Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Part Two: It’s Not Too Late to Transform Your Health! How to Improve Your Bone Strength, Supercharge Your Brain & Increase Longevity

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

Age Backwards! Dr. Vonda Wright Reveals the SHOCKING Truths About Your Health, Longevity, Hormones & Bone Loss Is everything you thought you knew about aging completely wrong? In this eye-opening episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Dr. Vonda Wright (double-board certified orthopedic surgeon, internationally recognized authority on human performance, and author of UNBREAKABLE: A Woman’s Guide to Aging with Power) exposes the hidden truths about your body, your hormones, your health, and your future. Discover how your musculoskeletal system is secretly tied to your mood, hormones, and even your purpose in life, and why osteoporosis symptoms infuriate Dr. Wright (and what you NEED to know before it’s too late!). Dr. Vonda Wright also breaks down: - The jaw-dropping statistic that 80% of women experience incontinence, and how to prevent it - Why the majority of Alzheimer’s patients are female, and what you can do NOW to lower your risk - Biggest MYTHS people believe about aging debunked! - How your diet and exercise actually change your genetic code - Why visualizing your ideal aging process can literally improve your future - Incontinence 101: Who it affects, what causes it, and how to retrain your body - Why women’s health is decades behind, and how this delay is costing lives - The 3 keys to resilience: Control, Challenge & Commitment, and how they make aging easier - What’s behind the alarming rise in suicide among female doctors and male orthopedic surgeons - How athletic activities improve mental health - Easy, realistic steps to boost fitness (no gym required!) - The shocking differences in how men and women age - Why you don’t have to choose hormone therapy, but why you MUST educate yourself - In your 30s or 40s? Over 50? Here’s exactly what to do NOW to protect your future health - How our culture’s obsession with thinness is killing women - How much calcium and protein you REALLY need for optimal bone health - Best ways to build bone density - Silent dangers of prioritizing weight loss over muscle strength - What REALLY causes osteoporosis (it’s not just a women’s disease!) - Shocking links between alcohol and hidden health risks - How the medicalization of midlife health changes is hurting women - Why menopause is behind a rising number of midlife divorces - How improving mobility can reverse chronic disease - How bone health predicts overall health - Surprising links between Alzheimer’s & osteoporosis - Dr. Wright’s top creatine supplement recommendation - Why cardio is more important than you think PLUS...Mayim teaches us the correct way to do Kegel exercises! This episode is a blueprint for powerful aging. Whether you’re 25 or 65, you NEED to hear what Dr. Wright has to say. Hit play, take notes, and take control of your future! Dr. Vonda Wright’s latest book, UNBREAKABLE: A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power: ⁠https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/777365/unbreakable-by-vonda-wright-md/⁠ Go to ⁠Superpower.com⁠ to learn more and lock in the special $199 price while it lasts. Live up to your 100-Year potential. #superpowerpod Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm I'm Biolic. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to part two of our conversation with Dr. Vonda Wright. She's a doubleboard certified orthopedic surgeon and internationally recognized authority on human performance, longevity, and women's health. In part one of our conversation with Dr. Wright, we heard some astounding statistics about the proportion of Americans who are affected by poor bone density, by weak bones, and some statistics such as 80% of women are incontinent, 70% of all Alzheimer's patients are female.

We talked about what happens as women age. And why it is that bone health and muscular health are key to helping us age well. Part two is going to cover some more general guidelines. What are the warning signs of osteoporosis? What can we be doing to maintain our bone health? what kind of exercise do we actually need to be doing and what things that are so common in our diets do we need to avoid? We're also going to talk about creatine

and what kind of cardiovascular exercise is the best for metabolic fitness. As well as some top red flags that need to be checked out right away if they are happening to you. Make sure to follow us over on Substack where we're going to do some of the exercises from Dr. Wright's book. And without further ado, here's our part two of our conversation. with Dr. Vonda Wright. Break it down.

How many Americans are afflicted by osteoporosis? About 40 to 50% of women. So if we say women are 51% of the population, that's about 25% of our population. We'll have it. It's big. What are some of the early warning signs that someone may be on the road to being at risk?

Yeah, I love that question. So here are the risk factors. And if you're listening, write these down because these are the reasons you can go to your doctor and say, I want a Dexascan before I'm 65 because insurance in this country will not pay for it until you're 65, which is a travesty. But if your mother is shrinking, osteoprocess can be genetically or inherited. My mother is shrinking? Yeah. Is your mother shrinking? Worse yet.

Are you shrinking? You know, some days I think I'm getting a little shorter. Am I shrinking? Am I female? Am I getting older? Those are all risk factors. Am I perimenopausal risk factor? Did I smoke?

