Female-Specific Exercise & Nutrition for Health, Performance & Longevity | Dr. Stacy Sims

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford School of

Medicine my guest today is Dr Stacy Sims

Dr Stacy Sims is an exercise

physiologist and a nutrition scientist

and a world expert in all things

training and nutrition specifically for

women in addition to working at Stanford

and with numerous professional a letic

teams Dr Sims has authored more than 100

peer-reviewed studies on exercise

physiology she has not only evaluated

existing protocols for nutrition and

fitness that are specific to women

versus men but she has also developed

many new protocols that are now in

practice with professional sports teams

but that can also serve people who are

generally interested in Fitness and

Longevity and in doing so the general

public the tools that Dr Sims shares

with us today are applicable to Fitness

to to changing your body composition and

to overall health today we discuss how

hormones and hormone Cycles impact

nutrition and fitness needs specifically

in women of different ages we of course

discuss the menstrual cycle

perimenopause and menopause but also

female specific nutrition and training

as it relates to things independent of

hormones for instance we evaluate the

evidence that women may not want to

train fasted and the reasons for that we

talk about how training might vary

according to different phases of the

menstrual cycle and we discuss how women

can design nutrition and training

programs that are optimized for their

specific needs not just because they are

women but because they are women of a

particular stage of life and women with

particular goals as you'll soon see Dr

Sims is exquisitly skilled at explaining

the human universals of nutrition and

training that is the things that do not

differ between men and women and their

needs in terms of nutrition and training

but she is also exquisitly skilled at

highlighting the data showing that there

are specific areas of nutrition and

fitness for which women and men differ

and women have specific needs so today

you will learn what those are and you

will learn how to apply those specific

protocols such that by the end of

today's episode You Will Be armed with a

tremendous amount of new knowledge about

the biological mechanisms and the

specific dos and do Nots that can guide

you towards your female specific health

and fitness goals before you begin I'd

like to emphasize that this podcast is

separate from my teaching and research

roles at Stanford it is however part of

my desire and effort to bring zero cost

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waking up.com huberman to access a free

