← The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show
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- [00:00]
Dr. Alan Christianson
What is the truth about nutrition is three things. One, we should eat food. Most of what Americans and increasingly the world is eating is technically not food. Food is medicine. It's information, it's instructions, it's code. It literally interacts with your body in so many different ways. And the third principle is personalization. Everybody's different.
- [00:22]
Dr. Layne Norton
If you're getting in that, you know, one gram per pound of body weight, you know, that's for the vast majority of people. That's going to be more than enough for you to really like maximize the benefits of protein.
- [00:32]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Just cutting things for the sake of cutting them is usually really harmful. So when people are learning about something online and they're like, oh, all carbs are bad, or all fat is bad, or women don't need that much protein, just arbitrarily cutting an entire macronutrient from your diet, I think is, you know, bears a lot of consequences.
- [00:52]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Is this the right kind of diet that's going to get me to my goals? And what people don't realize is that once you get certain things down, there's elements there that are highly flexible.
- [01:05]
Host Gabrielle Reece
I have one final question. What does forever Strong mean to you? You know, one of the things that I was thinking about for this Forever strong experience is people have hundreds, not hundreds. That's a gross exaggeration. Lots of health and wellness books on their shelf. You know, I probably have, I don't know, 75. And the question is, what makes it so difficult to follow and where do people go wrong?
- [01:38]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Okay, well, first of all, the, the body is just complex. The bodily systems, biological science is totally complex. It's not a, necessarily a, a, a one plus one equals two type of thing all the time. And so that's, that's one of the big reasons that the human organism, we just haven't figured it out completely. There's a lot of gray area, a lot of learning to do, a lot of research to do. And the second reason is that people don't necessarily have the skills or the tools to sniff out the false stuff from what's solidly evidence based. And even learning what, what does evidence based even mean? That's, that's a whole thing unto itself. And then I guess the third reason for confusion is nutrition is a very sort of personal and emotional type of thing. And so when people do well for themselves, they figure that, okay, well, hey, I've gotten in shape or I've gotten really healthy, therefore I'm an expert at nutrition because I know myself. And so people have this tendency to figure hey, if it works for me, it's got to work for everybody else. And then they basically start evangelizing and that's just not an objective way to go about things. And I think that it's a mix of those things. As to why everybody is so confused.
- [03:08]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Do you think that there's. So basically what I'm hearing you say so far is that there's a. The human body is complex and there's probably a ton of different ways to do it, right? Whether it's keto or whether it's carnivore, who knows, right? Everyone can do it their own way, but the mass of information out there, there's probably a really big challenge. And in identifying the good information versus someone of the hype information, is that fair to say?
- [03:39]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
That's fair.
- [03:41]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Okay, if, if that is like our baseline understanding, do you think that once people identify the direction that they're going to go, do you think that there is one thing that holds people back in general from making progress?
- [03:58]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
I, I think it's a, a dual matter of knowledge and priorities, really. I, I've worked with so many people, work with so many different groups of people, from just elite types of competitors to just regular soccer moms, soccer dads type of thing. And the things that the, the big thing that separates them is kind of knowledge, knowing what they're doing, and also how far up in their priority list is the transformation of their bodies or their health. So, you know, unless people can put that as the very top priority, they're always going to have things in their lives, whether it's work related or whether it's home related, that are going to distract them from the goal. So I think those are the two things that need to be in place. Some basic real knowledge, some effective knowledge, and then just the prioritization of what needs to get done. Because I, I always say that it's really tough to change a single habit, like one single habit. It's tough to change it. When you want to change the body, you have to change your entire schedule. You have to transform your schedule. You have to transform a whole set of habits. So it is a colossal project to change the body. And people don't have an appreciation for that when they're just kind of walking into it and expecting things to just happen.
- [05:27]
Host Gabrielle Reece
We have this strong belief that eating clean equals health. And, you know, the idea can backfire.
- [05:36]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Yeah, absolutely. I think also the intention behind the clean eating is really important too. Are we doing it kind of out of fear and pushing our bodies to Limit, or are we doing it out of this place of love and wanting to challenge ourselves in a positive way? So certainly we can be clean eating and just restricting ourselves unnecessarily, depending on why we're doing it.
- [05:58]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah, I mean, that. It's a, it's a really good point. Right. I think that we've seen this both in our clinical practices and also with people that we love, that they are eating clean but also really restricting. Is there one rule that people follow that you think from a nutrition landscape does more harm than good?
- [06:17]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
I think just cutting things for the sake of cutting them is usually really harmful. So when people are learning about something online and they're like, oh, all carbs are bad, or all fat is bad, or women don't need that much protein, just arbitrarily cutting an entire macronutrient from your diet, I think is. Had, you know, bears a lot of consequences.
- [06:37]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Do you think that medicine became obsessed with BMI and fat as opposed to training? How. How do you. Why do you think that happened? It's kind of a statement question, but.
- [06:53]
Dr. Alan Christianson
It'S, I mean, listen, it's, it's. It's how everything happened in medicine. We just saw it was in front of us, we like to name it, and then blame it. So we thought, oh, people are, are gaining weight. Let's find a way to measure that. Well, BMI was a sort of a. An easy way to do it because you just needed height and weight and you didn't need to measure anything. But it didn't really tell you what's happening under the skin because you could be a guy like Shaquille O' Neal and have a body mass index of 35 and be considered obese and yet be fit and muscular. So it didn't really represent what's really happening under the hood. And also, I think we got focused on the sort of carbohydrate issue and fat is bad and eat more carbs, and that's the key to health. And it was just totally misguided approach. And I wrote a book about it called which one?
- [07:34]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Which of the 14?
- [07:35]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Well, I mean, I wrote a book called Eat Fat Get Then, which was really about the history of our demonization of fat and missing the boat on what really is going on. I mean, Eat Fat Get. Then I wrote like over 10 years ago, before people were talking about keto or anything else. And now we're seeing, you know, people doing keto diets to reverse diabetes, obesity, I mean, having as good or better effects than. Than EGLP.1 drugs. So I think this is, you know, now becoming kind of more now. It doesn't mean that all fat is good for everybody all the time because everybody's different. But I think that, you know, we really got down the wrong track for so many decades, especially with the, with the McGovern report, the sort of efforts to buy certain aspects of scientific community to vilify fat and to blame it for heart disease and blame it for cholesterol. And that led to this whole high carb diet which created the hockey stick of obesity, diabetes, metabolic dysfunction in our biology, which is crippling our country. The economics of it, the disability, that suffering is just staggering. I mean, it's just, and thank God, now we have finally, in the political discourse the conversation about chronic disease being a thing. It wasn't even considered an object or a topic worthy of conversation until just this last year.
- [08:48]
Host Gabrielle Reece
You know, my audience knows you and you are a great scientist and a great science communicator. And one of the reasons why I wanted you to come onto the forever strong experience is not just because you're like a brother to me, but also because you and I were both trained by one of the world leading experts in protein metabolism. The guilt now so more than ever having good information that has high quality, integrity, it's kind of like an oxymoron's critical. But one of the things that you talk about is these three pillars and also really just as it relates to body composition. So I'd love for you to tell us someone who is trying to improve body composition, what should they do?
