Dhru Purohit Show - How Trauma, Stress, and Bio-individuality All Impact Weight Loss with Cynthia Thurlow

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and Paleovalley.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Cynthia Thurlow for a fascinating episode in his fat loss and body composition series. This time, Dhru and Cynthia focus on the underrated areas that may be holding you back from achieving sustainable weight loss. They discuss the role of protein, sleep, stress, and bio-individuality. Most importantly, why weight gain is not a normal part of aging. Cynthia Thurlow is a nurse practitioner, CEO and founder of the Everyday Wellness Project, and international speaker, with over 13 million views for her second TEDx talk (“Intermittent Fasting: Transformational Technique”) and the host of Everyday Wellness podcast and co-host of the Intermittent Fasting podcast. With over 20 years of experience in health and wellness, Her mission is to educate women on the benefits of intermittent fasting and overall holistic health and wellness so they feel empowered to live their most optimal lives. In this episode, Dhru and Cynthia dive into: -Why weight gain is not a normal part of aging (1:47) -False assumptions around aging and weight gain (10:07) -How bio-individuality influences weight loss (15:51) -Unpacking how early childhood experiences impacted the nervous system (20:03) -Examples of how people pleasing can cause you to sacrifice your health and well-being (25:25) -Intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating (37:21) -Protein and satiety (42:47) -Addressing fasting concerns (49:16) -Catching stress early on (54:03) -Weight loss tip: stop drinking your calories (58:16) -The importance of protein tracking (1:04:21) -Under talked about principles regarding body composition (1:15:08) -How perimenopause impacts sleep, hormonal health, metabolic health, and stress (1:19:00) -Hormone replacement therapy as a potential treatment (1:22:30) Also mentioned in this episode: -Cynthia’s Podcast, The Intermittent Fasting Podcast -Cynthia’s free Facebook Group: Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle/Cynthia Thurlow -Get her book, Intermittent Fasting Transformation here.  For more on Cynthia Thurlow, follow her on Instagram @cynthia_thurlow_, on Facebook @chtwellness, on Twitter @_cynthiathurlow, on YouTube @cynthiathurlow, and through her website, cynthiathurlow.com.  Right now, if you’re new to ButcherBox, they’re giving away NY Strip Steaks with every order for an entire year PLUS $20 off. Just go to butcherbox.com/DHRU to sign up and use code DHRU, and you can get these incredible steaks for free all year. Paleovalley is offering my listeners 15% off their entire first order. Head to paleovalley.com/dhru to check out all their clean Paleo products and take advantage of this deal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you look at the traditional recommendations to patients that eat a lot of heart-healthy grains, eat a lot of fake fats, really restrict your animal-based protein. And I think in many ways, we've set people up where they are never satiated. And if you're not satiated, you're going to continue to eat. And there's also something that goes on, in particular in middle-aged women, that as our estrogen levels are starting to decline, as our follicular stimulant hormones going up, we're in this catabolic state. So our bodies are primed and conditioned to continue to bring up.

breakdown muscle and our protein needs go up. And so I always like to interject that middle-aged people need more protein, not less. Welcome to the Drew Perot podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Cynthia Thurlow. Cynthia Thurlow is a nurse practitioner, author of the best-selling book, Intermittent Fasting Transformation, and a two-time TEDx speaker with her second talk having more than 13 million views. And she's also the best-sling, the host of the Everyday Wellness Podcast and the co-host of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. And on today's episode with Cynthia, we're talking all things, weight loss, intermittent fasting,

and how aspects like trauma and stress can contribute to weight loss resistance in individual's lives. Now, a little bit more about Cynthia. She has over 20 years of experience in health and wellness, and she's a globally recognized expert in intermittent fasting and women's health. She's been featured in everything from ABC, news to KTLA, to the Megan Kelly Show, and many, many others. Her mission is to educate women on the benefits of intermittent fasting and overall holistic health and wellness, so they feel empowered to live their most optimal lives. Cynthia Thurlow, welcome back to the podcast. A pleasure

to have you here. You had a fantastic tweet that I'll throw up on our screen over here for those that are watching. For those that are listening, I'll read it out to you. The tweet was, we need to change the narrative that weight gain is normal with aging. That doesn't have to be your truth. Tell us, why did you tweet that out and what did you mean by it? Oh, gosh. Well, the true honest answer is that probably eight years ago, a physician looked at me and said, Cynthia, you shouldn't be concerned about this five or ten pound weight gain.

This is just a normal function of aging. And I looked at her defiantly and said, no, it is not. And I said there is absolutely no reason why we have to share that message in a way that is kind of demeaning. And so for me, I took, I internalized that message and I said, I'm going to figure out why I've gained weight because I'm not doing anything differently. And so that sent me down this journey of understanding what is going on physiologically in our bodies as we're getting older.

And what are the things we can do strategies wise that can help reverse that or less in the likelihood that we are going to gain adipose tissue or fat tissue. Because let's be clear, I don't care if you're a male or a female. No one likes gaining fat. I mean, let's be honest. That fluffy, we call it fluff. Within my practice, women will call it fluff. You know, helping people understand that if we are dialing on lifestyle very, you know,

kind of consistently, there are absolutely ways that we can help reverse, you know, the weight loss resistance or the struggling that people are experiencing. and we can help change the narrative. Like I can think of 20 or 30 men and women that are older than me in the health and wellness space that still look amazing and still. And obviously we're one of, you know, hundreds that are thousands that are like this. But helping people understand we don't have to subscribe to these limiting beliefs. That's really what it comes down to is that if we embrace and perpetuate these limiting beliefs,

then we're not setting the example for younger generations. Like my kids are teenagers. and they'll say to us, you know, we acknowledge you and dad, you know, don't per se look like the average people in your early 50s. But we want you to be examples to other people. And I always say, I talk very openly about my age because I want other women to understand what is possible. That you don't have to throw in the towel. You don't have to accept your doctor. And I don't want to throw physicians under the bus, but you don't have to allow for your health care practitioner to look at you and just say,

this is just the way things are. You should just expect to gain 10, 15, 20 pounds. Because if you look at the research, it is not at all in common for us to gain weight as we get older. And that's largely a byproduct of the things that are changing physiologically in our bodies. And so if we can ensure that we are doing, you know, it could be as simple as eating less often, making sure your strength training, you know, getting the right types of sleep, et cetera, those things can make a huge enormous difference. And yes, some of these things are not sexy. You know, they're not, I'm not like giving you a magic pill that's going to make all these things happen. But I find for a lot of people that are in a position where they really want to prioritize their health at this point in their lives, maybe they didn't as much in their 20s and 30s.

There's a lot that we take for granted, right? Let's be completely honest. I was one of those people that took a lot for granted until I hit that wall and heard that message from my well-meaning GYN. I have to believe she was well-meaning. but I was not willing to embrace that limiting belief. I was not willing to let other people have to embrace that limiting belief. And so I think for so many of us that are in these positions where we can help influence and help people advocate and inspire them and educate them about what's happening in their bodies, it allows them to then make decisions that can permit them to be in a position where they remain metabolically fly. and they remain fit and healthy and they sleep well and they have great interpersonal relationships.

They don't have to let, you know, their grandmother's destiny. You know, I think there was a graphic that was showing like the Golden Girls who were, I think that was a big show in the 80s. And it was showing what women look like in their 50s and compared to what women look like in their 50s now. And I was like, you wouldn't even believe they're the same age because back then women expected. Yeah, I think about my grandmothers who were wonderful, but they got the grandma. haircut, they got their hair set once a week, they used a lot of hairspray. They just looked matronly and that doesn't have to be a woman's destiny. And it's not that you are trying to behave any differently than you are as an individual. But I think it's that mindset shift that is the

first step to the recognition that that doesn't have to be your destiny, nor do you have to buy into limiting beliefs. And some of them are perpetuated by healthcare professionals and Some of them are perpetuated by society, but it's not something we have to accept. This episode is brought to you by Butcher Box. You know, when I made the decision to include animal foods into my diet after I'd been vegetarian for years, my biggest focus was on quality. I got to say, looking back, I wish I had access to Butcher Box at that time because they make it so easy to access high-quality meat and seafood.

