00:00:00
I want women to stop being losers. And so, I'm on a mission to really undo the genuinely terrible advice that most
00:00:08
women have been given as it concerns their health and their fitness. So, we're going to talk through some
00:00:12
actionable strategies on how to build a body that has curves, more of [music] an
00:00:16
hourglass figure. But, Stephen, if I can be very honest with you, I am pissed off
00:00:21
because we've been sold a lie that our worth is the number on the scale. And I've seen tens of thousands of patients
00:00:28
over my 20-year tenure. And right now, a lot of online dialogue is I want to be toned. I want to have the Pilates body.
00:00:36
Be as small as possible. So, this is where I get a little fired up because I also have personal experience struggling
00:00:42
with my own weight and my own worth. I was trying to become what I thought was the right thing. And I had massive
00:00:47
problems afterwards. So, I am going to be very transparent and honest with you. The pursuit of skinny is a bad thing
00:00:54
with devastating consequences. Like, you're going to end up with bone disease like osteoporosis.
00:00:59
>> So, there's lots of things on the desk here in front of us that I'd love to go
00:01:02
through. We've got these five fitness myths. >> Yes, so one of them, for example, is a
00:01:07
lot of women are scared to consume more carbohydrates because they think [music]
00:01:10
it's going to make them fat. But, we need carbohydrates for our mood, our sleep, even performance at the gym. And
00:01:16
then there's also women are scared that if they're lifting heavy weights, that they're going to start looking like a
00:01:22
bodybuilder. But, that's almost impossible. 97% of women don't have the hormonal
00:01:28
environment to bulk. >> And then we've also got these archetypes here. >> So, there's four [music] archetypes that
00:01:33
women identify themselves in their fitness journey. And the most common woman that I see is skinny fat Sophie.
00:01:39
And we'll talk about what this means. >> So, let's talk about what the women listening should understand about
00:01:43
hormones. How do you think about fasting and your menstrual cycle? What are the specific issues that mothers face as it
00:01:49
relates to fitness? I mean, there's lots of things that I'd love to talk about. >> 100%. That makes me so excited.
00:01:56
>> This is super interesting to me. My team gave me this report to show me how many
00:01:59
of you that watch this show subscribe. And some of you have told us, according to this, that you are unsubscribed from
00:02:04
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00:02:09
If you are a regular viewer of this show and you like what we do here. We're approaching quite a significant landmark
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on this show in terms of a subscriber number. So, if there was one simple, free thing that you could do to help us,
00:02:19
my team, everyone here, to keep this show free, to keep it improving year over year and week over week, it is just
00:02:25
to hit that subscribe button and to double-check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll ever ask of you.
00:02:29
Do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make sure every single week, every single month,
00:02:35
we fight harder and harder and harder and harder to bring you the guests and conversations that you want to hear. I
00:02:39
stay true to that promise since the very beginning of The Diary of a CEO, and I will not let you down. Please help us.
00:02:45
Really appreciate it. Let's get on with the show. Dr. Stephanie Estima. Why is it you do what you do? Like,
00:02:55
ultimately, what is it you're trying to change in the world? What impact are you
00:02:58
trying to have? And who are you trying to have [clears throat] it for? >> Well, I am on a mission to really undo
00:03:05
the genuinely terrible advice that most women have been given as it concerns their health and their fitness. And what
00:03:14
I mean by that is for the vast majority of health and fitness goals for women, it's all about
00:03:20
becoming smaller. It's about becoming skinnier. It's about losing weight. It's about dropping a dress size. Stephen, if
00:03:27
I can be very honest with you, I want women to stop being losers. I want them to stop trying to lose all the time.
00:03:36
And instead, what I would love for them to do is to shift their focus from losing
00:03:41
and focusing more on what they have to gain. So, how much muscle can they gain? How
00:03:47
much bone density can they gain? How much connective tissue capacity from their joints, their tendons, their
00:03:52
ligaments can they gain? Can they work towards building a body that they love and trust and enjoy
00:04:00
living in? >> Why do you want that for women? Specifically this losing gaining thing.
00:04:05
>> We've been sold a lie that our worth is the number on the scale, which is by the
00:04:12
way, you know, when you when you're weighing yourself, this is really just a reflection of your relationship with
00:04:17
gravity, no more, no less, right? But we are told that when we fit into a certain
00:04:22
dress size, that we are now worthy, that we will somehow have arrived. That is not the
00:04:29
full experience of being women. Women can be strong, women can be capable, women can be competent, and you can't do
00:04:36
that when you're starving yourself, when you're over exercising and you're not prioritizing your recovery or treating
00:04:42
recovery like it is something that you have to earn. >> So, are you saying being skinny is a bad
00:04:49
thing or >> I'm saying that the pursuit of skinny at all costs is a bad thing. So, right now
00:04:57
a lot of online dialogue is, you know, strong is the new skinny. I don't want to pit those two things against each
00:05:04
other, but I do want to like if you are obese, you are much better not being obese, right?
00:05:10
>> Mhm. >> But it is the pursuit of skinny at the sacrificial altar of everything else. So, if you are
00:05:17
somebody who values being slim, the likelihood that you are going to pick up heavy weights or weights that challenge
00:05:24
you with enough effort and intensity is going to be lower. The likelihood that your bone density is
00:05:31
going to be sufficient over the arc of your life is going to be lower. You are going to likely under consume calories.
00:05:39
If you are someone who thinks that they've won because they can fit into, you know, you're 40 and you can fit into
00:05:45
a size whatever dress. But when you're 65, you have osteoporosis, you haven't won. You've been you've been tricked.
00:05:52
>> Tricked by who? >> A society that tells us that our worth is solely based on how small we are.
00:06:02
>> Hm. And who are you? Like in terms of why this matters so much to you as Dr. Stephanie?
00:06:09
>> Yeah. >> What do I what context do I need to know there? Cuz I can see you're a little bit pissed
00:06:13
off. >> I'm so >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I am pissed off in a loving way. So we'll say it that way. I have
00:06:19
professional experience in this and I also have personal experience in it as well. I have an undergrad in
00:06:24
neuroscience and psychology from the University of Toronto. When I was pursuing that, I became a fitness
00:06:29
instructor, uh a personal trainer. So this is, you know, very young. I started having uh my
00:06:36
first exposure to seeing firsthand how people were setting goals for themselves and having a difficult time achieving
00:06:43
it. Went on to the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto, Canada. And then I was in I've been in practice
00:06:51
for 20 years. So I've seen tens of thousands of of patients over my 20-year tenure and the same pattern kept
00:07:00
showing up over and over and over. And then personally, I also, you know, just being a woman living in this society,
00:07:08
grew up also struggling with my weight, trying to control my what I ate, trying to do lots and lots of cardio to keep my
00:07:19
weight down into what I thought was the ideal body type. I competed in a figure competition, which was really the first
00:07:26
moment for me where I really felt like the science failed me because I had followed everything to a T. Do lots of
00:07:33
cardio, restrict your calories, you have to earn your recovery. The day that I got up on stage, I was 11% body
00:07:41
fat. So just just for context, you know, women have about 10 to call it 13% essential body fat. And if you go
00:07:50
beneath that, then you start to get into a lot of trouble. So, I was right at the
00:07:53
bottom range of that. Most women, a healthy body fat percentage is something like
00:07:59
call it 18 to 25%. I had lost my period for 2 months before I think it was two or three months
00:08:06
before I stepped on stage. I ended up um with hormonal issues. My period had I had It took a long time for that to
00:08:13
regulate again. I gained all the weight back that I had lost. And I felt like a total failure. And I
00:08:20
felt like the science had failed me. >> And it caused you a lot of pain. >> I hated myself.
00:08:27
Like, full stop. I looked in the mirror. I hated what I saw. I would pinch I would pick I was like, I
00:08:33
wish this, I wish that, I wish I wish. The other thing I'll say is the weeks before I stepped up on that stage,
00:08:41
people were coming up to me and showering me with compliments. People were like, "Oh my god, you look you look
00:08:48
amazing. What are you doing? What's your program?" And so, it's I think it's so confusing for women. Maybe we lose the
00:08:55
weight or we we go on this health journey, which is often just code word for getting smaller.
00:09:00
And we we get showered with these external compliments. And at the time, I was starving because I was not eating. I
00:09:08
was completely overworked. I wasn't sleeping. And I didn't have my period. Like, I was not the picture of health,
00:09:13
but everybody was telling me how amazing I was, how amazing I looked. So, I think that's where we get it we we
00:09:21
we hitch our worth to what the outside world tells us, rather than thinking about who we need to be and how we need
00:09:29
to show up for ourselves first in order to be able to give to everybody else, but also just unhitch ourselves from
00:09:37
other people's expectations of us. >> And for the women and for all the people I guess that have clicked to listen to
00:09:42
this conversation right now, what are they going to leave this conversation with specifically? And how is that going
00:09:48
to impact their life? >> Yeah. So, this is for women and the men who love them. So, this is for everyone.
00:09:54
>> Okay. >> Um I think for women, maybe you have been doing like the good girl thing like I
00:10:00
was doing, you're doing the things that you thought you should have been doing, but you still don't have the dream body
00:10:04
or the body composition that you want. We're going to talk through some actionable strategies on how to do that.
00:10:10
I think if you're in midlife, so you're in your 40s, your 50s, and maybe you're finding that you used to do those
00:10:17
strategies and now they're not working for you as well or as much as they once did, we're going to maybe break a little
00:10:26
bit of your paradigm in the way that you think you're thinking about health. >> And how old are you?
00:10:31
>> I'm 48. >> Hm. >> Mhm. >> I think it's important context. >> Yeah. >> But you're also a mother?
00:10:36
>> I'm a mother of two, yeah. >> Of two. >> Mother of two and then I have a I'm have
00:10:40
a stepson as well. >> Okay. >> Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> So, um there's lots of things on the
00:10:43
desk here in front of us that I'd love to go through. They're all things that really really interest me. We've also
00:10:47
got these five fitness myths in this envelope here that we'll reveal at some point and these archetypes here.
00:10:55
Where do you believe the best place to start this conversation is? >> I think that maybe we can talk about the
00:11:01
archetypes because I think that it sets the stage for allowing women to identify themselves in their fitness
00:11:09
journey, however that is. Okay, my first Overwhelmed Olivia, this woman wants to do the right thing. Okay,
00:11:20
so she is on social media and within a couple of minutes of going on social media, she sees someone saying, "Plants
00:11:28
are trying to kill you. Olivia, you should never have plants. They're terrible for you. And she keeps
00:11:33
scrolling and then she comes upon someone else who says, "Actually, plants are great for you. They have lots of
00:11:38
fiber. They have lots of phytonutrients, etc." So, she's like, "Oh, okay, that's weird.
00:11:43
Let me look up some fitness stuff." And then same thing with the fitness. Some people say,
00:11:48
"You don't want to get bulky, Olivia. So, you need to do light weights, high reps." And then there's other people
00:11:54
that are like, "That's not true. You can As long as you're bringing the muscle close to failure, you will build
00:12:00
muscle." So, she's getting the I like to call it infobesity. It's like so much information. It's too much information
00:12:07
that she ends up getting like you know, it's like analysis paralysis. And this woman, I have a soft spot for her
00:12:13
because she just is so scared to start something else and fail at it because she doesn't want
00:12:20
that to reinforce her own schema, her own perception of her being a failure. All right, so she doesn't do anything.
