You’re Probably Not Eating Enough Protein—Here’s Why It Matters

Summary

Pursuit of Wellness: Episode Summary

Episode Title: You’re Probably Not Eating Enough Protein—Here’s Why It Matters
Host: Mari Llewellyn
Release Date: March 3, 2025

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Introduction to Protein Importance

In this enlightening episode of Pursuit of Wellness, host Mari Llewellyn dives deep into the pivotal role of protein in our diets. She begins by sharing her personal journey, emphasizing how adequate protein intake has been instrumental in her transformation towards optimal health and fitness. Mari underscores protein’s multifaceted benefits, including muscle growth, satiety, metabolism boost, fat loss, and overall energy levels.

Mari Llewellyn [00:00]: "Protein is so important. It helps build muscle and aid recovery. It boosts metabolism and fat loss and it keeps you full and energized."

Expert Insights on Protein and Aging

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon joins the conversation to shed light on the challenges of maintaining muscle mass and metabolic health as we age. She introduces the concept of anabolic resistance, a condition where the body struggles to build muscle from protein and resistance training.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [02:43]: "When you look at what happens as we age, we get this thing called anabolic resistance where we're having trouble making muscle from the protein and resistance training. Those are our two stimuli for making muscle as we age."

Dr. Lyon highlights that with age, there’s a natural tendency to eat and move less, often stemming from societal pressures, especially among women, to maintain a smaller physique. This reduction in nutrient intake exacerbates anabolic resistance, making adequate protein intake even more crucial.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [03:17]: "Like, women in particular have been trying to get smaller their whole life. Eat less, get smaller."

Metabolic Health and Muscle Mass

The discussion shifts to the relationship between muscle mass and metabolic health. Dr. Lyon explains that muscle tissue is highly metabolically active, meaning it burns more calories than fat even at rest. This is essential for weight management and overall metabolic function.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [05:38]: "Because muscle protein turnover is costly. Doesn't take much for fat to hang out."

She emphasizes that increasing muscle mass can aid in weight loss by elevating the basal metabolic rate (BMR), making it easier to burn calories consistently.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [07:46]: "Muscle is key because when you do a real basal metabolic rate test... it's going to be based on your muscle mass that dictates everything because that muscle is very metabolically active."

Dr. Lyon also touches on the importance of distinguishing between fat mass and fat-free mass, advocating for fat loss over merely weight loss to preserve metabolic health.

Practical Strategies for Incorporating Protein

Mari and Dr. Lyon collaborate to offer actionable strategies for ensuring adequate protein intake. They discuss the importance of prioritizing protein in meals to enhance satiety and improve overall dietary choices.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [04:43]: "If you eat your protein first, there's some great study that showed people who eat protein first actually make better food choices overall."

Mari shares her own protein-centric meal planning tactics, which include:

• Meal Prepping: Boiling eggs and prepping chicken breast or ground beef to ensure easy access to high-protein foods.

• Balanced Meals: Combining higher fat proteins like bacon with leaner cuts such as skirt steak to diversify protein sources while maintaining nutritional balance.

• Snacking Smart: Incorporating high-protein snacks like meat sticks and raw bars to stay satiated between meals.

Mari Llewellyn [19:42]: "My breakfast is a pile of meat and some fruit. Basically, what I've been doing lately is I'll have bacon or sausage... and then I'll pair it with a leaner cut."

Personal Experiences and Mindset Shifts

Mari candidly shares her evolution in understanding nutrition, moving away from rigid dietary rules to a more balanced and enjoyable approach. She emphasizes the importance of self-compassion and flexibility in maintaining a healthy diet.

Mari Llewellyn [21:22]: "It's just training yourself how to build a plate. And my thing is like plants, protein, carb. And if I can make my carb a plant, even better."

Dr. Lyon echoes the sentiment of starting with foundational health practices before delving into more advanced health hacks. She advocates for prioritizing basic yet effective strategies like adequate protein intake, hydration, and regular physical activity.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [10:39]: "Maybe we need to eat enough protein. Maybe we need to make sure we're hydrated enough. Let's major in the majors."