- [09:32]
Dr. Layne Norton
Well, I think, you know, the, the first, most important thing, and I say this is a person who loves nutrition, who has a PhD in nutrition, who devoted their life to nutrition. Resistance training is by far the most powerful tool to change your body composition. It's, and it's not really even close. You can, you can eat all the protein you want, you can eat an appropriate amount of calories, you can sleep enough, you can do all those things. But if you're not creating the stimulus to turn over that muscle protein and create new protein or new muscle protein, can you gain some lean body mass? Yes. Is it gonna be really appreciable? No. And so really, you know, I look at protein intake now, or nutrition now as more of a, an anti catabolic. Right. So if you, if you don't resistance train and you eat enough calories and you eat enough protein, can you put on a small amount of lean mass? Sure. But more of what I look at as it's gonna help prevent lean mass loss during catabolic periods like calorie deficit, certain disease states and aging. But yeah, but really, resistance training plus protein is a synergistic effect where, yes, you will, regardless, you will add muscle mass from resistance training, but when you have sufficient protein and calories on top of that, you'll add more than you would have just by resistance training alone.
- [10:54]
Host Gabrielle Reece
You and I have been training from a very young age. And I think that both of our perspective, both of our perspectives have shifted in the way that we were really focused on protein, obviously because of Don. But as more and more science comes out, it's really that stimulus which is extraordinary because it seems as if it doesn't matter the age, you can always improve. You know, with that being said, do you think that there are certain rules that people should, quote, follow if they're wanting to improve body composition?
- [11:26]
Dr. Layne Norton
You know, I, I, I'm very, it's hard for me to say rules because in, in life there aren't really many hard rules, but some really strong guidelines. I would say, of course, resistance train, that's the first thing. But, you know, there's a lot of people who go to the gym and they train, but they're, they don't really, you don't really see them change. And that is because you have to be un, like change. Whether it's emotional, psychological, educational, behavioral, or muscle mass, it requires discomfort. And so if you are not pushing yourself into discomfort when you are resistance training, you, you, you're just not going to see changes. It's just not, it's, or you'll, you'll see changes for a very short period of time and then they will plateau and you won't move past that. So really what you want is to be doing your training to sufficient intensity. And by intensity, I mean proximity to failure. The research seems to be relatively clear that, you know, between low and when I say low, like, you know, three, four, five reps and high reps, 20, 30 reps, there really isn't that much difference in muscular growth. So long as you take each set close to failure, you probably don't have to go to failure, but you need to get pretty darn close within a couple of reps. And, and I will say, if you've never trained to failure, you probably are really poor at estimating what your proximity to failure is. So you need to do enough intensity. And then if you look at intensity as kind of the drug, then volume would be the dosage and you can tell your, your Volume to your goals. Like, for me, I do a lot of training volume. Because I'm trying to be the strongest, most muscular human being I can be. Um, but for other people, you know, you get the vast majority of training benefits in the first, you know, five, 10 sets of a body part, so long as each set's taken to sufficient intensity.
- [13:21]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah, and I, and by the way, I've seen you train and compete and you, you're, you're lifting extremely heavy weights. And what I like about what you said is that there's a lot of information out there that says, okay, you have to lift heavy. But, you know, as I think about Don, or as I think about some of my patients, lifting heavy for them can predispose them to injury, especially if their muscular strength is outpacing their tendon strength. And what you're saying is that it's not that you have to lift heavy, it's that you have to create enough stimulus. And that can happen in a multitude of ways. Am I understanding that correct?
- [13:58]
Dr. Layne Norton
That's correct. And if you think about it from a mechanistics perspective, you know, we know that basically the most dominant factor for stimulating muscular growth from resistance training is what we call mechanical tension, which is the tension that an individual fiber experiences. But people hear that and they think, well, that means you gotta train heavy. You have to understand how a fiber senses tension and how fibers are recruited in a muscle. So fibers are recruited from smallest to largest. And typically that means your slow twitch, you know, type 1 fibers get recruited first, then your intermediate fibers, and then finally your fast twitch, glycolytic large fibers. And the reason your body does that is to conserve energy. But what that means is, let's say I, let's, let's say I do two comparable sets. So one, like, let's say I do just five reps, right, with heavy weight to failure. Another one, I do 30 reps to failure, okay, Way lighter. The reason there's going to be a similar amount of mechanical tension is because in those five reps, very quickly early on in the set, I am going to have to recruit those large muscle fibers to move that weight. That's going to happen very early on in the lighter set. The first, you know, 10, 15 reps, you're probably not having to recruit a whole lot of those intermediate or large fibers. But as you start to approach failure now, you're having you fatigued, those smaller fibers, those intermediate fibers, and now your body has to recruit those large fibers. And so actually, because those fibers are taking on a disproportionate amount of load. Even at a lighter weight, they still experience a similar amount of tension. And that is what the great, I guess, unifying factor for mechanical tension to hypertrophy is, is that if you just get sets intense enough, close enough to failure, you're going to get similar growth. Now, if you get to extremes like above 30, 40 reps, below, you know, five reps, they may be suboptimal just because, you know, one rep max, there's just not that much time under that amount of tension. But and then above 30 reps, you get so light that essentially you could just like take a couple breaths and do another rep. You run out of oxygen before you typically run out of, of or your muscle gets too fatigued. So stay in there between five and 30 and you go sufficient, you know, sufficient intense intensity, you're gonna be stimulating muscle growth.
- [16:26]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And that's a, a lot of flexibility. Now, I noticed that you said muscle growth is there this strength continuum, this muscle hypertrophy kind of strength continuum.
- [16:37]
Dr. Layne Norton
Yeah. Now this is a really good question and probably very applicable, especially as you age, because it's not just lean mass that matters. Lean mass matters, especially metabolically, but strength probably matters more from a physical quality of life perspective. And so strength is a specific skill. So, you know, depending on how we're assessing it. But if we're talking about, like your absolute ability to generate force, so a one rep maximum, how strong are you at a given time, how much force can you generate? That is a specific skill. And we do see very clearly in the research literature, lifting heavy produces better strength outcomes and than lifting light. Now, you will get stronger lifting light than if you didn't lift at all. No question about it. But for best outcomes, you want to lift heavy. Now, what I would tell people is if you're not limited by like injuries or, or pain or anything like that, you're probably best off just using a variety of rep ranges. One, that keeps it fun and exciting and novel, and two, it means if there are subtle differences between those rep ranges, you're, you're experiencing some of the benefits from each. So I just tell people, you know, variety is the spice of life when it comes to training.
- [17:47]
Host Gabrielle Reece
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- [19:05]
Dr. Layne Norton
So.
- [19:05]
Host Gabrielle Reece
So there's literally no reason not to try it. How do you think the landscape would look different if muscle had been taught as an organ system?
- [19:15]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Well, it wasn't until I met you actually, and you kind of crammed it down my throat and I was like, wait, there's something to this muscle thing. Because we were taught to focus on fat, on the body and our diet, and not on protein and not on muscle. And I didn't really understand what muscle was. I thought it was just this organ that kind of moved your bones around so you could.
- [19:39]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Did you think it was an organ system?
- [19:40]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Not really, no. I just thought it was like steak that you had on your muscles that you kind of moved your body around with. Be able to walk and eat and do all the things you want to do. But I didn't realize it was such an incredibly important organ that had a diverse array of functions that are critical to health and longevity. From regulating your blood sugar metabolism, to regulating your immune system, to regulating your, your overall hormonal balance, to regulating your metabolic health in every way. Your brain health, your mood. I mean, everything really sort of centers in your muscle. And it's something we learn nothing about in medical school.
- [20:15]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Do you think looking back again, other.
- [20:17]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Than the names of the muscles, this is true?
- [20:19]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And also when you think about it, you have really made root cause medicine very popular.
- [20:25]
Dr. Alan Christianson
That's true. It's true.
- [20:27]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And, and when I think about root cause medicine, even if we address obesity, that's probably, in my opinion, still not the root cause?