00:12:27
When we think about uh overwhelmed Olivia, we don't want to get her A to Z. We don't want to get her all the way to
00:12:33
her goal. We just want to give her a couple of quick wins to start. Right? Get her just A to B. We're just going to
00:12:39
get her walking. She's just going to have a goal of racking up 5 to 7,000 steps in a day so she feels like she's a
00:12:45
winner in some vertical of her life. And then you start to layer in more things with her as she goes along.
00:12:53
The second one is probably my favorite, the the most common woman that I see, skinny fat Sophia. So, the technical
00:13:00
term for skinny fat is TOFI, thin on the outside, fat on the inside. This is a woman who doesn't present as obese, but
00:13:09
her body composition, she's starting to see a loss of maybe bone loss, a loss of
00:13:14
muscle because she is not she's very afraid of heavy weights. So, maybe I'll do some Pilates, some yoga, maybe I'll
00:13:23
walk, right? She also calorically restricts as well, right? So this woman is my is like personally she's my
00:13:31
favorite woman because when we start giving her a little bit more food >> Mhm. >> [clears throat]
00:13:37
>> and we start giving her just a little bit heavier weights than the 2-lb weights that she's been lifting, you
00:13:42
know, in her Pilates class. And by the way, I don't want Pilates people to come for me. I love Pilates, but it's just
00:13:48
not the main strategy for muscle building. So it's just >> Pilates. >> I love Pilates. I do it twice a week.
00:13:52
It's fantastic. But this woman, when she starts eating a little bit, I all This is what she
00:13:58
always says to me. I can't believe I'm losing fat. I can't believe I'm losing weight by eating
00:14:04
more. What is this trickery? What is this magic? So I love this woman because when we get her to see the light, it's
00:14:10
actually just it's just a beautiful thing to have all her schema sort of rearrange in terms of what she thought
00:14:14
was possible for her. >> Mhm. >> Okay? >> This subject to fat. >> Yes. >> If someone comes to you and they say,
00:14:20
"Stephanie, I would love to lose some some belly fat >> Mhm. >> because I'm skinny fat. Or maybe I'm
00:14:25
just, you know, I just have a bit too much weight on me. What is it you say to them?"
00:14:29
>> You can't actually spot reduce. >> What does spot reduce mean? >> So someone wants to reduce their belly
00:14:34
fat, you can't just target belly fat. So the way that you're going to reduce overall adiposity in the body is you're
00:14:43
going to be strength training, which we've talked about, but you will probably also need some kind of caloric
00:14:50
deficit. So when we think about that very famous, somewhat oversimplified calories in, calories out, so you want
00:14:57
me thinking about how am I going to create a deficit? So I'm consu- either consuming less
00:15:04
calories on the calories inside or I'm eating the same, but I have more output. So I'm doing more cardio or I'm doing
00:15:11
more weight lifting or I'm doing more walking or I'm doing something where my calories out surpass my calories in.
00:15:18
>> Is there an easiest way to do that? Cuz we hear hearing that, you know, just eat
00:15:21
less is is quite >> I hate it. >> It's it's, yeah, know, not great. >> Yeah, and it doesn't it doesn't work in
00:15:26
the long term, either. You can temporarily reduce your food, but at some point, your hunger hormones and
00:15:32
your body is just going to drive you to consume more calories. I often find when
00:15:36
women are like, "Hey, I just want to I want to build muscle and lose fat." Or if it's just, "Hey, I want to lose fat."
00:15:41
I personally find it easier for women, specifically, to do more on the calories out side. So, not to
00:15:49
>> Exercise. >> Yeah, so doing more exercise, more daily movement. I think that the calories in
00:15:54
is totally doable. People do it all the time. I just find it's hard for most women to stick to long term. Cuz then
00:16:01
they have to, you know, they got to measure, they got to do all the things. So, if you can figure out what your
00:16:04
maintenance calories are, and then you can surpass that with maybe more walking or something that's not going to ratchet
00:16:10
up your hunger hormones or your cortisol levels, let's say, I think that that's often I think it's a healthier option,
00:16:17
personally, um because you're also making sure that you're getting in sufficient substrate, sufficient
00:16:22
calories, so that you can actually build you know, you can build muscle, bone density, collagen, etc.
00:16:28
So, that's our skinny fat Sophia. Up next, I was this woman I sometimes still am this woman, exercist Emily. So, this
00:16:37
is a just a funny word, um to really describe the intensity that this woman puts out
00:16:44
at the gym, right? So, this woman, you have no problem getting her to the gym. She is the woman at the squat rack.
00:16:51
There's no problem getting her to the gym and getting her to work very diffi- like very hard. What her issue is, and
00:16:58
this was me for years, is that she still has some of the skinny fat Sophia attitude towards food. So, there's a
00:17:06
mismatch with her between how much effort she's putting out with her uh exercise program and how much energy is
00:17:15
coming in with her food. She's still under eating because she's scared of gaining weight.
00:17:19
>> Mhm. I was exorcist Emily. I was, you know, had the hoodie on, wearing the ear
00:17:25
like I nobody talked to me with my big earphones on. Uh this was for me after I was going
00:17:29
through a divorce with my I had very young children at the time. They were five and three. So I was I was grieving
00:17:36
that and I was still adhering to this idea that I had to punish myself. That I was going to go to the gym and crush it
00:17:43
and then follow that with insufficient calories afterwards because I still had that well I can't eat a lot I'm going to
00:17:49
gain weight kind of mentality. So exorcist Emily, we love her. Um and then the pinnacle if you will is
00:17:58
the dialed in Diana. So this is the woman who has maybe made peace with some of her
00:18:05
demons, um enjoys movement, knows that it's a way for her to tend to herself. You
00:18:11
know, food is not a punishment. It's not she doesn't restrict calories because she ate too much. She fuels to nourish
00:18:17
her lifts, to nourish her recovery, and for pleasure. Cuz I think a lot of us a lot of women have forgotten that food is
00:18:24
is pleasure. It gives us joy and happiness. My sourdough bread in the morning gives me lots and lots of
00:18:30
pleasure and I will not give it up for anything. So this is sort of the this is where we want every woman to be
00:18:35
able to get to. We want her to dial in both her exercise program, her nutrition program, and to give herself some effing
00:18:43
grace with her recovery. >> You can swear. >> Yeah, her [ __ ] her [ __ ] So give
00:18:48
herself some [ __ ] grace with her with her recovery. >> got demonetized. >> [laughter]
00:18:55
>> Okay, but I get it. So we're trying We're trying to get everybody to become dialed in Diana.
00:18:59
>> Yeah. And also just know so if you've been listening to these descriptions like oh
00:19:03
I got a little bit of the exorcist Emily I got a little bit of that rage or grief
00:19:07
or something but then I also sometimes have analysis paralysis like you will also oscillate through them and that's
00:19:12
completely normal as well. Yeah. >> When you were talking about excess stamina, that was not a wasn't a light
00:19:18
season of your life, was it? >> No, it was very dark. And it was the There was the lifting that got me
00:19:22
through it, truthfully. Yeah. It's, you know, sometimes when we think about resistance training, it's
00:19:28
literally training your resistance. It's not a question for, you know, if something bad is going to happen,
00:19:34
it's just a it's a matter of when. So, I think something, you know, voluntarily putting yourself
00:19:41
in a situation where you are making yourself uncomfortable, you know, going to the gym and moving your muscles to
00:19:47
failure is not, you know, it's not fun. Uh it can be quite intense, but it does train your
00:19:54
resistance, your grit, your mental capacity to withstand, you know, terrible things.
00:20:01
>> So, by the end of this conversation, everybody listening is going to be a dialed-in Diana.
00:20:04
>> I That is my dream. >> Okay, let's do it. >> dream. Yeah. >> First, we should start with debunking
00:20:08
some of the myths. What's the six myths in this little envelope here? >> Okay. So, the first one is carbs.
00:20:17
>> Mhm. >> And so, the So, all the ladies who are listening, we have to heal our
00:20:23
relationship with carbohydrates. You can restrict carbs temporarily and for certain populations, that's a
00:20:29
wonderful idea. Uh if you're a woman that has a type 2 diabetes or PMOS, something like that, a
00:20:37
temporary clawback of carbohydrates is fantastic for improving insulin insensitivity, glucose disposal, um
00:20:47
but diets like a low-carb diet or a ketogenic diet, which I am a big fan of for certain populations and even for a
00:20:54
temporary amount of time, I think what a lot of women did with the carbs is once
00:20:59
they started losing weight on a keto diet or a low-carb diet, they said, "Oh, you know what the
00:21:04
problem is? It's the carbs. I'm never going to go back. And the problem with that is that if you
00:21:12
were sick, you had a bacterial infection, you went to your doctor, they did a swab, came back positive, and
00:21:17
they're like, "You know what? You have a bacterial infection. I'm going to give you a script for antibiotics." Right?
00:21:23
You're going to take it for the next 10 days, and then, you know, you'll come back for a checkup and we'll see how
00:21:27
you're doing. You do that, you follow the protocol, you take the medication. I don't think anybody listening, or at
00:21:34
least I hope, anybody who's listening is not going to come to the conclusion at the end of those 10 days, "Do you know
00:21:39
what I need to do to never get sick again? I need to continue taking antibiotics
00:21:43
for the rest of my life." No one is going to do that. But somehow, for carbohydrates, people made the
00:21:50
illogical conclusion that you should never have carbohydrates ever again. And for women, what I noticed, so I'm
00:21:59
sure we'll talk about my first book, The Betty Body, I advocate for a low low carbohydrate, a higher protein diet in
00:22:06
there, but for a transient amount of time, right? Until you achieve the goal of, you know, reversing metabolic issues
00:22:15
or losing some weight, etc., improving your period, that's another thing that we actually see is menstrual cycle
00:22:21
regulation. But if you stay here too long, your thyroid, like so many women >> What's the symptom of the consequence if
00:22:27
your thyroid being malfunctioning? >> Yeah, I would say you're always cold. So your hands are cold, you're always
00:22:34
cold. You might have very, very heavy bleeding, so your menstrual cycle during your bleed week, so that first three to
00:22:40
seven days, let's say, when you're on your period. Hair shedding, so hair starts to actually fall out. Hair is not
00:22:47
necessary at all for survival. So when you don't have sufficient calories or sufficient balance of macros, your body
00:22:55
is going to sacrifice the things that don't matter at all to your survival. And a lot of women will start to say
00:23:01
hair uh shedding comes out. The classic sign is the lateral third of the eyebrow. We start to see the lateral
00:23:07
third of the eyebrow start to fall out as well. >> mean the lateral third? >> The outside the outside third of the
00:23:12
eyebrow. So, the tail for most people of their eyebrow starts to get really sparse and thin as well.
00:23:17
So, there's lots of common signs and symptoms, but we need carbohydrates if not for the thyroid, but for our
00:23:25
mood, our sleep, even performance performance at the gym. In the vein of transparency and honesty, I don't always
00:23:33
get to eat before I train, but on the weekends when I do and I have some bread and I have some omelets or I have
00:23:39
what it my breakfast and I go and train, fantastic performance enhancer. A lot of
00:23:45
women are scared to consume more carbohydrates because they think it's going to make them fat.
