A (8:04)

Thanks for having me, Dr. Amien. Wow, what an intro. I believe we can deliver on all of that, so let's do it.

B (8:09)

Absolutely. So. Well, like I just said, I knew enough to increase my protein intake, specifically my amino acid intake after surgery. And really I started before surgery to kind of prime my body for that healing mode that I wanted to enter and then I increased it afterwards. But can you tell me why I did that? What was the benefit? I knew to do it, but what was happening in my body that my body required more amino acids to heal.

A (8:40)

So this very simple response is that when we're under stress, it's called stress physiology. But basically like that could literally just be aging. Aging itself is a form of stress actually on the body. Another form of stress is surgery. Another form could be illness. Another form is a kind of more self induced stress, like caloric restriction. You want to lose weight and so you try to eat less food and that could be with using a GLP1 agonist or just doing it through a trainer, et cetera. But any of those cases where you're under stress, you need more protein because you need more of these active components in the protein called essential amino acids in order to maintain your hair, your skin, your nails, your vital organ function, your muscle, your hormones, your enzymes. All of these things are proteins. And you need more of certain kind of these active component, raw ingredients if you want those to function well. So the reason why that is, is maybe we like, we just take a quick step back and if we talk about not in a stress physiology, you're a young, healthy 22 year old self, right? You think back to when you were in that space and you're not really trying to compete super hard for anything, but you're just trying to be healthy and keep on going and living well. Well, the way that you fuel your body, the way that you are able to keep living is you got to eat food. And inside that food there's a few things. There's things like micronutrients, which are vitamins and minerals, et cetera. But we often talk about these macronutrients, carbohydrates, fat and protein. And the role of the carbohydrates and fat in our diet is more truly like fuel. It's like the energy that we consume and we burn to, in order to move, to breathe, et cetera. So it's like the energy, I think we talked about this last time, this analogy of your body is like a house. And if you want to run the dishwasher, run the lights, have the TV on, you have to get energy from the grid or solar panels or a generator or something that's carbs and fat. But the actual house you live in, the house of your body is actually made up of something. And what is it made up of? It's made up of a lot of protein. Half of your bone mass is protein. All your vital organs, your muscles. And these, the list of things I described earlier, your hair, the hormones in your body, these are all made up of proteins. And so what happens is just like the way our house can start to get old and the carpet needs to be replaced, or the light bulbs need to be changed, the exact same thing is going on in our body. Our skin tissue, the proteins that make up our skin, they get older and they need to be broken down and replaced with new skin tissue, new proteins, same thing. We have to make new hormones in our body, we have to make new heart tissue, et cetera. And so when the old proteins in our body break down, some of them get left over and we can reuse them to rebuild a new protein. But a lot of them just get peed out, actually. And the way that you replace the proteins in your body, whether it's, you know, the tissue around your knee or it's the skin on your face, or it's the quality of your hair, it's coming from the protein that we eat. When you eat a chicken breast or you eat a protein powder or even a plant based protein like a quinoa, and you consume that, you break down the protein, the amino acids go. The amino acids are the little building blocks in the protein. So it's like you can think, you know, the piece of chicken is made up of this kind of string of proteins. Well, if you were to put a microscope on that string, you see it's made up of all these little amino acids. And when you digest that protein, those amino acids get freed up, they go into the blood and they help rebuild that skin, rebuild that hair, et cetera. And what happens is this is, this is no matter what, like this is again the really healthy, 22 year old version of yourself that didn't, could do whatever it wanted to do. Somehow it stayed fit and could do all that, right? You have to eat protein literally just to maintain that function. Well, what Happens is as we get older, it's harder to do that, it's harder to maintain that function. And when you get sick or you undergo a surgery, your body has a couple things going on. For example, in a surgery situation, you need a lot more of the amino acids to help rebuild all the proteins, all that tissue that's around where the injury occurred, where the knife went in.

B (12:50)

Right.

A (12:51)

You actually have to. There's more activity there to rebuild more proteins. But also because your body's under so much stress from undergoing a surgery, it doesn't want to utilize the proteins that you eat in your diet as vigorously as it would in a normal, like super healthy state in order to rebuild it, because it, it's kind of in a, it's in a crisis mode. And so it converts more of those proteins actually into sugars to be used as energy. And it just is not as efficient at actually utilizing it to rebuild that tissue, to support overall muscle function, et cetera. So in a really super healthy person that's not under any stress, they have to eat protein just to rebuild their body. And if you're under any kind of stress, you need even more protein. And ultimately we'll get into more essential amino acids in order to overcome what we call anabolic resistance. The resistance to rebuild tissues, to rebuild proteins, to rebuild muscle.

B (13:45)

Well, I want to circle back to something that you had mentioned when you said about the plant based proteins in quinoa. I always thought that those plant based proteins don't contain amino acids or the essential ones that we really need. Is that correct?

A (14:00)

It's a great question. I think it's oftentimes misunderstood. So think about it this way. Kind of go back to like the building analogy. You could build a house out of bricks, but there are a lot of different kinds of bricks and some of those bricks are going to be stronger than others, some of those are going to be more fragile, etc. So it's similar with proteins. So when you like actually look at quinoa and it's made up of proteins, and you look at chicken and it's made up of proteins, the protein in a chicken breast and the protein at quinoa are not the same. They're like two different kinds of bricks with different mixes of different. You know, for a brick, it'd be like different types of sand.

B (14:39)

Right.

A (14:39)

So it'd be different types of amino acids in them. And it is true that most plant protein sources have a composition of these amino acids that are not as robust and not as concentrated in the essential Amino acids as animal proteins. To say they like actually don't have any of the essential amino acids is not accurate. That's not true. But what it is is that they have much less and they typically don't have like as good of a profile of them. To where scientists would call it a complete protein. There are some. Spirulina is honestly, it's a plant based protein. It's a very high quality protein. But how much spirulina do you want to eat? I mean you got to eat like a lot of spirulina, like grams, you know, a steak's worth, honestly, soy, like tofu is actually, when they do comparisons of these studies, surprisingly like tofu is actually a quite high quality protein. And then it just starts to drop off. It's like quinoa is a pretty big drop down. Then everything after that it drops off. Beans, rice, like to the point where you would need to combine more of those plant proteins together to get a better profile. And here's an even more important point and that is that plant proteins are harder for us to get access to. So the plant proteins themselves are basically like embedded in these other more fibrous types of materials within the plant versus if I just. And we can get more to this too, specifically around even animal proteins. Like when I just eat an egg protein, I eat egg whites or I eat a piece of steak. It's not all tied up in all this other fiber and other types of plant based materials that actually make it hard for my body to break it down and to get it and to free it. So the bio, you know, it's kind of a big term, but the bioavailability of a plant protein is much lower than the bioavailability of an animal protein. So there's two things going on here. The plant protein is kind of, it's harder to get to. And then even when you get to it, the composition of the amino acids in it are not as rich in these essential amino acids as the animal proteins are. So you can be on a plant protein only diet, I think you can get all the essential amino acids you need, but you have to work a lot harder and you have to eat a lot of those plants. And if you undergo any type of stress based, you know, physiological challenges, injury, aging, it's going to be harder. But I would say it's like the younger you are, the more it's like, it's cool if you want to be vegan, the older you are, the, I think truly the harder it's going to be you're over 50, even over 40, the harder it's going to be to maintain your lean muscle, maintain your skin quality, maintain your hair quality, all these types of things, simply because the raw materials you're putting in are just not as robust. That doesn't mean it's not possible. But I think that's some of that nuance I like to offer versus there's like a right and wrong answer. It's a bit more of a spectrum.