- [20:35]
Dr. Alan Christianson
No, it's always upstream. What's causing the cause of the cause or the cause? I mean, honestly, I don't know if you know this, Gabriel, but this Week. A couple of days ago, the center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation put out a request for proposals for functional medicine.
- [20:51]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Wow.
- [20:52]
Dr. Alan Christianson
And lifestyle Medicine approaches to address chronic disease. $100 million.
- [20:58]
Host Gabrielle Reece
That's crazy.
- [20:59]
Dr. Alan Christianson
It's crazy to see the word functional medicine on a Medicare website. I remember when that's what we talk about, root care medicine, but that's what we're talking about here. It's a whole different way of thinking about the body based on root causes and systems and optimizing health and creating health, rather than just treating disease and thinking about the body as a network in a system, when everything's communicating with everything else. And that's what you've really taught us about muscle, is that it's this organ system that's communicating with everything all the time.
- [21:24]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah. One of the things that I hear routinely in the practice and online is that I've hit midlife. Nothing's working. I am training and doing the nutrition things that I should, but I'm still not losing weight or I'm regressing. So what actually happens in that midlife moment?
- [21:45]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Okay, well, there's a pretty substantial literature on a couple things that happen in midlife with women. So there's joint pain, musculoskeletal pain. There is a cascade of things that leads to sleep disturbance, just lower sleep quality and quantity. When you have low quality sleep and a low amount of it, let's say significantly less than seven hours, which is kind of the healthy threshold there, then you have both a compromise in your training output, and you also have a dysregulation in your appetite. If you combine that with this increased hunger and cravings, with a lesser capacity to train with the intensity and the frequency and the consistency that you need to.
- [22:44]
Dr. Layne Norton
I think you.
- [22:45]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
You combine that with joint pain, and then you combine that with the psychological stresses of changes in, for example, sexual health, then you kind of have a recipe for impeded progress to the. To the tune of. It can be about twice as hard for. For people in midlife to reach their goals compared to if they were to. To attempt that in earlier adulthood. And. And so, in a nutshell, that's kind of what's going on, and there's a lot of moving parts to that.
- [23:21]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah. I mean, again, it's interesting because of the complex biological system. Is there anything that we know that metabolically changes per se, or is it more the influence of diet and lifestyle and sleep?
- [23:38]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
It's a combination of those things. One of the discouraging things about midlife, especially in women, is that body fat gain and body fat patterning changes. And so while you, while the actual, the, the net gains in, in body fat during midlife are not spectacularly greater than how they would be in any other point in life, the, where the body fat accumulates and where it's deposited shifts and changes more towards the central, the abdominal area. And so if you were to gain excess body fat in midlife, it would be more of sort of like an apple type of patterning that than if you were to, to gain excess body fat in earlier adulthood or in, in adolescent years certainly. So the thing about midlife is to know that, okay, there's hope and then there are solutions. It is just going to be twice as hard and you have to be a lot more strategic about it. But you also have to recognize that, okay, during midlife, people are usually peaking in their professional lives and the stress of their professional lives. And they're usually also peaking in the stress of their interpersonal lives, whether it be with dealing with ailing parents or kids going off to school, kids doing great in school, kids not doing great in school. And so you've got stress vectors from above and below happening while you're trying to change your body, which is not necessarily cooperating with you. So one of the, one of the tactics is to make more realistic goals during midlife and just lower your expectations of progress. Kind of cut them in half. So whereas for example, somebody in early adulthood might want to shoot for, let's say one to two pounds a week drop if they, if they had a weight loss goal, one to two pounds a week. That's aggressive. That's, that's a pretty admirable rate of fat loss. But in midlife, oh man, you really want to cut that in half if you set weight loss goals.
- [25:46]
Dr. Layne Norton
Yeah. So the yo yo way that a lot of people diet. And again, I hate to pick on women, but especially women tend to yo yo diet. There's, there's some evidence that yo yo dieting in particular, where you're losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight. And I'm not talking about like bodybuilders who do like specified slow gains in body mass followed by targeted cuts in fat mass because they're again, they're resistance training, they're building lean mass and they're slowly stripping away fat mass and preserving lean mass. I'm talking about people who aren't really resistance training or they're not really doing it right. They're not eating a high protein diet. They're trying to lose fat as quickly as they can. And we know from research studies if you are not resistance training, you're not watching your protein and you're trying to lose fat really quickly. I mean, you can lose up to half of the amount of weight you lose from lean mass. And then when you regain it, the research shows you do regain some lean mass, but the regaining of lean mass is very sluggish compared to fat mass. Fat mass goes up much more rapidly, especially if you regain very quickly. And so what you can have happen through multiple cycles of this is a person getting less and less lean mass, more and more fat mass, which means one, less of a metabolic sink, two, worse health outcomes and, and three, a lower metabolic rate overall. And so long term, your capacity to actually get better body composition gets worse and worse. Now the great thing is you can correct this. There is no, you don't break your body. There is no such thing as a broken body or broken metabolism or anything like that. But you've got to be more targeted. You gotta resistance train, watch your protein intake and you have to diet in a way that is reasonable. And if you, the research does show there's kind of an inflection point and it's kind of around that 500 calorie deficit per day number that beyond that, you do see kind of a, a dip in how quickly you lose lean mass versus people who stay like a 500 calorie per day deficit or less. And if you are somebody who's looking to build muscle, if you're always restricting, you're probably putting a limiter on yourself because research does show that in the calorie deficit, your basal levels of protein synthesis will drop by about 10 to 20%. So again, if the goal long term, and there's so many women I've had to convince of this too, if the goal is to look better long term, you actually, it's counterintuitive. You should probably spend more time at maintenance or in a slight surplus than you do in a deficit. And the deficit should be targeted specific. It should be like how Sun Tzu said to fight war. You get in, dominate and get out. That's how you do a deficit.
- [28:40]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Lane, you're hilarious. And the best. I have two final questions. The, the next question is really about is if someone was thinking about how to design a muscle centric nutrition plan, what would be the most impactful shift for them?
- [28:58]
Dr. Layne Norton
I mean, the most impactful shift is going to be their dietary protein intake, right? I mean, and anybody who's been following us is, is going to Know what we're going to say, calories do matter, you know, Basil. Levels of protein synthesis, energy availability matters for protein synthesis. But all things being equal, if you're getting in that, you know, one gram per pound of body weight, you know, that's for the vast majority of people, that's gonna be more than enough for you to really like maximize the benefits of protein. It's just an easy number to remember that that's gonna be the biggest shift. And if you're eating that amount, the source becomes less important, the timing becomes less important. But if you're somebody who is like, I don't just want to do the minimum, I, you know, know, I want to maximize everything, then I would say, you know, animal sources tend to be more bioavailable. But again, if you're eating that one gram per pound number and you're mixing in some animal and plant sources, you're going to be totally fine. You don't have to. I have people say, I don't track my plant sources of prot. If you're eating enough total protein, track it, it's fine. Um, and then as far as timing goes, I would say three to five protein feedings per day just hit that total number. And if you're doing that, man, you are, you are 99.5% of the way there. You're, you're doing all the things and then, you know, other nutritional shifts that aren't necessarily muscle centric. But I do think getting enough dietary fiber in is a really good thing. If you're just healthy overall, it creates a better micro environment for building muscle. So you have lower levels of inflammation, um, you're going to have better blood lipids and it's just, it's just good overall. I, I look at, you know, kind of, there's like this animal versus plants and I'm like, but why not both?
- [30:45]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Most people will chase the best diet, the best diet for this. And a lot of food anxiety creeps up. Have you had any experience with food anxiety? Do you think that that works long term? Can you scare yourself into being fit?