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of this offer today. That's paleo, P-A-L-E-O-V-A-L-E-Y.com slash D-H-R-U for 15% off your first order. What do you think are some of the misconceptions or misinformation? I don't mean that in the sense that it's being used today, but just the ideas that people have internalized that contribute to some of those beliefs. So if that master belief that your OBGYN was sharing with you that, hey, it's just normal to gain weight as you get older. Don't be worried about it and just do the best that you can. And this is a natural process and it'll just kind of happen every year. What are some of the fundamental assumptions that we have or habits that people have that are

mistakenly contributing to that becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy? Oh, I mean, that's such a great question. I would say, number one, the way that we choose to exercise because I think women have been, in particular, have been conditioned that we want this long, drawn-out cardio. You know, get on that stepmill, get on the treadmill, run outside, and don't ever pick up a weight. And I'm the first person to say it should be the completely the antithesis of that, more strength training, less long-haul cardio. Because once people understand that, you know, north of 40 years old, that chronic kind of low-level cardio is, you know, raising your cortisol, which can help

breakdown muscle and can contribute to some of that sarcopenia. So I think number one, it's the way that we view exercise. The other side of that is people assume because they go to a CrossFit class for an hour and they work out intensely that they can then sit for the other 16 hours of their day and helping people understand that just general movement, you know, that meat, which is the non-exercise thermogenesis, you know, the walking from your car, the walking up and down your stairs, the walking your dog. I mean, all those things are very, very important to help maintain metabolism. I think that, you know, the concept of being told to eat snacks and mini meals,

so we've been telling our patients for 20, 30 plus years that we need to eat frequently in order to kind of stoke our metabolism. And so I always fall back on the concept of helping people understand that if you're still eating as frequently as you did when you were a teenager. Now, I have teenage boys. They eat a lot and they eat often. And it's because they're in this massive, you know, anabolic phase in their lives. They're growing. Their muscle development is just really accelerated.

But once we've stopped growing, we should not need to be eating with tremendous frequency. If we're putting our meals together in a way that really focuses in on protein, that's another thing. If we're looking at my plate, and prior to that, it was the food guide pyramid. But if you look at the kind of traditional recommendations to patients,

It's eat a lot of heart-healthy grains, you know, eat a lot of fake fats, you know, really restrict your animal-based protein. And I think in many ways, we've set people up where they are never satiated. And if you're not satiated, you're going to continue to eat. And there's also something that goes on in particular in middle-aged women that as our estrogen levels are starting to decline, as our follicular stimulant hormones going up. So this is when women are the latter stages of perimenopause and intimately. menopause, we're in this catabolic state. So our bodies are primed in condition to continue

to break down muscle and our protein needs go up. And so I always like to interject that middle age people need more protein, not less. You know, you go back to what the teenagers need to eat. It's probably about the same in terms of protein intake. So I think that's another contributing factor. I think that there's also, you know, our society is very achievement oriented. And so people think nothing of working and grinding and hustling all. day and even those terms kind of make me cringe because it really typifies that our culture encourages people to work all the time. So they don't rest, they don't manage their stress. They're certainly not getting enough sleep. If they're chronically stressed out, their

cortisol goes up. If their cortisol goes up, so does their glucose. If their blood trigger goes up, then their insulin goes up. And so helping people really understand that our modern day lifestyles are contributing to a lot of the disease. and poor metabolic health that we have here in the United States. And those are just three areas. There's obviously a lot more. But I think from my perspective, when we think about the net impact of our lifestyles,

our modern day lifestyles are conditioned to have us exposed to bathed in artificial light all day long, which we know has a negative net impact on. It's considered to be a toxin, and it can also suppress the natural production of melatonin. So when we're trying to go to bed and we've been bathed in blue light all day long, that can be detrimental. But the lack of sleep, the, you know, I'm going to go in and I'm going to work out really hard. I'm sorry to pick on CrossFit.

I'm just using it as an intense form of exercise. And then I'm going to sit on my butt all day long. And then I'm going to go home and, you know, I've been conditioned to believe that I need to eat this massive rice bowl that has maybe four ounces of meat or fish or protein on it. And I've just consumed two days worth of carbohydrate in one meal. And so helping people understand that. the way that we have conditioned ourselves to eat overconsume, eat a lot of highly processed, hyper-palatable foods, it definitely does not benefit us from a health perspective. And that's just a couple of things. I mean, there's so many different avenues that we could go down on this

question, but it's certainly one that on many different levels, I think, impacts our ability to be able to kind of reframe our health as we're getting older. One of the things that you're really big on is also the idea that there's a lot of core themes that impact everyone. But how those core themes impact you relates to your own individuality. And just because somebody's prominent issue was their unlock to the weight loss or re-body composition that they were shooting for doesn't mean that that's always going to be your component. So can you talk about bio-individuality and how that plays into this? Yeah, I think when we're looking at bioindividuality, it's really speaking to each one of us as individuals. There are obviously similarities, but if I were to take 10 women and I were to talk to them about their childhood, how they grew up, what were they exposed to, you know, did they have good family connections or connections to friends and loved ones?

Do they feel loved and supported in their lifestyle? We would get very different answers. And we know as an example, there's something called adverse childhood events. And I've started talking more and more about this, that for individuals that have experienced a significant amount of trauma and trauma could be, I mean, as Gabramate says, it's a wound. It could be getting teased as a child. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that you were physically abused. I mean, trauma is this wound.

And we see that women who have high ACE scores, are more at risk for autoimmune conditions. They're more at risk for weight loss resistance. And this is based on research. This is not just observational information. This is based on solid research. And so I think about the things that can be contributors to why some people struggle more than others. I think it really stems from our childhood and things we were exposed to all the way through the trajectory of our young adulthood.

And so when we talk about bio-individuality, it's looking at, you know, as I said, said, where did you grow up? What were your relationships like? You know, did you suffer significant financial hardship? Did you deal with physical or emotional abuse? Did you feel safe? Like something is benign as safety. Like we think of safety, we just take it for granted. But some people don't grow up in those environments. And so it can impact them quite significantly. And then you kind of compounding beyond that, understanding as an example, like I've started talking more about the use of oral contraceptives. And for full disclosure, I admire PCOS and my GYN thought they were going to fix the PCOS by putting me on oral contraceptives. So I spent most of my 20s up until when I got

married on oral contraceptives. And now we now understand what that does to the gut microbiome. We understand what that does to bone health. We understand what that can do to muscle development. And so it's helping people understand that medications, we're prescribed, diagnoses we receive, all of these things contribute to things that we can be challenged by at any point in our lives. But in particular, when it comes to weight loss resistance and dealing with metabolic health, it's helping individuals, men and women, understand how all these things contribute. I think for many, many years, and I certainly was guilty of this myself, and I trained at a big research hospital, and there was big T trauma.

You know, you observed a murder. Someone was raped. I mean, big substantial traumas. And now we're understanding there's a lot more subtlety to this. I know that you've spoken to Gabbard, but for me, like reading his book was so transformational to really understand that it's, you know, traumas can be far more kind of innocuous.

They don't necessarily have to be these big T traumas. And that's where I'm starting to see some things that are weaving their way into women and their trajectory of navigating middle age and beyond is, you know, what happened to you when you were younger? are you repressing feelings or are you embracing feelings and working through them? And the women that I in particular seem to find do the best navigating this stage of their lives are the ones that are actively doing inner work. You know, maybe they experience something traumatic and stressful as a young adult, but now they're in a position where they are interested in helping to understand what happened

and how it has impacted them and where they are today. So I think when we talk about bioindividuality, really understanding the uniqueness of our experiences and how that impacts us as we navigate our lives. So key. You know, just while we're on this topic for a second, if obviously one step is people can check out some of Gabor's work and they can check out his last book, The Myth of Normal. But if somebody was thinking about going down that pathway or patients of yours or community members of yours that are in that category, men or women, and they're starting to want to unpack

a little bit of how their early childhood experiences impacted their nervous system, right? How having maybe a parent that was an alcoholic, which is one of the things that's on the Aces list, right, that could severely impact you. What would be some tools or any additional reading or things that have been helpful for you in addition to the work of Dr. Gabor-Mati? Yeah, well, I mean, for full disclosure, I haven't, I've just started kind of talking about this on social media, so I'm comfortable disclosing this.