The Synergy of Protein, Fats, and Overall Nutrition

Mari expands on the synergy between protein and fats, highlighting the essential role of fats in hormone health, energy levels, and brain function. She encourages incorporating healthy fats like avocado, ghee, and tallow into meals to complement protein intake.

Mari Llewellyn [21:20]: "Fats are really important for hormone health and overall energy and also feeling full and satiated and brain health."

Holistic Approaches to Metabolic Health

Dr. Lyon delves into holistic methods to enhance metabolic health, such as improving sleep quality, optimizing nutrient intake, and incorporating regular exercise. She also discusses the role of herbal supplements and polyphenol-rich foods in boosting GLP1 levels, which aid in blood sugar regulation and fat loss.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [14:55]: "This person I'm working with is a super disciplined person... we need to make sure you're getting enough protein."

Conclusion: Embracing a Balanced, Protein-Rich Diet

The episode wraps up with a reaffirmation of the critical role protein plays in achieving and maintaining optimal health. Mari encourages listeners to focus on protein as a foundational element of their diets, supported by adequate fats and a variety of nutrient-dense foods.

Mari Llewellyn [19:58]: "If you're someone who's losing weight right now... the more muscle they put on, the easier it will be for them to lose weight."

Through expert insights and personal anecdotes, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding the importance of protein and practical ways to incorporate it into daily life for enhanced health and wellness.

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Notable Quotes:

• Mari Llewellyn [00:00]: "Protein is so important. It helps build muscle and aid recovery. It boosts metabolism and fat loss and it keeps you full and energized."

• Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [02:43]: "When you look at what happens as we age, we get this thing called anabolic resistance where we're having trouble making muscle from the protein and resistance training. Those are our two stimuli for making muscle as we age."

• Dr. Gabrielle Lyon [05:38]: "Because muscle protein turnover is costly. Doesn't take much for fat to hang out."

• Mari Llewellyn [19:58]: "If you're someone who's losing weight right now... the more muscle they put on, the easier it will be for them to lose weight."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Pursuit of Wellness underscores the multifaceted benefits of a protein-rich diet, especially for women and as we age. By blending scientific insights with practical advice and personal experiences, Mari and Dr. Lyon provide listeners with the tools and motivation to prioritize protein in their wellness journeys.

Transcript

[Mari Llewellyn]

This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Today we are doing a very special episode all about protein. I feel like protein has really become a more well known important macro when it comes to health, fitness, longevity, kind of everything. And it's really nice to see people, especially women, putting an emphasis on protein. It's definitely a very important part of my personal diet. I feel like it keeps me satiated, it helps with muscle growth. If you want to be active, fit, capable, lean and have good muscle, you need to be consuming a decent amount of protein, like I think they say a gram per pound of lean body mass. And that's something I've kind of followed since the beginning of my fitness journey. Greg, from the beginning taught me the importance of protein and it's something that I've carried throughout and I think it's honestly a huge part of my journey. Another piece of the protein journey that I think is really important is creatine. I spoke about this recently, but I got a little bit lazy with my creatine. I usually add it in my hydro flask every day and I recently reincorporated it and the difference it makes is astronomical. It helps with brain and cognitive function, it helps with muscle hydration. I just feel so much better taking creatine every day. And I think a lot of women are afraid of creatine because of certain myths around it and it has been such a big piece of my journey. The bloom Creatine is what I use every single day. It maximizes protein synthesis, supports muscle growth and muscle recovery, boosts energy, improves strength and performance. It's also the most science backed supplement on the market. Creatine has so much science behind it, so highly recommend incorporating that as well. Protein is so important. It helps build muscle and aid recovery. It boosts metabolism and fat loss and it keeps you full and energized. We have had so many experts come on the show and discuss the importance of protein. I think we're at the point where there's enough science to see. Protein is a crucial part of any journey. So we are going to hop into this episode and talk about the importance of protein, how you can better, better incorporate it into your day, the effects it can have, more science, certain foods you should be focusing on and more. We're also going to touch on a solo episode of my own personal protein habits. So without further ado, let's hop into this protein episode. I hope you all enjoy I know you are a big advocate for protein first. Can you explain what you mean by that?