- [31:04]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Well, I think that people just sort of ruminate and worry about is this the right kind of diet that's going to get me to my goals? And what people don't realize is that once you get certain things down the, there's elements there that are highly flexible. So once you nail down the optimal amount of protein that you can realistically consume and once you nail down the total caloric intake, then there is a lot of flexibility in terms of the proportion of carbohydrate and fat in your diet that can arrive at similar body composition results. Now, the variations and how you individualize this, this sort of thing really can depend on somebody's exercise performance goals. Like if somebody has some very kind of competitive type of athletic goals, then they're not necessarily going to do great with severe carbohydrate restriction. Whereas if somebody does not have those competitive type of athletic performance goals, then it really is kind of a matter of of preference whether you like a high fat, low carb, low carb, or whether they like a high carb, low fat type of model or somewhere in between. Or if they just want to kind of vary that through the week. All works. You just have to find out what you prefer and what you can be consistent with under the umbrella of a healthy food selection, just for long term health purposes.
- [32:42]
Host Gabrielle Reece
It makes me think about this muscle center flex style. And if someone wants to live a muscle centric lifestyle, but they struggle with digestion and absorption, what do you think would make the biggest difference?
- [32:54]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Immediately, it's, it's an amazing question and something that I get asked a lot, and I know you get asked a lot as well, is this conversation around protein and digestion too? Because people have different kind of tolerances for protein. Like for instance, if someone has acid reflux, let's say they might not have an appetite for hot and cooked protein as much because their appetite might be lower. So the goal is always get the protein in, in the way that you can. So it might mean a protein shake for someone in the morning who doesn't have a good morning appetite. It might mean eating colder varieties of protein for people who have lower appetite. Or it might mean for someone who has a really big appetite actually having hot and cooked meals. But you have to cater it to what your body wants and what feels good to you while still you, you have to hit those protein goals. You have to.
- [33:43]
Host Gabrielle Reece
What about the role of nutrition? You've been talking about nutrition for a long time. You've written multiple books. Have you landed somewhere on what we should be having?
- [33:54]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Yes, I think there's some now that I sort of try to distill. What is the truth about nutrition is three things. One, we should eat food. And when I say that, I really mean that because most of what Americans, and increasingly the world is eating is technically not food.
- [34:11]
Host Gabrielle Reece
What do you mean by that?
- [34:12]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Well, if you actually look at the dictionary definition, I'd encourage you to post it on this conversation.
- [34:17]
Host Gabrielle Reece
I'm not a rather strong Experience.
- [34:18]
Dr. Alan Christianson
What is a dictionary definition of food? It's basically more or less something that supports the growth and health of an organism. Do our ultra processed foods do that? Hell no. They do the opposite.
- [34:31]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Well, they provide calories.
- [34:32]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Well, calories doesn't necessarily support the health and growth of an organism. It can to some degree, and you need a certain amount of calories to live and thrive. And it does provide calories. But at the same time, people can eat enormous amount of calories. You could eat 3000 calories of coca Cola a day. That doesn't mean you're going to be undernourished and be massively nutritionally deficient and actually cause massive harm to your health and have plenty of calories. So I think what we've learned is that the, the idea that we should be thinking about food as food is really important. And it's a simple idea, but I think most people don't realize that most of what's consumed today is technically not food. It's food like substances or franken foods or science projects that are highly addictive. I mean, the state of California, the city of San Francisco, filed a lawsuit against all the major food companies talking about the way in which their foods have been designed and marketed to be addictive and to be harmful. And we know they're harmful, and they're pushing them in ways that are really unethical. It's like smoking, you know, like the tobacco companies marketed smoking knowing it was killing people. So I think we're in that situation. So that's the, that's the, you know, first thing, the second principle. So eat real food, whole food, real food. It's basically your great grandmother. Recognize it as food, eat it. It's not a Go Gurt or a Lunchable or Pop Tart. They wouldn't know what that is. The second principle is that food is medicine. It's information, it's instructions, it's code. It literally interacts with your body in so many different ways. Not just the proteins, fats and carbs and all. And they're not all created equal. There's different quality protein, there's different quality fats, or different quality, you know, carbohydrates. The same amount of gram of a fat of trans fat versus omega 3 fats will have profoundly different effects on your body. In fact, opposite effects. Even this. It's the same amount of fat. And then there's all the other stuff in food. The dark matter of nutrition.
- [36:23]
Host Gabrielle Reece
This episode is brought to you by four Sigmatic. If coffee is what gets you through the morning, but also what leaves you jittery, unfocused or crashing by mid afternoon. You're not alone. A lot of people are using coffee to push through. I might be one of them, but not actually support the brain. And that's why four Sigmatics Focus Organic Dark Roast is different. You're getting a premium organic arabica coffee blend with lion's mane and hey, I'm talking Mufasa style and chaga mushrooms. Lion's mane supports focus and mental clarity and because it's adaptogenic, it helps smooth out the spike and crash cycle that caffeine alone can cause. If you're thinking gross, does it taste like mushrooms? The answer is no. But it it's smooth, full bodied dark roast with subtle chocolate notes. It tastes like real coffee. And if flavor wasn't enough, four Sigmatic Third party tests their coffee for mold, mycotoxin, pesticides and heavy metals. It's also one of the best selling functional coffees at retailers like Target Whole foods with over 100,000 five star reviews. And right now listeners of this podcast can get a free bag of their best selling dark roast ground coffee. Just pay shipping and handling. Go to4sigmatic.com Gabrielle that's F O U R S I g m a t-I c.com Gabrielle what do you think are the biggest myths right now that just absolutely need to die in either nutrition or training?
- [38:09]
Dr. Layne Norton
I mean, with training, I, I think some of the biggest myths that are out there is there's like, you know, rep ranges is one that you, you, you know, that there's, you know, magical rep ranges. Another one is that, you know, there are certain movements that, you know, produce way more muscle growth than other movement. And the reality is like there are some subtle differences. Like if we look at, for example, isolation movements versus compound movements, this is, I'm thinking about squats versus a study looking at squats on Smith machine versus leg extensions. And they showed overall in the quadricep, similar amounts of growth, basically the same amount of growth. But regionally the leg extensions produce more growth of the rectus femoris, which is kind of that middle muscle in your quadriceps. And the squats produce a little bit more growth than the vastus lateralis. Now they weren't huge differences, but it's worth noting. And again, variety is the spice of life. So I would say like there aren't necessarily like magic exercises, but you are probably best off doing a combination of compound lifts that move multiple joints for a given exercise as well as isolation exercises. But you know, the myth that, like, high reps, tone and, you know, that's been around for God knows how long, ever since people got into lifting weights and that low reps make you bulky. That's, that's. It's just absolute nonsense. What makes you look bulky is body fat. Body fat is what makes you look bulky. Now, if you have a lot of muscle and a lot of body fat, you will look bulkier, but body fat is what really makes you look bulky. And, you know, I think I really feel like, you know, women like you and the people out there that are doing good work, they. The, the, the worry about women becoming too muscular, I think has been tamped down, you know, and even with men, I'll meet somebody like, oh, I don't want to get too muscular. I'm like, listen, I have tried for 25 years to get too muscular. Yeah, I'm. I'm drug free, right? And in a T shirt, I look like a really athletic guy. Like, I look like maybe I played football or wrestled. I don't look like the Hulk. You know what I mean? And so I would tell people, unless you just have unbelievable genetics, you're not going to get too big by accident. It's like getting into a car and worried you're going to become a NASCAR driver. That's not going to happen. And if you do have these great genetics by chance for building muscle, then you can just always, like, back off and not do so many sets and not go so close to failure and do good. Like, congratulations.