30-day trial and now for my discussion

with Dr Stacy Sims Dr Stacy Sims welcome

thanks our podcast and I put out a lot

of content about Nutrition

Fitness cold exposure heat exposure

hydration topics that are very near and

dear to your heart and for which you

have a ton of expertise but for which

you have an extra degree of expertise as

it relates to females specific

yeah so I'm excited to talk to you today

because very often I will get questions

in the comment section on social media

or on

YouTube was this study done in both men

and women how does it differ for men

versus women and on and on and I rarely

if ever have answers but you have

answers I have answers for you great so

just to kick things off because this is

a question I get really

often fasting oh yeah inter mittent

fasting y we need to distinguish between

the two of

course perhaps the most common question

I get as it relates to males versus

females

is is intermittent fasting or

time-restricted feeding as it's

sometimes called an 8 Hour feeding

window a six-hour feeding window a

10-hour feeding window is that something

that perhaps differs in terms of its

impact and how well it works for men

versus women yeah that's a short answer

great yeah yeah um so I'll put some

parameters around it right so if we talk

about intermittent fasting that's where

you have like the 20-hour non-feeding

window or you're holding a fast until

noon or

after um and then we have

time-restricted eating and that's the

fancy way of saying normal eating where

you're having breakfast and then you

stop eating after or you don't have

anything after dinner right so you're

eating with your circadian rhythm during

the day if we look at intermittent

fasting where you're holding the fast up

till noon or you're having days of

really low calorie restriction we see in

active women it's very detrimental

unless you have PCOS or you have some

other

subclinical issue and the reason for

that is we as women have more oxida

fibers so we hear about all the things

about fasting to be to improve our

metabolic flexibility to improve telal

length to improve parasympathetic

activation but by the nature of women

having more oxidated fibers we are

already metabolically more flexible than

men interesting yeah didn't know that um

could you elaborate on more oxidative

fibers what that is and how how it

relates to metabolic flexibility sure

sure so oxidated fibers are are muscle

fibers that are more aerobic capacity so

those are the ones that you you can go

long and slow for a very long period of

time because it uses a lot of free fatty

acids you need a little bit of glucose

in order to activate those free fatty

acids so we look when a woman starts to

exercise she goes through blood glucose

first and then gets into free fatty acid

use she doesn't tap so much into liver

muscle glycogen which is I think another

misconception that happens so when we're

talking about fasting or fasted workouts

trying to improve that metabolic

flexibility it increases stress on the

woman and so when we're talking about

overall stress we're talking about

cortisol increase and they can't hit

intens high enough with no fuel to be

able to invoke the post exercise

responses of growth hormone and

testosterone which then drop cortisol so

from an overall stress perspective that

fast did work out and holding that fast

for a long period of time increases

cortisol but then when we look from like

a hypothalamic point of view and we're

looking at how the brain reads it we

know that there's one area of kisspeptin

neurons in the brain for men but there

are two for women so the two areas are

distinct where One controls appetite and

luteinizing hormone and the other one is

looking at estrogen and thyroid so if

you start having an exercise stress or a

daily stress of getting up and going on

with your day without fuel you perturb

those kisspeptin neurons and

downregulate them and so when you start

downregulating them we see that after

four days you have a a disregulation of

thyroid we have a change in our

luteinizing hormone pulse which is

really important to maintain endocrine

function and we'll hear this oh I've

been fasting for so many years and it

does great for me but the other side of

the question is well how much better

would you be if you were to actually pay

attention to your circadian rhythm and

fuel according to the stress at hand and

knowing that you're going to Garner less

stress that way and if we're really

tying in nutrition according to that

profile instead of following a fast we

see better brain Improvement M ments as

well we see more cognitive function we

see less thyroid

dysfunction and overall a woman does

much better when we're not in that

fasted State then when you look at

population research that's coming out

now they're showing in both men and

women who hold their Fest till noon and

then have an eating window from noon to

maybe 6: p.m. have more obesogenic

outcomes than people who break their

fast at 8 and finished their eating

window by 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. so it's

coming back to the chronobiology of we

need to eat when our body is under

stress and needs it unless we have a

specific issue like obesity inactivity

PCOS or other metabolic conditions then

we can look at using fasting as a

strategic intervention to help with

those modalities super interesting two

questions is there a protective effect

of starting the eating window and here

I'm asking for both men and women

starting the eating window at say 11:00

a.m. or noon and ending it a little bit

later so not a 6our eating window or 7h

hour eating window but extending that to

8 or 900 p.m. under those conditions do

you still see the obesogenic effect yes

because we're looking at the way

cortisol responds we know cortisol has

lots of fluctuations throughout the day

and it Peaks about half an hour after

you wake up right so if you're having

that quol Peak half an hour after you

wake up but you're not eating

then that is that higher Baseline

sympathetic drive for women for men it's

not the same so when we're looking at

that obesogenic outcome the actual

timing hasn't been tested yet to see how

can we ex expand or contract that eating

window for men but for women because of

that cortisol

Peak that right after waking up women

tend to be already sympathetically

driven so then they walk around more

tired but wired and have a really really

difficult time ACC accessing any kind of

parasympathetic responses down the way

where if you have something really small

where you're bringing blood sugar up

then it's signaling to the hypothalamus

hey yeah there's some nutrition on board

then we can start our day so again it

has to look at that circadian rhythm and

those hormone fluxes which people don't

really either understand or talk about

because all of our hormones flux through

the day and so you have to look at

where's the peak of cortisol how does

estrogen flux how does lutenizing

hormone flux progesterone all these

things that have this tight interplay

and the more we're doing the hormone

research and the more we're

understanding these perturbations and

how important it is to fuel for it to

stay out of any kind of low energy

availability

stance regular listeners of this podcast

will know this but just to remind

everybody a sympathetic state has

nothing to do with emotional sympathy

it's the sympathetic arm of the

autonomic nervous system which drives

more arousal and alertness and at higher

levels stress sometimes called the fight

ORF flight response parasympathetic

being the other arm of the autonomic

nervous system sometimes called the rest

and digest arm of the autonomic nervous

system they work sort of like a seesaw

or a push pull pick your analogy in any

case it sounds like intermittent fasting

or time-restricted feeding unless it's

very well aligned to the Circadian

rhythm is not going to be advantageous

for women that's what I'm hearing I'm

also hearing that if a woman trains

while fasted so in the non-feeding

window so wakes up maybe has some uh

hydration and trains that's going to

further exacerbate the stress response

in a way that's not going to be good

exactly

and I have to imagine that if she also

is drinking caffeine in order to do that

training because caffeine is a stimulant

of the sympathetic arm of the autonomic

nervous system that it will further

exacerbate all these issues so this is a

opener for me because I've had female

training partners for years I don't eat

until 11:00 a.m. I like to hydrate and

cinate before I train in the morning and

then I like to eat starting around

noon several of them have hopped on that

schedule with me some of them eat

breakfast first some of them don't they

do as they choose of course but now I'm

thinking that's probably the worst way

to go and it gets worse as you get older

because if we're seeing as women are

getting into par menopause which is in

their 40s and we have more fluctuation

of those hormones and an increase in

Baseline cortisol anyway then when you

look at fasted training it increases

that cortisol drive and that sympathetic

drive and because it's a point where you

really need to polarize your training to

get any kind of body composition change

not having any fuel before a

high-intensity workout puts them in

moderate intensity they just can't hit

the intensities they need to same with

resistance training like you go in and a

lot of women are now working on

sessional rpe or rating perceived

exertion where you go in and say okay we

need you to hit an eight on this squat

so you have two reps in reserve and a

sessional RP of an eight well if they're

not fueled then we are seeing trends

that they're missing around two to 5% of

that top load so they're not really

lifting in that zone that they need to

be in let's get um people sorry to

interrupt let's get people up to speed

on rpe because this is a term that's

starting to um circulate more outside

the physical um training community and

to the broader kind of you know

recreational exerciser Community which I

consider myself part of UMO I mean I

train regularly and half for years but

I'm not an I'm not an athlete I don't

get paid to train and I you know and so

forth so rep repsen Reserve perceived

effort maybe just um explain this I

think probably 95% of our listenership

has never heard these terms okay so if

we're talking about about reps in

reserve this is when you go in and if

you say eight it means you have two reps

in reserve so you finish your eight and

you should be able to complete two more

with a really good form and then you hit

failure

so eight repetitions in good form and

the person doing the exercise could in

theory if they really dug in there grit

their teeth could complete two more

repetitions in good form before hitting

failure the inab to move the weight

anymore in good form exactly okay but

they're stopping at eight so they have

two reps in reserve exactly and so we

can correspond that with your rating

perceived exertion so if we're saying we

need you to hit an eight on our scale of

1 to 10 of rating perceived exertion we

see it correlates with um that eight

with two reps in reserve so it's a way

of quantifying what you're doing in the

moment for a squat or a deadlift or some

other really heavy lift that you're

trying to accomplish as opposed to

looking at um say percentage of one

repetition maximum yeah saying you're

going to move 70% of your one repetition

maximum for six repetitions seems like

that's a great thing as well but it's a

little bit more complicated because you

need to know your one repetition maximum