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

When you look at what happens as we age, we get this thing called anabolic resistance where we're having trouble making muscle from the protein resistance training. Those are our two stimuluses, really, for making muscle as we age. And so the challenge that happens, I see as we age is we're starting to eat less. Like, we do less. And I always say, the less you do, the less you can do. Then we're eating less, Our nutrients go down. And for so many women, and I think this is women in particular. Like, women in particular have been trying to get smaller their whole life.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Eat less, get smaller. I mean, I used to do nutrition consulting for south beach models, and they were so afraid of putting on muscle because they had to just be skinny. Skinny and toned. And I'm like, what is toned?

[Mari Llewellyn]

Toned is the funniest word to me.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

They would literally, like, you know, it was like the cocaine diet. They would literally eat very little.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Wow.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

But this is. I feel like a pretty endemic situation, is that we've always thought that we need to just eat less. And what I find with people is I start to talk about how much protein you need as you age, which I put it at somewhere in the 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. What I find is someone will eat, and I'll go, oh, I'm too full. And I go, well, you had a salad, and I just watched this the other day. I went out to dinner. Some people go, this happens every single time. I'm like, is this the universe? Like, just saying, keep going this. My girlfriend sits down. She has a Caesar salad, croutons, cheese dressing. Now, it's better than maybe a salad with, you know, glazed nuts and dried fruit and a raspberry vinaigrette. But either which way, to me, I look at that as a sundae. You have five calories of lettuce. You have a whole bunch of garbage, right? You know, has that, then has three scallops. I'm like, why don't we just not eat the salad and have six scallops? Right? But, you know, then I'm full. I can't eat anymore.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Oh, the three scallops with the entree, that was it. Oh, for me, that would be an appetizer.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

It was an appetizer. That's the point. She had the appetizer for the entree. I'm like, okay, if you sit down. So if you eat your protein first, a couple things happen. There's some great study that showed that people who eat protein first actually make better food choices overall. And protein, of course we know is more satiating. It's got a better thermic effect. It also is more satisfying. So. And it's got great blood sugar control. I know there's all this stuff all over about what you need to eat for blood sugar control. And I'm like, well, lift weights, eat protein, your blood sugar will go up. That's okay. Just don't go up a hundred.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I know there's a concept, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast, if you have more muscle, you essentially burn more calories just existing. But I don't know how to explain the science behind it. Can you explain that for us?

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Yeah. Because muscle protein turnover is costly.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Doesn't take much for fat to hang out.

[Mari Llewellyn]

So for someone who's losing weight right now, because a lot of the girls who listen to my show have a lot of weight loss questions, the more muscle they put on, the easier it will be for them to lose weight.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Yeah, I love weight loss. I have worked in weight loss since, since, you know, my late teens. I've been fascinated, obsessed with weight loss and I really, really, really wish we could reframe it to fat loss.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Unless you're working with someone who is morbidly obese and then they will lose some fat free mass too. You basically have two components in your body. You have fat mass and you have fat free mass. Now within fat mass, we have subcutaneous. That's, you know, the stuff you'll see on your hips and thighs and then you have that visceral adipose tissue. Why I love a DEXA is it's going to tell you what you have. You may not like the fat on your thighs, but that is not the problem that the fat around your organs are. And we want to see that. And your fat free mass is basically skeletal. It's everything else. Right. And so some of that fat free mass supports fat. So if you have a lot of weight to lose, you're going to lose some fat free mass too. But if you have 10 to 20 pounds of weight to lose, even 30, or you're a skinny fat, which is what my husband was when we discovered when he took the dexa, you may have no muscle, like you may want to be putting on muscle while you're losing fat. And a lot of times that's where people are. If you want to get to a point where you don't have metabolic adaptation like you Heard with the biggest losers where all of a sudden they go through this extreme weight loss and their calorie, the basal metabolic rate is 500 calories less a day than it should be based on their metabolism. Muscle is key because when you do a real basal metabolic rate test, which you can do through a breath test, the DEXA is going to predict it, but a breath test will do even better. Like the DEXA predicted me, I think at 1600, 1500, 1600, and the breath was like 1750.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Okay.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