00:23:49
And this is really comes down to this C I M or carbohydrate insulin model of obesity, which has kind of largely been
00:23:56
like disbanded. There's not a lot of evidence to support it anymore, but there's a lot of people online that will
00:24:02
scare you and think, well, if you have carbs, your glucose levels might spike. And that, you know, the way that it's
00:24:08
often presented is that is the worst thing that ever could happen to you. >> But there's such a thing as too many
00:24:14
carbs. >> Correct. Yes. I think that the problem is not that the carbs were the problem,
00:24:19
it's the overconsumption of carbs, the overconsumption of fat, the overconsumption of of total calories.
00:24:26
>> So, it's defined by calories here. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> There should be a button just down below
00:24:32
here. And if it says subscribe, you're already subscribed. If it says subscribe bar, that means you're not yet. And if
00:24:38
you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit that button. It helps to show more than you know. And
00:24:42
according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you
00:24:46
so much. What's the next one? What's the next myth in your folder? >> Oh, this one. I love this one.
00:24:53
Uh this one is women getting bulky. Women are still scared that if they engage in a program of
00:25:08
progressive overload, which is to say that you are maybe you are lifting heavy weights, maybe you are doing more
00:25:16
volume, meaning you're doing more sets or more repetitions, that somehow you are going to bulk up. As if
00:25:24
to say that they're going to start looking like a you know, some a physique competitor, a bodybuilder.
00:25:30
It [snorts] is the equivalent of saying, well, if you drive to the store to get some groceries that you are going to be
00:25:36
on par with Lewis Hamilton and you're going to be a Formula 1 driver, right? It's just
00:25:42
almost impossible for I'm going to say 97 to 98% of women don't have the hormonal
00:25:50
environment to bulk. There are a few genetically gifted outliers that absolutely can, but for the most part,
00:25:56
women cannot bulk. We do not have as much I don't have as much testosterone than as you do. You have like 10 to 20 x
00:26:03
more than I do. So, even if we train the same way, I'm never going to be able to
00:26:08
put on as much muscle mass as you. But a gal can continue to dream, right? I can continue to hope.
00:26:14
>> [laughter] >> So, bulking up it's not a thing. Um what I what I will say though,
00:26:18
actually what I will say is some people when they do start lifting weights initially, they will start to feel a
00:26:23
little thicker, right? Cuz the muscle is a little bit more swollen. There's also
00:26:27
a layer of fat that usually sits on top of the muscle. So, as you begin to lose body fat, your muscles will begin to uh
00:26:37
poke through, let's say. Um but sometimes that's why people will feel bulk they'll say, oh, I'm I'm getting
00:26:42
bulk I started and I stopped because I was getting bulky. It's just a sort of a a swelling or an inflammation, let's
00:26:46
say, of the muscle underneath. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Ooh. Long fasts. So, I will call myself out here as well.
00:26:56
I used to believe that this was the key. And this is when I was in my skinny fat
00:27:01
Sophia era, when I was in my Exorcist Emily era, where I thought that the more you could fast, the less calories you
00:27:11
could take in, and you could lose weight. You want to make sure that you have total sufficient
00:27:16
calories. You don't want to over consume calories, but you also don't want to under consume them either.
00:27:20
But fasting doesn't actually teach you how to eat when you are not fasting, right? So, I think that a lot of people
00:27:27
overly rely on long fast. So, when I say long, I would say 20 hours, 24 hours, 36, 72, like these really multi-day
00:27:37
fasts. If I start eating a lot less calories than let's say you do, I'm going to have, over the long term,
00:27:44
more detrimental effects than you might. >> Why? >> The female body is just more sensitive
00:27:52
to whether nutrients are coming in or not, so that we can figure out whether or not we want to direct our energy to,
00:27:59
you know, being able to get pregnant that month. Our ovaries, when we sort of look at the density of the mitochondria
00:28:05
in them, it's something like 100,000 mitochondria per oocyte, like per cell. So, they're constantly scanning the
00:28:12
environment to see whether it's safe for uh a woman to get pregnant. And so, if you are fasting all the time, you run
00:28:19
the risk of sending a signal that it's not safe, that these are famine conditions, and that you should not be
00:28:26
producing an egg because that would be terrible because if you got pregnant, there's not enough food to feed you or
00:28:32
the baby. >> So, it shuts off the your your menstrual cycle as a way to stop you having a baby.
00:28:37
>> Yes. So, you can still fast, but the way that I like to fast is sort of pull the
00:28:42
food, you know, call it 2 to 3 hours before you go to sleep. That's when you cut off the food, you
00:28:48
sleep for 8 or 9 hours, that's like a 10-hour, 11-ish hour fast, and then you wake up
00:28:53
in the morning and you eat. What often happens is women try to push that they'll have a cup of coffee in the
00:28:58
morning and then they try to push their eating window, let's say, to 11:00 or noon.
00:29:04
And that ends up Oh, it becomes more difficult, I'll say it that way. It becomes more difficult for you to get in
00:29:09
sufficient calories, sufficient protein, sufficient carbohydrates, and fats in a
00:29:14
restricted eating window. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Okay. So, this is related to the bulky myth.
00:29:20
I think a lot of women are scared of lifting heavy partially because they've never done it, so it's foreign.
00:29:26
And I think that the other reason that women are scared of lifting heavy is they're scared of getting
00:29:31
injured, which to be fair is a valid concern. I think that in the era of, you know,
00:29:39
again, social media can be a blessing and can be the greatest thing ever and sometimes it can be a um a vehicle for
00:29:44
misinformation. And I think now we hear muscle mommies and lifting heavy and I think that for
00:29:52
women, at least in my cohort, you know, 40s and 50s who grew up in the, you know, the 90s, the Kate Mosses and the
00:30:00
asking a woman who is very comfortable with a cardio machine as her vehicle for exercise to now move into the, you know,
00:30:06
the free weight section of the gym, the deadlifting platforms, even the machines, can feel really intimidating.
00:30:13
So, there are lots of different ways that you can build muscle. It doesn't have to
00:30:17
just be heavy. There are other ways that you can progressively overload the muscle, which is to say that you are
00:30:23
applying sufficient intensity and effort every single time, whether it's heavy weight or it's more volume, or you're
00:30:30
increasing the density of your workout, meaning you take less rest, so you're a little bit more tired. Like, you can
00:30:35
There's a lot of different ways that you can make a workout harder. It doesn't always have to be heavy.
00:30:39
>> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Heavy. >> Oh, this one This one's good. This is post-workout fueling. We used to think
00:30:46
that you only had 15 minutes to like knock back a protein shake, right? >> After you've done a workout.
00:30:51
>> After you've done a workout because you need to replenish the glycogen and you
00:30:53
have to start muscle protein synthesis, and I would say that this is largely false. Your muscle protein synthesis is
00:31:01
not just limited to the 15 or 30 minutes that are immediately after the workout,
00:31:05
right? Your muscles are building little protein factories over the next, you know, depending on how trained you are,
00:31:11
10 to 72 hours in some cases. As long as you are getting sufficient, again, total
00:31:18
protein over the course of the day, total calories over a 24-hour period, totally fine.
00:31:23
>> Okay. >> Yeah. Oh, pre-workout fueling. Okay. I would say in an ideal world, everyone would have some food before
00:31:34
they train. So, a little bit of protein, little bit of carbs, just to start raising some blood sugar to have some
00:31:40
available substrate um for the workout. I don't do this um most of the week. So, when I work out
00:31:48
during the week, I'm typically at the gym around 6:00-ish in the morning, and I don't I don't like the way that it
00:31:55
feels when I eat that early in the morning, and it sort of feels like I have a brick in my stomach. So, what I
00:32:00
typically do is I will fuel with ketones. I have ketones uh for my workout, and then when I get home,
00:32:06
that's when I have my big uh meal. >> So, you have ketones before you do a workout.
00:32:10
>> Yeah. >> Why? >> In the absence of food, I would say that ketones are fuel that your body already
00:32:17
you your body produces ketones, right? It's a fuel that your body already knows what to do with, especially when it's a
00:32:23
big muscle group, so if you're doing a leg day, let's say, or a back day, it provides
00:32:29
you with the neural drive to continue going. So, you get into that sort of sympathetic state.
00:32:35
>> Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> That's my favorite um flavor, too, is the green apple. My kids have the green
00:32:39
apple before their soccer, too. >> I am a co-owner of this company, hashtag ad. >> Yes.
00:32:44
>> So, [laughter] I have to I have to disclaim that. Otherwise, someone's going to come for me.
00:32:47
>> Yeah. So, in an ideal world, we would fuel before we work out, but my the constraints that I have in my life is
00:32:53
that I just can't. In the weekend, different story. I can wake up later. I can have a long coffee with my boys, you
00:33:00
know, have breakfast, head to the gym, and then, you know, I always know that when I do have food, my performance is
00:33:08
>> better in the gym. >> Better. Always, 100% of the time. >> So, let's talk about what you do in the
00:33:12
gym. And why you do it. Cuz you clearly got a big focus on muscle being important.
00:33:16
>> Yeah. >> I train with lots of women. I actually trained with a colleague of mine this
00:33:19
morning called, uh, George. She often goes off into like the cardio section. >> Mhm.
00:33:24
>> And she does muscles as well, some some resistance training as well. And I go
00:33:27
off in the other direction to like the, you know, >> The platforms, yeah. >> Like the men stuff that men typically
00:33:33
gravitate towards. >> Yeah. >> And I'm wondering what you think all women should be doing in the gym. Like,
00:33:38
is there If you think about a 7-day workout regime, >> Mhm. >> what do you think is optimal in those 7
00:33:42
days? >> Yeah, there is I do want to I do want to call out something you just said, and
00:33:46
then I'll answer your question. Um, you just said, I go to the area that typically men go to, and I do the
00:33:51
exercises that men typically do. So, just because squats and deadlifts and presses and pull-ups are typically done
00:33:57
by men, doesn't mean that those are male exercises. Those are fundamental human,
00:34:01
you know, motor patterns that both men and women can benefit from. Um, but to your point, there is typically more men
00:34:09
doing those things that are more comfortable doing those things versus someone who's like, "Hey, I can figure
00:34:13
out how a stairmaster works. I'll just get on this thing, and I'll be on here for the next 35 or 40 minutes, right?"
00:34:18
>> I love the stairmaster. >> I love the stairmaster, too. It's, uh, a special kind of torture. It's great.
00:34:22
Okay, so, in terms of what I think people should be doing, if she can aim something like
00:34:28
three or four days a week of strength training, >> Yeah. >> it would be alternating upper body and
00:34:33
lower body, and then we would be thinking about what muscle groups are we going to be working together. Is it a
00:34:38
pull or push? Yeah. So, this is um I think >> What is this? >> This is from um my book, uh my upcoming
00:34:46
book uh called Nothing to Lose actually, because we shouldn't be losing, we should be trying to try to be gaining.
00:34:51
And these are the these are the muscle groups that I want women to be thinking about if their goal is body composition
00:34:59
and they are trying to build a body that has curves. You can't spot reduce, but you can definitely spot build. Like, you
00:35:05
can put curves where uh you know, they weren't before. So, what I've done in the book is I've
00:35:10
outlined muscle groups that I think women should be focusing on in order to help develop in more of an hourglass
00:35:17
figure. So, we have uh starting at the top, we have the deltoid muscle group, which you're these are your shoulder. I
00:35:23
like to call these your bread buns. So, they're sitting on the side of your shoulder, the lateral delts.
