← Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
Part Two: It’s Not Too Late to Transform Your Health! How to Improve Your Bone Strength, Supercharge Your Brain & Increase Longevity
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Mind Breakdown is supported by Helix Sleep
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Spring is in the air and so are all of the allergens that come with it. Spring allergens means you need more sleep, but there are a ton of factors that can prevent us from getting a good night's rest. Night sweats, back pain, Feeling the person next to you when they roll over a million times. We were so excited to hear that Helix wanted to partner with us. I've had my Helix mattress for about five years now and I have been sleeping so much better. Jonathan and also our kids love their Helix mattresses and all of those issues. Night sweats, back pain, motion transfer. Those things are significantly better with a Helix mattress. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door which is so much fun. With free shipping in the US they have a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty plus their Happy with Helix guarantee. Rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. The Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure that you're completely satisfied with your new Mattress. Go to helixsleep do/breakdown for 27 off site wide that's helixsleep.com breakdown for 27 off site wide helixsleep.com breakdown
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from parasites with Credelio Quattro. For full safety information, side effects and warnings, visit cordelioquattrolabel.com consult your vet or call 1-888-545-5973. Ask your vet for Cornelia Quatro and visit quattrodog.com.
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Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.
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And I'm Jonathan Cohen.
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And welcome to part two of our conversation with Dr. Vonda Wright. She's a double board certified orthopedic surgeon and internationally recognized authority on human performance, longevity and women's health. In part one of our conversation with Dr. Wright, we heard some astounding statistics about the proportion of Americans who are affected by poor bone density by weak bones and some statistics such as 80% of women are incontinent, 70% of all Alzheimer's patients are female. We talked about what happens as women
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age in and why it is that bone health and muscular health are key to helping us age well.
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Part two is going to cover some more general guidelines. What are the warning signs of osteoporosis? What can we be doing to maintain our bone health? What kind of exercise do we actually need to be doing and what things that are so common in our diets do we need to Avoid. We're also going to talk about creatine and what kind of cardiovascular exercise is the best for metabolic fitness, as well
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as some top red flags that need to be checked out right away if they are happening to you.
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Make sure to follow us over on Substack where we're going to do some of the exercises from Dr. Wright's book. And without further ado, here's our part two of our conversation with Dr. Vonda Wright. Break it down.
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How many Americans are afflicted by osteoporosis?
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About 40 to 50% of women. So 25. If we say women are 51% of the population, that's about 25% percent of the. Of our population will have it. It's big.
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What are some of the early warning signs that someone may be on the road to being at risk?
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Yeah, I love that question. So here are the risk factors. The. And if you're listening, write these down because these are the reasons you can go to your doctor and say, I want a DEXA scan before I'm 65, because insurance in this country will not pay for it until you're 65, which is a travesty. But if you, if your mother is shrinking, osteoporosis can be genetically or inherited.
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My mother is shrinking?
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Yeah. Is your mother shrinking? Worse yet. Are you shrinking? You know, some days I think I'm getting a little shorter. Am I shrinking? Am I female? Am I getting older? Those are all risk factors. Am I perimenopausal? Risk factor. Did I smoke? Do I drink more than two alcoholic beverages a day? That's a risk factor for bones. Have I. People don't realize this. Have I rapidly lost weight? Have I done the weight yo, yo thing right? Because fat through leptin talks to bone, right? It's a. If it creates a hostile environment to bone. So these are all written, not to mention steroid use, autoimmune disease, any of these risk factors can give you unhealthy bone, which is why you pick a few of them, march into your doctor's office and say, for these reasons, you need to order this for me. And if they won't, the good news is that you can Google, where do I get a DEXA scan? Where do I get a REMS ultrasound, which is the, the. The quality of bone scan? And you can buy one for about $90, which I realize $90 is $90, but if you save up your Starbucks money for 10 days, you've almost got
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what are the top ways to care for your bones? Obviously, Getting scanned, knowing if you're at risk. But if you're generally healthy and want to keep your bones healthy, what are the top ways to care for them?
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You need to jump 20 times a day.
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Yeah, I just started jumping. It's a thing that my trainer makes me do. I do a double jump. It's like a double. I jump off a step and she said it's the double jump. She's right.
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Tell her she's right. That will create four times body weight to impact your bones. You need to create 4 times body weight. Walking is about 1.5 times, running is 2.5 times. Jumping from an 8 inch step and then jumping up again.
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That's what I'm doing.
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Yes.
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Wait, is this why people wear weighted vests?
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We can talk about weighted vests? Weighted vests, yeah. The research on weighted vest has not been shown in isolation to increase bone density, but coupled with weightlifting, which is another way to build better bone. It does so jumping, lifting heavy. There are many reasons we have to lift heavy, one of which it pulls on bones. Number three, eat enough protein, eat calcium, rich food. Magnesium, which is also great for sleep, is important for bones. Vitamin D does not directly increase bone density, but it helps with calcium absorption. So those are the nutritional things. The jumping we talked about, the weightlifting we talked about, those are the main components in addition to. If you want the top three, make your hormone decision. Lift heavy weights and jump up and down.
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Talk to us about lifting heavy weights. There's so much conversation about lifting now. More so I think than ever. Instagram. Everyone's lifting. And why is it so important to lift heavy things?