Do I drink more than two alcoholic beverages a day? That's a risk factor for bones. Have I, people don't realize this, have I rapidly lost weight? Have I done the weight yo-yo thing, right? Because fat through leptin talks to bone. right? It creates a hostile environment to bone. So these are all, not to mention steroid use, autoimmune disease, any of these risk factors can give you unhealthy bone, which is why you pick a few of them, march into your doctor's office and say for these reasons, you need to order

this for me. And if they won't, the good news is that you can Google, where do I get a Dexascan? Where do I get a REMs ultrasound, which is the, the quality of bones scan. And you can buy one for about $90, which I realize $90 is $90, but if you save up your Starbucks money for 10 days, you've almost got it. What are the top ways to care for your bones?

Obviously, getting scanned, knowing if you're at risk, but if you're generally healthy and want to keep your bones healthy, what are the top ways to care for them? You need to jump 20 times a day. Yeah, I just started jumping. It's a thing that my trainer makes me do.

I do a double jump. It's like a double jump. I jump off a step, and she said it's the double jump. She's right. Tell her she's right. That will create four times body weight. To impact your bones, you need to create four times body weight. Walking is about 1.5 times.

Running is 2.5 times. Jumping from an 8 inch step and then jumping up again. That's what I'm doing. Yes. Wait, is this why people wear weighted vests? We can talk about weighted vests. Weighted vests, yeah. research on weighted vest has not been shown in isolation to increase bone density, but coupled

with weightlifting, which is another way to build better bone, it does. So jumping, lifting heavy, there are many reasons we have to lift heavy, one of which it pulls on bones. Number three, eat enough protein, eat calcium-rich food, magnesium, which is also great for sleep, is important for bones. Vitamin D does not directly increase bone density, but it helps with calcium absorption. So those are the nutritional things. The jumping we talked about, the weightlifting, we talked about, those are the main components. In addition to, if you want the top three, make your hormone decision, lift heavy weights, and jump up and down. Talk to us about lifting heavy weights. There's so much conversation about lifting now more so, I think, than ever.

Instagram, everyone's lifting. And why is it so important to lift heavy things? Well, you know, the truth is it's always been important and it's just become popular now, such that gyms are replacing their cardio equipment with weight lifting. I recommend lifting heavy weights, and I'll define that for you because you have to know your why. It's back to the why question again. If your goal is endurance, you're going to lift lightweights 25 or 30 times. I call them Mambi Pambi pink weights.

You can do that. If it takes you 25 or 30 reps of that lightweight to fail, which we're trying to lift to failure, means I can't lift it one more time, you will build endurance. Fine. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But that's not our goal when we're old. If you want big muscles, if you want to have.

hypertrophy, we're going to do rep sets between 10 and 15. There's nothing wrong with that, but that is the goal of building bigger muscles. If you want strength and power, which is going to keep you off the floor, keep you independent, keep you doing what you want to do when you want to do it, you need to lift heavier weights fewer times. So what does that mean? So the research backs up a rep range between three and six to failure. Two failure means in my book I write about four because that's what I do. So on the fourth, and it's not biceps, it's something like bench, just the compound lifts. Four, I can do four.

It's heavy. I may be able to squeak out five, but I'm not squeaking out six because I'm dropping the bar. That's the definition of failure. So that does several things. That builds strength first by re-coordinating your neuromuscular pathways, meaning the way nerves and muscle works is one nerve, one motor neuron, ends at a group of muscle fibers. You don't want these neuromuscular pathways working in an uncoordinated way because then you get a bunch of asynchronous muscle firing. You want everybody to do it together so that that makes you, that total strength is increased. So first, you reorganize your neuromuscular pathways, getting everybody to pull on the rope at the same time.

Those are called beginners gains. You'll get stronger fast. Once everybody's working together, then that's when you have the slow, incremental, progressive overload. So we want to be strong, but that's not where it ends. Once we have worked up, sometimes if we're starting at nothing, it can take you six months, nine months a year to get ready to lift heavy. But once we're doing it and comfortable with it, then we're going to add some tempo. Because what's going to keep you from tripping over your work bag?

I'm looking at my work bag. I trip over it a lot. But then I am quick and I'm powerful, so I spring over it, is strength over time. So if you're squatting and you've built your strength and you want to increase your power, you're going to go down one, two, three really slow and then you're going to explode up. So we add the tempo to the lifting. So that is a long explanation. But building muscle has always been good for us.

It's just now popular. Well, I'm thinking of those videos that Jonathan keeps sending me that I keep telling him to stop. sending me of just like a dude in a field with a giant tire. And he's like, this is our new life. We're going to roll this tire over. But now I get it. We're going to pull a sled on all fours. If this man tells me one more time about wanting to pull a sled. But I get what you're talking about now. It's like you're pushing your body. You don't want to hurt your body. You don't want to strain anything, you want to find that weight of object, right? Doesn't even need to be in a gym. Find that weight of object that you can work with that allows you to exert yourself like five times.