00:35:28
Below that, we'll have the back muscles and the lats in particular. I like to call the lats our angel wings because we
00:35:34
have, you know, it helps it sort of create that V as the back widens, you have a the appearance of a slender or
00:35:42
slimmer waist. Moving posteriorly, we have glutes. So, there's three uh muscles that make up the glutes. It's
00:35:48
max, med, and min. Glute maximus, gluteus gluteus and then we have the adductor group.
00:35:53
>> Which is the insides of the legs. >> inner thigh muscles, yeah. And then the last the last one is the
00:36:00
pelvic floor or may more broadly, we'll say the the core muscles. >> So, what do I need to know? For a woman
00:36:07
and I I'm thinking about building this uh these five muscles that you've highlighted here. Are there as it
00:36:12
relates to how I should be training and the big misconceptions about how to train to build this?
00:36:17
>> Yeah. >> What do I need to know? >> For these muscle groups, you probably should be hitting something like 10 sets
00:36:25
of um exercises per week per muscle group. >> Okay, so if I do four hip thrusts,
00:36:31
>> Mhm. >> um that is one set of four. >> Correct. >> And that's going to help my glutes.
00:36:36
>> Correct. >> So you're saying that I should be doing 10 sets a week. >> Per muscle group per week. Yeah.
00:36:42
>> But that's not actually that much. >> It's not that much. No. And this is why
00:36:45
I was saying before the two times a week that the ladies that are like I just have I just have two. That's all I
00:36:49
That's all I can give you. You can still have incredible results. As long as you
00:36:53
are taking the muscle close to muscle failure, which is to say that you can no longer perform the repetition anymore.
00:37:03
You don't have to take it to failure, but as long as it's one to three repetitions from failure.
00:37:10
That's all you need to do. And now, I you know, it's simple to say that's all you need to do. It's going to be very
00:37:14
difficult for you to do that because you are going to start noticing your uh range of motion, like your ability to
00:37:21
do your range of motion is going to be limited. You're going to start noticing the velocity of the repetition is
00:37:26
starting to slow down, so your ability to sort of move the the weight through space is going to
00:37:32
start slowing down. You're going to subjectively, even though you can see that you're holding like a 15-lb or
00:37:37
10-lb, you know, weight, it's going to start feeling like 20 or 25. Like your subjective perception of the weight is
00:37:44
going to be um increasing. You know, if you were to rate it out of 10, you would
00:37:48
rate your effort like eight or nine out of 10. >> And men and women, because they have
00:37:55
different anatomies, should be doing slightly different exercises? >> I think that that's more a matter of
00:38:01
preference and goals. >> But is my anatomy and your anatomy the same? >> Our anatomy is not the same. No. So,
00:38:06
when we think about the way that we move through, let's say if you and I were to
00:38:11
squat together or you were and I were to lunge together, there's going to be some
00:38:14
differences in terms of how we look. And so, we'll pull up some props here if we
00:38:20
can. So, this is a female pelvis and this is this little guy who doesn't want to stand up today is a is a male
00:38:28
pelvis. So, when we sort of look at the difference between them, the female pelvis is wider and it's more shallow.
00:38:35
The male pelvis is more narrow and the reason that we have more of the sort of if you sort of look at the two this
00:38:41
looks like a little bit more like a heart shape. And this looks a little bit more like an
00:38:46
oval shape. And the reason for that is to allow a baby to pass through. Why this is so important is this is
00:38:54
going to shape the stressors that happen in our knees and our ankles. So, in particular we have something called the
00:39:02
Q angle which I believe I believe I have a Yeah, I have something Yeah, yeah. So,
00:39:08
here is the Q angle. So, what a Q angle is is basically you take a measurement from the hip and you draw it all the way
00:39:16
down to the kneecap or the patella and then you take like another little line from the tibial tubercle and and draw it
00:39:23
upward. So, that's just for all the nerds that are listening if you want to measure this it's the
00:39:27
anterior superior iliac spine all the way down to the uh to the patella and then the tibial tubercle. And what
00:39:33
you'll see for women here in pink because the pelvis is wider, the femur has to more aggressively come in
00:39:41
medially. It has to come more to the center. So, this makes women when we compare women and men, um it makes us
00:39:48
more knock-kneed. Which just means that the knees are coming more together. So, this is going to impact literally
00:39:55
every how we move. So, it's going to affect how we walk, how we jump, how we squat,
00:39:59
how we lunge, how we run. And so, it's important to for women to understand how we're different because often the
00:40:06
queuing and the instruction that women get are sort of very they're based off of a male pelvis, let's say. And so, we
00:40:15
can run into feeling like squats are not comfortable, that lunges are not comfortable, or we
00:40:22
start to even shy away from some of these motions because we don't think that they're meant for us. You just need
00:40:28
to know how to adapt your training so that you can support some of those sheer motions as you as you're moving. Because
00:40:36
what ends up happening for women is as we are let's say lunging or squatting, as the knee comes down, we will start to
00:40:43
see more sheer forces being placed through the medial or through the inside part of the knee. Right? So, that puts
00:40:49
us at a greater risk for uh ligamentous injuries. So, in the knee, the big one is the ACL that we often worry about.
00:40:56
So, as you're getting tired, you need to be aware that you're going to have a tendency for that knee to come in. And
00:41:03
there's nothing wrong with the knee coming in as long as you have muscles that can kind of support it. If I were
00:41:09
to grab this back here so we can sort of think about superimposing it. If we were
00:41:14
to look at the the leg here, the muscles that are going to be helping to control the way that the hip moves it
00:41:23
are the glutes. So, you have the glute max, but in particular the gluteus medius, which is often called like the
00:41:28
upper shelf uh muscle, that's actually going to help the femur or counteract the femur being
00:41:35
pulled inwardly. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> So, we do have different anatomical
00:41:40
differences that women need to be aware of so that we can bias training that will provide mobility and stability for
00:41:47
us. So, that's another reason why I mean, yes, glutes look amazing in jeans, but it's also because they are
00:41:53
providing such a driving force of stability for the spine, for the knees, for the ankles, literally for the entire
00:41:59
body. >> And so, with squatting, men and women should squat differently? >> Yeah, not all women and men should squat
00:42:05
differently. There are women that can squat in these sort of traditional queuing.
00:42:09
>> Can you show me this? >> I can. Yeah, I'll have to take my heels off, but I'm happy to. Yes.
00:42:13
Do you want to do it now? >> Sure. >> Yeah, okay. Let's do it. >> So, tell me how the anatomy of a woman
00:42:18
and a man determines how we should be squatting. >> So, I'll say first that you have to play
00:42:24
and see what feels good for you. So, there's going to be some women that are going to be able to squat just like the
00:42:29
traditional cues that I'm about to give you. Most women prefer a little bit of a
00:42:33
wider squat and I'll show that. So, the typical squat that were the way [snorts]
00:42:36
that we're often cued is feet are hip-width apart, toes facing forward, and then we're going to come down, and
00:42:42
then I'm just like I can't actually get I'm trying I'm collapsing my chest at this point. So, for women, what a lot of
00:42:49
women find is more comfortable can actually get the range of motion that you just demonstrated is taking your
00:42:55
feet a little bit wider, and then you're going to turn the feet out. So, because
00:43:01
the female femur tends to sit a little bit more spun inwards or in internally rotated, now with this external
00:43:08
rotation, we can actually just get by all of that, and we can come all the way down into a squat.
00:43:14
So, and we can hang out here like I can we can probably do the rest of the podcast like this if you'd like.
00:43:20
>> I'd rather not. I'd rather [laughter] not. >> Yeah. >> So, so that's the squat. Is there
00:43:24
anything else I need to know about the squat, the the variance between men men and women with squatting?
00:43:28
>> The other thing that you can think about whether it's a squat with two feet or a
00:43:32
lunge or a split squat with one is with a woman when she's coming down when she's decelerating like she's coming
00:43:39
down into the into the lunge or into the split squat, everything and your this is
00:43:44
true for you as well. Everything is going to be internally rotating. So, the femur, the leg bone is coming in, the
00:43:50
tibia is coming in, the foot on the inside you're actually rolling onto the you're flattening of the arch. It's
00:43:57
called pronation, which everybody says is a bad thing by the way, but it's you need it to be able to load the spring.
00:44:02
And then for women like if you and I were to squat with the same leg forward, you'll probably be able to see that as
00:44:09
I'm coming down, like my knee come my knee tracks a little bit inward. versus your stays a little bit more
00:44:14
straight. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a matter of whether or not I have sufficient control with my
00:44:20
hip stabilizer muscles to in order to make sure that I'm not putting excess sharing forces on the on the knee.
00:44:27
>> So, you need to strengthen your hip stabilizer. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> The peach.
00:44:30
>> Cuz I I read something about I think it was about the World Cup, the women's World Cup, where they said that if
00:44:34
something like 12 women had got ACL injury injuries in the lead up to the World Cup.
00:44:39
>> Yeah. So, when we're thinking about why that happens, it usually happens when
00:44:43
the athlete is tired. So, if it's leading up to the World Cup, they've probably over trained, they're not
00:44:49
recovering, uh and then it can be just that they're training one day and she takes a weird step, the sharing forces
00:44:56
happen just before her ligaments and her tendons are able to stabilize it. And and you and you damage it.
00:45:01
>> And is there is there true that there's a connection between like your brain and
00:45:05
your mechanics that often result in injury? Like so, I can't remember what it was, but I think someone it was a
00:45:11
sleep doctor telling me that when you're underslept, one of the reasons why you get so many injuries is because when you
00:45:16
do like jump, your brain and your >> time is slow. Yeah. >> And you see a lot of athletes doing
00:45:22
doing this before games because they're almost like practicing landing. >> actually a little bit of deceleration.
00:45:28
So, what that is is basically a stick and land, right? So, they're jumping and they're holding it so that the forces
00:45:35
are not dumped into the joints, but rather absorbed into the connective tissue, so the the ligaments and the
00:45:40
tendons. >> And why is deceleration why is it important even for everybody even non-athletes to do that?