B (17:32)

Well, and I'll tie this back together when we talk about the amount of grams of protein needed, how you need more as you age, because really there's that subset of people, there are the vegans and the vegetarians that really do need to supplement. I have a patient, I have a couple patients that they come into the practice and they are vegan or they're vegetarian and they're complaining about their hair loss and their dry skin and their muscle wasting. And basically they look diabetic on paper because their diet is mostly carbohydrates. I mean, let's face it. So when I can get them, as long as it's not for religious reasons, when I can convince them to actually start shifting over, just doing baby steps, even if it is supplementation, even if it's just adding in amino acids, it makes such a difference in how they look, how they feel. You know, they'll report their hair coming back to life and looking healthier even before we optimize their thyroid and their hormones because those amino acids are so vital and they're so deficient when it's a plant based diet. And so that's what I was thinking about. I wanted to confirm it with you. I love when I bring experts on and I get to learn that the bioavailability of plant based protein just isn't there. You can't, you can't take a, I don't know, a plant and count if it lists on the label that this plant based protein powder has 20 grams of protein. I don't think you can really count all 20 if it's a plant based, because it doesn't have those essential amino acids. And this would be where, like we were talking off air, even combining an amino acid with whatever protein powder source that you're using would be beneficial. But for goodness sake, especially if you're vegan or vegetarian, where you're not getting that full bioavailable protein that's in that source.

A (19:23)

Yeah, it's definitely, again, it's two things. It's. That's not as bioavailable so it is true. Like, 20 grams of protein from kidney beans is simply not as bioavailable as 20 grams of protein from chicken breast. They are not equal. And you can Google this if you want more information about it. There's multiple different rating scores, like the protein digestibility amino acid corrected score. I think it's the PDAACs. Like, you can look into it and it's scientific. It's not like, you know, an opinion thing. Like, they can actually measure how digestible this thing is and what its impact from the body. So, yeah, 20 grams of protein from. From kidney beans is not. Not even close to equal to chicken breast.

B (19:57)

Right.

A (19:57)

One nuance I'd offer is, and I think you're right on that, it's like if someone is, especially if they're vegan and they're not like, super dialed in on their diet, because, again, I mean, I think you have to be like, paying. You have to be really, really, really diligent and dialed in. And like, I'm in the health space business. I'm trying to lead a healthy life, but it's like, I have kids and like, they're eating a cracker and I want to eat the cracker, too. And it's like, nah, man, I get a. You have to be. So I think you just have to be really dialed in. If you choose that, that kind of vegan choice. Vegetarian makes it easier. I'd say vegetarian makes it a lot easier. If you can eat all the eggs you want and you can eat all of the dairy and thus, like, really quality, like yogurts that you want, you add it into powerhouses, but you're still limited. It's like if you can't eat any fish or chicken or beef, you know, it's more limited. But I would say, like, it's a. If you can just get someone to go from vegan to vegetarian, I think. And again, I'm not saying like, I think it's a great point. You made enough. It's like for religious reasons or, you know, whatever their, their ethic around it is, but from a pure health basis, you'll see a pretty big impact. If you could get them to go vegetarian and if you could get them to introduce essential amino acids, you're going to see a really big impact.

B (21:03)

Definitely. Definitely. And so going back to the recovery, I shared publicly that I was back in the gym at 10 days when they told me that it would be.

A (21:14)

That's awesome. That's so awesome, Amy.

B (21:17)

Gosh, I listen to my body. I Don't want haters out there going, well, you just overrode with it. No, no, no, I, I listened to my body and of course I took it easy. But in listening to my body, I knew, hey, I am healing quickly here. I know that I can stir back and pick up a 10 pound, maybe a 15 pound. And I started very slowly. But the bottom line is I was 32 days ahead of healing schedule. And I attribute a lot of that to the protein intake. I mean, sure, all the little devices, the red light, the this, the that, all of that helps. But just like you said, without that structure of those amino acids coming in to help the tissues literally heal, I mean, they took out a body part, you know, this wasn't just a little slice taking off, you know, a mole. This is. They. They removed my whole reproductive system and had to recreate it inside and then sew me up from the outside. That's a big surgery. I needed those amino acids to heal. And I really do attribute a huge, huge portion of my healing to the introduction and the increase of my protein intake and amino acid intake. So for me, I was doing it multiple times a day. I know for some people, they might just start off with, hey, I'm going to start the day with amino acids and water. I mean, that's how I start my day. Every single day, scoop of aminos in, in my water, go about my day, but then I'll continue throughout the day to put more and more aminos in. I know on one of our last sessions together, on one of our last recordings, you had said and that you're going to have to clarify this for me, but it was fascinating that there was a study done where people were in bed, right, for 28 days, if I'm remembering this correctly, and they significantly increase their amino acid intake. You'll have to give me the amount, no muscle loss. Like literally as they were laying in bed doing nothing to promote any kind of healing or any kind of, of muscle anabolism and they lost zero muscle.

A (23:25)

I mean, that is correct.

B (23:27)

Can I get that right?

