← Lipstick on the Rim
Lipstick on the Rim
She Started the GLP-1 Microdosing Conversation. Here's What She's Saying Now
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You know that feeling when you're at a really great party and it's not over yet? You can just sense that it's starting to wind down. That's mid July and the sun is out. The rose is still very much flowing. But there's this little voice in the back of your head that starts doing the math on how many weekends you actually have left. And the answer is, never as generous as you want it to be. Because here's the thing about August. It has a sneaky way of arriving and disappearing almost simultaneously. And you're sitting there wondering, how did you let the whole season slip by without doing half the things you said you were going to do?
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So.
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So before that happens, think about the moments that are still ahead of you. The beach trip that's been living in the group chat. Let's do it, people. The long weekend getaway you keep saying you'll plan whatever those moments look like for you. Macy's has everything you need to actually show up for them. The swimsuit, the bag, the outfit, the hosting essentials, and of course, the beauty must haves all in one place. So the only thing left is to go do it. Head to Macy's.com and shop everything you need to savor the rest of your summer.
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Hey. Psst.
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You didn't hear this from me, but Normal Gossip is back for its ninth season. Join me, Rachel Hampton, as I share the juiciest gossip from the real world with some very special guests. This season, we're bringing back some old friends, a Radiotopia buddy, and for the first time ever, a Nobel laureate. That's right, we have Malala on season nine. Normal Gossip is out on all your favorite podcast platforms.
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Hey, I'm Molly Sims.
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And I'm Emisha Gormley. We're two girls obsessed with one thing.
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Beauty. And by that, we mean everything that makes you look and feel beautiful.
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We're calling on our favorite health experts, industry insiders and friends to answer all
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your beauty questions with a drink in hand.
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Definitely with a drink in hand.
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You're listening to Lipstick on the Rim with Molly Sims. Did you know that our guest today started the microdosing trend?
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D
I did not, but I do now, and I have a lot of questions.
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It's actually the least surprising thing about her once you get to know her, because she has been ahead of the conversation on basically everything women's health for years. She's a naturopathic chiropractic doctor, a metabolic health expert with nearly 30 years of experience. She's built a following over Yep. I'm gonna say it. A half a million people by refusing to sugarcoat anything. She is here to talk to us today about what's really going on with Peptides. Peptides. And, of course, why your metabolism is not broken. But the information you've been getting might be what every woman in her 30s needs to start doing now. Dr. Tina Moore, welcome to Lipstick on the Rim, you guys. She has an incredible podcast as well called the Dr. Tina Show. We are so excited to have you on.
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D
So many questions.
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So many questions. Peptides microducing. Do it, not do it. Why can't we lose weight? Do we need to be taken? I mean, I get asked this question on a daily basis.
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Well, thank you so much for having me, ladies.
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I want to kind of go back. How did you become Dr. Tina Moore? And how in the world did you get a half a million followers?
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So I was a really sick little girl, and I grew up in Southern California, actually, and I was really ill, and my mom was, you know, hauling me around to different specialists back in the day, and I wasn't getting any answers. I remember specifically asking my doctors questions as a child, and they would blow me off, and I was like, well, that's lame. You know, why can't you answer my basic questions? And the only doctors that would actually sit down and talk to me, just like human to human, even though I was, you know, an adolescent, were my chiropractors. And so I loved my chiropractors. They taught me about nutrition. They taught me about exercise. Just great docs. And then I was fortunate enough to meet my mentor, Dr. Rick Marinelli, when I had just graduated from undergrad at University of Oregon. I moved to Oregon as a teen, and I, you know, henceforth stayed there for. Until I got here recently. And he was a naturopathic physician and an acupuncturist, and he was just doing amazing things in his clinic. And I was his receptionist and his assistant, and I followed him around for 20 years. So that's kind of how it all came together. And about the saying the hard things that people don't want to say, I feel like I say the things that everybody wants to say that they just don't. And I didn't ever realize I was doing it. I often get told I'm blunt, and I'm sitting there trying to be very polite. I'm really trying to. To craft my words strategically so it doesn't come out too blunt. But maybe it's a little neurodivergence, who knows? But I'VE just always kind of said, you know, if the pink elephant's in the room, I'm the one to point it out. And I. I feel like that's what my audience appreciates me for. It costs me greatly. I get in trouble a lot, but, I don't know, somebody has to say it.
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D
You coined the term microdosing, which everyone talks about in 2023, and then went on Mark Hyman's podcast, and you blew up overnight. So what's happening now and what's the next conversation that you're trying to push Forward?
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So in 2023, my podcast producer asked me to do a segment on Ozempic and I said, you know, I don't love talking about weight loss. I'm not that interested in it. And he kept bugging me. So I went down the rabbit hole of research, and when I start digging, I'm like a terrier. And I was digging up all of this information going back like 20 years or further on GLP1s, whether it was in rodent studies or human studies. And it turns out that we have GLP1 receptors all over our body. It lands and does some pretty amazing things throughout the body. And so I started talking about that on my podcast, and I think Mark Hyman's podcast producer listens to my show. And so I got invited onto his show and I was there to debate Kali means about Ozempic, which I didn't really want to do. I wasn't ever trying to have that conversation. What I was proposing was really my hypothesis was that a, the side effects that we were seeing was due to overdosing people, if you will. And that can vary from person to person. We're all individual. I've always done individualized medicine. I've always applied HRT and different interventions on a personalized and individual basis with a patient. So I didn't understand why everybody was getting the standard starting dose and people were having such horrific side effects. Off the bat, not everybody, but a lot of people were. And so it seemed logical to me that like, well, what if we just used a lower dose, right? And then outside of that, my thinking around the microdosing was actually more of an immuno supportive mechanism. Do you guys know about low dose naltrexone? Have you heard about low dose naltrexone?