00:45:45
>> Well, if you are not an athlete and you're just somebody who doesn't want to fall and break a hip,
00:45:50
you know, I think that that's really important. You know, if you're thinking about falling, what you need to be able
00:45:54
to do is get the hip flexor up in front of you, right? And then stop the fall. So, there's a couple muscles. So, we
00:46:02
have the hip flexor muscle that has to come up quickly in order to get ahead of the fall. We have the tibialis anterior,
00:46:08
which is just this muscle in the front of the tibia that is involved in what's called uh dorsiflexion, which is just
00:46:17
nerd speak for toes come up, right? So, you need to be able to clear the floor, and then you need to have glutes to sort
00:46:24
of absorb and brake, right? And then we were talking a little bit about the hourglass figure before when we were
00:46:31
talking about the adductors or the inner thigh muscles. One of the things that the inner thigh muscles will do is
00:46:36
they'll actually pull the leg back underneath you, right? So, they'll also help to stabilize that fall. And the
00:46:43
adductors or the outside muscle group like the side of the glutes, they're also going to help brake. So, there's a
00:46:49
couple like when you're falling, it's like you got to get the leg up, you got to have the toe clear the floor, and
00:46:54
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00:46:58
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is another one of my favorites from France. So, if you want to try your own Cometeer,
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they reserved a certain amount for Diary of a CEO listeners. Just go to cometeer.com/doac
00:48:56
and you can get $20 off if you use the code doac at checkout. So, let's talk about um let's talk about
00:49:03
supplementation. Do you take supplements? >> I do. I'll pre-frame this by saying that
00:49:08
I am a special category of nerd. So, I take a lot of the foundational supplements and then there are other
00:49:13
ones that I take because I'm just very, very interested in the research and the research excites me. But for I would say
00:49:18
for the general population, for women that are listening, if they're thinking like I got to supplement, there's a
00:49:24
couple of sort of tier one, we'll say, supplements that we want to be thinking about. So,
00:49:30
I will find my magnesium first. This is our tried and true bestie, okay? So, I love
00:49:38
a magnesium uh glycinate. There's lots of different kinds, uh but glycinate's just the easiest to absorb for most
00:49:44
people. It tends to help with relaxation, helps with sleep, helps with muscle recovery. So, this is something
00:49:49
that I love. I'll usually take one like 250 megs at lunchtime, and then another one in the evening. So, magnesium for
00:49:56
everyone. >> How do you remember to take them? >> I tend to habit stack them. So, I always
00:50:01
know that when I'm preparing my lunch, I actually keep my magnesium right beside
00:50:07
my salt and my pepper. So, as I'm like salting my food, I'm like, oh yeah, there's the magnesium, I'm going to take
00:50:11
it. And I have another bottle upstairs in my bathroom. So, as I'm getting ready for bed, I'm putting up my hair, I'm
00:50:17
doing my skin, whatever, I will I'll take one there, too. >> So, you put it in the way
00:50:21
>> Yeah. >> of of other habits. >> Cuz otherwise, if I put it in a really beautiful supplement closet, it's just
00:50:27
going to >> Yeah, same. >> stay there. >> I have to put it on my desk. And also,
00:50:30
when I travel, it's on the hotel desk. >> Yeah. You're already doing something else, so just put the thing next to the
00:50:36
thing you're already doing, and your compliance and your adherence is going to go up, right?
00:50:40
>> [snorts] >> Um what else we got in here? Ooh, omega-3s. Okay. These are so well
00:50:45
established in the literature. They reduce inflammation, they help with cognition. Something like 2 to 4 g a
00:50:52
day. >> I didn't know you needed to keep it in the fridge. I've been keeping it in a
00:50:54
hot cupboard for the longest time. >> Yeah. I mean >> Probably spoils. >> It just yeah, it just helps with with
00:50:59
spoilage. So, you can pop them in the fridge, and then same kind of thing, like habit stacking. So, as you're
00:51:04
opening up the fridge, put it in front of, you know, the thing that the thing that you would most commonly reach for.
00:51:09
So, you go for fruits in the morning, you put them right beside your fruits. >> Okay.
00:51:12
>> Yeah. Uh what other goodies do we have in here? Vitamin D, for sure. Uh D3 with a
00:51:17
K2. Uh 4,000 IUs minimum uh per day, I would say. Most people should be taking that. They call it a vitamin, it's not
00:51:24
really a vitamin. It's more of like a prohormone or prehormone. So, this is really important for sex hormone,
00:51:30
reproductive hormone uh production, uh again, inflammation, cognition. >> Every day?
00:51:36
>> Every day. Every day. >> I went to the doctor, and he said I was deficient in vitamin D and omega-3. So,
00:51:42
there's >> know how many Even if you live in a sunny I can't tell you I've had patients
00:51:46
who live in, you know, Florida, let's say, where it's you think that you're getting a lot of sun exposure because
00:51:52
the temperature is uh inimical to that, and you run their vitamin D, and >> It's crazy.
00:51:58
>> Yeah. >> Crazy. >> Ooh, I'm so happy you have this one here, creatine. Uh I know you just had
00:52:03
Dr. Darren Candow on the show. He was actually on my podcast as well. For women,
00:52:08
you know, I think creatine used to be this um like bro supplement, you know, it's like
00:52:14
these the bodybuilders with the scary, you know, noises and the, you know, weird t-shirts and stuff. But the
00:52:20
creatine is really, really important for women. The way that Dr. Candow uh described it to me was he said, you
00:52:25
know, lifting weights builds the cake, and this is like the icing on top of it, right? So, you're not going to, you
00:52:31
know, enhance performance, you're not going to build strength if you're just doing the creatine. You have to be
00:52:37
pairing it with the mechanical signal of resistance training, but I think every woman can be taking 5 g, 3 to 5 g of
00:52:43
this every single day. >> How much are you taking? >> I take five. >> Sometimes you take a bit more than five.
00:52:48
>> Sometimes I take a little bit more than five. So, when you have been, and this
00:52:53
is this is the little perimenopausal hack because I am in fully in the throes of it right now,
00:52:59
there are nights where I don't sleep well. So, [snorts] taking a higher dose of creatine that
00:53:04
day will help with your cognition, your awareness, and your alertness. So, something like a 10-g dose because it's
00:53:12
a little bit harder to get if my understanding of it is it's harder to get across the blood-brain barrier, so
00:53:17
you need a higher dose in order to facilitate that. But yeah, 10 g. >> And what impact has it had on you? Have
00:53:22
you noticed an impact? >> When I haven't slept well, yeah, definitely if I take it in the morning,
00:53:27
it definitely wakes me up. I would say that when I am not taking regular like I'm not taking the 3 to 5 g or, you
00:53:35
know, for some reason I start forgetting, um muscles look a little less swole, you
00:53:39
know, they look a little less full. Um don't have as much energy in the tank when I'm doing like a really intense
00:53:46
workout. >> Mhm. >> There's a performance degradation when I am when I'm not on it.
00:53:52
And then collagen. I love this one because it gets so much hate online, so we're going to go against the grain and
00:53:58
talk about how great collagen is. A lot of the criticism for collagen often comes from this idea that, well,
00:54:05
it's terrible. It doesn't have any leucine or has less than 3% of leucine, which is an amino acid that
00:54:10
stimulates protein synthesis. And yes, that's true. It is a terrible driver for muscle protein, but this that's not like
00:54:18
the whole goal for women is not just muscle, right? We have other tissues that go to the gym alongside our muscle
00:54:24
that train, like our tendons, our ligaments, our joints. And so collagen is just like muscle is a
00:54:32
very expensive process, so it's very expensive, you know, I mean, from a mechanistic point of view to create
00:54:38
collagen. So taking collagen is great for what I like to call the JTL, your joints, your tendons, and your
00:54:44
ligaments. So I will typically take something like 10 to 15 g of this a day. People will
00:54:51
probably come at me. I put this in my coffee sometimes, which I know the heat, I get it, but
00:54:58
if I don't, I won't take it. >> There's so many collagen products out there at the moment, isn't there?
00:55:01
>> Yeah. Yeah. >> Collagen drinks, collagen collagen's in everything. >> Mhm. >> Someone's going to figure out how to
00:55:06
like put it in the air or something. >> Yeah, right. Yeah. >> Is that all a fad? They're saying it's
00:55:10
good for skin, it's good for nails, it's good for hair, it's good for everything.
00:55:13
>> It's good for fascia, it's good for I mean, collagen is the primary compound in joints, tendons, ligaments, fascia,
00:55:20
skin, hair, and nails. >> type of collagen? >> Hydrolyzed. Hydrolyzed type 1, 2, and 3.
00:55:25
Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Fine. What else? >> Electrolytes. I take electrolytes not as consistently,
00:55:32
again, in the vein of transparency and honesty, I typically will take this on a very heavy cardio day. So, I have
00:55:40
recently taken up tennis. I'm terrible at it, but being outside tennis, you're in the heat, you're running left and
00:55:47
right, and you're doing it for hours on end, you know, you can when you're sweating a lot, electrolytes are really
00:55:51
great. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So, like electrolytes, don't take them all the time. And with our last puppy here. Oh,
00:55:57
vitamin C. Vitamin C I actually like to take with the um the collagen because it can
00:56:03
enhance its absorption. And then this is just a general antioxidant that I think,
00:56:07
you know, there's no harm in taking vitamin C, right? It's water soluble, you take too much, you pee it out. Um
00:56:12
but good as an antioxidant, good as an anti-inflammatory, helps with the absorption um of collagen
00:56:18
as well. >> What about protein? How do you think about protein? Do you do you take protein shakes or anything?
00:56:23
>> I do when I'm traveling. So, I typically in my day-to-day um diet, I typically don't. I will if I'm
00:56:32
falling a bit short, but for me, my most of my protein is coming from whole foods.
00:56:38
>> What about cardio? Because we have we've talked a lot about doing resistance training and the importance of building
00:56:42
muscle. Um what where does cardiovascular exercises, running, sprinting, stair master fit into all of this?
00:56:48
>> It's life. It's everything. Cardio is is fantastic as well. Um I think that again, you know, when I
00:56:55
think about my Overwhelmed Ophelia, you you know, she's online and she has people that are saying things like, you
00:57:00
should only lift weights and walk. And then there's other people that are doing, you know, the chronic cardio and
00:57:04
the people who are kind of overdoing it that and not doing enough weights. I sort of think about her as we start this
00:57:09
discussion. So, we want to be thinking about cardio not as a punishment for what you ate and not because you're
00:57:14
trying to get skinny, but because we want to have other goals around our health span and our
00:57:21
life span. So, living a longer life and spending more of those years healthy. >> A lot of women have PCOS, including my
00:57:28
partner. >> Yeah. >> Um and I was looking at the the comments on your one of your interviews you did
00:57:33
and one of the top comments from a woman was for women with PCOS or insulin resistance spring training hit
00:57:39
often back backfires because it spikes [clears throat] cortisol and insulin. Many of us do better with strength
00:57:45
training plus zone two until hormone stabilize. I would love to hear more tailored guidance for PCOS.
00:57:51
>> Yeah. So the first thing I want to dismantle in that comment is that cortisol spikes are bad.
00:57:57
>> [snorts] >> It really context really matters. So without so I'll just say this way.
00:58:00
Without cortisol you won't wake up in the morning. You know like we need cortisol. There's something called the
00:58:04
cortisol awakening response where it tends to peak, you know, somewhere you know, right right around the time that
00:58:10
you wake up and then it sort of looks like a ski slope and it, you know, gradually
00:58:14
exits the chat, right? So cortisol is a normal process. A cortisol spike is a normal process. Just like when you
00:58:24
train, so when she was saying like I train when I do resistance training, if she were to be monitoring her hormones,
00:58:30
she would see both a glucose spike and a cortisol spike when she's training because though it to to be able to train
00:58:37
with enough intensity and effort, you need to be you need to get into something called sympathetic drive. You
00:58:42
need to be in like stress physiology. So her cortisol spiking when she's training
00:58:46
as well. So I want to really caution women away from being scared of normal and predicted, you know,
00:58:54
uh spikes, right? Like glucose spikes, cortisol spikes. So that that's what I would say just to start off that
00:59:00
conversation. Women with P-M-O-S, it used to be known as PCOS, now it's polyendocrine
00:59:05
metabolic ovarian syndrome. Her body typically behaves more like someone who is diabetic, like a type two
00:59:15
diabetic, where she has issues with glucose disposal, she has issues with insulin sensitivity.