doing one repetition maximums can be

dangerous if you're not skilled in that

especially with compound movements like

squats and deadlifts okay so is there an

across theboard recommendation for most

people that they should generally train

their sets in good form to failure to

leave a couple reps in reserve what do

you suggest for let's say women but this

could also pertain to men uh and then

that also depends on the age of the

woman so if we're looking at the

reproductive year so you know 20 to 40

then it doesn't matter so much you can

periodize pretty much how normal

periodization works with your mesocycles

and your micro Cycles so you're looking

at what you're doing across the few

months what are you doing in the week

are you lifting heavy power Based

training but when we start to get to per

menopause and we're losing all the flux

of estrogen and estrogen is woman's

testosterone the key driver for strength

and power we have to look at lifting

heavy so this is where we really turn

women on to we want you to do something

that is two reps in reserve three reps

in reserve because your one rep max also

changes depending on what kind of

training block you're doing so you're

finding that when you're talking about

reps in reserve then it allows people to

lift more on the day so we can get women

to get into that strength and

power-based type training rather than

going let's lift to fatigue because then

it might be 20 reps and that 20 reps

doesn't invoke a big central nervous

system response which is what we want

it's more of that hypertrophy and muscle

tearing you will gain some lean mass but

not as much strength as if you were to

invoke That central nervous system

response and that becomes really

critical as women get older because we

need to def find that external response

that's going to cause the same kind of

strength and power adaptation that

estrogen used to support

interesting lots to talk about in terms

of exercise but before we move on if the

bad situation is a woman

fasting drinking caffeine and training

intensely but as you told us not as

intensely as she would be able to

otherwise what's the solution I imagine

that solution involves ingesting some

fuel MH what is a good example of a you

know a

pre-training um meal if you will and we

could put some variation on that for

people with different you know

Tendencies towards omnivore or vegan or

whatever uh but what is the timing of

that meal relative to training that

works best or and and I'm assuming

there's some flexibility there yeah I

mean like I'm the kind of person that

gets up and is out the door within a

half an hour to go do whatever I'm going

to do so it's not like I'm going to have

a full meal I've heard of people like

you yeah mean meaning I tend to move

slowly in the morning so I wish I could

but the way my life is it doesn't work

that way um so but I'm also one of the

people that never really has an appetite

till 11 o'clock okay so we're similar in

that way yeah so how do you how do you

square that so I make a double espresso

at night and I put some almond milk and

a scoop of protein powder in there so

the almond milk is sweetened and usually

it's unsweetened but sweetened for the

carb and then the protein powder for the

protein because because if I'm going to

go do an ocean swim then I need some

carbohydrate and protein on board if I'm

going to just go to the gym then I'll

probably just have the protein powder in

the coffee yes I'm caffeinating but I'm

also getting the calories for the

hypothalamus and getting more

circulating amino acids Abby Smith Ryan

out of UNCC did some specific work

looking at carbohydrate protein before

and you know strength or cardio and

found that if you're going to do a true

strength training session you only need

around 15 grams of protein before before

you go to really help you get into the

idea that yes you have some fuel on

board and also increases your post

exercise oxygen consumption or your

Epoch so your resting metabolism stays

elevated um giving you a better chance

for Recovery post exercise as well if

you're going to do any kind of

cardiovascular type work up to an hour

then you're adding 30 grams of carp to

that so it's not a lot of food and it's

not a full meal um other people are like

I'm starving right before I go training

then yes you can have your meal giving

yourself about a half an hour before um

but it doesn't have to be major food

that we're talking about um but that's

just enough to bring blood sugar up and

and stimulate the hypothalamus to say

yeah there's some nutrition coming in

and then you have your real food

afterwards you have your breakfast

afterwards within 45 minutes as a

neuroscientist I find it so interesting

that at least some of what you're

talking about with this pre-workout meal

and perhaps most of it relates to how

ingesting those

calories impacts the brain protects

those

kisspeptin neurons we'll talk more about

kisspeptin very interesting

peptide as opposed to saying okay you

need X number of calories because you're

going to burn X number of calories I

hate that conversation right which is a

very different conversation um here what

we're talking about is the neural

aspects of being able to generate

intensity also blunt cortisol and get

the most out of training without putting

the body into kind of a an Emergency

State yeah yeah and the longer someone

withholds food after exercise and the

greater they stay in that catabolic or

breakdown State the more the brain

perceives it as being in a low energy

state so the first thing to go is lean

mass when you start telling a woman that

you know if you're going to do fasted

training and and or you're going to

delay food intake afterwards while

you're training because the first thing

that goes is lean mass and it's really

really hard for women to put on lean m M

so once you start really nailing that

and then saying look you just need 15

gram of protein to really help and be

able to conserve that lean mess it's a

small simple fix people try it and

they're like oh my gosh I feel amazing

so it's small little things when you're

working with the whole system because I

get tired especially around Christmas

time when you're reading all the

magazines it's like two cookies means

you have to walk for 30 minutes on the

treadmill it's like it doesn't it

doesn't correlate like that at all um so

that's why I was like like I hate the

calorie conversation because it's just

not applicable right and it has its own

kind of um elements of being laced with

neuroticism about calorie counting and

then that can drift easily into the

realm of Eating Disorders I did an

episode about eating disorders some

years ago and as I was researching that

episode um I learned that people with

eating disorders women and men um

especially anorexia become like calorie

calculators their eyes in their brain

just are constantly evaluating the

caloric load of food and it can be um

obviously very intrusive it's also the

most deadly of all the psychiatric

conditions so it's um that's a long way

from hopefully what we're talking about

here but but there's the opportunity for

drift whenever we talking about calorie

counting in and out we of course believe

in the laws of thermodynamics and

calories in calories out but I love what

you're describing here as getting the

brain in a mode that the brain and body

are protected so that one can invest in

that high-intensity exercise and get the

adaptations that one wants but not send

everything down this pathway of um kind

just becoming a computer of you know how

much am I exercising what did I burn

what did I earn it's it's crazy it's

crazy um as long as we're talking about

food and food intake relative to

training what is the suggested

posttraining

um window um in which one should either

avoid or make sure they get nutrition um

meaning how long does one have after

let's say a resistance training session

of about an hour seems to me that's what

most people are doing if they're

investing in resistance training maybe

plus or minus a what 20 minutes yeah um

and they're hitting those um

high-intensity sets where they have

maybe just one or two repetitions in

reserve maybe going to failure on a few

of those SES what do you recommend women

eat after they train so we know that

women who are in their reproductive

years need around 35 grams of good

protein highquality Lucine oriented

protein within 45 minutes and we see

that women who are per menopausal

onwards are 40 to 60 grams because we

become more anabolically resistant to

food and exercise as we get older um

when we look at like the recovery window

for food there are definitely sex

differences because we hear all the

conversation of there's no recovery

window it's you know it's old science

but we look at the research of when

women's metabolisms come back down to

Baseline meaning that they have constant

straight blood sugar levels versus men

women it's within UH 60 minutes and for

men it's up to 3 hours so when we're

looking at the data that says there's no

window per se for getting food in it's

based on male data so when we're looking

at women women we have this tighter

window to stop that breakdown effect and

start the

reparation um so yeah it's like when

we're talking about the protein intake

it's really important not only to get

that Lucine content up in the muscle to

start the reparation and repair but also

again to signal that yeah we're in a

building State we're not holding that

catabolic State and increasing all the

repercussions that come with it so women

should try and get 30 or as M much as 40

maybe 50 grams of protein depending on

their age m post training within an hour

of training yep men seem to have a

longer window they could wait an hour

two hours maybe even three hours yeah

before ingesting protein what about

carbohydrate we look at mixed but for

men it's more important because they go

through their liver and muscle glycogen

so much faster than women so when we

look at women we want to get around3

grams per kilo um of carbohydrate within

2 hours of finishing so we look at prot

and people like well that's a big dose

of protein how do I get it all in it's

like yeah well you can look at how we

mix all of these things you're also

getting carbohydrate in with that so

that's why I say you could have your

next meal after your training session um

yeah there's a time and a place for

protein supplementation but if you're

getting that real food in then you're

also getting you know your magnesium and

your potassium and your sodium and all

the things that people supposedly lose

and you're able to also repair a lot

better

as many of you know I've been taking ag1

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omnivore a carnivore or a vegetarian or

a vegan I think it's generally agreed

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from unprocessed or minimally processed

sources which allows you to eat enough

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and minerals probiotics and

micronutrients that we all need for

physical and mental health now I

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or minimally processed sources but the

reason I still take ag1 once and often

twice every day is that it ensures I get

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probiotics Etc but it also has

adaptogens to help me cope with stress

it's basically a nutritional insurance

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afternoon or evening I cover all of my

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huberman at some point there was a lot

