← Detox Nation with Sinclair Kennally
Detox Nation with Sinclair Kennally
The Complete Protein Playbook: Fix Low Energy, Gut Problems, and Muscle Loss Today | JJ Virgin
00:52:11
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- [00:00]
A
Oh, no, we're doing it again with protein. Protein chips, protein cookies. It's not just eating the protein. The essential amino acids in plants are made to rebuild plants. This does not look like this. Better mood, reduce inflammation, improve your immune system. My big bold statement to all of you is the number one most effective thing that you can do. And yet it's thing that no one's prescribing.
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B
Jj, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here.
- [00:23]
A
I'm thrilled to be here in your beautiful office.
- [00:26]
C
Thank you.
- [00:27]
B
So I wanna start because you are so good at just taking a look at the data and being an advocate for people who are just leading normal lives. They don't have time to look at the data, tell us what we're getting wrong about protein in 2025.
- [00:42]
A
Usually the diet wars over the years, they were always carbs versus fat. And in any diet it was like, okay, carbs are up, fat's down, fat's up, carbs are down. And then it got to be like carnivores versus vegans and. And now finally, protein's having its day. But now you look at it and I think back when I wrote the Virgin Diet and we'd had wheat belly, and then I wrote Virgin Diet and then David Perlmutter did Grain brain and everything was like gluten free. And all of a sudden we created a whole industry of junk food, of gluten free junk food. Same thing's happening now. Like we're on the road as usual, and we were in Whole Foods yesterday and there's like protein chips, protein cookies, protein. I was like, oh, no, we're doing it again with protein. A couple things that we've gotten right now is that we're focusing on protein, but like, that means eat real food for protein. Now. I love the fact that we're starting to push. You need higher levels because we know as you age you need higher levels of protein, not less. And even I'd argue our RDA is like pretty much off for anyone. You know, maybe if you're in your 20s, where your body seems to be way more forgiving because of hormones, but at least 30 plus it should be double where the RDA is and we really need to dose it. In perfect world, we'd be dosing it based on our fat free mass, but at least dose it per your body weight. And that's where in looking at all literature, because I was like, okay, I'm going to have to make a decision for my new book as to how much to tell people, and I won't be able to change it, but I think you can safely say 0.7 to, to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. Target body weight being that weight that you feel you're best at, that would give you a normal, healthy body fat.
- [02:26]
B
Okay, so does that change over the decades? Like you just said, as we age, it needs to increase. So how should we think about that?
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A
Well, I think what we need to think about is as we start to age. However, this isn't just with age, but really there's a hormonal shift that happens where we don't build muscle as easily as we used to in our teens and twenties. Duh. We all know that. But this also can happen because you're sedentary, because you're more insulin resistant, because you have more fat in your muscle, where you're more anabolic resistant, where it's not as easy for you to take those essential amino acids from your protein and your resistance training. You must have both. It's more like 75% what's going on in the gym and 25% what's going on in the kitchen. You cannot eat a bunch of protein, sit on your butt and put on muscle. No, you cannot. Okay, so let's bust that one too. But we need more. But there's another issue, and I think it's the one that's not being talked about at all that drives me nuts, is it's not just eating the protein and making sure that you're getting high quality protein that's got those essential amino acids. It's like, why do we eat? We eat because we need to get things that we couldn't get from air. What are those things? Essential amino acids called essential because our body can't make them. Essential fatty acids called essential, our body can't make them. Or water don't have that deep doo doo. We can live without carbs. I just don't think we can live well without them. I think we need the polyphenols and the fiber. Okay, so we need this protein, but we also need to digest and assimilate it, right? And as we start to age, if we're under stress, if we've done anything to our gut, we're not able to break down that protein. Well, we got a problem. So that's the other side of it, is what do we need in terms of digestive enzymes, in terms of supporting our gut microbiome so we really can break down that protein and utilize it.
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B
Okay, so how would somebody know if they need extra support with digestive enzymes. Like, does that mean digestive enzymes you take, or are we trying to upregulate the body, making digestive enzymes itself?
- [04:25]
A
Again, I think that at least temporarily, especially if you're 30 plus, under any kind of stress, if you eaten any glyphosates you have, guess what you are. Would do well with the trial of digestive enzymes. And I also think it's restoring your gut microbiome, so those two things work together. How do you know if you have an issue? You feel like a snake. You know that feeling when you eat, especially protein, where you just are like, this just feels like it's sitting here forever? Now, we know that protein and fiber together slow down stomach emptying, but they shouldn't grind it to a halt, you know? So if you just feel like that food's sitting in you or you've got rosacea, you feel like you've got a little heartburn. It's always that paradoxical thing of, I've got heartburn, so I must have low stomach acids or high stomach acid. It's like, no, you actually have low stomach acid quite often, and it's just sitting in there and it's not digesting, it's causing that stomach acid to wash back up again. So is it, you know, heartburn? Is it. Is it bloaty? Is it that rosacea or breakouts, Any of those types of things can be signs of it. The easiest thing to do is just do a little trial.
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B
Okay, how would we do that?
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A
I mean, easiest thing is just take some protein, digestive enzymes, and see how you feel. And generally, people are like, oh, I feel better. Right? You know, and if you take anything, especially if you were taking, let's say, betaine and you noticed a little acid, back off, you know? But if you take them and you feel better, better, you don't feel bloated. There you are.
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B
So I have to ask you, you mentioned something really important about stomach acid and how we can actually misinterpret those heartburn issues. What do you think about those stomach acid blockers that doctors are still putting people on?