00:59:24
So specific recommendations for someone who has PCOS is absolutely she should be
00:59:30
training cuz every time she's contracting her muscles, she's actually helping whether insulin is present is
00:59:35
present or not for her to pull that glucose into the muscle cell and to be able to make energy. So, that's really
00:59:41
fantastic. I also think that whether you have PCOS or you're, you know, type 2 diabetic, I
00:59:48
think that zone 2 cardio is fantastic again for endurance, but you can also benefit
00:59:55
from the very high intensity cardio that, you know, might be categorized as high intensity interval training or hit
01:00:02
or sprint interval training sometimes called sit. This is like sit is basically like 10 to 20 seconds
01:00:09
all out ovaries to the wall 100% effort uh and then you recover and then you do that, you know, four five six times if
01:00:19
you're feeling, you know, particularly, you [laughter] know, energetic. Uh and that can also that stress, that
01:00:26
cortisol spike and all the, you know, the physiological cascade that happens from that
01:00:31
is going to make you stronger and [snorts] a better glucose disposal agent, right? Which is what she wants if
01:00:37
she has PCOS over the long term. >> Are there any particular exercises that women and people generally tend to stop
01:00:44
doing as they age because it's kind of like it becomes harder as you age, but they should definitely not stop doing?
01:00:52
>> Oh my gosh. >> Like what are the ones where we all kind of stop doing it, but it's it leads to a
01:00:56
downward spiral. >> Sprinting 100%. I think that everybody should be sprinting. >> Why?
01:01:00
>> You are going to be increasing something called your VO2 max, which is uh just again nerd speak for how much
01:01:07
oxygen can you take into the lungs and distribute to the cells, right? That along with we've all heard the stat
01:01:14
muscle declines 1% per year if you're not doing anything, VO2 max is the same. So, you will decline your VO2 max
01:01:20
capacity 10% per decade if you're not actively working on it. >> I'll put some graphs on the screen that
01:01:26
show that decline over time. >> Yeah, great. I can think of family members, you know, going up the stairs
01:01:33
or down the stairs or trying to get groceries and bringing them into the house that are huffed and puffed, right?
01:01:39
That they're they've lost their breath from going up a flight or two of stairs. >> think, you know, they say that that's
01:01:43
just getting older. >> Absolutely not. It's absolutely not a function of aging. It's just a loss of capacity.
01:01:50
There was um >> Can you sprint? >> I sprint all the time. Yeah, but there's So I wanted what I wanted to say was
01:01:55
there's a couple of different ways that we can sprint. So you can sprint in a on
01:01:59
a track. So I used to be a track sprinter, so that's like my love. But you can also sprint on a cardio
01:02:05
machine in the gym. So in the wintertime, so I live on the East Coast where I can't always sprint on the
01:02:11
track, so I will take my sprinting indoors and I will do something called the Norwegian 4x4 on a bike.
01:02:18
Have you ever heard of a Norwegian 4x4? >> heard of it, but please do explain. >> Yeah, it's a special it's a special kind
01:02:23
of torture. I hate it up until the moment I get on the bike and then when I'm doing it, I'm like, okay, I'm going
01:02:29
to do this. And then when I'm finished, I'm like, I'm so proud of myself. So a Norwegian 4x4 is basically 4 minutes
01:02:35
your your In my case, I do it on the bike, but it can be done on a treadmill or any cardio machine.
01:02:40
85% to 95% of your heart rate max. So you need to know what your maximum like the
01:02:47
maximum heart rate that you have ever achieved. 85% of that for 4 minutes. It's a long 4 minutes.
01:02:54
And then you take a you take a 3-minute break. And then you do that again four times,
01:02:58
hence the name four minutes four times. >> [clears throat] >> Lots of really cool studies on looking
01:03:05
at VO2 max capacity. There's one that I'm thinking of where they looked at women.
01:03:13
The average age of the women were 58. So they were a lot of them were in like postmenopausal, let's say.
01:03:21
And they put them on a sprinting protocol. What they found was that in a period of
01:03:27
8 weeks, they were able to increase their VO2 max by 10% in 2 months. Which is wild when you think about how
01:03:37
quickly you can lose it, and you can get 10% back in 2 months, which is which is
01:03:41
phenomenal. And the other really cool thing about that study was they actually took that cohort. So, that was the
01:03:47
we'll call them like the the well-lived or the older cohort, let's say, and they
01:03:51
compared it to 18 to 30-year-olds, and they found that the gains that happened in the older cohort were they had
01:04:00
mitochondrial efficiency improvements of 69%. >> Mhm. >> Whereas [clears throat] the younger
01:04:05
cohort, their mitochondrial gains were 49%. So, all that to say, a lot of people will frame aging as it's like,
01:04:13
"Well, now you're getting wrinkles, now you're getting old, and now you're just past you're over the hill, it's past
01:04:17
your prime." These women had maybe the gap was bigger for them, but they had so much more upside to gain, right? Which
01:04:24
is so that I mean that makes me so excited because it's never ever ever too late. Like you can like the best time to
01:04:30
start was 10 years ago, fine, but the second best time is today. Like you're not behind. You can totally do it now.
01:04:36
>> One of the top comments in your recent video as well was one saying jumping or
01:04:39
hopping is a good way to strengthen your bones and knees, and you should not stop
01:04:42
doing that as we age. >> True. >> Cuz a lot of people start thinking, "Oh, I I can't run anymore because it's not
01:04:48
good for my hips and my knees, and I've you know, I've had injuries and stuff like that." So, running is one of those
01:04:52
things that people stop doing cuz they're scared of joint issues. >> Yeah, I think the old adage of use it or
01:04:58
lose it is really, really key here. Like if you stop doing it, you're going to definitely stop your ability to like
01:05:04
you're not going to be able to do it, right? Your body is going to prioritize the things that it does. So, So, you
01:05:10
want to be able to jump, you want to be able to sprint, you want to be able to squat,
01:05:15
age is is absolutely inconsequential to that. So, in that in that particular comment, if
01:05:21
somebody wanted to improve their bone density, yeah, for sure, you can strap on a weighted vest, do some plyometrics,
01:05:27
add some weight to your jump. Like, that's going to, you know, increase that strain magnitude and strain rate on the
01:05:33
bone, which is going to drive that positive bone reformation. That's awesome. But, yeah, it's if you don't
01:05:38
jump, you're going to lose your ability to jump. >> Do you jump? >> I do it all the time. Well, sprinting is
01:05:43
jumping, right? >> Do you like is there such a thing as jump training? >> Like plyos? Plyometrics?
01:05:47
>> Oh, is that what plyo is? >> 100%. >> do that? >> Yes. Even if it's just isometric holds,
01:05:52
let's say. Like, maybe somebody can't jump, but they can stand with their with their
01:05:56
heels elevated, so that the Achilles tendon and the calf, like the gastrocnemius, is contracting. Just to
01:06:03
give you a little bit of a a visual here, so what I'm talking about. Maybe one of the most famous tendons in the
01:06:08
body is the Achilles. It is the extension of the calf muscles here, and then it sort of wraps around the heel
01:06:13
and attaches into the um into the uh inferior part of the calcaneus, which is just uh your heel bone. So, maybe you
01:06:20
can't quite jump yet, but you can actually this uh mannequin is doing a really good job.
01:06:26
They're just coming up on their toes, contracting the gastrocnemius, and this is called an isometric hold. So, that
01:06:32
tension in the muscles and in the tendon, we have these little mechanoreceptors that
01:06:37
sort of detect stretch. So, they will detect that whether something's being contracted or
01:06:43
whether something's stretching, and they will say, "Oh, we need to remodel in order to meet the demand of this this
01:06:49
activity." And then you can progress to doing little hops, you can progress to doing jumps, etc.
01:06:54
>> Very easy to do. You don't need to You don't need a gym or anything like that.
01:06:58
>> Not at all. >> I've heard you say that um deceleration is important for mobility.
01:07:02
>> Yeah. Deceleration is the opposite of acceleration. So, we think of acceleration, it's speeding
01:07:09
up and getting fast. Deceleration is coming to a stop. So, in order to come to a stop without
01:07:16
dumping all of the forces in your joints, again, the tendons and the ligaments need to be able to absorb that
01:07:22
kinetic energy. And from a sport perspective, your ability to decelerate, so coming to a
01:07:28
complete stop and then changing direction, so change of direction training, is actually more predictive of
01:07:33
whether you'll go pro than your vertical jump, your acceleration speed, or if you're doing things like beep tests or
01:07:38
whatever. Um it's also really important for us as we age. You might trip on, you
01:07:44
know, something on the floor or, you know, the corner of a rug, or you might lose your footing on the stairs. You
01:07:50
need to be able to get your foot in front of you and then be able to stop the motion before you
01:07:57
fall. >> Are there any Are there exercises that are like really, really simple and
01:08:00
underrated that one can do without equipment? >> I have so many to show you. Yes.
01:08:04
>> Okay. >> [laughter] >> So, the one that I love, this is almost like a diagnosis, but then it, you know,
01:08:09
the diagnosis almost becomes the plan, like the the care plan. Uh something that um I just call the X
01:08:15
plank. It's very difficult to do, but it is a test for stability and mobility of
01:08:21
the hip. So, we were talking about the Q angle before. This is directly challenging the muscles on the side of
01:08:28
the hip and whether or not you can stay stable. So, uh this is a great exercise.
01:08:33
Yeah, I can show it to you. So, this is, again, like I was saying, it's the prescrip It's the test, but
01:08:38
then it also becomes the care plan. So, um maybe what we'll do So, I'll show it to
01:08:43
you and then maybe we'll have you try. >> I'll I'm going to be over here. >> Yeah, okay. [laughter]
01:08:47
So, you're basically going to come into a side plank. So, where your wrist and your shoulders are all aligned. Toes are
01:08:55
facing forward. Hand comes up and then you're going to lift the arm up and you're going to try and see if you can
01:09:02
hold this for 30 seconds. It is not easy, and so this is really testing the stability and the mobility of your hips.
01:09:10
It's also testing the integrity of your ability to stay ab-ducted, which is what
01:09:15
my leg is doing right now. So, if someone has a timer, hopefully I'm close to 30 seconds, but we'll call it
01:09:21
maybe now. >> [laughter] >> Probably about 30 seconds there. >> Yeah. >> Uh so, that's a that's a really great
01:09:28
test for anybody to do. And it's also there's core work, there's shoulder work, it's a really whole body workout.
01:09:33
>> Okay. Yeah, my my turn. >> Why don't you try? Yeah, see. >> Okay. >> So, on your side, toes stacked on top of
01:09:41
each other, wrist is kind of tucked under the shoulder. Yeah, hands waving hello. And now try to lift to your top
01:09:48
leg. >> Oh gosh, okay. Let me just call somebody. >> [laughter] >> I need one of my friends.
01:09:55
Okay, I'm going to stand on my It my my feet hurt. >> So, in this case, if you're not able to
01:10:01
do it, this becomes the thing that you train. >> I mean, the the pressure of putting my
01:10:06
foot on my other foot and putting all the weight on this foot here. >> Okay. >> Or maybe I'll put my foot on the mat.
01:10:10
>> Yeah, yeah, like maybe you need a little bit of grip. Yeah. >> That's no better.
01:10:18
>> [laughter] >> I think it's actually just me being weak. Okay. So, like this? >> Yeah.
01:10:23
>> And then lifting this leg up. >> Lifting the leg up, there you go. >> Okay. >> Yeah.
