Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Why You’re Aging Faster Than You Think | Dr Gabrielle Lyon

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

What if the real risk to our health isn’t aging itself, but becoming metabolically weak?Dr. Gabrielle Lyon — physician, researcher, and one of the leading voices redefining how we think about health and longevity — shares why muscle sits at the center of lasting strength, energy, and vitality. In this wide-ranging conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, she explores why health isn’t something to manage later with prescriptions, but something to build deliberately through strength and daily discipline.Dr. Lyon’s muscle-centric approach reframes aging and performance: real longevity is not about doing less, but building the capacity to do more — with purpose, clarity, and resilience. From the science of protein and training to the psychology of sustainable health, this conversation offers a roadmap to living strong, not just long.You’ll learn:Why muscle is the organ of longevityHow to build metabolic health through training and nutritionThe key to balancing strength, performance, and recoveryHow to approach GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic) with nuance and cautionWhy physical strength fuels mental resilience and purpose_______________________________________________________Links & ResourcesSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XPre-order The Forever Strong PLAYBOOK and receive exclusive bonuses - https://drgabriellelyon.com/playbook/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a few short days, the brightest lights in American football will be on. Most people will see what happens on the field. But the real game, that happens in the mind. I'm Dr. Michael Jervais, and I'm teaming up again with Fox Sports Analyst and NFL Pro Bowler, Greg Olson, for a special five-episode series called Game Inside the Games. We're recording from Radio Road during Championship Week, and these are shorter daily episodes that are dropping Wednesday, February 4th through Sunday, February 8th. Each episode pulls back the curtain on how elite performers prepare, how they think,

and the psychological skills that they rely on to perform at their best when the world is watching. And whether you're leading a team, building your craft, or competing or parenting, or simply trying to live with more intention, these are tools you can use right away. Game Inside the Games is presented by Microsoft co-pilot, your AI assistant for work, and CDW. Make Amazing Happen. Subscribe to Finding Mastery, wherever you get your podcast, and join us February 4th through the eighth for game inside the games. If you are weak, you are more likely to die.

What if the real risk to our health isn't aging, but becoming metabolically weak? There is nothing more important than skeletal muscle or overall survivability. That's it. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais, by trade and trading a high-performance psychologist. The idea behind these conversations is simple. It's to sit with the extraordinaire's, to learn, to really learn how they work from the inside out.

Today's conversation is with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, physician, researcher, and one of the leading voices challenging how we think about health, longevity, and aging. If you are strong in midlife, you have a two and a half times greater chance of living to 100. If you are engaging in some type of resistance training, you are decreasing your overall morbidity and mortality by 25%. Dr. Gabriel makes a clear and often uncomfortable case. Health is not something you manage later with prescriptions. Her position is it's something you build early. You maintain deliberately.

And for her, muscle sits right at the center of the equation. The consequences of unhealthy muscle are Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. These are not diseases externally. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually takes to build and protect muscle through training. and nutrition. And we have an honest discussion about the rise of GLP1 drugs like OZempec. GLP1 tell the brain that you are full. They are incredible to the use in weight loss. Now, is it a free

pass? No. If we utilize them as a silver bullet, we are going to trade one epidemic for another. So as you listen, consider are your daily choices helping you build capacity for the life that you want to live? Or are they quietly trading strength today for fragility tomorrow with that? Let's jump right into this week's conversation with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Gabriel, it is great to have you back. And for the first time live, it's been three years since our last conversation. And it's amazing how fast time flies. Thank you for coming back. I'm so excited to be here and live and in person in this incredible studio with an incredible team. this is at bed.

Yeah, thank you. Congrats on the new book. I want to get into that. Before we start there, can you level set in the most simple of language, what you do and how you spend your time? That's kind of setting the stage for a lot of different things. First of all, I'm a mom of two very little children.

And if I were to say, how do I set the stage for what I do? I think that in one quick sentence, it would be the best example I can in both mind, body, and spirit. And yeah, for everything that I do. For everything. So you put your kids first in that respect, but you're wanting to be the best version, if you will,

of you, the best example of you for just them or for others. For everybody. Yeah. Because a lot of people, and I would say a lot of doctors, think and exist in a silo. For example, let's say someone has cardiovascular. cardiovascular disease and we treat the cardiovascular disease or we treat the diabetes. But at the end of the day, what we really are hoping to build, and I think a different level of thinking about medicine, is stronger and more resilient humans. And the only way to experience that is if we are practicing that for a bigger, greater cause. And that starts with me, right? 100%. So when somebody understands their purpose, they become really difficult to move a real.

around, meaning that a cut of an eye or a smirk or a bad joke at your expense or even really rugged hostile conditions that are seemingly impossible to operate well in, people with a purpose do really well in those environments because they don't get pushed around by the external circumstances or conditions. When you think about your purpose, do you go back to be the best example for others? I actually believe that we can build a stronger, more resilient. future and we as a culture can be stronger and more resilient. And I know that I was put on this earth to help make the world better, stronger, and more resilient. And I have never waver from that. And I know that medicine is the modality that I use, but the mission is clear and the same.

Okay. But you've been on a noticeable investment in sharing best practices and ideas with people. And you were disruptive at the same time with making sure that people understood the value of muscles and muscle health and the best practice is to make sure to support muscle health. Can you start with that kind of grand idea? Yeah. And just to kind of get us all on the same page of what's most important to you. Well, I want to just lay a little bit of the foundation as to where it came from. I graduated early in high school. And then I moved to Kauai and I watched my godmother, who was a PhD nutrition.

science, take care of people. I knew nutrition was the foundation. I was watching her treat people with cancer and a lot of chronic conditions with lifestyle interventions, not medications. I mean, I'm sure they had doctors, but I was witnessing something firsthand that was inspiring. I made the decision to go into nutritional sciences. We all have these moments or these mentors. We don't just happen to stumble into things. And my mentor, after I decided I was going to study nutrition, happened to be, and still is 20 years later, one of the world-leading protein metabolism experts. He still mentored me. So between my godmother as a nutritional scientist and happened to fall into the class of one of the world-leading protein experts, I became very interested in both protein and muscle at that time.

What was your training? So undergrad was in what? Nutritional sciences and chemistry. And chemistry. Then did you go master's or straight to Ph.D.? Then I did nutritional sciences. Then I went to medical school. Oh, MD, not Ph.D. That's right. Oh, DO, but MD, D.O are the same. Okay. And then I did two years of psychiatry training, three years of family medicine.

And then I did a fellowship in nutritional sciences and geriatrics. So it's a combined research and nutritional science fellowship at Washio in St. Louis. And how long did you practice, like with a full practice? Roughly 17 years of education and I'm still practicing. I graduated medical school in 2006 and I'm still practicing. Is it a full practice? Yeah. Oh, it is.

With everything else you're doing? Meaning I, well, I'm in practice one day a week, but I'm, yeah, fully licensed, fully practicing. Yeah. So if somebody wanted to be my patient? Yeah. Like you're so, you're still. Okay. Yes.

That's good. All right. And we have a great team. I have very high standards. And our practice... The look tells it all. I mean, I just don't. You know, you mentioned being disruptive.