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No.
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C
So we've been using low dose naltrexone in the functional medicine space for decades, and it's an immunomodulator and naltrexone at standard doses like 50 milligrams is what they use to abate opioid or alcohol. So you can give somebody naltrexone, and they won't want the opioid and they. Or they won't want the alcohol. We started using it decades ago in little tiny doses like 1 to 4 milligrams. And what happened there was, in a roundabout way, opioids. Not to get too nerdy, but opioid like receptors on our cells have an impact on our immune system. And if you sprinkle a little bit of the naltrexone into the system, the cell would then in turn bud up more receptors to receive it so that your own endogenous supply would work better. Does that make sense? Like, we're. We're trying to use a little bit of a drug to nudge our receptors to wake up, and then what we're using, what we have inside that we make naturally would work better. That was my thinking with microdosing GLP1s, I thought, you know, they're made in the L cells of the gut, and the gut in most of my patients is trashed. Most people's guts are trash to some degree. So their L cells are probably pretty petered out. As we age, our gut lining atrophies. So I thought, well, the L cells probably aren't doing their thing as well. We also make it in the brain. We make it in the brain and we use it in the brain. GLP1. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I wonder if chronic stress would have an impact on that. So my thinking was that perhaps people were a, potentially a little functionally deficient, meaning not overtly deficient, but functionally, and that their body just wasn't making enough for them to sort of normalize. And B, what if we sprinkled a little bit in the system just a touch? I'm talking like a fifth to a tenth to even a fiftieth of the standard starting dose. And we allowed the body to kind of do its thing. Would the body's own endogenous supply work better? And that's really hard to explain on a podcast, right? I was not given that opportunity on most of the podcasts I was on. And so because it's nerdy and people check out, but it turned into something very different. I think the media and the telemedicine companies grabbed onto it and they basically started saying that the standard starting dose, which is the same dose that I would give a patient with diabetes, obesity, that that was a microdose, but that's like five to 10 to 50 times higher than what I was trying to talk about. And so it got appropriated. It got a little bit bastardized and twisted up, and it turned into this vanity weight loss thing. Well, Dr. Tina said it was safe, we can take it at whatever dose and it'll be fine. And so a lot of doctors started telling their patients that the standard starting dose was indee need a microdose, which is not true.
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What is a standard starting dose? Because I think that's something that a lot of people might not even know. I'll be transparent. I started on Zepbound two years ago and my starting dose was 2.5. Is that a standard starting dose or
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C
is that the standard starting dose?
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D
Okay, yep.
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C
No, that's the standard starting dose. What happens for me is that I've got followers, you know, all over the world, and they're messaging me saying I'm on a microdose, but I'm puking my guts out and I'm like, well, what are you on?
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What are you taking a microdose of 2.5. Their body didn't really need it. And what she's saying, if you kind of cut it back to signal the body to try to do it on its own, that's not a better way, as opposed to putting a patient on something that's actually too strong.
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C
Right. So it's almost like two separate mechanisms. One is we're trying to nudge the body to work better. And the other is pharmacologic dosing to override the system. Right. And so all of that's getting called a microdose, but it's not. That's a big wide divide there on dosing. And so to answer your question, Wegovy Ozempic, that is semaglutide, and the starting dose of that is 0.25 mg tirzepatide, which is Manjaro Zepp bound, that the starting dose there is 2.5 milligrams, which you just said that that's what you started on. So that alone is confusing. Right? Because those are very similar sounding. And so people message me and they say, well, I'm taking this many units. Is this a microdose? And I'm like, well, I wouldn't know if I. I couldn't tell you unless I saw the bottle and saw the strength on the bott milligrams per milliliter. But it's been all over the map. And so I. It kind of. The messaging kind of got lost. In the process, you know, they lost the plot. And here we are. There's a multi billion dollar industry that's cropped up around microdosing. Most of it. I think a lot of doctors are using it as an on ramp. Another thing I've seen doctors do is with Tirzepatide for example, you start at 2.5, they can take you up to 15 milligrams. And so or semaglutide you, you can go up to 2.4 milligrams at, at the maximal dose. They're changing that right now, but that's what it has been. And so doctors will say, well we are following the Dr. Tina's protocol. It's 1/10 of that dose. It's. So they're giving them 1/10 of the maximum dose and calling it a microdose, which is a little unethical. And you see how it's kind of shady. Whatever dose a person needs to move the needle in whatever direction they're trying to go for their goals. Not judging, I just think that the messaging around it has gotten skewed and I feel like they're preying upon middle aged women in the process.
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Well, I also think it's like it says take two Advil, but you might only need one, right? Like it's, it's a standard dosage. Okay, it might be that, but maybe your body actually doesn't need it. You see how strong sometimes, especially early on, the side effects, but like were real side effects. I mean people are vomiting, having diarrhea and now you see less and less. Because I think people are actually doing what they're told. What they're told.
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How do you suggest people find the right practitioner to help them in this process? Whether it's peptides or a semi glutide, a trizepatide, whatever. How do you go about. Someone's listening. I wanna find the right person that I can trust that will hold my hand through this.