A (23:27)

Okay, that is correct. That's the outcome. And what's interesting too, there are similar studies showing actually the use of amino acids pre and post surgery for like a very similar reason about why you took them. But that study you're referring to is a study that was sponsored by NASA and it's because astronauts in space don't have resistance, right? So resistance training is an excellent stimulus for muscle function, muscle growth, as well as this muscle protein turnover, like replacing the old Proteins with new ones and you know, being able to maintain your muscle. But and if you eat enough protein then build new muscle. And so the question was is there any way to get that when they're in outer space? You know and you know they obviously NASA's gonna sponsor drugs, exercise machines, et cetera. But they sponsored this study and actually a couple studies for amino acids and they did just this. They took young adults, they put em in complete bed rest for 28 days and they had normal feeding throughout the day. And then they took basically the equivalent of like three servings of kion amino, so 15 grams three times a day, which is a lot. And that's more of like a clinical type dosage. And what happened was after 28 days the overall results were that there was no muscle loss there lost some muscle function and some strength as you can imagine if you don't train the muscle at all. But that just shows you how potent something like essential amino acids can be. Outside of exercise, these people had no exercise at all. And so when you are in a situation where you're, you have bed rest from a surgery, there are ways to not just shrivel up. There are real, true, proven, data backed ways to do that. And it's as simple as like you know, an over the counter nutritional supplement like essential amino acids. Now there, there are some caveats to it. It needs to be leucine enriched, like we can get into like well what, what makes these work that way and why. But no, it's a real thing. And so it makes sense that you being someone who was already thinking about higher protein intake, probably taking a protein powder and then also supplement with these essential amino acids, you are simply going to be stimulating, telling the body you want to build and maintain this muscle in a way that most of these other patients are not. These other patients are probably, they're not doing any of those things right. And so it makes sense that you could be that far ahead.

B (25:38)

And that study has always fascinated me and I kept that in mind as I was healing. I continuously put scoops of aminos every time I would fill up my water bottle to keep that flow going all day long. And that's not something that everybody has to do. And it doesn't have to be done long term but for that immediate healing period there are times where you're going to want to consciously bump up your amino acid intake. Now you had mentioned earlier, and I love how you said this, that even dieting is a stressor. So we already went over surgery. Surgery is a huge Stressor. But yeah, what about weight loss? And let's tie in the use of these GLPs, because I'm very open about that. Multiple podcasts about GLPs. I am fine with the use of GLPs in a microdose or in a standard dose if we are dealing with a type 2 diabetic. But it doesn't matter what dose you are on, there has to be a conscious effort to intake amino acids, to intake protein, because without it, you will lose muscle. You will absolutely lose muscle. And that happened to me way back when Manjaro first came out. And again, I'm very open about this. I tried it when it first came to market. I tried it and I tried the standard dose. The 5 milligram little pen that I got, and I'll never forget it was an article released by Peter Attia saying, hey, you know what? It turns out that These drugs, these GLPs, are causing weight loss, but about 40% of that is lean muscle mass. And I was like, peter, you're crazy. We're not losing muscle. And then, I kid you not, Angelo, I looked at my arms one day and I'm like, I got my mom's arms. Like, I got all this extra skin. I'm losing muscle. And I was. Yes, I was. As much as I take care of myself, I was losing muscle. Now I wasn't. To be fair, I wasn't taking any amino acids. I, I didn't even know about Kion back in the day. I was probably doing, you know, a couple scoops of protein and that's about it. But, yeah, that muscle loss is real under stress or under any kind of extreme diet. So let's talk about that, because that's big these days.

A (27:48)

Yeah. So, I mean, I think that the, you know, the, the invention of these GLP1 agonists is pretty awesome. You know, I personally haven't, I haven't experimented with them, but they seem pretty awesome. There's a lot of good data showing that they can have really positive impacts on people's life. Again, I don't, I don't have a personal experience with. So I don't know exactly what I, what I do understand is that the, the data around the use of them is, in terms of how it affects the body, is actually pretty similar to just overall caloric restriction. And that's basically how they work. Like, if you take one of these GLP1 agonists and maybe they have other things they do in the body as well, but fundamentally they slow gastric emptying so basically, like, your body still stays fuller longer and they reduce appetite. And there's just a real rule that if you consume less calories than you burn in a day, and now this could be nuanced for different people with different hormone balances and thyroid function, et cetera, and what your metabolic rate is. But fundamentally, if you have a certain amount of calories that you burn in a day and then you consume less than that, what will happen is the extra fat that you have stored in your body, which actually is a amazing form of our biology. The reason we store fat is if we end up in a situation where we don't have food, you think about these earlier societies and people, you know, hunting and your community gets an animal and you can eat the whole thing and it's like you can overeat and you can store some of the fat for At a later time, Right? So that's why we do it. But when you eat less than you burn in a day, you will start to burn those fat stores and you will lose weight. And so that's just what happens, whether it's from a GLP1 or it's from a really intense trainer who makes nutritionist who holds you accountable, or from tracking your macros or, you know, whatever it is. But what's magic? I think what seems magical about the GLP1s is how effective they are and how much appetite they reduce. And so this is where I think the really important point around the nuance in weight loss becomes important. I believe that what most people are seeking when they want weight loss is they want fat loss.

B (29:47)

Yes.

A (29:47)

You didn't think, Amy, like, oh, I'm going to take this thing to experiment with losing the tone in my arms. You were like, you. It wasn't like, I wonder if I could make my arms less toned and have floppier skin. I was not. It. It was like, it'd be cool if, like, you know, actually my arms were a little bit more toned, right? It'd be like, be great for a little bit of the body fat. Like, just a little bit of the body fat was gone. So really, people's goal is loss of body fat, which I just said, if you eat less calories and you burn in a day, you are going to lose some of that body fat. But here's the other really big point. You will also lose muscle. And the reason why you will lose muscle is because what I brought up earlier, this stress physiology, when you're under stress, your body will simply not use the protein to rebuild the house. It's not saying like, let's rebuild all the muscle, let's rebuild this tissue, et cetera. It thinks, I'm hungry, I'm starving, I'm going to use some of this protein instead as an energy source. It also simply is not as reactive to the protein and to the amino acids to want to rebuild the muscle. It's just, it's just the effectiveness goes way down. And so what we've seen, and this is not just from GLP1s, if you do a really aggressive caloric restriction, the type you would get from using a GLP medication, but you could do otherwise, in the short term, It'll be about 40% of your weight loss will be muscle and 60% will be fat. What you just quoted from Peter Attia. In a short term, over a longer term, someone who's like say on a GLP one for, you know, much more extended time or does a much more extended weight loss journey, it goes down some. It's probably going to be more like 30%.

B (31:18)

Right?

A (31:18)

That is still, that's still like a lot of muscle that you're losing. And I would just say if you. And I'm going to tell you how this doesn't have to happen because in the same way that the NASA study happened where people lost no muscle, it's also possible with weight loss. Basically, if you lose 10 pounds of fat off your body, particularly if you're a woman under 150 pounds, that is a lot different than losing six pounds of fat and four pounds of muscle. Like, I can't even overemphasize how different that feels in your body, how different it looks. It's very different. So if you really want to lose 10 pounds, you really want to be all fat, how do we do that? How is that possible? And what recent data has suggested, and it's actually multiple studies sponsored actually by the Department of Defense, which is an interesting sponsor, this type of research. But it's because they're trying to figure out how to keep soldiers in the field alive and strong and not losing muscle when they're under deprivation. Right. Basically a 30% caloric deficit. So if your daily kind of calories just stay exactly as you are, is 2000 calories, and you were to cut that by 30%. So I'm going to eat 600 calories less per day. I'm only going to eat 1400 calories a day. Now, if you did that consistently, it's going to be a little over a pound of weight loss per week. And so over the course of ten weeks, you could lose ten pounds.