You know, it's just. So it's going to be based on your muscle mass that dictates everything because that muscle is very metabolically active. It's turning over all the times. Breaking down, building up, breaking down, building up. Ideally you are building up more than you're breaking down. At the very least you want to keep it static, but you definitely don't want to be breaking down more than you're building up. So I've worked in weight loss since my 20s and I got very interested early on because of a client who came to me and if she ate over 1200 calories a day, she'd gain weight. She had lived on like you went into her pantry and opened it up. You won't remember these things because you were probably in the womb, but she had things like butter buds, snack wells, like all these fat free, all this garbage, ultra process diet food. Right. And so, and I was like, this is such a head scratcher because I didn't understand at the time that you don't lose weight to get healthy, you have to get metabolically healthy to lose weight. And that if you've gotten to yourself to this point where you're so insulin resistant that you've got to go and start to do the things that start to heal your metabolism so that your body can burn fat and hold on to her build muscle. And that's where she was.

[Mari Llewellyn]

How do you heal your metabolism?

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

You know, when you really look at what heals your metabolism the most, because the person I'm working with right now who literally has more fat than person to lose. And so what we started with were really looking at three things. How is your sleep? One poor night of sleep and you're more insulin resistant. So sleep has got to be dialed in. How do we start working with your nutrition to help make sure that you've got good satiety, good blood sugar balance and optimize nutrients? Because quite often we're low in things like vitamin D that's going to contribute to insulin resistance and then the exercise that we can do to improve that insulin sensitivity. So really a lot of what we're trying to do is start to improve that insulin sensitivity as quickly as possible.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I always think of my husband. He's a bodybuilder and he's, you know, six pack jacked. But people don't realize he's not just lifting weights in the gym. He's getting 25, 000 steps a day usually because he takes every meeting right while walking.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Wow.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I know. He paces around the pool, he's constantly moving, and he eats a lot of food. So anyway, he's just good.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

You want that energy flux. So, yeah, I think the easy way to do it and it's, it's interesting. This person I'm working with right now is, is a super disciplined person. He just has to have a process. So I said, all right. He was getting 2,500 steps in a day. The average person gets 2500 to 4000 steps a day. I know, I know. That's why let's, let's fix. Let's major in the majors first.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

So much like, like before we worry about seed oils, before we start focusing on red light.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yes.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Maybe we need to get our steps in.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yes.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

I don't know. Call me crazy. Maybe we need to eat enough protein. Maybe we need to make sure we're hydrated enough. Let's major in the majors. That are the biggest things that will, like someone just DM me. Are B12 shots going to help me with weight loss? I'm like, not really. Could we major in the majors?

[Mari Llewellyn]

No. The foundation is crucial. Like where I started five years ago. Now I have the sauna, the cold plunge, the red light because I've done all the other stuff.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Yes.

[Mari Llewellyn]

But I think the most important thing is to start with the steps, start with the weight, start with the foundation, and you can add from there.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Yes.

[Mari Llewellyn]

And if anything that's less overwhelming.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Well, you know what's so cool? This Brian Johnson guy who is spent $2 million a year hacking his health and says the majority of things that make the biggest difference are the things that don't really cost anything.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Diet, exercise, sleep.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Dr. Gabrielle Lyon]

Like amen.

[Mari Llewellyn]