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C
That's a good question. I had a course out for a long time where it was directed at practitioner so that I could teach them my strategies of microdosing. And several of the people who graduated from that course are out there online still giving out the standard starting dose, calling it a microdose. So that's, you know, there goes that option. I have a freebie video on my website where I talk about what I would do to find a good practitioner. I think ultimately talk to your friends, start with your friends. I think word of mouth is easily the best way to go because if Your girlfriends have had or male friends have had good experiences with someone, then you're very likely to have a good experience as well. I would be in reality and understand that a good practitioner who's really going to understand how to utilize peptides efficiently is probably not going to be in network with your insurance. They're probably not going to take insurance. It's going to be an out of pocket expense. I think that's a big one that hangs up people. And finding a doctor who's willing to step outside of just the dogmatic standard of care. Right. Because a lot of doctors are too afraid to even consider looking past those blinders. And that's just not how medicine is. Everybody's an individual. And so finding somebody who's, you know, maybe they're a younger doctor, maybe they're an older, more experienced doctor, but somebody who's willing to listen to you and work with you, and then knowing going in that all of these peptides, regardless of which one we're talking about, really, they don't land well in a body that's inflamed, that's eating the standard American diet, that's not going to the gym. You know, there's a lot of work to be done on the patient's part before a peptide, I think, is even put into the conversation. And so a lot of people go in sort of thinking this is going to be the magic panacea. And then not much comes out of it. And the reason being is because the lifestyle part is 9/10 of the equation, and that's free. Right.
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And I want to talk about the lifestyle part, but I do think a lot of women are nodding along to the word peptides without really understanding what they are. Dr. Tina Moore, can you give us the real picture? What do peptides do? Okay, we need to take a second because we are genuinely so excited about this. Oh, that's right. Project Runway. It's back. Heidi Klum. We love her. One of my very good friends returns as our host, and she is owning that Runway. And this time, she's doing it with 22 designers. That is the most designers in Project Runway history. All fighting for a chance to make your fashion dreams come true. Christian Siriano is returning as a mentor. Law roach, Nina Garcia are also back in the judging panel. This season, we're getting a supermodel and entrepreneur, Tyra Banks, joining at special guest judge, which. Yes, please. The guest judge lineup doesn't stop there. I spites Sierra Iman, Kiernan Shipka. Honestly, the guests alone are worth tuning in for every story, every single stitch is going to have you on the edge of your seat. The new season of Project Runway premieres July 9th on Freeform, and you can stream it on Hulu and Disney plus. Do not miss it. Project Runway is back.
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Quince.comlipstick well, there's a variety of them and they all do different things. Peptides are strings of amino acids and that's it. So if you look at a protein and you break it down, it basically breaks down into peptides. If you break that down further, it breaks down into amino acids. So these are. Some are synthetically derived, but amino acids are naturally occurring molecules in our body. This is why big pharma hasn't really invested in doing, you know, phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials on these, because it's not advantageous to spend that kind of money that they would need to. And you can't patent something that's got a natural derivative. So that's why peptides are sort of in this weird gray space. These peptides land and they sort of fill in the hole, if you will. They signal different systems of your body to do different things. In the case of GLP1s, they mimic like semaglutide is bioidentical to the GLP1 your body makes. It's just been tweaked so that the half life stays in your body longer. We make GLP1. It's in and out of our system within minutes. If we use a GLP1 agonist, it's in and out of our body in five to seven days. And so you get a longer half life with it. The other peptides out there, most of them, this is the really confusing space, I think, right now. And if you'll give me a minute to explain it, because not many people understand what's going on. In 2023, the FDA came in and very quietly took our ability to prescribe multiple peptides away. They put them on what's called a Category 2 list. That means do not compound. And so the confusion has been, my girlfriends are like, but wait, I have this vial of one of those peptides that my doctor prescribed to me. It came from a compounding pharmacy. What are you talking about, Tina? It's a murky zone. It's a very confusing place. And so we've lost access to a multitude of peptides. People are still getting them. They're going through the gray market. In most cases, that's the research labs that do not give to humans. It's for rats only. You can still buy them online. And the FDA has not cracked down on that yet. So people are buying these from influencers on Instagram who sort of put it in this like pseudo medical jargon. And it looks, some of these companies look pseudo medical and they're getting gray market research lab grade peptides that God only knows what's in them or where they came from. Over here we've still got some pharmacies compounding them and that's just, it's a gray zone. It's not illegal. I'm not going to say that. It's just a gray zone. And so recently RFK and the FDA have come out and said we're going to move them out of category two while we research them and see if we want to approve them. That does not mean they're in category one and they're okay to compound. It just means they're in this void, they're in the upside down. They're just in this space. So people will take their chances of compounding them or not. And over here we still have the gray market research lab access, which I'm not suggesting people go do. It's just out there.
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D
But why did they pull it back to a Category 2? Like what was their rationale?
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C
That there wasn't enough data, potentially that it could be harmful? We don't really know. I have some friends who work closely with the fda, different physician friends of mine who work closely on the compounding list that they're considering. And this meeting, from what I hear, just kind of happened quietly. And we all woke up on a, you know, we all woke up the next day. It was the fall of 2023, I think it was September. We all woke up and all of our access to peptides was gone. And so we're hoping that we'll get them back. But the Internet, you know, RFK was on Joe Rogan. He said something how he was going to get him back and now the Internet is saying, oh, they're good to go again. They're not, they're not on category one, they're not good to go again. They're being evaluated.
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D
I sometimes think it is a much bigger business to have people be slightly unhealthy, slightly obese. Of course, it's just, it kind of kills me. And I don't want to be that conspiracy theorist, but I don't, I don't have 100% faith.
