Well with Arielle Lorre - 269: Why Muscle is the Key to Optimal Health and Longevity with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Dr. Lyon is a Washington University fellowship-trained physician. As the founder of the Institute for MUSCLE-CENTRIC MEDICINE®. Dr. Lyon is a nationally recognized speaker and media contributor specializing in brain and thyroid health, lean body mass support, and longevity. She joins the show to discuss why we need to change the way we think about muscle, the importance of lean muscle mass and how to improve our body composition. We talk about how much protein to eat, best protein sources, the history of protein in our country, understanding cravings, timing of meals, how to structure meals, why some people do better on higher carb diets, why muscle is the key to longevity and so much more. This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.At Westin hotels, there’s amenities and offerings aimed to help you move well, eat well, and sleep well, so you can keep your well-being close, while away. Find wellness on your next stay at Westin.LMNT is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any order, That’s 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT order. Get yours at DrinkLMNT.com/BLONDEFILES. Visit ritual.com/BLONDE to start Ritual or add Essential For Women 18+ to your subscription today.Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit ARTICLE.COM/BLONDE and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. Save 20% on a 90 day bottle of Just Thrive probiotic or Just Calm at justthrivehealth.com with promo code: Blonde20 Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. One of the questions that I get all the time from listeners and people who follow me is how do I stay healthy and maintain healthy habits when I travel? I think we have all experienced being really locked in with our routines when we're at home and then we travel and it's really hard to keep up with our habits. But Weston hotels make it possible for you to keep up with your wellness routine while traveling and even explore new ones, which I always always. think is so fun when I'm traveling. I love exploring the area around me on a walk. You can go for

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I'm your host, Ariel Lurie, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between. No topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Welcome to, in my humble opinion, a really fascinating episode of the podcast. I found this conversation to be kind of paradigm shifting. because I'm talking to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. I will get to her in a second, but some of you may be familiar with her work.

She focuses on what she calls muscle-centric medicine. So her hypothesis basically is that we are not necessarily over fat, and I don't mean everybody, I mean as a society, but we are under-muscled. And she proposes that skeletal muscle mass, lean muscle mass, really is the, key to optimal health, optimal aging, and longevity. So if you are listening to this or you saw the title and you thought that this was going to be some bro science kind of episode where she's telling us to eat a lot of animal protein, don't worry, it's not that. Something that I really appreciate about her is her openness to everybody's diets, everybody's beliefs, whatever they may be. And she is

trying to push necessarily protein sources. As long as we're getting a complete amino acid profile, she's fine whether you are vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, carnivore, whatever diet you choose to follow. So a little bit about Dr. Lyon. She received her doctorate in osteopathic medicine and she is board certified in family medicine. She earned her undergraduate degree in human nutrition. where she studied vitamin and mineral metabolism, chronic disease prevention and management and diet, compositions, physiological effects. Then she completed a research and clinical fellowship in nutritional science and geriatrics at Washington University in St. Louis. And I believe she talks about this. It was during that fellowship that she was introduced to her mentor who really kind of opened her eyes to her

hypothesis, her approach to medicine today, and her emphasis on skeletal muscle mass. So Dr. Lyon is the founder of the Institute for Muscle Centric Medicine. She's a nationally recognized speaker and media contributor specializing in brain and thyroid health, lean body mass support, and longevity. She's been featured on the doctors. She's been published in muscle and fitness, women's health, men's health, Harper's Bazaar. She's been on tons of podcasts, including the doctor's pharmacy, School of Greatness, Skinny Confidential, and Women of Impact. She also has a great podcast of her own. And in the episode today, we are talking about why we need to change the way we think about muscle and body composition and the importance of lean muscle mass and how it relates to all

the other functions in our body. We talk about how to improve our lean muscle mass, how to improve our body composition. And then we got into a lot of specifics. And I appreciate that Dr. Lyon was very science based in this episode. So if you like the science, you're really going to enjoy this conversation. I told her before we started recording that my audience also really appreciates that. So not to shy away from some of the more detailed explanations about how all of this works in our bodies and mechanisms and all of that. We talk about how much protein to eat, best protein sources, like I said, the history of protein in our country, which I found to be fascinating because it's such a polarizing topic. We talked about understanding cravings, timing of

meals, timing of training, how to structure meals. We talk why some people do better on higher carb diets, why muscle is the key to longevity and so much more. I really think you guys are going to love this episode. She has a new book coming out as well called Forever Strong. So go check that out. You can pre-order it now. And she really breaks all of this down in that book and makes it easy for people so that we can obsess less about what we are eating, how we are training, and make a lot of space for other things in life, which I really appreciate. So please enjoy Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Okay, welcome, Dr. Lyon.

