I want women to stop being losers. And

so, I'm on a mission to really undo the

genuinely terrible advice that most

women have been given as it concerns

their health and their fitness. So,

we're going to talk through some

actionable strategies on how to build a

body that has curves, more of [music] an

hourglass figure. But, Stephen, if I can

be very honest with you, I am pissed off

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

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.

Be as small as possible. So, this is

where I get a little fired up because I

also have personal experience struggling

with my own weight and my own worth. I

was trying to become what I thought was

the right thing. And I had massive

problems afterwards. So, I am going to

be very transparent and honest with you.

The pursuit of skinny is a bad thing

with devastating consequences. Like,

you're going to end up with bone disease

like osteoporosis.

>> So, there's lots of things on the desk

here in front of us that I'd love to go

through. We've got these five fitness

myths.

>> Yes, so one of them, for example, is a

lot of women are scared to consume more

carbohydrates because they think [music]

it's going to make them fat. But, we

need carbohydrates for our mood, our

sleep, even performance at the gym. And

then there's also women are scared that

if they're lifting heavy weights, that

they're going to start looking like a

bodybuilder. But, that's almost

impossible. 97%

of women don't have the hormonal

environment to bulk.

>> And then we've also got these archetypes

here.

>> So, there's four [music] archetypes that

women identify themselves in their

fitness journey. And the most common

woman that I see is skinny fat Sophie.

And we'll talk about what this means.

>> So, let's talk about what the women

listening should understand about

hormones. How do you think about fasting

and your menstrual cycle? What are the

specific issues that mothers face as it

relates to fitness? I mean, there's lots

of things that I'd love to talk about.

>> 100%. That makes me so excited.

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the show.

Dr. Stephanie Estima.

Why is it you do what you do? Like,

ultimately, what is it you're trying to

change in the world? What impact are you

trying to have? And who are you trying

to have [clears throat] it for?

>> Well, I am on a mission to really undo

the

genuinely terrible advice that most

women have been given as it concerns

their health and their fitness. And what

I mean by that is

for the vast majority of health and

fitness goals for women, it's all about

becoming smaller. It's about becoming

skinnier. It's about losing weight. It's

about dropping a dress size. Stephen, if

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.

And instead, what I would love for them

to do is to shift their focus from

losing

and

focusing more on what they have to gain.

So, how much muscle can they gain? How

much bone density can they gain? How

much connective tissue capacity from

their joints, their tendons, their

ligaments can they gain?

Can they work towards building a body

that they love and trust and enjoy

living in?

>> Why do you want that for women?

Specifically this losing gaining thing.

>> We've been sold a lie that our worth is

the number on the scale, which is by the

way, you know, when you when you're

weighing yourself, this is really just a

reflection of your relationship with

gravity, no more, no less, right? But we

are told that when we fit into a certain

dress size, that we are now worthy, that

we will

somehow have arrived. That is not the

full experience of being women. Women

can be strong, women can be capable,

women can be competent, and you can't do

that when you're starving yourself, when

you're over exercising and you're not

prioritizing your recovery or treating

recovery like it is something that you

have to earn.

>> So, are you saying being skinny is a bad

thing or

>> I'm saying that the pursuit of skinny at

all costs is a bad thing. So, right now

a lot of online dialogue is, you know,

strong is the new skinny. I don't want

to pit those two things against each

other, but I do want to like if you are

obese, you are much better not being

obese, right?

>> Mhm.

>> But it is the

pursuit of skinny at the sacrificial

altar of everything else. So, if you are

somebody who values being slim, the

likelihood that you are going to pick up

heavy weights or weights that challenge

you with enough effort and intensity is

going to be lower.

The likelihood that your bone density is

going to be sufficient over the arc of

your life is going to be lower. You are

going to likely under consume calories.

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

a size whatever dress. But when you're

65, you have osteoporosis, you haven't

won. You've been you've been tricked.

>> Tricked by who?

>> A society that tells us that our worth

is solely based on how small we are.

>> Hm.

And who are you? Like in terms of why

this matters so much to you as Dr.

Stephanie?

>> Yeah.

>> What do I what context do I need to know

there?

Cuz I can see you're a little bit pissed

off.

>> I'm so

>> [laughter]

>> Yeah, I am pissed off in a loving way.

So we'll say it that way. I have

professional experience in this and I

also have personal experience in it as

well. I have an undergrad in

neuroscience and psychology from the

University of Toronto. When I was

pursuing that, I became a fitness

instructor,

uh a personal trainer. So this is, you

know, very young. I started having uh my

first exposure to seeing firsthand how

people were setting goals for themselves

and having a difficult time achieving

it. Went on to the Canadian Memorial

Chiropractic College in Toronto, Canada.

And then I was in I've been in practice

for 20 years. So I've seen

tens of thousands of of patients over my

20-year tenure and the same pattern kept

showing up over and over and over. And

then personally, I also, you know, just

being a woman living in this society,

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

weight down into what I thought was the

ideal body type. I competed in a figure

competition, which was really the first

moment for me where I really felt like

the science failed me because I had

followed everything to a T. Do lots of

cardio,

restrict your calories,

you have to earn your recovery. The day

that I got up on stage, I was 11% body

fat. So just just for context, you know,

women have

about 10 to call it

13% essential body fat. And if you go

beneath that, then you start to get into

a lot of trouble. So, I was right at the

bottom range of that.

Most women, a healthy body fat

percentage is something like

call it 18 to 25%.

I had lost my period for 2 months before

I think it was two or three months

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

regulate again. I gained all the weight

back that I had lost.

And I felt like a total failure. And I

felt like the science had failed me.

>> And it caused you a lot of pain.

>> I hated myself.

Like, full stop. I looked in the mirror.

I hated what I saw.

I would pinch I would pick I was like, I

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,

people were coming up to me and

showering me with compliments. People

were like, "Oh my god, you look you look

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

weight or we we go on this health

journey, which is often just code word

for getting smaller.

And we we get showered with these

external compliments. And at the time, I

was starving because I was not eating. I

was completely overworked. I wasn't

sleeping. And I didn't have my period.