of discussion about training fasted

burns more body fat uh I think now most

people accept that that's not the case

that perhaps the percentage of fat as

fuel is increased when one trains fasted

but that overall in terms of loss of

body fat it doesn't matter if you train

fasted or you train fed correct okay I

think um that can't be stated Enough by

experts like you um that doesn't mean

that if one prefers to train fasted or

with a minimum of food in their gut that

they can't do that I like to train

fasted but I what I'm hearing is that

women should probably ingest at least

some protein high quality protein and

maybe drink the protein in a protein

shake yeah um form if they don't want to

ingest solid food yeah I think the

easiest way for people to understand the

basic idea of what low energy is and how

this affects men and women is when we're

looking at um a Tipping Point for

endocrine dysfunction for men we're

seeing that Tipping Point at 15 calories

per kilogram of fat-free mass for women

it's 30 so when we're looking at

Baseline calorie needs before you really

get into that endocrine dysfunction when

you're looking at those parameters you

can see why men do better in a fasted

state or a low calorie state but for

women our intake and especially our

carbohydrate needs are so much higher

because we have so many other functions

that are reliant on that kisspeptin up

regulation or down regulation preferably

up regulation um so when we're just

talking the basic calorie needs and what

we're seeing it's that dichotomy right

there of 15 to 30 and when you start

telling people that they're like oh okay

I get it is that a biological aspect

it's like well you could trace it all

the way back where you know men went out

to get the calories in most tribes and

the women were home and it wasn't

advantageous to be pregnant under low

calorie intake that's why you have

dysfunction when the calories are too

low but you know you can also feed

forward to modern day now and you're

seeing that all this perturbance of

hormone and the way we regulate hormone

across the Circadian rhythm requires

more calories for women than it does for

men I know some men that basically don't

eat all day and then eat one meal in the

evening and they'll train in the morning

that's inconceivable to me because

within an hour or so of training I'm

hungry uh which brings to mind what we

mean when we say training uh I'm a big

believer in people everybody getting

ideally two or three resistance training

sessions in per week and two maybe three

cardiovascular training sessions per

week that would be ideal yep um one

could potentially do more probably not a

whole lot less before you run into

long-term health issues that you could

offset but I think most people can fit

those in and I'm very frankly delighted

that nowadays there's such a push for

women and men to resistance train that

wasn't the case when I was growing up

for you know I recall taking my sister

to the gym for the first time and was

like I think she was the only woman in

the gym when we were in high school yeah

except for a few female bodybuilders and

she said well I don't want to look like

that and I said well don't worry you're

not going to look like that um but now

you go to a gym and women are lifting

weights men are lifting weights it's

great it's terrific I've seen the

evolution right when I was 16 one of my

friends Brothers was a bodybuilder and

he took us to the gym of like what you

did with your sister and so both of us

were like well we want to beat those

guys so we got into weight training with

them not to be bodybuilder but it's been

like the Paramount throughout all of my

athletic career used to be I'd be the

only woman on the lifting platform and

now it's like you have to wait because

there's so many women on the lifting

platforms I love it it's great yeah it's

awesome as I mentioned before I've had

female training partners and they they

kill it yeah they um it's a lot of fun

to have a um female training partner

also because

um not only is it cool to see the

progress they can make really quickly

which surprises them often you know I

think a lot of women think that okay

it's going to require external androgens

or it's going you know and and what you

pointed out that there are some barriers

to women putting on mass quickly I think

I've noticed that strength increases can

come really quickly why is that it's a

central nervous system aspect there's a

lot of like if we look at the culture of

how a lot of us grew up and I'm saying

us like 45 plus right the women were all

the 90s supermodels don't show muscle

that kind of stuff so always been

gravitated to cardio even now if you go

to a gym and you're a new member you're

signing up for a new member and you're a

woman they'll say hey great here's all

of our spin classes and our box fit

classes they still doing that yeah and

there's a cardiovascular machines a guy

comes in like all right how much do you

want to put on here are the lifting

platforms all the you know the weight

trainings at the back starting to see a

shift with Boutique type gems but that's

still the commonality there so it's

still that little bit of taboo so when

women start strength training they

haven't been exposed to that kind of

central nervous system stress before and

the whole aspect of getting the nerve

and the acetylcholine which are are

little vesicles that you know hold the

ability for the nerve to actually

stimulate the muscle fiber all that gets

trained really quickly so the more that

you train it and the more muscle fibers

that are recruited for contraction you

see an increase in strength really

rapidly and slowly building on that for

increased muscle bulk because it takes a

long time for women to put bulk on uh

because the driver for strength training

is that Central Nervous System um so

it's great when we see higher doses more

volume we aren't seeing huge hypertrophy

we're just seeing really good increases

in strength whenever somebody male or

female is concerned about growing too

big too fast um I always remind them

that resistance training is unique among

different types of exercise in that

because of the blood flow to the muscle

during the exercise session the soc

called pump yeah you get a window a

transient window but a window

nonetheless of what the hyper could look

like if you do everything else correctly

in terms of recovery so provided that

the um the size of the muscle during the

training session is not aversive to you

yeah you're okay you're good yeah um

which is unique among you know training

it's not like when you go running you

get a sense of being much faster you

actually get the opposite effect you you

feel the burn in your lungs and and the

pain of of hitting the wall of your

limits and then hopefully if the

adaptation takes place then you can push

past that next time but with resistance

train you get a liter Lally a physical

picture and a and a sematic feeling for

what that hypertrophy could look like

yeah that's why on your physique

competitions and bodybuilding

competitions they're out the back

pumping before they go on stage so we've

been talking about training but we

haven't really spelled out what you

would suggest a

novice perhaps an intermediate um

resistance training cardiovascular

training um program would look like in

in Broad terms I realize we don't have

time here to get into all the DET you WR

this elere and refer people to those

teric resources and the show note

captions but um what would you like to

see women doing and maybe we can break

up the the age brackets because it

sounds like this is something that um is

resurfacing again and again here um

women let's say 30 and younger women 31

to let's say 40 and then let's say 41 to

60 and then maybe 61 and on in terms of

how many sessions of resistance training

per week is it whole body training how

many sessions of cardiovascular training

and what sorts of examples could could

you give yeah so if we're looking at

that 20 20 to 30 year old a lot of times

I really try to get them to focus on the

whole movement aspect first so we phase

them in same with older women phase them

in learn how to move learn complex

movements so that when you are going in

to do resistance training preferably

three to four times a week you can look

at moving well and it doesn't have to be

a long period of time if you're doing to

failure which works really well when

you're younger to increase strength and

a little bit of hypertrophy you're going

to have to spend a little bit more time

in the gym so it might be 45 to 60

minutes when we're looking at doing that

four times a week you can add in a

Sprint interval training at the end of

one of those to get that super high

intensity or you can look at putting in

at the most two hit sessions from on

separate days if you're training

specifically for something so if I work

with a lot of endurance athletes still

and they're like well how do I fit it in

it's like okay well we look at the

Quality and how that fits into your

training so if you're training for a

marathon you're training for a triathlon

or other endurance stuff you can take

that high-intensity work and put it into

your training program so ideally we look

at three to four resistance training

with really good movement when we're in

the younger set with two high

intensities when we start getting into

our 30s we start having an eye to how

are we actually doing that resistance

training instead of just going and doing

a circuit we're really focusing on let's

do some compound movements let's look at

doing some heavier work let's look at

how we are periodizing so we're having

you know six we blocks and we're

building on those blocks because we want

that base foundation so when we get to

be 40 plus we can actually go and do our

powerbase training if you're in your 40s

you've never done resistance training at

all then we take

between two weeks to four months to

really learn how to move well because

there's a higher incidence of soft

tissue injury and overall injury as we

get into our 40s because of

perturbations of estrogen and ideally

when we get there we're looking at that

around three minimum three resistance

training with compound movement

and either one Sprint interval or two

Sprint intervals and one hit in a week

and just to remind people compound

movements multi-joint movements squats

deadlifts uh chin-ups rows overhead

presses bench presses Etc as opposed to

isolation movements where only one joint

is is moving yeah yeah and for everybody

in all those age ranges that you

describe are you suggesting they train

the same muscle groups three or four

times per week or do some sort of split

where it's upper body lower body take a

day off or upper body take a day off

lower body take a day off whatever that

what might work for them yeah what works

for them if you're looking for short

amount of time in the gym because of

busy lives then you can split it if

you're looking at okay well I can

allocate an hour to an hour and a half

in the gym then you can do total body

with adequate rest um the key when

you're younger is working to failure the

key when you're older is working heavy

interesting yeah so when we're looking

at working to failure we're trying to

get more of that lean mass growth with

strength when we get older because it's

so difficult to put on lean mass we

really want to focus on the strength

component because that becomes more

important when we're talking about

longevity because if you're looking at

the strength component from a central

nervous system standpoint we see it

feeds forward into better appropri

reception attenuation of cognitive

decline and this is the other thing that

you in Neuroscience would understand the

sex differences in things like dementia

and Alzheimer's there's some really

interesting research looking at strength

training and that power-based stuff when

we're getting into our older ages

because we get more neural growth

patterns and more neural Pathways even

some interesting literature about

emphasizing some unilateral movements as

people get older not just um dual limb

movements or dual limb simultaneous

movements you always want to train both

sides of your body folks but um so if I

understand correctly younger women

should train to failure try and generate

strength and hypertrophy as women get

older they should emphasize more

strength training leave some repetitions

in reserve but train heavier yes it

makes so much sense what you're saying

yeah um because what we know about the

nervous system as we age is that there's

some atrophy or at least some weakening

of neuromuscular connections and the

upper motor neurons in the brain that

control the neuromuscular Connections in