Thank you for having me. So excited to have you here. I've been wanting to have you on for a long time, and we were finally able to do this. So I'm so looking forward to talking to you about muscle and protein as it proteins to overall health, but also, you know, quality of life and longevity and aging. But why don't you give everyone a little bit on your background to start? Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm so glad that we were able to connect. We were going to do this, I think last summer. So it's amazing that this worked out. And the things that you mentioned, muscle, protein, aging, longevity,

are really critical now more than ever. And the reason that they are so critical now is because there is just a massive chaos machine of information. So being discerning is really critical. My background is in human nutrition, vitamin mineral metabolism. I did my undergraduate in nutritional sciences. Then I went to medical school. Then I did two years of psychiatry, three of family medicine, and then went back and did a fellowship in nutritional sciences, geriatrics,

which for your audience relates to longevity. and some research in obesity medicine. And that's kind of how I ended up doing what I'm doing. I was very lucky that serendipitously I started on this journey when I was 17. What was your lifestyle like? Pretty healthy. And that's, again, you know, my trajectory hasn't changed. I was always very into health and wellness from the beginning, although I will say that my

nutritional style changed. When I started getting into nutrition, I was mostly plant-based, very into macrobiotics. Have you heard of that? Eating with the seasons. Madonna and Gwyneth, I think, were. Oh, really? I had no idea. I remember, yeah, I think I heard about it at first when I was in high school.

And, you know, the tabloid magazines were big. And I remember the macrobiotic diet was really big. Yeah. Because I think some celebrities were promoting it. You know, just was so interested in conceptually why someone would do that and where was the relevance. And as I went through education, I began to change my perspective. And also, I didn't feel so great with the way that I was eating, even though it was all healthy and organic. And it just, I became obsessed and fascinated, which I think everybody needs to be.

Yeah. Because the quality of your life is ultimately a direct result. of the quality of your decisions and your habits. So how did you kind of hone in on protein and muscle? And what is your hypothesis around that? First of all, you know, it would be kind of strange because when we think about muscle and protein, typically you think about bro-science

and being jacked in tan and just wheat rooms. But for me, when I started my undergraduate work, I landed in the class of one of the world leading protein experts. And because of that, I learned firsthand from a very innovative thinker and became fascinated with protein and subsequently muscle because the two are linked, deeply, deeply linked. That really changed everything for me. But the concept of muscle-centric medicine, which is ultimately you had asked me, what is my philosophy. The concept is that skeletal muscle is the largest organ system in the body. It is an

endocrine organ. When we think about organ systems, we think about thyroid, you think about the hormonal system, but another endocrine organ and full organ system is skeletal muscle. And one of the things that I had noticed was that my sickest patients spounding from the older individuals that had dementia to some of the people that I was seeing in the obesity clinic wasn't that they were all overweight. It wasn't all the things that we hear in the news like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. The one thing that they all had in common was low or unhealthy skeletal muscle mass. And I just had this aha moment thinking to myself, how is it that we're continuously giving this advice to do more cardiovascular activity and further restrict calories and eat more grains and eat more grains and carbohydrates right we already did that social

experiment and that was called the food guide pyramid and i just had that moment that we were doing the world of disservice and that the only way to really fix our health and fix obesity was to get the question right and the paradigm of thinking right and ultimately that we weren't over fat but actually we were under muscle. And if we could correct for skeletal muscle health, subsequently we correct for everything else. With fall upon us, I have been scouring the internet for cozy home decor options. It's a great time to switch things up. And I was very excited to see my favorite chair, which is my Gabriola Ivory Bucle chair from article that I get so many compliments on. They now have a new color. So it now also comes in this gorgeous sandstone color and they have an ottoman. And this is honestly

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Hey everyone, it's Kelsey Creple, full-time YouTuber, part-time preschool teacher, and now the host of the podcast Circle Time. Join me every week as me and my guests mix the childlike wonder and conversational openness and acceptance of preschool that we're all nostalgic for, with the realism, honesty, and wisdom baked into adulthood. With classroom-structured roots will rehash standout moments of day-to-day life, dive into buzzy pop culture moments, and really just get to know each other on a deeper level. Make sure to follow me on Instagram at Kelsey Creple and follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. I believe in your book that's coming out Forever Strong, you kind of talk about the history of the narrative that we have around

protein, right? And it is such a polarizing topic. I mean, go on the comment section of, I'm sure your page. Anybody talking about any of this and people are going to be arguing and I think part of it is the ethical standpoint. So it can be an emotional thing for some people, but people get really dogmatic about their beliefs and protein and protein and all of that really seem to be triggering for some people. It's funny, right? You're laughing because it's funny. I mean, it's just crazy. And I think some of it is the nature of social media and I talk about this. Like I can post a carrot. And I have people yelling at me that carrots are bad and then I have people saying they're great. You know, it's like anything.

Yeah. But this topic in particular really seems to cause a lot of conflict. So can you tell us a little bit about how that narrative came to be? The narrative of the plant and animal divide has been there from the beginning. As soon as people could start arguing about something, it was religion and food. Food is deeply ingrained in religion in some form. When we think about it, the birth of vegetarianism or veganism was a guy named Sylvester Graham, who the gram cracker was actually named after. And he believed that in order to become a good person and have good, strong moral values, that an individual should not eat animal products,

not drink alcohol, abstain from sex, and have a very pure nutrition plan. And with that purity, it removed animals from the forefront. And it was very dogmatic. Again, he was the father of veganism slash vegetarianism. Then one of his followers, who actually is very famous, named Kellogg, who then made granola after Sylvester Graham as well. Now you have the influence of a company with a lot of money over time that it's not just about health. And it pushes a narrative.