It's not just about like, oh, I'm going to do this, right? That's very interesting. Also, I think one of the most important things you said for me, because I've been in this place where I've worked too much for a certain number of years. I was in a startup. I was traveling all the time. I didn't have consistency. I used to be athletic and then all of a sudden lifting heavy things, I would hurt myself every time. It can take six, nine months of getting yourself ready to lift again. And that work is not in vain. That's getting you ready to do the thing and to work out hard enough to help your longevity. And that is so important for people to know is that we have to get ourselves to a place where we can then lift heavy enough to build the muscle to help us.

Because the reality is, two things. The reality is, even though in the front of this it says six week program, that's a somebody stuck that on there. It's not. We are talking about a lifetime of habits. This is a lifestyle. It sounds like a lot when you're like, do this, do this, do this, do this. No, we just layer on behaviors. And when we master one, we do another. And it just becomes the way we live. The other thing I think is interesting as you were thinking about it is I think women grossly underestimate how strong they are. And here's an example. Women are like, oh, I don't want to lift heavy. I'll get bulky. Or somebody told me to lift lightweights. And then you go home and you lift your 40-pound, three-year-old grandson off the jungle.

gym. I mean, we do really heavy things in our daily lives. And then we go to the gym and we pick up the five pound weight. So let's just give our credit, give ourselves credit for how hard we work. What's the risk of alcohol? Well, the reason I stopped drinking alcohol, well, it was, I was never good to me. I'm Asian. I don't have alcohol dehydrogenase. So I always got hot red like a beat. So never that good. But the reason I stopped, stopped. is because as an orthopedic surgeon, my risk of breast cancer is four to five times higher than the general population because of my exposure to x-ray. And alcohol is a type 2 carcinogen and is classified with five or seven as a contribution to five or seven different kinds of cancer. And with my increased risk anyway, no way.

So everyone concerned about that risk should just make an educated decision, right? Number two, and I haven't read papers on this. I've just, obviously, I've seen it on the internet, but alcohol will kill your microbiome. So I don't know what percentage, but that's another reason. You know, women in midlife have trouble with their microbiome anyway, so I don't need more trouble. Another reason alcohol is, is opposite of goodness to midlife women, men and women, is because it disrupts sleep. It makes you pass out, but it doesn't help you get quality sleep, the restorative sleep. And with so many trackers available now, if you don't sense that in your own, I can't sleep tonight. I don't feel rested. You could track it with these sensors. Those are many of the reasons, not to mention, you know, there are some data that it kills brain cells. And I can't quote that to you, but that seems to be a consensus. Well, my ambialx breakdown is supported by superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was

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Head to Superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention My Ambiotics Breakdown to help support the show. I want to highlight one of the other aspects of alcohol, which you do address this kind of component of mental and spiritual fitness. you know, many people drink because it takes the edge off, right? And many women especially, you know, in particular if you're part of this sandwich generation, where we're taking care of parents, we're taking care of children,

there's so much being demanded of us that, honestly, I'm not surprised that there's an entire field of marketing designed to encourage women to drink more because it, quote, takes the edge off. And, you know, I mean, I don't mean to be cynical, but it's a little bit what I I do here, you know, if you're having trouble sleeping because you're drinking too much, there's a pill for that. They will, you know, like, they'll give you a pill. And it's like, I mean, I don't know a woman who's not on Lexapro. And this is an advertisement for that. But like, every woman is like, oh, I just couldn't cope. But then they put me on this pill and now I feel better, right? So you have this sort of like combination of like, we'll just keep adding pills to make you forget

that you're a human, right? So what would you say to women who are kind of in? in this place of like, I'm not read. And also, you know, this is like, it's a very long appendix that you have in this book, but it's fantastic because it's kind of like you get the book that teaches you. And then you get to the appendix and like, this is how you're going to put it together. Like, this is literally your manual. Follow this. Do this.

Check it off. It's all in here. But can you talk a little bit about this component of kind of psychological and psychiatric complexity that especially for women in perimenopause, You know, many of us are just being told, oh, if the hormones aren't working, we're going to put you on this drug. Is that the solution? Number one, I want women in midlife to give themselves some frigging grace. It is hard.

You know, when your hormones are complex and going everywhere and your 86-year-old parents and your teenage child, I mean, listen, give yourself a little grace. What, you know, the Barbie doll experience of a perfect little Malibu home is not real life. So number one, realize that. Number two, what's interesting to me is sometimes women decide, and hormones are not a panacea at all. But that's why I want people to make decisions based on fact, not fiction. After the Women's Health Initiative came out in 2002, the prescription of mental health drugs went up more than 25% in women. And thank God that we have some chemical means to regulate mood. but on the other hand, if we can regulate our mood with the same hormone that we've always regulated our mood with, maybe that isn't also an option.