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A
So there is, like, one case where you would use that, and that's that Barrett's esophagus issue. But in all the other cases, God, that freaks me out. It freaks me out the most because of sarcopenia and osteoporosis. You know, it's like, well, wait a minute. If you're blocking stomach acid, you're blocking protein digestion, what's gonna happen there if you can't break down these nutrients, what happens there? And what happens there is a higher risk for osteoporosis and a higher risk for sarcopenia. And this is totally a guess, is that it could lead to some issues with food intolerance because you're not able to really break apart proteins. And when you think of what happens there where you know, ideally you're breaking everything apart in your gut, you're breaking those proteins apart, you're getting them to the small intestine where they can. Now if they're not broken apart, well all of a sudden they're. And you've got a leaky gut, they're crossing over and hitting that immune system that's right past your small intestine and causing an alarm bell to go off. It's causing all the gas and bloating and joint pain and headaches and fatigue. So, you know, I say that because let's say someone goes, oh great, I'm going to increase my protein and I'm going to eat a lot of eggs and dairy because I'm a vegetarian. Which when I wrote the Virgin Diet, those were two of the foods that people tended to react to the most. One, because you are what you eat ate. So like they probably weren't having a two Greek style yogurt, right? Or they probably weren't having pastured eggs. So they're eating factory raised products which have been fed GMO corn and soy super contaminated other issues. Again, you are what you eat ate but they're also eating it all because they're so reliant on those two types of protein. And now you've got your body launching this immune attack to these foods because the same little antigens are hitting your immune system. Your body makes the antibodies and if it was every once in a while you could get rid of them. But it's building up, causing all these symptoms. So I think it's an important thing to think about as we're talking about protein is that you really want to eat a variety of sources. Just like you would eat a variety of different plants for all the different polyphenols and fibers. You want to eat a different variety of proteins as well, so you'll get different types of fatty acids. Like think of wild fish and grass fed grass finished beef. I think in terms of health and safety right now we're probably better off eating small wild fish and grass fed grass finished beef than we are eating chicken.
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B
Yeah, I see that all the time. Actually chronically ill people not doing well on Chicken and turkey, they're thinking it's a nice clean protein, but because supply chain is so contaminated, they actually react to it a lot. And then they get really depressed and think, I can't tolerate protein.
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A
No, you just can't eat that dirty bird.
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B
Okay, so will you walk us through for people in this day and age the way you see clean protein all the way to like least desirable protein?
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A
Yeah. Because you also don't want to make this. So it's impossible and out of reach for, you know, different wallets. So however, what's fantastic now is, is that you can get this at some inexpensive resources like U.S. wellness Meats Butcher butcherbox. And again, whenever I see a sale on, I'm like, load up the freezer. So we have a big freezer that we've loaded up with this. So again, you've really got to make sure you're making good choices. But you can get like an 18 pack of pastured eggs now and they're way less expensive. So the ones that I would put at the like A plus, let's go over here. First of all, I always get the leanest source I can because toxins are stored in the fat as you know. So even if everything's right, I mean the reality is toxins flow with the water, they blow with the air. So I mean we could go to the most pristine areas and there'd still be toxins there. So everybody and every animal is getting subjected to toxins. So let's just eat as clean and lean as possible. But grass fed grass finished would be, you know, beef, bison, lamb, all of that. And then I do pastured pork and pastured chicken. But I'm not doing like pork belly.
- [10:38]
B
Right.
- [10:39]
A
My son loves, you know, I do wild smaller fish and wild scallops and things like that. Pastured eggs and pastured. So I will do pastured eggs, mix them with cage free egg whites because I'm not concerned about the egg whites because there's no fat in them. And then see if you can find some. And this would be a hard. I'm really struggling with dairy right now. When I wrote the Virgin diet, I couldn't tolerate dairy, but now I can again. And Greek style yogurt is such a great product. The challenge is it's regular milk in plastic. So I'm like, okay, I'm traveling. So I'm waiting for the person. So if you're hearing this, could we make some A2 grass fed Greek style yogurt in glass bottles? Pretty please?
- [11:24]
B
Yes, please.
- [11:24]
A
Wouldn't that Be amazing. But those would be like the primo sources. I think the worst sources would be to eat high fat, high fatty meats that are factory. Because you're going to get all those toxins in the meat if you had to kind of the interim because there's actually. And shout out to Max Lugaver. He did a really cool breakdown of grass fed and finished versus grain finished. And actually there's some benefits in the grain finished meat. Yeah. Because all cows grass fed. It's just whether it's grass finished or grain finished. But there were some benefits to the grain finish. The fatty acid profile would be different. So. And not in a good way because it'd be higher in omega 6s versus the CLA and the omega 3s of the grass finish. But I still think that, you know, eat lean if you're out. If they don't have grass finished steaks, I eat like a New York or a filet and I'll do those. So I think eating grain finished meat, I put that kind of in A, like A plus on this. I'd give that a B. But go super lean. Right. I choose that over a lot of other things where I put in the C category. Things like farm raised fish. Now I know that there's some farm raised fish, that's okay, but I don't know what it is. I don't know the difference. So I don't know how to, how to deal with that.
- [12:44]
B
Can you explain the concerns around farm raised fish for everybody if they're not up to speed in this?