And we see this go through cycles. So there was this book called Diet for a Small Planet and that really changed the way people thought about food. And I believe that that came out in this. 70s and it was all about vegetarianism and the environment. Subsequently now that we know animal agriculture in the U.S. is actually only 9% full, I'm sorry, full agriculture contributes around 9% to greenhouse gas. That includes plants and animals. And of that, again, maybe 3.5% would be animal, you know, or cattle agriculture. Whereas, for greenhouse gas, the majority of the issues come from transportation, electricity, and industry.

So there's these smoke screens of confusion and conflict, and that's very well documented. Then we see, you know, and I kind of skipped ahead, but around World War II, when we needed to feed our soldiers, people at home were encouraged to build victory gardens, build and plant victory gardens. eat fruits, vegetables, and grains, and send all high-quality animal-based foods overseas to the soldiers. They were rationed food, just like there were home rationing. And the rations were at least a pound of meat for the soldiers, because they saw that the dietary protein really, really impacted their recovery and their way to be a good soldier and to keep them healthy.

Now you have this influence of industry again that is now providing foods to the masses, and these are processed foods. And you can imagine that they want to sell more. Whether the intentions originally were good or not, things were purchased. We fast forward to today. And today we have really two groups. We have the commodities, which are beef, milk, corn, soy, whole foods. For example, you don't know all the individual beef ranchers and suppliers,

right? Don't. No. And if I say beef, you would say to me, what's for dinner? Because that's the marketing strategy. If I say milk, you would say, does a body good. And that's all you would say, because those are the very limited marketing strategies. The collective budget for a commodity, which again is a whole food that has all of the individuals that are making milk and beef, their budget is $750 million, collectively, all the commodities. And they are under restriction of what they cannot say, of what they can and cannot say. Whereas Impossible Burger or all processed foods, let's just take Pepsi Cola, PepsiCo, the company now, their marketing budget is $1.96 billion.

That is one company. One company grossly overshadows the entire collective. And they can make a million different claims. They can say oat milk is better for you than real milk. They can say the impossible burger is better for you because of X, Y, and Z. but beef can't say it's a better source of protein than impossible burger because that would be disparaging. Now let's take a step back.

If we take a step back and we know that there is one group that has double, triple, quadruple the amount of money and they can control a narrative and a media. They can create confusion. They can create stories that little people can't even. fight. And I think that that's what we're seeing. We are seeing a paid-for way of understanding that is really destroying our health and wellness. And I think the unintended consequences of the influence of policy and money and the processed food companies are going to destroy human health. If we do not wake up and understand all this fighting between ourselves,

You know, you said, you'll post a carrot and people will come after you. That's ridiculous. But if, you know, we post beef, people will come after us or you name it. But the reality is that discrepancy and that that fight is the fastest way to turn attention away from what really matters. And that's what's happening. Something that I appreciate about you, though, and I've heard you talk about. about this on other podcast episodes is that you do make room for anybody, no matter what their beliefs are, because there are people who eat vegan for ethical reasons or, you know, for whatever, religious reasons.

And sometimes, you know, when you hear other people talking about the importance of protein, the importance of building muscle, they are really adamant that protein source matters and that it has to be animal. and I've heard you talk about, you know, pea protein and lentils. And as long as you're getting a complete profile, you're kind of open to the source, which I feel like it's kind of rare in this space. You know, you mentioned we were talking before the show started, and you had mentioned that your audience is really interested in evidence-based information. Let's lay out some evidence.

The evidence supports that dietary protein is essential for human health. health. Dietary protein is made up of 20 different amino acids, nine of which are essential, meaning you must get them from the diet. The quality of protein is determined based on those essential nutrients. Now, we are still talking about total protein as if it's one thing, but it's actually not. Protein, these individual amino acids have various biological roles. And what does that Let's just take some examples. The essential amino acid, lucine, is responsible for muscle protein synthesis through this stimulation of something called mTOR. Thriene is an amino acid that is essential for musin lining in the gut, which helps with gut health. Triptophan is an amino acid that is

necessary and required for serotonin production. So above and beyond the overall protein need, these amino acids are not interchangeable. So I'm going to lay that at your footsteps first. The next way of thinking about it is why are we eating dietary protein and why is that macronutrient so important? And the first reason is because of muscle protein. turnover and body turnover, meaning the body is constantly replacing protein all the time. We roughly replace 250 grams conservatively of protein. We're not eating that much. When we think about dietary protein and we think about the numbers that exist now, oftentimes people think the RDA, which is 0.8 grams per kilogram, which is recommended dietary allowance, people think of that

is a maximum. It's not. It is the minimum to prevent deficiencies. And that comes out to 0.37 grams per pound. Wow. And if, for example, you're 115 pounds, you multiply that by 0.375, you're looking at maybe 45 grams of protein. That's probably what I get. I feel like I'm protein deficient. That's pretty low. Yeah. But the evidence would suggest that that's the recommended dietary allowance. That would be the minimum. But if you are thinking about aging well longevity, then that number should be doubled, close to double. And the evidence supports that. However, you know, you astutely mentioned that it's very controversial. The dietary guidelines of protein of that 0.8 grams per KG has not changed since 1968. And that means one of two things. It means. It