But this is hard. And some women have, even with their normal cycles, estrogen is such a strong brain hormone. It's not a sex hormone. many of my colleagues call it a brain hormone that even in normal periods, our mood swings are so debilitating. Sometimes we do need chemical stabilization, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want to give women to be another reason to feel bad about it. But what it leads in the conversation to is the medicalization of midlife for women, because

there's a pill for your brain. there's a pill for your high cholesterol. There's a pill for your prediabetes. There's a pill name of something. There's a pill for it. All of which have side effects. And yet we're quibbling about estradiol, which can have side effects, but your body actually makes it. So there's this dichotomy going on.

Let's do it naturally, naturally with all the medicalization versus naturally by replacing the root cause, which is loss of estrogen, and then see what we need. That's kind of where I see people are right now. I'm just going to button one thing that you said about alcohol. Your first thing you said was it's a type 2 carcinogen. Yeah. You didn't skip a beat. No. It's still, you still have agency to decide. You can decide what you want to do. I'm not saying, I'm not judging when I say that. I'm just saying it has been associated in multiple studies with changes in cell proliferation in a dangerous way. Is this one of the most under communicated and acknowledged parts of modern medicine?

You hear it creeping up on the internet, but even now you're a little bit hesitant to say it. Oh, I'm not hesitant to say it. I'm just trying to be nice. I think the thing is, you know, I joke that my children would not be alive if I didn't have red wine and chocolate, you know, on hand for all of the. those early years. But I think the notion, you know, is that Dr. Wright doesn't want to be like, people stop drinking alcohol. It's a type two carcinogen because it's going to turn a lot of people off because a lot of people are like, I will not stay in this marriage and in this home if I cannot have my glass of wine. I see that tied in most often because as people come to me, I have a longevity practice and we're laying out, here are the steps. Here's your blueprint.

when I get to let's talk about the bottle of wine you share at dinner with your husband every night. It's the only way I can tolerate him and let him have sex with me. Well, there is that, isn't there? But the reality is it's so social that it's more than just the wine. It's the social and bonding experience of the sniffing the cork. And oh my God, what rating does this have? Is this a 98? Did you bring me in?

Well, you can do that. You can do that with non-alcoholic wine. I think it's the effect. It's the social lubricant. And this is as someone who has chosen to stop drinking. Like, I know exactly what it did. It made me able to go to parties, interact with humans. And for many women, yeah, it loosens you up, right?

Like, for a lot of reasons. So, yeah, it's not a joke. And but you know what? Can we talk about, oh, this is your podcast. I should let you. But something you said, something you said. the work of what you said is so real because the work of louise newsome and the mayo clinic found that 70% of midlife divorces after 20 to 25 years of marriage can be associated at least from the

women's standpoint of a lack of understanding of what's going on in menopause and number one and number two the loss of estrogen and oxytocin you finally the rose color glasses come off And you're like, what the F did I do? And then, so. It's like, it's only the hormones that have encouraged me to perpetuate the species that have allowed me to tolerate. With you. With you. That have allowed me to tolerate that you constantly burp and fart and don't say, excuse me.

And leave your dirty socks on the floor. And your chewing is too loud, for God's sake. And when those hormones wear off, I'm out of here. I'm laughing. And I'm still laughing. But, you know, there's something to it. 70% of women attribute it. So I just think what it means is that they're, from what you said, we cope whatever way we have.

We need a deeper understanding. This is a family affair. It's not just the woman's problem. So to the point that I made my own husband, bless his heart, come on my podcast and talk about our experience. I'm like, Pete, you got to tell the world what you lived through. Well, and, you know, we're, you know, in some ways kind of poking fun at this, but, you know, many of us when we've, you know, spoken to many experts, you know, about menopause, we've kind of joked. Like, we all thought our moms were just crazy, you know, and I'm thinking, gosh, there was so much more to it. But, you know, in a less funny tone, rates of suicide for women in this phase are staggering.

They're very, very high. and that increase in a world that is not really supportive of this, it's tragic. It's tragic. And as you're talking about, this is something that is not inevitable, right? Losing your hormones is inevitable. Not doing anything about it and feeling better is not inevitable. In fact, it's preventable. Everything is preventable.

And it's not just hormones. I don't want people to believe that I think it's the magic bullet. It's hormones, lifestyle, social understanding. It's every biopsychosocial facet that's important. Yeah, it's 40 years of a woman's life. Do you want to tell her about your hip? Let's talk about your hip. Jonathan has had one hip replacement.

Good for you, Jonathan. Why was that? I was 42. As they described it to me, I was born with an oval instead of a round. You had a cam lesion. Yes, you did. And I was very active, was on, started playing hockey at six and was on the ice at four and skiing very early. And was a kid who just like never sat down.