Like, I was not the picture of health,

but everybody was telling me

how amazing I was, how amazing I looked.

So, I think that's where we get it we we

we hitch our worth to what the outside

world tells us, rather than thinking

about who we need to be and how we need

to show up for ourselves first in order

to be able to give to everybody else,

but also just unhitch ourselves from

other people's expectations of us.

>> And for the women and for all the people

I guess that have clicked to listen to

this conversation right now, what are

they going to leave this conversation

with specifically? And how is that going

to impact their life?

>> Yeah. So, this is for women and the men

who love them. So, this is for everyone.

>> Okay.

>> Um

I think for women, maybe you have been

doing like the good girl thing like I

was doing, you're doing the things that

you thought you should have been doing,

but you still don't have the dream body

or the body composition that you want.

We're going to talk through some

actionable strategies on how to do that.

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

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

bit of your paradigm in the way that you

think you're thinking about health.

>> And how old are you?

>> I'm 48.

>> Hm.

>> Mhm.

>> I think it's important context.

>> Yeah.

>> But you're also a mother?

>> I'm a mother of two, yeah.

>> Of two.

>> Mother of two and then I have a I'm have

a stepson as well.

>> Okay.

>> Mhm.

>> [clears throat]

>> So, um there's lots of things on the

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

got these five fitness myths in this

envelope here that we'll reveal at some

point and these archetypes here.

Where do you believe the best place to

start this conversation is?

>> I think that maybe we can talk about the

archetypes because I think that it sets

the stage for allowing women

to identify themselves in their fitness

journey, however that is.

Okay, my first Overwhelmed Olivia, this

woman wants to do the right thing. Okay,

so she is on social media and within a

couple of minutes of going on social

media, she sees someone saying, "Plants

are trying to kill you. Olivia, you

should never have plants. They're

terrible for you. And she keeps

scrolling and then she comes upon

someone else who says, "Actually, plants

are great for you. They have lots of

fiber. They have lots of phytonutrients,

etc."

So, she's like, "Oh, okay, that's weird.

Let me look up some fitness stuff." And

then same thing with the fitness. Some

people say,

"You don't want to get bulky, Olivia.

So, you need to do light weights, high

reps." And then there's other people

that are like, "That's not true. You can

As long as you're bringing the muscle

close to failure, you will build

muscle." So, she's getting the I like to

call it infobesity. It's like so much

information. It's too much information

that she ends up getting like you know,

it's like analysis paralysis. And this

woman, I have a soft spot for her

because she just is so scared to start

something else and fail at it because

she doesn't want

that to reinforce her own schema, her

own perception of her being a failure.

All right, so she doesn't do anything.

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

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

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

winner in some vertical of her life. And

then you start to layer in more things

with her as she goes along.

The second one is probably my favorite,

the the most common woman that I see,

skinny fat Sophia. So, the technical

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

her body composition, she's starting to

see a loss of maybe bone loss, a loss of

muscle because she is not she's very

afraid of heavy weights. So, maybe I'll

do some Pilates, some yoga, maybe I'll

walk, right? She also calorically

restricts as well, right? So this woman

is my is like personally she's my

favorite woman because when we start

giving her a little bit more food

>> Mhm.

>> [clears throat]

>> and we start giving her just a little

bit heavier weights than the 2-lb

weights that she's been lifting, you

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

not the main strategy for muscle

building. So it's just

>> Pilates.

>> I love Pilates. I do it twice a week.

It's fantastic.

But this woman, when she starts eating a

little bit, I all This is what she

always says to me.

I can't believe I'm losing fat. I can't

believe I'm losing weight by eating

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

actually just it's just a beautiful

thing to have all her schema sort of

rearrange in terms of what she thought

was possible for her.

>> Mhm.

>> Okay?

>> This subject to fat.

>> Yes.

>> If someone comes to you and they say,

"Stephanie, I would love to lose some

some belly fat

>> Mhm.

>> because I'm skinny fat. Or maybe I'm

just, you know, I just have a bit too

much weight on me. What is it you say to

them?"

>> You can't actually spot reduce.

>> What does spot reduce mean?

>> So someone wants to reduce their belly

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

going to be strength training, which

we've talked about, but you will

probably also need some kind of caloric

deficit. So when we think about that

very famous, somewhat oversimplified

calories in, calories out, so you want

me thinking about

how am I going to create a deficit? So

I'm consu- either consuming less

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

more weight lifting or I'm doing more

walking or I'm doing something where my

calories out surpass my calories in.

>> Is there an easiest way to do that? Cuz

we hear hearing that, you know, just eat

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

the long term, either. You can

temporarily reduce your food, but at

some point, your hunger hormones and

your body is just going to drive you to

consume more calories. I often find when

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."

I personally find it easier for women,

specifically, to do more on the calories

out side. So, not to

>> Exercise.

>> Yeah, so doing more exercise, more daily

movement. I think that the calories in

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

they have to, you know, they got to

measure, they got to do all the things.

So, if you can figure out what your

maintenance calories are, and then you

can surpass that with maybe more walking

or something that's not going to ratchet

up your hunger hormones or your cortisol

levels, let's say, I think that that's

often I think it's a healthier option,

personally, um because you're also

making sure that you're getting in

sufficient substrate, sufficient

calories, so that you can actually build

you know, you can build muscle, bone

density, collagen, etc.

So, that's our skinny fat Sophia. Up

next, I was this woman I sometimes still

am this woman, exercist Emily. So, this

is a just a funny word, um

to really describe

the intensity that this woman puts out

at the gym, right? So, this woman, you

have no problem getting her to the gym.

She is the woman at the squat rack.

There's no problem getting her to the

gym and getting her to work very diffi-

like very hard. What her issue is, and

this was me for years, is that she still

has some of the skinny fat Sophia

attitude towards food. So, there's a

mismatch with her between how much

effort she's putting out with her uh

exercise program and how much energy is

coming in with her food. She's still

under eating because she's scared of

gaining weight.

>> Mhm. I was exorcist Emily. I was, you

know, had the hoodie on, wearing the ear

like I nobody talked to me with my big

earphones on.