And I would say that I am because I will not settle for what I do not believe to be true. And I do not believe to be accurate. And what are best practices. And there's a lot of misinformation and a lot of ways in which I see medicine done that I know do not support the best overall health. Can you give me a couple of things that absolutely. make you so irritated, wild, crazy, pissed off that, like, why is this still being spewed? What are some of the things that come forward for you? These will be general things that people probably hear a lot of. I will share. Okay. So the biggest one is this obesity epidemic. Okay.

I can appreciate the fact that we have an obesity epidemic. 70, roughly 70% of adults are either overweight or obese. And I was in my follow. 70? It's a little bit higher. Yeah. 70% of adults in the U.S. are either overweight or obese. And overweight is measured by BMI. Mm-hmm.

And BMI does not account for muscle. We are overweight and we are sick and we are metabolically dysfunctional. I was in my fellowship and I actually did nutritional sciences and geriatrics. The deal was, and the study that I was working on was looking at body composition and brain function. And we were imaging participants' brains. We were looking at, there were multiple. arms of this study, and one of the study arms was looking at their brain under an MRI, we're doing tests while they're thinking and, et cetera. This one woman, she was in her mid-50s,

I just adored her. She was a mom of three kids, and I imaged her brain, and her brain looked like the beginning of an Alzheimer's brain. And I thought, we failed her. She had done everything right. She had exercised more, and she had ate less. And over the years of Yo-Yo dieting. She destroyed her muscle. She had damaged her brain. And I'm not talking about brain damage. I'm talking about overall volume. And we know this now, that the heavier someone is, there's a potential to have lower brain volume. But I felt so deeply responsible because, again, no one was saying, hey, we need to focus on your muscle. We need to protect her metabolism. The consequence of unhealthy muscle are the following. Obesity is a symptom in part of unhealthy muscle.

Alzheimer's is a symptom in part of unhealthy muscle, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. These are not diseases externally. When we look at what the root cause of these chronic diseases are, the majority of them begin in skeletal muscle first. So you're saying causation, not correlation? That's right. You're saying that the causality of serious medical diseases are because the origin is that the, I don't know, the people don't have enough muscle? Or they have unhealthy muscle, or they are eating out of balance to be able to manage muscle health. So think about it.

This feels like a big statement to me. It is a big statement. We're still chasing this obesity epidemic. 50 years later, we're trying to lose weight. 50 years later, we're chasing the wrong. It's the wrong chase. You're saying focus on feeding your body the right stuff to build muscle. When you do that, you upgrade metabolism.

You upgrade other functions that I hope you're going to teach. And so when that takes place, you become a healthier organism. Yes. So it's probably not more complicated in that. But you're saying we're chasing weight. as opposed to ratio? Well, also. Like muscle to fat ratio?

Is that what? Yes. And it's even one layer deeper than that. Yeah. do things like restriction or crash dieting or chasing novelty. However, if we recognize that as an organ system skeletal muscle is the largest organ system in the body, it's an organ system. It makes up more than 40% or so of our body weight. We have voluntary control. This is the only organ system that we have voluntary control over. I cannot tell my thyroid to make more thyroid hormone. I

cannot tell my heart to pump at 51 beats per minute. I can tell my quadricep to lunge and contract. So you've also said that muscles are the organ of longevity. Yes. So I have that right? Yeah. And so you're saying, just like breathing, I can, I can control my breathing if I'm skilled at it. And if I focus on my breathing, I can actually manipulate within a range heart rate. And so I can't get a zero. I can't get to zero and I can't like. But it is a volitional thing that I can do. I can focus on my breathing to upregulate or downregulate activation, arousal regulation. And you're saying that in a similar way. You're saying you can't directly control these other functions,

but you can directly control a muscle's time under tension. And the loss of skeletal muscle mass is more detrimental than the gain of body fat. Say it again. The loss of skeletal muscle is more detrimental than the gain of body fat. Okay. So if somebody's putting on weight, you're saying, okay, not great, okay. But if you're losing muscle, we're in trouble. We're in trouble.

Because if I were to frame up and orient you to what muscle does, you know this better than anyone. Muscle is for power and for force generation and mobility and athletic performance and physicality. This is how we recognize skeletal muscle. But that is only one small aspect of what this organ system is responsible for. Teach on it. Yes. Skeletal muscle is the primary site for carbohydrate disposal, meaning when you eat carbs, your muscle system is like a suitcase. And I'm going to explain it in a metaphor. If you open up a suitcase and let's say you're bringing a carry on, I travel all time. I'm a very heavy packer. I open up my small suitcase and instead of packing for my four-day trip, I pack for 14 days. In my time, I'm a very heavy packer. I open up my small suitcase and instead of packing for my four-day trip, I pack for 14 days. In my tiny little carry-ons. I've got five pairs of shoes and I have 17 outfits, even though I'm only going for 14 days. I try to close the suitcase. There is no way that sucker is closing. I'm jumping on it. There's clothes spilling out. It's just not happening. Muscle is the same.

If you are exercising, you are emptying that suitcase or opening that suitcase. That suitcase is ready to receive carbohydrates, i.e. clothes. You should only be packing, quote, eating enough for four days. And as you're packing into that suitcase, you close the suitcase and then you exercise again and you empty the suitcase. If over 50% of Americans or so are not exercising, they are sedentary, they're not doing 150 minutes and it's more than 50%. 150 minutes of cardiovascular activity per week. Yeah. Plus two days a week of resistance training. People are not doing that. What percentage are? 23% of women are doing resistance training, by the way.

And women you're saying above the age of, I don't know, 35. 35 in that range? I mean, I don't know if it's exactly, I'd have to look at the statistic. Say it again, the percent is 23 percent. Roughly 23 percent of women are doing resistance training. Is Pilates resistance training? It is in part resistance training. Yeah, so if you're putting, it's a great place to start.

I love Pilates. My wife, you know, built a Pilates studio. And I really understand. But I always wonder. And she's like, no, it is. And I'm like, are you sure? And she's like, yeah, it definitely is. But let's talk about there still has to be enough stimulus, meaning how much volume are you using?

How much weight? You know, there's progressive stimulus. It's not progressive overload, meaning the weights have to be heavier. There are a multitude of ways of stimulating that tissue. But I want to say something that people might get upset about. And I'm sorry. Is Pilates resistance training? Yes.

Is Pilates ideal for muscle mass and hypertrophy? Then all the football players would stop going to the wait room and do Pilates. Our Navy SEALs, our Tier 1 operators, would no longer go to the weight room and go to plies. And people would say, and I am not discouraging people from doing Pilates. Pilates twice a week for a woman 30 to 60 or 30 to whatever age. I don't know if it matters that much. Would that check the box for you to say, yeah, okay, you're on the right path? It is.

What about four days a week? This is my personal opinion. Yeah. I think Pilates can be great. I think that women are very afraid of the weight room. That's right. And they say, I've never done resistance training. I've never lifted weights.