And in my early 20s, I was playing competitive basketball. And when I played really, really hard, I just got this hip pain. And I really didn't know what it was. And I thought it was muscular. And I thought I just had to stretch more. But I could never stretch enough. And the more I played, the worse it got. So I just slowly started to taper back my activity.

level until I couldn't do little enough to make it not hurt. And by the time, there was a couple years, I didn't have health insurance when it was the worst. And I was working like crazy. And I was in the startup world. And I was like, I was working 16 hours a day some days. And I just, I was in a cab in San Francisco. And I remember I couldn't get my leg out of the cab. So I just picked it up with my, like put my hands around my quad and just lifted it out of the. And I just. And I, I just didn't think twice about it because I had a meeting to go to. And at a certain point, I was like, I went to a doctor, got health insurance, and my startup had gotten funding, and I went and went to a doctor.

And I just wanted a regular checkout. And she's like, is anything else going on? I'm like, yeah, my hip has just been hurting for like, I don't know, 10 years. And she does a range of motion. She goes, yeah, you really need to take a look at this. And I thought, never did it occur to me that I would need it to be replaced. and then I went and and I got a scan and I went to do a follow-up appointment

and the first appointment, the woman was like, okay, so we're going to schedule it with the surgeon. I was like, what are you talking about? Like I still had no concept. Yeah, but I mean at that point he couldn't walk more than a block without pain. I couldn't tie my shoe some days. So I wonder if we can use Jonathan's hip as an example of kind of a more general question I have. there are many people, and I think we have a lot of listeners who have exceptional bodies, special bodies.

Do you have any sort of general guidelines for when something needs addressing, even if you're young and think I don't need to think about it? What would some kind of red flags be that you shouldn't kind of keep pushing aside but needs medical attention? You know, I'm all for being tough. I mean, I'm a sports doctor. I don't want you limping off the feel just because you're tired, right? And it is normal to feel sore, especially with contact athletes, while you play for a couple days afterwards. It is not normal for your joint or body part to be hot, red, swollen. You can't bear weight. It persists for more than a couple days. That is not how we treat elite athletes. We want to diagnose. We want to treat. We want to get in front of the inflammation. So those are guidelines. If the shape of your body part changes, if it's hot, red,

swollen, if you can't move it or bare weight, get it checked out. So you don't just continue on it. Your story of giving up one thing at a time until you didn't even notice you were lifting your leg with your hands out of the cab, that's like being boiled in cold water, right? You just accept a little limitation at a time and a time. And so probably what also has, happened is, although I don't want to put words in your mouth, you were only 42. You might have gained a little weight. You were so inactive. And that affects our brain. And so we don't even realize these things are happening. So going on and on and on is counterproductive to what's going on. Let's fix it because movement is so incredibly important for all aspects of life. They're actually

33 chronic diseases lumped together into a nomenclature called sedentary death syndrome. Those are the 33 chronic diseases that kill us like that. And the one thing that makes them better is mobility. So on the opposite side of that, giving up your mobility for whatever reason is putting you down that pathway. So I'm so glad you got a total hip. It's like a new lease on life. It really was. They said to me at the time,

And the only thing you're going to regret is... Is not doing it sooner? They were 100% right. It took me six months to recover to be fully back in athletic form, but it's been amazing, unbelievable. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about what the health of your bones can predict about your health in general. So we've talked a little bit about Alzheimer's. what what does your bone health predict that might encourage people even more to lean in to building bone health well because bone is not only a structural organ a storehouse organ it is the birthplace of all your

blood cells in your pelvis and your long bones right so um the health of your bones in general creates an environment for that it is a master communication meaning it produces so many hormones that I mentioned osteocalcin. OsteoCalcone goes to the brain. It's critical for glucose metabolism, for insulin resistance. It is critical. Another hormone called LCN2 is critical for satiety telling your brain stop eating. And that makes sense because it's a storehouse of nutrition.

So without healthy bones, you lose the effort. of all that metabolic function, not to mention for men, osteocalcin goes to the testes and helps you make testosterone, which is great for general health and men. And so there's that communication and metabolic function of bone and storehouse and incubator. But bone, loss of bone, osteoporosis becomes coupled with sarcopenia, which is the loss of muscle mass and function, and obesity such that if you have osteoporosis and you have loss of muscle and you have high body fat percentage, it's not one problem plus one problem plus one problem equals three. They are exponentially intertwined because of how they talk to each other.

And osteosarco obesity, which is bad health in three organ systems, is devastating. So because of the cross talk between organs, it's important. Is there a link between Alzheimer's and bone health? Is that the link there, that multi-system? There is a link. We haven't done, we don't have the pathway of causation, but there's a huge correlation between people who have osteoporosis and people who have Alzheimer's, such that when one is worse, one category is worse, the other category is worse. And they're working out the pathways

right now. What about creatine? Oh my goodness, he wants to talk about creatine. Everyone talks about it. How important is it? What's up with it? Why when I tried to take it did I get sick for days. It would not stop. It wouldn't go away. I had to stop. Creatine is important for a variety of things in the body. It's one of the most studied supplements, if you will, in that category in terms of safety profile. It has been used, or I have been aware of it, since the early 90s when we started using it in very high doses in cyclical periodization for, I was working with wrestlers at the time, to try. to build muscle mass in wrestlers. It was really high doses. At this point, we know that women have

much less creatine, which is important for muscle function. A new study just this year shows that creatine at doses of 20 grams can be very important for brain function and help cognitive function. So we think it works on multiple systems. So five grams a day for muscle saturation and helping build muscle mass, and then maybe another five grams a day to help with cognitive function. There are two forms, monohydrate and hydrochloride, and the monohydrate, which is the most common form, can cause some nausea. And maybe that's what you experience. It causes GI upset. I had extreme painful bloating, and I wasn't even doing a high-load dose. Valerie's also shaking her head.