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Well, you know, the truth is it's always been important and it's just become popular now, such that gyms are replacing their cardio equipment with weightlifting. I recommend lifting heavy weights and I'll define that for you because you have to know your why. It's back to the why question again. If your goal is endurance, you're going to lift light weights 25 or 30 times. I call them Bambi Pamby Pink weights. You can do that if it takes you 25 or 30 reps of that lightweight to fail, which we're trying to lift to failure, means I can't lift it one more time. You will build endurance. Fine. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But that's not our goal when we're old. If you want big muscles, if you want to hypertrophy, we're going to do rep sets between 10 and 15. There's nothing wrong with that, but that is the goal of building bigger muscles. If you want strength and power, which is going to keep you off the floor, keep you independent, keep you doing what you want to do when you want to do it, you need to lift heavier weights fewer times. So what does that mean? So the research backs up a rep range between three and six to failure. To failure means let's. In my book I write about four, because that's what I do. So on the fourth, not. And it's not biceps, it's something like bench, it's the compound lifts. Four, I can do four, it's heavy. I may be able to squeak out five, but I'm not squeaking out six because I'm dropping the bar. That's the definition of failure. So that does several things that builds strength. First, by recon coordinating your neuromuscular pathways, meaning the way nerves and muscle works is one nerve, one motor neuron ends at a group of muscle fibers. You don't want these neuromuscular pathways working in an uncoordinated way because then you get a bunch of asynchronous muscle firing. You want everybody to do it together so that that makes you that total strength is increased. So first you reorganize your neuromuscular pathways, getting everybody to pull on the rope at the same time. Those are called beginners gains. You'll get stronger fast. Once everybody's working together, then that's when you have the slow, incremental progressive overload. So we want to be strong, but that's not where it ends. Once we have worked up, sometimes if we're starting at nothing, it can take you six months, nine months, a year to get ready to lift heavy. But once we're doing it and comfortable with it, then we're going to add some tempo. Because what's going to keep you from tripping over your work bag? I'm looking at my work bag, I trip over it a lot. But then I am quick and I'm powerful. So I spring over it and I is strength over time. So if you're squatting and you've built your strength and you want to increase your power, you're going to go down, 1, 2, 3, really slow and then you're going to explode up. So we add the tempo to the lifting. So that is a long explanation, but building muscle has always been good for us. It's just now popular.
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Well, I'm thinking of those videos that Jonathan keeps sending me that I keep telling him to stop sending me of just like a dude In a field with a giant tire. And he's like, this is our new life. We're gonna roll this tire over, but
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now pull sled on all fours.
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If this man tells me one more time about wanting to pull a sled. But, but I get what you're talking about now. It's like you're pushing your body. You don't want to hurt your body. You don't want to strain anything. You want to find that weight of object, right? Doesn't even need to be in a gym. Find that weight of object that you can work with that allows you to exert yourself like five times. It's not just about like, oh, I'm going to do this right. That's very interesting.
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Also, I think one of the most important things you said for me, because I have been in this place where I've worked too much for a certain number of years. I was in a startup, I was traveling all the time. I didn't have consistency. I used to be athletic and then all sudden lifting heavy things, I would hurt myself every time. It can take six, nine months of getting yourself ready to lift again. And that work is not in vain. That's getting you ready to do the thing and to work out hard enough to help your longevity. And that is so important for people to know, is that we have to get ourselves to a place where we can then lift heavy enough to build the muscle to help us.
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Because the reality is two things. The reality is even though in the front of this it says six week program, that's a. Somebody stuck that on there. It's not. We are talking about a lifetime of habits. This is a lifestyle. It sounds like a lot when you're like, do this, do this, do this, do this. No, we just layer on behaviors and when we master one, we do another and it just becomes the way we live. The other thing I think is interesting is as you were thinking about it, is I think women grossly underestimate how strong they are. And here's an example. Women are like, oh, I don't want to lift heavy, I'll get bulky, or somebody told me to lift light weights. And then you go home and you lift your 40 pound, 3 year old grandson off the jungle gym. I mean, we, we do really heavy things in our daily lives and then we go to the gym and we pick up the five pound weight. So let's just give our credit, give ourselves credit for how hard we work.
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What's the risk of alcohol?
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Well, the reason I stopped drinking alcohol, well, it was I was never good to me. I'm Asian, I don't have alcohol dehydrogenase, so I always got hot red like a beet. So never that good. But the reason I stopped stopped is because as an orthopedic surgeon, my risk of breast cancer is four to five times higher than the general population because of my exposure to X ray and alcohol is a type 2 carcinogen and is classified with 5 or 7 as a. As a contribution to five or seven different kinds of cancer. And with my increased risk anyway, no way. So everyone concerned about that risk could should just make an educated decision, right? Number one. Number two, and I haven't read papers on this, I've just, obviously I've seen it on the Internet. But alcohol will kill your microbiome. So I don't know what percentage, but that's another reason, you know, women in midlife have trouble with their microbiome anyway. So I don't need more trouble. Another reason alcohol is, is opposite of goodness to midlife women, men and women, is because it disrupts sleep. It makes you pass out, but it doesn't help you get quality sleep, the restorative sleep. And with so many trackers available now, if you don't sense that in your own. I can't sleep tonight. I didn't, I don't feel rested. You could track it with, with these sensors. Those are many of the reasons. Not to mention, you know, there, there are some data that it kills brain cells and I can't quote that to you, but that seems to be a consensus.
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Well, mind Bialix breakdown is supported by bioptimizers.