B (32:34)

Right.

A (32:34)

If you just did that. But what the data's shown from these multiple studies is that Even just that 30% caloric deficit requires you to have a 300%. That's three times the amount increase of essential amino acids per serving in order to maintain a net protein balance. So it's a bunch of blah, blah, blah science. The big idea is you need three times the amount of protein or three times the amount of essential amino acid supplement, or, you know, three times the amount of this concentration. If what you want to have happen is that when you're under that caloric restriction, you don't lose any muscle. So if you're already trying to cut your calories by that amount or you're on a GLP1 and you're barely hungry, it's like you basically have to be only eating protein, right?

B (33:21)

Yeah.

A (33:21)

Or you need to be, or. Which is not great because you should also be eating fiber and getting other micronutrients, et cetera. So it's like the value of entering into this conversation something like a protein powder or an essential amino acid supplement, you're going to get so much greater impact. And that is how, for that NASA study, you had people not losing any muscle mass. Similarly, I've seen it again and again. People on aggressive caloric restriction on a GLP one or not on one, lose no muscle by simply adding a few servings of essential amino acids during the day every day consistently. And so again, that's a reason why, you know, if you're just trying to maintain where you're at and you don't want to lose muscle as you age, like a scoop of essential amino acids, a scoop of kion aminos in the morning is great, but if you're trying to lose weight and really lose fat and maintain muscle, that's the type of situation you might be looking at. Actually might take two or three scoops a couple times a day.

B (34:15)

Yeah, yeah. Well, whenever I have a patient that says, okay, I want to do a GLP1, the deal is they have to eat protein and essential aminos like it's their job. Because if they're not focused on that, they absolutely will lose muscle. And it's so much more than loss. I mean, 100%, you are correct about the loss of 6 pounds of fat and 4 pounds of muscle versus 10 pounds of fat. Totally different. Look, not only aesthetically, but when we're talking about muscle literally being our organ of longevity, of how it protects our muscular skeletal system, from falls, from breaks. I mean, you break a hip and you have a 50% chance of living. Those are the stats. If you break a hip, you have a 50 mortality rate. 50, 50. On surviving that fall. Unless you have that muscle surrounding it. Now, we know that sarcopenia happens as we age. And this is where it becomes even more interesting. As we move into the perimenopause and menopause talk, women as they are aging, okay, here's the whole oxymoron of our bodies, right? The cruel joke that's played on women as we age. So our hormones decline, we start to gain fat. We start to gain excess fat around the midsection. There's that widening of the waistline that happens in perimenopause. Moving into menopause. So what do women do at that point of time? They do more cardio, less weight training. That should be opposite. And then they start to eat less. Or now that the GLPs are accessible to anyone, even if you have to lose 10 pounds, you can get a GLP. They're doing that, and they're restricting, restricting, restricting. So now we're seeing an even greater loss of muscle as women move into perimenopause and menopause. And that's essentially the time that we need more protein. And this really isn't talked about much. You know, we have a lot more talk around menopause these days, which is great. You know, we have Halle Berry out there saying, hey, I'm in menopause. We need better help. But they're not. They're focused on the menopause symptoms and the hormone piece, which is fantastic. But they're not focused on what do women need to be doing on a daily basis to maintain their body composition, but specifically maintain their muscle, which is that organ of longevity, which is going to make them more metabolically active. That's going to protect them from insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, protect them against heart disease, protect their skeletal system from falls and bone breaks. And I think that's the missing piece in the menopause talk is how do we keep that muscle as we age? And what are the requirements as we age?

A (36:59)

Absolutely. And I think the distinction, too, between, say, a. I mean, my wife, who's perimenopausal right now, and me, who's not. Like, what's the difference in our physiologies right now, both of us are entering into phases where we have greater anabolic resistance. We're not digesting protein as well as we used to. We both are less sensitive to the essential amino acids in that protein are, which are the active component that say, hey, go build this new muscle. Hey, maintain this new muscle. Hey, build new skin. Like, both of us are having that happen. But she's having a dramatic shift in her hormones which impact her sleep. And that sleep is a significant stressor. It dramatically reduces the amount of protein synthesis that occurs the day after for her versus for me. And a whole list of other things start occurring. Right? So there's all this additional stress and so that her stress physiology is more significant than mine. So the idea that I think many people out there on social media might say, you know, they try to be like, and I'm not challenging you on this, but like, it's just a gram of protein per pound of body weight, right? Well, actually, it matters. It matters how old you are. It matters potentially which gender you are, if you're perimenopausal or not. It depends how athletic you are. Like how much you're trying to train depends on if you're trying to lose weight or not, et cetera. And so there's this very unique time period for women that you're describing where suddenly you're trying to lose fat, probably, and you're trying to introduce, probably you should. I mean, you could be trying to introduce more strength training of some kind to help build muscle, and you're undergoing all this stress. Your need, my wife's need for essential amino acids per pound of body weight is simply greater than mine because she is experiencing more of this anabolic resistance than I am. And it's not. I mean, I think that's just the way that it is. So, yes, this is something that should be talked about more. And there's lots of other awesome treatments, like if you want to, you know, consider hormone replacement therapy, if you want to consider specific types of training that you feel like are going to help you to maintain resistance training, other types of ways to help, you know, supplements to support sleep, et cetera, but you can't, I think you can't really get around the fact that you're going to simply have a greater need for essential amino acids than the younger version of you and potentially per pound of body weight than maybe your male peers and your husband do.