Uh this was for me after I was going

through a divorce with my I had very

young children at the time. They were

five and three. So I was I was grieving

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

and then follow that with insufficient

calories afterwards because I still had

that well I can't eat a lot I'm going to

gain weight kind of mentality.

So exorcist Emily, we love her.

Um and then the pinnacle if you will is

the dialed in Diana. So this is the

woman who has

maybe made peace with some of her

demons,

um enjoys movement, knows that it's a

way for her to tend to herself. You

know, food is not a punishment. It's not

she doesn't restrict calories because

she ate too much. She fuels to nourish

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

is pleasure. It gives us joy and

happiness. My sourdough bread in the

morning gives me lots and lots of

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

able to get to. We want her to dial in

both her exercise program, her nutrition

program, and to give herself some effing

grace with her recovery.

>> You can swear.

>> Yeah, her [ __ ] her [ __ ] So give

herself some [ __ ] grace with her with

her recovery.

>> got demonetized.

>> [laughter]

>> Okay, but I get it. So we're trying

We're trying to get everybody to become

dialed in Diana.

>> Yeah.

And also just know so if you've been

listening to these descriptions like oh

I got a little bit of the exorcist Emily

I got a little bit of that rage or grief

or something but then I also sometimes

have analysis paralysis like you will

also oscillate through them and that's

completely normal as well. Yeah.

>> When you were talking about excess

stamina, that was not a wasn't a light

season of your life, was it?

>> No, it was very dark. And it was the

There was the lifting that got me

through it, truthfully.

Yeah. It's, you know, sometimes when we

think about resistance training, it's

literally training your resistance. It's

not a question for, you know,

if something bad is going to happen,

it's just a it's a matter of when.

So, I think something,

you know, voluntarily putting yourself

in a situation where you are making

yourself uncomfortable, you know, going

to the gym and moving your muscles to

failure is not, you know,

it's not fun. Uh it can be quite

intense, but it does train your

resistance, your grit, your mental

capacity to withstand,

you know, terrible things.

>> So, by the end of this conversation,

everybody listening is going to be a

dialed-in Diana.

>> I That is my dream.

>> Okay, let's do it.

>> dream. Yeah.

>> First, we should start with debunking

some of the myths. What's the six myths

in this

little envelope here?

>> Okay.

So, the first one is carbs.

>> Mhm.

>> And so, the So, all the ladies who are

listening, we have to heal our

relationship with carbohydrates.

You can restrict carbs temporarily and

for certain populations, that's a

wonderful idea.

Uh if you're a woman that has a type 2

diabetes or PMOS, something like that, a

temporary clawback of carbohydrates is

fantastic for improving insulin

insensitivity, glucose disposal, um

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

temporary amount of time, I think what a

lot of women did with the carbs is once

they started losing weight on a keto

diet or a low-carb diet,

they said, "Oh, you know what the

problem is?

It's the carbs. I'm never going to go

back.

And the problem with that is that if you

were sick, you had a bacterial

infection, you went to your doctor, they

did a swab, came back positive, and

they're like, "You know what? You have a

bacterial infection. I'm going to give

you a script for antibiotics." Right?

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

you're doing.

You do that, you follow the protocol,

you take the medication.

I don't think anybody listening, or at

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

what I need to do to never get sick

again?

I need to continue taking antibiotics

for the rest of my life." No one is

going to do that. But somehow, for

carbohydrates, people made the

illogical conclusion that you should

never have carbohydrates ever again.

And for women, what I noticed, so I'm

sure we'll talk about my first book, The

Betty Body, I advocate for a low low

carbohydrate, a higher protein diet in

there, but for a transient amount of

time, right? Until you achieve the goal

of, you know, reversing metabolic issues

or losing some weight, etc., improving

your period, that's another thing that

we actually see is menstrual cycle

regulation. But if you stay here too

long, your thyroid, like so many women

>> What's the symptom of the consequence if

your thyroid being malfunctioning?

>> Yeah, I would say you're always cold.

So your hands are cold, you're always

cold. You might have very, very heavy

bleeding, so your menstrual cycle during

your bleed week, so that first three to

seven days, let's say, when you're on

your period. Hair shedding, so hair

starts to actually fall out. Hair is not

necessary at all for survival. So when

you don't have sufficient calories or

sufficient balance of macros, your body

is going to sacrifice the things that

don't matter at all to your survival.

And a lot of women will start to say

hair uh shedding comes out. The classic

sign is the lateral third of the

eyebrow. We start to see the lateral

third of the eyebrow start to fall out

as well.

>> mean the lateral third?

>> The outside the outside third of the

eyebrow. So, the tail for most people of

their eyebrow starts to get really

sparse and thin as well.

So, there's lots of common signs and

symptoms, but we need carbohydrates if

not for the thyroid, but for our

mood, our sleep, even performance

performance at the gym. In the vein of

transparency and honesty, I don't always

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

what it my breakfast and I go and train,

fantastic performance enhancer. A lot of

women are scared to consume more

carbohydrates because they think it's

going to make them fat.

And this is really comes down to this C

I M or carbohydrate insulin model of

obesity, which has kind of largely been

like disbanded. There's not a lot of

evidence to support it anymore, but

there's a lot of people online that will

scare you and think, well, if you have

carbs, your glucose levels might spike.

And that, you know, the way that it's

often presented is that is the worst

thing that ever could happen to you.

>> But there's such a thing as too many

carbs.

>> Correct. Yes. I think that the problem

is not that the carbs were the problem,

it's the overconsumption of carbs, the

overconsumption of fat, the

overconsumption of of total calories.

>> So, it's defined by calories here.

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

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so much.

What's the next one? What's the next

myth in your folder?

>> Oh, this one. I love this one.

Uh this one is

women

getting bulky.

Women are still scared that if they

engage in a program of

progressive overload, which is to say

that you are maybe you are lifting heavy

weights, maybe you are doing more

volume, meaning you're doing more sets

or more repetitions, that somehow you

are going to bulk up. As if

to say that they're going to start

looking like a you know, some a physique

competitor, a bodybuilder.

It [snorts] is the equivalent of saying,

well, if you drive to the store to get

some groceries that you are going to be

on par with Lewis Hamilton and you're

going to be a Formula 1 driver, right?