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I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just thought like, ugh, it's stress. But I learned during perimenopause and menopause your hormones shift and it affects your magnesium levels. Low magnesium makes everything harder. Not just sleep, but focus, mood, stress tolerance. That's why we added Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers to our nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it. See if you wake up more rested and refreshed, you've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. BIOptimizers offers a 365 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. Magnesium Breakthrough is a fantastic way to improve that hormonal imbalance that especially happens with magnesium. And then you have better focus, you have better sleep hygiene in general. Bioptimizers makes it so easy. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com breaker and use the code breaker. 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of mass signs. That's Bioptimizer's best selling digestive enzyme added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product, free on top of your discount. This is a limited time offer while supplies last. You cannot get this on Amazon. You can't get it in stores. The offer exists in one place. Our link. Our code. That's it. So if you were already thinking about trying it, this is the sign. Go to buyoptimizers.com breaker use the code breaker. Grab it before it's gone.
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Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping again. This episode is sponsored by Wandering Jews, an open door media brand.
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If you've ever found yourself feeling like you have more questions than answers, you're in good company. The Jewish people have been like that for thousands of years. Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam is a podcast where two of today's most dynamic Jewish voices, Michal Bittone and Noam Weissman, dig into the biggest questions about life through a Jewish lens. It's the kind of conversation where you'll laugh, learn something new, and probably shout and disag agreement at least once. Michal and Noam tackled the tough topics like anti Semitism in America, what happens after we die, and the future of religion with guests like Brett Stevens, Michael Rapoport and Sarah Hurwitz. And this past month, in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, they've been celebrating some of the Jewish lives and institutions that have shaped American life, from food to music and comedy. Thoughtful, joyful, and always honest. That's Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam, a production of Unpacked. Find it on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube and make sure to hit subscribe. Check out Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam podcast and subscribe unpacked bio NMX. I want to, you know, highlight one of the other aspects of alcohol, which you do, address this kind of component of mental and spiritual fitness. You know, many people drink because it takes the edge off, right? And many women especially, you know, in particular, if you're part of this sandwich generation where we're taking care care of parents, we're taking care of children, there's so much being demanded of us that honestly, I'm not surprised that there's an entire field of marketing designed to encourage women to drink more because it, quote, takes the edge off. And you know, I mean, I don't mean to be cynical, but It's a little bit what I do here. You know, if you're having trouble sleeping because you're drinking too much, there's a pill for that. They will, you know, like that they'll give you a pill and it's like, I mean, I don't know a woman who's not on Lexa Pro and this isn't an advertisement for that, but like, every woman is like, oh, I just couldn't cope. But then they put me on this pill and now I feel better.
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Right.
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So you have this sort of like combination of like, we'll just keep adding pills to make you forget that you're a human.
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Right.
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So what would you say to women who are kind of in this place of like, I'm not read. And also, you know, this is like, it's a, a very long appendix that you have in this book. But it's fantastic because it's kind of like you get the book that teaches you and then you get to the appendix and like, this is how you're going to put it together. Like, this is literally your manual. Follow this, do this, check it off, it's all in here. But can you talk a little bit about this component of kind of psychological and psychiatric complexity that especially for women in perimenopause, you know, many of us are just being told, oh, if the hormones aren't working, we're going to put you on this drug. Is that the solution?
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Number one, I want women in midlife to give themselves some frigging grace. It is hard, you know, when your hormones are complex and going Everywhere and your 86 year old parents and your teenage, I mean, listen, give yourself a little grace. What, you know, the Barbie doll experience of a perfect little Malibu home is not real life. So number one, realize that. Number two, what's interesting to me is sometimes women decide and hormones are not a panacea at all. But that's why I want people to make decisions based on fact, not future fiction. After the Women's Health Initiative came out in 2002, the prescription of mental health drugs went up more than 25% in women. And thank God that we have some chemical means to regulate mood. But on the other hand, if we can regulate our mood with the same hormone that we've always regulated our mood with, maybe that isn't also an option. But this is hard. And some women have, have even with their normal cycles, estrogen is such a strong brain hormone, it's not a sex hormone. Many of my colleagues call it a brain hormone that even in normal periods, our mood swings are so debilitating. Sometimes we do need chemical stabilization and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want to give women to be another, another reason to feel bad about it. But the, what it leads in the conversation to is the medicalization of midlife for women. Because there's a pill for your brain, there's a pill for your high cholesterol, there's a pill for your prediabetes, there's a pill, name of something, there's a pill for it. All of which have side effects. And yet we're quibbling about estradiol, which can have side effects, but your body actually makes it. So there's this dichotomy going on. Let's do it naturally, naturally with all the medicalization, versus naturally by replacing the root cause, which is loss of estrogen, and then see what we need. That's kind of where I see people are right now.
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I'm just going to button one thing that you said about alcohol. Your first thing you said was It's a type 2 carcinogen.
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Yeah.
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You didn't skip a beat.
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No,
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it's still, you still have agency to decide. You can decide what you want to do. I'm not saying, I'm not judging when I say that. I'm just saying it has been associated in multiple studies with changes in cell proliferation in a dangerous way.
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Is this one of the most under communicated and acknowledged parts of modern medicine? You hear it creeping up on the Internet, but even now you're a little bit hesitant to say it.
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Oh, I'm not hesitant to say it. I'm just trying to be nice.
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I think the thing is, you know, I, I joke that my children would not be alive if I didn't have red wine and chocolate, you know, on hand for all of those early years. But I think the notion, you know, is that Dr. Wright doesn't want to be like, people stop drinking alcohol. It's a type 2 carcinogen because it's going to turn a lot of people off. Because a lot of people are like, I will not stay in this marriage and in this home if I cannot have my glass of wine.
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I see that tied in most often because as people come to me, I have a longevity practice. And we're laying out, here are the steps. Here's, here's your blueprint. When I get to, let's talk about the bottle of wine you share at dinner with your husband every night.