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A
So farm raised fish is kind of like factory chickens where we know that factory chickens even cage free, like cage free just means they're not in a cage. They're still crammed together. Right. But they're not in a cage. Cage is that they are put in close proximity because of that. They have to give them specific antibiotics so that they don't get one chicken sick. They're all sick. So they're doing things to plump them up, hormones, they're doing stuff to keep them from getting sick, antibiotics. And then they're feeding them GMO corn and soy. And I'll tell you, like I went to Expo west one year and I was trying to find some kind of chicken that I could use for my healthy catering company. And all of the organic chicken was fed GMO soy and corn. And I go, I don't understand. My head hurts. Like, how is this. So that's where I stick with the pastured chicken there. But again, those are all the A's the B's would be the lead beets. The C's would be things like the farm raised fish. That again, is sort of like the, the chicken stuck in the coops.
- [13:56]
B
Right.
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A
If you are doing that, I would pick, you know, things that, well, I wouldn't eat farm raised fish, so I just actually wouldn't eat it. I also wouldn't eat any fish. I'd give a D or an F to any fish in lakes, you know, in the US because they are just dirty. So I'd be super duper careful about that. I wouldn't eat like factory pork or factory. I'd just stay away from that.
- [14:25]
B
Okay, so that's really helpful to see it graded like that. But I also know you have really strong opinions about. It's like not all protein diets are created equal. And we've seen the rise of the carnivore diet and the rise of these different keto fads. What do you think about those? What are we getting wrong? What are we getting right there?
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A
So I think diets are tools. That's how I see them. And so just because this is working for your manicurist does not mean it's the right diet for you. Right? Well, I say this because I literally get this DM on Instagram and they go, my manicurist told me, now, no dis on a manicurist. Like, if I want my nails done, that's where I'm going. No diss on a hairstylist. If I want my hair done, I'm going to, but I'm not going to go to them for my nutrition advice. You wouldn't go to your orthopedic surgeon to get your nails done. You wouldn't go to your manicurist to get your, like, foot injected. Like, we just like, let's go to the right person for the right skill set. And just because we eat, we're not nutritionists. Because your manicures told you that you could only absorb 27 grams of protein at any one sitting. Like, literally, these are the types of things I get dm and I'm like, I don't know what to. I, I don't know.
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B
Okay, so you're triple board certified. You've seen these diets come and go.
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A
So here's the thing. I think diets are tools. Carnivore diet, I think there's some amazing benefits to it as a tool. Same with keto as a tool. Like, my son had traumatic brain injury. The keto diet is perfectly set up for someone with a traumatic Brain injury, it is amazing for that. For someone with bipolar, for someone with cancer, for someone with seizures, it can be amazingly therapeutic. I think it's. And for someone who is needing to maybe restore insulin sensitivity, it can be beneficial. I think actually you don't have to go all the way to keto. You can do low carb, but for a long term diet because you want to lose weight. What I've seen out there is that people think they can have a fat free for all. Like all these diets, when you look at them, they're trying to control for something, so all of a sudden they think they can eat as much fat as they want. It might work for a guy who can get more calories in, but for us women, what I see is most of the time they then struggle with their weight because they think they're burning fat. And yes, they are. Keto diet's going to help you burn more fat, but it's not necessarily the fat on your body. That's why I always want to make a distinction between burning fat and losing fat. Because you can burn fat and not lose fat. You can burn fat and gain fat while you're burning fat. Right. And this is, I think most of the people doing keto probably are doing it for the wrong reason. They're doing it for weight loss, when really they probably be more effective by doing a diet where they optimize protein and maybe even push it a little past the 1 gram per pound to target body weight. Because it's going to help with satiety and it's going to help them hold on to their lean mass. Then they'd start lifting weights to ensure that they're holding onto their lean mass. And then, and only then could they do some caloric restriction and start to cycle that so that they'd start to lose fat and hold on to muscle while they do. The thing I'm seeing out there with GLP1s has shone a light on the fact that diets, not GLP1s diets cause muscle loss if they're not done correctly. And any diet where you're not prioritizing protein and lifting weights is going to cause muscle loss. That's what happens. It's not the GLP one, it's the dumb diet design. You know, this is where if we can focus on pick the right diet for what you're trying to accomplish. Keto can be really effective if you've got someone like I had someone who had a ton of food noise and just a sugar junkie now, cool Thing is, your taste buds reset in 10 to 14 days. When I wrote sugar impact diet, that's what it was based on. Okay. Your taste buds reset in 10 to 14 days. That whole food reward dopamine thing, you can fix that in five to seven days. So you can really retrain your whole body in the course of two weeks to go back, taste sugar, and go, ugh. It's possible. I've seen it done over and over and over again. But Carnivore is just an easy way to make that leap. Because one of the ways to help you get off the sugar train is to eat more protein, because it's not just satiating, it's also satisfying because now you've got those essential aminos you need to make your dopamine to make your serotonin. So you just calm down.
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B
Those don't sound very important.
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A
Calm down. I'm sure it's calm the freak down. So that's where I think Carnivore can be good. And also if someone's got a lot of GI stuff, but it's not fixing the GI stuff, it's just taking away the stress so that you can fix the GI stuff so you can bring back in the fiber and the polyphenols from the plants that you need for the long term to really have a good, healthy, thriving microbiome. So, because I think we need both, like, you know, we need to have the essential aminos, we need to have the polyphenols and the fiber from the plants for the good, healthy gut microbiome. And of course, we need the essential fats.
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B
So one of the things I most appreciate about you is you're really good at making sure that you don't stay in your own echo chamber. You're relentlessly curious about what is the data telling us now and making sure that it's always doable for us normal humans. Yeah. What would you say to the diet gurus out there right now that are like, oh, oxalates are evil, or, oh, carnivore is the only way, or you're stupid. You know, what advice do you have for them?