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C
Oh, no, you're, I, I'll put that tin hat on all day. Yeah, it is. You know, diabetes is big business. And when I came out Talking about microdosing GLP1s for a multitude of health conditions like cardiovascular disease, neurologic conditions, we now you know, since I started talking about it, we now have really good studies that have come out and shown that. My hypothesis was, I mean, yes, they were using standard doses, but that the GLP1 itself really has a multitude of mechanisms that are favorable throughout the body. And so I. You guys would be shocked how much pushback I got. It was crazy. The bots came out, the obesity doctors came down on me, the functional medicine community came down on me. Everybody came down on me when I was like, hey, we might just want to look at this peptide differently. It's not just about weight loss. It's not just about obesity. Like, what if we considered it for other things? And the pushback I got was enormous. And it was, it was chilling. I was like, huh, who's behind this? Well, let's see, the snack food industry is hurting right now because of GLP1s, perhaps all the other pharmaceuticals that people were on that they maybe don't need to use anymore when they're using a GLP1. Maybe there's some vested interest there. There's a lot of industries that, you know, alcohol people seem to want to not drink as much. They don't want to smoke as much. I mean, there's a lot of big industries here that profit off of us sort of like I say, slow, sick, dumb and fat. I mean, I hate to put it that Frank, but they keep us there and there's a lot of people to profit from that. Right.
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D
One of the things that I get asked very, very, very often is, do you have to be on it forever? And I'm curious your thoughts on this. Once explained in a very simple way. If you have a thyroid deficiency and you take Synthroid, your thyroid normalizes. That doesn't mean you stop taking it. And a GLP1 is if your receptors aren't. I'm gonna say this wrong, cause I'm not a doctor. Aren't recepting properly. Like, I don't know if that's the thing. Getting the signal, getting the signal. Then once you stop, they stop receiving the signal again. Right. So to correlate it to the Synthroid, it's like you have to keep on some kind of a dose to fix that issue. If you have that, do you agree or disagree with that?
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C
I think it's nuanced. And I'll explain why. It is a signaling peptide hormone. And that was part of my hypothesis was what if people were functionally deficient in a hormone? Just like I see patients who are functionally deficient in thyroid because they've ran themselves into the ground or they're hitting, you know, a lot of women are out there saying, oh, I'm in really early perimenopause. I'm like, no, you're metabolically very unwell and you've ran your. Yourself into the ground and so your ovaries are puttering out. We give hormone for that. We supplement it. We don't supplement pharmacologic doses, we supplement physiologic doses. And my thinking with GLP1s was, why aren't we doing that? I think a lot of people, we have it in the data that those who struggle with fatty liver, those who have type 2 diabetes, and in some cases obesity, they are GLP1 deficient. And so I think in those cases, and again, we're kind of talking about two groups, you're. You probably. I don't know how much weight you actually had to lose. I would guess it was probably not significant. More than £40.
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D
Yeah.
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C
Was it more?
- [25:36]
D
But yeah.
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C
Okay. So it depends, I think, on where you started. If you started and it's helped you drop a significant amount of weight, I would bet that that's something that you're going to be looking at for life. That said, I think we can cycle it to some degree. I think going off of it and allowing your receptors to recover is not a bad idea. People will argue with me about that, but that's just how I do peptides. I cycle them for folks who are using it, maybe for something else. Like I use it for autoimmune disease and neurologic improvement. That might be something that I, you know, I can easily go off of it for months on end and come back on and have a good impact with it. So I think it depends. Although the studies do show that the weight regain can be significant, I also wonder how were people using that window of opportunity to optimize their health with the GLP1? It causes changes in your brain in a favorable way. It rewires things. And so if you're implementing all the lifestyle, I call it all the things, right, you're making sure you optimize your sleep, you're getting to the gym, you're using that opportunity to have your food noise quieted so that you can make better choices with your nutrition, you're eating nutritionally dense food, you're setting your circadian rhythm, all of that. If folks are doing that, I do believe that there is an opportunity probably to discontinue and to cycle it. But if you have lost a significant amount of weight on It I would say you're probably on it for life, but that doesn't mean that we need to continuously ramp up the dose. It doesn't mean that it's a get out of jail free card. The lifestyle part is 9/10 of the equation.
- [27:10]
D
I think it's the biggest part of it, honestly. Molly knows me and has known me a very long time. It's changed the way I approach food and eating and even exercise.
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A
What is metabolic function? How can we do better with it? Can you change it? Are there certain drugs peptides? But we focus a not on lifestyle. We love a quick fix, but it's really how your body is metabolically showing up. She's smiling. Dr. Tina Moore.
- [27:38]
C
Yeah.
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D
So?