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It's the only way I can tolerate him and let him have sex with me.
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Well, there is that, isn't there? But the, the reality is it's so social.
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Yeah.
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That it's, it's, it's more than just the wine. It's the social and bonding experience of the sniffing the cork and. Oh, my God, what rating does this have? Is this a 98? Did you bring me in?
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Well, you can do that. You can do that with non alcoholic wine. I think it's the effect. It's the social lubricant. And this is. As someone who has chosen to stop drinking, like, I know exactly what it did. It made me able to go to parties, interact with humans, and for many women, yet loosens you up, right? Like, for a lot of reasons. So, yeah, it's not a joke.
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And, but, you know, what can we, can we talk about? Oh, this is your podcast. I should let you. But something you said, something you said. The work of it, what you said is so real because the work of Luis Newsom and the Mayo Clinic found that 70% of midlife divorces after 20 to 25 years of marriage can be associated, at least from the women's standpoint, of a lack of understanding of what's going on in menopause, number one. And number two, the loss of estrogen and oxytocin. You finally, the rose colored glasses come off and you're like, what the. What the f did I do?
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And then
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it's like, it's only the hormones that have encouraged me to perpetuate the species, that have allowed me to tolerate with you, that have allowed me to tolerate that you constantly burp and fart and don't say excuse me, and leave your dirty socks on the floor
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and your chewing is too loud, for God's sake.
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And when those hormones wear off, I'm out of here.
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I'm laughing and I'm still laughing. But, you know, there's something to it. 70% of women attribute it. So I just think what it means is that they're. From what you said, we cope whatever way we have. We need a deeper understanding. This is a family affair. It's not just the woman's problem. So to the point that I made my own husband, bless his heart, come on my podcast and talk about our experience. I'm like, pete, you gotta tell the world what you lived through.
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Well, and, you know, we're, we're, you know, in some ways kind of poking fun at this. But, but, you know, many of us, when we've, you know, spoken to many experts, you know, about menopause, we've kind of joked like, we all thought our moms were just crazy, you know, And I'm thinking, gosh, there was so much more to it. But, you know, in a less funny tone. Rates of suicide for women in this phase are staggering. They're very, very high. And that increase in a world that is not really supportive of this, it's tragic. It's tragic. And as you're talking about, this is something that is not inevitable. Right.
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Losing your hormones is inevitable. Not doing anything about it and feeling better is not inevitable. In fact, it's preventable. Everything is preventable. And it's not just hormones. I don't want people to believe that. I think it's the magic bullet. It's hormones, lifestyle, social understanding. It's every biopsychosocial facet that's important. Yeah, it's 40 years of a woman's life.
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Do you want to tell her about your hip?
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Let's talk about your hip.
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Jonathan has had one hip replacement.
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Good for you, Jonathan. Why was that?
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I was 42, as they described it to me. I was born with an oval instead of a round.
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You had a cam lesion. Yes, you did.
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And I was very active. Was on. Started playing hockey at 6 and was on the ice at 4 and skiing very early and was a kid who just like, never sat down. And in my early 20s, I was playing competitive basketball. And when I played really, really hard, I just got this hip pain and I really didn't know what it was. And I thought it was muscular and I thought I just had to stretch more, but I couldn't ever stretch enough. And the more I played, the worse it got. So I just slowly started to taper back my activity level until I couldn't do little enough to make it not hurt. And by the time there was a couple years, I didn't have health insurance when it was the worst. And I was working like crazy, and I was in the startup world and I was like, I was working 16 hours a day some days, and I just. I was in a cab in San Francisco and I remember I couldn't get my leg out of the cab, so I just picked it up with my, like, put my hands around my quad and just lifted it out of the. And I just didn't think twice about it because I had a meeting to go to and at a certain point I was like, I went to a doctor, got health insurance, and my startup had gotten funding, and I went and got. Went to a doctor and I just wanted a regular checkup. And she's like, is anything else going on? I'm like, yeah, my hip has just been hurting for like, I don't know, 10 years. And she does a range of motion. She goes, yeah, you really need to take a look at this. And I thought, never did it occur to me that I would need it to be replaced. And then I went and I got a scan and I went to do a follow up appointment. And the first appointment, the woman was like, okay, so we're going to schedule with the surgeon. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I still have no concepts.
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B
Yeah, but I mean, at that point he couldn't walk more than a block without pain.
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I couldn't tie my shoe some days.
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B
So I wonder if we can use Jonathan's hip as an example of kind of a more general question I have. There are many people and I think we have a lot of listeners who have exceptional bodies, special bodies. Do you have any sort of general guidelines for when something needs addressing? Even if you're young and think, I don't need to think about it, what would some, you know, kind of red flags be that you shouldn't kind of keep pushing aside but needs medical attention?
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C
You know, I'm all for being tough. I mean, I'm a sports doctor. I don't want you limping off the field just because you're tired. Right? And it is normal to feel sore, especially with contact athletes, while you play for a couple days afterwards. It is not normal for your joint or body part to be hot, red, swollen. You can't bear weight, it persists for more than a couple days. That is not how we treat elite athletes. We want to diagnose, we want to treat, we want to get in control front of the inflammation. So those are guidelines. If the shape of your body part changes, if it's hot, red swollen, if you can't move it or bear weight, get it checked out so you don't just continue on it. Your story of giving up one thing at a time until you didn't even notice you were lifting your leg with your hands out of the cab, that's like being boiled in cold water, right? You just accept a little limitation, a time at a time. And so probably what also happened is, although I don't want to put words in your mouth, you were only 42, you might have gained a little weight. You were so inactive and that affects our brain and so we don't even realize these things are happening. So going on and on and on is counterproductive to what's going on let's fix it. Because movement is so incredibly important for all aspects of life. There are actually 33 chronic diseases lumped together into a nomenclature called sedentary death syndrome. Those are the 33 chronic diseases that kill us like that. And the one thing that makes them better is mobility. So on the opposite side of that, giving up your mobility for whatever reason is putting you down that pathway. So I'm so glad you got a total hip. It's like a new lease on life.