- [19:45]
A
It's nightshades, it's histamine, it's oxalates. Any of those things could be an issue for a small group of people. It's like, on the exercise side, it's cortisol, it's overtraining, it's low energy. These are all things, but they're probably not your thing. You know, it's like I interviewed a gal who got very angry at Me, because she. Her whole thing was everyone has oxalate issues. I go, well, if that was the case, you know, like spinach would be wiped off the planet. Like, we'd never really.
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B
We would never eat dark chocolate. Cause we'd all get kidney stones.
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A
I know. It's like, okay, there are legitimately people who have issues with this, but it's not everybody. That's where we are all n of ones. And what we have to look at is there's some basic things that we know. You're not going to be able to live without fat or protein. You can't. You will not live without fat. Protein. Water must have. Will die, right? Those. You will die. You have to have essential amino acids. We have to make them every single day. Our body is really adaptive where I think we're better off having a higher amount if you don't get enough. If you actually lived by the rda, that was like, what could we survive on? You could survive. It's just you're not optimally surviving. So, you know, I'm not going to do the least amount. I'm going to do the best amount. You know, we have to have omega 3s and omega sixes. Everyone's freaked out about seed oils. And the issue is we actually need sixes. We just don't need crappy ones, you know, that have been, you know, the industrial seed oils are like the factory chickens. It's like the white bread of oils. Yeah.
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B
It feels like a small thing to alcohol.
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A
Let's just have like, we're going to get them. We don't need to overload them. Like the Average person's getting 20, 20 to 4 of their sixes to threes where they need to be 4 to 1. They're getting way too much of it. So they're very pro inflammatory. Does this mean that every time you eat somewhere, like, I hope we're not so precious that we've gotten to a point where you're somewhere in. You find out that you can either skip eating and you're really hungry, or you're going to have to have something with a little canola oil in it. I hope that you can make yourself resilient enough that that little bit of canola oil is not going to take you out, but if you're really sick, you're going to have to really watch it. Now, I do my best to avoid industrial seed oils because they've been processed in a way that produces these nasty toxic byproducts and I don't want them right. However, I also know that if occasionally they sneak in, they're not taking me out, man, because I have made a resilient body. But 95% of what I eat is. I do whole food fats first. I think that's the great way to think about it when you're eating animal protein. First of all, the essential amino acids in plants are made to rebuild plants. I'm not a plant. Are you a plant? So this does not look like this, does it? No, it does not. The essential amino acids of animals are meant to rebuild animals.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Could you do it from plants? You could. You're likely going to have some deficiencies in.
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B
But how many stomachs do you have? You just have one.
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A
I know. And you're like, I remember I went to this. I won't say the name, but they wanted me to come to a tour and help them with their marketing. And they said, come hungry. We're having lunch. I'm like, okay, so it was a vegan, raw vegan place. I have lunch. I look like I'm now nine months pregnant. And they're like, we're going to give you a massage. I'm like, not unless you want to die. I'm going to blow you out here. Like, because turns out you had to have a prescription to be able to get an avocado. Like, it was all no fat. I'm like, going, I'm dying over here. I'm going to die. I'm going to starve to death. My blood sugar's through the roof. Help me. You can get it from plants, but I think you're gonna have to probably supplement in with some protein powder to make yourself get there without overloading the calories from carbs or fat, you know? And I also don't know where you're gonna get your creatine from or your carnitine from.
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B
Well, wait, let's slow down there, because why is creatine so important?
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A
You know, I'm obsessed with creatine. Obsessed. So creatine is this super cool blend of, like, our body can make it. We have about 120 grams of this in our body at any one time. Our body makes about a gram a day from arginine, methionine, and glycine. And then we need to get another gram or more a day, depending on what's going on. If you are working out hard, if you're under a lot of stress, if you. If you're sleep deprived, any kind of cognitive issues, tbi, neurocognitive decline, any of that, you'll need more. If you need to get that gram from food a day, it is only coming from animals. And ideally, the rarer or raw, the better. Meat, fish. I know I'm looking at you going, don't throw up. To get a gram would take about a pound of raw or very rare meat or fish or two pounds cooked. You look at our bias in this country away from animal products, although none of the research supports that. And in fact, the research shows that people who don't eat red meat tend to have higher levels of depression and higher levels of mortality, by the way too. But you know, if you're not eating, if you're more animal based or plant based, you will be deficient in creatine. There's no way you're not. You're going to be. Why does that matter? Because this is how our body creates energy. So 95% in our body, 5% is in our muscles, 5% in our brain. If you are a guy, they're also in your gonads, not in ours. We don't have them. So 5% in the brain, our body prioritizes in our muscles, which is interesting. You think it prioritizes our brain? It doesn't. And when you look at this and go, okay, most women are not eating that, we have less muscle mass, so we have less tissue stores. And boy, you start to give women creatine, it's like you just turn lights back on. Like all of a sudden you have more energy. You like for sleep, for time zone adjusting, it's like the greatest thing ever. It's amazing. I read about it for sleep deprivation. I go, I wonder if this would work for time zone adjusting. Because I was like going back and forth to Europe and it's like time zones are no longer an issue for me. And you know how much I travel. I'm always popping around. Doesn't bother me whatsoever anymore. I do a bump of creatine. I'm good, but say any creatine, I only do, you know, I only do creatine HCl. And finally, the study that this douchebag online went after me for, because I cited it before it was pre. When it was in pre pub. It's still in pre pub, but I've actually like two journals read it. They showed. I misquoted it because I said it was 76% of people had issues with bloating or GI issues from creatine monohydrate. I was wrong. It was 79% and 81% of women. Wow. Versus like you don't have that with. Well, because it's only about 15% absorbed. So that 85% causing all those issues. And now they're telling you, well, you're going to need to have 10 grams or 20 grams. So you get it into your brain. Yeah, you'll be like pooping the whole day. You'll have like. So a study just came out where they looked at creatine supplementation, HCl and ethyl ester for peri and postmenopausal women for brain. And what they found is 750 milligrams and 1,500 milligrams. Both those two doses of HCl worked well for mood, focus, processing speed, so you don't have to do the high doses.