of us who are vegan women. You know, we had Dr. Rhonda on Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Yeah, and she was like, just try it. It could change your life. She is a big fan of it. I mean, she's all over the data. I was very ill and could not close my pants

for five days. I wonder if the hydrochloride, which is not that common, but coming out in several products next year, might be easier on you. I mean, I thought of trying it again. And also, you're supposed to take it with a ton of water. I think maybe I should have taken it with food.

Like, I don't know. Anyway. With food for sure. Yeah. So I take it because I get nauseated, I take it with either protein powder or with food. I never just de novo because of that reason. You're a big proponent of running. Is that accurate to say?

I think there's not a lot of reason not to. I was a marathoner, but that's not what I suggest for midlife and beyond if we're strictly talking cardiac. Yeah, my knees don't agree with you. My knees do not agree with you. My ankles don't agree with you. I mean, pavement is hard on some bodies. That's true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't care how you do your cardio. In the framework I teach people now. I mean, I'm not against running. But in the framework, I teach people now where it's an acronym face, flexibility and range of motion, aerobic. I don't say running. Because it's all about your heart rate. You can get your heart rate up with any activity. from kettlebells to alpine, the alpine machine to stair stepping, I just care you get your heart rate up. So when you say I'm a fan of running, yeah, I've run some in my life and I think it's fine. But if you're asking me, how should I do my aerobics? I'm going to say to you, I don't care as long as you get your heart rate in a certain range. So that is my evolved answer over the course of my career.

And if someone is like not really understanding the importance of getting their heart rate up, what's the thumbnail motivational answer so that people go out and start sweating more? Yeah. So we know that working at low heart rate based training is really good for metabolic flexibility, meaning that it helps your mitochondria, which are those powerhouses of your cells, which convert fuel, whether it's sourced from amino acids and protein, glucose and carbohydrates or fatty acids into the currency of energy, ATP, that's the job of the mitochondrial. We know that at lower heart rates as you're burning lactate before you pivot to burning carbs from higher load, that your mitochondria are very flexible.

They can switch between energy sources, and that's great for your. your metabolism. On the other end of the spectrum, which is how I prescribe now, I like people to do really short bursts of high intensity, thus the sprint interval. The reason being, that tells your body you're not dying, right? It stimulates muscle stem cell proliferation. It does so many things. It helps with metabolism and insulin resistance. It's good for your brain, the bad assery thing again. It's the in the middle heart rate zones where you're breaking a sweat, but you're not intense enough that people spend a lot of time doing a lot of reps, getting a lot of pain, and they come to my office every Monday. So those are the two edges of cardio that I now prescribe.

It's the low intensity and sprint intervals. So one would be a VO2 max. Would that be the lower intensity where it's longer? No, that's not. Or sorry, not a VL2 max. It's not. Or sorry, not a VL2 max. Zone 2 is what I meant to say. Yeah, some 2. And I'm careful to use that term because it means different things to different scientists. But in this building where I am, I'm fortunate to have a lab built by Enigo San Milan, who's one of the endurance scientists that has characterized Zone 2. And so we actually work people according to where their lactate threshold is.

And if you don't have access to that kind of gadget, then it's 181. minus your age is a decent estimate. To get your heart rate, too. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. That's interesting. Doing the math in my head right now. Before we let you go, if you had to sort of give one motivational, inspirational message to,

in particular to the women out there who might feel like, I don't know where to start, it's too much work, I can't do it. What would you say? I would say, number one, that there is no. never an age or skill level when a simple investment in your daily mobility will not transform you. The consistency of a daily effort, number one. Number two, you are worth the daily investment. You have the worth to invest in yourself because your inclination is to invest in everyone else first. Oh, really great. Thank you so much.

we really appreciate you being here. The book Unbreakable, A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power, is exactly that. It's literally a guide and really, really appreciate your time. And we just, we're so grateful. Thank you. Well, I'm grateful. It was a pleasure being with you.

That's a smart person. That's a person who knows a lot about everything in the body. I also love how every specialist we have on thinks that their field is the predictor of longevity, success. So I'm like, I got to work on my bones. You do have to work on your bones. You have to work on your bones anyway. Join the substack community where all we will be doing from now on is double jumps. Double jumps.