B (39:21)

Do you ever come home from a really long day, your energy's drained, and you just want to sit down and watch Netflix and eat a good dinner, but you gotta still squeeze in your workout. So how about if you actually got home at 7 and your workout was done by 7:05, does that blow Your mind, you're already done. You're unwinding. That's the reality with Carol Bike. In just five minutes, you experience a workout that is scientifically proven to be as effective as a 45 minute run. Carol isn't just a time saver. It's your literal shortcut to health, happiness, better muscles, lower body fat, leaving you more time for what actually matters in life, like watching Netflix and eating a great dinner. So if you want to check out Carol Bike, they give you a warranty, a trial period that is unmatched. You'll even come get it if you don't like it. 30 days. I mean, who can even beat that? So check it out. Go to carolbike.com C-A R O L B I K E dot com. You're going to use the code Dr. Amy. If you grab one of these bad boys, which I highly recommend doing, you're going to use the code Dr. Amy. That is going to save you $100 off. And again, there's no risk. There's no risk. Try it for 30 days. If you don't like it, they will come pick it up. But I guarantee you the time saving aspect, the muscle building aspect, the fat burning aspect, you're just going to love it. That is so interesting. I never thought about it in the way that you just put it. And I want to unpack a couple things you said in there. First of all, you're absolutely right. I'm right now rethinking that. I need a chart that's age based and gender based. And I think most people would be surprised that they looked at that chart to see that the requirements go up as the age goes up. Because everybody's like, oh, wait, my mom only eats like half of her chicken breast and gives the other half to my dad because they don't have that big of an appetite right there. As you get older, you go out and you start sharing meals. But that's not how it should be.

A (41:38)

Well, that's even more.

B (41:40)

Yeah, yeah, you need more. So on that chart, I'm, I'm picturing, okay, women, men, women, as they get older, literally need more protein per pound of body weight or ideal body weight, whichever we go by, than men. And that's crazy to think about to picture it. And I think that would blow people's minds. But that's exactly what you just said. And you are 100% correct in that.

A (42:04)

Yeah. Only nuance I might make is, I think, particularly during these really strong hormonal changes this period, like, I think if you look at maybe like a 65 year old woman who's post menopausal and her husband, I don't know that that would be as true. It would all depend on again on her physiology at that time. But to ignore these huge, this huge stress response that's occurring, you know, from 45 to 55 or whatever your period is of that time, it's pretty significant.

B (42:30)

Well, and that's the other thing that fascinated me that you just said is the sleep. I never even thought about that as of course it's a stressor. Of course it's a stressor. But I never thought about the requirement of protein after a night of poor sleep, which happens quite frequently to women as they're losing their hormones.

A (42:47)

Sleep is, and I know everyone hears about it all over the place and I think at some point you just have to come to terms with it, like how important sleep is. Sleep has I would say a, I mean not saying like total protein intake, but is going to have a greater impact on overall protein turnover in your body, which is again, there's this idea of like the old skin being rebuilt with new skin, the old muscle being replaced with better, better, higher quality proteins. The amount of sleep you get and the quality of the sleep is going to have a greater impact on that than almost anything else we talk about on the show.

B (43:19)

Yeah.

A (43:20)

So that said, you can correct it again, it's like if you're, if you're dealing with these sleep problems, you can think, I'm going to take essential amino acids. Like that's actually going to, it's going to overcome that, that anabolic resistance. I'm going to ensure that even on a day where I didn't get much sleep, that's a day where you should definitely try to do resistance training. It's even more important on that day. So there are ways that you can try to counteract it. But yeah, the sleep thing is pretty big.

B (43:43)

Well, and I'll add into that after a bad night's sleep, we know that glucose and insulin are dysregulated. So that's why a lot of people actually note that they are hungrier the day after they, let's say, get five hours instead of their normal seven to eight hours. And that's because of that, that erratic blood sugar, that glucose that goes up and down like a roller coaster that occurs from not getting that deep restorative sleep. So if we add in aminos and we know maybe we do a combination protein powder and aminos throughout the day, that's Going to stabilize blood sugar, that's going to take it from that roller coaster and squish it down into a nice wave like pattern to really squash the hunger that comes from a bad night's sleep.

A (44:29)

I think it's a really interesting protocol. An idea.

B (44:31)

Yeah, just a thought. Just a thought. So we were talking off air, speaking of protein powders, we were kind of talking about the different protein powders out there. And I've shared that, you know, my favorite really is beef isolate. And you said, you said to me, well, actually if you combine amino acids with your protein, that actually helps your body utilize the beef isolate protein better. And then I, I shared that I have beef isolate protein and kionamina in this. I'm like, oh good, I'm winning. Can you unpack that a little bit more for the listeners?

A (45:02)

Yeah. So I'll do my best and try to not get too nerdy and just make it like accessible for folks. The core idea to keep in mind, I'll keep coming back to it, is that the why I say like essential amino acids are the active component of the protein is because they're the thing that actually kickstarts this whole process of everything that we're talking about. Rebuilding the hair, rebuilding the hormones, rebuilding, you know, like even just the proteins associated with our liver, there's like a 30% turnover in them. 30% of them have to be remade every day. Right. Our muscle, it's like 2% per day. So what is it that like tells all that, like, hey, let's replace more of them and get rid of the older ones and make new better ones or make more of them. It's the essential amino acids in the protein. And the way that that occurs is you need more of the essential amino acids in your blood all at the same time. And we call it a peak concentration, the concentration of the essential amino acids in your blood, like when they're at their highest level, how high do they get? And what has been very well documented through multiple studies is that the higher that gets, the more protein turnover, you're going to get the more replacement of old proteins with new, better proteins. And so this is really interesting. If you consume 30 grams of beef protein, which is about how much protein is in like a 5 ounce steak, it will lead to a higher concentration, more of these essential amino acids that are in that steak in the blood than if you ate over twice that amount, 70 grams of beef protein, like a 12 ounce steak. But you ate that 12 ounce steak with broccoli and potatoes and a bunch of other stuff. Eating the much smaller amount of steak on its own leads to it being digested more quickly than the bigger steak with all the other foods. And you get the higher concentration of those essential amino acids in the blood. Literally what that means is you could eat less meat, but if you eat it on its own, it's going to have a greater impact than eating more meat. But you eat it as part of this whole meal. Now I don't say that to try to convince people to like start eating all your meals, like only eating meat at one time and vegetables another time. Just trying to give you the basic idea. So now what's really interesting is when you compare that to a high quality and I'll say high quality meaning animal based protein powder. And I know you're a big fan of like the beef protein powder. I don't know of a study specifically on that, but it's. Beef protein powder is pretty similar to a whey protein powder in terms of the digestibility and the amino acids.

B (47:27)

Plant is opposed to a plant.