01:10:28
>> Okay, I get it. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, now you're just going to work your yourself up to 10 seconds, 15
01:10:33
seconds, 20 seconds, and over time you'll just be doing this at the airport. >> Where does this arm go?
01:10:38
>> Just Just on top. Yeah, just on top. Yeah. >> I think I've got more of a balancing
01:10:42
issue, is it? >> Yeah, it's also it's a really strong balance test, yeah. This is a This is
01:10:46
one of those exercises that literally tests almost every system in the body. So, I love it as a diagnostic.
01:10:51
>> Okay. Is there like a an entry to this exercise that's a little bit more amateur?
01:10:54
>> For For Yeah, well Oh, if there's me you can maybe instead of doing it on both feet, you
01:10:59
can maybe do it on your knees. So, um I'll demo that real quick. So, if you want to just come here, so you're
01:11:06
stacking the knees on top of each other, and then you can do it this way. >> Okay.
01:11:09
>> So, there's still you're still having to recruit the glute medius um here, but it's just less less stress.
01:11:16
>> Okay. >> You want to try that? See how that one feels. >> Okay. I got it. >> Yeah, you got it. Okay. Take your
01:11:21
>> Is there anything else that you can show me that you think's pertinent to the
01:11:24
conversation we just had? >> You know what? Well, yeah, this one actually relates to um mobility a little
01:11:28
bit, which we did talk about. So, in cultures where people sit on the floor, they eat on the floor,
01:11:35
um you know, they toilet on the floor, they their fall risk is literally almost zero. So, I think as North Americans or
01:11:44
Western, we can do more sitting on the floor. So, one of the big tests um I'll you I'll usually won't start on
01:11:50
the floor, but I'll have if it's an elderly person, maybe they're sitting on a chair. Can they stand up unassisted,
01:11:55
like without using their hands? And this is the hardest part of the test. So, what you'll do is your feet crossed, and
01:12:01
we'll do it with both feet to see. Without using your hands, you can use a little bit of momentum if you want. Um
01:12:06
but you're going to see if you can get up without using your hands. There you go.
01:12:14
>> Ooh, that was >> Well done. Nicely done. All right, let's get back down. Let's try to cross our
01:12:18
feet the other way. The wrong way. >> The other way. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Cuz you always typically cross your feet
01:12:24
one way, right? So, [clears throat] I don't do this one as well as I do the other one, so I'm working on it as well.
01:12:29
So, again, no um hands. You can use a little bit of momentum if you want, and you're going to come all the way up.
01:12:35
That one was not as pretty. Yeah. [clears throat] There you go. >> Okay. >> It was really well.
01:12:40
>> What is that I do you know what is what what muscles am I using there? >> You're using every you're you are
01:12:45
recruiting mobility in your ankles, you are recruiting your quads to be able to extend your knee, your glutes to extend
01:12:51
your hip, like it's the whole leg. >> Mhm, great. Thank you so much. We don't >> awesome.
01:12:55
>> Any others that you love? >> Oh, goodness. >> can do without equipment at home?
01:12:58
>> Push-ups, body weight squats, which I think you should eventually progress to weights,
01:13:03
but so many people have terrible technique, so you can actually have a fantastic workout with just your body
01:13:09
weight. Um, glute bridges I think are fantastic. So many. You can pick up like a big um
01:13:16
bag of cat food or dog food and, you know, do walking lunges down your, you know, wherever.
01:13:23
>> If you know me, and if you've listened to this podcast before, you'll know how
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01:15:31
One of the I mean, I looked at lots of the comments and a lot of them also talked about the specific issues mothers
01:15:37
face after they have a child. >> Mhm. >> Um I saw comments about prolapse and pelvic floors, etc.
01:15:42
>> Yeah. >> You've had two children. >> Mhm. >> What are and you speak to many, many
01:15:46
mothers. >> Yeah. >> Um what are the specific issues that mothers face as it relates to fitness,
01:15:51
their workout regimes, their goals, >> Mhm. >> um resistance training, etc., that I
01:15:56
wouldn't be aware of? >> Yeah. >> As someone that's not given birth to a child. >> So, you know, we talked about how the
01:16:03
um the hips are different for men and women. The pelvic floor is also very different for men and women as well. So,
01:16:10
just from a >> What is the pelvic floor? >> The pelvic floor is like a hammock of
01:16:15
muscles that goes from the pubic bone. So, um if we were to think about So, here is
01:16:21
the uh female pelvis. We have the pubic bone here. >> Mhm. >> And then it's it's like a sling of
01:16:27
muscles that come around and then attach to the coccyx or what's known as the tailbone. And these are called the
01:16:33
pubococcygeal. So, pubic, coccyx, pubococcygeal muscles or PC muscles. And they're different than, let's say, your
01:16:40
quadriceps or your glutes, because they are literally working all the time. They are working to keep your organs in
01:16:48
the pelvis, so that they don't just fall out. And for women, this is another area
01:16:53
where we are different, because we have more I mean, first of all, we have more openings, right? So, if you think about
01:16:59
the sling of muscles for a woman, you're going to have a hole at the urethra, at
01:17:03
the opening of the vulva into the vagina, and then also the anus. So, there's three holes, and so already you
01:17:10
have less surface area for that for those muscles to be able to contract and support, right? Versus a male, uh those
01:17:17
PC muscles just have to deal with one. So, it's mechanically much simple simpler for a man.
01:17:22
And then you layer on hormonal fluctuations over the course of a, you know, woman as she's menstruating, if
01:17:28
she becomes pregnant, under the influence of different hormones like relaxin, uh the weight of the baby, you
01:17:34
know, constantly pushing down, um and then birth, as I've mentioned before, uh these can
01:17:41
significantly alter the strength and the ability for the for the PC muscles to um
01:17:47
absorb load appropriately. So, for women who've had babies, first you have to obviously be working
01:17:55
with your OBGYN or your midwife or whoever is managing your care plan to be able to clear you for exercise. And once
01:18:02
they do, you don't want to necessarily go back to extremely heavy loads with lots of intensity
01:18:10
>> right away, because you haven't you haven't necessarily yet completely healed, right? So,
01:18:16
>> this is where we get into thinking about, okay, so what are some ways that we can connect with um
01:18:22
with the pelvic floor. So, the famous exercise that everybody's probably heard of is Kegels. You probably heard of
01:18:28
Kegels. So, those are wonderful if you're someone who has a weak uh pelvic floor,
01:18:34
not so much if you have the >> Wouldn't just sit and contract and and you say >> Yeah, it's it's literally like you are
01:18:39
for men the way that I've often um sort of queued men is like imagine you're like zipping up a zipper. Like you're
01:18:45
just kind of coming up and you're sort of holding it and then you're relaxing. You don't necessarily have to move and
01:18:49
jump, but you're literally just sort of connecting as much as you can. It's hard
01:18:54
because our uh neuromuscular connection to the pelvic floor sometimes is not really strong, but often just closing
01:19:00
your eyes and just think like just coming up, holding, and then coming down. And you can do all you can do
01:19:05
these all day long free, you know, no one's going to know that you're doing it. Um so that that if you have a weak
01:19:12
pelvic floor, that would be something that you might explore. So pelvic floor physiotherapist would be someone who'd
01:19:17
be able to diagnose that and give you a bit more counsel there. But weak pelvic floors, Kegels are great. They
01:19:24
can actually if you have if you have a tight pelvic floor where you actually have trouble relaxing, Kegels can
01:19:28
actually make things a little bit worse for you. >> Um on your book the Betty Body, the last
01:19:33
word on the subtitle is the word sex. A geeky goddess guide to intuitive eating,
01:19:39
balanced hormones, and transformative sex. >> Yeah. >> Why did you include transformative sex?
01:19:45
>> I included it because I think just like all of the myths that we've been talking
01:19:50
about today about bulky and carbs, I think that the other thing that has been really uh taboo for women is women who
01:19:59
enjoy their sex life. And so I was hoping in that first book to give women permission to
01:20:08
to want to desire it, to figure out if there wasn't if there was low desire or low libido, what maybe some of those
01:20:14
causes were, and what are some of the ways that we can we can learn more about ourselves. I'm thinking of this one
01:20:20
patient that I had um and she actually was part of the reason why I included it in this first book.
01:20:26
She'd come in to my clinic she'd come in for low back pain. It was like the most
01:20:30
typical like I'm have you know, mechanical low back pain, right? And so we were giving her adjustments, we were
01:20:37
giving her strengthening exercises, we were doing the rehab, all the things. Nothing out of the ordinary. At her
01:20:42
reevaluation appointment, >> [snorts] >> she said, I want like, Dr. Stef, I want
01:20:47
to I want to talk to you privately. I was like, okay, fine. Let's go into this room, close the door, all the things.
01:20:52
And she said, um do you know the real reason why I came in to see you? And I said, yes, it was
01:20:57
mechanical low back pain. And she said, no. Uh it's because when I was with my husband, you know, getting on top of him
01:21:06
while we were being intimate, was really hurting me. My back was killing me, my pelvis was killing me, my
01:21:12
joints felt like they were rubbing on top of each other. I mean, I was lucky enough that this patient trusted me
01:21:18
enough and we had enough rapport for her to basically say, yeah, I um I want to ride my husband and I can't. I couldn't
01:21:25
before and now I can. And so I think that there is a quiet, um taboo, we'll say, around women not enjoying sex and I
01:21:35
want to give women permission to. So whether you have low back pain and that needs to be corrected, if there's a
01:21:40
hormonal input to that, >> Okay. Stephanie, what's the most um what's the most important thing we haven't talked
01:21:46
about that we should have talked about? >> Oh my goodness. >> Well, we didn't talk about GLP-1s.
01:21:50
That's all the new rage at the moment, isn't it? >> The Yeah, GLP-1s are Yeah, they're
01:21:54
interesting, for sure. I do think with all medications, and I am including hormone therapy in here as well,
01:22:04
um at the risk of getting shot down by some people, is I think that we often marry ourselves
01:22:10
to what we feel the benefits might be and we will divorce ourselves from the possible side effects, right? Hormones
01:22:18
are going to help with your for sure, your sleep, your mood. Uh if you're experiencing some of the
01:22:22
thermoregulatory problems, like the night sweats and the hot flashes and all the things,
01:22:27
but it's not going to go to the gym and lift weights with you. It's not going to
01:22:30
build a healthy plate. It's not going to set boundaries with your boss, you know,
01:22:34
like those things you have to do those things, right? So there's this beautiful opportunity where we see more women
01:22:42
taking MHT to or hormone replacement therapy, menopause hormone therapy to blend that with lifestyle medicine.
01:22:51
You can't It's not There's no easy button here. You know, you have to also put in the work.