What foods have a lot of calcium? Do you know? Broccoli, leafy greens. Tofu. Oh. That's good. What else? I'm going to look it up.

Foods with the highest calcium, I mean, not a dairy. Dairy. Yes. Milk products, cheese, yogurt. Collards. the darkest greens you can think of. Bach Choy.

Oh, seafood. But there's a lot of issues with seafood in terms of oceans and rivers and streams. Almond. Cale. Collard greens. Bok choy.

You know what? You're leaving out one of... Fortified soy. Canned sardines and salmon. Would you like to keep reading? Fortified orange juice with calcium, but that's added. You know what has calcium?

Sesame seeds. And you might be thinking, how many sesame seeds am I supposed to eat? First of all, I got one word for you, tejina, made of sesame seeds. But you know what I do? I sprinkle sesame seeds on things you can sprinkle it on salad. I'm going to sound ridiculous. What is a lamb squarter? Yep, that's you sounding ridiculous. Everyone knows what a lamb squarter is. Fowler and I were just talking about lambs quarter before you walked in this room. Under the cooked, under the Cook Green categories, L-A-M-B-S-Q-U-A-R-T-E-R-S.

And that's what happens when you use AI. I have never heard of that before in my life. And I know a lot of vegetables. Nettles. You got to get a lot of nettles. Jonathan, do you mean lambs quarters? Yeah, I don't know what those are. How did you pronounce it?

Not like that. Wait! Canadian Alert! It's like those videos where people are sounding out words that they don't know. Yes. I don't know that word. Collar greens, buckchoice. Wait, I'm sorry.

I'm trying to move on. You're trying to move on. It is called pigweed. Lambs quarters, which Jonathan decides. I can't right now. I thought that idea. I did not know. That didn't work.

That's manslaughter. Man's laughter. Must have been a pretty funny joke. Okay. Pigweed. It's called pigweed or white goose foot. Oh, I would have known white goose foot. That's a joke I would not have.

You know what? Lamb's Quarter root T removes excess from the body by assisting elimination. Do you know what that means? It's a diuretic. Makes you poop. Yeah, it probably makes you poop. Hold on.

What does it say? Assists, what was the first part? Assist an elimination, removing excess. But the young group. Removing excess, what? Everything? Just anything that's excessive in the body will be removed. The young greens can be juiced for their calcium in addition to A, C, B, complex. Why is, everyone should be eating lambs quarter or lums squatter?

Lums squatter. Um, if you have actually heard of this vegetable, please comment. Please comment. Some people call it wild spinach. It is better than spinach. I mean, Google lambs quarters, the hidden power, how your life can change. Where do you get this, though? Oh, hold on. You know what its Mexican cousin is named?

No. God bless Spanish, H-U-A-U-Z-O-N-T-L-E-S. Huazontles. Eating lambs quarters with a calcium-rich food such as dairy can help offset potential difficulties with calpsum, calcium absorption. That's weird. Maybe it's not so absorbable. If it is absorbable, we should start the farm. We should, because like kale had its moment. When I was growing up, kale wasn't a thing. No one knew what kale was. This could be the thing that we make popular and bring to the world. Would we call it, what would we call it? Pigweed? No, I don't think that. Wild spinach?

Could be wild spinach. I kind of like lumb squatters. We could call it lumb squatters. I just want everyone to know that this episode has been scrubbed of any references to defecation. There were a lot of references we had to cut. Mine really couldn't control herself. It's fitting. Talk to us about the... I don't know why this episode was so silly when it's a very serious topic about longevity and the things that we can do. You know, maybe this is why people talk.

come to us for serious topics handled in the most lighthearted way. Yes. I did my research on other interviews she's done. Very few jokes in those interviews. She's very funny. I know. People don't know. She's a very funny woman. If you appreciate our approach, we would like to hear about it too because sometimes I think maybe we're not being serious enough. You know what? There's a lot of things in this conversation that lend themselves to like what is happening. I'm so upset. The whole conversation. I was tracking and waiting to thread back to something that we let drop and we didn't go back to Kegels. He's not going to sleep for four weeks because we didn't talk about Kegels. I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Go ahead. The best way to do Kegels? She said we were doing it wrong.

Yes, I'm going to tell you. First of all, we both started doing Kegels independently when she started talking about Kegels. If you zoom in on the video, someone should do this. They should zoom in on the video and capture our faces while she's talking because neither of us are fully listening. We're just counting the kegles that we're doing. That's the difference between men and women. We can do kegles all the time. We do them at red lights. We do them when we're waiting for our coffee. We do them all the time. My face again, I'm doing kegles. I'm not listening. Yeah, because you don't, never mind. You think I can only do one thing at a time. That's not true. Okay. But she was saying it's not just about going and contracting. It's about going up.