I have an alcoholic parent and suffered quite a bit of emotional and physical abuse growing up. And that, for me, I wasn't fully aware of how much that impacted me until I became a young adult and I started therapy. But things like cognitive behavioral therapy, rakey or energy work, I feel like for many individuals that have been through a parent with substance abuse, what you observe as normal as your normal,

but you don't realize until you maybe have friends or loved ones that you can talk to about it, you don't realize that your normal is not the average normal. And so you may have coping mechanisms that you have created to be able to exist within this non-normal state, is how I usually like to describe it. So for me, as I was navigating this as a child, I became a people pleaser because if I was achieving, my parents left me alone. And so that was how I kind of navigated the first probably 20, 30 years of my life. And so I think at first it's an awareness to understand that sometimes your behavior coming out of those circumstances may not be healthy. I think sometimes people

recreate what they grew up in. I did not. But it's because I started their probably in my 20s and have done therapy over the last 30 years and in kind of figuring out for myself determining like how do I view my parents with compassion and understanding and not judgment. It's been a tremendous amount of inner work. So I think the inner work is so helpful. I think being able to talk to a practitioner or a provider and quite honestly I know that it runs the milieu between therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, it really is dependent on, you know, what's aligned with your own methodology, but certainly for myself, having, you know, a clinical psychologist or a therapist to be able to bounce ideas off and talk through has certainly

been very, very helpful. And certainly for many of my patients, when they start sharing things with me that send off red flags, that they probably have some unresolved trauma or some things that have come from their childhood or young adulthood, there's always encouragement to go talk to someone. And I find for many people, the first step is actually the hardest. the acknowledgement that I probably do need some help. I have some maladaptive patterns. Maybe I want to avoid recreating what you grew up in.

And so I think, again, the first thing that's really so very important for individuals is to understand that there are opportunities to work through those uncomfortable feelings because that's really what it comes down to is how do you learn to process uncomfortable feelings? Like I know for me, I was very achievement oriented. So I would achieve, achieve, achieve, and that would define. deflect, deflect, deflect. Other people may over-exercise. Some people may be promiscuous. Some people may drink. They may do drugs. There's no judgment. Some people shop. I mean, it's really like what is most aligned. For me, it was achieve, achieve, achieve. And then when I started dealing with the

uncomfortable feelings, it was really transitional for me and like pivotal. Like there's a, I always say there was a pre-Sinthia and a post-Sinthia. There's no, there's no comparison to what that was like. But I think for everyone, if people are ready to do the work, finding a qualified cognitive behavioral therapist, you know, sometimes people do well with tapping. I mean, there's a lot of different modalities, but I do find most people need a combination of different therapies. And here's the thing, like I openly say, I will probably be doing therapy for the rest of my life because having a safe place to express how I'm feeling, how I get triggered. and I hear the same things from my female patients, having a safe place where they can go. And certainly, hopefully having a loving partner and close friends that you can talk to because we all need those people in our camp that can support us through these transitional periods.

I mean, without question, I think that there's zero doubt in my mind that when people are ready to do the work, it's finding the right provider that can help navigate them through those feelings, through those things they've been through as a child, helping them understand that, you know, I think the first thing you have to do is oftentimes forgive yourself and then learn to get to a point of forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. It just means for peace of mind and for your own peace is to get to a position where you can view them with compassion. I mean, that has certainly been my experience that I view my parents lovingly and compassionately. And that makes all the difference.

That's so powerful. You know, one of the thing that I want to say on this topic, just because I think so many people will find this valuable, you mentioned something which you said, you know, it's hard to take the first step. And the first step is acknowledging that there's a quote unquote problem, right? And I think what's tough for that is for a lot of people, the thing that, the circumstances that might have been extremely tough, especially in the cases of them having something super difficult that they went through, or even just a really challenging mild experience

that was moving a lot as a kid and constantly having to fit in and being bullied to an extreme. The things that made our lives tough are often the things that allow, especially in the cases of high achievers, you to become that person that you are today. And you mentioned, you're a people pleaser, which is also the reason probably that you're a high achiever. You've done a lot. So it's tough to acknowledge that you have a problem when you are like, but if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be who I am. And it's actually not that you're saying, you know, just like you're not blaming your parents. You may say, as Gabor said before in this podcast, you can say there's a difference between blame and responsibility. Hey, my parents were responsible for these circumstances,

that doesn't mean that they didn't do the best they could. You know, why was somebody's parents an alcoholic or this or that? They went through their own situation. They found their own coping mechanism. They were trying to deal with it their own way that they know how, but they didn't have access to podcasts and healthy foods and all this stuff or a loving husband who might have been supportive on your journey. There's a lot of reasons why people become the people that they become.

But to understand that they were responsible in that same way to understand that we also are responsible for our own circumstance. And that doesn't take away from the fact that, you know, hey, you achieved a lot. Okay, beautiful, but you don't have to throw your health or your life under the bus at the sacrifice of achievement. So I'd love for you to connect those dots a little bit for the audience. What was an example by being a people pleaser of something that you sacrificed in your life or something that you did that didn't allow you to pursue something that was a goal of

yours in your health or well-being if you have an example of that. No, I definitely do. I mean, I think on a lot of levels, you know, I became a nurse and then I became a nurse practitioner and I worked for this big cardiology practice in Northern Virginia and probably three years into becoming a parent. I became very, I guess I would say disconnected. I didn't feel as aligned in the allopathic space. and I couldn't quite figure out why.

I think having a child with life-threatening food allergies probably clouded my perspective significantly. But I remember it was a year I went through, did I want to start a PhD program? You know, that didn't light me up. I took like one class and hated it. And then I started thinking, do I want to go into another specialty? And I think because, you know, when I was openly talking to the partners and the practice about being like feeling a little disillusioned and they were like, oh, this is normal. this happened to us right around your age. So I was probably, you know, your age around that time.

And because I was a people pleaser, I'm like, but we love you and we're willing to work with you and we'll give you any schedule you want. And so I had the most ridiculous schedule. Like if I were to say to you, I worked like five hours twice a week and like no one gets schedules like that. They just gave me whatever I wanted because they wanted me to still be part of the practice. And because I was such a people pleaser, I was like, okay, well, I don't really like. like what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I want to do. I mean, obviously, that's not like a majorly substantive one, but I can tell you several years later, I literally rolled out of bed one day and said, I can't do this anymore. My husband's like, what are you talking about?

I can't do this job anymore. I can't. I can't write another prescription. I cannot. I literally cannot write another prescription. And I don't want to do anything that would not be aligned with this practice because I respect these doctors so much. They've been really good to me. And so that was a break for me. That was, you know, seven years ago when I left clinical medicine, but I remember it was like a bubbling pot for years. Like I had just been, I was so unfulfilled, not being a mom. I love being a mom. I love being a wife. I didn't. I was not fulfilled like intellectually. And I kept saying I'm not growing anymore. And when I started saying that, they kind of understood. But I think I'd had years and years and years of playing it safe. Like, I think that, you know, for me, I had a mom that had a very

very demanding jobs. And my mother invest a lot and has exceedingly successful, financially and otherwise, retired and is done very well. And because I had that growing up, I didn't want to become a physician because I knew how much more of a sacrifice it would be having kids. I wanted my kids to know that they were the most important focus at that. Like, I wanted them to feel that and to know that. And I started feeling like I just, that intellectual desire just was not being fed. And so for me, the people pleasing led me to, you know, get to a point where I was just no longer willing to continue to subjugate my own needs. And so that was probably the first, the first big thing for me, although ironically, it was also at that stage when I had doctors telling me just accept the weight gain.

That's normal. You shouldn't question it. And so it's interesting how, women as they're losing estrogen, they start losing their people-pleasing skills. And so for me, I think that there's no coincidence that all these things kind of came about around that time. But I think that was definitely one major time in my life that the people-pleasing became such an issue that I couldn't sustain it. And certainly my husband thought I'd lost my mind. He was like, what you're walking away from good money? What are you doing? And to his credit, he kind of let me, you know, make that transition. But that was probably the first big step I took as an adult to just define my intellectual needs are not being met. I don't feel

aligned with the job that I'm doing anymore. I need to do something else. And I told him, I will be successful in what I'm doing. Now he doesn't question it. But the time I think he thought I was probably having a mid-life crisis, but that's probably one of the bigger things that I think of in my, in my middle-agehood or my, you know, latter stage of my, you know, 20s into my early, excuse me, 30s into my early 40s where there was a big shift like a huge shift of like, okay, this is clearly going in a different direction because the old Cynthia would have stayed the course because it would have been easier for my employers and my husband and probably easier on my kids. But then I started to feel like there was this great awakening.

It was time for me to be in a position where I stood up for myself. It's like let's find your voice and let's use it. And I think for many, many individuals, middle ages when people say, you're having a midlife crisis or one of these other kind of coin terms. And I think for some people, it's really finding your voice. It's like realizing for many years I've done things just to kind of keep the status quo. And now I'm in a position where like I just can't not express myself. I'm having to do this in order to be fully in alignment with who the person I met to be and to be able to step up and show up in a very, different way.