It's just

almost

impossible for I'm going to say 97 to

98% of women don't have the hormonal

environment to bulk. There are a few

genetically gifted outliers that

absolutely can, but for the most part,

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

more than I do. So, even if we train the

same way, I'm never going to be able to

put on as much muscle mass as you.

But a gal can continue to dream, right?

I can continue to hope.

>> [laughter]

>> So, bulking up it's not a thing.

Um what I what I will say though,

actually what I will say is some people

when they do start lifting weights

initially, they will start to feel a

little thicker, right? Cuz the muscle is

a little bit more swollen. There's also

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

poke through, let's say. Um but

sometimes that's why people will feel

bulk they'll say, oh, I'm I'm getting

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

say, of the muscle underneath.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

Ooh.

Long fasts.

So, I will call myself out here as well.

I used to believe that this was the key.

And this is when I was in my skinny fat

Sophia era, when I was in my Exorcist

Emily era, where I thought that the more

you could fast, the less calories you

could take in,

and you could lose weight. You want to

make sure that you have total sufficient

calories. You don't want to over consume

calories, but you also don't want to

under consume them either.

But fasting doesn't actually teach you

how to eat when you are not fasting,

right? So, I think that a lot of people

overly rely on long fast. So, when I say

long, I would say 20 hours, 24 hours,

36, 72, like these really multi-day

fasts. If I start eating a lot less

calories than let's say you do,

I'm going to have, over the long term,

more detrimental effects than you might.

>> Why?

>> The female body is just more sensitive

to whether nutrients are coming in or

not, so that we can figure out whether

or not we want to direct our energy to,

you know, being able to get pregnant

that month. Our ovaries, when we sort of

look at the density of the mitochondria

in them, it's something like 100,000

mitochondria per oocyte, like per cell.

So, they're constantly scanning the

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

the risk of sending a signal that it's

not safe, that these are famine

conditions, and that you should not be

producing an egg because that would be

terrible because if you got pregnant,

there's not enough food to feed you or

the baby.

>> So, it shuts off

the your your menstrual cycle as a way

to stop you having a baby.

>> Yes. So, you can still fast, but the way

that I like to fast is sort of pull the

food, you know, call it 2 to 3 hours

before you go to sleep.

That's when you cut off the food, you

sleep for 8 or 9 hours, that's like a

10-hour,

11-ish hour fast, and then you wake up

in the morning and you eat.

What often happens is women try to push

that they'll have a cup of coffee in the

morning and then they try to push their

eating window, let's say, to 11:00 or

noon.

And that ends up Oh, it becomes more

difficult, I'll say it that way. It

becomes more difficult for you to get in

sufficient calories, sufficient protein,

sufficient carbohydrates, and fats in a

restricted eating window.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah. Okay. So, this is related to the

bulky myth.

I think a lot of women are scared of

lifting heavy partially because they've

never done it, so it's foreign.

And I think that the other

reason that women are scared of lifting

heavy is they're scared of getting

injured, which to be fair is a valid

concern.

I think that in the era of, you know,

again, social media can be a blessing

and can be the greatest thing ever and

sometimes it can be a um a vehicle for

misinformation.

And I think now we hear muscle mommies

and lifting heavy and I think that for

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

asking a woman who is very comfortable

with a cardio machine as her vehicle for

exercise to now move into the, you know,

the free weight section of the gym, the

deadlifting platforms, even the

machines, can feel really intimidating.

So,

there are lots of different ways that

you can build muscle. It doesn't have to

just be heavy. There are other ways that

you can progressively overload the

muscle, which is to say that you are

applying sufficient intensity and effort

every single time, whether it's heavy

weight or it's more volume, or you're

increasing the density of your workout,

meaning you take less rest, so you're a

little bit more tired. Like, you can

There's a lot of different ways that you

can make a workout harder. It doesn't

always have to be heavy.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Heavy.

>> Oh, this one This one's good. This is

post-workout fueling. We used to think

that you only had 15 minutes to like

knock back a protein shake, right?

>> After you've done a workout.

>> After you've done a workout because you

need to replenish the glycogen and you

have to start muscle protein synthesis,

and I would say that this is largely

false. Your muscle protein synthesis is

not just limited to the 15 or 30 minutes

that are immediately after the workout,

right? Your muscles are building little

protein factories over the next, you

know, depending on how trained you are,

10 to 72 hours in some cases. As long as

you are getting sufficient, again, total

protein over the course of the day,

total calories over a 24-hour period,

totally fine.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. Oh, pre-workout fueling. Okay.

I would say in an ideal world,

everyone would have some food before

they train. So, a little bit of protein,

little bit of carbs, just to start

raising some blood sugar to have some

available substrate um for the workout.

I don't do this

um most of the week. So, when I work out

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

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

typically do is I will

fuel with ketones. I have ketones uh for

my workout, and then when I get home,

that's when I have my big uh meal.

>> So, you have ketones before you do a

workout.

>> Yeah.

>> Why?

>> In the absence of food, I would say that

ketones are fuel that your body already

you your body produces ketones, right?

It's a fuel that your body already knows

what to do with, especially when it's a

big muscle group, so if you're doing a

leg day, let's say, or a back day, it

provides

you with the neural drive to continue

going. So, you get into that sort of

sympathetic state.

>> Mhm.

>> [clears throat]

>> That's my favorite um flavor, too, is

the green apple. My kids have the green

apple before their soccer, too.

>> I am a co-owner of this company, hashtag

ad.

>> Yes.

>> So, [laughter] I have to I have to

disclaim that. Otherwise, someone's

going to come for me.

>> Yeah. So, in an ideal world, we would

fuel before we work out, but my the

constraints that I have in my life is

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

know, have breakfast, head to the gym,

and then, you know, I always know that

when I do have food, my performance is

>> better in the gym.

>> Better. Always, 100% of the time.

>> So, let's talk about what you do in the

gym. And why you do it. Cuz you clearly

got a big focus on muscle being

important.

>> Yeah.

>> I train with lots of women. I actually

trained with a colleague of mine this

morning called, uh,

George. She often goes off into like the

cardio section.