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[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, muscle is. This is the way that Gabrielle explains it is. It's your suitcase, right? It's your muscle is where when you eat carbohydrates, you might need some of them immediately, but a lot of them are going to get stored in either your liver or your muscle tissue. And if you have a nice muscle suitcase on you, you can stuff a lot of carbs into your muscle suitcase and save them for later and not have those carbohydrates which turn into glucose hanging around in your bloodstream causing high glucose levels, high postprandial, post meal blood glucose levels. That is where we come into an issue. Because again, even if you are of a healthy body weight, if you're having blood sugar spikes because of lack of muscle mass, inflammation, metabolic abnormalities, you can have blood sugar spikes to your point. And when you have blood glucose spikes that are abnormal, that are higher than a normal spike, and thus the resulting crash that happens afterwards, reactive hypoglycemia. This creates an immense environment of inflammation and stress within the body. It's hard on your kidneys, it's hard on your adrenals, because when you come back down, the body has to now mobilize stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol in order to liberate glycogen from the liver. So it creates this very stress, this added stressful environment on the body when we're already in a state of stress. Essentially like we got enough of that, we're trying to actually utilize the proper blood sugar balanced meals and snacks at, for some people, a frequent timing in order to keep that cortisol low, in order to keep everything very stable. Because once you create stability in the body, you can start creating stability in the mind. And this is why I think that our weight loss journeys, muscle building journeys, fitness journeys, all these things were essentially our way into the soul journey. Once I learned about body composition and fat loss and calorie restriction, eating in a deficit in order to lose body fat. I learned that if you're not eating higher protein than you even need at baseline, while you are in a deficit, this is so important, you have to eat more protein than you think you do. If you're strategically eating a little bit less to lose body fat. Because if you are not, you will not be Able to preserve your lean body mass, which is so much harder to put back on than it is to lose. Your body will catalyze that lean body mass, that muscle tissue when it's in a stress state and you're under fueling it. If you're not keeping your protein levels high and you're not dosing your protein throughout the day to a point where it stimulates muscle protein synthesis and preserves it, It's a biological mechanism. You need at least 30 grams per dose to stimulate MPS. I took that information and was like, duh. My mom was starving herself to lose weight and doing all these crazy diets. So every time she would lose the weight, she'd gain it back quicker and she'd have a harder time losing it again because she was ending up in a worse place muscle mass wise every single time until she was like almost no muscle tissue. And so I was like, that's not going to be me. I'm going to get it this time. I'm going to like leverage science. I'm going to use the western world. I'm going to give myself that balance of like, how can I combine the western and what we know in data with also body, compassion and spirituality and herbs and polyphenols and the gut microbiome and all the things like, and create this perfect like plants and protein diversity diet that will serve not just my muscle tissue but also my actual body and inflammation levels and all these things. So I do think there's a case to be made that we're living in a world where there's inflammation and thus our GLP1 levels are a little bit lower. There are cases where if people really hunker down and do the right things, right. We have literature to show that eating a high protein, high fiber meal boosts your endogenous levels of GLP1. We have literature to show that cinnamon, fenugreek, ginseng are herbs that increase and stimulate your own release of GLP1, your own release of Ozempic. And there we can use those herbs as tools. I have a formula, glucose, bitters that I talk about all the time that I use in my muscle building insulin resistance journey. You take it before meals. It has herbs that help to boost your GLP1 and also help to regulate your blood sugar and your cravings. This is where we get to like play in the gray area with herbs and holistic remedies to support our bodies. So you can use herbal tools. Green tea, dark chocolate, you know, all of these therapeutic foods. Polyphenol rich Foods, pigment rich berries. All these foods increase our own levels of oic. And it's pretty cool to know that these foods work and can potentiate a fat loss, muscle building journey when we eat them because of GLP1. So obviously if you're giving a human GLP1 in greater doses, it's going to help them even more.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I want to ask you about protein specifically for anyone listening who maybe is like, how do I make sure I'm getting enough protein? What should a protein rich meal look like? How many grams of protein is there? A certain type of protein you lean towards?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. So I, I try to go for protein sources that are like simple to prep and easy to grab first and foremost. And I think that this is where we can get very caught up in like the ideals, right? This like idealistic world of like rotate your proteins and eat the wild venison and the this and that and all this stuff. Yes. In a perfect world, would that be the most nutrient dense, beautiful, varied diet? And is that what I wish I could do all the time? Sure. And yeah, like once a month, twice a month, my husband and I will prep like liver meatballs. Right. And we'll like get this really cool, nutrient rich source of protein and rotate that in our diets. So I will often, um, meal prep a bunch of boiled eggs. Five hard boiled eggs will give you 30 grams of protein, just about which is the dose that you need. And I, I will eat five eggs, period. People.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I used to do that too before they broke me out.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm sorry about that. I know it's, it's a, it's an interesting inflammatory.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I know. We'll chat. Yeah, yeah. You're like, you're up.