- [40:49]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah, I have that problem all the time. I'm just, I'm just kidding. I'm still trying to put on muscle. Right.
- [40:55]
Dr. Layne Norton
And then I, I think gab. Sorry, I wanted to touch on one more thing. I think, you know, age and sex gets. Is very weaponized now, and there's a lot of predatory marketing used. So I see so much predatory marketing around menopausal women, women especially. So much predatory. Yeah, so much predatory marketing. Well, you can't do the same types of exercises because of your hormones. And, and you can't do this. And always when I ask for evidence, it's always. It's all that. There's like a bunch of circular dancing around the topic. And, well, you. And usually they tell me, well, you're not a woman. You wouldn't understand. I'm like, no, but I can read research literature, you know, like, so wait.
- [41:40]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And to be fair, Lane, you've so you. I've worked with you when I was competing, and you've worked with countless Women. So it's. That's like saying you can't be a good cancer doctor unless you have had cancer and gone through that. So I think that that's just. That doesn't quite make sense.
- [41:58]
Dr. Layne Norton
Yeah. I mean, I want to be clear. There are things about aging and menopause which may make it more difficult. So menopause, you know, when hormonal shifts happen, you may feel less energetic, have a harder time sleeping. Your recovery is worse. It may make it more difficult. But the stuff that works is the stuff that works regardless of age. And, I mean, we even have research studies. I think the oldest person I found in a research study that they saw significant hypertrophy with was 89 years old. Yes. As far as I'm aware of, there is no population that I know of where resistance training does not, With. With sufficient intensity does not produce hypertrophy. And so. And. But. But you're told all the time, well, it's too late to start, you know, and now it's getting so bad. Where I have men who are, like, 30 years old. They're like, well, I just turned 30, so I know. I know my testosterone is low. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, maybe if you're really overweight, you don't sleep very well, you have a lot of stress, maybe your testosterone is low.
- [42:59]
Dr. Alan Christianson
And.
- [43:00]
Dr. Layne Norton
But, like, you're in your prime. Like. And really, I don't feel all that different now at 44 compared to when I was 30 and when I. The difference is I sleep a little bit less because I have two kids. But, like, as far as everything else, I don't really feel that much different, you know, And I think a lot of people, this predatory marketing is done to basically make them feel like they need some sort of special magic solution that only certain people sell. And again, like, the. The research shows whether it's old, whether it's female, you build similar amounts of muscle as a percentage of your starting lean mass. So if we look at, like, young men versus women as a percentage of their starting lean mass, they build the same amount of muscle. Women just start with less lean mass, so they build less as an absolute amount. Same thing for elderly. They start with less, but when they start resistance training, they build a similar amount. And actually, what's funny is women proportionally actually get a little bit stronger than men, relatively.
- [44:07]
Host Gabrielle Reece
What is one recommendation or one thing that you wish people would stop doing immediately?
- [44:12]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Wow, you threw me for a curveball there. People usually ask the opposite. What's the one thing you tell people today, okay, so stop, stop thinking that you need to wait in the morning before you start eating. Stop that. That's nonsense. Stop it, stop it, stop it. People make all kinds of funky claims and that kind of goes the other way too. People think that they need to stop eating at 6pm California time. You know what I mean? Stop that too. Look at the bigger picture, okay? Look at the, how your diet looks in total. Look at what is going to fit with what you realistically can sustain from just a, you know, a social standpoint as well as just a performance sample everything. But look at the big picture. Don't worry about nitpicky timing stuff and especially the rule that, man, it really kind of. It upsets me when people go, oh, you gotta wait for X amount of time after you wake up before you eat, otherwise you won't be able to squunch your eating window down to this amount of hours. And it's just kind of frustrating. So I don't know if you, if you're, you know, if you're telling me to pick one thing for people to stop, it's stop listening to that kind of advice.
- [45:32]
Host Gabrielle Reece
You know, Stress, anxiety, the nervous system, regulation, dysregulation. Have you seen that play a role in digestion and absorption of nutrients?
- [45:41]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Oh, big time. I would say that the root cause of all chronic illness is usually within the nervous system. To be honest with you. I think we think of the nervous system as being like, you know, the vagus nerve and trauma. We talk about it in that context, but it's really the control center of our body. So the autonomic nervous system controls where do we send blood flow, how do we, which muscles should we move, how do we function, I mean, regulating body temperature, like these really essential functions of our body. So if you're constantly dysregulating your nervous system, I mean, digestion is one of the. There's a direct pathway between the brain and our digestion and we've heard this referred to as the gut brain axis. But it will literally control the contractions of your, you know, the, your entire digestive system. So it directly impacts your digestion.
- [46:30]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah, I agree with you. And I've seen it even when I was in college, before being able to put words to it, this idea of just being so stressed and so anxious and you know, during that time I would go through periods of eating more and then eating less as a way of trying to manage my nervous system. Do you have practical tips for people who say, for example, are under really high stress and still trying to maintain a healthy nutrition plan.
- [46:59]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Yeah, I would say the. The key word I think of is like, safety. I always want people to think of what is going to make my body feel consistent, what is going to make my body know that my body, my brain has its back and that I have its back. And what I think that often looks like is probably eating more regularly and eating with some level of routine and consistency so that your body can anticipate, when am I getting food next? When are these nutrients coming? I think that's something that's really, really important. And then also, again, really listening to your symptoms, if you're noticing when you're eating a certain food that it's not sitting well, not only asking, is this food making me sick? What environment was I eating that food in? Was I sitting up properly? Was I de stressed? What was my mind state? What was my physical posture? Thinking about those other factors of your nervous system that impact digestion. Think about those other factors of your physical form that impact digestion and your health, too. So we're very quick to say, I'm allergic to this food, I'm intolerant to this food, and cutting those foods out. But eating slowly in an excellent posture in a present state does so much more for digestion than just cutting foods out. So I would say finding that safety is essential.
- [48:10]
Host Gabrielle Reece
What do you think? The. If we go along the lines of how we're trending right now, most people are not training, we know that obesity is a problem. What do you think the dangers of sarcopenia are going to be?
- [48:25]
Dr. Alan Christianson
I mean, we're seeing it, Gabrielle, and we're seeing explosion of chronic illness, which ultimately comes down to metabolic health. So when we look at every almost known big problem today, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, things like infertility, mental illness, depression, these are metabolic problems. We have a metabolic health crisis. 93.2% of Americans, according to a tough study looking at their labs and their data and everything else, found that 93.2% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, which means they have some degree of insulin resistance, as evidenced by abnormal cholesterol, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, they're overweight or obese, or they've had a heart attack or stroke. That means that only 6.8% of us aren't. And that is why we spend more than twice any other nation on health care. Why our health care costs are 1 out of $5 of our entire GDP. Why 1 out of $3 of the federal government has spent on health care, why 40% of the health care bill is paid for by the government, and why it's crippling our economy so much. $2 trillion a year of our taxpayer dollars are going to pay for something that is 100% preventable and reversible, and we're not addressing that. And that's why I'm so excited about this Medicare innovation, because they're actually saying, hey, guys, yeah, maybe we should start looking upstream at the issue. So I think that, you know, it's a real crisis in terms of, you know, the economic burden, the social burden, this burden on individuals and families, the suffering. I mean, it's just endless. And the way we're doing this is also having consequences for globally, for the environment, for climate, how we grow food, what we're growing. It's. It was all the way down back to the farm. And I wrote a book about it called Food Fix, and an updated version's coming out February called Food Fix Uncensored, which essentially lays out a lot of the links between our food system and our chronic disease epidemic.