the spinal cord out to the muscle yeah

um there's something really sticky about

this idea in terms of longevity that I

don't think anyone else has ever said no

the thing about it is men age more in a

linear

fashion whereas women we have a

definitive point in our late 40s early

50s where all of a sudden things go to

where it's that per menopausal

State and I can't tell you how many

emails and DMs I get in a day from women

who are like I'm 46 or I'm 47 I'm

putting on body fat I don't know what's

going on I can't sleep and then when we

say it's per menopause they like what is

that and so when we're looking at per

menopause it is a

huge change in the body because you're

having less and less of your sex hormone

circulating more and more an ovulatory

Cycles means no progesterone or very low

progesterone you're having a difference

in the pulse of your estrad to those

Flatline aspect effects and because

every system in the body is affected by

it this is why you see more soft tissue

injuries like two of the biggest things

that women who are in their 40s are

going to ptas about her frozen shoulder

and pler fascia those are two really

indicative issues that are happening in

Parry menopause so that whole section of

mid to mid 40s to early 50s is a

definitive aging point where I really

tried to get women to get into the heavy

lifting and get into the patterns of

polarizing their training not putting an

emphasis on zone two just really looking

at how am I polarizing how am I

affecting my central nervous system so

that when they get into that one point

in time of that perimenopause their body

is already conditioned for the stress

that's coming whereas men we see that

kind of stuff happens in their late 50s

early 60s so the soft tissue injuries

the change in body comp comes at a later

time so yes looking at how we're scoping

our strength

training definitely something to think

about in a longevity Factor but for

women it's a there's a better indication

of the timing across the ages of when

you should start implementing for men I

think you have a better bandwidth of

when you should start

implementing for women who are not on

hormone replacement therapy and we did a

previous episode about per menopause

menopause and hormone replacement

therapy but if it comes up again and

again today that would be wonderful

because these are important underd

discussed topics

absolutely for women that are not on

hormone replacement therapy who decide

to train heavier maybe do a bit more

training volume not train to failure

they're making sure to not let their

cortisol Spike too much by making sure

they have some pre-workout nutrition

some post-workout

nutrition would they be wise

to be very careful in how much

cardiovascular exercise they add to that

meaning

there seems to always be this risk of

overtraining and as you pointed out for

various reasons cultural reasons

historical reasons um around

exercise I my observation is that most

women sort of unless they know better

default to cardiovascular exercise as

opposed to resistance training so if a

woman in her 40s late 30s to let's say

50 is doing two to four sessions of

resistance training workouts per week

and they also really like cardio or they

feel they want to or should do

cardio should they be careful about how

much cardio they're doing and is there a

best form of cardio should they really

emphasize the high-intensity interval

training should they avoid zone two we

should probably also Divine for people

what zone two is if they if they don't

already know um so I am notorious for

slamming things like orange theory and

f45 because they mark it specifically to

that age group of women and it's not

appropriate because it's not true

high-intensity work when we're looking

at women who are really trying to

maximize body composition change and

Longevity and unfortunately default to

cardio because they think oh that's

going to help change my body composition

is going to help me lose body fat it

doesn't is this things like Soul cycle

as well okay I've never done any of

these yeah um but I imagine there's a

lot of spinning a lot of moving a lot of

sweating and a lot of quote unquote

calories burned emphasis yes there is

but it's it puts women squarely in

moderate intensity where they're so used

to leaving one of those classes feeling

absolutely smashed that when you tell

them actually that training doesn't work

for you because it's putting you in a

state of intensity that drives cortisol

up but it's not a strong enough stress

to invoke the post exercise growth

hormone and testosterone responses that

we want to dampen that cortisol so this

is why we have that hyperbole of women

who are in their 40s plus shouldn't do

high intensity work it's like well

actually they shouldn't do moderate

intensity they need to avoid that

polarizing absolutely that's what we

want we want true high-intensity work

which is 1 to four minutes of 80% or

more or if you're doing Sprint interval

it's full gas for 30 seconds or less and

you're doing that a couple of times a

week you're not doing it every day

because you need to have enough recovery

to hit those intensities trly

because those are the intensities that

are going to give you those post

exercise hormonal responses to drop

cortisol when we're looking at women who

are like oh well I love going out for

hours and hours on my bike and I love

you know doing my spin classes it's like

okay but we need to look at the big rock

here if you are looking for longevity

and body composition change and

cognition and all those things you have

to polarize your training and that has

to be the focus but soul food like I

come from a long background of endurance

I now love riding my gravel bike on the

weekends for long periods of time which

is not optimal for me my age that kind

of stuff for all the things that I want

to see improvements in but mentally it's

great so we talk about going out for

that long stuff zone two is at low

conversation and that's fine for mental

health and being out in nature but for

Optimal Health and well-being we don't

want to do that we want to look at

resistance training as a bedrock and

true high-intensity work to help with

body composition change metabolic

control insulin sensitivity brain health

and dropping that

cortisol I have family members who are

women who are thin because they love to

walk and they just walk a ton um and

they eat well um and enough

but they are resistant to resistance

training and if they do pick up a weight

it's usually some very light dumbbells

do a few curls a couple tricep

extensions and aren't really um leaning

into the higher intensity work yeah I

think this is pretty common and my

observation is that it's common not

because they couldn't be incentivized to

do the higher intensity work but that

learning the complex compound movement

like how to squat properly or even leg

press properly y um deadlift properly

can be a bit overwhelming especially

when one walks into a gym this is true

for men too like all this stuff all this

equipment all these bodies and these

people look like they know what they're

doing it's like if I were to go into an

advanced like kitchen or or um Symphony

and you know all these instruments I

don't know how to play yeah so what's

the best line of attack for somebody who

really wants to overcome this uh

longevity barrier because clearly

resistance training proper nutrition

work yeah and the cardiovascular

exercise piece is a little bit more

intuitive walking you do it faster

you're jogging you do it faster you're

running yeah yeah um the bike the soul

cycle class Etc it's just it's easier in

terms of the mechanics one can still get

hurt but it's just more straightforward

is there a way that in the absence of a

budget for a personal trainer that

somebody can learn how to do these

movements and as you said ease into them

over the course of even up to four

months in a way that they can be

confident that they're unlikely to get

hurt yeah and really build up their

capacity to do real work that can

benefit them yeah this is where I love

technology for one thing but if we're

staying really basic I look at some of

my family members and I've gotten them

started with just body weight stuff or

loading a backpack with cans to add a

little bit of resistance so they feel

comfortable in their own house and they

might be doing lunges or squats um just

keying them up of like where foot

placement and knee and that kind of

stuff so they're getting used to that

kind of movement um I love Kelly

starett's stuff with Mobility so show

them like here's how we do some of the

mobility to find where the sticking

points are and then you can either

direct them to some of the programs that

are out there that um like Haley happens

has some really good ones for women or

40 plus so does

um uh Brie and then Sunny Webster down

in Australia

you can send in a video of what you're

doing and he can critique you and tell

you things to do there are other

programs like that too um so there's

lots of ways of getting help if you seek

it the personal trainer is very much a

stumbling block for a lot of people and

as much as I am not a fan of Planet

Fitness I am a fan of the fact that

they've made it really easy for someone

to walk in who's interested in

resistance training and they can go to a

circuit one of the circuit things that

they have at the back and they can start

resistance training on machines which is

another level up to learning compound

movements so there's lots of ways of

breaking that barrier to entry you just

have to find the motivation factor of

what's going to incentivize the person

to give up their time walking every day

and taking time to go to the gym or

taking time to do garage based stuff

that's going to improve their lean

mass I'm a big fan of machines

especially plate loed machines but

machines just create the close to

correct or correct Arc of movement yeah

that um so for your size yeah yeah yeah

exactly and to really spend the time

adjusting the seat height adjusting the

various um pins on the machine not just

the weight in order to make sure that

one gets the best range of motion I

think this is something small but that

is significant in terms of its impact

people just pop down in a machine

especially if you're working in with

somebody and feel um especially

beginners will feel pressured to move

quickly and they won't adjust the seat

height and so it's just all wrong for

them and all it takes is a little bit of

time to you know and ask people you know

how to adjust the machines I'm also a

fan of kettle bells in in the garage or

light lighter dumbbells that you can do

like thrusters or hang cleans or

something like that to get the the

momentum and movement feeling um because

that's another good learning curve for

people um so like I said there's lots of

ways that you can Implement Things based

on someone's intuitive like or dislike

of resistance training so you've

mentioned polarized training if I

understand correctly this would be a

woman doing three or four days of

high-intensity resistance training for

45 to 60 or 45 to 75 minutes per session

and then at the opposite

extreme maybe just walking a lot or

jogging a lot so is that what you're

talking about polarized training as

opposed to um these other forms of

training where it's designed to get

people sweating like crazy breathing

hard for long periods of time but

neither putting them at the in the

landscape of inducing muscle strength

adaptations and hypertrophy adaptations

nor really taxing the cardiovascular

system enough to create you know an

increase in longevity for instance when

I talk about polarizing I look at the

high-intensity strength like that's

really hard on the central nervous

system and then we look from a

cardiovascular standpoint of doing true

high-intensity work so the walking is

more of the recovery so if you're going

to go out and do something long it has

to be very very easy if you are looking

at cardiovascular and you want that big

sweat then we are talking true Sprint

interval training so what I have a lot

of women do is a 20 minute lower body

heavy set and then they'll go on the

assault but and do as hard as they can

for 30 seconds and then recover as much

as they need to to go then do another 30

seconds as hard as they can most people

go oh I can do four or five of those

after two they're completely gassed

because it's that hard of work and

that's what I mean by polarizing you

have very very low intensity for

recovery and super super high intensity

for metabolic and cardiovascular changes

is what we're after I'd like to take a

quick break to let you know that the

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now again the podcast is called perform