[Unknown Speaker]

No, it's, it's.

[Mari Llewellyn]

I used to slam eggs.

[Unknown Speaker]

In fact. You're not fudged up. Like, in fact, that is like what I want you to stop.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Thank you, babe, I appreciate that.

[Unknown Speaker]

But yeah, so I'll prep the eggs, I'll prep the chicken breast. You want like 4 or 5 ounces of chicken breast or ground beef or steak, like, and you can weigh it out at first. That's again what I had to do. I would get my scale out and I would weigh.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Because then you learn what it should look like.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Mari Llewellyn]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's just training yourself how to build a plate. And my thing is like plants, protein, carb. And if I can make my carb a plant. Even better, if I can make my carb chickpeas. Like break open a can of chickpeas and maybe like roast them. In a pan with, like, some red peppers and jalapenos and whatever, and have that be my carb. Fabulous. If it's white rice, great. If it's potato, Japanese, sweet potato, even. Oh, my God. Amazing. And then, yeah, I do. I try to go for some kind of a plant with every meal, so. And if that means, like, grabbing a handful of blueberries, even though it doesn't make sense on my plate with my meal, but it makes sense for what my brain knows. Let me get a little plants in here. Let me, like, night cap the meal with something. I'll do that. But it'll usually be, like, greens or sauteed. You know, something bok choy, broccoli, raw greens, with, like, a really simple dressing. It's just breaking it back down to basics. I. I think one of the greatest things that I got out of the time that I worked with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is the way that she gives pep talks. It's really the relationship. And she had said to me, you know, listen, beating yourself up and telling yourself you're a piece of shit and you need to do better and blah, blah, blah. And having something to fight against served you up until this point. You made your company, you did all these things. You're successful. It's not working anymore. You need to realize that what took you to here, to what took you to this level is not going to be the thing that takes you to the next level. You need a new plan. You need a new strategy. And sometimes that's the hardest part, is pivoting into softness, self, compassion, curiosity, and mothering in a way that is discipline without shame. Mothering in a way that is. Hey, I. I see you. I see that, like, you had a really long, hard day. You had a few things that came up that, like, triggered a wound. You feel really weird about this friendship dynamic right now, and work is stressful and you're overtired. And so right now, you just want to eat a box of cookies. I feel it. I'm with you. I'm going to, like, sit there with you and feel that. And then saying, what if we try to eat some protein first? What if we just do that gentle nudge? Let's just try that. And if you still want the box of cookies after you eat a nice protein rich snack or meal, we can do that. But I just want you to try. And that's the way that a mother would speak to a child. A mother that I never had would. I mean, I had a beautiful, wonderful mother, but she didn't mother in that way, right? She was very unkind to herself and thus did not know how to hold that space for me, right? So I had to learn how to hold that space for my younger self and I had to learn how to talk to myself in a way where like it, it was motherly love, which involves tough love. Sometimes.

[Mari Llewellyn]