means either we haven't had any new science since 1968 or people haven't found it that relevant. I believe that it just has been really misrepresented. And like you said, it's very emotional. Let's say we make a recommendation to double the RDA. The RDA, while we know it as the recommended dietary allowance, the minimum to prevent deficiencies, we also have to take consideration what happens when we change that. We are not a country that is in isolation, so we have to take into account the whole world. So if we make a change, you also have the World Health Organization. You have these other organizations and these other governing bodies that have to be conscientious of what is available. Protein is a very expensive macronutrient, and it's a luxury. Now we move into what do we

need to eat. And if I were to make a recommendation for dietary protein for health, aging, weight loss, longevity, that would be 0.7 to 1 gram per pound ideal body weight. Say that again? 0.7 to 1 gram per pound ideal body weight. Okay. This is something I only heard recently, the ideal body weight. Because I think everybody knows, oh, whatever they're going by, whether it's the 0.37 or the 1 gram per body weight. Right. I only recently heard ideal body weight.

I was like, oh, that's not something that you're hearing that often. And, you know, when you think about it, most people don't know their lean body mass or their lean muscle mass. Yeah. It is very difficult to overeat protein. Protein, again, because it's not just this overall macronutrient. It's made of these 20 different amino acids and it's very valuable to the body. when you eat a protein forward diet and the way that you dose the diet can impact your metabolism

what does that mean that sounds a little nebulous so let's break it down when you eat a what i believe to be a a suitable dose of protein you stimulate and that would be for the listener 30 to 50 grams of high quality protein now if you're a plant base you are going to have to err on that 50 grams because the more plant-based an individual is, the more total protein they need. And again, we're talking about these amino acids, but we have to understand that we don't eat amino acids. We eat food sources. For example, high-quality animal-based proteins have iron, calcium,

you know, highly bioavailable calcium, B12, zinc, selenium. how do we think about dietary protein from a metabolic standpoint when you add dietary protein at a certain dose like let's say if I were to design a meal for you I would say your first meal is most important and we are going to dose it at between 30 and 50 grams of high quality protein for the listener at home that could be a scoop and a half of way protein or it could be a handful of eggs or it could be some kind of If you eat dairy, could be Greek yogurt, really making sure that that protein intake is high enough, that will stimulate muscle. That action in and of itself requires energy versus if you are having food from solely carbohydrates that has a lower thermic effect of food or fat also has a lower thermic effective food or thermic effect of feeding. At what point does protein turn into sugar, though?

Because you hear people say, like, you can overeat protein. Very difficult. Great question. It is nearly impossible to overeat protein. If I were to say, okay, Ariel, here is your chicken breast. I would like you to eat five chicken breasts. You literally would probably throw up in your mouth. Yes.

If I were to say, what's your favorite sweet? Do you eat sweets? What's your favorite thing? Um, gosh, dream pops. Perfect. Those are amazing. They're so good. The raspberry dream pops.

Have you had the peanut butter? I have not. Oh. So if I were to say here is the equivalent amount of dream pops, I guarantee you could, I guarantee even if you weren't hungry, you could eat that. If you weren't hungry, you could not eat that chicken breast. You would turn away from the light. You're like, I cannot eat that.

I am so over it. dietary protein number one is very difficult to overeat. Number two, it is very difficult to store. Number three, this idea that it will turn into sugar is absolutely correct. But let's go a layer deeper. When you ingest dietary protein, it goes through a process. Let's say you have 100 grams of just pure dietary protein. You will convert roughly plus or minus 60 grams of glucose, which is sugar.

through a process called gluconeogenesis. That is different than having a hundred calories of dream pop. Now, also, when you ingest protein, there's all this talk about insulin. Insulin is a peptide hormone that is released from the pancreas that helps move glucose into the cell. If you were to eat a large bolus of or a large piece of cake or something sugary, you will get a spike in insulin, which will then drop your blood sugar. If you were to eat that same equivalent of protein, you will get a fraction of the release of insulin. And you do not get a

subsequent drop in blood sugar. The mechanism is different. Not only that, dietary protein, because of the process, allows for stable blood sugar regulation. And this is very well documented in the evidence. And in fact, when if you took two individuals that had isocloric diets, meaning they had equal number of calories from each diet, and you simply change the ratio of, you kept fat the same, and you change the ratio of carbohydrates to protein. So you have one group that has a higher carbohydrate diet, and you have another group that has a higher protein diet. But the calories are the same. By simply making that change, the high protein group will lose more body fat, have better blood sugar regulation, will maintain lean body mass. Lean body mass includes muscle, it includes everything because you're able to go through protein turnover.

Whereas the high carbohydrate group will have changes in insulin, blood sugar regulation, triglycerides. And again, my mentor did some of these earlier studies. in humans. And I unfortunately had to work on it in the lab, collecting urine and giving them food. It was a whole thing. But you see these changes. And it's stood the test of time. So a huge body of evidence would support the improvement of body composition, blood markers with the addition of dietary protein with a further reduction in carbohydrates. So this idea that protein turns into sugar is correct, but beneficial. Got it.