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It really was. They said to me at the time, the only thing you're going to regret
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C
is, is not doing it sooner.
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A
They were very, they were 100% right. It took me six months to recover to be fully back in in athletic form. But it's been amazing. Unbelievable mind Bialix breakdown is supported by Bioptimizers.
- [31:41]
B
You know, I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just assumed it was stress. But as I learned during perimenopause and menopause, your hormones shift in a way that affects your magnesium levels. And low magnesium, it makes everything harder. Not just sleep, focus, mood, your tolerance for stre stress. That's why I have added Magnesium Breakthrough by by optimizers to my nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it. See if you wake up more rested and refreshed, you've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Bio Optimizers offers a 365 day no questions asked money back guarantee. Magnesium Breakthrough is a huge breakthrough to improve hormonal balance to help with focus, decrease brain fog, improve sleep hygiene. Overall. Bio Optimizers makes it very easy. Jonathan, what do they get when they go to bioptimizers.com breaker and use the code breaker?
- [32:34]
A
You get 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of MAS Bioptimizer's
- [32:39]
B
best selling digestive enzyme that'll be added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code.
- [32:44]
A
That's a $20 product free on top of your discount already.
- [32:49]
B
This is a limited time offer and while supplies last, you can't get it on Amazon, you can't get it in stores. This offer exists in one place. Our link, our code, that's it. So maybe you were already thinking about it. This is the sign. Go to bioptimizers.com breaker use the code breaker. Grab it before it's gone. Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping again. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about what the health of your bones can predict about your health in general. So we've talked a little bit about Alzheimer's. What, what does your bone health predict that might encourage people even more to lean in to building bone health?
- [33:29]
C
Well, because bone is not only a structural organ, a storehouse organ, it is the birthplace of all your blood cells in your pelvis and your long bones. Right? So the health of your bones in general creates an environment for that. It is a master communicator, meaning it produces so many hormones that I mentioned osteocalcin. Osteocalcin goes to the brain, it's critical for glucose metabolism, for insulin resistance, it is critical. Another hormone called LCN2 is critical for satiety, telling your brain, stop eating. And that makes sense because it's a storehouse of nutrition. So without healthy bones, you lose the efficacy of all that metabolic function. Not to mention for men, osteocalcin goes to the testes and helps you make testosterone, which is great for general health in men. And so there's that communication and metabolic function of bone and storehouse and incubator. But bone loss of bone, osteoporosis becomes coupled with sarcopenia, which is the loss of muscle mass and function, and obesity, such that if you have osteoporosis and you have loss of muscle and you have high body fat percentage, it's not one problem plus one problem plus one problem equals three. They are exponentially intertwined because of how they talk to each other. And osteosarcobesity, which is bad health in three organ systems, is devastating. So because of the crosstalk between organs, it's important.
- [35:33]
A
Is there a link between Alzheimer's and bone health? Is that the link there, that multi system there?
- [35:39]
C
There is a link we haven't done. We don't have the pathway of causation, but there's a huge correlation between people who has have osteoporosis and people who have Alzheimer's, such that when one is worse, one category is worse, the other category is worse. And. And they're working out the pathways right now.
- [35:59]
A
What about creatine?
- [36:00]
B
Oh, my goodness, he wants to talk about creatine.
- [36:02]
A
Everyone talks about it. How important is it?
- [36:05]
B
What's up with it? Why, when I tried to take it, did I get sick for days? It would not stop. It wouldn't go away. I had to stop.
- [36:15]
C
Creatine is important for a variety of things in the body. It's one of the most studied supplements, if you will, in that category. In terms of safety profile, it has been used, or I have Been aware of it since the early 90s when we started using it in very high doses in cyclical periodization. For. I was working with wrestlers at the time to try to build muscle mass in wrestlers. It was really high doses. At this point, we know that women have much less creatine, which is important for muscle function. A new study just this year shows that creatine at doses of 20mg 20 grams can be very important for brain function and health, cognitive function. So we think it works on multiple systems. So 5 grams a day for muscle saturation and helping build muscle mass, and then maybe another 5 grams a day to help with cognitive function. There are two forms, monohydrate and hydrochloride. And the monohydrate, which is the most common form, can cause some nausea and maybe that's what you experience. It causes GI Upset.
- [37:29]
B
I had extreme painful bloating, loading, and I wasn't even doing a high load dose. Valerie's also shaking her head. Many of us who are vegan women, you know, we had Dr. Rhonda on. Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Yeah. And she was like, just try it. It could change your life.
- [37:48]
C
She is a big fan of it. I mean, she's all over the data.
- [37:51]
B
I was very ill and could not close my pants for five days.
- [37:56]
C
I wonder if the hydrochloride, which is not that common, but coming out in several products next year, might be easier on you.
- [38:05]
B
I mean, I. I thought of trying it again. Also, you're supposed to take it with a ton of water. I think maybe I should have taken it with food. Like, I don't know. Anyway, for.