A (47:29)

Yeah, opposed to like a hemp or a pea or like those are in a kind of totally different class. So an animal based protein powder, gram for gram, if you were to, you know, take 20 grams of the beef versus 20 grams of like the protein powder, the protein powder is about three times as effective as the whole protein. Why is that? In a similar way where it's kind of the spectrum of isolating the protein more and more on the far end you have the 12 ounce steak that's mixed with the broccoli and potatoes and then a little bit, a little bit better in terms of like how accessible the amino acids are as you get the smaller steak on its own. And then if you were to take just a protein powder that had the same amount of protein as what was in that steak, it's going to be three times the impact as that steak. So it's not just like, hey, the 20, like we were saying earlier, like 20 grams of protein from chicken is not the same as 20 grams of protein from kidney beans. 20 grams of protein from a protein from like a beef protein or a whey protein powder is not the same as 20 grams of protein from whole food. It's a lot more powerful, way more potent. So any of the people out there yelling on social media saying just eat whole foods, like I'm a huge and I endorse eating whole foods eat. I mean I eat vegetables, fruits, meats. I mean I like sourdough bread. Like I eat real food. And if you're really trying to optimize and get these higher levels of protein and it's hard to get there. You're going to get way more bang for your buck by taking something like a quality animal protein powder. Well then the question becomes, well then what's the role of these essential amino acids? So something like an essential amino acid supplement and particularly a leucine enriched one. So Kion Aminos follows the research, which is basically you take a profile that's pretty similar to like a B for a whey protein, but you enhance it, you give it more leucine, you give a little bit more lysine. Without getting too nerdy about it, you make it to where the body, it's even more stimulatory to the body to help replace old proteins. In the same way that like the protein powder was better than the steak, the EAs are a little bit tweaked to be even, even more stimulatory. And the protein powder is only 45%. It's less than half of protein powder. Protein is essential amino acids. The other half are these non essential amino acids which are still good things like glutamine. Like there's good things in the non essential amino acids but you don't need them to actually stimulate the protein turnover.

B (49:49)

Hence the term non essential.

A (49:50)

Yeah, exactly. So something like Kion aminos where it's like the amino acids are 100% the essential and they're in this much more concentrated form, they're immediately bioavailable, there's no digestion, you just take them and they very quickly pass through your system and go into the blood. They hit a peak concentration much higher and much stronger and more potent than the protein powder does, gram for gram. And that's why in older adults if you have a leucine enriched amino acid, it's going to be about six times the impact as a protein powder. It's pretty, it's very impressive. Right?

B (50:24)

Wow. Yeah.

A (50:24)

So but what I would say is they're both good. So rather than being like, oh well then like do I even need my protein powder? Well it's like I like making like protein shakes. Like you're going, are you having a workout and having like a yummy protein shake that's mixed with like fruit or maybe other things or milk. Whereas an amino acid supplement is more like a light fruity beverage. Right. Like which, which one are you drinking? What's the flavor you like?

B (50:45)

Oh my God. I'm, I, I'm split between three. So I'm addicted. I Used to be. I first started off addicted to the mango. Then I branched out into the mixed berry. I'm like, oh, I like this too. So I went between. Then I ended in the watermelon with a little squeeze of lemon. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing, too. So I have you.

A (51:03)

Like all three.

B (51:04)

I got. I like all three. I do.

A (51:06)

But perfect example. It's more like a fruity, light beverage drink. Right.

B (51:10)

So that way you can drink it all day long. Like, I use it to literally flavor my water because I don't like boring water.

A (51:16)

Yeah. So.

B (51:16)

Yeah.

A (51:17)

And so it's. It's a tool that's a little different than, like a protein powder, which is a little heartier and kind of like fills you up more, et cetera. So they're both awesome. So then the question is, well, can you combine them and why and how? So basically, when you take the essential amino acids, like kion aminos, and you take them at the same time as you take that protein powder, because as I said, the. The kion aminos is enhanced with the leucine and the isoleucine and the valine and the lysine. It's got more of these certain ones. It triggers that protein synthesis even greater than the beef protein or the whey protein does on its own, to a degree where it actually better utilizes the protein and the amino acids that are in the protein powder. So if you think about it, it's like maybe like lighter fluid, you know that, like, that helps you get even more out of the raw wood that is the protein powder, et cetera. So combining them together has shown you can get like 50% the increase out of the protein powder by adding the essential amino acids at the same time. So again, it's like you could take them on their own. You can take them together. There's not really, like, a bad option.

B (52:17)

Oh, my gosh, I love this. I'm learning so much from talking to you today. This is incredible. Okay, let's break this down for the listener to. To, you know, kind of tie a bow on it, but to also take off stress of, oh, my gosh, you know, how am I going to get this in? They're talking about real food, they're talking about protein powders, they're talking about amino acids overload, supplement overload, health overload. Doesn't have to be that hard. Now, I'm going to throw a study out that. I don't know if we talked about this before on our last podcast, but there's really interesting research with Women that shows that. Well, let me back up to my bodybuilding days. We used to always hear, don't eat more than 25 or 30 grams of protein in a sitting because you won't even digest it. Well, now through the years, of course, we see more and more with research that specifically with women, yes, we can digest more than 30 grams of protein in one sitting. And even better than that, ladies, we do really well with bookending our protein intake, meaning beginning of the day and end of the day. And we can actually, if you find it hard because you don't have the appetite, you're on a glp, you're getting older, your appetite's down, or you're just freaking busy through the day and you just can't get in a chicken breast or a steak. You can actually start the day with maybe even 40 to 50 grams of protein and end the day with 40 to 50 grams of protein. So if you did something like a protein shake with aminos, you take aminos in your water through the day when you're busy or you're not that hungry, maybe you do sneak in like a little something something through the day, some yogurt, whatever, a beef stick, and then end the day with more aminos and another shake. That's all you need. Now. We just simplified it based on what you just shared. Angelo. We know that that's even better. Combining the aminos with the protein powder. So now you're like 10xing your protein intake and your essential amino acid intake. But it makes it so much easier to get in that required amount than stressing yourself out thinking about how in the heck am I going to eat all of this food?

A (54:30)

I think that's a great suggestion. That's very much how I think about it. Like, I start my day first thing in the morning, I take some aminos and some creatine. Like that's the. I just start my day with the aminos. And like immediately I know that I've already started chipping away at that daily protein intake or the reason why I would want the higher daily protein intake, right? And then again, it's like I can fit it in one more time maybe in the middle of the day, or if I'm going to exercise before, maybe right before I exercise or why I'm exercising and then again before bed. So it's like it just finding those kind of little small moments in between where you can fit it in. That makes sense for me and really works. And luckily with amino acids. So it's an interesting trick with Older folks, what they found is that when you give them essential amino acids, it doesn't affect their ability to eat a meal later. So if you take essential amino acids, say at 6am and typically they wouldn't really want to eat breakfast until like 9, they'll still eat at 9 and they're fine. It didn't really affect it. At the same time, a lot of people report, and I have this experience that if I am trying to, like, not overeat and I like to eat more, like, I don't have a problem of, like, I can't. I don't have enough hunger. Like, I have a lot of hunger. Taking the amino acids does, like, take the edge off. Like, not only am I getting those amino acids in my body, and I'm sure I'm ensuring that I'm stimulating this protein synthesis and maintaining my skin and my hair and my nails and my muscle, but also I'm not like white knuckling it or something. Like, I'm fine. I'm fine until I want to eat. And then when I eat, I have like a normal, you know, hunger for that meal, et cetera. So it's a really nice balance between not suppressing your appetite when you need appetite, but at the same time not making you feel, you know, it takes the edge off of, like, wanting to eat.