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Go to Lumen Me Pow to get 20 off your lumen. That's L u m e n.me/pow for 20 off your purchase. Thank you Lumen for sponsoring this episode. The start of the new year is the perfect time to get organized, set goals, and prioritize what matters most. For many people, financial wellness is a top priority. I think it's so important and thanks to Rocket Money, my goals feel closer than ever. They have showed me all my subscriptions right in one place and helped me cancel the ones that I forgot I'm paying for. I am someone who really struggles with this. I am subscribed to so many apps that I don't use and Rocket Money has been so helpful for me. It also pulls all of my spending across all my different accounts so I can clearly track my spending habits and see where I need to cut back. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower bills so you can grow your savings. I know we all have so many goals of trips we want to take, bags we want to buy, things we want to do, and this can help us get closer to that. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to Rocket Money.com pal today. That's Rocket Money.com pal Rocket Money.com pal My first tip I have here is high protein. You've heard me say it before. I'll say it again. High protein is so important. It helps me feel full and satiated. Muscle is so important. I eat a ton of protein throughout the day. I like to load up my breakfast, especially because I want to start the day with a feeling full, feeling satiated, and a large amount of protein, because getting enough protein in is really challenging. I feel like 80% of people are actually not getting enough protein in because when you actually look at at it on a plate. My breakfast is a pile of meat and some fruit. Basically what I've been doing lately is I'll have bacon or sausage, which is kind of like my higher fat protein. And then I'll pair it with a leaner cut. So maybe like a skirt steak or ground beef 90 and I'll mix it all together for this kind of like meat mash. I know that sounds so disgusting. I'm not mashing the meat. That made it sound really, really gross. It's basically just a plate of meat. And then I'll do strawberries. Today I did a banana for a little bit of carbs. So I'm really hitting all my macros there. And I would estimate that my breakfast is probably 30 grams of protein, maybe more. And then I just keep kind of repeating that throughout the day. My meals, my snacks, everything is centered around the protein. So for lunch, maybe I'll do ground beef and avocado or a salad with extra protein. If you order your lunch, let's say you order salads, get double protein every time. Highly recommend it. Dinner is also centered around the protein, whether it's a ribeye, a salmon, lamb chops. Like, you can really switch it up. Oh, slow cooker. Really great way of making delicious meat that, like, falls off the bone. So freaking good. And then put your veggies and potato kind of around that, if that makes sense in terms of snack. High protein again, I love chomps meat sticks. Fantastic way of getting protein in. And there's no additives or any weird ingredients in there. They are a sponsor of the show. We have a code. I'll put it in the description box. I love raw bars. R A W R bars. They are a small family business that I order from my doctor. Emily Morrow recommended them to me. I believe they have 20 grams of protein in them. I had one on the way to record because I knew I would get hungry. I am like a giant baby, guys, when it comes to eating, I'm like clockwork. Like, I wake up hungry. I have to eat by eight at least. I work out, fasted, and I eat right after. Now, I do want to comment on that window of time that you need to eat your protein. I recorded an episode with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and I asked her about this time window. It really isn't as important as we think. As long as we're getting in enough protein throughout the day. It really is about the whole day. And what they recommend is a gram of protein per pound of body weight. So let's say I weigh around 150 pounds. Like I need to be getting 150g of protein in per day. So it is kind of a mission and you need to be very conscious of it. But it really is lifechanging. Like just by upping your protein. I feel like what you'll find is that you end up eating less crap throughout the day because you're not having those crazy cravings and you just feel full and. And also increasing that lean muscle in your body is so important, especially if you're weightlifting just by having. And it's. It's hard to explain this concept, but simply by increasing your muscle mass, your body requires more calories to exist every day. So you're actually kind of burning fat when you increase muscle. Having muscle is so important, especially as we age. It protects our bones, it helps with longevity. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon went into so many different studies with me about Alzheimer's and various different diseases. That muscle is really, really like an important piece of the puzzle for health and people don't talk about it enough. So muscle is big. I also put incorporating a lot of fats. This isn't hard for me. I love fats. I'm definitely like a savory type of gal. I love using ghee and tallow and avocado and various types of like healthy fats on my food. But I think for us women, it's really important that we're getting enough fat. Like, if you're someone who is maybe eating like really lean proteins and lots of carbs, just remember that fats are really important for hormone health and overall energy and also feeling full and satiated and brain health. Fats are important for absolutely everything. So I think that's really crucial if you're a female, just to make sure you're getting enough fats in every day. I think when I first got into fitness, I thought that I had to eat like very regimented in a certain, like tilapia, chicken and broccoli and rice. Like everything was very like dry. And now I've realized you can really have so much fun with healthy food and there's so many great options out there. So you just need to kind of educate yourself and keep things fun. Thank you for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast to support this show. Please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my [e-mail] it will be linked in the show Notes. This podcast is a Pursuit Network production brought to you by Michaela Phillips, Joel Contartese, Daviel Waldner, Jennifer Lauren and Mackenzie Meisel. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Love you po girls and power Boys. I will see you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.