- [38:14]
A
With food, for sure.
- [38:16]
C
Yeah. So I take it because I get nauseated. I take it with either protein powder or with food. I never just de novo because of that reason. Reason.
- [38:24]
A
You're a big proponent of running. Is that accurate to say?
- [38:28]
C
I think there's not a lot of reason not to. I was a marathoner, but that's not what I suggest for midlife and beyond. If we're strictly talking cardiac.
- [38:37]
B
Yeah. My, My. My knees don't agree with you. My knees do not agree with you. My ankles don't agree with you. I mean, pavement is hard on some bodies. That's true.
- [38:45]
C
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't care how you do your cardio in the, in the framework I teach people now. I mean, I'm not against running, but in the framework I teach people now, where it's an acronym. Face flexibility and range of motion Aerobic. I don't say running you, because it's all about your heart rate. You can get your heart rate up with any activity, from kettlebells to alpine, the alpine machine to stair stepping. I just care you get your heart rate up. So when you say, I'm a fan of running. Yeah, I've run some in my life and I think it's, it's fine. But if I, if you're asking me how should I do my aerobics, I'm going to say to you, I don't care as long as you get your heart rate in a certain range. So that is my evolved answer over the course of my career.
- [39:33]
A
And if someone is like, not really understanding the importance of getting their heart rate up, what's the thumbnail motivational answer so that people go out and start sweating more?
- [39:44]
C
Yeah. So we know that working at low heart rate based training is really good for metabolic flexibility, meaning that it helps your mitochondria, which are the powerhouses of your cells, which convert fuel, whether it's sourced from amino acids and protein, glucose and carbohydrates or fatty acids, into the currency of energy, ATP. That's the job of the mitochondrial. We know that at lower heart rates, as you're burning lactate before you pivot to burning carbs from higher load, that your mitochondria are very flexible. They can switch between energy sources and that's great for your metabolism. On the other end of the spectrum, which is how I prescribe now, I like people to do really short, burning bursts of high intensity, thus the sprint interval. The reason being that tells your body you're not dying. Right. It stimulates muscle stem cell proliferation, does so many things. It helps with metabolism and insulin resistance. It's good for your brain. The badassery thing, again, it's the in the middle heart rate zones where you're breaking a sweat, but you're not intense enough that people spend a lot of time doing a lot of reps, getting a lot of pain, and they come to my office every Monday. So those are the two edges of cardio that I now prescribe. It's the low intensity and sprint intervals.
- [41:18]
A
So one would be a VO2 max. Would that be the lower intensity where it's longer? No, that's not. Or, sorry, not a VO2 max. A zone 2 is what I meant to say would be the lowest, and
- [41:29]
C
I'm careful to use that term because it means, means different things to different scientists. But in this building where I am, I'm fortunate to have a lab built by Inigo San Milan, who's one of the endurance scientists that has characterized zone two. And so we actually work people according to where their lactate threshold is. And if you don't have access to that kind of gadget, then it's 181 minus your age is a. A decent estimate to get your heart rate, too.
- [42:02]
A
Yeah, got it.
- [42:03]
C
Yeah.
- [42:03]
B
That's interesting. Doing the math in my head right now. Before we let you go, if you had to sort of give one motivational, inspirational message to, in particular to the women out there who might feel like, I don't know where to start. It's too much work. I can't do it. What would you say?
- [42:23]
C
I would say, number one, that there is never an age or skill level when a simple investment in your daily mobility will not transform you the consistency of a daily effort, number one. Number two, you are worth the daily investment. You have the worth to invest in yourself because your inclination is to invest in everyone else first.
- [42:54]
B
Oh, really? Great. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you being here. The book A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power is exactly that. It's literally a guide. And really, really appreciate your time. And we just. We're so grateful. Thank you.
- [43:09]
C
Well, I'm grateful. It was a pleasure being with you.
- [43:16]
B
That's a smart person. That's a person who knows a lot about everything in the body. I also love how every specialist we have on thinks that their field is the predictor of longevity success. So I'm like, I gotta work on my bones.
- [43:30]
A
You do have to work on your bones.
- [43:32]
B
You have to work on your bones.
- [43:33]
A
Anyway, join the substack community where all we will be doing from now on is double jumps.
- [43:39]
B
Double jumps. What foods have a lot of calcium? Do you know?
- [43:43]
A
Broccoli, leafy greens, tofu. Oh, that's good.
- [43:49]
B
What else?
- [43:51]
A
I'm gonna look it up. Let's. Foods.
- [43:54]
B
Oh, it's okay. I think I want to say. I mean, dairy. Yeah, yeah. Milk products. Cheese problems.
- [44:04]
A
Yogurt.
- [44:04]
B
Collards. The darkest greens you can think of. Bok choy. Oh, seafood. But there's a lot of issues with seafood in terms of oceans and rivers and streams.
- [44:13]
A
Kale, Collard greens. Bok choy.
- [44:16]
B
You know what you're leaving out?
- [44:17]
A
Fortified soy, canned sardines, and salmon.
- [44:21]
B
Would you like to keep reading?
- [44:23]
A
Fortified orange juice with calcium. But that's added.
- [44:25]
B
You know what has calcium? Sesame seeds. And you might be thinking, how many sesame seeds am I supposed to eat? First of all, I got one word for you. Tahina, made of sesame seeds. But you know what I do? I sprinkle sesame seeds on things. You can sprinkle it on salad.
- [44:44]
A
I'm gonna sound ridiculous. What is a lamb squirter?