And I say, you know what? That's totally untrue. How much is your toddler weigh? Your toddler weighs 40 pounds. You have no trouble looking at that toddler and picking up that toddler. And maybe you're carrying that toddler. You're carrying a bag and you're carrying something else. But in the guise of a kettlebell, you don't look at that 40-pound kettlebone girl.

Yeah, I got that girl. So Pilates is great, but I really want to encourage women to reorienting. themselves to lifting weights. It doesn't have to be heavy. It also shouldn't necessarily be light. I cover this in the playbook and I put together a program that people can do at home if they want with simply dumbbells. And it is important to start where you are. I recognize that. I also want to challenge people to create a little bit of friction and to strive for something more. Finding Master is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Here, Finding Mastery, people matter.

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Two distinct options designed around the same performance principles. David bars are now in major retailers like Walmart and Target. And I'd recommend heading to Davidprotein.com slash finding mastery to take advantage of a special offer they have for you right now as being part of the Finding Mastery community. By four packs, you get the fifth free. Free shipping plus 10% off every order when you head to Davidproteen.com slash finding mastery. Again, that's Davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. Really hope you'll check them out. Let's start in the basic place. Like super easy. What do you say to women who are early to training? Maybe played some sport growing up. Let's just kind of create the scenario.

and they've kind of lost their way a little bit. Men or women, I don't know if there's that much difference, but we can stay with the woman analogy here. Is there a big difference? For what? The training? No. The training.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay. Is there a person on the metabolic system? No, both men and women have equal potential, and I've seen this in studies, to build muscle and relative strength. Hmm. Okay.

So let's say that there's some movement in their young age, there's some sort of sport that they played. They kind of know they're, body and they've lost way of it because of the rhythm of life. And they're hearing you for the first time. They're going, wait a minute. Hold on. I got to get back to that because it's one of the most significant levers for longevity and health. And I'm losing my way there. So what do I do? Where do I start? Yeah. I mean, first, you have to get really anchored in that why because you're not going to want to do it. And you do not wait for motivation. You have to commit and you have to expect that you're going to

have resistance. And then you have to have a game plan before that happens to know that you are going to set a standard for yourself that you are going to execute. Because I can give you the perfect eye plan and the perfect training plan. But if you do not have a mental framework in place, none of that matters. Yeah, you hit this strongly in your new book. And so I've definitely appreciated the way you framed, you know, the first mover or the biggest lever is making sure you understand your psychology. Yeah. And then the next thing is, if we were to tiptoe is to say, do you understand why it is so critical for your health? It is your metabolic driver. Not only does it matter to be strong. If you are strong in midlife, you have a two and a half times greater chance

of living to 100. If you are engaging in some type of resistance training, you are decreasing your overall morbidity and mortality by 25%. If you are weak, if you are in the weakest quartile, you are more likely to die. There is nothing more important than skeletal muscle or overall survivability. That's it. If someone, God forbid, gets cancer. Do you know what kills people in cancer, depending on the type of cancer? Ekexia.

Wasting. Muscle wasting. So in order to take the next important step, which I'm going to cover, nutrition and exercise, but we have to orient ourselves to the why. We are not just talking about being buffed jacketan. Like we are not there. We are talking about this is the organ of longevity that will allow you to survive, not if, but when the storm hits because it is coming, my friend, it is coming for everybody. It is like the five remembrances. So you must prepare. You have to. And that storm is falling?

We do not know. There's some sort of medical thing that's coming. And if you don't have the right health of the muscular organ, it's a harder go. Everything will be more difficult. And also, it's not just a fall. Let's say someone gets the flu and is in bed for a week. If you are older and you are untrained, you might lose three pounds of muscle in a week. The ability to recover that muscle as you get older is more challenging.

We are humans. We are of the nature to get sick. We are of the nature to get challenges. It is just the way that it is. I do not care if you are the healthiest person ever. We have to understand that there is an ability to take action for what is coming, the inevitable. And maybe it never comes. But I will tell you what, I've been a doctor since 2006. Everybody gets sick. I mean, at some point, doesn't mean that they're deathly ill. It doesn't mean any of those things. The more. The more. muscle mass you have, the greater your ability to recover because muscle is your primary site for glucose disposal, carbohydrates, fatty acid oxidation, you're worried about cholesterol, all these things. At rest, muscle burns fat, your fatty acids, but also it's your amino acid reservoir. It is your body armor. When you get sick, when you need something, it pulls from the banks of your muscle. And also, especially for, you know, mastery and mentality, When you contract skeletal muscle, depending on the intensity and duration, it releases myokines. Myokines are peptide hormones that affect neurogenesis and brain function and bone health.

Skeletal muscle creates an interorgan cross-talk. And I say all this because my goal is how do we move beyond thinking of muscle as being jacked and tan in Venice Beach? It is so much more than that and one more layer to that. There's a bidirectional relationship between physical strength and mental strength. You pull one to get the other. And there is just this deep interconnection about how we build stronger, more resilient humans. And you can't think your way there. You have to act your way there.

And that comes from muscle. What do you mean that comes from muscle? I was tracking until the last bit. What does that mean? So let's say you need to, I'll give you an example. An athlete of yours or a client of yours you coach many of these top businesses. Humans are predictable. They have predictable human weaknesses.

And one of those weaknesses, people get very hooked into a thought. We are much more likely to have loss aversion and we will register something painful 10 times more than we register something good. Okay? We get fixated on this loss or this failure or this thing. Negativity bias. Yes. Hooked into that. can you breathe your way out of that?

No, I'm sorry, I'm not skilled enough. I cannot. I don't know if you can. I cannot meditate my way out of there. I cannot breathe my way out of there. But you know what I can do? Is you give me 20 seconds and you put me in an all-out sprint. It could be on the bike.

It could be on the row. It could be on the aerodyne. It could be on any of those things. And in those 20 seconds, by the time those 20 seconds are done, I don't know. I totally forgot why I was upset. You cannot think of anything else. pull the lever of muscle, and it creates this bidirectional relationship of mental control. When we are running from a wildebeest, it was not a genetic gift that our ancestors

had passed down that we should also be figuring out and solving life's problems. Yeah. Just give me a second. I have to ruminate about that. Yeah. It's not going to happen. Yeah. Rumination is a problem for survival.

So it doesn't mean, though, after the sprint and after the intense physical expression or muscle contraction, to your point, that we don't go back. back to the problems that we're still there. Then do it again. Then do it again. Yeah, I think, I think that you're on to something important. And I'd also say there's a balanced approach between those two because I mean, I got some problems. I can't be at the gym. But do you?

Or is it one horizon at a time? And so I've really thought a lot about this in the way that rumination and this way of thinking about it is it does not solve the problem. And people do not gain control of their mentality. It takes them for a ride. And as soon as, again, and this might be different for you, but as soon as you can insert a stop gap for that, then you can have freedom to have discernment. So the next step is discern. Is this thought relevant or is it not? And then you can take the next right action. But it's very difficult to get to a discerning moment. if you are hooked in.