That's powerful. You hit a point where you stopped giving a F about what everybody else thought. And you decided to double down on your truth because at the end of the day, everybody has this, by the way, and some people have it at different stages. But you have enough pain and you realize, like, what is the point for all this sacrifice that I'm doing for everybody else whose opinions don't matter as much to me? and for what? I'm unhappy.

I'm not working on the stuff that I care about. I'm not aligned with my mission. And there's, you know, in many sense, and I've seen a tweet from you on this topic before. It's like the emotional weight, the emotional weight that people carry around can be heavier than the physical weight that they're carrying around.

And there is obviously a connection between the two of those. Yeah, no, I fervently believe that. I think that I'm in the midst of working on a talk that I'm giving next week. And so I'm for the first time kind of really publicly exploring, getting sick in 2019 and how that was like this great reawakening, that all of a sudden it forced me to deal with, you know, my stuff. You know, we think that we're dealing with our stuff and then something big happens. And you're like, oh, I haven't dealt with enough stuff because now the universe is giving me

another opportunity to kind of show up differently. And so I always say that there was that physical, like, physical breakdown because I was so sick. And then from that, so many amazing things have happened because I showed up differently. And so I think that each one of us are given opportunities throughout our lifetime to be able to step up and to be able to show up as the true authentic individuals that we've always been. And so my husband, the other night was making fun of my younger son and I and saying, you guys are like two peas in a pod. You're both like super stubborn and super driven. And I kind of looked at him. And I,

when I was younger, if someone had said I was stubborn and driven, I would have seen those as negatives. And I actually said, you know, I think that has actually served me really well to be stubborn and driven. And I don't see it as being like, that's a masculine trait because I look at my son and I'm like, this is why he's going to be very successful. I said, but I also think it's the acknowledgement that those terms are not per se negative things. Like I think we just assume like if you're driven and you're stubborn, that's a negative thing. And I said, no, I think it's actually served me really well. And in many ways, it's like you put the blinders on and it goes back to, you know, how did I show up when I was younger? It was very achievement oriented. And I can,

I can put those blinders on and just think like, what are the next five things I need to do? I acknowledge when it's a compensatory behavior versus I'm just trying to get stuff done. Like, it's a GSD kind of day. Like, what are the five things I need to do in my business today to move the business forward, very different. And being able to differentiate between those, I think is certainly very important. Absolutely. Well, I'd love to pivot from the emotional side of things, which you covered so well. And thank you for opening up on your journey and everything.

And I'd love to pivot into the physical side. And as you mentioned before, there is a relationship between those things. And Gabor has outlined it super well in his book. On the physical side of stuff, when it comes to the topic of weight. body composition, you have a few fundamental rules that you talk about that are an important part that I think especially are really useful for people that are in your audience and my audience. These are individuals that are generally consider themselves health aware. Many of them, even if they're not in the field of health, they consider themselves pro-ams, like they're

professional amateurs. They like to listen to podcasts. They like to read books. They like to collect health information. They think of themselves as probably the healthiest person in their friend group or one of the people that individuals come to in their friend group. And yet some of them still might be dealing with a situation where they're trying to navigate this whole topic because they hear a lot of different dues and dons from people on the topic of weight loss and body composition. So I'd love to share, I'd love for you to drill down and talk about some of yours. And maybe we even start off with this idea and topic which you've come and talked about on the podcast before, which is intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating.

And why that can be such a powerful tool in people's toolbox when it comes to this conversation of body composition. There's some recent literature that was published on this topic. There always is, but it's always exciting to see when new studies are here. So yeah, I'd love you to chat a little bit about time-restricted feeding in the context of weight and body composition. Yeah, it's such a good question. I think that when we're struggling to understand why we're not getting.

the results we want. I always say it all starts with food. So one of the most important conversations we can have is around meal frequency. If we are abiding by the general recommendations of eat four to six small meals a day, you're very likely not going to be an outlier. You are very likely going to be one of the 92 to 93 percent of Americans who are not metabolically healthy. So when I think about encouraging someone to just go 12 hours without eating, you know, don't eat from the time you finish dinner until you eat breakfast. We know just by not eating after dinner and not eating breakfast within the first two hours of waking up, you are setting your body up for success. We know that you will be more insulin sensitive. We know that's more aligned with our chronobiology.

You don't even need to do these 16, 18, 20 hours of fasting. And in fact, the more I talk about intermittent fasting, the more I really encourage people to use it as a journey of self-discovery, understanding that even if you're doing 12 hours of digestive rest, it has tremendous benefits. And I think for a lot of individuals, it is overwhelming to have to track calories. It is overwhelming to track macronutrients, you know, protein, fat, and carbs. So if nothing else, why don't we just make things simplified and say that you don't eat from 6 o'clock at night, I'm just arbitrarily picking six, until eight o'clock in the morning. That simplifies everything. You don't eat after dinner. You don't have a snack before bed. You don't get up and have a sugary beverage,

don't have a glass of juice. You go two hours after you wake up, and then you decide to break your fast. And what a lot of people forget is that this is not a newer novel concept. This is actually in full alignment with the way that our ancestors ate, you know, before refrigeration, before there were Quick Marts, before you could do Uber Eats, you know, before you had food access 24-7, this is really the way that our bodies are designed to be optimized. So really starting from a place of understanding that going 12 hours without eating is going going to benefit you enormously. Now, if you really want to ramp things up and you mentioned that we share, we share very

similar audiences, you know, my audiences will always say, but I don't want to be average. I want to do the next step up. Well, then, you know, there's other types of fasting. And I certainly discuss a lot of these in my book. But helping people understand if you're just trying to make one big step, don't eat from dinner to breakfast and really giving yourself 13 or 14 hours of not eating, that in and of itself will confer a lot of benefits. I've seen women that do nothing else other than that, that will lose five or 10 pounds.

And for many people, they call it the fluff. I know that's not a technical term, but it's how they view it. that body composition changes that start happening after 40 happens to men as well. I got my husband to start intermittent fasting and it's been amazing. I mean, he's a little more rigid. He's an engineer. So he likes his, you know, 16 to 18 hours of fasting. But if people are new to this concept, helping them understand, you know,

improvement in biophysical markers, obviously you're going to get a reduction in inflammation. So some people will just say just by eating less often, even if I'm doing 12 or 14 hours of not eating, I have less inflammation. I've less joint pain. Even before you even get to the point where you're eliminating specific nutrients or inflammatory foods, just doing that can be hugely impactful. I also think about, you know, so much confusion around nutrition.

And what I remind people is when we're talking about what is most satiating and helping people understand that when you choose to have that first meal, whatever time of the day it is or you're having a second or a third meal, really understanding that getting a certain amount of protein is going to help with satiety. And if you're satiated, you're not going to be looking for more food. I know that if I sit down and eat a protein shake,

I'm not going to feel the same way I do if I sit down and eat a steak or a piece of chicken or a piece of fish or an omelet. And so helping people understand, like, don't be afraid of the protein, eat the right types of fats. And if you do nothing else, this is like one thing I encourage people to do,

just read food labels because seed oils are in everything. And seed oils are like soybean and canola and sunflower and safflower. They're in everything. And if you go to a restaurant, you probably get exposed to them. In fact, last time I was in L.A., the waiter said to me, I don't even want to tell people that your $100 steak was cooked in canola oil. I was like, yeah, don't tell me that. It's going to ruin my meal.

But helping people understand that that along with a bit of non-starchy vegetables, the right types of healthy fats, making those kinds of, you know, small changes. And the protein piece is really key because that society is what sets you up for the rest of the day. In fact, if you look at the research, that first meal of the day is the most important, whenever it is that you break your fast, is the most important for setting yourself up for blood sugar regulation, blood glucose regulation for the rest of the day. And so, you know, for me, it's all about protein and, you know, whether you have some non-starchy vegetables, maybe you have a little bit of healthy fats with that.

That is setting your body up for the rest of the day versus kind of the traditional standard American diet where you're eating with an hour of waking up, you're drinking orange juice, which has no little to no fiber, which is fructose, which is going to, you know, get shunted directly to the liver, is going to contribute to a lot of the metabolic ill health issues that we're dealing with. and those highly processed carbohydrates, you know, sitting down on corn flakes and skin milk and, you know, pop tarts and ho-hos and bagels and just things that are not setting you up for the same level of success that you would have with that first meal. So time restricted eating or even 12

hours of digestive rest can be very helpful. And then just being cognizant of what you are eating, whether it's intermittent fasting or not, just really leaning into the protein piece, because that in and in of itself can really alleviate a lot of the challenges that people deal with throughout their day. I find a lot of men and women don't eat enough food. And what's interesting is that understanding physiologically, if you don't hit those protein thresholds, your body will actively seek out. That's why you'll still crave more food. And you very like it will fill in the caloric intake that your body needs with fat and carbs.