- [27:40]
C
Well, so a 2021 study showed data from 2018 that 93% of U.S. adults, 93, 94% of U.S. adults were metabolically compromised. Which is frightening. Right? And what does that mean? It means that you're not processing your, your carbohydrates and your fats and your fuel appropriately. The foods you're putting in your mouth are not going down the appropriate, most optimized metabolic pathways. Insulin's involved here. So we hear a lot about insulin resistance. That's where the cells no longer here. I think GLP1 resistance might be an issue too. I think they will come to find that in the again, going back to that functional deficiency. But insulin resistance is where your cells are just being bathed in insulin because your blood sugar's so high and your poor cells are like, dude, we are like, we're maxed out. They cleave off the receptors. Now that you're swimming in insulin, that's a bad place to be. And some of the first signs are visual. So I can see it walking at me. And I used to catch a lot of heat from my colleagues because I was like, well, you could just tell that somebody's metabolically busted. And they're like, you can't tell without running labs. I'm like, yeah, you can. Central adiposity, just your waist disappears, right? You had a waist and now you don't. That's usually the first sign. And then you might start packing on a belly. So that waist circumference is huge. Back during COVID I was trying to share out that metabolic dysfunction and obesity was really driving the pandemic. And we had a lot of data to support that. And I was sharing with folks that their waist circumference, not even their waist to hip ratio, just the actual waist circumference itself, was an indicator And I took a lot of heat for that. How you react to foods after you eat them, you might feel sleepy immediately after meals. You might notice that you're not tolerating carbohydrates as well. You might start to feel sluggish. You might start to notice skin tags. That's another big one. I mean, there's all kinds of indicators that we're dealing with metabolic dysfunction. And it just means that your system, your engine, isn't running efficiently. And so we look at like, like you, Molly. I mean, I've, like, I've been a huge fan forever and you've always kept your physique really in great shape. Like you are metabolically optimized. And that I'm sure is intentional. It takes work. It does take work, but it's work, right? Like it didn't just happen. Like you didn't just have kids and then, you know, fall back into your original size. It's time in the gym. It's making sure that you mitigate your stress and you eat the right foods and you do the things and you maybe take the HRT and all of those things matter. So I think the we're, we're walking around with a lot of frank overt obesity. And so people say, well, I'm not obese. I'm, I must be fine. And I'm like, not really, because I'll run labs on very thin women. We call it Tophi. Thin on the outside, fat on the inside, or skinny fat. You maybe have heard that term. You can be, you know, this big around and still fitting in your genes from high school and be really metabolically compromised. So there's no get out of jail free card on this one either. And it's something that takes concerted work and it's not something that just goes away. It will get better on a GLP1, but it, it doesn't just go away.
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A
When you're looking at lab work, what are you focusing on first?
- [30:50]
C
I'm looking at inflammation because that's usually a big indicator. Insulin resistance and inflammation go, it's like two sides of the same coin. So I'm looking at hemoglobin A1C to get a three month marker of where your red blood cells are at, how sugared up they are. I'm looking at your, you know, any inflammatory marker. There's, there's a few of them. Like C reactive protein is the big one. I'm looking at your serum insulin. I want to know when you're fasting, is it elevated? I don't want it very high. And I have pretty tight parameters of what's acceptable. I'm looking at your vitamin D status because that's going to play into it as well, the inflammation and the insulin resistance. I think it's unfair to not consider hormones after the age of. Of 45 at the latest. You know, I really encourage women to get their hormones the minute you feel off. I mean, heck, I just ran a panel on my daughter. You know, I'm like, she's 26. I'm like, we gotta look at your hormones, girl. Something's going on. I think it's indicated and necessary if women are having any kind of hormonal issue, maybe they're having adult acne, Maybe they're still having really terrible periods or cycles. Maybe they're having infertility. That's an indication to look at hormones. But first and foremost, hormones go awry when your metabolic health is compromised. So everything comes back to that foundational metabolic health piece. And the only way to really get out of that hole is to go to the gym, build muscle, eat your protein, eat your macronutrients. You know, get a variety of colorful foods in your diet and fibers. And, you know, I say eat the rainbow, keep it interesting. Eat food the way God gave it to you or came off the farm, and make sure you get sunlight. Make sure you mitigate your stress. HRT doesn't work in a body that's metabolically compromised either. It doesn't go well. So I think that I look at all the things, but. And I also look at lifestyle, and I want them to track that for me. But as far as labs go, that's one piece of the puzzle. Oh, the other one we'll see is we'll start to see lipids elevate. So your cholesterol will go up, your LDL will go up. That's the bad cholesterol. Your APOB will go up, your HDL will go down. And what happens to those? They get put on a statin drug. And I'm like, but they're metabolically compromised. Why don't we address the root cause issue here? You know, I mean, maybe in the interim, a statin might be indicated. I'm not saying yes or no to that. But why aren't we. Again, why aren't we addressing the pink elephant in the room, which is they've got insulin resistance, they've got metabolic compromise.
- [33:27]
B
I have to talk about one skin because the science is genuinely fascinating. The founding team are longevity researchers who discovered that visible signs of aging wrinkles fine lines, loss of elasticity are all driven by damaged cells. They developed OSO1, a proprietary peptide. That's the first ingredient proven to actually switch those cells off and slow the aging process. The product I'm obsessed with is their face. Spf. You're getting mineral sun protection. UV exposure is one of the biggest things that ages us faster, but you're getting OS1 benefits at the same time, protecting against future damage while reversing past summers in the sun. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin's OS01 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now. And as you age, for a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code LOTR at OneSkin co. LOTR. That's 15 off OneSkin co with code LOTR. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.
- [34:30]
A
Have you heard of Goldbelly? It's this amazing site where you can get the most iconic famous foods from restaurants all across the US we're talking New York cheesecake from Junior's, legendary Franklin's Barbecue straight out of Texas, and stone crab from Joe's in Miami. It's fresh, it tastes delicious, and the fact that you can get this level of food without leaving your house is genuinely something else. What makes it even better, it's how easy to give this as a gift. Everybody knows this is my gift. If you've ever struggled to find something that actually feels special, this is it. Whether it's a birthday, a holiday, or just because sending someone their favorite meal is the kind of thing people don't forget. It's thoughtful, it's fun, and arrives looking and tasting exactly as good as you'd hope for. So if you're looking for that perfect gift or want to impress your friends and family with an epic meal, the next time you host, go to goldbelly.com get 20% off your first order with promo code lipstick. That's goldbelly.com, code lipstick for 20% off your first order.