And that's a really important piece of information. Yeah. Sounds like another thing that's being promoted by big, I don't know, big grain. You can eat too much protein and it's going to make you fat. Like for myself, when I do focus on protein intake, my appetite is so much better. My energy feels a lot better. do feel so much more satiated after all of my meals. For me, for whatever reason, though, sometimes I feel like I am leaner when I eat higher carb. And I've had this conversation with other

nutrition professionals who have come on my show about like being carb efficient. Like, is this a myth? Some people are carb efficient. Some people are protein efficient. What do you think about that? I think that if you really reduce your calories, you will, get an adaptive thermogenesis, meaning your metabolism will slow down. And by eating more carbohydrates, you burn more carbohydrates. Also, it fuels you to do more training. You get glycogen repletion. I personally do better on a higher carbohydrate diet. I do much better on high protein and higher carb and lower fat. And that's just how I'm built. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of how I feel too. I am going to be totally honest, you guys. I had the worst PMS for the past week or so, including when I recorded this episode with Dr. Lyon. And this is definitely not a cure-all, but something in my wellness toolbox that actually helps me with a lot of the symptoms like nausea, headache, muscle aches is element. So it's super important to replenish electrical.

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So go to D-R-I-N-K-L-M-T dot com slash Blond Files. I had Kat, the founder of Ritual on my podcast a few weeks ago. The episode will be coming out this month. And I was absolutely blown away, not only by her commitment to providing the absolute best scientifically backed supplements in the industry, but also how supplements are really made, where they are really sourced from. I was completely shocked. So Ritual provides. clinically backed supplements. They have an amazing multivitamin for women 18 plus with high quality and traceable key ingredients in clean bioavailable forms. This traceable aspect is really important. She told me, for example, that vitamin D is sometimes sourced from, I believe, sheep's fur, and so many more shocking facts. Again, you guys will hear it in the episode. But Ritual has nine key nutrients. Like I said, everything is traceable in two capsules per day. And their unique beadlet and oil is even patented. They've put so much thought into their supplements. They're essential

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Kat and everybody there are really changing the game when it comes to supplements. And I know you guys are going to be absolutely blown away when you hear that episode too. Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Ritual is offering my listeners 30% off during your first month. just visit ritual.com slash blonde 30 to start ritual or add essential for women 18 plus to your subscription today. Again, that's ritual.com slash blonde 30. How much does timing matter when it comes to this? You know, you hear before training, after training, skipping breakfast, bigger meal at night. Like there's so many different rules. Yes. I mean, they're so confusing.

So confusing. And you can find anything to support. whatever it is that you're looking for. I mean, confirmation bias. Yeah, but there are good foundational practices. I actually lay this out in my book. I put three specific tracks in my book. I have been seeing patients since 2006. That is thousands of people. That is talking about a lot of nutrition and a lot of meal planning. What I will tell you is that there are core fundamental principles that when you deploy those principles, you will be able to maintain an optimal body composition. Now, what are some of those principles to make it very simple? Number one, dietary protein as a foundation.

It is your infrastructure. And it helps with the architecture of your body. That will control appetite. That will help with rebuild and remodeling. It is essential. Again, that's why we have essential amino acids. Shoot for one gram per pound ideal body weight. Your question on, tell me about timing.

Does that all matter? it actually matters when you are young and healthy so much less than people think. The International Society for Sports Nutrition, they published a position statement, and ultimately, timing doesn't really matter, especially if you are not a high-level athlete, which the reality is most of us are not. I mean, most of us are not professional athletes. Where does timing matter? timing matters for two reasons in my opinion it matters if you are going to try to really set your circadian rhythm the body i don't believe likes chaos

you have the same meal timing every day you eliminate chaotic eating when you eliminate chaotic eating you can follow a structured plan the evidence the circadian evidence the circadian rhythm evidence would suggest that eating earlier on in the day versus fasting all day and eating closer to bedtime is less than ideal. But again, what are we talking about here? Are we saying that that has massive body weight or body composition implications? No, actually I'm not. Calorie control matters first. Dietary protein would be my second most important value add here. and then understanding that you're going to be eating earlier on in the day, and you're going to eat the same time. So if you wake up at 5 in the morning, then perhaps you're eating at 6 or 7, you choose one of those times, and that is your first meal.

You can go, if that meal is high in dietary protein, you could easily go five hours until your next meal. And maybe it is a smaller meal. And then that last meal of the day, and that should be maybe three hours before bed, or if you're eating in a compressed feeding window is the same time and is robust and dietary protein. The middle meal I care less about because the evidence doesn't really support a middle meal as it relates to this concept of muscle protein synthesis.

Potentially it will, but the evidence really supports that first meal. And then you can extrapolate the rest and think about some of the mechanisms. But again, typically the evidence is supported in that first meal of the day. And if that first meal contains sufficient protein, then you're not going to have to worry about a blood sugar drop if you don't do that middle meal. Yeah. And as long as it's balanced for carbohydrates, you're going to be in good standing. If you eat over 50 grams of carbohydrates at that first meal and potentially, you know, it depends on if you're metabolically healthy. You are

very healthy and lean. Could you probably go closer to 50 grams and balance out with protein and not have an issue? Absolutely. If you begin to push the ratio of carbohydrates up, then you will get more of a robust insulin response and you will be chasing blood sugar. Here's the thing with a protein forward diet. And here's actually why I wrote the book. You want to know I wrote the book? Yes. Because of all the craziness out there. And if we are all arguing that time where you can actually make a difference closes. If you get found foundational principles right, you eliminate struggling for people. Can you imagine how much more time people would have if they didn't have to worry about what they were eating or how they were training?