>> Mhm.

>> And she does muscles as well, some some

resistance training as well. And I go

off in the other direction to like the,

you know,

>> The platforms, yeah.

>> Like the men stuff that men typically

gravitate towards.

>> Yeah.

>> And I'm wondering what you think all

women should be doing in the gym. Like,

is there If you think about a 7-day

workout regime,

>> Mhm.

>> what do you think is optimal in those 7

days?

>> Yeah, there is I do want to I do want to

call out something you just said, and

then I'll answer your question. Um, you

just said, I go to the area that

typically men go to, and I do the

exercises that men typically do. So,

just because squats and deadlifts and

presses and pull-ups are typically done

by men, doesn't mean that those are male

exercises. Those are fundamental human,

you know, motor patterns that both men

and women can benefit from. Um, but to

your point, there is typically more men

doing those things that are more

comfortable doing those things versus

someone who's like, "Hey, I can figure

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?"

>> I love the stairmaster.

>> I love the stairmaster, too. It's, uh, a

special kind of torture. It's great.

Okay, so,

in terms of what I think people should

be doing, if she can aim something like

three or four days a week of strength

training,

>> Yeah.

>> it would be alternating upper body and

lower body, and then we would be

thinking about what muscle groups are we

going to be working together. Is it a

pull or push? Yeah. So, this is um I

think

>> What is this?

>> This is from um my book, uh my upcoming

book uh called Nothing to Lose actually,

because we shouldn't be losing, we

should be trying to try to be gaining.

And these are the these are the muscle

groups that I want women to be thinking

about if their goal is body composition

and they are trying to build a body that

has curves. You can't spot reduce, but

you can definitely spot build. Like, you

can put curves where

uh you know, they weren't before. So,

what I've done in the book is I've

outlined muscle groups that I think

women should be focusing on in order to

help develop in more of an hourglass

figure. So, we have uh starting at the

top, we have the deltoid muscle group,

which you're these are your shoulder. I

like to call these your bread buns. So,

they're sitting on the side of your

shoulder, the lateral delts.

Below that, we'll have the back muscles

and the lats in particular. I like to

call the lats our angel wings because we

have, you know, it helps it sort of

create that V as the back widens, you

have a the appearance of a slender or

slimmer waist. Moving posteriorly, we

have glutes. So, there's three uh

muscles that make up the glutes. It's

max, med, and min. Glute maximus,

gluteus gluteus and then we have the

adductor group.

>> Which is the insides of the legs.

>> inner thigh muscles, yeah.

And then the last the last one is the

pelvic floor or may more broadly, we'll

say the the core muscles.

>> So, what do I need to know? For a woman

and I I'm thinking about building this

uh these five muscles that you've

highlighted here. Are there as it

relates to how I should be training and

the big misconceptions about how to

train to build this?

>> Yeah.

>> What do I need to know?

>> For these muscle groups, you probably

should be hitting something like 10 sets

of um exercises per week per muscle

group.

>> Okay, so if I do four hip thrusts,

>> Mhm.

>> um that is one set of four.

>> Correct.

>> And that's going to help my glutes.

>> Correct.

>> So you're saying that I should be doing

10 sets a week.

>> Per muscle group per week. Yeah.

>> But that's not actually that much.

>> It's not that much. No. And this is why

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

That's all I can give you. You can still

have incredible results. As long as you

are taking the muscle close to muscle

failure, which is to say that you can no

longer perform the repetition anymore.

You don't have to take it to failure,

but as long as it's one to three

repetitions from failure.

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

difficult for you to do that because you

are going to start noticing your

uh range of motion, like your ability to

do your range of motion is going to be

limited. You're going to start noticing

the velocity of the repetition is

starting to slow down, so your ability

to sort of move the

the weight through space is going to

start slowing down. You're going to

subjectively, even though you can see

that you're holding like a 15-lb or

10-lb, you know, weight, it's going to

start feeling like 20 or 25. Like your

subjective perception of the weight is

going to be um increasing. You know, if

you were to rate it out of 10, you would

rate your effort like eight or nine out

of 10.

>> And men and women, because they have

different anatomies, should be doing

slightly different exercises?

>> I think that that's more a matter of

preference and goals.

>> But is my anatomy and your anatomy the

same?

>> Our anatomy is not the same. No. So,

when we think about the way that we move

through, let's say if you and I were to

squat together or you were and I were to

lunge together, there's going to be some

differences in terms of how we look. And

so, we'll pull up some props here if we

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

pelvis. So, when we sort of look at the

difference between them, the female

pelvis is wider and it's more shallow.

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

looks like a little bit more like a

heart shape.

And this looks a little bit more like an

oval shape. And the reason for that is

to allow a baby to pass through.

Why this is so important is this is

going to shape the stressors that happen

in our knees and our ankles. So, in

particular we have something called the

Q angle which I believe I believe I have

a

Yeah, I have something Yeah, yeah. So,

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

down to the kneecap or the patella and

then you take like another little line

from the tibial tubercle and and draw it

upward. So, that's just for all the

nerds that are listening

if you want to measure this it's the

anterior superior iliac spine all the

way down to the uh to the patella and

then the tibial tubercle. And what

you'll see for women here in pink

because the pelvis is wider, the femur

has to more aggressively come in

medially. It has to come more to the

center. So, this makes women when we

compare women and men, um it makes us

more knock-kneed. Which just means that

the knees are coming more together. So,

this is going to impact literally

every

how we move. So, it's going to affect

how we walk, how we jump, how we squat,

how we lunge, how we run. And so, it's

important to for women to understand how

we're different because often the

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

can run into

feeling like squats are not comfortable,

that lunges are not comfortable, or we

start to even shy away from some of

these motions because we don't think

that they're meant for us. You just need

to know how to adapt your training so

that you can support some of those sheer

motions as you as you're moving. Because

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

see more sheer forces being placed

through the medial or through the inside

part of the knee. Right? So, that puts

us at a greater risk for uh ligamentous

injuries. So, in the knee, the big one

is the ACL that we often worry about.