- [35:29]
C
He finally got her. Oh, my God, he got her.
- [35:32]
E
For years, a deranged man in Wichita known as the Poet stalked Ruth Finley. He sent her letters, gifts, and poems. The Wichita police put everything they had into Ruth's case, but got the Poet
- [35:47]
C
was always two steps in front of us, and we just didn't know why.
- [35:51]
E
And the city was already living in fear under the watch of another monster who called himself btk. And he also had A thing for poetry.
- [36:02]
C
Could we really have two different people?
- [36:04]
E
But no one could have guessed how this would end.
- [36:07]
C
That's one of those Hitchcock endings that we did not expect from so many
- [36:12]
E
music, entertainment, and new metric Media. This is the Poet. I'm Rachel Brown. The Poet is available now on the binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcast. To start listening today, subscribers to the binge can listen to all episodes all at once, ad free.
- [36:29]
D
What about. It's a big thing for women in their 40s, and I think it goes hand in hand with what we're talking about is strength training. The American College of Sports Medicine just came out with new guidelines on strength training. What is the one thing every woman that's listening needs to hear from? That?
- [36:45]
C
Well, I'll say three, if you'll let me. They have not put out a guidelines recommendation in 17 years. And so this was a big deal in our community. We were like, ooh, you know? And I actually know the guy who authored it. Really smart young man. And the bottom line is, variety is fine. Whatever the person wants to do that will work. So it could be bands, it could be dumbbells, it could be machines, it could be free weights. We used to, you know, this is the gold standard. And we people were making up a lot of things we're along the way of like, well, you got to do. You got to do this, you got to do that. No, it's whatever the person is comfortable doing. Starting out with body weight, I always say, because I know this is intimidating for women. So that, I think, takes a lot of stress off of people. Like, you can do this at home with bands and dumbbells and what have you. Okay, that's. That's number one. Number two is looking at each other body region. You want to hit 10 sets a week. So think about that for a minute. If you go to the gym twice a week and you do five sets of squats in both visits to the gym that week, you've. You've hit your 10. So it makes it really easy. Maybe you break that into up into three workouts. Cause maybe five sets is too much for you. Um, but yeah, that makes it really simple. And then I think the other big takeaway from that was just consistency. There's no, this doesn't happen tomorrow. This is the long game. It sometimes gets worse before it gets better. I tell everybody who's embarking on strength training, give it 90 days. Give it 90 days to start seeing your body composition shift. Give it 90 days to start seeing your Lab work shift. It takes time. And this is the long game. Commitment. I get messages from my followers all the time. They're like, I've been lifting for two months. It's not doing anything. I'm like, oh, honey, come back in two years. You know, like, this is the long game. And this isn't a vanity issue. This is a I don't want to break my hip when I'm older issue, or I don't want somebody wiping my ass and because. Or being not able to get up off the toilet myself when I'm older issue. There's a lot of things that we lose as we get older and we get frail, including our immune system and our ability to bounce back. And so, I mean, frailty is the kiss of death. So it's not a matter of, like, lifting heavy. I'm a big fan of lifting heavy for other reasons. But for those getting started, keep it simple, keep it consistent. Use whatever tools you have on hand, doesn't have to be expensive, and do 10 sets a week, and there you go.
- [39:06]
A
I love that. I love that you break it down. Because I think people, when they think strength training, they think, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, it's not that. It's just helping build the muscle that you're losing. And so many women we know are now so skinny, fat because of Ozempic and because of the peptides, that you're like, girl, you gotta get to the gym. Like, you don't have any muscle tone whatsoever.
- [39:32]
D
Well, I also think that one of the things that we've always known, I mean, I remember hearing about this forever ago and you talk about it, is our muscles are a metabolic organ. The muscle burns fat. Right? So I think sometimes women don't think that aspect through in the same way. Do you feel that way, that women don't understand that their muscles are actually helping with their metabolism?
- [39:57]
C
100%. And the other thing I'll add, that might sweeten the deal, number one, we have a study, I think it was in 2023 that came out showing that, that not only does your muscular structure of your face look better, but your collagen is significantly improved when you lift weights. So it will make you more beautiful. And I went through blood flow, circulation,
- [40:19]
A
all the things sweating, holding it up. I have these random little heaters from Amazon that have a humidifier so you're not drying your skin, but get sweating, move your body. I just, I love also what you said. You don't have to do the same thing every day. Mix it up but consistency, that's the magic.