with Dr Andy Galpin let's talk about the

menstrual cycle yeah and how that

impacts training at the level of

Psychology and Physiology meaning Mo and

of course the two are linked they're

inextricably

linked for instance is there a

particular phase of the m cycle where a

woman should expect that motivation

Andor recovery would be more

challenging so this is the sticky point

of recent science because we see all

these research studies and met analyses

that are coming out of the sports

science literature saying that there is

no effect of the menstrual cycle on

anything when you look at that

population it is specifically you menic

women might have an a subject pool of 10

if you're lucky 12 so this is women who

have quote unquote normal menstrual

cycles humanic supposedly ovulating so

they have a definitive low hormone and

high hormone phase and this is probably

because these studies are being done on

University campuses with with college

undergraduate women yes exactly yeah

which is a typically is in a given age

range right okay and they look at

performance meaning that one point in

time and we know that psychologically

you can perform at any point in the

menstrual cycle unless you have

something like heavy menstrual belief

um when we're looking at a higher touch

and looking not only from a molecular

aspect but also pulling in mixed methods

and looking at the qualitative we need

women to track their own cycle and find

their own patterns because we know that

there are times where you feel like crap

and you can't push intensity but that

might be on day eight for one woman it

might be day 18 for another from a

molecular standpoint we know that theow

hormone phase being day one is the first

day of bleeding up through ovulation

which is Midway through your

cycle you have a greater capacity for

pulling in and accommodating stress

physical and mental stress so if we're

looking at doing heavier loads we're

looking at doing high intensity work

we're looking at

motivation then that low hormone phase

is really optimal for trying to hit a PR

trying to hit a new speed because you

can take on that stress and you're

immune system handles it your muscles

handle it your core temperature

everything handles it so for most women

in the weeks before their period they're

going to feel more robust except right

up until the point of um of menstration

or the inverse it is day one a bleeding

up through midcycle that feel great yep

the sticky Point comes not every woman

ovulates and this is a thing when we're

looking at will pop we have lifestyle

stress we have nutrition stress we know

that women for the most part have four

to five an ovulatory Cycles a year so

this is where when you're looking at

that high hormone phase we can't say

you're definitively in the high hormone

phase so this is where we need women to

track their own cycles and understand

their own patterns because in an Ideal

World we know that in the ludal phase

this is where where we have the most

change where we have a pro-inflammatory

response from the immune system we have

uh inability to access carbohydrate as

well we have a higher sympathetic drive

so there's lots of things in there that

aren't so fantastic for accommodating

stress so broadly speaking the ludal

phase is associated with more

cortisol more kind of Baseline levels of

stress would it makes sense for a woman

to try and offset some of that with a

bit more nutrition during that phase a

bit more perhaps complex carbohydrate we

know that some complex carbohydrate can

blunt some of the cortisol response

maybe just even a little bit more

attention to eating yeah absolutely I

mean core temperature goes up but the

whole goal of the ludal phase is to

build tissue so this is where we're

seeing a lot of shuttling of

carbohydrate and amino acids to go to

build that endometrial lining and that's

the whole goal so yes you need to eat

more protein you need to eat more

carbohydrate but again the sticking

point is did you ovulate or not so if

you aren't aware of if you ovulate it or

not you're tracking your own patterns

then just be acutely aware that in about

the week before your next period comes

you really need to be amping up

carbohydrate and protein um because

that's going to help you hit intensities

it's going to kind of level that playing

field especially on days where you feel

like you can really hit those

intensities you feel great but then you

go to do something and your heart rate's

higher than it should be you don't feel

that that you can hit those if you're

offsetting it with some increased

carbohydrate beforehand and you're going

to hit it so it's again it's really

dialing it back down to the individual

now because we don't have enough robust

research to make generalized ideas

because of the Nuance of have you

ovulated or not what are your ratios of

estrogen progesterone in that ludal

phase so when we bring it back down to

the general pop it's like the best thing

to do is to track your menstrual cycle

over sleep over how you're feeling find

your own pattern patterns and dial in

your training in your days according to

what your pattern

is how hard should a woman push through

the mental and maybe even physical

resistance to train less or not train

during a given phase of the cycle

getting depends on how she feels what we

can't rely on are things like heart rate

variability because we know that changes

with the autonomic nervous system change

progesterone it's a good indication that

you've ovulated because your heart rate

variability tanks but it's not a good

indication of what your body can do if

you wake up I always say it's the

10-minute rule you wake up and you feel

awful and you're like uh I really want

to do this workout but I don't know how

it's going to go give yourself 10

minutes if after 10 minutes you can't

hit those intensities or you just feel

horrible change it drop it down do

something that's more recovery do

something that's not going to be so

taxing because we do have a limited

amount of that stress Acumen of how much

stress we can handle so if you're going

to try to exert it all in a high

intensity work out what do you have left

over for the rest of the day and then

that compounds because if you're always

fighting it then you're going to

increase this Baseline sympathetic drive

because you're fighting the training

you're fighting life so give yourself

that 10-minute roll if it happens three

days in a row that's okay because it's a

very short period of time it's not going

to last forever so a lot of women have

this internal conversation of I have to

do this and it's really based on some

kind of external they think everyone's

watching them but internally you don't

have to if you give yourself permission

you end up training better recovering

better and getting better gains on the

flip side if a woman is feeling

spectacularly

good should she just really push it as

hard as she can or is there anything

about the relationship between the

hormone fluctuations of the menstrual

cycle and feeling really really great

that training hard can somehow disrupt

the cycle and this is actually kind of

the uh the old lore um probably myth I

would imagine that high intensity

resistance training is somehow

detrimental to female hormone Cycles I

don't think there's any evidence for

that but I hear that from time to time

um why do you think that myth came to be

why do you think it propagates and what

can we do to extinguish it if in fact

it's not true it's not true we see it

comes from a misstep and food intake and

we also see that it's a cultural

influence because if we think about how

sport started it started as a way for

men to demonstrate how powerful and

aggressive they are and this is the

original Olympics right there are no

women allowed and as we feed forward

into Sport and how it became okay for

women to be

involved at the high performance level

if a woman walks in and shows any

fallibility then she's immediately put

on a lower stool right no you can't you

can't play with the boys because you

have a menstrual cycle you're bleeding

you're a woman you're a delicate flower

so women would walk into that

professional sports space and be excited

if they were a menic or didn't have

periods or they trained hard enough and

their period went away because then they

were more like men and they could play

with the boys if you start bringing up

menstrual cycle in professional sport

now as of the past about four or five

years it's okay to talk about which is

you know what

2020 so that myth of high-intensity

resistance training causing issues with

the menstrual cycle one it's a cultural

Nuance for push back against women being

in that space But then the reality is

women weren't eating enough to

accommodate for that stress which then

feeds forward to low energy availability

maybe relative energy deficiency in

sport perturbations in all of our

menstrual cycle hormones so it's not the

act of the high-intensity resistance

training it's the act of not fueling

appropriately for it and then getting

the okay to not have your period because

yeah now you're you're in with you're

training hard enough you've lost it

you're more like a

man wow um very interesting history

there is it true then that if a woman

maintains either um caloric balance with

her basically eating enough to support

her energy output or even a slight

caloric Surplus that it's unlikely that

um her periods will cease even if she's

training very hard very often correct so

it basically boils down to calories in

calories out fuel for the task at hand

because some people want to have a

slight calorie deficit even in high

training and if that deficit is at night

away from training maybe 150 to 200

calories then it's going to help

perpetuate body fat loss not lean mass

loss and it's not going to interfere

with recovery it's the fueling in around

the stress

meaning they exercise stress it's really

important but women have been so

conditioned to not eat and not take up

SP space to be small you know all of

these sociocultural things that women

are afraid to admit the fact that they

want to eat and they should be eating so

this is a a a Nuance within the fitness

community that we're really trying to

change and get the mindset around you

train hard you eat well and your body

responds in kind app tight body

temperature and hormones are very

tightly linked yes they are um far too

tightly for us to uh disentangle all of

those in a single conversation here but

as you're describing the urgent need for

women to fuel enough with the proper

fuels to train hard enough to stimulate

the correct adaptations that they

need I imagine that the shift in

appetite and body temperature that

occurs across the menstrual cycle is

also going to play into this meaning

there will be phases of the menstrual

cycle where women will be just naturally

less motivated to eat enough

carbohydrate enough protein in order to

get the most out of their training what

phases of the menstrual cycle are those

um so that women can pay particular

attention to make sure that they're

fueling enough yeah um as estrogen

starts to come up right before ovulation

that estrogen surge really dampens

appetite uh it also has a an interplay

with our appetite hormones which is part

of the reason why we don't have that

great of an appetite it holds after

ovulation estrogen dips you get hungry

it comes up and people are like I have

some Cravings which are driven by

progesterone because your body needs

more calories but at the same time with

the elevation of estrogen you're not

hungry you have cravings but you're not

hungry interesting yeah so it's trying

to disconnect those it's like your

appetite is something that will come

back of course once you eat but Cravings

are more of a of that psychological