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

there's nothing wrong with the knee

coming in as long as you have muscles

that can kind of support it. If I were

to grab this back here so we can sort of

think about superimposing it. If we were

to look at the the leg here,

the muscles that are going to be helping

to control the way that the hip moves it

are the glutes. So, you have the glute

max, but in particular the gluteus

medius, which is often called like the

upper shelf

uh muscle, that's actually going to help

the femur or counteract the femur being

pulled inwardly.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah. [clears throat]

>> Yeah.

>> So, we do have different anatomical

differences that women need to be aware

of so that we can bias training that

will provide mobility and stability for

us. So, that's another reason why

I mean, yes, glutes look amazing in

jeans, but it's also because they are

providing such a driving force of

stability for the spine, for the knees,

for the ankles, literally for the entire

body.

>> And so, with squatting, men and women

should squat differently?

>> Yeah, not all women and men should squat

differently. There are women that can

squat in these sort of traditional

queuing.

>> Can you show me this?

>> I can. Yeah, I'll have to take my heels

off, but I'm happy to. Yes.

Do you want to do it now?

>> Sure.

>> Yeah, okay. Let's do it.

>> So, tell me how the anatomy of a woman

and a man determines how we should be

squatting.

>> So, I'll say first that you have to play

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

traditional cues that I'm about to give

you. Most women prefer a little bit of a

wider squat and I'll show that. So, the

typical squat that were the way [snorts]

that we're often cued is feet are

hip-width apart, toes facing forward,

and then we're going to come down, and

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

women find is more comfortable can

actually get the range of motion that

you just demonstrated is taking your

feet a little bit wider, and then you're

going to turn the feet out. So, because

the female femur tends to sit a little

bit more spun inwards or in internally

rotated, now with this external

rotation, we can actually just get by

all of that, and we can come all the way

down into a squat.

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.

>> I'd rather not. I'd rather [laughter]

not.

>> Yeah.

>> So, so that's the squat. Is there

anything else I need to know about the

squat, the the variance between men men

and women with squatting?

>> The other thing that you can think about

whether it's a squat with two feet or a

lunge or a split squat with one is with

a woman when she's coming down when

she's decelerating like she's coming

down into the into the lunge or into the

split squat, everything and your this is

true for you as well. Everything is

going to be internally rotating. So, the

femur, the leg bone is coming in, the

tibia is coming in, the foot on the

inside you're actually rolling onto the

you're flattening of the arch. It's

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.

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

I'm coming down, like my knee come my

knee tracks a little bit inward.

versus your stays a little bit more

straight. There's nothing wrong with

that. It's just a matter of whether or

not I have sufficient control with my

hip stabilizer muscles to in order to

make sure that I'm not putting excess

sharing forces on the on the knee.

>> So, you need to strengthen your hip

stabilizer.

>> Yep.

>> Okay.

>> The peach.

>> Cuz I I read something about I think it

was about the World Cup, the women's

World Cup, where they said that if

something like 12 women had got ACL

injury injuries in the lead up to the

World Cup.

>> Yeah. So, when we're thinking about why

that happens, it usually happens when

the athlete is tired. So, if it's

leading up to the World Cup, they've

probably over trained, they're not

recovering, uh and then it can be just

that they're training one day and she

takes a weird step, the sharing forces

happen just before her ligaments and her

tendons are able to stabilize it.

And and you and you damage it.

>> And is there is there true that there's

a connection between like your brain and

your mechanics that often result in

injury? Like so, I can't remember what

it was, but I think someone it was a

sleep doctor telling me that when you're

underslept, one of the reasons why you

get so many injuries is because when you

do like jump, your brain and your

>> time is slow. Yeah.

>> And you see a lot of athletes doing

doing this before games because they're

almost like practicing landing.

>> actually a little bit of deceleration.

So,

what that is is basically a stick and

land, right? So, they're jumping and

they're holding it so that the forces

are not dumped into the joints, but

rather absorbed into the connective

tissue, so the the ligaments and the

tendons.

>> And why is deceleration why is it

important even for everybody even

non-athletes to do that?

>> Well, if you are not an athlete and

you're just somebody who doesn't want to

fall and break a hip,

you know, I think that that's really

important. You know, if you're thinking

about falling, what you need to be able

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

have the hip flexor muscle that has to

come up quickly in order to get ahead of

the fall. We have the tibialis anterior,

which is just this muscle in the front

of the tibia that is involved in what's

called uh dorsiflexion, which is just

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

of absorb and brake, right? And then we

were talking a little bit about the

hourglass figure before when we were

talking about the adductors or the inner

thigh muscles. One of the things that

the inner thigh muscles will do is

they'll actually pull the leg back

underneath you, right? So, they'll also

help to stabilize that fall. And the

adductors or the outside muscle group

like the side of the glutes, they're

also going to help brake. So, there's a

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

then if you're falling off to the side,

you need the adductors and the abductors

to be able to um

to stabilize so that you don't trip over

it.

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You guys know that I only drink one type

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So, let's talk about um let's talk about

supplementation. Do you take

supplements?

>> I do. I'll pre-frame this by saying that

I am a special category of nerd. So, I

take a lot of the foundational

supplements and then there are other

ones that I take because I'm just very,

very interested in the research and the

research excites me. But for I would say

for the general population, for women

that are listening, if they're thinking

like I got to supplement, there's a

couple of sort of tier one, we'll say,

supplements that we want to be thinking

about. So,

I will find my magnesium first.

This is our

tried and true bestie, okay? So, I love

a magnesium uh glycinate. There's lots

of different kinds, uh but glycinate's

just the easiest to absorb for most

people. It tends to help with

relaxation, helps with sleep, helps with

muscle recovery. So, this is something

that I love. I'll usually take one like

250 megs at lunchtime, and then another

one in the evening. So, magnesium for

everyone.

>> How do you remember to take them?

>> I tend to habit stack them. So, I always

know that when I'm preparing my lunch, I

actually keep my magnesium right beside

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

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

doing my skin, whatever, I will I'll

take one there, too.

>> So, you put it in the way

>> Yeah.

>> of of other habits.

>> Cuz otherwise, if I put it in a really

beautiful supplement closet, it's just

going to

>> Yeah, same.