01:22:55
>> And lifestyle medicine meeting? >> Training, br- managing your stress, recovering, doing the cardio that we've
01:23:01
been talking about. >> On that recovery point you just said, what are the recovery protocols that you
01:23:06
think all women should be doing? >> The best one that I can tell you is sleep, which can be a challenge in
01:23:11
perimenopause, I understand, but that is where you have things like uh growth hormone and IGF-1 tend to surge, muscles
01:23:19
grow when you're sleeping, brain cleans itself out. Sleep is Sleep is the number one thing that everybody
01:23:26
should be prioritizing. That's wonderful. That's like sort of tier one. Like if there's like an S tier, sleep is
01:23:31
an S tier. Um under that, I would say if you have access to something like a sauna, that
01:23:40
might be something that you can think of for recovery, whether that's an infrared
01:23:44
sauna or it's a traditional Finnish sauna. I often call it lazy cardio. So if you don't feel like doing a really
01:23:51
intense cardio session, get yourself into a sauna if you have access to one. Not necessary, but really really like
01:23:57
there's a lot of really cool uh studies that have come out of Finland, which by the way, sauna is the only word in
01:24:03
English that we've borrowed from Fin- from Finnish. Just a little little fun little tidbit there, but um electrolytes
01:24:10
we've talked about. I think that if you are really pushing uh yourself and you're sweating a lot, helping to
01:24:16
recover and replenish those. As we lose estrogen in in midlife, our ability to regulate salt also starts to decline as
01:24:23
well. >> So, what is what should we have talked about that we didn't talk about as it
01:24:27
relates to the most pressing questions you get asked by the people that consume the content you make?
01:24:33
>> The only other thing I would say that we didn't really go on a nerd safari on is
01:24:38
the joints, tendons, and ligaments. So, like the connective tissue capacity. We've talked a lot about muscle. I love
01:24:43
muscle. I train muscle. Um, muscle's like the popular girl at the party. She gets a lot of attention. You know, if
01:24:49
you think about a a superstar like, I don't know, like Beyoncé or something, right? She's beautiful to look at. The
01:24:55
pump is great. All of that. But, if you put Beyoncé on a rotting stage or you put her on a stage that can't handle
01:25:01
her, she's just going to fall right through it. And then you have no concert, right? So, I think that the
01:25:05
forgotten tendons and ligaments and joints, we have to be thinking about those as we age because you you can't
01:25:12
squat if you don't have good knees. >> How do I get great ligaments and tendons?
01:25:15
>> So, the way that you encourage them to become stronger over time is how you train in the gym. So, there's a couple
01:25:22
of different ways that you can bias for more tendon strength and more ligament strength. One of them is when you are
01:25:29
lifting, you can bias what's called the eccentric portion of the lift. So, concentric, muscle gets shorter, bones
01:25:37
come together. Eccentric is stretch. When you start stretching the tendon, the tendon's like, I'm being stretched.
01:25:43
Okay, we have to now create more tensile strength to be able to meet that demand.
01:25:48
>> Okay, so stretching. >> So, stretching under load. >> Okay. >> Not just stretching.
01:25:53
>> Pilates. >> Not Pilates. No. So, Pilates, again, love Pilates, do it twice a week.
01:25:58
>> got a bee in your bonnet about Pilates. You really don't like Pilates. >> what it Do you know what it is? No, no,
01:26:02
no. It's not that. It's people confuse muscle endurance. So, in Pilates you often have like very high reps. The
01:26:09
muscle burns. Um, it's fantastic for the pelvic floor that we were talking about
01:26:13
before. Phenomenal for women's health, for pelvic floor health, that posture. >> But you're saying it Pilates isn't
01:26:20
enough to build sufficient muscle mass. >> That's the main point and that's where I
01:26:24
think that people are like, "How dare you talk about this? Like I love Pilates. I do Pilates. I'm probably in
01:26:28
your Pilates class." However, I also am training four or five times a week. I'm also sprinting one, you know, sometimes
01:26:34
two, but mostly one time a week. I'm I'm doing tennis. Like I'm doing all of these other things and Pilates brings me
01:26:40
a lot of joy, right? But I feel so I always say I feel so happy after Pilates. I don't know why. It makes me
01:26:46
really happy. >> But some people are doing just Pilates, isn't it? >> Yes, so if you are just doing the
01:26:51
Pilates, that's where I fear that your like look at me, I'm slim, you know, if you if you're I'm able to fit in this
01:26:58
dress now, but then what you're not doing is you're not loading your bones appropriately, you're not building
01:27:03
sufficient muscle, your tendons and your ligaments are weak, and you're going to
01:27:06
end up with bone disease or a loss of load load capacity when you're older. >> What's the most popular question that
01:27:14
women message you with on Instagram? >> Usually it's tell me about your skin care.
01:27:20
>> [laughter] >> Okay. >> Tell me tell me about what you do with your hair, um or, you know, what your workout
01:27:24
outfit is. All those little questions. But it's how do I gain muscle and lose fat? That's the big one.
01:27:29
>> So tell me about your skin care routine then. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Uh it's pretty basic. Uh I learned this
01:27:35
from my dermatology friends. So some vitamin C uh in the morning, some uh SPF, um and in the evening uh there's
01:27:44
some kind of vitamin A. Uh I actually really like NAD. I use a another company I have has something called urolithin A
01:27:52
in it, which is supposed to help get rid of senescent cells in the body. >> Which are like dead cells, right?
01:27:56
>> Which are yeah, they're like the zombie cells that um uh they sort of hang around and just
01:28:01
create inflammation everywhere. >> You're almost 50? >> I'm almost 50, yeah. >> Feeling good?
01:28:06
>> I feel great. I feel like I I inhabit my body now in a way I wish I did in my
01:28:11
20s. Like I was so punitive and I was so terrible to myself. Like things I would
01:28:16
say to myself and call myself um when I was 20, 30, um I would never say that out loud to
01:28:24
anybody else. And so now I I feel really proud of myself. You know, I got into weight training just like a lot of women
01:28:31
who are watching. They want to look better, build muscle, lose fat. That's why I got into it as well. But I stayed
01:28:35
with it because of um you know, it it provided me a way back home. Like it provided me a like it
01:28:42
taught me how to love myself. It taught me how to be patient with myself, right?
01:28:46
It taught me how to um forgive myself when I felt like I had failed, right? Like it re-imagines
01:28:53
uh your relationship with failure, which I think is like a really big effort for
01:28:57
women. >> Dr. Stefani, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest
01:29:02
leaves a question for the next not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is
01:29:07
>> What's your skin care routine? No, I'm kidding. >> [laughter] >> Do you believe in God?
01:29:14
And why or why not? >> Oh, mm. I do believe in God. I believe that there is a force greater than us, greater than we
01:29:25
will uh ever be able to explain, um that protects us, that gives us the lessons that we need to learn, and it
01:29:34
will continue to present the same lessons to us over and over and over again until we're win you know, until we
01:29:39
are willing to surrender to um to learning the lesson. >> When you're on your um when you're on
01:29:47
your last day and you look back at your life and you go, "You know what? I did it."
01:29:50
>> Mm. >> What would warrant you being able to say that? >> That my family is around. I see my I've
01:29:57
met my grandchildren, maybe even my great-grandchildren. That they are all around my bed telling
01:30:03
me Oh, you're going to make me cry, Steven. That that they're telling me, um all the ways, all the things that they
01:30:11
have learned from me and that they're going to take on to future generations in my in my lineage.
01:30:17
>> Why is that so important for you? >> I think all all the reasons why I do what I do, um
01:30:25
is it's it's it's for my kids. Like, I want my kids to have a better life. I want to shortcut some
01:30:32
of the learnings for them that I had to learn the hard way. And that's not to say I want to deny them of their own
01:30:39
learning opportunity, but I want to be able to pass on what I feel is important values that I think make the world a
01:30:46
better place. Like, I just want to leave the world better than how I found it. And the way that I want to do that is
01:30:52
through my family and the work that I do here. >> Thank you. Thank you for doing all that
01:31:00
you do. Um I think it's incredibly important for so many reasons. I mean, there's been I think a three I mean,
01:31:06
it's kind of says on the back of your book here, The Betty Body. Through time, people have thought that women were
01:31:10
little men. >> Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> Um and that's what you wrote on the back
01:31:13
of your book. It says, "Women are not little men, but that's how we treat our bodies."
01:31:17
>> Yeah. >> And it's great to have voices like you that are so backed by science, so
01:31:21
eloquent, that are out there demystifying what is a incredibly, um complicated world of uh health
01:31:29
information and conflicting information. And you know, I know it better than anybody because my audience will often
01:31:34
say to me that I relate to all of the personas that you highlighted there, where you've got
01:31:40
uh What was it? It was Anxious Which was the one that was This one. >> Exercist Emily.
01:31:46
>> No, it's this uh I get a lot of this one. >> Overwhelmed Olivia. >> Overwhelmed Olivia.
01:31:51
>> Where do I start? >> Yeah. >> Where do I start cuz I don't want to fail again.
01:31:54
>> Yes. >> Yeah. >> So many overwhelmed Olivias. In part because one of the upsides of there
01:31:59
being so much information out there now is that people are getting, you know, they're not having to go to
01:32:03
some expensive doctor and they can go on an AI, they can go on a podcast, whatever.
01:32:08
>> Right. Right. >> But with science evolving over time and with lots of different voices, people
01:32:12
are feeling often I think feeling more overwhelmed than ever with what they consider to be conflicting information
01:32:18
and I think you do a wonderful job of demystifying that. >> Thank you so much. >> Um because it's nuanced, it's very
01:32:23
human, it comes from lived experience and it comes from as you said, you've you've you've sat with tens of thousands
01:32:29
of patients through the the your career in practice. And things aren't always so simple.
01:32:34
They're not always as simple as they are easy as to sell and I think things that sell are often simple and
01:32:40
reductive. >> Yeah. >> But um the truth is often complicated, personal >> Yeah, and it doesn't exist always in a
01:32:46
lab. Yeah, I think you can't always replicate it in a lab. >> And one of the things I learned from
01:32:50
your work as well is that it changes through time. >> Yeah. >> I eat for me what's true for me now at
01:32:55
33 years old as a man, this stage of my life with the hormone complexion I have and the goals that I have, one thing can
01:33:01
be true. But maybe when I'm 55, a different set of things are going to be true. And I think that nuance is super
01:33:05
super important. If people want more of your work, I know you've got a book coming out the top of the year next year
01:33:10
called >> [snorts] >> Nothing to Lose, Build the Dream Body You Want Today, Gain the Strength and
01:33:16
Mobility You'll Need Tomorrow. And you've got this current book here called The Betty Body which I'll link below
01:33:21
subtitled A Geeky Goddess. You use the word geeky a lot and nerd. A nerd's safari, [laughter] that's
01:33:26
interesting. >> Used to be used to be sort of a you know, a terrible word to use. I'm like,
01:33:29
no, I'm a total nerd. Yeah, special category of nerd. >> A Geeky Goddess Guide to Intuitive
01:33:35
Eating, Balanced Hormones, and Transformative Sex. >> Yeah. >> Where else do people find you if they
01:33:40
want to learn more or message you or get in touch or come see you? What What do they Where do they go?
01:33:44
>> My podcast, not quite the reach that Doac has, uh but we are I have a podcast called
01:33:51
Better with Dr. Stephanie. So I do solo episodes there where I go on my little tangents about tendons and ligaments and
01:33:57
all the things and then I also interview what I would qualify as the world's thought leaders in science and
01:34:06
health and we try to distill what it means for what it means to have a well-lived life. So, podcasts free
01:34:14
probably where you're listening to this YouTube and all the places and then you can head over to my website dr.
01:34:19
stephanieestema.com. >> Anything else you wanted to say? >> I would say for the woman listening my overwhelmed
01:34:27
Olivia's who are feeling that they don't know where to start or my skinny fat Sophia's who are scared of lifting
01:34:31
weights and eating like a bird or my exercises Emily's who are still exercising their demons
01:34:37
um you're not behind. You are absolutely enough and don't be so hard on yourself.
01:34:48
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly what video you
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