capacity of yeah I my body needs more

but I'm not quite sure what so to get

women to understand what's happening

across the board it's always coming back

to Let's fuel appropriately for the

exercise and even if you're not hungry

if you are fueling appropriate

appropriately at that point in time if

you end up with less at least you've

stopped that breakdown State the

catabolic state so we don't get those

perturbations in the hypothalamus that's

my biggest concern for women is really

taking care of that signaling from the

brain to the rest of the body and if we

have fuel on board even though we have

appetite perturbations and if you go do

a really hard workout in the heat you're

not going to be hungry either but if

you're having a cold protein drink after

that hot workout you're taking care of

that immediate need to shut down the

signals that we need to break down

things let's talk about one of the many

third rails of um discussions online

which is birth control yeah and we need

to Define exactly what type of birth

control we're talking about because

there are so many different forms yes

there are iuds there are the copper iuds

there's the ring there's the you know

let's talk about oral contraceptives

that are designed to prevent ovulation

so this is quote unquote the pill y so

we're being let's for now limit the

conversation to that so that there isn't

confusion um share with us if you will

your thoughts on these how they impact

any of the things that we're talking

about or anything else from that for

that matter can we have another history

lesson please all right um I just gave a

talk at home to some young athletes on

contraception because someone might be

on the depot and if they're on it for

more than two years they get bone

mineral density loss so then the

question of okay how does the oral

contraceptive pill come up how does that

affect things it's like well let's look

at the history of it

initially came from Stanford was funded

by um Katherine McCormick from McCormick

family and a feminist activist Margaret

Singer but because they were women they

couldn't get in the lab so they got a

guy from Stanford to develop the pill

and he's like you know what we need to

put in a placebo week so that women feel

like they're having a bleed so if we're

looking at the three active pills and

then the one sugar pill week it was by

Design to make women feel like they are

having control over their menstrual

cycle and they would still have a bleed

but it's not a true bleed it's a

withdrawal bleed so this becomes the

confusing point for people who are on an

oral contraceptive pill they're like I

get my period it's like no you don't

because the idea of the hormones that

are in an oral contraceptive pill is to

downregulate your ovarian function so

that you don't ovulate so you have a

whole different hormone profile from

someone who naturally Cycles so this

depends on

the type of oral contraceptive pill you

are using for the most part monophasic

is the one that's most prescribed so

that means the three weeks of the active

pill is the same dose of estrogen

progesterone and then you have your

sugar pill week or your withdrawal week

and then you start again when we look at

the repercussions of using oral

contraceptive pill in active women

there's a higher amount of inflammatory

responses and oxidative responses so

from a training standpoint no one's done

the study yet but I would be interested

in doing this of looking at how that

impacts adaptation you do end up with a

new Baseline of this when you start

taking the pill but we're not really

sure how that impacts adaptation we also

look at the progestin component of the

oral contraceptive pill because we have

four generations of

progesterone first generation was really

high dose and has a lot of risk factors

not really prescribed that much second

generation is the most prescribed and

this is the one that people just take

it's in your IUD it's in your OC uh has

the least amount of side effects and

then we have a third and a fourth

generation the fourth generation is

primarily used for women who have really

bad PMS or pmdd which is your um

premenstrual dysphoria Disorder so

significant mood issues because that

progestin has a direct effect on a lot

of the dopamine receptors in the brain

as well the third generation is very

androgenic so we see that in in some

preliminary research that improves speed

and Power by the second week of intake

because it's accumulated so when we're

looking directly at an oral

contraceptive pill we can't make

generalizations because you have low

dose highd dose estrogen we see that a

30 microgram dose increases hypertrophy

but not strength because estrogen

increases the satellite cell aspect ECT

um so for my power in Olympic athletes

Olympic lifting athletes that's a

detriment because they'll put on muscle

mass but no strength so we've had to

look at changing their OC or getting

them off for women who have breakthrough

bleeding that higher incidence of or

that higher intake of estrogen is is

really beneficial so we look overall at

how it impacts women from an athletic

standpoint it's so variable in the

hormone profile that we can't make

generalizations we only look at the very

high performance athletes and what's

happening up there because that can make

or break an athlete so from the general

touch point we don't know enough like

the beginning of this year 2024 there

was a study that came out looking at

changes in the amydala that happens with

oral contraceptive use it's reversible

in adults but for young girls we don't

know because their brain is developing

and unfortunately Physicians will pass

out OC's as if it's candy OC's or a

contracep contraceptives and do you

recall what the direction of the effect

was on the amydala for those that don't

recall the amydala bilateral brain

structure meaning one on each side of

your brain uh literally means almond in

Latin it's almond shaped and it's part

of a larger Network associated with

threat detection um sometimes it's

described the locus of fear in the brain

but it's involved in a lot of other

things too both positive veilance and

negative alance but nonetheless is part

of the um threat detection system

elevated levels of

arousal which is why it's often

discussed in the context of fear anxiety

Etc it increased fear in women who were

on the OC oral contraceptive pill made

them less um willing to take

chances and when they went off it

they're like why couldn't I do that

before so that's why they started

looking at the Amala and when I say

we're looking at young girls and again

we don't know what's happening is it

reversible in young girls that are put

on it or not because of the brain

structure changes that are happening um

so when we talk about an oral

contraceptive pill I want people to

understand that it has a significant

effect on the body not just reproductive

we don't know enough about all the other

effects so I have parents who say my

daughter wants to go on the oral

contraceptive pill she's having

irregular periods she's a athlete we

want to be able to control it and it's

like if there's a issue with your

menstrual cycle now it's still going to

be there when you get off it so we have

to look and see what what's going on

here if you're looking to get on it to

control your menstrual cycle why because

we know that you can have an increase in

your V2 Max and other an anerobic

capacity when you are not on it so you

have a better top end capacity when

you're not being blunted by these

hormones and then the other conversation

is oh my skin it's like well they have

really good Dermatology that can help

you with that you don't have to go on an

oral contraceptive pill but

unfortunately GPS don't understand all

of that and if a girl comes in and says

I'm having irregular Cycles heavy

menstrual bleeding I want to go on the

OC here you go so it is a huge

conversation still we had um I put it in

the same category as menopause hormone

therapy because there isn't enough

research to address all the population

needs and we see these big pendulum

switches so before it was like everyone

be on the OC and now it's like maybe not

and then it was no one be on menopause

hormone therapy everyone should be on it

but we need to land in the middle and

understand more of what's happening with

these exogenous hormones is there any

evidence that other forms of female

contraception can be let's just say

problematic for the types of things

we're discussing today like the implant

in the Depot or IUD copper IUD copper I

and the Marino or you know your

progestin laced IUD those are what a lot

of my tactical athletes will use

because it doesn't have a systemic

effect on adaptation or inflammation

mood any of those things um and it's a

fit and forget so you can put it in for

up to 3 to five years if you have a

really heavy bleeding it really

dissipates because the whole idea of an

IUD is to thin the endometrial lining

and so then you have autophagy that

takes care of the endometrial lining so

you don't necessarily have a bleed the

copper IED is different because you do

have really heavy bleeding for the first

three cycles and then it attenuates

before we got started today you

mentioned some very

interesting pioneering studies on

evaluating menstrual blood itself as a

window into some larger themes about

what's going on physiologically maybe

even psychologically um now might be a

good time seg to uh just touch into that

we can always return to it again later

but let me just ask it um more directly

what are some things that can be

measured directly from menstrual

blood that are informative for women and

it sounds like there's a new generation

of at home tests that might be

interesting and informative for them to

think about yeah well if you think about

menstrual fluid everyone thinks about it

as a discard product but it's a very

good indicator of what's Happening from

an endocrine standpoint gives a really

good indication of what's Happening from

an endometrial standpoint so if you're

looking at all the cyto and the proteins

and the tissue that comes from it it's a

huge indicator that's naturally

discharged that we're now looking at for

determining HPV do you have it or not

what about proteins for PCOS can we

really identify PCOS or endometriosis

can we talk about PCOS for a moment most

people have heard of it by now but

polycystic ovarian syndrome It's

associated with typically elevated

androgens um it's becoming more and more

common or perhaps detected more based on

better detection methods I don't know

which um the prevalence of PCOS seems to

be very very high it does and I think

it's a combination of both uh we also

see some rebound PCOS that happens when

someone gets off the oral contraceptive

pill it's not necessarily true pcus

because what's happening now your

ovaries are producing eggs m that have

been downregulated for so long so under

ultrasound it might look like PCOS but

it's not necessarily true indication the

other is more and more women are

starting to eat more and so they're

coming out of low energy availability if

you have more carbohydrate you end up

with greater folicular stimulation which

also shows up as PCOS so the true PCOS

yes there is a high incidence from a

reporting standpoint but is it that

rebound where it's not having all the

androgenetic changes that's still kind

of up in the air at the moment um but it

is a big concern for women because it is

an indication that something's going on

and they might have some fertility

issues uh we see a really high incidence

of PCOS in Olympic level athletes

because of the higher androgenic aspect

of PCOS so better recovery time a little

bit higher Baseline

testosterone um so yeah it's a

population spec specificity as well in