>> stay there.

>> I have to put it on my desk. And also,

when I travel, it's on the hotel desk.

>> Yeah. You're already doing something

else, so just put the thing next to the

thing you're already doing, and your

compliance and your adherence is going

to go up, right?

>> [snorts]

>> Um what else we got in here? Ooh,

omega-3s. Okay. These are so well

established in the literature. They

reduce inflammation, they help with

cognition. Something like 2 to 4 g a

day.

>> I didn't know you needed to keep it in

the fridge. I've been keeping it in a

hot cupboard for the longest time.

>> Yeah. I mean

>> Probably spoils.

>> It just yeah, it just helps with with

spoilage. So, you can pop them in the

fridge, and then same kind of thing,

like habit stacking. So, as you're

opening up the fridge, put it in front

of, you know, the thing that the thing

that you would most commonly reach for.

So, you go for fruits in the morning,

you put them right beside your fruits.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

Uh what other goodies do we have in

here? Vitamin D, for sure. Uh D3 with a

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

really a vitamin. It's more of like a

prohormone or prehormone. So, this is

really important for sex hormone,

reproductive hormone uh production, uh

again, inflammation, cognition.

>> Every day?

>> Every day. Every day.

>> I went to the doctor, and he said I was

deficient in vitamin D and omega-3. So,

there's

>> know how many Even if you live in a

sunny I can't tell you I've had patients

who live in, you know, Florida, let's

say, where it's you think that you're

getting a lot of sun exposure because

the temperature is

uh inimical to that, and you run their

vitamin D, and

>> It's crazy.

>> Yeah.

>> Crazy.

>> Ooh, I'm so happy you have this one

here, creatine. Uh I know you just had

Dr. Darren Candow on the show. He was

actually on my podcast as well. For

women,

you know, I think creatine used to be

this um

like bro supplement, you know, it's like

these the bodybuilders with the scary,

you know, noises and the, you know,

weird t-shirts and stuff. But the

creatine is really, really important for

women. The way that Dr. Candow uh

described it to me was he said, you

know, lifting weights builds the cake,

and this is like the icing on top of it,

right? So, you're not going to, you

know, enhance performance, you're not

going to build strength if you're just

doing the creatine. You have to be

pairing it with the mechanical signal of

resistance training, but I think every

woman can be taking 5 g, 3 to 5 g of

this every single day.

>> How much are you taking?

>> I take five.

>> Sometimes you take a bit more than five.

>> Sometimes I take a little bit more than

five. So, when you have been, and this

is this is the little perimenopausal

hack because I am in fully in the throes

of it right now,

there are nights where I don't sleep

well.

So, [snorts]

taking a higher dose of creatine that

day will help with your cognition, your

awareness, and your alertness. So,

something like a 10-g dose because it's

a little bit harder to get if my

understanding of it is it's harder to

get across the blood-brain barrier, so

you need a higher dose in order to

facilitate that. But yeah, 10 g.

>> And what impact has it had on you? Have

you noticed an impact?

>> When I haven't slept well, yeah,

definitely if I take it in the morning,

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

know, for some reason I start

forgetting,

um muscles look a little less swole, you

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

workout.

>> Mhm.

>> There's a performance degradation when I

am when I'm not on it.

And then collagen. I love this one

because it gets so much hate online, so

we're going to go against the grain and

talk about how great collagen is.

A lot of the criticism for collagen

often comes from this idea that, well,

it's terrible. It doesn't have any

leucine or has less than 3% of leucine,

which is an amino acid that

stimulates protein synthesis. And yes,

that's true. It is a terrible driver for

muscle protein, but this that's not like

the whole goal for women is not just

muscle, right? We have other tissues

that go to the gym alongside our muscle

that train, like our tendons, our

ligaments, our joints.

And so collagen is just like muscle is a

very expensive process, so it's very

expensive, you know, I mean, from a

mechanistic point of view to create

collagen. So taking collagen is great

for what I like to call the JTL, your

joints, your tendons, and your

ligaments.

So I will typically take something like

10 to 15 g of this a day. People will

probably come at me. I put this in my

coffee sometimes, which I know the heat,

I get it, but

if I don't, I won't take it.

>> There's so many collagen products out

there at the moment, isn't there?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Collagen drinks, collagen collagen's in

everything.

>> Mhm.

>> Someone's going to figure out how to

like put it in the air or something.

>> Yeah, right. Yeah.

>> Is that all a fad? They're saying it's

good for skin, it's good for nails, it's

good for hair, it's good for everything.

>> It's good for fascia, it's good for I

mean, collagen is the primary compound

in joints, tendons, ligaments, fascia,

skin, hair, and nails.

>> type of collagen?

>> Hydrolyzed. Hydrolyzed type 1, 2, and 3.

Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Fine. What else?

>> Electrolytes.

I take electrolytes not as consistently,

again, in the vein of transparency and

honesty, I typically will take this on a

very heavy cardio day. So, I have

recently taken up tennis. I'm terrible

at it, but being outside tennis, you're

in the heat, you're running left and

right, and you're doing it for hours on

end, you know, you can when you're

sweating a lot, electrolytes are really

great.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. So, like electrolytes, don't take

them all the time.

And with our last puppy here. Oh,

vitamin C.

Vitamin C I actually like to take with

the um the collagen because it can

enhance its absorption. And then this is

just a general antioxidant that I think,

you know, there's no harm in taking

vitamin C, right? It's water soluble,

you take too much, you pee it out. Um

but good as an antioxidant, good as an

anti-inflammatory,

helps with the absorption um of collagen

as well.

>> What about protein?

How do you think about protein? Do you

do you take protein shakes or anything?

>> 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

falling a bit short, but for me, my most

of my protein is coming from whole

foods.

>> What about cardio? Because we have we've

talked a lot about doing resistance

training and the importance of building

muscle.

Um what where does cardiovascular

exercises, running, sprinting, stair

master fit into all of this?

>> It's life. It's everything. Cardio is is

fantastic as well.