And it's not that fat and carbs are bad. It's understanding you need the right proportion of fat and carbohydrate. in your diet, along with protein, to be able to, you know, meet your metabolic needs. And so that's certainly a really good starting point when we're talking about the things that I think are bigger needle movers. When it comes to body composition, there's zero question that poor quality sleep is going to dysregulate your hormones. And so I like reminding people that, you know, if you get less than six hours a night to sleep. And I think, you know, based on the research I've read, you know, there are a very small percentage of individuals that can

you buy on six hours and six hours and a quarter of sleep, that's not most people, but most people spend their lives, you know, really not sleeping or prioritizing high quality sleep and understanding that your blood sugar, you know, your glucose is going to be impaired, your insulin will be impaired, your leptin and grillin, your appetite and satiety hormones get impaired. And so really helping yourself understand, like if you're not sleeping well, the question is always why? Why are you not sleeping well? You know, if you're a middle-aged woman and your progesterone levels are faltering, that can contribute to that. Is it because your stress level is so high, your cortisol's up?

And correspondingly, if your cortisol goes up, your glucose goes up. And so does your insulin, a lot of women experience hot flashes. You know, my husband went through a period of time during the pandemic where he would spend a lot of time binge watching TV at night because he was bored. Because, you know, everyone was just home all day long. And he would even say to me, like, nothing good comes of staying up to binge watch TV or your Netflix in the middle of the night. Like, there's just no good that comes of that.

So helping people understand that that sleep piece is certainly important. And for me, I find that it's almost always a blood sugar dysregulation problem when people are waking up at night, if they're women having hot flashes, having trouble sleeping, or they're ruminating over their to-do list. Finding ways to kind of decompress before you get into bed is really important. And then managing stress, there's no question because there's no one out there that doesn't have stress, but helping people understand how do we respond to it. And for me, I get very targeted. I openly talk about a sleep stack depending on what I need. It's like, you know, what do I need tonight?

How much more stress do I have today? You know, just really understanding that getting in the right mindset that you've got to help de-stress your body before you get into bed and understanding that setting yourself up for a good night of sleep really starts in the morning. That light exposure on our retinas in the morning is helping to suppress melatonin and increase cortisol to get our day going. And for the same reason why light exposure at night can suppress melatonin can impact cortisol secretion. So those are some of the things that I think are good kind of starting points

that I think most people can agree upon definitely have a detriment on or positive or negative impact on body composition. Obviously, there are a lot more. I don't know if you want me to, you know, kind of delineate some of the other ones. There's some that I think are probably less talked about than others. I think those are like the low-lying fruit that most people talk about. nutrition, meal frequency, sleep and stress are pretty applicable to everyone. And then there's obviously ones that go beyond that, some of them are more nuanced and some of them are probably less talked about than others, but certainly equally important. Yeah. Well, I'd love to have some follow-up questions on some of the ones that you mentioned here. And thank you for that list.

I think the first one, you know, we've had some folks come on the podcast recently that have talked about for a long time there was debates on intermittent fasting and how was it that fasting? And how was it that fasting had contributed to weight loss. We had a mutual friend on the podcast here previously, JJ Virgin that just came out as a recording came out earlier this week. And obviously, whenever we talk about weight loss, we're really talking about body composition. People want fat loss. They don't want to lose muscle. We'll chat a little bit more about that in a minute. But when it comes to intermittent fasting and weight loss, there was a lot of early examples and explanations that people had about how this is working, but do you subscribe to the idea that ultimately at the end of the

day, intermittent fasting is helping people eat less and that caloric restriction, separate from the idea that their metabolic health is being improved, generally they're going to have better metabolic health, fasting insulin, et cetera, if they're regularly practicing intermittent fasting, is that primary mechanism for what supports the weight loss, the caloric restriction that comes from calories? Is that, do you prescribe to that? I think it can be a variety of different things. I think for some people it's just the reduction in inflammation, and we know inflammation can drive weight loss resistance.

I think some of it can be directly attributable to the reduction in calories for that individual. I do think that there's many things that come into play, though, because it is a very delicate balance. I think that many women in particular, and I don't want to just pick on women, but this is the most familiarity I have is working with women, is that if a little bit of fasting is good, more is better. So what happens from many women is they start whittling down how much they're eating, that if a little bit of fasting works to help them lose weight,

then they're going to do more fasting. So longer fast, one meal a day or omad. They're going to do two-day fast. They're going to do three-day fast. And that is when I start getting concerned because they're, like, I don't do long fast at all. Like I don't do two-day fast. I don't do more than a 24-hour fast.

And some of that I think is from the PTSD I have from being in the hospital. not eating for 13 days, but it's also the recognition and the understanding that there is this very fine balance between restricting what you are eating and losing muscle mass. Ted Neiman talks about this, and he's a very lean 50-year-old physician, and he was saying that he really believes that over that 24-hour period, it's a net loss. Like if you're already lean and you're trying to do these long fast, you're probably going to lose some degree of muscle mass at the expense of a longer fast. So circling back, this is when bio-individuality I think is very important. I think if we're looking at people north of 40 being careful and conscientious, can you get

enough food in in your feeding window to justify a fast? Like for me, I've started experimenting with having a wider feeding window to accommodate more protein. I'm finding that that works really well for me, but I'm already lean. I'm not looking to, you know, change my body composition. So I think that it really comes down to who you are as an individual, really looking conscientiously at your circumstances. Like for me, I like to look at labs. There's a lot of like that I like to look at to be able to fine tune that. But I do think there are definitely people that overfast at the expense of that muscle loss, which is not positively impacting that metabolic health piece. So when, you know, JJ was talking about this on the podcast, I think it was also in that context of being careful and conscientious.

you get your macros in during your feeding window to necessitate that. I think that many people, when they look at fasting versus counting calories, it's not to suggest that calories don't matter, but it also doesn't fully look at what else is going on behind the scenes in terms of intermittent fasting. Like what is happening physiologically in the body? Are we getting a reduction in inflammation? We're changing this biophysical markers. You fast long enough, you're going to get upregulation in autophagy, but that doesn't happen at 12 hours. Like, that's not, you know, it's not as if atopathy gets completely shut off, but we know based on research that getting 18, 20, 22, 24 hours,

that's where we start seeing that kind of uptick in autophagy, this waste and recycling process in the body. But I think it always has to be taken into account who the individual is. Are they already under a lot of other hormetic stress? Like, is this someone who doesn't sleep over exercises, uses fasting as a mechanism to hide as an example a latent eating disorder. And I do see some of that. That is very different than someone who is therapeutically using fasting.

In the context of getting in two or three good-sized meals with a healthy amount of protein, they're resting, they're sleeping, they're managing their stress, that individual is very likely going to have greater success than someone who is over-stressing their body. And that's where I think perhaps not enough conversation has had. I've started talking about it more openly about this kind of triad of overdoing the fasting and overdoing the food restriction and overdoing the hormesis or the hermetic stress. So helping people understand that hermesis is beneficial stress in the right amount at the right time. But for a lot of people, whether it's cryotherapy, whether it's infrared sauna, whether it's high

intensity interval training, they tend to overdo it. And so helping them understand like where is your bio-individual happy point. And that could look different for each one of us. And that's where I think that distinction really has to be made. You know, so many people are so used to the level of stress that they have that a lot of times when you talk to them, they might not even know that they feel stressed. It's just how they feel. And in the past, folks have talked about the power of measuring. And I know some people use a whoop or they use an aura ring or they'll use an HRV sort of component. And have you ever played with that or are there cues that you have to actually know when are you stressed versus the obvious component of like people having a breakdown with their kids or a fight with somebody? Those are the external expressions of maybe some stress that is built up over a period of time.

But I often find that people are stressed much earlier than those periods. And then that situation happens and we kind of lose it. How do you sort of catch stress earlier or see that you are trending in one direction or another? Yeah, I mean, for full disclosure, I love my aura ring. So I've got it on. I wear it dutifully. I love tracking data. But that's me.