B (56:11)

Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. There's. There's no appetite suppression whatsoever or, you know, not. We talked earlier about using aminos after a bad night's sleep to calm your appetite from rapid glucose cycling. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not what Angela is talking about. He's saying that doing a scoop of amino acids in your water isn't the same as doing a protein shake. Like, after this shake, I'm full. I'm good. I don't actually need anything. I don't have hunger cues for a good three, four hours. But if I was just doing aminos in my water, I would still be my normal hungry. So, you know, I'm glad you pointed that out because, yeah, a lot of people will think like, well, then how am I going to. I'm going to be full from it. No, you're not. No, you're not.

A (56:57)

Yeah, it doesn't make you feel full. Honestly, I think a big part of it. And there's more emerging science coming out around this too. So amino. I mean, we listed all the things essential amino acids do in the body. They're also the precursors to our neurotransmitters. So the Chemicals in our brain through which we experience focus, attention, sadness, depression, fatigue, they actually the amino acids are what become those. And by taking something like an essential amino acid supplement, particularly one that's like more like a kion type supplement where it has these higher levels of phenylalanine but very low tryptophan, you're basically increasing the dopamine levels in your brain and reducing the relative serotonin levels so you feel more alert, focused, et cetera, which oftentimes we don't realize. We think sometimes, oh, it's just like my blood sugar is what's affecting how I feel and maybe my fatigue or something. It's actually your protein intake and your essential amino acid intake as well that directly relates to which neurotransmitters are more predominant in your brain. At least it's one major impact of that. Obviously, it's a complicated chemical process, but it's a pretty major impact. And there have been studies and even more that are coming out to show that. So I think maybe that's what I'm talking about too. It's like, maybe in the past you'd be like, oh, I need to eat so I can even focus at work. Like, no, actually I can take amino acids and I can focus fine. I feel great.

B (58:14)

Okay, well, this leads me into the next question, fasting. If people take amino acids during a fast, as a break a fast, or does it actually help because they're at least getting in the aminos during a.

A (58:26)

Fast, it greatly helps and enhances a fast. And I'll make the case why. Number one, I think when people talk about fasting, it's like, why are you doing it? Are you doing it because it helps you eat less? Are you doing it to give yourself digestive rest? Are you doing it because you have some idea of, like, more longevity, like, you know, mitochondrial biogenesis and autophagy and things like that? I think a lot of people are like, I don't know, I'm doing it because some podcast told me to do it. Or, you know, it's like, I don't know exactly, but it's supposedly good for me. Well, what I would say is, like, it can be good for you. It can be good to, like, give yourself, your digestive system some rest. It can be good to. To help eat less if that's. If that's a problem for you and kind of constrict the times that you eat. And it can be helpful in some ways for cell, quote, cellular health. Right? So in terms of eating last during the day aminos, plus it's going to help you. Like again, you're not going to have as many cues where you're like starving if you take them during a fast. Number two, there's no real digestive impact. Your digestive system isn't having to like break down a protein or a protein powder, it's just going right through. And three, very interestingly so what has been shown is that essential amino acids, again, leucine enriched ones, actually promote either as much or more mitochondrial biogenesis. So the creation of these more mitochondria, which are these powerhouses of the cell, than caloric restriction or fasting alone. So it enhances it. Right. So what I would say is across the board it's just, it's just a plus. Then what I would say is, now I think one of the reasons why people may not want to fast and I would say the older you are, the more I would discourage you from fasting. That is, you already are having a hard time building and maintaining muscle, right?

B (60:14)

Yes.

A (60:14)

And what happens is when you don't have amino acids in your blood enough to help rebuild your hormones, to help rebuild your heart tissue, et cetera, where do you get those amino acids from? Like what? It's not like your body just stops rebuilding the heart tissue. It's not like it just stops making those hormones or enzymes. There's only one place in the body that is the reservoir of amino acids for all these other functions. It is your muscle.

B (60:39)

Yes.

A (60:39)

So what happens is if you go for an extended period, and I'm saying it's not that big of a deal if you're young, but even a few hours, six hours, seven hours, eight hours, nine hours, you are going to start tapping into your muscle. You're going to start breaking down muscle to supply the body with amino acids to help support all these other proteins being built throughout the body. So again, when you're younger, it's like you're eating, you know, you're in your 20s, you're eating plenty of protein, you're exercising a lot. Like I don't think you need to worry about it, you know, middle age, maybe more, you know, kind of see how it makes you feel if you're like over 60, I just wouldn't, I wouldn't mess with it, I wouldn't mess with fasting. Doesn't seem worth it. And if you're going to definitely take essential amino acids.

B (61:20)

Yes. Oh my gosh, I love it when a guest says something, and I haven't said this in a while, But I have said this before, especially for my listeners who are also losing their hair, if you are not getting in enough protein and essential amino acids. That's exactly what I say. Angela, where do you think your body is? Our bodies are smart. Our body will find amino acids somewhere and it's going to be in your muscles. Absolutely. And it's also going to see, it's not going to give nourishment to your hair follicle when it needs aminos to survive. You know, our bodies know that you don't need good hair, you don't need to grow your hair when you're literally fighting to stay alive. And I know that that sounds extreme, but without amino acids, you tied it to the heart. You know, the heart is a muscle. The heart needs amino acids to beat and repair and work properly. So if we're not getting enough. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Our bodies will break down our muscle and will. Absolutely. There's no way your hair shaft is getting nourishment. No way. No way.

A (62:29)

I. Sorry. I laughed only because I've seen it the case so many times where people think they have all these other different issues around, like hair thickness, their hair not growing back as well, et cetera, and they start taking aminos and it gets better. And it's not some magic thing. It's like that's literally where it come. Like. I mean, again, it's a complex process. There's different types of hormones and different functions of the body involved, but literally the raw materials are amino acids. Like, that's how the hair gets made. And so if you're deficient in that and your body's struggling to get it, it is not going to prioritize that.

B (63:03)

Right. Yeah. For you, by the red light cap.

A (63:08)

Seriously? For real?