- [44:49]
B
Yep, that's you sounding ridiculous. Everyone knows what a lamb squarter is. Valerie and I were just talking about lamb squarter before you walked in this room.
- [44:58]
A
Under the cooked. Under the cooked green categories. Lamb S, Q, U, A R T
- [45:06]
B
E R S. And that's what happens when you use AI.
- [45:09]
A
I have never heard of that before in my life. And I know a lot of vegetables. Nettles. You gotta get a lot of nettles.
- [45:17]
B
Jonathan, do you mean lamb's quarters?
- [45:19]
A
Yeah. I don't know what that is.
- [45:21]
B
How did you pronounce it?
- [45:22]
A
Not like that.
- [45:23]
B
Wait. Canadian alert.
- [45:26]
A
It's like those videos where people are sounding out words that they don't know.
- [45:29]
B
Yes.
- [45:30]
A
I don't know that word. Collard greens. Bok choy.
- [45:34]
B
Wait, I'm sorry.
- [45:36]
A
I'm trying to move on.
- [45:37]
B
You're trying to move on. It is called pigweed lamb's quarters, which Jonathan decided I can't right now.
- [45:46]
A
I thought that. Yeah, I did not know that. Didn't work.
- [45:49]
B
That's manslaughter. Man's laughter. Must have been a pretty funny joke. Okay, Pigweed. It's called pigweed. Or white goose foot.
- [46:00]
A
Oh, I would have known. White goose foot.
- [46:03]
B
It's.
- [46:04]
A
That's a joke. I would not have.
- [46:05]
B
You know what? Lamb's quarter root tea removes excess from the body by assisting elimination. Do you know what that means? It's a diuretic poop. Yeah, it probably makes you poop. Hold on.
- [46:17]
A
What does it say? Assists. What was the first part?
- [46:20]
B
Assistant Elimination. Removing excess. But the young.
- [46:22]
A
Removing excess. What? Everything. Just anything that's excessive in the body will be removed.
- [46:27]
B
The young greens can be juiced for their calcium in addition to a C B complex. Why is everyone should be eating lamb's quarter or lum squirter?
- [46:39]
A
Lum squ squared. If you have actually heard of this vegetable, please comment. Please comment. We need to know.
- [46:49]
B
Some people call it wild spinach. It is better than spinach. I mean, Google lamb's quarters. The hidden power. How your life.
- [46:58]
A
Where do you get this though?
- [47:00]
B
Oh, hold on. You know what its Mexican cousin is named?
- [47:04]
A
No.
- [47:06]
B
God bless Spanish. H U A U Z O N T L E S. How zontless Eating
- [47:16]
A
landscritos with a calcium rich food such as dairy can help offset potential difficulties with calcium calcium absorption. That's weird. Maybe it's not so Absorbable. If it is absorbable, we should start the farm. We should. Because like, kale had its moment. When I was growing up, kale wasn't a thing.
- [47:37]
B
No one knew what kale was.
- [47:39]
A
This could be the thing that we make popular and bring to the world.
- [47:43]
B
Would we call it. What would we call it? Pigweed?
- [47:45]
A
No, that I don't think.
- [47:46]
B
Wild spinach.
- [47:48]
A
It could be wild spinach.
- [47:49]
B
I kind of like Lum squirters.
- [47:51]
A
We could call it Lum Squirters.
- [47:52]
B
Just want everyone to know that this episode has been scrubbed of any references to defecation.
- [47:58]
A
There were a lot of references we had to cut. Mime really couldn't control herself. Talk to us about the. I don't know why this episode was so silly when it's a very serious topic about longevity and the things that we can do. You know, maybe this is why people come to us for serious topics handled in the most light hearted way.
- [48:28]
B
Yes.
- [48:30]
A
I did my research on other interviews. She's done very few jokes in those interviews.
- [48:35]
B
She's very funny.
- [48:36]
A
I know. People don't know.
- [48:37]
B
She's a very funny woman.
- [48:38]
A
If you appreciate our approach, we would like to hear about it too. Because sometimes I think maybe we're not being serious enough.
- [48:44]
C
You know what?
- [48:45]
B
There's a lot of things in this conversation that lend themselves to like what is happening.
- [48:49]
A
I'm so upset. The whole conversation I was tracking and waiting to thread back to something that we let drop and we didn't go back to Kegels.
- [49:01]
B
Not gonna sleep for four weeks because we didn't talk about Kegels. I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Go ahead.
- [49:07]
A
Go ahead.
- [49:08]
B
The best way to do Kegels.
- [49:10]
A
She said we were doing it wrong.
- [49:11]
B
Yes. I'm gonna tell you.
- [49:12]
A
First of all, we both started doing Kegels independently. When she started talking about Kegels. We. If you zoom in on the video, someone should do this. They should zoom in on the video and capture our faces while she's talking. Because neither of us are fully listening. We're just counting the Kegels that we're
- [49:29]
B
doing between men and women. We can do Kegels all the time. We do them at red lights. We do them when we're waiting for our coffee. We do them all.
- [49:36]
A
My face. Again. I'm doing Kegels. I'm not listening.
- [49:39]
B
Yeah, because you don't. Never mind.
- [49:41]
A
You think I can only do one thing at a time. That's not true. Okay, but she was saying it's not just about Going and contracting. It's about going up.