- [40:40]
C
The other sweetener of this deal is that muscle secretes myokines. We hear a lot about cytokines and how inflammatory they are. Our body secretes different molecules when it comes out of most of our body. Interleukin 6 is an example. It's really inflammatory, it's really pro inflammatory. It drives autoimmune disease. When interleukin 6 comes out of well trained skeletal muscle that's being squeezed, it's anti inflammatory. So you literally can build an anti inflammatory suit on your body. And I don't think people appreciate that enough. People are walking around in pain. Musculoskeletal pain is so common in middle aged women and in younger women too, and in men too. And they don't realize that actually building muscle will help them literally build a suit of anti inflammatory. It's a factory, it's awesome. And so I think that's underappreciated. Metabolic health in general is significantly improved when you have adequate healthy skeletal muscle that's being used. We talk about insulin getting blood glucose into the cell. Right? Everybody's so hyper fixated on insulin. Well, we can also get that. It's called the glute, glute four. We translocate glute four to the membrane. It opens, it lets the blood sugar in. We can get that same impact by literally just squeezing your muscle. The act of squeezing muscle will sop up all that blood sugar. Your muscle is the biggest organ in your body that holds your blood sugar and stores it and so you can build more of it. It's so cool. Like you can't build more of other organs in your body that easily. Right? Or at all. So we can build more muscle, we can sop up. Think of it like a sink for all that excess blood sugar that's running around. It helps get that insulin regulated as we get older and age and get more inflamed because we will become more insulin resistant and we will become more inflamed as we age. So we have no choice. In my opinion, it is non negotiable. We have to build that beautiful muscle and we have to fight for it. It gets harder and harder to hold it, it gets harder to build it. I there though that a study came out recently showing no matter what age you are, you still can build muscle. So it's, there's no like end date on this. You're never too old. It's just not going to be the same as when you were 25. Right. But all of that together keeps your immune system optimized. It keeps the. The sentinels working. So when something comes into the body that shouldn't be there or cancer pops up, the body's like, hey, we can call this and tag it and do something with it. If you're not not in good metabolic health, if you are low muscle mass and frail, your immune system is not only kind of not worth a damn, but it goes rogue. So you end up in these huge inflammatory states that you wouldn't have otherwise ended up in if you had come into it with that arsenal, that suit of muscle. So I always tell my elderly. I have a lot of elderly followers, and I'm like, lady, you gotta put that muscle on so you have something to fight with. Like, you can't end up in the hospital with some horrific thing happening to you and not have that suit of armor on, because you're gonna have hell of a time getting out of that and getting through it, right? So not to be morose, but, like, that's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about not breaking a hip when I'm old. I'm thinking about not dying in the hospital because I was too frail going in.
- [43:48]
A
You call yourself a recovered cortisol addict. What does that actually mean? And what were you doing to yourself?
- [43:54]
C
Maybe you can relate to this. I think a lot of women can. I. I do really well when I'm stressed to the max. And I think it's really easy to get there in our day and age when we're sor of that sandwich generation. You know, we're raising our kids, we're taking care of our parents. We've got to be like mom, boss, and boss babe. As you get older, it's just not as easy to bounce back. Like, what was once kind of invigorating, like a stressful event would happen. And you're like, yeah, I'm good. Like, you get in the zone, you go into action. Doesn't bode well when you're older. It. My tolerance bands for that have definitely gotten shorter. And so you can actually get cortisol resistance, just like you can get insulin resistance. Any hormone that you're. You can get GLP1 resistance. If you take too much for too long, any hormone you're cranking in your body, you can eventually get some cellular resistance to. And I realized that's what was happening for me. And so I. I had. I just had to get really cognizant of it. And I don't think, you know, in my 20s and 30s, when people say you have to control your stress. I was like, oh, whatever. I can. I've, you know, I've got burning the candle at both ends, and then I light a few more w. You know, add a few more wicks, light them on fire, too. It'll be fine. It's not fine. Once you hit 50, it doesn't go well. It's not as easy. And so I have to just be really, really cognizant of it. And also know that it's not just about my daughter. She's so smart. She's 26. And she said, mom, I was studying this for you. And it's not just about meditation and stress mitigation. You have to find unique and novel ways to have fun, and that will bring more joy in your life, which will lower your cortisol. And I was like, that is so smart. So that was one of the reasons I moved to Arizona. Cause I figured it was. It's a lot more carefree, a lot more out there.
- [45:35]
D
Take care of.
- [45:37]
C
Yeah, it's a carefree.
- [45:38]
D
What does, though? I think that's a really important question is what does chronically elevated cortisol feel like on the inside? Like, how do you know that that's something you're suffering from?
- [45:49]
C
It makes you. It makes you fat and it makes you ugly. I. I don't know how else to say it. You start to gain weight that you can't control. You gain weight that you isn't responding the way that you're used to. I mean, we all have our tools and tricks to kind of keep ourselves in fight and shape. It doesn't work anymore because that cortisol is so high, usually it pac. Pacs on right around the abdominal area. So you get the visceral fat underneath the abdominal wall, and then you get the fat on top. So you get a gut. And I mean, truly, you get a gut, and then your face will start to. My face starts to change. I start to get more. A little bit. The morphology of my face starts to change. I get thickened up. And a lot of that's cortisol. So it's. I mean, I. I don't know how else to say it. You get a gut, and you get little birdie arms and legs. You pack it on in the midsection like a little apple, which is. Which is dangerous. That's really dangerous fat. That's compounded by the fact that we're losing our estrogen as we age. Because that's what happens to your body as you lose estrogen. You go from that curvy, we call it the gynoid shape where the fat is in the breast and the butt to it moving to the gut. You got cortisol going and you got estrogen dumping out at the same time and your face starts to shift and you can't think straight. And I don't think people realize they're swimming in it all day. I, every patient I test has either completely bottomed out cortisol or really high cortis and it doesn't feel good.
- [47:09]
A
I want to talk a little bit about supplements, but specific to cortisol, can you take like I see when I go into like the healthy area 1 I'm like stress free or lower your cortisol. Like do those supplements actually work?