Yeah, I think what you're pointing to is a disruption. There's a kind of a classic theory about the importance of disrupting the loop that one is in. And if you can figure out a well-time joke, you know, like there's lots of way to disrupt. And you're saying physicality is a mechanism. I've just never seen anything more. I mean, again, I did psychiatry for two years. And then I did family medicine. And my practice is full of tier one operators and people that are really operating at the highest

level, I've never found anything more successful and immediately getting in and disrupting with a pulling lever of physical movement. Okay. And it could be going on cold plunge. Could be anything tactile, but there is something very in our DNA that we respond to these physical stressors. So go back to the practical note of three days a week, four days a week, five days a week, what are you suggesting for resistance training?

Start with four days a week. It could be three days a week. Three days a week. But I love a four day a week program. I put that in my, I actually put this in my playbook. There are illustrations, by the way. Yeah. Very proud of this.

Four days a week and it's a dumbbell program, but it could be anything. But you cannot be distracted by all these things. So the goal is four days a week, full body training, a baseline of cardiovascular activity. It doesn't need to be slow, steady state. And if I were to take a step back, why resistance training and why cardiovascular activity? Because the reasons for why are different. Overall muscle health, I think about in three buckets. Number one, strength and mass.

Muscle mass matters because you can be sarcopenic obese or, quote, skinny fat, and you're still thin, but you're pre-diabetic, you're going to get Alzheimer's, they're going to get cardiovascular disease because your metabolism is wrecked, right? muscle mass matters. And ladies, I've been trying to get bulky for the last 30 years. It's impossible. It's hard. It's a hard thing to do.

It's not going to happen. Yeah. It's just not going to happen. So strength. You're saying bulky meaning like another 20 pounds of muscle. I am trying to come in and inadvertently bust a myth for women that they don't want to lift weights because therefore they're going to get bulky. I do understand that.

Yeah, it's a, you're saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's hard, but I think you're right. It's probably, I mean. So when you see folks that look really bulky, really big, are you suggesting most of them are not doing it honestly? No, wait a lot. I'm thinking about in athletics. Okay. But they're using steroids or they're using some sort of. Who knows? But if they're training, they're going to have healthy muscle regardless of their size, which is really important. So number one, there's strength and there's mass. both of which matter. The second bucket, why you need muscle, and again, you're training different systems, your metabolism, your metabolic currency is muscle. Lucos disposal, fatty acid disposal. You don't need a statin. I mean, some of you might, but fatty acids are burned at rest by muscle. Really important. And then the third thing is plumbing, having good vascularure. And for anyone listening, that is endothelial function, that's, you know, your arteries, your sexual health,

a cardiovascular health, having good blood flow is critical. And you train these in different ways. So, okay, so then start with like, where would you want somebody to begin? Is this on resistance training or cardiovascular? The answer is probably yes to both. If I just had to pick one, I want your resistance training. Yeah. You cannot maintain, you can maintain type one. So there's two types of main fibers, muscle fibers. And I used to do these muscle biopsies at four in the morning. I will never forget. Oh, my goodness.

I was sweating. It was like four in the morning. I was doing fat and muscle biopsies. You were on yourself? No. Oh, I was going to say, Jesus. On these other people, I was just, oh, my gosh. I mean, I did, you know, what's interesting is that it's not common that a physician is also doing clinical research, but I was.

Shocker. I was sweating. I was so nervous. You're doing fat biopsies. fat and then muscle biops. It was just, it was a whole thing. Anyway, so in my fellowship, part of my job, again, this is major. I would wake up at 4 in the morning and go to the clinical research lab. It was called the CRU. So it's an inpatient clinical research unit, which is the wild. And I was doing fat and muscle biopsies. And I say this because fat is very homogeneous.

Typically, it just looks like fat. There's not different types of fat. It's, I mean, fat can have a little difference, but it's very homogeneous. Whereas muscle is dependent on the movement that you do. There's two main fiber types. There's type one and type two. You could have a totally different percentage of type one, type two than me, right? And that's unusual. It's not homogeneous.

There is interpersonal variation. And I say that because type one muscle fibers are the fiber types that you see when people do endurance type activity. These are marathon runners. It burns primarily fat. And then there's the type 2 muscle fibers. Power and force, the big and bulky fibers. Those fibers must be trained

with resistance training. When someone does not do resistance training or exercise, you will see them get thinner and smaller, right? Sarcopenia. It will favor type 1 muscle fibers. Therefore, from a mass and health standpoint, I recommend people start with resistance training. If you want to start with Pilates,

that's fine. If resistance training is moving against a force. It could be body weight. It could be bands. It could be weights. It could be Pilates. What about rucking? Wonderful. We do that on a Sunday, 10 miles. What do you do? What do you put in your pack while you're rock? Oh, we use a go rock. And is that, I don't, can you vary your pounds on a barque? Yeah, I mean, we have a whole bunch. This is before I had kids, but I used to do it every Sunday, and it was 10 miles, it was hours, and it was 50 pounds. Oh my God. It's terrible. You're rocking 10 miles at 50 pounds?

Yes. I mean, I started at 20. Yeah. I started at 20. Oh, yeah, 20. Yeah. I mean, 10 is a good place for most people to start. Oh, it's terrible.

Yeah. And then you slowly increase. Yeah. But anyway, it's really important to be under load. And because. Sorry, on the rucking. Just one more thing. Are you staying in a zone two for rucking?

I'm just moving. I mean, it's terrible. It's an embrace the suck moment. Can you have a conversation when you're rocking? Yeah, but you don't want to because you're so miserable. So you're up into a crucible experience every week. So are you breathing out of your mouth? Probably.

Yeah, okay. I never paid attention. So like if in the gears that there's a breathing. Slow, it's slow. It's slow. Yeah, okay. Okay, good. It's slow and it's, it's just a, I mean, if you're walking, you add 10 pounds or

six pounds or even. And you know, I recommend people start with 20. Yeah. You know, it took me a few years by the time I'm rucking that heavy. And, you know, 20, 30 pounds primarily would be my favorite weight. But yes, and the goal of that exercise was not weight, was not anything other than suffering. Okay. I'm just being honest. Yeah. Okay. So that was not for cardiovascular. It was no. It was resistance training. That's right. Yeah. But it does both of those. It does. Yeah. So when we, think about designing a program, under load is important, some kind of resistance for those type 2 muscle fibers. Type 1 fibers, good for mitochondria. We want to really think about, again, doing some kind of cardiovascular activity. Of course, you want movement for blood flow as well.

So how important is a max VO2 type of expression, like 80% and 90% per week or at all? Are you interested in the full expression of cardio? Unfortunately, yes. You are, yeah. But it's a hard thing. thing to do. The way that I do is with high-intensity interval training. I don't think that you have to do slow, steady state. And again, people may agree, disagree, but it's ultimately like, how much time do you have and what are you going to do with the time that you have? Bodymaster is brought to you by Signos. If you're trying to change a habit, especially around eating, the fastest way forward is to get a clean signal. This is not about more willpower, but better feedback. And one of the most powerful signals that you can track is glucose. Here's the basic idea. It's really

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He's a veterinary epidemiologist, a former Navy scientist, and now a longevity researcher. In our conversation, we dug into the science of aging. The connection between dolphins and human health and how a surprising discovery led to the identification of a new essential fatty acid, C-15. That discovery, it became the foundation for fatty 15, the daily supplement, and it's designed to support long-term cellular health. What I love about it is how it works at the foundational level by strengthening your cell membranes and supporting your body's natural resilience.