- [27:10]
B
This is so interesting because I really wrote off creatine as I saw the products on the market and how crappy they looked and dirty and how obsessed I am with clean stuff. And it seemed like only gym rats were taking it. So I did not pay attention to creatine until you forced me to and you were sharing the data. And I do feel very, very different. And so I really appreciate you for providing that clean story.
- [27:33]
A
I feel so good on it that I was like. And the funny part was, is I first, when I was reading the research, I like you. I remember the guys down at Gold's Gym when I was training people down there. I'm like, I'm never going on that. I want to look like them. They were on steroids. Okay. So I started with monohydrate and I had me and my husband on it and I started, I started marketing it to everybody and I started getting the worst blowback I've ever gotten. Now I've been, you know, working in the supplement world for 30 years. Never gotten blowback before. I'd get the one random weird thing like every year, you know, something strange. Not this. This was daily comments. And I'm like, oh, what's happening? GI issues, weight gain. Right. And even some of our friends in the medical field who I'm like, you're sarcopenic. You need to be on this. It's going to help you work out harder. It's like, would refuse to be on it. I don't, I don't like the way I feel. I'm just power through it. No woman ever is powering through waking. So when I found this stuff, I tried it out. I went to the plant in Nebraska. It's in the U.S. i was like, this is so cool. In the U.S. rare. Tried it, started using it Got Tim on it. And then I'm like, well, we have all this extra monohydrate. He goes, I'm not using it. We gave it all to my ex husband. It's like, I'll use it. I'm like, okay, here you go. You use it. And some people might, you know, I said it was 81%, so 90% of women might feel just totally fine on the other. But I also can go, why would you want to use something that you have to use that much of? Yes, it's cheap, but it's not cheap. When you combine how much you compare how much you have to use compared to how much you use of hcl, you end up in the same place.
- [29:11]
B
Yeah, that's a great point. We need that. We need to be thinking about our proportions of protein, that you graded our animal source protein really well for everybody.
- [29:21]
A
And use the app, like use a tracking app because you'll think you're getting enough protein. Here's the reality. People underestimate how much they eat each day. And that has been shown in studies that we underestimate anywhere from 25 to 40% of how much we are eating each day. And by the way, one of the studies was done on dietitians. So if the dietitian whose job is to know these things is missing it, we're all doomed. So that's the first part. But I think we're overestimating how much protein we're eating. Especially if you're doing it more from a plant based thing where you need to make sure you're getting a good balance of essential aminos and you've got both the balance of the essentials and the digestibility which is going to be lower with the fiber. So if you use a tracking app, you will get to see how much you're getting. So I just use cronometer. It's free.
- [30:14]
C
Okay.
- [30:15]
A
Or you can like splurge and do the upgrade. I think it's like $2.99 a month. But it's worth it. Track it. So you actually know, right? I mean, it was interesting when I decided to get in the best shape of my life for 60. The biggest thing that I did as a differentiator of anything was I finally started tracking my food. I never tracked it before that with a food scale. I used a food scale. So. And that changed everything. It was such a cr. And what's interesting is first thing I'll have someone do is track their food. I don't even tell you to do anything else. Just track Your food before we add things I like to add before I take away. Let's track your food and you don't have to say anything. People will make better decisions. But what we also know is if you eat protein first, you'll make better decisions and you will tend to not overeat. You've heard of the protein leverage hypothesis?
- [31:09]
B
Yeah, right? Yeah.
- [31:10]
A
So we know that people, if they. It's sort of the nacho cheese burrito phenomenon. Have you ever eaten a bag of those? Because I have the two pounder one.
- [31:19]
B
They're full of excitotoxins to get you.
- [31:21]
A
To eat more, but you're eating it. And it's kind of the protein leverage hypothesis at play where you keep eating a kasumami. Feels like you're eating something and you're trying to get enough amino acids so you overeat in an attempt to get those. If you just eat it first, that doesn't happen. And so I'm like, eat those. You'll get some healthy fats with that. Then eat your veggies and then, you know, see what else you need. Probably you'll be done.
- [31:46]
B
Really simple, very doable, not hard. One of the things I appreciate the most about you is your advocacy in the space for just how to take simple steps like you just laid out, but also your willingness to call out practitioners and industry professionals who are cherry picking data, then it's not serving the public. So I would love for you to talk straight to the practitioners that are relying on these big ag funded studies right now to say red meat is bad and scary. It's better to eat a grain heavy diet than it is to eat red meat. What would you say to the practitioners that are believing those studies and not looking at how those studies are built and made?
- [32:24]
A
I think I heard a great term because we all do this, you know, we have a bias and then we do everything we can to support that bias. And gosh, I'm really trying to look at this from all angles because I'm easily start to go, oh, ooh, oh. So I'm like, halt. Use your foundation of your biology, your physiology, your endocrinology. Like we have a great base of science and you know, people always want the double blind randomized, you know, placebo controlled trial. That's really hard to do in things like exercise. It's really hard to say, hey, I'm gonna have one group over here do resistance training and one group sit on the couch. They'll never know that they're the placebo. Like everyone knows. So there's certain things where there's never been a trial that I know of on aspirin for headaches.