- [47:22]
C
I think they're worth trying. Sometimes they're marketed as stress reduction supplements. Sometimes they're adrenal support. Right. And I, I really like. And most of them have similarities. They'll have some B5 to support your adrenals. They'll maybe have some vitamin C. They'll have some what we call adaptogenic herbs, which are herbs that we use to basically tonify the adrenal system. So if your cortisol's high it'll bring it down. If your cortisol is low, it might help to bring it up. Theoretically, that's how adaptogenic herbs work. And so I really think that every middle aged woman should be looking for some kind of adrenal support out there.
- [47:59]
A
Can you suggest one that you like?
- [48:00]
C
Oh gosh, they're all so different. Not one that I would know that was over the counter. But I would look for, I'll tell you this, I would look up a dash herbs. Just look them up. You're going to see like ashwagandha and all kinds. There's, there's mushrooms in there sometimes too. Find an adrenal support that's herbal based, maybe with some vitamins and minerals in it. Magnesium, you know, glycinate can help. Zinc is going to help. And then there's those of us who are just flatlined, we can't get off the couch, we're so tired. If you're in that lower group, look for something with some adrenal glandular in it. I don't know how the grocery stores or the natural food stores are out there, but sometimes you'll find it. Other times you might have to go online and then look for a reputable company. You know, there's different ones. I think Thorne's really popular.
- [48:46]
A
I love, I was just about to
- [48:48]
C
say, I love Thorn Pure Encapsulations is a good company that's been around a long time, Zymogen. I mean, there's just a lot of good companies that have been in the business for decades. And so find something reputable. Look for an adrenal support product. And I will say you might have to try a couple before you find the one that's a suit for you because not everybody's the same.
- [49:06]
A
A little bit about protein. Just touch on it because I know you went one way. Now you've pulled back. What is one thing you wish women would stop doing to themselves diet wise?
- [49:19]
C
I wish women would quit beating themselves up about their food and just get logical. We don't need to crush protein all day. I think that got way overhyped. I think we've probably all dabbled in. Yeah, I mean, I've always been more of a higher protein, lower carb girl. I did go full carnivore at one point. Think that our bodies know what it wants. If you would calm down and listen to it.
- [49:44]
D
Right.
- [49:45]
C
If we could just calm down a little bit. I do think that GLP1s can help there sometimes because as we become middle age, I know for myself as my hormones have shifted the HRT journey, sometimes your appetite can get voracious. And I was always a low appetite girl. And suddenly here I am at 52 and I want to eat everything in front of me sometimes. But that said, I trust your instincts. If you're strength training, if you're taking good care of yourself, if you're getting adequate sleep, your appetite will regulate better. So I think, think just a, a good rule of thumb, a chicken breast or a burger is adequate protein for a meal. It's gonna give you enough grams, probably 30 to 50 grams. Do that three times a day. Start with your protein. Eat your carbs on your plate. We do need carbs to some degree. How many carbs you can handle is up to you because some people are really insulin resistant and carb resistant. And then make sure you eat a variety of other foods, you know, and get your fiber in there. Fiber's been something I've really been lacking in over the years. I really was more of a protein heavy gal and was that way with my patients as well. But I am appreciating fiber a lot more these days. As we get older, our cholesterol starts to shift and I think fiber is a good idea. So how much fiber? I think that depends. They want you to get. I think for good cardiovascular health. I usually tell people 40 to 50 grams a day. But I, my gut can't handle that. My gut will not tolerate that much fiber. And so I do the best I can and some people can handle much more. Right now there's like this fiber maxing craze on the Internet. Have you guys seen that where like people are just crushing fiber?
- [51:10]
D
No.
- [51:11]
C
Can't be comfortable.
- [51:11]
D
They're probably crushing their toilets.
- [51:13]
C
Exactly.
- [51:14]
A
We always ask every guest before they go, if you could give advice to your 10 year old self, what would it be?
- [51:19]
C
Oh, I would tell her to just be kinder to herself. That's just. Everything will be okay. Just, just, you know, Hulk Hogan, I was watching his show the other day and he was like, take your vitamins, say your prayers, you know, and go to the gym, but just be kind to yourself because it's a wicked world and so much of it is predatory on women. And so just really, you know, stay fit, stay healthy and be kinder to yourself.
- [51:46]
A
Dr. Tina Moore, you're amazing being such a trailblazer, caring about women's health and well being. I love it. We love you. We love to follow you. We love that you're outspoken. We love that you have a point of view. We love that you debunk a lot of what is out there and just keep pushing forward and yeah, we're just such big fans.
- [52:08]
D
Thank you so much.
- [52:10]
C
Thank you.
- [52:11]
A
Make sure and follow her at Drtina D R T Y N A and make sure and check out her website, DrTina.com, listen to her podcast, the Dr. Tina Show. Wherever you listen to your podcast. Emish and I both have sub sacs. Emisha's Just tell me more. Mine is Ollys Sims. That's a wrap.
- [52:29]
D
And we'll see you next week.
- [52:29]
A
And we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to Lipstick on the Rim with Molly Sims and My Ride or Die. Emisha Gormily. We are so excited to bring you guys along on this journey with us. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lipstick on the Rim and Molly B. Sims. Or you can go to my blog where you can dive just a little bit deeper into my favorite products, trends and more at mollysims. Substack.
- [52:51]
C
Com.
- [52:52]
A
And don't forget to check out our video episodes on my YouTube channel, Molly Simon. This podcast is a production with Sony Music. I wanted to give a special thanks to my team, Rosie Cummings, Ken Orion, Sophie Kevorkin and everyone at Sony Music. Don't forget to listen and follow wherever you get your podcast so you never miss out on the fun.