- [50:14]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Life can be chaotic, especially if you're reaching a stride in your career. And what I'm hearing you say is, as opposed to making it be all about restriction and this, these goals of building and losing, as extreme as they were when you were younger, that you reorient yourself to potentially slower progress.
- [50:37]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Yeah, yeah. You know, we, we brought up Jenna. The thing people don't realize about her is she has been super consistent with her training and nutrition for years, years and years. I mean, over five years, she's. She's been just incredibly consistent. And she took really seriously kind of the threats of what happens in the menopausal transition. And there's just a lot of, a lot of, kind of doomsday type, type of messages that are sent out in, in the fitness space and the health and wellness space to women who are entering midlife. And so she pre committed to not letting menopause defeat her. And so she actually was ready for it, and she just was really consistent with her training and nutrition. So it takes years, really takes years. That, that's the thing. People, People want things to happen in weeks or months, but the best transformations you see, it. It. It's years.
- [51:45]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah. And definitely it seems the earlier someone starts, the better. Obviously, it's never too late, but it's much easier to go into perimenopause, menopause fit and strong than looking back and going, you know what? I probably should do this now. So if you're listening to this. One thing that I think both Alan and I fully, wholeheartedly agree is that pre commit again, it's never too late to start, but things don't get easier. It's just the way in which the world is. And you might not be able to plan for every storm, but you definitely can prepare for it. So one of the other things that I was also thinking about is this idea that, you know, we should restrict calories. So one of the things that I see in my practice and that even I've talked to you about is that, you know, if I wanted to get really lean, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to totally cut my calories. I remember I was training, I must have been training two hours a day and I was like, lean, I'm eating too many carbs, I'm eating too much food. And I think I was at. I, I don't know if you remember this, but I do because it was me. I was at 90 grams or less of carbs a day with a high volume of training. And I'm a small person. So I guess the biggest question is when someone is trying to lose weight and they cut all of their calories, you know, what is the metabolic implications of that?
- [53:16]
Dr. Layne Norton
Well, there, there's a few things. You do have a drop in metabolic rate from restricting calories. It's, it's a relatively small drop and it does tend to get like corrected relatively quickly once you get back into a maintenance level. But I think the real problem is the way most people diet, which is they go on a pretty restrictive diet for however many weeks or months. They lose some weight, but they're losing fat mass and lean mass and when they regain, they tend to preferentially regain fat mass.
- [53:52]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Elimination mindset that you had mentioned, this idea of eliminating food groups, what long term impact does that seem to have on people that are really going for overall health, whether it's their metabolism or their mood?
- [54:08]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
It can, it can have the impacts again on this physiological sense or can have an impact on an emotional sense as well. If we constantly restrict one nutrient, there is not a, it's not a perfect science, but there is a potential higher likelihood that we might reach for those. Let's say we restricted potatoes or cooled potatoes resistant starches. We might then reach for other carbohydrates like cake and ones that we're not intending. If our body still needs those carbohydrates for fuel, especially if we're active, it's really important. So there There's a risk on a physiological level of maybe reaching for more, and also an emotional level of cravings going up and everything like that, too. Also, when you're in that fear mindset, we don't have as high of a control over our behaviors. So it's really important, both from this physiological sense and this physical sense, that we're getting a balance of those macronutrients, and it's gonna look different for every single person. What suits their metabolism.
- [55:04]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah, I, you know, I've seen a lot of people that are afraid to eat because they're afraid of having symptoms. You know, is there an alternative solution to just removing these foods? It's a must think. Okay. From a practical standpoint, how can I eat in a way that doesn't just continue to interfere with my digestion or eliminate foods?
- [55:34]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
This is like the biggest conversation online because you'll see so many people who say, I felt amazing when I did the carnivore diet. I felt amazing when I did the vegan diet. And they're being authentic. It's that these nutrients, while they are beneficial to us, like, let's say, fiber as an example, we. There's. I can't even. We couldn't count the number of studies that show the benefits of fiber for us, but people don't tolerate it that well. So the goal in any kind of elimination diet that someone would be doing to do it very short term. And while you're doing it, you also want to heal whatever the issue is that has made you resistant to that, you know, component of digestion. So it's something like fiber. It might be. Maybe you need to heal the lining of the gut. Maybe you need some support there. But I think the goal, the reason people feel better on eliminations is because there's actually a body process that's not functioning highly that you need to actually work on instead of just cutting these foods out.
- [56:28]
Host Gabrielle Reece
You know, do you think that. And, you know, as we think about cutting foods out, do you think that when people are eating less, maybe, say, undernourished?
- [56:38]
Dr. Layne Norton
Is.
- [56:38]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Is that an overlooked aspect of healing?
- [56:42]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Oh, it's such an overlooked aspect. I mean, not to also harp on the carbohydrate part of the equation, but certainly, like, you know, we need some level of carbohydrate. It's you. It's grossly exaggerated how many we need. Usually people think we need actually a lot more than we probably need for functioning, but without it, like, our brain doesn't function as well, and all of the kind of Neuroscience system. Conversations that we're having, they do center around, like having chronic low blood sugar could be a huge issue for stress, anxiety, and those things too. So, yes, absolutely.
- [57:15]
Host Gabrielle Reece
This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. When the holidays wind down, what you usually want isn't another planner or productivity hack. You want sleep. I mean, I know I do. And if you're a parent, you want sleep. That doesn't feel like a negotiation for me. A fresh start begins at home. And one of the easiest resets I've made going to the new year is upgrading our bedding with Cozy Earth's Baja bedding set. It's a complete matching set, which I'll show you if you look at some of my videos. With sheets, duvet, cover quilt inspired by the textures and colors of Baja California. The fabric is incredibly soft, breathable, and has a reversible design. Listen, you just slide in there even when the rest of the house is crazy. And here's the thing, when you sleep better, you recover better. And that doesn't matter whether you're training hard or working long days. We need recovery and we do need rest. So what I appreciate is that Cozy Earth stands behind their products. You get a hundred night sleep, free trial, no pressure, 10 year warranty. And if you don't think it's comfortable, you can send it back. So start the New Year's right. That is not with partying, but with rest. Go to cozyearth.com, use my code DRLION for 20% off. That's cozyearth.com and then you use the code DRLION. You know, in that vein, do you think that there's one overarching, overarching myth? So, for example, for me, it's that you can only absorb 30 grams of protein or that protein is bad for your kidneys. I mean, that one should die. We're still waiting for it to die. And to me, that really holds people back because there's, you know, there's this discourse, internal discourse that people have. Do you think that there's one myth like that that you've just, I mean, you've been doing this how many years? At least 20.
- [59:12]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Yeah, right.
- [59:14]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Least. Is there one like that that you're just like, I cannot believe this one is still here?
- [59:20]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
Yeah, it's kind of a recent thing where protein, the protein hype and craze is getting some backlash from people who just swung the pendulum back the other way and saying, oh, yeah, too much protein is dangerous and all this stuff. And not only that, you're not going to get any benefits of eating protein beyond 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight, which is. Oh, man, that. That's frustrating because people don't look at the nuance and the detail there. There's a lot of data showing that you can get body composition benefits from protein above and beyond 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight. And there's some great data showing that you can get body composition improvements from protein intakes, even a gram per pound and beyond. So 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight and beyond. And these. The. The benefits of these very high protein intakes mainly have to do with less of muscle gain, but more of fat loss and controlling fat gain and even a. A phenomenon called recomposition, where you gain some lean body mass and lose some fat mass simultaneously. And that's kind of a glorious thing when we see that happen consistently as a result of increasing protein intake and in some cases, on top of existing habitual diets, which is a really, really interesting phenomenon. So to say that, oh, you're not gonna. You don't need any more protein than 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight, that's just getting really refuted by just multiple lines of evidence. And so I think that when people ask the protein question, how much do you need per day? How much is beneficial? Everybody fails to say, okay, what population are we talking about and what goal are we talking about? So when you establish the population and the goal, then you can have a productive conversation about protein.