It helps you feel more energized, focused, and resilient over the long haul. I love it, I use it, my wife uses it, it's become a central part of my routine because it aligns with a core principle that I believe in. When we take care of our internal systems, we can show up more fully in everything we do, our careers, our relationships, our hobbies, and anything else we choose to invest our time in. If you're curious about the science behind it,

I highly recommend you checking out our conversation. It's episode 473. And if you're ready to give it a try, head to fatty15.com slash finding mastery. And use the code finding mastery for 15% off, your first 90-day starter kit. That's Fatty 15, FATTY-15, FATT-Y-1-5, Faddy-15.com slash finding mastery, and use the code finding mastery for 15% off. So in our playbook, I have high-intensity interval training.

There's high-intensity interval training, which is 85% of VO2 max, and there's a way to test what your VO-2 max is. It's whatever, how fast you run in a mile. It's a little formula. And then there's sprint interval training, which is 90% or more. and that effort is only a couple seconds, and then there's full recovery. Yeah. I don't recommend people start there,

or do it more than once a week, ever. For your hit training, for the viewer and listener, it's like... No one wants to come to my house now. We have a good time. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like. Hello, over.

Come to Houston. No, it's like 30 seconds on, 60 seconds. Yeah. 30 seconds on, 45 seconds off. Or like, or eat one-to-one, like a 30-second on, 30-second off. Or 10 seconds on, 10 seconds off. That's right.

Which, so there's lots of. variation. So, okay. Start with resistant training. You're waving both hands. Get the resistance in. Then you're saying you also got to do something for the type one fibers for the cardiovascular system as well. And there's some sort of walking, running. And you're saying, but at the same time, once a week, get your heart rate up into kind of the 80% plus, right? Yeah. Okay. But I would be happy if they don't want to do any of those things and they just want to start with resistance training. More than twice a week. Twice a week or more.

Yes, yes. But let's just, they have to do that. It's it is. And then how much time are we talking about? Like 20 minutes, 10 minutes? The more untrained you are, the more of an effect you're going to get based on your activity level. If you are highly trained, you need more of a stimulus and more volume than say someone who is untrained. And I want to have them not focus on the time, but to focus on the effort. No, I mean, you could be, you could be, on your phone in the gym for 60 minutes, or you can be training for 30 minutes, following a program, and getting it done. Do you use rate of perceived exertion as a... Reps in reserve. How many reps and we like to leave one to two in the tank. Okay. So you're not using rate of proceeds exertion.

It's too subjective. You're saying how many more reps could you have done? And if you can do two to three more reps, then you're probably in the right. Yeah, maybe you go a little bit. I like to see one to two, but I don't want it to be technical failure. I mean, I want you to maintain your form because weightlifting is a skill. The first adaptation is going to be neuromuscular, so it's going to be a neural brain adaptation. And then afterwards, you'll get a strength adaptation and then eventually you get a mass.

When somebody's put in, let's call it relatively new, they did some sport or some fitness when they're in high school, go back to that model. and they put in a good three months of work. What do you imagine takes place for folks? When you are young, you are priming your body, and we know that the more fit you are when you are young, the greater your chances of having better cardiometabolic function, the less likelihood you're going to have any kind of cardiometabolic disease, which makes sense.

What do you say to parents that have high schoolers? You are not raising children. You are raising adults. What does that mean? That means that you must embody the actions that you would be telling your children to do. Parents may or may not like to hear that, but it's their responsibility. And we talk about this. If a child is obese, whose responsibility is that?

And this might be a hot button, but it is the parent's responsibility. We all know had an eye spot. I mean, if a child is struggling to walk because they are so overweight, because they're sitting on the couch, playing video games, and eating Cheetos, that is absolutely your responsibility. And it's a tough one because we're not raising children. We are raising adults. But I would never expect a child to listen to an adult who doesn't embody those characteristics.

And so are you more interested in like a zest and a vibrance for your life? Or are you more interested in longevity and, you know, the long play for health? I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. No, I don't think you're, yes, I agree with you. But I'm wondering where you're more interested. Are you interested in the long game? Like get moving because the storm is coming. No, no, it's fun.

But again, I might not be able to provide a, quote, normal answer because for us, a good time is doing push-ups and coal plunging. Oh, yeah, of course. This is what we, that's fun for us. We do 100 push-ups a day in my house. You do 100? Yeah. You do 100 push-ups a day? It's not that.

It's 10 sets of 10. Okay. Spread out over one session? I might do 30 at one time and then 30 at another. We're doing them all day long, friend. You are. Okay. It's fun.

Yeah, it is good. I mean, I was doing, oh, I'm not doing it now. Like 50 pushups a day was a thing that when I couldn't kind of find the right rhythm to train, I knew I could get 50 pushups and 50 squats in in my living room. You know, so it was kind of an easy thing to do. What do you do in that? So you can do squats. My dad does push-ups.

It's terrible. What do you do for like the pull muscles that without an apparatus? So back. Yeah. Back muscles. I mean, so for us, I travel with bands hysterically. There's bands in my bag right now. I'm not joking.

In between interviews, I'm telling you the truth. So you don't go to a hotel gym? I do. Okay. So, but when you don't have a gym, you're saying a band is the only. I do both. You know, we are physical beings. It's not just that 45 minutes in the morning because that's not enough.

We were designed to move. How do you recommend people? who are professional sitters, they're the knowledge workers. What do you recommend for them? Start small because I really want it to be something that becomes doable so that they are locked in. And, you know, people, in order for them to make real change,

their capacity has to be pushed, but not too much where they backtrack and it's just too intense, but you do have to slowly push capacity. If they are professional sitters, they need to become professional standards. And if they are professional standards, then they need to become professional walkers. That's really nice.

And so it's a progression where you are pushing someone's capacity without pushing them over the edge so they do nothing. You're making a case for longevity, overall health and vibrance in life by making sure you're investing in muscular health. We need to answer two things.

One is nutrition. Since our last conversation, I love one of the, the simple little recommendations you gave me, which was about amino acids. Like, I'm fatigued by protein shakes. I'm fatigued by, you know, having to try to get protein. I'm trying to get 30 grams-ish per meal of protein. First and last meal.