I mean, that's so consistent with my personality. I like to track data. I'm a pretty really, well, I should say I'm a really well-regulated emotional individual. So when I start to feel, you know, I can tell in my body how am I feeling because I'm feeling stressed. It's usually when I can tell, like, I'm getting laser focused. I'm not able to think about all the things. I'm getting very, very deliberate. For me, there are specific things that I know I need to do.

I need to get out of my head. And for me, when I'm stressed, I have to move. So for me, it could be going for a walk. It could be, you know, doing yoga. It could be that I'm going to go to the gym. For me, there's definitely that tie in with movement. And I think for each one of us, it's very different. But for one thing that I do know is that when I feel that uptick and stress, there are very specific things I need to do, whether it's adjusting the way I'm eating, it's targeted supplementation, sunlight exposure, connecting with my dogs, you know, just even understanding that hugging our pets, hugging our significant other, our spouse or loved ones releases oxytocin.

Those those hits of oxytocin don't last very long, but it can help reduce. cortisol. So, you know, for me, it's determining, like, what are the things I need to do? Maybe it's taking a magnesium soak. Maybe it's putting myself to bed early. Like, sometimes my husband knows, if I go to bed at like 8.30 at night, very likely it's because I'm trying to practice some degree of self-care. I'll just say, you know, I've just had one of those days. I just need to go to bed and start again tomorrow. And so I think for each one of us, it's determining what are the things that make you feel good and help you decompress. For me, sometimes I want to talk about it. And And I want to talk to my husband about it.

You know, he's, I always say that he's like the CFO in my business. So sometimes I just need to kind of get it off my chest and talk about it. Other times I don't want to talk about it. I just need to move. Like my body and movement for me is one way that I kind of work through some of the stress that I'm experiencing. But, you know, the hugging the pets, because right now my teenagers depends on their mood. Some days they don't want to be hugged. So the dogs, never mind.

Neither does my husband. But understanding that for each one of us, We just have to find ways to express ourselves. And as I said earlier, I'm a very healthy emotionally regulated person. So I don't explode. Like when I start to feel like I'm getting to that point, like I'm going to raise my voice, doesn't happen all that often. But if I'm getting to that point, it's usually because I've just hit a threshold of someone

is not listening, usually one of my children. And then I'm like, okay, take a deep breath. Think about what you're going to say before you say it. because I grew up in a very volatile household. So people would yell and scream all the time. And I take great pride in that our house is quiet. And that's how we like it. You know, three out of four of us are introverts.

So it's like we have a quiet house, even though I have all boys and two dogs. But with that being said, I think that for each one of us, it's finding what makes us feel good. Like, I have friends that like to paint or they're very artistic. Like, that would not decompress me. That would be more stressful.

But like people, if they're really creative or maybe, getting on the water. My husband loves water. So when he's stressed, he wants to be out on a boat. And I think for each one of us, it's finding what are the things that alleviate and kind of get us into that parasympathetic side of our autonomic nervous system that is kind of rest and repose, breathing, box breathing. Like if I'm getting ready to speak on a stage, I do a lot of box breathing because that helps regulate my bagel tone. Off that, on the practical side of other things, food-wise, that are super,

helpful, basic things that people can do today. There was another tweet. You're great at Twitter, by the way. I love following your tweets. I don't tweet that much, but I love to read a lot. You had a great tweet, and you said, when it comes to weight loss, one of the tips that's out there is stop drinking all your calories. That includes fatty coffees, obviously sodas that are there, alcohol, which is a big

one for a lot of people, juices that might be used for some people. and not included, but would also be like super high calorie smoothies that are under protein, which happens a lot in the wellness world. And then you wrote, eliminate these and see the weight start to drop off. What is it about these liquid calories that you want people to understand and know about? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think like let's start with like the seemingly most benign like juice, helping people understand that juice has the fiber removed.

So you are getting a shot of fructose. And I know you've interviewed Rick Johnson. And this is his area of expertise. It's like understanding what's happening in our bodies when we consume juice. It's like there's no fiber. So it's directly absorbed and can adversely impact, you know, metabolic health. It spikes our blood sugar. I think about, you know, the other things kind of on that trajectory like smoothie bombs.

And that's why I started calling them. If you look at some of the pre-made smoothies like in your grocery store, even in Whole Foods, And you look at the macros, I mean, it could be 30, 40, 50, 60 grams of sugar, which is way more than what you should even get in a two-day period, maybe three-day period. And so, I think people understand that that amount of concentrated, yes, fruit is healthy, but you'd be better off having like half a cup of berries and make your own smoothie at home where you can control all the variables that are inside of it. But understanding that when we drink our calories, it's like we just get this massive bolus of,

whether it's sucrose, whether it's fructose, that's absorbed directly into the bloodstream. And so there isn't this fiber to help kind of slow the absorption that if you ate like an apple or you ate some raspberries or God forbid you ate a piece of tropical fruit because that's all been vilified now too, whether it's a banana or a mango, the fiber in those products or even having a salad, the fiber will slow the absorption of these foods. And I think when we go along the continuum of looking at alcohol, obviously a very personal decision, but helping people understand that our body will prioritize alcohol as a toxin. And so if we're eating on an empty or drinking on an empty stomach or eating with a meal, our body in many ways will kind of shuttle our meal into fat storage while it's trying to process this toxin. So I think a lot of people, when they're drinking, whether it's a smoothie, whether it's an alcoholic beverage, whether it's juice, it just doesn't register because it doesn't fill them.

up, you know, whereas if we eat a steak, it's going to push those stretch receptors in our stomach. And then the fatty coffees. And I know a certain individual on the health and wellness base has really made a name for himself talking about fatty coffees. And I think there's a place for fatty coffee. If you're new to intermittent fasting and you're really struggling, you go from a standard American diet and your blood sugar dysregulation is pretty significant and you're just really like ravenously hungry, adding a little bit of MCT oil or more fat. to a coffee may keep you satiated and it may allow you to get over that, that speed bump. But I think a lot of people forget that if you're putting half a stick of butter or, you know,

half a container of cream in your coffee, I mean, there's still calories in the fat. I mean, and fat is much more nutrient dense, you know, looking at protein and carbohydrates, which are four calories per gram versus fat, which is nine calories per gram, helping people understand, like, fat still has calories. And yes, you know, the grass fed butter and the, you know, the, you know, you know, raw cream. I mean, yes, that's a healthier option than some other things, but it still has calories. It's not like it has no calories. And so I find for a lot of people when they cut those things out, they're shocked at, number one, they didn't realize they had so much

blood sugar dysregulation, but it helps them understand. Number two, in many ways, because they are so poorly satiated, maybe with the exception of the fatty coffee, now they're like, oh, wow, I didn't realize I was consuming 500 calories a day with these liquid beverages, and that was what was causing the plateau, or that was causing the weight loss resistance. And so helping people understand that drinking calories is sometimes can be problematic, especially if you're dealing with a plateau or dealing with some degree of weight loss resistance because it just doesn't register. And I think for so many of us, that's why, like I was saying earlier, if I have a protein shake versus a steak, you better believe I have the steak.

I'm full. Like I have the protein shake. I might go looking in the pantry if I'm bored. I just won't have the same degree of satiety. And that is a byproduct of the fact I'm consuming a liquid versus chewing something, which sends different physiologic communication to my digestive system than if I just sit down with a steak and have some steak and some vegetables. And so I think it's helpful for people to just be reminded.

It's not to say like don't ever enjoy. a fatty coffee or don't ever enjoy that glass of wine because you're celebrating. That's not what I'm saying. But if you're weight loss resistant, you're in a plateau, you're feeling fluffy, perhaps cut those things out and see how you feel. And it could be that simple. And that to me is such an important lesson to understand that, you know, this is why sometimes tracking our food, although not sexy and generally not what most individuals want

to do, it can make us aware. Like, did you eat half a sandwich off your kid's plate? did you drink half of their juice? Did you forget that you had that fatty coffee because you were hungry in the morning and didn't have time to like make food? That may build some awareness to help you understand like how your habits are contributing to the results that you are trying to look for or the results you're frustrated with. So powerful.

I think especially for a lot of people when it comes to the topic of protein that you've talked about so much, even in this interview, is that without tracking, it's actually very hard to know even how much protein you're getting. And so typically for a lot of people that might be getting a food scale and just using, you know, a free app or typing into Google and getting a rough idea of like, okay, if I'm going to have this much chicken breast, how much protein is that? And also your other example in the context of especially, you know, moms who are so busy all day long and they just start even trying to fight for a few minutes to themselves, they might be grazing throughout the day, eating a little bit of food left over from their kids. this chicken nugget, this, this juice in your, your examples. Also looking at how much other macros might be coming along with it. So some folks in the podcast have come on recently, and they've talked about the power of it, not forever, but at least for a period of time, taking some of the consistent meals that you eat on a regular basis and just getting a rough idea, whether it's through a food scale or scanning a barcode or some idea of what your actual nutritional content is.