- [61:21]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And if someone is traveling right, say it's crazy, they're getting on an airplane, how do you have them think about kind of that landscape? Or if, again, they're in constant movement? You live in New York City. It's crazy.
- [61:36]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
There.
- [61:36]
Host Gabrielle Reece
People are running to the subway, running away from the subway. How does one begin to create safety from just a very practical standpoint?
- [61:45]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
I think, first of all, bringing those snacks with you, being prepared, having those things with you, and then just really, like, checking in with yourself a lot. I have literally sat on an airplane and been like, this is crazy that we're, like, flying through the air, even though I fly often. And it's, you know, it's like, it's just a crazy experience. And it's okay to acknowledge that. But being consistently checking in with yourself and even asking yourself, what do I need right now to feel a little bit more comfortable. And then I think preparation can be really important. Like, even silly things that I have clients do is bringing, like, ginger tea bags and going to Starbucks and getting a hot cup of water before you get on the airplane. Something like that. Just having those, if you need those digestive supportive tools if you need those. Certain foods help manage blood sugar. Just having them with you and really getting to know yourself and what makes you feel more comfortable and more stable and routine.
- [62:37]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Is there a game plan? Do you recommend that your clients have a game plan? For example, if they are traveling and they ran out of snacks, do you have a list? Do you say, okay, well you're going to have beef jerky, you're going to grab boiled eggs, there's always yogurt. Do you have a list of the oh my gosh moment? I'm totally unprepared.
- [62:56]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Absolutely. Honestly, you named a couple of my favorites in airports, by the way. Hard boiled eggs. Huge hit. Usually like a little bit of hummus or something with some vegetables if you need that carb can be really good always. If they do have some sort of protein bars that, that feel like they're a good fit. It really depends on again what airport you're flying out of or anything like that. Um, and, and anytime I do have clients, I travel with little protein sachets. I'll have, I've had clients travel with gluten free bread, I mean whatever you know suits them. But in, in the airport setting, I, I have to be honest, hard boiled eggs or even like egg bites from Starbucks, I'll have clients get. Cause there's usually a Starbucks in an airport, um, anywhere you can get a little bit of protein. I, I think can be really, really functional and helpful.
- [63:43]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And when someone is in more of a relaxed state date, say going on vacation, do you find that this is the moments where they have more flexibility or would this be the moment where you follow your same plan but you're able to be really consistent?
- [63:58]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
I don't know if that you've seen this too with your patients, but I find that my clients end up losing weight on vacation and it's pretty effortless and it's just because they're so much more able to be present and less likely to snack or even binge when they're on vacation because they're so present and so calm. And so yeah, I find that vacations often where people get so nervous, oh my gosh, I'm going to eat everything they, they end up. It's not usually the case where people have, you know, those concerns. Now if people do have those concerns again, that's where I'm also really considering like when you have a plate not to, you know, basically re. Reiterate your mission. But it's true. And that's why I support your mission so much, obviously. But really, where's the protein on my plate? Just making sure you're, you're covering satiety throughout the entire trip too, just to make sure.
- [64:49]
Host Gabrielle Reece
That's a really good point. You know, one of the things that is what happens to people is there are expected challenges and then there's unexpected challenges. The expected challenges are the following. You might feel tired, you might be traveling, you might be tempted to wish miss your workout. These are all the expected challenges and often we act like we're surprised by them as opposed to how do we double down on really figuring out what we need to do and plan for it? Right. So for example, if I know that I'm traveling at the end of the week, I make sure that my training is really tight so that when I miss a day, I'm not so worried about it.
- [65:30]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Absolutely. And I think that's really about setting up those non negotiables also, like what is, what is my deal with myself? What, what does it look like if I can't work out on vacation, how am I feeling like I'm compensating for that so that I also feel good because sitting on an airplane for potentially a long period of time. But setting up those boundaries with yourself and those non negotiables I think are, are not restrictive. I think they can be totally self loving. But just like what is, what is that absolute boundary that we need to set with ourselves and, and to prepare? I think it's important to set those.
- [66:03]
Host Gabrielle Reece
When you think about boundaries, do you think about training?
- [66:07]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Oh sure, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [66:11]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Talk to me about resistance training or muscle health.
- [66:15]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Well, I think that there is, I think that this is such an interesting conversation that I've been seeing so much too. It used to be a lot about how women don't need to train as much as men. And of course now the conversation because of you and many other amazing people has swung back to okay, women actually do and it's mental, very critical for our health. But now I'm seeing really funny enough kickback on that again because people like, no, you actually don't need to train as much as these people are saying. These people meaning like world renowned doctors are saying, I think that it's all about, everything is about individual input and what you can actually do. But that doesn't mean that there aren't standards for what you need to be doing. So it's like, understand the standard for what your body needs. And then you also have to make it realistic within your life. I will also say that for clients like mine who are more like, live in more complicated or complex, like chronically ill bodies, it doesn't matter if it's harder because you still have to find a way to do it. So the answer is, how do you find a way within your own life? Whatever. Even if it's smaller parts throughout the day and you're doing five minutes here and five minutes there, whatever you need to do, you have to find a way to do it. And that's like a harsh message almost. But it, the, the actual amount that you need to do doesn't change. It's just that you have to find a way to do it for yourself because it's critical for our health. Critical.
- [67:44]
Host Gabrielle Reece
One of the things that in retrospect, I never asked you.
- [67:47]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Yeah.
- [67:47]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Was the mindset of wellness.
- [67:50]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Yeah, I, I think, I think it goes back to something even deeper and I think it goes back to something I use regularly now in my practice, which is called the ACE questionnaire. And this is a questionnaire you can find online. It stands for Adverse childhood events. There's a tremendous amount of research on this. It looks at traumas and events that happen when you're a child that govern your health and having more adverse events. And it can be something like a divorce, it can be something horrible like having an alcoholic parent, or it can be parent in jail, or it can be sexual abuse, or it can be your parents just didn't pay attention to you. Whatever it was a Gabor mate talks about big T or little T. Trauma could be something in any realm of that. How you register that as a kid controls your life. It controls your beliefs, your mindset, your way of thinking about yourself, the environment. And so if you don't address those traumas and you don't address that childhood stuff, it's very hard to overcome these adult behaviors that are self destructive. And we see the dramatic and direct correlation between the number of adverse childhood events and the degree of illness, whether it's cancer or heart disease or autoimmune diseases or depression or mental health issues or obesity. I mean, you name it. And I think a lot of obesity in this country is related to trauma. And I see this. You know, people who are resistant to getting better, I mean, they're saying it's just an information problem, like they just don't know what to do and they don't have the right information. And then you tell them and they do it and it's like, boom, they're better. But then there's that group that's not getting better. And then you have to ask yourself why. And I think a lot of it has to do with mindset and your beliefs and what they're struggling with that is not necessarily related to any medical problem. It's more of a psychological trauma that keeps them stuck in a certain pattern of living and behaving that doesn't allow them to take care of themselves. If you don't love yourself, if you don't have self worth, if you don't have agency. Yeah. I mean so many people walk around with a of lot lack of self love and lack of self worth and self destructive behaviors and trying to manage their emotions through food or through, you know, binge watching, whatever, like just not taking care of their life. Alcohol, drugs. There's so many different ways that people kind of adapt to managing the wounded child inside. If you don't deal with that, and there are a lot of exciting ways to deal with it now, whether it's psychedelic medicine, metabolic medicine, there's a lot of ways that you know you will stay stuck. So you, you've got to get your mindset right. Like, and your mindset plays enormous role. Like, I, I almost died last year and my, my, I was, I felt like crap. I was exhausted. I had four hours sleep for six weeks. I had massive sleep debt. I was on the most amount of narcotics you could imagine. Everything in my body hurt all the time. And I got out of the hospital and the first day out of the hospital I was in physical therapy. And I did it every single day except like Sundays.