How about that? I'm trying to get 150, 180 grams a day of protein. It's not that easy. It's your part-time job. It's hilarious, yeah. But amino acids is a great solution. And so can you talk about aminos? And can you also talk about just overall,

nutritional guidance. And I also want to hit on the OZempic thing that's you got it. You got it. GLP 1. So can you start with nutrition and or some the proteins required or the amino acids as part of that? Protein is by far and away the most controversial macronutrient in the nutrition family. Oh yes. It is the black sheep of the macronutrient family. Macronutrients are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and then, you know, like there's alcohol. But dietary protein. You don't put that as a carb, but that as a separate alcohol is separate? It can be, because it has seven grams per, you know, like one gram of alcohol as opposed to carbs or four. Yeah. Okay. All right. So the different carb structure you're saying. Yes. It is a carbohydrate,

but it's different than a complex or simple. Yes, it is. Protein is the most essential macronutrient per humans. There are 20 different amino acids, nine which are essential. Yet, in the landscape of nutrition, everybody listening or everybody watching, pick up any protein bar or any food and you will see at the back of that label, it says protein. But I just told you there are 20 different amino acids. It doesn't make sense that it just says protein. Versus, when you look at carbohydrates, it will say fiber, sugar. And I see, I see. say this because not all proteins are equal, we're not even eating for protein, we're actually eating for those amino acids. And animal-based sources of amino acids have the most similar

ratios to what we need as humans because we are the most similar. So muscle of an animal has a similar amino acid ratio to a muscle of a human. And we need those. We cannot make them. We must get them from our diet. Must get what? The amino acids, because they're considered essential. How many are essential? 11? There are nine essential.

Nine essential, 20 total? Mm-hmm. Is that, do I have that right? So the nine essential, you can't make them. You've got to go get them. You have to get them. And you're saying a great way to get them is through muscle protein. Mm-hmm.

Any kind of animal product. Okay. So speak to the vegans for just a minute. Are you saying the vegans are in trouble? Are you saying make sure you're getting your essential amino acid somewhere else? Yeah. I mean, so are vegans in trouble? Well, the survey data shows that vegans eat around 50 grams of protein a day.

Wait, wait. Let me pause. So I was a vegan for, like, for conscious eating for like seven to six years, I can't remember. It's my college years. I was terrible at it. I was also vegan, by the way. Yeah, I studied, I studied. This was before there was a whole foods, before Trader Joe's, before there was, like, thoughtful foods that you could go.

bio it so you had to put, I had to put everything together. I was not healthier from it. And I know that I was not getting into protein. So I was supplementing. Remember metrics? It was like the only kind of supplement bad. And what was the other one? It's metrics and myelplex. Totally. Oh my gosh. Whatever happened to that? Yeah. I think they're around some version. But so it was terrible. It was probably terrible for gut health. Terrible for a lot of reasons. The taste was terrible. So I wasn't right. But you just said 50 grams of protein. That's the average of meat. That's what they eat. You got to work really hard because the target is about one, somewhere around one gram. But no less than 100 grams a day.

No less than 100. But a target would be, is it one gram of protein per ideal body weight? For target body weight, but I would say no less than 100 grams of protein a day. The floor is 100. Yeah. And a chicken breast has between 25 and 35. Depending on the ounces. And I'm going to, I'll share with how I think about this, is that plant proteins will have

the amino acids necessary, but in different amounts. Again, we are eating for these essential amino acids. And as we age, muscle is triggered by an amino acid called leucine. And it's the trigger for muscle protein synthesis. It's the trigger for muscle health. That requirement is around three grams. Three grams of lucine per day? Per meal. Per meal. Oh, boy. Exactly. The RDA, which is set at the minimum, says it's around three grams per day. But if you take a step back and you recognize that the recommended dietary allowance

is set at the absolute floor for prevention of deficiency, not for optimal health. Yeah, I mean, so... It's a different paradigm that is offered, yeah. It is. So when we think about protein and these amino acids,

there's two main groups. There's high quality and low quality. Low quality, what? Proteins. Wait, I've never... You're saying there's such thing as a low-quality protein. Yes. So protein's not a protein.

No. But it's called protein, but it's all these different amino acids. What's a low-quality protein? Wheat. I don't even think wheat is a protein. But there's protein in grapes, right? There's protein in everything. If it is coming from the plant kingdom, it is considered a low-quality protein.

And by the way, I... Wait, why? Because the amino acid profile is different. For example, high-quality proteins are... very similar in ratios to the human need. For example, you need three ounces of a chicken breast or four ounces of a chicken breast for every one gram of protein. For every one ounce, there's seven grams of protein. So let's say you have a four ounce chicken breast. You're at almost 30 grams. That's right. To get those same. Which is about, it'll sit in a palm of hand. To get that same

amino acid profile, you would need six cups of quino, or two cups of rice and beans, or 420 almonds. How many eggs? That's what we're doing. Six. Six. Six. Or soy protein, you might need 35 grams of soy protein.

So that could be whatever the tofu block is. Yeah. Okay. Point taken, that's a lot to consume. And you're missing a lot of other things while you're consuming those calories. It's not to say that you can't do it. Yeah. But you have to understand that right now, 30% of our calories come from animal foods, only 30% in the U.S. diet.

Over 65, roughly 65% of our nutrients come from this 30%. So our calcium, our vitamin D, our bioavailable iron, our selenium, they come from high-quality foods. I do not care if someone eats animals or plants. The best of both worlds is both. You eat plants for fiber and phytonutrients. You donate it for protein. And right now we have a very device. I said that protein was the black sheep of the macronutrient family

because people are fighting over it. You want to be plant-based. You want to be animal-based. It doesn't have to be so extreme. The reality is humans chase novelty, but we have foundational principles that are critical for muscle health. And that simply said is 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. If you eat high-quality proteins, you can go and skew to the lower end.

If you eat low-quality proteins, you need more. So to be for concreteness, if you wanted to be 100 pounds or 200 pounds, let's just say with 100 for math, you're saying targeting around 70 to 100 grams of protein per day. And if I have memory serves me right, I think this has changed recently, that the amount of protein that we can process in a three-hour period is 35 to 4.4. I have it wrong. That is something that people will say. So I know there's some recent disruption in what I would consider would be old information.

So as a ballpark, it's not like 30 grams, 35 grams per three hours of processing or four hours of processing. You process all the protein that you ingest. If you eat 100 grams of protein, you will process 100. What happens to the other 70, let's say? Yes. Upwards of around 50 grams. is used for muscle protein synthesis. So muscle protein synthesis is triggered by leucine.

And that is a minimum of 30 grams and you probably max out this machinery at 50. Okay. The rest. For your body and my body? Yeah. Even though we're not size dependent. It's not size dependent.

Oh, so like, wait, you're consuming 30 to 50 grams of protein per meal? And are you at one gram or 1.2 grams? I am closer to 1 gram. One gram. The first and that, the last meal are the most important. Yeah, breakfast. It's about 50, 50, so right there I have 100, that's my floor. Yeah, okay. So your floor is coming in those two meals, and then you're,

you're using snacking or whatever. But here's why. And this is really important for your audience to understand, is that there's a lot of misconception out there in terms of protein metabolism. For whatever reason, it just is. The reality is, if you were to think about a protein hierarchy, the first thing that you think about is how much protein overall in a 24-hour period. If you are 100 pounds and you want to be 100 pounds, then you need 100 grams of protein. Perfect. Now, do you need, you know, we can overcomplicate it, but I don't think we should. That is the floor that is how much protein you are having in a 24-hour period.

The next decision you make is how you are going to distribute that protein. Finding Master is brought to you by Defender. In the conversations I have with world-class performers, there's this theme that keeps coming up again and again. How we choose to move through the world shapes the quality of our lives. That's about mindset. The environments that we seek out, the way that we use our tools, and the way that we prepare ourselves for what's next. And for me, that's what stands out about Defender. Defender is one of my favorite cars on the road.