If they just said, okay, here is the manual. Just go execute this. That creates so much mental freedom. And that's why I wanted to write the book. Yeah. Because together, we can change the trajectory of how people age, especially if it is steeped in evidence-based information and it eliminates confusion. The whole point is that there is so much information out there and by structuring your meals and doesn't matter if you are eating protein before your workout, it doesn't. Here's where it will matter. If you are older, if you are having metabolic challenges, then perhaps protein post-training may be beneficial.

And especially if your diet is perhaps a little bit lower in protein. Here's why. Because you have now exercised your muscle tissue, you have more blood flow. There is evidence to support that older muscle can respond like younger muscle. When you do exercise, resistance training, there's a synergistic effect with protein. And that would be a reason to pay attention to timing and potentially some glycogen repletion of carbohydrates. but really what matters most is that 24-hour period. You don't have to be crazy with it.

Yeah. Yeah, and I heard you say, I believe, that kind of adopting this way of eating as well caused you to obsess less about food. And I've been there too. Like, I've talked about this a lot. I used to do like the macros and I'm weighing my food and how many grams of fat and protein and fiber and sugar and all of this. And it's good to be mindful, I think, at times.

and like you're talking about the balance, yes. But, God, I think we overcomplicate it. You know, that's really what kind of push this fascination with nutrition is I didn't mean to become so obsessed. But I think as a type A personality, we want to learn, we want to figure it out and do the right thing. And I could not regulate my hunger. Again, I was eating macrobiotic. I was training. I was mostly vegetarian, if not close to vegan.

I was exhausted. I was super bloated. And I couldn't figure out why. Here I was getting my education in nutritional sciences and I was starving. I was literally obsessing about food. As soon as I began to balance my blood sugar and my dietary protein, I know it sounds crazy, but there's something called the protein leverage hypothesis. Yes, I wanted to ask you about this. And the protein leverage hypothesis is this idea that humans have a appetite for protein and they will eat to fill that appetite. And if you are overconsuming carbohydrates because there are amino acids in other foods, you will overconsume these foods, not because you are trying to get more of those foods, but you're really trying to meet that baseline amino acid need. The lower the percentage of

dietary protein, the higher the drive to eat. eat more food. And I, you know, I don't know for sure, but at the time I was obviously 18, but that's what I believed happened. And again, I couldn't regulate my brain chemistry. I couldn't regulate my hunger. And as soon as I began to make those simple changes, I mean, it got better. Yeah. And that's what's so crazy. Like effortless. It was effort. And that's the key. A good nutrition plan is not a nutrition plan. It is a fully embraced lifestyle. Right. And it makes sense. And you can say why I'm doing it and here's the evidence and this is what it's going to do for me. And then the other thing that I see, by the way, is that people will continue to beat their head against a wall and do the same

thing over and over again because they hear it's good for them, even though they feel terrible. And that becomes really critical. Yeah. I feel like This happens with snacking too, like snacking and cravings. And I get so many questions from women about how do you beat cravings? And again, like I found that when I started incorporating more protein, which right now I'm in a little bit of a lull, as I shared. But when I'm kind of hitting those marks and I feel satiated and then I have a craving, I can eat whatever I'm craving and not go crazy. And then I don't think about it. Whereas if you're trying to resist it, then you're going to eat so much.

many things just to try to satisfy what it is that you're craving. It sounds like you've gotten really smart about it and kind of what you're talking about is this idea of a hedonic drive. Yes. This idea of eating for pleasure. Yeah. And again, you're going for the thing. And that thing is never as good as you think it's going to be. And when we eat, you really have to ask yourself, am I eating for physiological hunger? Or am I eating for mental hunger? What, what am I trying to? What am I trying to? trying to fill? Am I trying to fill my stomach because I have a legit hunger feeling? Or am I trying to satisfy a craving? And if you're trying to satisfy a craving, the next question is, is it an emotional craving that's never going to be full from a dream pop? Or is it that maybe you

have a moment of a sweet tooth or you're by your period and you have a bite and you don't feel guilty and you're able to control it. And that's it. It's off your, it's off your mind. But understanding the different drivers of hunger is pretty critical. Yeah. And self-awareness really can change that as to why an individual is eating or feeding. Mine came from hitting a rock bottom. That's how I changed. Any of my behavior that I need to change, really, it just gets from being uncomfortable enough to then be willing to do something. something else. And that happened to me when I got sober almost 10 years ago. And that happened to me after over-exercising and under-eating and macro-counting myself into oblivion and doing this thing that I

thought was freeing me from the obsession of thinking about food, like with macros. And I don't think they're bad for everybody. But for me, it was like, okay, if I just eat according to this, then I won't think about food. No, it was constant. Those numbers were in my head. And then I figured, like if I can only eat this many calories and have this much food, then I can do this. I can do less, you know, and it was just crazy. And so I hit a bottom because my body was like so out of whack from all of that. And then I just learned to do differently. So. But hitting a bottom is incredible. Yes. What a privilege. For sure. The reason it is a privilege to hit a bottom because it can catapult you to become the person you want to be.