- [70:32]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Was that cultivated or.
- [70:34]
Dr. Alan Christianson
And I was like, it was what was between my head. I was like, I am not gonna let this take me down. And I don't even know if there's a. I don't even know if there's an exit to this. I really didn't know because I was in pain for six months. I was in pain for six months. I felt like shit for so long and I didn't know that I'd get to the other side. And now I feel amazing because I put in that effort or I just was in a bike accident. And rather than just taking the excuse to sit in bed and watch TV or binge on Netflix, I actually working out, I'm in the gym, I'm using my body, I'm doing those things that I need to do to maintain my health and to accelerate my healing. I feel like, wow, you're healing so fast I'm like, yes. And it's not by accident. It's because I am very strong mentally.
- [71:16]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Is that practiced?
- [71:18]
Dr. Alan Christianson
I mean, listen, I've done, you know, decades of work on myself. I've, you know, done, you know, 10 day meditation retreats, I've done many psychedelic journeys. I've lots of different therapeutic kind of interventions. So I know my mind and I spend a lot of time, you know, learning how to kind of repair those things that happened to me in childhood that left me with some very destructive patterns. And so, so, yeah, I think, I think there's a mindset to it. Some people are born with it. Some people are intrinsically motivated. Some people have to be motivated from the outside. But even if you have to be motivated from the outside, that's okay. Like get a group of people, do it. You know, go have fun with somebody else. Go to the gym, go, hey, take your friend to the yoga class.
- [71:58]
Host Gabrielle Reece
But take action is what I'm hearing you say.
- [72:00]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Yeah, you've got you. Yeah, it's, it's not. And it's not the, it's not the big things that matter. It's the micro little things that matter every day. So it's thousand little choices you make every single day that matter and those add up, you know, like, I didn't gain 25 pounds of muscle overnight, but it was 300 hours in the gym over the course of a year that I did. And I, you know, it wasn't like every time I went to the gym I got like, better, but it was like I could see slowly over time I was like, oh, I couldn't do this. Now I can do this. Like, I was in the gym yesterday working. My trainer, he had me doing these, you know, single arm presses on the floor, but with, with my legs up, so I'm losing balance. So I have to, to maintain my core strength. And like the first time I did, I was flopping all over. Now I'm like, okay, I got this, you know, so. And it's amazing to see, like I'm 66 now, which is incredible to say.
- [72:49]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And you don't, you don't look 66.
- [72:51]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Yeah, well, I mean, this is what 66 looks like if you take care of yourself. Like, this is what it looks like.
- [72:55]
Host Gabrielle Reece
You have to tell your trainer though, you have a new program.
- [72:58]
Dr. Alan Christianson
I'm going to give him the book.
- [73:00]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Yeah.
- [73:00]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Forever Strong playbook.
- [73:01]
Host Gabrielle Reece
And there's actually foundational movements like so that cross balance.
- [73:06]
Dr. Alan Christianson
Yeah, I've done a lot of core stuff and so just to See the way in which, if you provide the right inputs, the body responds.
- [73:14]
Host Gabrielle Reece
Extraordinary. I have one final question. What does forever strong mean to you?
- [73:20]
Dr. Alan Christianson
People ask me, what is the definition of health? And the definition of health for me is being able to get up in the morning and do whatever I want to do. If I want to hike up a mountain that's 10,000ft high, I want to do that. If I want to go for a bike ride, I want to do that. You know, I've got three bike rides planned this year. Three. I've got a week in Cuba, a week in Greece, and a week in Oman on these trips with friends. And I love to go with friends. It's community building. And, you know, these are things that I want to do. I don't want to. I'm 66. I want to do it when I'm 86, I don't want to not be able to do it. And so forever strong means just doing the simple little things every day that can keep you going. I met a guy, I'll end with this story, who was 95 years old, and he was like a spring chicken, bopping around, running around. He had a girlfriend that was 20 years younger than him. I'm like, what is your secret? Because you're eating bagels. You're eating all this crap. Like, I was it. I was at a shiva at my stepfather's funeral. It's kind of, you know, reception. And he's like, whatever I did yesterday, I do today. I played singles tennis yesterday. I play singles tennis today.
- [74:20]
Dr. Layne Norton
I'm.
- [74:21]
Dr. Alan Christianson
I'm like, okay. And I think that's what happens when people get older. Something happens. They get injured, something breaks down, they get sick, and they stop. Don't stop.
- [74:33]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Love that.
- [74:33]
Dr. Alan Christianson
If you want to be forever strong, don't stop.
- [74:35]
Host Gabrielle Reece
I love that.
- [74:36]
Dr. Layne Norton
It means two things, physical and mental. And, you know, I was watching this interview with Piers Morgan and Chris Williamson, and I really like what Chris said. And Piers Morgan said, if you wanted to become mentally tougher, should you do mental training or physical training? And Chris didn't hesitate. He said, physical training, like, physical training. If I had not started bodybuilding when I was 18 and had to experience some of the setbacks and difficulties and working through problems and working through injuries and whatnot, that taught me so much about life, because I thought those things were hard, and then life started kicking me a couple times, and then you realize, oh, no, that stuff actually isn't that hard. But if I hadn't had those exposures to difficulty at a controlled dose, I wouldn't be able to tolerate it. And that's. It's so funny that that's kind of what exercise does physically. You know, I describe. It's kind of like a. All right, this get people upset. But it's kind of like a vaccine, right? You're giving a controlled dose of a stressor and your body gets better at handling the stressor. Because if you look at what exercise does in the short term, increases your heart rate, blood pressure, reactive oxygen species, your inflammation levels, your cortisol. If I told you all that something, did all that, you'd go, oh, that sounds terrible. But these are controlled doses. It's what we call hormesis. You give a controlled dose of a stressor to your body and the body responds by getting better at handling it. And so not only did I get better at handling it physically, I got better at handling things mentally. So I always say, you know, people will tell me all the time, it's just lifting weights, it's just lifting weights. I said, well, that's not how I feel about it. You know, not. Not only do I love competing, I love pushing myself, I love pushing my body past what I thought was possible for me. I love the idea that, you know, at 44, when I see people I went to high school with and they're really struggling and I don't wish down on anybody, I love that. I still feel like I did when I was 25.
- [76:38]
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Forever strong to me means self loyalty and community loyalty. I think that honoring yourself is what strength is, knowing yourself is what strength is, and then incorporating that and uplifting others to bring you along on that mission of self accomplishment and self love is what being forever strong is.
- [76:59]
Dr. Diana Zuckerman
I think that it's just the alignment of a healthy mind, healthy body, and that you are doing all of this because you enjoy it. You enjoy the process. I think that when people can enjoy the process, then they'll be able to stick to it and just have fun. Maintaining good health, good body composition. It's easier said than done because you have to find what you prefer in terms of food selection and meal patterning through the day and the week. You have to find what you enjoy in terms of training, but actively seek that out, what you enjoy and prefer, and then you can be forever strong.