Is that something that you've done before? It kind of sounds like maybe, and to this day now that you've gotten a little bit better at it, is, tracking your protein something that you still do on a daily basis. That's such a great question. Certainly in the beginning, I definitely tracked my protein because I was not aware of how much I was under eating. And by this, I mean, like, you know, I think we're conditioned to eat small portions of protein.

So I was easily eating way under. Like, I was probably eating 60 a day. And when I realized I needed to be eating 100, 110 grams a day, I was like, holy cow. So for me, there was an intermittent period of time. that I tracked. And now I know, like, I know what, how much protein I have in a certain size steak. I know how much protein I have in half a pound of shrimp. I mean, those things I can now kind of, I can navigate very easily. And when I go to restaurants, I actually will ask. I'm the person that says, how many ounces is the chicken? And I'm not the least been embarrassed to ask for a second

protein portion. And actually, my kids do that and it embarrasses my husband so much. I'm like, but they learn. They know that they know for the size that they have. are and for the trajectory of where they're going this is the amount of protein they need to consume on a daily basis so one of my kids put away a pound and a half of ground bison the other day for lunch and I was just like I don't know how you just did that I was like my mind is blown and he you know he that was effortless for him so getting back to your original question I think you can't track you can't measure what you don't track so I think that can be that awareness is very important even if it's just say I'm doing this for a week two weeks three weeks three weeks.

weeks, et cetera. I think secondary to that, I don't like tracking. I don't like tracking my food. I think it's tedious. But when I've needed to do it, I have willingly done it as a way to kind of check, you know, am I within a frame of reason for, you know, what my goals are? And so for me, I think that every individual has to decide. I think some people end up tracking in perpetuity and they love it. And I'm like, if you love it and you're not obsessive about it, that's great. But if it becomes something that you don't like, you loathe, it causes you angst, then it's probably not something you want to perpetuate forever. But I do find for a lot of individuals, it's helpful. I even had my husband track this year because I was convinced he was

not eating up protein. And so he tracked for two weeks. And we were both surprised to see that his protein, he was eating more protein than I realized, which I was happy to see. But I think for a lot of individuals, it's a good check-in. Maybe you do that for a week every quarter, or maybe you do it a couple times a year, but it doesn't have to be forever. I think over time, you will be able to visually determine how much protein is on your plate and know whether or not you need to add or, well, never subtract, but maybe add. Yeah, I think that's a great recommendation that if you've never done it before, just try for a little bit and just to get a baseline on some of the key meals that you're having,

I know for me, when I started tracking my protein about a year ago, when I started working out with this group here in Los Angeles that I've mentioned on the podcast before, I saw that for myself, especially growing a vegetarian, being like a skinny Indian vegetarian kid, and then now only starting to eat meat. And then having been vegan for like seven years, and then I finally started eating meat, not that you can't get vegetable sources of protein, there's people that are out there that talk about that, um, starting to eat meat at the age of around 26 years old. And then even then, I was definitely prioritizing more fat in my diet, kind of like not following a strict keto, but being influenced

by a lot more of sort of the higher fat approach that a lot of people were doing in wellness, I just naturally would get so full on fat that I didn't realize how under I was eating on protein. And then as I sort of set certain goals of adding, you know, a pound of muscle mass, you know, each month and striving for that and strength training and working out, I saw that if I didn't track on a regular basis. It was so easy for me to under eat just because I had my old habits that were there before. And obviously, I'm not like most people who are trying to lose weight. I'm trying to add lean muscle mass. So tracking was a helpful part of it. Now I got a much better sense. Now I can look at the stuff that I was eating before, like the Greek yogurt and protein powder,

and know that I need a little bit of this, a little bit of that to hit the goals. But even me, somebody who is not qualified like you in this space, but interviews people all day, even I was under eating on protein. So that was a big wake up call for me. So try it once. My guess is my audience. I'd love to ask this to you. Probably only, I would say less than 8% of my audience just made up number has ever tracked at any point in time in their life. If you would guess for your audience, what would you say it was? Like at least for a week to two weeks, how much percentage of your audience have ever tracked? I would probably guess 25 to 30%. That's probably my guess. Okay. Just because you've been talking about it for a while. Yeah. Yeah. And I think,

And I'm also very transparent. I will say to people that I don't like tracking. But I do find for some of my female patients, it's super helpful for them to track because it allows them to have a visual representation of what they're doing. And I'm like, listen, we're not doing this forever. It's like, let's track for a week. And then sometimes they're completely astounded. Like, oh, I didn't realize I was having, you know, half a candy bar.

And then I was having a, you know, a serving of chips. And then I had, you know, a couple beers after. And so these things kind of add up. And so I always say, listen, like, there's no judgment. And actually, it's more helpful for me for people to be totally transparent about whatever it is they're eating. I'm like, don't tell me what you think I want to see. Show me what you're really doing because then it allows me to help you the most. And there's no judgment.

I'm like, I eat, like, I have a thing for dark chocolate. I mean, I'll say that's like my one vice that's left, which is both sad and crazy. But, you know, for me, like, I'm a dark chocolate officianto. Like, they'll have to pry that from my cold dark hand. I'm not giving that up. They've given up too many other things. But also the question on that would be, you know, in the context, and you're probably saying this just a little bit like in a way like cheeky,

but it's not really a vice in the context of everything that you're doing, right? Obviously, you can overdo anything if somebody is eating a ton of dark chocolate in a day at the expense of other important macronutrients. But that sounds like, you know, not a vice to me if that's something that you like you like to pull out of the cupboard every so often, but you're still hitting your protein and you're still getting your workouts and you're still doing everything else that makes you same. Yeah. And I think I think sometimes why I share that is because people assume if they follow me, they know I've been gluten and grains and dairy-free. And largely that has been done for health

reasons. It put an autoimmune condition into remission. For me, dairy was as sad as this is to say, I grew up battalion and like cheese is a big thing, but for me, even the small amounts of cheese and like dairy I was eating really inflamed my body. And so, you know, I had to dump that in perimenopause too. And so I always like to kind of share like I didn't do it as a social experiment. I did it because for me, I was just noticing I didn't feel good and and it's just not worth it. Now, there are people out there that totally do well with, you know, some grains and and some dairy. And if you do, that's great. I'm just not that person. And because I've had several autoimmune conditions, it's really important to me to kind of keep them at bay. And so that is

certainly contributed. But thank you for the knot on dark chocolate. It is like one of my favorite things that I eat. But you're right in the context of getting my protein needs met and then I will have some dark chocolate with my dinner. I love it. I love dark chocolate too. I pretty much everybody has a sweet tooth. I don't eat a lot of sweets, but I love sweets like dark chocolate. Cynthia, anything else that you feel that it's important on this topic of body composition, weight loss, and then even a little bit of weight loss resistance that people might having. I think one of the things that I'm trying to do with this series that we're having on the

podcast is that it's very easy to say in all aspects of life. I hear it a lot in business, which is an area that I have a lot more expertise on. You know, friends will tell me, I've tried everything to get this kind of business going. And it's like, when you get into it, you're like, well, you have tried a lot. And we don't want to discount that, but that doesn't mean that you've tried everything. And often it's the fundamentals that need to be looked at. Well, have you talked to your customers about why they are liking or not liking your product that's there? What is the basic feedback that's there?

Are you only relying on paid ads? Or do you have natural marketing that comes? Are you putting out free education? Whatever it might be. And I think a similar thing applies to help. That it's easy to say that we've tried everything. And there are people that have tried a lot. And there are, especially in the world of functional medicine, more complicated things to look at.