Correct. I'm going to tell you. You know, this is an unofficial Kegel seminar. I am basing this on the years of practice. Years of practice

and the instructions that were given to me. Of course I don't do them. Nobody does them. Okay, but what you're supposed to do, so many of us, we used to be told just like squeeze, like squeeze, like squeeze release.

So like the muscles that you would use to like stop yourself from going pee pee-midstream, that's the muscles. I think it's, I think it's the same. So anyway, it's like if you were peeing and then you had to stop

midstream, those muscles. It's like a clenching of all those muscles. That's what we used to be told to do. However, what my midwife told me to do is you pretend that you are on the bottom of an elevator and you want to go up to the fifth floor. And so what you do is in five increments, you increase the tension of the squeezing that you're doing. So it's a grab. You're trying to do it right now. So it starts gradually and you go one floor, two floor, three floor, four, four. five, then you hold at the top, and then you go down the elevator. You go down to the fourth floor, the third floor, and you release a little bit incrementally as you get to the bottom. And when you get to the bottom, you're relaxing. I haven't been doing the releasing. So think of it, you know, when you do those ab crunches and you go like, one, two, three, one, not that. I go up in the elevator. I go down in the elevator.

Really important. Also, we're going to get metaphysical here for a moment because there is a practice in the Joe Dispenza Meditation where you're actually pulling energy from your sacrum up to your pineal gland. Oh, that's, well, okay, hold on one second. This took a turn. No, no, no. So in Kundalini yoga, there's a thing that you do with the second chakra and you squeeze all of your muscles.

I would just, I take issue with the fact that it's going all the way to your pineal gland, but yes, the idea is that there is an energy cycling that occurs that begins with this second chakra, and the notion is you visualize it spiraling all the way up your spine and that your eyes are actually focused while closed upwards towards what we think is the pineal gland, and so that is the connection that you're making. And there's a lot of sexual energy that comes up in Kundalini Yoga because it's focused on that shock. If you're interested in this, also make a comment. We'll cover it in a substack live where Miami teaches how to channel your energy upward.

But even if you're just doing it in a very controlled way and you're not talking about going to your pineal gland, you can, I feel it up the back of my head. I don't know what you're talking about. You don't feel it up the back of your head. So like if I do this right now and I'm level elevator one, floor two, three, four, five. I feel energy moving. up the back of my neck and I can feel it really intensely moving right up my spine. I believe that that is happening to you for you. You don't feel anything? I've never thought. It's like, remember I didn't know what it's like to have hot feet? No. I just feel it's squeezing.

And mostly I think about how this isn't going to work and my uterus is going to fall out one day while I'm like going to the grocery store. And TMZ will be there and they'll be like, there's her uterus. That's what I think about. I have no time to think about what's happening in the back of my neck. I've never heard Valerie laugh so hard during she's engineering this episode. And she's just picturing your uterus on the floor of Whole Foods. No, I'd be at like Ralph's or something.

It's not even Whole Foods. It'd be like, and she's not even at Whole Foods. Arawon. Oh, I could never go to that shopping mall again. all the ladies are coming out of equinox with their Brazilian butt lifts and I'm like, oh, my uterus just fell out. Guess I didn't do enough kegles.

Guess I didn't feel it in the back of my neck spiraling up to my pineal gland. Better eat some lembs quarters. I'm here. This episode has really taken a different turn. It's unexpected. You know what? I'd like to end this episode with the list

of the characteristics of people who are hard. I also think it's really interesting to think about what's the difference between being hearty, being resilient and having grit. These three things are different. You know, there are subtle differences that can be cultivated in specific ways. The 10 common characteristics that were found in the study by Bartone and Stein. Hardy people confront fears. They remain realistically optimistic. They have social support groups.

They have role models. they have a moral compass. They demonstrated religious or spiritual practices. They accepted the unchangeable. They took responsibility for their own feelings. They understood stress as an opportunity for personal growth, and they maintained a practice of physical fitness. Very interesting.

Would love to hear the ways that you feel that you are hearty, resilient, or have grit. make sure to follow us on substack. You get a lot more of the silliness on substack, but also some really deep conversations too. I was just really taken by the idea that our visual process, the way that we imagine how life can be, has such an integral part on how life... Our visualization process.

And imagining what we're going to do, the life we want to live, and how powerful that can be in order to create a vision of health and I just love the message. It's not too late. It's never too late. You can take those incremental steps. It's so important to know that it could take six, nine months to get you to the place of lifting those heavy things.

And that work, you can do it. Don't be discouraged by that. I have been in a place in my own life where I wasn't able to do that. I didn't have the strength. Every time I tried to lift, it would be too much, it would be too heavy. And I had to work and slowly. And I'm still doing this right now with a shoulder injury, slowly working my way back up. to feel like I can do it.

And crafting a vision statement is something that we're going to do over on Substack. So please make sure to join us over on Substack for a little tutorial on crafting a vision statement. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we will see you next time. It's My and Beolic's Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience Ph.D. or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break.