B (63:10)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love that you said that. Okay, well, you already mentioned some key points to look for in an amino acid supplement, leucine being one of them. But let's break it down for the audience. Simplify it. What to look for. Of course, I've already shared. I've been using Kion now for years. I mean, I think I'm going on three years now. I just love it. I mean, I. I love it because I love the product because it works, because I see how it helps me to not only maintain, but I've built muscle. I share this quite often. I have more muscle now than when I was competing in my 20s. Because now I know that the resistance training and the amino acid intake and then not starving yourself and not overdoing cardio all of that works together to literally put on muscle to create anabolism instead of catabolism. So break down for the listener what they need to look for in a good quality supplement. I mean, they could take my word for it and get Kion and we'll give them a discount code. But what are they actually looking for on the label?

A (64:13)

So I think the first thing that you want to look for is make sure it's not a proprietary blend. This is not a condemnation of all proprietary blends for all different types of product categories. I think, you know, you could go to an acupuncturist, for example, and there's a whole list of botanicals that are going in it. And it's unique and there can be reasons for that when you're buying an amino acid supplement. Proprietary blends do not make any sense. There is no reason for there to be a proprietary blend. The reason why is because the science is publicly available and you can tell and see and know exactly how much of each amino acid you actually want to be taking at a time. Because the wrong amount of amino acids and ratios to each other, it can be very good for you or not good for you. Point. I just made phenylalanine higher, tryptophan lower. You're going to get more of this dopamine response and less of the serotonin response, a lot more of the leucine, and you're going to ensure that you overcome the anabolic resistance. So just fundamentally, knowing what's in it is very important. And there's no reason for a supplement company not to tell you what's in it. The advantages to the supplement company not telling you what's in it are this one, if you do that, you don't have to test through. I don't have to prove to you how much of each amino acids in it. I can change it. I need to maintain, like the order of them. But it could be a hundred grams more of this, a hundred grams less of that. So it's great. It's much easier. I can change formula whenever I want to. If I'm doing that, I can also buy cheaper amino acids. So not all amino acids are the same price to get into a product. So I can be much cheaper, I can make more money from it. But like any amino acid company with integrity that really wants to, like, serve you, it's just going to tell you how much is in it. So that's number one, don't go for proprietary plans. Number two then. So then what are the Right proportions. And I think generally you can just go look at the Kion label. And I'm going to tell you that label follows kind of the consolidation of a lot of research for studies on many different populations sponsored by tons of different sponsors. Which is important, right? Because you know, maybe the NIH wants to see this kind of outcome and NASA wants to see this, or you know, a sports supplement company wants to see this. We're talking like tens and tens, if not hundred, 100 studies in this general subject area that show that. Basically you want to start with the basic proportions of human skeletal muscle. Like if I actually did a biopsy of my amino acid, the amino acids in my muscle, what would, how much tryptophan would there be versus threonine versus methionine? There's a proportion of those. And then you want to increase the leucine to be at this 40% threshold level. And then you want to also increase the isoleucine, the valine and the lysine. And again without nerding on it too much, like that's the general frame. So if you look at the Kion label, you get a general flow that it's like, Whoa, it's like 2 grams of the 5 gram dosage is leucine. Like that's a lot of it. That's 40% tryptophans all the way at the very bottom, it's only like a few milligrams. There's a reason for that flow. That's, that's the flow you want to see. Then the next thing I would say is you do not need other stuff in there. So if they're trying to tell you you need arginine or citrulline or these other types of non essential amino acids, or you need some kind of, I mean all these companies are coming up with some new fancy mumbo jumbo, like some specific acid that's going to make it do this. Like everything we talked about today is supported by really legit, again, science from multiple different inputs, lots of different groups studying it and it's the consolidation of it. And what you need is these nine essential amino acids in these general proportions and you're directionally going in the right way. You don't need whatever thing that this company is trying to add so they can differentiate themselves from others. Right? You just, you need these nine and then after that you don't need a bunch of other stuff there. You shouldn't see a huge ingredient panel. Like it shouldn't be, you know, if you're buying a flavored product, it's going to be flavored. If it's going to be sweetened, there's going to be some kind of sweetener in it. And that's, you know, that's basically it. So I think it should be pretty clean label. You don't need other things to produce it. And I think if you follow the those principles, that's, you know, that's how Keon came up with what we came up with. We looked at what the science and literature said. We hired the smartest people in the field as advisors, consultants to review it. All the people who are involved in this actual research follow that. Buy premium ingredients, tell people what's in it, make it clean. It's a pretty like simple recipe. So I would just say anyone who tries to make it like more complicated than that, like, don't go towards that and danger.

B (68:32)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, no, thank you for everything today, for, for teaching me new stuff that I didn't know about amino acids and protein and just for educating my audience because it's such an important topic. It's so important. And so bonus, the audience for listening to this, we are going to give you a discount. Kian has been so gracious to, to give my audience a discount of 20% off, which is huge. So it's a no brainer. You got to go try it. Like I always shared already shared. You can't go wrong with the flavors. Gosh, if you held the gun to my head and said, pick one, I'm gonna go with the berry, that's probably at the top of my list. But then I get into a mango mood and I get the watermelon mood going in the summer. So it try them all. But they're giving you a 20 off code. You're gonna go to getkeon.com forward slash thyroids. I'm gonna spell it for you. G-E-T K-I-O-N.com forward slash T H Y R O-I-Getkeon.com forward slash thyroid. And that alone is going to get. You don't even need a code. Just use that link. It's going to automatically apply 20% off at checkout. You got it? You just got to try all the flavors. But when you add this, and I promise you, everyone listening to this, I promise you the reason why I have Angela on this show, the reason why we're breaking this all down. Yes. Is to educate you, but also to give you access to quality products so you're not out there floundering. So you're not wasting your money. So you're not using something that, you know, at the end of the day you're going to use a proprietary blend and go, what is Amy talking about? This hasn't helped me recover. This hasn't helped me build muscle. It's all about the quality. And that's why Angelo is on this show, is because I've tried it. I love it. I love Kion. I will use that for the rest of my life. That will be my amino acid of choice from here on out. Because you use the science. Because you, you don't BS people. This is it. This is the science of amino acids. This is the importance of amino acids. And I love how you broke it down for us today.

A (70:39)

Amy, thank you so much for having me and just, you know, having the opportunity to dive into this stuff with someone that really cares about it. And I'm so grateful that it's been useful to you in your life and your journey and your recovery and yeah, just so glad we get to have this kind of conversation.

B (70:53)

No, it's. It's been fantastic. I love the addition. I use it every day, like I said, throughout the day. And yeah, thank you for being a key component in my recovery journey. And that discount code we will put down below in the show notes, so click down there to check it out. Angela, thank you so much for your time today.

A (71:10)

Thank you, Amy.

B (71:11)

All right, everyone, take care. The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthc care professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not been evaluated by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast may include sponsorships or affiliate links. The host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service is not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.