- [33:17]
B
No, that's true.
- [33:18]
A
So some of this is like, could we just look at the biochemistry, the physiology and use your mind and go, how could that be? Like, if you look at all these indigenous tribes of which now there's really, I think just the Hadza left, and you look at what they eat and go, okay, well, they're not struggling with all the things we're struggling with. And yes, they eat animals and yes, they eat plants. So I think, you know, if you look at these things, what I always try to do is stay critically open minded. I think that is what, how we approach all these things. Critically open minded, because we're all going to bring in our bias. Right? Right. And I remember when I first looked at Carnivore, I'm like, how could that be? You know, but yet it's really, it can work really well. And vegan, I remember I used to work at a place in LA called the Pritikin center, and they put people on a 10% calories from fat diet and it was vegetarian and you could have two pieces of fish a week. And people improved. They improved for about a month and then they had elevated triglycerides. But people, a diet that could heal you, that might break some issues and make you better may not be the thing for the long haul. I was just with the practitioner I was telling you about who's helping with my foot, Dr. Ashley Goyal. And they do a very cool plan before you come in for your procedures, for your biologics and the two days before they have you do a vegan diet, I'm like, what? You know, they're like, it jams up your stem cells and your growth factors. I'm like, interesting. So we got to stay open to all this stuff. It's so cool.
- [34:59]
B
That is interesting.
- [35:00]
A
You know, and, and there's a difference between an acute versus a chronic. Like, you look at the things that happen acutely in exercise and if you were to pull out those hormone responses, you go, oh, don't do that. That's a terrible thing. You know, I just jacked up my blood sugar, I jacked up my cortisol, my blood pressure's up, you know, off the chain. I better not do that. Like, no, this is great. You know, this whole idea that we shouldn't do these exercises that raise cortisol. I go, you do know that it raises it and then it comes down and you've Got like a better baseline. You know, you actually can teach your body how to handle stress better and become more resilient. Right? So it's like actually, if your cortisol doesn't come up, you're going to die. I don't know. Like, so we've got to look at these things and go, what's the mechanisms? Is this a good thing? And is this acute or is it chronic? And could this be something used in a healing place versus do I want to do this long term?
- [35:54]
B
Looking at the people who were sickest coming through our practice consistently, the most sensitized, the weakest, were the people who were eating vegetarian and vegan. And it wasn't just the junk eaters. It was people who worked really, really hard to be healthy at it. But when you looked at their tox labs and all their inflammatory markers through the roof, because they're the least protected in this day and age.
- [36:14]
A
Well, and also look at the toxic load of a lot of the plants. It's frightening.
- [36:21]
B
It is.
- [36:22]
A
So they don't have what they need to be able to detoxify well, and then they have a huge toxic burden. Then they also don't have the essential aminos that they need for their muscle. And if you look at it like if you wanted to fix one thing, like if you want to do one thing, go, okay, I'm going to pick one thing. And this would make the biggest difference besides sleep. Let's take sleep off. Because sleep trumps everything else, right? But the thing beyond that, that if you pick this one thing, could course correct so many things in your life, it would be contracting muscle.
- [36:52]
B
That's interesting. Say more about that. What is, what does that mean? Break that down.
- [36:55]
A
So muscle is this most amazing thing. First of all, you know, on a metabolism standpoint, it's your metabolic Spanx. It holds everything in tighter and it burns more calories. It's not significant. You know, a pound of muscle is like 5 to 10 calories. But, you know, 10 pounds of muscle, 75 more calories. When you look at what a small amount of difference it is for the people who gain fat versus people who stay the same, it's having more muscle is, is amazing. But that's the least exciting thing. And by the way, if you want to have great tone, you actually have to build muscle. That's muscle. That's. Yes, you're gonna, you're not gonna get big. 40 years I've done this with women. The only women I've seen get big are the ones who don't lift muscle. They sit on the couch, they get big. The ones lifting muscle. I used to walk through this gym where I, where I would train, and one side was the weight room and one side was the cardio room and there was glass. This side, years I went to this gym, this side, they kept getting worse. I'm like, what is motivating them to come? I literally saw one woman, she was on the precor elliptical doing a crossword puzzle. I'm like, if you can do a crossword puzzle while you're working out, you are go home, you are not working out. I mean, I guess it's good you're not also in the refrigerator. But, you know, let's call it what it is. This is not exercise. Then on the other side were all the weight training people and the average age at this place, because it was a country club, was like 50 plus. They looked amazing. Crushing it. So muscle, besides being metabolic, Spanx also is a sugar sponge. They call it in the world the glucose sink. I like to think of it as this sugar sponge that gives your muscles, it gives your carbohydrates a place to go. Because without really active muscle, your carbohydrates can go to your liver. Not a lot of space there. Once it's full, once all those, those carbohydrates been stored as glycogen, your liver, it's going to topple out and it's going to go to your viscera, it's going to become fatty liver, it's going to be a mess. So this is better, it goes into your muscles, right? Then the most exciting thing that muscle does is muscle is this multitasking messenger because of these myokines. So when your muscles contract and it can't be like, you know, it has to actually work, right? But when your muscles work, every contraction squeezes out these messengers and they can be within the muscles, next to them, all over the body. And they tell your body everything from better mood, make new neurons, reduce inflammation, improve your immune system, like just incredible stuff. In fact, I just did a talk at this mental health conference and what I found, I said my big bold statement to all of you is the number one most effective thing that you can do for cognitive decline, for a brain injury, for a mood disorder, for bipolar disorder, depression, et cetera, because the literature shows it all is exercise. And yet it's thing that no one's prescribing because it's hard to prescribe, right? But the reality is, if you look at the research just behind between someone doing 3,000 steps a day or 6 to 7,000 steps a day. In terms of depression, dramatic. In terms of all cause mortality, dramatic. It doesn't take much. And the biggest difference is from like a little bit to a little bit more. And then you look at like doing resistance training. Same thing. Someone who's never lifted weights, they're in the best position ever because all they have to do is something and their body's like, yay. You know, the nerves and muscles learn how to talk to each other and then things and it's like they'll say, well, I can't do that because I have bad knees. I go, you have to get up and off the toilet. So why don't we just do sit over the toilet and get up and down 10 times. You have to do it anyway. This way it'll be better. You know, it's like the reason you say you can't do something is the reason you need to do it. You know, the bad knee, the bad back, you better be strengthening those things up, otherwise you're going to be in deep doo doo. So muscle to me is the most exciting thing. And again, we start out talking protein. Protein. 25% of being able to build muscle comes from diet protein, adding in the creatine, digesting protein. But the 75% is actually doing the work, not hooking yourself up to some stupid machine for five minutes a week to try to biohack your way to muscles to actually do the freaking work. Sorry, that's another hot button.