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skeletal muscle becomes less efficient at, quote, recognizing protein, meaning when you're young, my kid's super anabolic. You remember you're in high school, you're probably eating Cheetos and Twinkies, and your muscle was just fine. No judgment here. But something happened. when you're 35 and you're like, what's happening?

We have to become much more strategic as to how we position our food. And we recognize that over time, skeletal muscle ages like the rest of our body. However, we can bring up that youthful efficiency by distributing protein appropriately. So you're with me. You buy that muscle is everything.

Yeah. And now, you know, 24-hour period, the more protein you eat, the less you have to worry about it. The older you are and potentially the less active you are, just in general, we do need to pay attention to how we distribute it. Again, there's a lot of controversy out there on this, believe it or not, people will say, it doesn't matter as long as you're getting that 24-hour protein. And I will say, I don't know, the early studies are Nell at all. It's a French group.

They did this. So they looked at women that were more mature. I think they were, I say, more mature. I mean, they were definitely over 50. I think they were over 60, but they looked at a pulse feeding pattern. What does that mean? That means they both had 64 grams of protein. So they both had lower protein.

It wasn't a ton. Fed per day. Per day. And one group had a bunch of small meals, like five grams, like, I don't know. It sounds like a nightmare. They were eating a whole bunch of small meals a day. Grazing. The other group did one,

meal that had at least 50 grams of protein, and then the other were divided into the two, right? So it was whatever, 20 more grams, 10 and 10. What they found was those individuals that had that bolus of protein one time a day versus the spread pattern were able to maintain lean body mass versus the other one. And again, you know, this is just one study, but what we know over time is that as we age, we do have to account for aging. And the average American has 80 grams of protein a day. So we can design a study to have a multitude of meanings, but we do have to look at the reality of what people are actually doing. I think if I have this correctly, that you are saying, listen, the time restrictive eating is not an ideal thing. Like you don't want to be

past 12 hours of fasting. Is that your take for a ballpark for most people? I think that eating in a time restricted window, which is eating in an 8 to 9 hour window is fine. I think that when we're going over. So if you fast for 16 hours, you're saying it might be too much. Anything over that. Yeah, I mean, unless you are 14. Do you fast? It depends on my training schedule. But I would say I eat in an 8 to 9 hour window. Yeah, I'm about 14 hours of fasting. Okay. So sometimes longer, but somewhere in that range. And then, you know, as you get more mature when, whoa, whoa. I said it nicely more mature. Don't you like how I say that? Yeah, it's good. So I learned my lesson, right? I instead of saying older, I just say more mature, including myself. Fasting, I'm not a fan.

You know, my dad's in his 70s and he's like, oh, I'm on my three-day, 24-hour, I'm like, dad, I can barely hold that muscle. You know, my dad has no quit in him. He is just, when he comes to visit, he trains hard. It just makes my heart drop because I'm watching him jumping on boxes. Anyway, anything over 24-hour, you do not need to be fasting because, muscle is turning over. You turn over around 250 grams of protein a day. Wait, what about the atophageal process? There's a million different ways to get it.

So explain atophange. Tophagy is the cleaning out of old cells. It's the kind of the blowing out of the cells. And I thought that that only started like around 24 hours of fasting. We do not know. And also, it's probably not fasting. It could be also calorie restriction. Oh, that's.

That's interesting. I love the idea of like cleaning out junk cells. I love that. Then go in the sauna and go in the cold plunge and then make sure that you're not overeating. Hot, traditional sauna or red light sauna? Either or. You're not particular about either one? I have protocols for both. Some people cannot tolerate that high heat. Yeah, okay. It's harder to find in the U.S., you know, the traditional saunas, you know, and so there's a lot more available. And there's good data for traditional saunas.

data that lowers HSCRP, which is an inflammatory protein released from the liver. They've been using it in other countries for a very long time. It is somewhat of an exercise mimetic. It mimics exercise. And I mean, it's hot and your heart rate is up. But there is some evidence that it can lower cardiovascular risk factors. Okay, so let's close a loop on protein and get to GOP 1 for just a minute. So a floor is 100 grams. Target is 1 gram per target body weight. Or 0.7. Or 0.7. Someone in that range.

Okay. And breakfast and dinner are kind of the big ones. You're saying up to 50 grams is seemingly an interesting number that you're paying attention to. You can go higher. You can go higher. But please make sure that your first meal has at least 35 grams. And there's a number of reasons. Protein is not just for muscle.

When you have a meal of at least 30 grams, it triggers gLP 1. or if it triggers these hormones that initiate the sense of satiation. You are much less likely to have the donuts by the water cooler. Okay. So it's a nice segue. Over to GLP 1. To donuts? Yeah.

Yeah. I've eaten too many donuts when I was a kid? Sign me up. Anyone have voodoo donuts in here? You guys said, you know, whatever I need. Yeah, right. I'll do some push-ups. Push-ups for donuts.

Oh, God. Okay, so. Don't tempt me. GLP1 is, I'd be hard-pressed if somebody didn't know what Ozympic or GOP-1 represents. So can you quickly talk about your take on that and what your position is right now? So GLP-1s are in the Increton family. And these are hormones. And what they do is they can affect the brain and tell the brain that you are full.

It affects this food noise. you're not constantly going after food, also slows gastric emptying. They have been around for easily 20 years in the treatment of diabetes. They are not new drugs. It's not something novel. You know, we've been using them in our practice for 10 years now. They're not new. They are new when it comes to the use in weight loss and the treatment of obesity.

We have never had anything nearly as effective. Barietric surgery might lose 14%. a second generation, a terseptide, you might lose 16% or more body weight. They are incredible at what they do. Now, is it a free pass? No, do I use them all the time still? Yes, but we have to recognize that it is a treatment for obesity. And if we utilize them to the degree at which we are using them as a silver bullet, we are going to trade one epidemic for another. We are going to trade obesity for sarcopenia at alarming rates. And I told you that the loss of muscle mass is more important than the gain of body fat. So if muscle at its core is the primary disease prevention and metabolic regulator

for diseases of chronic aging and metabolic dysfunction like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and obesity, that if we go through cycles of dieting and we lose muscle mass in an already sedentary population, we are going to see an epidemic of sarcopeneing obesity that nobody is prepared for, ever. I think what I'm hearing you say is that when somebody's taking OZMPIC as a label for JLP1, is somebody taking one of those choices that they're losing, there's a compromise to muscle mass?

Not necessarily. Okay. If they are losing weight slowly and they are doing resistance training and they are eating a higher protein diet, there is a protein muscle sparing effect. But it cannot be done just with protein. You have to do resistance training. And if somebody's not doing proper protein and proper resistance, you will accelerate muscle loss.