- [49:49]
B
Correct. I'm gonna tell you. You know what? This is an unofficial Kegel seminar. Seminar. I am basing this on the years of practice. Years of practice and the instructions that were given to me. Of course, I don't do them. Nobody does them. Okay, but what you're supposed to do. So many of us, we used to be told just, like, squeeze. Like, squeeze, release. So, like, the muscles that you would use to, like, stop yourself from going pee pee midstream, that's the muscles. I think it's. I think it's the same. So anyway, it's like if you were peeing and then you had to stop midstream, those muscles, the. It's like a clenching of all those muscles. That's what we used to be told to do. However, what. What my midwife told me to do is you pretend that you are on the bottom of an elevator and you wanna go up to the fifth floor. And so what you do is in five increments, you increase the tension of the squeezing that you're doing. So it's a gra. You're trying to do it right now. So it starts gradually, and you go 1 floor, 2 floor, 3 floor, 4, 5. Then you hold at the top, and then you go down the elevator, you go down to the fourth floor, the third floor, and you release a little bit incrementally as you get to the bottom. And when you get to the bottom,
- [51:02]
A
I haven't been doing the releasing.
- [51:04]
B
So think of it, you know, when you do those ab crunches and you go like, 1, 2, 3, 1. Not that I go up in the elevator, I go down in the elevator.
- [51:14]
A
Really important. Also, we're gonna get metaphysical here for a moment, because there is a practice in the Joe Dispenza meditation where you're actually pulling energy from your sacrum up to your pineal gland.
- [51:27]
B
Oh, that's. Well, okay, hold on one second.
- [51:30]
A
This took a turn.
- [51:31]
B
No, no, no. So in Kundalini yoga, there's. There is a thing that you do with the second chakra, and you. You squeeze all of your muscles. I would just. I take issue with the fact that it's going all the way to your pineal gland. But, yes, the idea is that there is a. An energy cycling that occurs that begins with this second chakra. And it's. The notion is you visualize it spiraling all the way up your spine, and that your eyes are actually focused while closed upwards towards what we think is the pineal gland. And so that Is the connection that you're making. And there's a lot of sexual energy that comes up in Kundalini yoga because it's focused on that chakra.
- [52:18]
A
If you're interested in this also, make a comment. We'll cover it in a substack live where Mayim teaches how to channel your energy upward. But even if you're just doing it in a very controlled way and you're not talking about going to your pineal gland, I feel it up the back of my head.
- [52:36]
B
I don't know what you're talking about.
- [52:37]
A
You don't feel it up the back of your head. So, like, if I do this right now and I'm level. Elevator 1. Floor 2, 3.
- [52:44]
B
You can feel it in your neck.
- [52:46]
A
I feel energy moving up the back of my neck, and I can feel it really intensely moving right up my spine.
- [52:52]
B
I believe that that is happening to you, for you, through you.
- [52:56]
A
You don't feel anything.
- [52:57]
B
I've never thought. It's like. Remember I didn't know what it's like to have hot feet. No, I just feel it's squeezing. And mostly I think about how this isn't gonna work and my uterus is gonna fall out one day while I'm, like, going to the grocery store, and TMZ will be there, and they'll be like, there's your uterus. That's what I think about. I have no time to think about what's happening in the back of my neck.
- [53:22]
A
I don't. I've never heard Valerie laugh so hard during. She's engineering this episode, and she's just picturing your uterus on the floor of Whole Foods.
- [53:34]
B
No, I'd be at, like, Ralph's or something. It's not even Whole Foods. They'd be like. And she's not even at Whole Foods. Erewhon. Oh, I could never go to that shopping mall again. All the ladies are coming out of Equinox with their Brazilian butt lifts, and I'm like, oh, my uterus just fell out. Guess I didn't do enough Kegels. Guess I didn't feel it in the back of my neck spiraling up to my pineal gland. Better eat some Lem's quarters. I think we're done here.
- [54:11]
A
This episode has really taken a different turn. It's unexpected.
- [54:16]
B
You know what? I'd like to end this episode with the list of the characteristics of people who are hardy. I also think it's really interesting to think about what's the difference between being hardy, being resilient, and Having grit. These three things are are different. You know, they're subtle differences that can be cultivated in specific ways. The 10 common characteristics that were found in the study by Barton and Stein Hardy. People confront fears, they remain realistically optimistic. They have social support groups, they have role models, they have a moral compass, they demonstrated religious or spiritual practices, they accepted the unchangeable, they took responsibility for their own feelings, they understood stress as an opportunity for personal growth and they maintained a practice of physical fitness. Very interesting. Would love to hear the ways that you feel that you are hearty, resilient or have grit it. Make sure to follow us on substack.
- [55:21]
A
You get a lot more of the silliness on substack but also some really deep conversations too. I was just really taken by the idea that our visual process, the way that we imagine how life can be has such an integral part on how life visualization process and imagining what we're going to do, the life we want to live and how powerful that can be in order to create a vision of health. And I just love the message it's not too late. It's never too late. You can take those incremental steps. It's so important to know that it could take six, nine months to get you to the place of lifting those heavy things. And that work, you can do it. Don't be discouraged by that. I have been in a place in my own life where I wasn't able to do that. I didn't have the strength. Every time I tried to lift, it would be too much, it'd be too heavy and I had to work and slowly. And I'm still doing this right now with the shoulder injury. Slowly working my way back up to feel like I can do it.
- [56:21]
B
And crafting a vision statement is something that we're gonna do over on Substack. So please make sure to join us over on Substack for a little tutorial on crafting a vision statement. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we will see you next time.
- [56:33]
A
It's Maya Bialik's breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two and now she's gonna break down.
- [56:43]
B
It's a breakdown.
- [56:45]
A
She's gonna break, break it down.
- [56:50]
C
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