- [41:12]
B
Okay, so how about for last piece of advice? Because there's so many good gems today, how about your last message? For folks who are feeling overwhelmed by all the data out there about food and exercise. They know they need to make lifestyle changes because they don't feel good, they're exhausted, they're experiencing those chronic inflammatory symptoms, joint pain, you know, having issues with stamina throughout the day. What is one thing they can do to get started in the right direction?
- [41:36]
A
The very first thing that trumps everything else is the thing I never would have thought. A couple years ago, I queried my community. I said, if you're not where you want to be with your health, with your weight, why not now? I thought that I was going to hear, I can't quit sugar. Right? Right. I can't give up gluten. Like, blah, blah, blah. That's what I was waiting for. What I got was, I don't feel good enough. I don't feel worth it. And I'm like, whoa. So the very first thing that has to come in here is that you have to go, I choose me. Like, I am worth it. I matter. I've got things to do. And so I'm going to put myself first. And I say that speaking to women, because we suck at this. We suckity, suck, suck at it. So it must come from there. Because without that, none of the other stuff's gonna matter. You're not gonna make time for yourself. You're not gonna. You're gonna eat, like, the leftovers of the kids or whatever, you know? But if you're feeding your kids crap, that's a whole nother thing. So that's the first piece, right? Is you choose yourself every single day, right? Cause if you're not gonna choose yourself, no one else is either. So choose yourself, then pick a thing. And I really think what you measure mantra, you can improve. And the thing could be as simple as, I'm gonna start tracking my steps. Steps. I'm gonna start tracking my steps, and I'm gonna get to at least 8,000 steps a day, and it might take me a month to get there. I don't care. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. If you're already there. If you're already there, cool. Then, like, start tracking your food, right? And then let's add in the protein. Because if we add before we think about taking away, we'll just crowd out some of the crap. Makes it easier, right? So how do we do things that just each one builds on, like the James Clear habit stacking, right? Until you look back six months or a year later, and you go, wow, this is great. But it's a slow process. You know, changing your metabolism, changing your body composition is literally like watching grass grow. It's sitting there, you're going, nothing's going on. But if you left for a month and came back, you're like, wow, look at that. But you look at it every single day. You're like, nothing's happening. Yeah, right. And it's why you really have to track your body composition. And you're lifting weights, you're doing all the things over time, it will all change. You live like a healthy, lean person. You will become one. But it takes time. And the further into the metabolic dark hole you are to start with, the longer it's going to take. You did not get there overnight. You're not going to get fixed overnight. Yeah, right. Give yourself the gift of time and just do the habits. And don't expect some dramatic thing to happen because you, like, upped your Steps.
- [44:15]
B
You know, after I got healthy, you know, And I say that in quotes because I think people choose that as a destination point when they're chronically ill. Like, oh, I got symptom free, so now I can just eat whatever.
- [44:30]
A
Now I can go back to what I was doing.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah, yeah. So now I don't have to think about my body anymore. And instead, I moved actively, accidentally into black mold. Had a bunch of family losses. So super traumatic. 18 months, lots of grief. Oh, and I got long Covid. It's like suddenly the weight started packing on. It took me three years to gain it and three years to get it off, you know, like, it was a long road. And we have to remember, I think what we're fighting for is just to feel like ourselves in our own bodies.
- [44:56]
A
Again and to have tools. Because as you said, it's not like you ever get done. Because then all of a sudden your hormones shift. You know, you're like, oh, good, I'm done. All those things. Oh, hold it. You know, or maybe like, I had that old weird foot injury from when I was 21 resurface. And like, all of a sudden I'm, like, limping around. It's just when you.
- [45:17]
B
In your gorgeous heels, you know, it's.
- [45:18]
A
Like, yeah, I'm, like, still in my heels. But just like, when you think everything's great, it's like, God laughs and goes here. But once you have these tools, then it's way easier to deal with all these things. You're building metabolic resilience so that you can handle these things, because they will come. They're going to.