And the most resilient, so I actually still see patients. And the most resilient patients that I see are those that get back up. And the key to getting back up is to do it quickly. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk about training as well a little bit here. What is your recommended type of training? Are we talking lifting weights?

Are we talking any kind of resistance? Can we incorporate things like yoga and Pilates? You can. Okay. Why do we care about muscle? We don't care about muscle for athletic performance. I don't care about muscle because it makes you look good. You can care about all those things, but muscle is the organ of longevity.

You care about muscle because you care about your overall health. Before we dive into training, let's talk a little bit about what muscle does from a scientific standpoint and from a medical standpoint. skeletal muscle is the organ of longevity. It is responsible for a number of things. Number one as an endocrine organ. When you contract skeletal muscle through exercise, it secretes myokines. Myokines are hormones that travel throughout the body that affect bone and brain and liver and the immune system. It is far above and beyond just going to get a sweat at the gym. We all talk about inflammation. One of the best ways to combat inflammation and damper some of these cytokines that we all hear about is exercise. So that's one thing that exercise skeletal muscle does.

The other thing is that skeletal muscle is the site for glucose disposal. The more healthy skeletal muscle mass you have, the more place you have to put the dream pops. When skeletal muscle is unhealthy, meaning sedentary, it's like a suitcase. You are overpacking a suitcase. Muscle glycogen only has so much space. You have space for liver glycogen, which is the storage form of carbohydrate. And then you have muscle glycogen, which is more the storage form of glucose. Now, when those suitcases are full and you're still eating and you are not exercising, there's nowhere for it to go. You will see an increase in blood sugar. You will see an increase in insulin and increase in triglycerides, all things that are then related to the diseases that we are all trying to avoid.

And let's just even say fertility. PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, in part is a disease of skeletal muscle insulin resistance. I mean, obviously it's multifactorial, but skeletal muscle is 40% of your body weight. It is also your body armor. If you fall, if you get hurt, if you are laid up, if you have surgery, your body will pull from the amino acids. Now, not only that, one more thing, and then we're going to talk about exercise. It is the primary site for mitochondria, which is energy production, which is ATP use, which is what you need to feel as if you have energy and become fatigue resistant. Now, I have laid out four solid things why muscle is important. important. Now we can talk about training, but we have to understand that we're talking about

training for a very specific metabolic benefit. We are talking about muscle-centric medicine. We are talking about the pinnacle of health and longevity, which is what you and your audience cares about. Now, what happens as we age? As we age, muscle mass will decline if you do not train. It is number one, non-negotiable. 50% of Americans are not exercising. 24% of Americans meet the daily requirement for exercise. Wow. 24%.

It's shocking and also not. I mean, at this point. But where is health going to go then? Yeah. So now we can get into the training aspect. Everybody listening who is not exercising has to stop for a moment. what if I told you that obesity and the weight that you are carrying is a symptom of unhealthy muscle? If you are sitting at home listening to this or watching it and you are an individual who feels like you have weight to lose, it is not a fat problem.

We have to shift the focus from what you have to lose to actually what you have to gain, which is muscle health. Now, Ariel, we can talk about exercise. When we think about exercise, the most important exercise, in my opinion, is resistance training. Resistance training is moving something against force, moving your body against force, some kind of force. If you are an untrained individual, could you start with yoga and Pilates? Yes. Will there potentially be a cap where that might not be enough load? Potentially. I mean, you could probably do it over long periods of time, but you will likely have to begin to add in at some point in your training, some kind of resistance exercise, whether it is weight or whether

it is bands. I also think about fitness as and muscle as how are we going to age. We have to be able to, you have to pick up your dog and you have to pick up your groceries and you have to pick up your purse and you might have to pick them all up at once. You have to be strong enough to carry that. How are you going to get strong enough to carry that? You're going to practice carrying things that are heavy. You're going to practice before you need it. What happens if there is a fire and you have to get out of a window? It's morbid, but it can happen.

So you practice being physically fit for life. If I were to make a recommendation, I would say minimum, we'll start with, I'll just throw this out here, three days a week of resistance training, every muscle group you would work twice a week to start. That's 10 sets per muscle group, 8 to 15 reps. but it's not just the mindless reps, it's what is the effort. I would also say that putting in some kind of high-intensity interval training is phenomenal for people. You do have to stress the system, in my opinion.

You get a lot of adaptation. You create metabolic stress. You get adaptation. Again, if you do what you've always done and you're kind of coasting, what is the end result? How do you put yourself 10 years forward? Mm-hmm. When I'm in the gym right now, I'm pushing sleds. The worst.

The worst, right? Yeah. But you gain confidence from doing it because you get in the arena. Yeah. You know, I have two little kids. I got to, if there's an, I got to be able to pick them up. I have one who's four and one who's two. So how do we train in a way where we think about longevity and mobility, flexibility,

there's all kinds of things. But again, being able to pick up heavy things, I think compound movements are great, squat, deadlift, bench press, multi-joint movements. But some exercise is better than none. I'm not going to yell at you if you're doing bicep curls. Curls for the girls, I'm not going to be mad at you. Those vanity muscles. I'm not going to be mad at you.