But I did want to make sure that we got a chance to double down on the basics. Many of the basics that you talk about and some of your colleagues talk about, sleep, protein, exercise. You know, you've mentioned many of them. And then, okay, if you have those on lock, let's get a little fancier here with some of the things that are more sophisticated. I think for a long time I was seeing people in our space here in wellness jump to immediately the more sophisticated stuff like oh is it toxins is it heavy metals is it this thing do i have mold issue is that why i can't lose weight and that i've seen situations like that is that the vast majority of people probably not so let's make sure we never ignore the basics and the fundamentals

before we go to that so just from your standpoint in your view anything else that you feel in either one of those category that is underrated when it's the conversation of body composition and weight loss. Oh, such a good question, Drew. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. They're the foundational principles are where we all have to start from. And then if we're still not seeing the results, there are other things to think about. So I think a great deal about hormones and in particular, testosterone. So there's no FDA-approved testosterone for women. So more often than not, it has to be compounded. And obviously, depending on where women are in perimenopause or menopause, you kind of start with progesterone and estradiol, and there's lots of different ways to go about

replacing those. But about 25% of women, even in menopause, are still able to produce enough testosterone. So the rest of us, you know, the three quarters of the rest of women, do oftentimes benefit from testosterone replacement. And I think for many women, we like to blame the body composition changes on other hormones. But I think testosterone, in particular, is an unsung hero. And so a lot of the body composition changes that women in particular don't like to see in men as well is low testosterone. And so I think testosterone is something to definitely test, looking at free and total testosterone levels, ensuring that someone doesn't have insulin resistance, ensuring that it's not a byproduct of a lot of exposure to estrogen mimicking chemicals that can kind of offset

hormone receptor sites. So I think testosterone is one. I would say the other thing that, you know, we didn't really touch on. And I just want to reiterate, and the Dr. Sarah Gottfried kind of put this on my radar. So I want to give her full credit the role of trauma and weight loss resistance and helping people understand that having those high ACE scores as a young person, and you can, you can get the adverse childhood events. You can score that online. If you have a high score, you're at greater risk for autoimmune conditions.

You're also at greater risk for weight loss resistance and understanding the interrelationship of that overactivated sympathetic system. So chronically elevated cortisol can absolutely contribute to weight loss resistance. And so those are two things that I think they're being talked about, but perhaps not enough, so that if women are already working on the sleep, they've got the sleep dialed in, the stress is dialed in, even if it's men, you know, the strength training, the meal frequency, the macros are all dialed in and they're still not seeing the results that they're looking for is to really consider what else could be going on. And I think the really good functional

integrative practitioners are looking at those things. Obviously, it's not the first thing you look at, but really looking at those labs with a fine tooth comb. I think that that absolutely can be very, very helpful. And talking to your patients about, you know, what they've experienced. And I think a lot of times it's provider discomfort. Like the provider doesn't want to have the conversation. so they just avoid the conversation. I used to joke and say, no providers wanted to talk to their patients about sex, and that was like the big thing,

but actually what I think is even bigger issue is not allowing your patients to have the space to talk about things they've experienced when they were younger, even in their adulthood. And so I think those are two contributors, obviously substantive, but I'm not, you know, I'm not per se like looking at the gadgets. But I think that there are definitely things

that, you know, most listeners, male and female can certainly benefit from exploring if that would be applicable for them. I want to circle back to sleep because it's a common theme that I see, even amongst family members, that there seems to be something that's going on for women as they get older when it comes to sleep. What have you found out in that category as it's related to perimenopause, menopause, that happens that all of a sudden people who felt like they were sleeping well have challenges when it comes to sleep? Yeah, I mean, I think the kind of whole thing. hearkening of perimenopause, which is the 10 to 15 years preceding menopause as we have.

Our ovaries are as old as we are. So we have this kind of slow ovarian aging and our ovaries are producing less progesterone. Progesterone is this wonderful hormone that helps manage anxiety and depression and helps with sleep, upregulates a neurotransmitter called GABA. And when we are starting to have faltering levels of progesterone, it may show up initially for women in sleep issues. They may have trouble staying asleep. They may have trouble falling asleep.

They may feel more anxious. They may be more depressed. There's a lot of research to show this is when a lot of women get put on antidepressants. When they actually don't need the antidepressant, they just need some progesterone therapy. And sometimes just the week preceding their menstrual cycle, a little bit of oral progesterone can work wonders. Obviously, that's a starting point. And this is when a lot of the constellation of symptoms of perimenopause really get magnified. You know, this relative estrogen dominance of heavy cycles, weight loss resistance,

etc. can become problematic. I think on top of that is we become less stress resilient in perimenopause and so what we could weather in our 20s and 30s, we are not weathering as well. And this doesn't mean that we ourselves are deficient. It's just a byproduct of this hormonal changes that are occurring. So if we are dealing with perimenopause, we're also dealing with a degree of and thyroid pause. And so the adrenal pause, the adrenal glands start going through this stressful time period. And as our ovaries are producing less progesterone, our adrenal glands kind of step in as a backup quarterback, but it puts a lot of extra stress on the adrenals. And so understanding, it's almost like we have our foot on the accelerator all the time. And the net impact of having

elevated cortisol is that it elevates our blood sugar and then it elevates our insulin levels. And so it becomes this kind of chronic issues of sometimes falling asleep, staying asleep, which can be a combination of different things. I find for a lot of women, especially women that are experiencing hot flashes or night sweats, which are not fun. If anyone's ever experienced them, not fun to wake up and feel like you've sweated through all of your clothing is really, if you look at the research, is really a byproduct of blood sugar dysregulation. So that's the first thing we start working on is let's make sure we're putting our meals together properly. We're not eating too close to bed. We're not eating the wrong foods before we go to bed. And that's typically where it stems from. But I think a lot of

women suffer needlessly. I had a woman the other day, a new patient 10 years into menopause, who's a nurse, so obviously a very smart woman. And she said her practitioner basically had put her on Ambien and had basically said, you know, this is just the way things are. Same kind of rhetoric I had heard. But unfortunately, this woman was left to suffer. So for like 10 years, she had not had a good night's sleep. I mean, literally for 10 years, it's not had a restful night of sleep. And as you can well, imagine, detrimental impact or metabolic health, her leptin was high, or insulin levels were high. She was weight loss resistant, and it really stemmed from this initial loss of progesterone, because she described it. I was 42, 43, and that's when I started noticing, especially around

my menstrual cycle, you know, in that ludial phase, that she just had these really magnified symptoms. So if you're a woman and you're listening, you know, please go to your doctor or your nurse practitioner and please ask them to see if you would benefit from progesterone as a starting point for a lot of people. And I jokingly say it's another thing that's to pry from my cold, dark hands. Progesterone is a total game changer for sleep. It's absolutely positively, not anything I would ever want to give up, but very inexpensive, very easy to take, covered by insurance. You know, unfortunately, a lot of compounded medications who really get a bad rap, but you can take the plain over the count, not over the counter, plain generic progesterone that's like $6 a month.

You can definitely get that through your providers, pharmaceuticals very easily. Is there someone that you like in this space that is like a wealth of knowledge when it comes to hormone replacement and people digging in deeper into that topic? I would say there are two women that I think of in particular, Dr. Felice Gersh, who is close to you. I also think about Dr. Sarah Gottfried. And they talk really openly. They do a really fantastic job being, you know, women's advocates. Obviously, there are many, many other providers, too, but those are two standouts because they are so,

they are so lovingly focused on helping women get the information and the care that they deserve to have. Awesome. Well, I'm excited. We've had Sarah on the podcast before, but Dr. Gottfried will be here in L.A. at the end of the month. And so we'll have a great conversation with her. Awesome.

Cynthia, this has been great. You've covered so many different aspects when it comes to these bigger themes of focusing on the basics, also understanding bio-individuality, and then especially the unique challenges and opportunities that women have as they age where the body does fundamentally change. And obviously, many of the things that you've mentioned too are applicable to men, prioritizing proteins, strength training, proper sleep, so everybody can benefit from those. So I want to acknowledge you for coming on the podcast again, being a part of this series. It's always great to hear your musings on all different topics.

Any final words you want to leave our audience with? No, always a pleasure to connect with your community. And I'm grateful to have been a part of this weight loss series because I think there's always different ways to look at things. I think that it's kind of conventional that we have to make it really complicated. What we really have to do is get back to basics and let people, you know, master those before we move on to more. complicated reasons for why we are struggling with weight loss resistance. Beautiful. Cynthia, you have your own podcast and you're very active online.

Just remind the audience where people can find you. Yeah, thank you. So everyday wellness, which is one of my favorite things I do in my business, as I know you do as well. I'm active on YouTube. Instagram is probably where you will see me the most. I am on Twitter before warned I can be a little snarky. Sometimes I get myself in trouble.

easiest way to connect with me is on my website where you have access to all of those things as well as my book, The Intermitt and Fasting Transformation. But yeah, definitely let me know if you reach out. Let me know that you heard me through Drew's podcast. Amazing. Cynthia, thank you again for being here. Thank you. Thank you.

Absolutely. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend.

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