- [45:39]
B
Beautifully said. Thank you so much for advocating for women's health, for advocating for an even balanced perspective, always looking at the science, and for bringing these tools to everybody. So can you give us a sneak peek as we sign off today into your next book and also let people know where to find you.
- [45:56]
A
I am so excited about this one. This has been years. This is the longest time I've spent on any book ever. It's been about five years in the making, but it's really been 40 years in the making. And it really. It's really actually been. I don't know if, you know, like, I grew up the tallest kid right? From forever until I got to junior high. But because of that, I was always on the boys team. And so I was used to always playing with the boys. Right. I go off to high school, and the girls do not have a gym. The boys do. And it's really great. It's got, like, A squat rack and a bench press. So all the high school football players are in the gym. I go too, because I'm used to playing with the boys. So I'm like this great. Yeah. And. And I love the way I felt because I'd always been an acrobat, which is another ridiculous thing for a six foot tall person. And a point ballet ballerina. So I did strength stuff. I always loved strength stuff. So then because I'm six feet tall, I think I should go become a model. So I go to San Francisco, I go to the modeling agency, and the woman looks at me and she says, oh, and by the way, I weigh what I weigh right now. I know, because when I went home to clean up my mother's house, I tried on my cheerleading outfit because Tim was like, where's the cheerleading outfit? I'm like, you freak. Anyway, still fit. Okay, so, right. So I go into the smiling agency and the woman's like, okay, well, height's great. You'll have to lose 20 to 30 pounds. And I did not have the fortitude that I have now, right? Or the. I taught my kids to question authority. I did not. I was like, okay. So I go home, I go check out a little book from the library. I start a diet. I'm eating 1200 calories a day. I've got a calendar, I'm checking it, you know, doing my Special K. Literally, I'm doing the things right. And by the end of the first month, one of my coaches was like, what is going on with you? You know, thinking I'm anorexic. But the bigger challenge was I couldn't do any of the things. Like, no more football player, lifting weights. I can't do it. I'm too tired. I'm having trouble getting through my stuff with the gymnastics team. Like, I can't do anything. And I looked at this and I went, okay, so strong. Skinny can't be both. I'm going to pick strong. I feel like it's taken now. In graduate school, everyone was doing studies on cardio, and I did my study on strength. I was like, I'm sure an advisor is going to sponsor me somewhere. I feel like it's finally out there. And what I really want women to know is that when you focus on muscle, when you focus on getting strong, like, all that other stuff will fix itself, you know? And it's like, you'll be tracking the right metrics. You track weight. You are setting yourself up for failure. First of all, 95% of all diets fail. But if you really want to lose weight, sit on the couch and lose a lot of muscle. You will damage your metabolism and dig a huge metabolic hole. So what this is really about is when you focus on putting on the muscle, on improving your body composition, you get off that stupid diet roller coaster. You ditch the scale. You only ever do body composition. You don't focus on what you weigh. You focus on what your weight is made up of, and you stop basing yourself, you know, your self worth on what your weight is, and you start basing your worth on what's that weight made up of and making yourself as strong as possible. And I think we are so much stronger than we think. Right. And we need to be comfortable being that strong, powerful woman that for so many years was like, you know, don't do that. It's like, do that.
- [49:39]
B
So you're gonna show everybody how to do that in your new book?
- [49:41]
A
Yes. And it's very. It's honestly, it's simple. Not easy, but it's simple. But a lot of it is just doing the opposite of everything that we've ever been told, which is do a lot of cardio, you know, eat low fat. So it's really just like, let's do. Most of what we've been told to do is been just misinformation. It was great information. If you wanted to be a little waif for five minutes and then gain it all back and then some, you know, that would work. We know how to do that really well.
- [50:09]
B
We know it's always rewarding to gain it all right back.
- [50:11]
A
It's so great. Well, and more. Yeah. You never look better when you gain it back because you lost muscle and fat and put on fat. Yeah. And it turns out that this is. This is. I. I haven't seen enough to prove that this is true. But I saw this original hypothesis and I went, this could be that there's a hypothesis floating around that we actually overeat after a diet because our body's trying to gain back that muscle. Unfortunately, we overeat and under exercise, and that doesn't happen. We're not eating protein. We're usually eating carbs and lying around. Right. Because we're hungry and tired.
- [50:49]
B
Simple, not easy.
- [50:50]
A
Yes.
- [50:51]
B
Is that like the through line of your life?
- [50:53]
A
That is the through line.
- [50:54]
B
Doing the right thing, even if it's the hard thing.
- [50:57]
A
Yeah. I was like, why did I pick the hard way to do that? Because it's not rewarding to do it the easy way, is it?
- [51:05]
B
No.
- [51:05]
A
You don't appreciate anything when you work for something, you appreciate it. So you will work for this. And you know what's great? And Huberman talks about this on his podcast. It's like when you do hard things, you teach your body you can do hard things well, you know, so you could do hard things in life, but do hard things in the gym. Then when they come up in life. Okay, I got that.
- [51:24]
B
Ah, so good. Well, you are that personified. I love you. Thank you for being here today.
- [51:29]
C
Thanks for spending this time with us today. I know these conversations can bring up a lot and I want you to have room to sit with what you learned and let it land in your own body. If you want more support or you're curious about the next step on your healing path, you can always connect with me. Find me on Instagram he Detox Nation and explore resources mentioned in this episode@detoxnation.com this conversation is shared for education and personal reflection and isn't medical advice. Please always work with your trusted healthcare providers for your care. I'm really glad you're here and I'll see you in the next episode.