It's all important. What else is really important to understand is that if you eat carbohydrates and let's see you have a continuous glucose monitor on, you literally can go exercise your muscle and you will see your blood sugar go down. Interesting. You are leveraging skeletal. muscle as a lever to pull to improve your metabolic health. How incredible is that? Without the use of insulin. Again, you don't want to burn these things out. Can we talk a little bit about neurotransmitters?

You mentioned before, maybe it was triptophan being a precursor for serotonin. Phenolanine for dopamine. So how does having lean muscle mass, how does exercise, how does all of this impact the production of neurotransmitters because you hear so much how beneficial exercise is for depression, anxiety. I'm sure everybody listening has an experience of being in a funk or feeling anxious or something and exercising and feeling so much better. So what is the mechanism behind that? So that is a very loaded question. And let's break it down. And this is not going to be a complete list, but let's talk about some of the things that we know. We all know that when you train, you release endorphins. Feel good hormones, that might make you feel good. Everybody knows

that right. Like, you can read that in 17 magazine. When you train, you also release myokines, these hormones that go through the body. Two primary myokines, there's many, by the way. Let's talk about caphtepson B and iricin. These two myokines, particular capthepthepson B, will, stimulate the release of BDNF, which is brain-derived neurotropic factor, for brain function, for neurogenesis, potentially for mood. I mean, not directly, but when you have a healthier brain, subsequently, it stands to reason that you would have healthier systems. Is it true that leg exercises increased BDNF? Well, that would likely be based on the mass of muscle. Okay. Not necessarily, the leg muscle in and of itself, but just the total size and volume of the tissue.

Okay. So those are two ways that I think exercising skeletal muscle really improves brain function, but it also improves spatial awareness because, again, proprioception, these are, you know, your fingers, your toes, your feet, ways in which you interact in the world and knowing where you are in space. And that becomes critical. we were to think about what are some two nutrients that would be great for brain function, you would think about omega-3 fatty acids, which is very well-researched. That would be the primary one.

And then also, as we're talking about muscle health, what about creatine? And again, creatine comes from red meat. It is not actually found in any valuable amount in plant-based foods. So this also goes to thinking, well, we're eating for protein, but what about other molecular, low molecular weight molecules? Okay. So my final question, because obviously we care about longevity, but we do care about vanity as well. What is the impact on all of this on our appearance, aside from our body composition? How does this affect things like hair, skin, nails? You know, we all hear about the collagen powders and take. you know supplementing amino acids and things like that is getting sufficient protein in your

diet enough to get the benefits of all of that yes hair skin and nails definitely when you eat a protein forward diet like how I outlined in my book specifically you will see changes you will see changes in your hair skin and nails in fact there was a recent paper I haven't looked into it in too much detail so I don't know necessarily the control groups but that skin thickness increases with resistance training. Sold. Right? And quality.

Collagen is an incomplete protein, not ideal or even relevant for skeletal muscle, but for hair, skin, and nails, yes. And you will be able to see people that are protein deficient. Because the body's not going to prioritize hair, skin. It's going to prioritize organs. Well, your skin is bananas. Really? I was thinking of your skin.

your skin is banana. God. I feel like I probably look like one of those protein deficient people today. Yeah, no, I mean, you look incredible and you glow. I've been sitting across from you for an hour now. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I will apply whatever she's saying because, you know, you walk the walk and you can see that. So tell everybody about your book. It's coming on in October. And also you have an amazing podcast. Yes. So my book, Forever Strong, is. really about all these topics that we talked about. And my mission is to change the face of health care and to provide a very reader-friendly book. I don't know when this podcast is coming out, but we do have a ton of things that we're giving away with a pre-order, a full exercise library,

80 videos. I could never be a fitness influencer. I was just like, is this over yet? You had to do them over and over again? I mean, it was just 80 videos. Actually, it was 100. And then we, you know, we're like, okay, we're just doing 80. We're just going to put out 80. And then I've got e-books, and I have a forever strong community where I go on live and answer Q&A. People are very engaged. We have over a thousand people. You can go to my website if you want to apply to be a patient. There's myself, and we have a team of seven. That's just Dr. Gabriel Lyon.com. I have a great newsletter where I'll pick a study and we'll talk about that or put some kind of resource. All of that is free. And then the podcast, the Dr. Gabriel Lyon Show, we really,

really break down science. And I bring two types of people on. World class experts in their field to try to translate it. And then people within the arena experience. You know, and that could be CIA agents. I brought in a female ranger, one of the first female army, went through Army Ranger School, Secret Service agent. Evie Pompura's amazing. I mean, just amazing guests. So fascinating. I think those personal, like those anecdotal experiences are so fascinating and such an incredible people. Yeah. I think that helps people to digest the science too, you know, to get kind of both sides of it. You have to. Yeah. And one more thing actually that I think would be really relevant for your listeners is we have a 30 G's newsletter, which is only recipes. Amazing. So how do you get into my book? I have tons of recipes. But this is a newsletter where you can get a recipe a week to nail what I'm talking about.

Amazing. Incredible. Well, thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for having me. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you liked it, and if you liked the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to Arialore.com. And I'm always posting about each episode. You can head over to The Blondefiles podcast on Instagram. And I'm always posting about each episode. episode over on my personal page at Ariel Lori. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest

in products or services referred to in this episode.