Um I think that again, you know, when I

think about my Overwhelmed Ophelia, you

you know, she's online and she has

people that are saying things like, you

should only lift weights and walk. And

then there's other people that are

doing, you know, the chronic cardio and

the people who are kind of overdoing it

that and not doing enough weights. I

sort of think about her as we start this

discussion. So, we want to be thinking

about cardio not as a punishment for

what you ate and not because you're

trying to get skinny, but because we

want to have other

goals around our health span and our

life span. So, living a longer life and

spending more of those years healthy.

>> A lot of women have PCOS, including my

partner.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and I was looking at the the comments

on your one of your interviews you did

and one of the top comments from a woman

was for women with PCOS or insulin

resistance spring training hit

often back backfires because it spikes

[clears throat] cortisol and insulin.

Many of us do better with strength

training plus zone two until hormone

stabilize. I would love to hear more

tailored guidance for PCOS.

>> Yeah. So the first thing I want to

dismantle in that comment is that

cortisol spikes are bad.

>> [snorts]

>> It really context really matters. So

without so I'll just say this way.

Without cortisol you won't wake up in

the morning. You know like we need

cortisol. There's something called the

cortisol awakening response where it

tends to peak, you know, somewhere you

know, right right around the time that

you wake up and then it sort of looks

like a ski slope and it, you know,

gradually

exits the chat, right? So cortisol is a

normal process. A cortisol spike is a

normal process. Just like when you

train, so when she was saying like I

train when I do resistance training, if

she were to be monitoring her hormones,

she would see both a glucose spike and a

cortisol spike when she's training

because though it to to be able to train

with enough intensity and effort, you

need to be you need to get into

something called sympathetic drive. You

need to be in like stress physiology. So

her cortisol spiking when she's training

as well. So I want to really caution

women away from being scared of normal

and predicted, you know,

uh spikes, right? Like glucose spikes,

cortisol spikes. So that that's what I

would say just to start off that

conversation.

Women with P-M-O-S, it used to be known

as PCOS, now it's polyendocrine

metabolic ovarian syndrome.

Her body typically behaves more like

someone

who is diabetic, like a type two

diabetic, where she has

issues with glucose disposal, she has

issues with insulin sensitivity.

So specific recommendations for someone

who has PCOS is absolutely she should be

training cuz every time she's

contracting her muscles, she's actually

helping whether insulin is present is

present or not for her to pull that

glucose into the muscle cell and to be

able to make energy. So, that's really

fantastic.

I also think that whether you have PCOS

or you're, you know, type 2 diabetic, I

think that zone 2 cardio is fantastic

again

for endurance, but you can also benefit

from the very high intensity cardio

that, you know, might be categorized as

high intensity interval training or hit

or sprint interval training sometimes

called sit. This is like sit is

basically like 10 to 20 seconds

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

you're feeling, you know, particularly,

you [laughter] know, energetic.

Uh and that can also that stress, that

cortisol spike and all the, you know,

the physiological cascade that happens

from that

is going to make you stronger and

[snorts] a better glucose disposal

agent, right? Which is what she wants if

she has PCOS over the long term.

>> Are there any particular exercises that

women and people generally tend to stop

doing as they age because it's kind of

like it becomes harder as you age, but

they should definitely not stop doing?

>> Oh my gosh.

>> Like what are the ones where we all kind

of stop doing it, but it's it leads to a

downward spiral.

>> Sprinting 100%. I think that everybody

should be sprinting.

>> Why?

>> You are going to be increasing something

called your VO2 max, which is

uh just again nerd speak for how much

oxygen can you take into the lungs and

distribute to the cells, right? That

along with we've all heard the stat

muscle declines 1% per year if you're

not doing anything, VO2 max is the same.

So, you will decline your VO2 max

capacity 10% per decade if you're not

actively working on it.

>> I'll put some graphs on the screen that

show that decline over time.

>> Yeah, great. I can think of family

members, you know, going up the stairs

or down the stairs or trying to get

groceries and bringing them into the

house that are huffed and puffed, right?

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

just getting older.

>> Absolutely not.

It's absolutely not a function of aging.

It's just a loss of capacity.

There was um

>> Can you sprint?

>> I sprint all the time. Yeah, but there's

So I wanted what I wanted to say was

there's a couple of different ways that

we can sprint. So you can sprint in a on

a track. So I used to be a track

sprinter, so that's like my love.

But you can also sprint on a cardio

machine in the gym. So in the

wintertime, so I live on the East Coast

where I can't always sprint on the

track, so I will take my sprinting

indoors

and I will do something called the

Norwegian 4x4 on a bike.

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

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

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

your your In my case, I do it on the

bike, but it can be done on a treadmill

or any cardio machine.

85%

to 95% of your heart rate max. So you

need to know what your maximum like the

maximum heart rate that you have ever

achieved. 85% of that for 4 minutes.

It's a long 4 minutes.

And then you take a you take a 3-minute

break.

And then you do that again four times,

hence the name four minutes four times.

>> [clears throat]

>> Lots of really cool studies on looking

at

VO2 max capacity.

There's one that I'm thinking of where

they looked at women.

The average age of the women were 58. So

they were a lot of them were in like

postmenopausal, let's say.

And they put them on a sprinting

protocol.

What they found was that in a period of

8 weeks, they were able to increase

their VO2 max by 10% in 2 months.

Which is wild when you think about how

quickly you can lose it, and you can get

10% back in 2 months, which is which is

phenomenal. And the other really cool

thing about that study was they actually

took that cohort. So, that was the

we'll call them like the the well-lived

or the older cohort, let's say, and they

compared it to 18 to 30-year-olds, and

they found that the gains that happened

in the older cohort were they had

mitochondrial efficiency improvements of

69%.

>> Mhm.

>> Whereas [clears throat] the younger

cohort, their mitochondrial gains were

49%. So, all that to say, a lot of

people will frame aging as it's like,

"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

your prime." These women had maybe the

gap was bigger for them, but they had so

much more upside to gain, right? Which

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

start was 10 years ago, fine, but the

second best time is today. Like you're

not behind. You can totally do it now.

>> One of the top comments in your recent

video as well was one saying jumping or

hopping is a good way to strengthen your

bones and knees, and you should not stop

doing that as we age.