put everything in the show notes for sure.

Yeah. So you can always find me@bonecoach.com we've got stronger bones coaching programs. I mean we've got over, over 5,000 people have come through these programs. It's focused on helping you slow, stop, prevent bone loss, build bone strength, prevent fracture and injury and just enjoy your later years. That's the whole focus of this. So that's those programs are all@bonecoach.com and then you can find us on all the social channels, Instagram at Bonecoach, Kevin, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, those are all at Bone Coach. So you can find us there. And then if we could put my free Stronger Bones masterclass in the show notes, maybe and that that's a great three step process for them to walk to. And I'll give them a free Bone Healthy recipes guide just for signing up. So if that's in the show notes, I would check that out too.

We'll get that in there. All right. This was Kevin Ellis. Thank you for joining us, Kevin. Thank you for being here for this episode of the Five Journeys Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. We're so psyched you were here. Everything will be in the show notes. You'll be able to find him. And thanks for being here today.

Thanks for having me.

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