Okay. And if they are 20 pounds overweight, they're not like obese. Mm-hmm. What do you think about that? I think that we should have personal choice. And I believe in body autonomy. And the other thing that we didn't really talk about. That's a cool statement, how you just answered that.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I believe that we should have a choice. And I also believe that obesity really isn't the total problem. And it's the health of skeletal muscle. And these GLP-1s also affect, I'm going to throw a whole run to this. What I believe to be an even more important biomarker that is going to be on the cusp and you're going to be hearing more about is intermuscular adipose tissue. It's the fat that is actually in the muscle, in between the muscle fibers, yes.

And that is what is really at the root of this metabolic arrangement, in part. And where GLP-1's work is it helps reduce that intermuscular adipose tissue. Oh, interesting. So wait, you're saying that you want to have more fat or less fat? Less fat. Less fat. In the intermuscle. And you're probably thinking the athlete's paradox. We're not talking about triglycerides that are stored near mitochondria that athletes are using for endurance sports. We're not talking about that. We're talking about cross-sectional area of the thigh. Good healthy muscle looks like a filet. Unhealthy muscle looks like a Wagyu steak. GLP ones can help transition that Wagyu steak to a filet mignon. Oh, there you go. Very cool. Okay. So, I mean, these are big, these are, again, this is all, this is a way of thinking about it very differently. And I think that it's the intermuscular outpostition, which is why your athletes can be 40% body fat and they're metabolically fine. Why can someone be 40% body fat, these linemen? And they're exercising. And you look at their blood work, they've got great glucose control and they've got great insulin and great drug. glycerides because it's the health of their skeletal muscle. It's not body fat. Body fat is the obvious biomarker. And yes, if someone has high body fat, it cannot be a problem. Yeah, but we have no idea what that intramuscular adipose tissue looks like. What about cardiovascular disease and

muscularity or muscle health? What's the link there that you're interested in? Well, one of the big killers. Yeah. cardiovascular disease. There is a metabolic component there. And then then there's also a blood flow, blood health component. And of course, there's a genetic component. But if you believe that triglycerides and fats are burned at rest from muscle, then perhaps statin use and all of these other things might be reduced if we had more healthy muscle. What about folks that have? Genetic cardiovascular glycemia or familiar hyperglycemia. Yeah, you're right on. Am I saying? Familial hyper cholesterol. They should be treated with medication. Yeah. Period. So, okay, so if you've got a family kind of whatever, you got that, so it's like early onset. People don't know because they don't really test. But I do believe that, you know, hyperlipidemia should be treated. It's foolish to think that it can just be died and exercised because some stuff can't. And I've been a doctor for a while now. I've got really good Botox, but still, just waiting for those jokes. But realistically, we, I guess, I

we have this divisive way of thinking that it's all died and exercise or we go the medication route. And dietary cholesterol, you know, people say don't eat red meat is bad for your cholesterol, don't eat is bad for your cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol recommendations were taken out of the guidelines in 2015. Dietary cholesterol has almost no impact on blood level cholesterol. I know it's changed. I don't know about red meat. I didn't know that, but I do know that the myth was busted around egg yolk. that that's not the issue. I think the issue is most people are concerned about when it comes to cardiovascular is carbohydrates.

Yes. Sugars and whatnot, like as the real culprit. Yes. Yeah. And also when you reduce carbohydrates lower to around 120, you will see a decrease in triglystriads. And we saw that. So the average American eats 130 grams of carbohydrates.

We didn't really touch on carbs. Carves are not the enemy. Eating carbohydrates, mismatched for muscle health is the enemy. So if muscle health is out of whack, because you're not doing a resistance training, not kind of feeding. And you're packing your suitcase.

Yeah, feeding it correctly. So you're not emptying your calories properly. Then when you're adding carbohydrates on that mix, you've got a real disaster. Anything over 50 grams of carbohydrates will begin to derange metabolism. Derange? You used the word derange.

Yeah, well, this is the truth. So what is a, I don't know, a medium? frozen yogurt that people would have maybe after dessert. No idea. Yeah. But if you have one, I would love to dry it. Yeah. But I mean, are we talking about 50 grams of?

Sugar. It's like sugar. It's not high fiber. I have no idea what, like a ice cream. Okay. So think of a bagel. Yeah. That bagel has probably 50 grams of carbs.

Who? A bagel. Probably has more. But if we, you know, we think about a bagel? Yeah. Okay. Do you eat bread? Ooh, someone had a bagel for breakfast.

No, I didn't. I haven't had a bagel for a long time. Do you eat bread? I do. No. Do I eat bread? Yeah. Sourd dough.

Time me out. Yeah, me too. What about Ezekiel bread? I do. But I earn my carbs through exercise. Yeah. Anything over 130? You earn through exercise.

130 grams. Wait a minute. So if you have over 130 grams of carbohydrates, you're saying you've got to do something for those. Yeah. You have to earn that. You have to earn the right to eat over 130 grams. Yes.

To be healthy. And it's not even, you know, this because I emotionally think that. What are you going to do with those? carbs. Your muscle is full. You have to empty that tank. First meal of the day should be 35 grams of carbs or less unless you are training. Money Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. It's the start of the new year and it's an invitation to reset, to refocus, to realign with the habits that support long-term health and high performance. For me, that begins with the fundamentals, including how I fuel my body. And that's where supplements can play a powerful role if you choose the right ones. That's

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So if you're looking to start the year grounded in quality and intention, I'd encourage you to check out what Momentus has created. Head to livemometes.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery for 35% off your first subscription order. That's livemometus.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning.

That's always in my control. That's always in your control, too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. And the best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to finding mastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to finding mastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. Dr. Lyon, thank you so much for sharing obvious passion you have for health through nutrition and training through muscular health as a way to make an impact for the well-being for all of us.

Thank you for bringing that to the surface, being well studied and researched on it. And I want to support people to go get your books. In particular, I really enjoyed this, the Forever Strong Playbook. Before the mics turned on, you said you wrote it for yourself. When I read it, I was like, this is really practical. And the recipes, it's not a recipe book, but you've got great recipes. And workouts. Yeah, you've got something that is almost like a one-stop to best your health.

And I wanted to have it be very discerning and distilled down. With all of the noise, it's a playbook. It's not a workbook. And it's not a novel. It's, hey, you want to win, you want to feel better. I got it. Where can people follow along? They can go to my Instagram, Dr. Gabriel Lyon, or my website.

L-Y-O-N. That's right. We still see patients and they can find all that information. We have a podcast, a YouTube and a free newsletter. You name it. We have it. When are you going to have like the go get fit with, you know, Dr. Lyon? Like, when you get to train with you?

Like, it's just like a, oh, it's coming. Oh, good. And also, I had a summit last year, which was epic in person. You did? Yeah, I'm probably never going to do that again. I did it. I said that and then I did it again. Okay.

But it was fun, though. It was very cool. Yeah, very cool. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Rutan yawn, and I hope people do go follow your guidance. So thank you. Thank you so much. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by Ryan Holliday,

bestselling author and one of today's most thoughtful voices on Stoic Philo Ryan and Mike explore what it means to live wisely in a loud and reactive world, why wisdom is a daily practice, how ego quietly shapes our decisions and what it takes to lead and parent with intention. So join us Wednesday, January 28th at 9 a.m. Pacific. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

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