the 80s and 90s there was a lot of

excitement in the kind of

neurobehavioral Endocrinology Fields

largely based on animal literature but

then expanding into human literature

that certain forms of activities could

change hormone patterns and maybe even

psychology and that makes sense on the

surface of it but is there evidence that

um if somebody engages in say

high-intensity training or competitive

scenarios this has been explored a lot

in men but I'm wondering if it's also

been explored now in women

that androgens go up you know I mean

there's been these studies I don't know

how good they are of you know um people

on the stock exchange you know watching

their stress fluctuations measuring

testosterone I think most of those

studies were done in men um but other

competitive scenarios even showing for

instance that exogenous testosterone can

increase altruism in men if men are

competing for who's like donating the

most money at a Phil philanthropic event

but you put them in a different scenario

where it's far less benevolent in in

goal and then they'll uh exogenous

testosterone drives competitiveness

towards um things that are more

traditionally thought of as male male

competition uh in other words it's all

context dependent um is there anything

that kind of Springs to mind of

interesting studies as it relates to

androgens or uh estrogens in women

athletes and as it relates to

exercise they haven't done any specific

studies like that in women we do see

that under stress the cortisol increases

and if you have an adequate uh response

to it and your body can overcome it then

yes you get a boost in testosterone for

women um we see this in a lot of the

night Mission shift changes in tactical

athletes there is also uh I guess a

lessening of circulating estrogen so the

pulse changes when we start getting to

the end of a really strong training

block because we're starting to have a

little bit of a down regulation of our

leutinizing hormone pulse and estrogen

um but it shouldn't be severe enough to

cause menstrual cycle dysfunction what

we want people to do is look at the

ratio of their estrogen progesterone and

keeping track of luteinizing hormone if

they are at that point where they are

going to have a really big training

block so we look at pre-season during

season end of season and people who

might be at a higher risk factor for

becoming a menic then we keep track that

way um because it is the stress

component that can downregulate not

actually causing a permanent change as

we talk about menstration we should

probably talk about iron stores and um

Iron yeah um do women need to supplement

iron given that they lose iron during

menstration it's interesting because we

have a change in heepen or heidin

depending on which part of the world you

come from uh because it is increased

under times of inflammation and

decreased under times of iron loss so we

see a a significant change across the

menstrual cycle so I tell women if you

are concerned with low fertin then we

want you to take an iron supplement

every other day starting in the first

day of your bleed for 10 days because

that's going to really allow your body

to absorb it and stay on top of it um

after that every other day yeah but

you're not going to be absorbing as much

of it because hepsin starts to come up

after ovulation again you have a

pro-inflammatory response so you have

greater inflammation do women blanket

need a supplement no because we see

fatigue isn't necessarily just iron

related there's so many other reasons

why women are fatigued the one problem

is the Baseline levels for like ferien

for active women if you go in and you

have a fertin level of 20 to 25 they're

going to say it's normal

but we'd rather see you up around 50 so

if you are in that low end of normal

then supplementing will help you get up

into that 50 and see if it makes a

difference if a woman is going to get a

blood test to evaluate testosterone

estrogen lipids metabolic factors Etc

and she can only afford to do that at

one point during her cycle and compare

at various times maybe every six months

or once a year even at that spefic

specific time of her cycle is there a

Best time in cycle to do that blood

test uh if I'm limited to say that then

I would say 5 to seven days before her

next period starts so mid ludal because

then you get a good indication of

estrogen progesterone Peak testosterone

doesn't fluctuate as much as those two

so you're going to get a good idea what

Baseline testosterone is and we know

that there's a greater inflammatory

response so anything that's outside of

the norm of that upper elevation of

inflammation you're going to be able to

to pick out um so yeah I would say if

you could only do it at one point in

time that would be the time to do it and

if she can add a second blood test at a

different phase of the menstrual cycle

where would you place that second test

day two of the menstrual cycle second

day of bleeding to get a really good

indication of what your true estrogen

level is at Baseline and if she measures

her hormones at those two times within

the cycle do you think that's sufficient

to um get 75% plus of the relevant data

yeah definitely

terrific caffeine yes in the old days

yeah meaning when I was a kid and not

long ago 10 years three weeks ago um we

would hear these crazy statements about

caffeine it pulls calcium out of the

bones it's you know you'd hear this

stuff I did a whole episode on caffeine

I'm a big fan of caffeine but I do warn

people that if they suffer from anxiety

or they're going through a particularly

stressful life event it can raise the

activity of the sympathetic arm of the

autonomic nervous system you'll feel

more nervous you're more prone to panic

yeah when you're drinking caffeine but

um many people love caffeine I think 90%

of the adult population of the world

ingests some form of caffeine every

single day I'm in that 90% yeah likewise

making it the most consumed drug

worldwide is caffeine safe for women I

suspect based on what you just said that

the answer will be yes but are there um

case conditions where women should be

cautious about their intake of caffeine

independent of this anxiety thing I mean

people probably shouldn't uh drink more

caffeine than they can uh tolerate

psychologically no one male female young

or old yeah yeah it's more of a genetic

Factor than it is a sex Factor uh so I

mean both men and women will be fast

metabolizers slow metabolizers or not

have an effect that becomes the bigger

Rock of them what we do find is in that

per menopausal State women will become

more sensitive to the blood sugar

fluctuations that happen with caffeine

so they're used to having coffee in the

morning and with something then halfway

through their workout they become a

little bit

hypoglycemic because there's changes in

um insulin sensitivity insulin responses

so there's changes also in blood sugar

control

and caffeine can exacerbate that so if

you are someone who's like oh I always

have a double espresso before I go

workout and then halfway through I'm

really hypoglycemic I'm really dizzy and

lightheaded I don't know what to do feel

sick or nauseous yeah yeah eat some food

eat some food with it what about sipping

caffeine through the workout um you know

taking that coffee in and just having a

SI between sets can that offset some of

that uh I don't think so okay I hear a

lot that people who drink caffeine

before a workout you know Midway through

they're like I don't feel good yeah yeah

cuz they don't eat that for me that just

stimulates the desire for more caffeine

but um or even how dare I say a half

piece of nicotine gum which I

experimented with but I was told and

this is why I'm not going to continue to

do it not only is it very habit forming

it actually is such a Vaso constrictor

that uh I was told by a dermatologist

that it's terrible for skin even if

you're not getting your nicotine by

smoking vaping dipping or snuffing so

this this big Trend now toward ingesting

nicotine as a stimulant and cognitive

enhancer and performance enhancer I

think people should at least be aware of

the negative effects on skin never would

have known because I'm not a nicotine

person I'll tell you that half piece of

nicotine gum is um the first time you do

it it's a it's an unbelievable

experience it's the it's like your first

real cup of coffee oh really wakes you

up yeah and dials you in I I recommend

nobody do it because it's it feels that

Pleasant if you like caffeine I like

Shandra for that reason Shandra yeah

what's Shandra it's an adaptogen I me I

should know what this is you you should

know what this is I should know well I'm

here to learn okay um Shandra Shandra uh

yeah so it is an adaptogenic plant so

you know like jining siberian jining

maah asaga all those buzzword out there

Shandra is another really well-studied

adaptogen and I have friends who say

it's like Aderall where you take it and

it's immediate fun focus and function

because its main goal is to regulate

dopamine serotonin and cortisol so it

gives you gets women and men out of that

brain fog gives them incredible Focus do

you use it yep are you on it now I put

it in my morning coffee okay uh you just

sent people down the uh the rabbit hole

of the internet of the internet all

right yeah yeah you heard it here first

from Dr Stacy Sims I'm going to give it

a try because the nicotine thing is an

interesting one and there are some

cognitive enhancing effects of nicotine

that perhaps in um people 65 and older

might actually be beneficial for

offsetting some forms of neurod

degeneration but that needs to still be

explored and researched don't cut that

and clip it and put it out there like so

that's happened already um very

interesting all right caffeine we both

agree is great Shandra you got to try it

check it out let me know all right we'll

do

cold yeah for reasons I still don't

understand people have Associated me or

this podcast with deliberate cold

exposure I like deliberate cold exposure

in the form of a cold shower or a cold

plunge or an ice bath mostly for the

effects that occur

afterward meaning more alertness a kind

of semi- euphoric Buzz that goes on a

long long time no I don't think it

increases metabolism significantly

enough to have a meaningful difference

but the long long lasting increases in

the so-called catac colines dopamine or

epinephrine and epinephrine to me are

pretty impressive and I just like the

way it makes me feel so that's the main

reason I believe why people do

deliberate cold exposure and every time

I do a post about deliberate cold

exposure I get asked understandably so

how does it affect women differently

than men and then I usually get

questions about rod syndrome oh yeah

yeah so is there a difference in terms

of how Del cold exposure impacts women I

have to imagine the answer is yes given

what you said earlier about Vaso

constriction versus Vaso dilation but

deliberate cold exposure like it hate it

what do you think do you recommend it

for women I recommend it for Open Water

swimmers who might experience that vagal

response when they first dive into the

cold I prefer heat for women everyone's

a responder to the heat you get better

adaptations so sauna yep sauna hot tub

yep preferably a true finish sauna

infrared doesn't it warms the skin but

not the core we want thank you for

saying that I'm not a big fan of

infrared sauna cuz it doesn't get hot

enough no yeah you can bring an infrared

light into a traditional sauna if it can

tolerate the heat yeah but finished

sauna would be what something between

185 degrees Fahrenheit and maybe 210 if

you're really heat

adapted yeah I'm still working on Metric

let me do the conversion oh sorry yeah

you're living down in New Zealand now

yeah so 60 to 80 degrees C I need to

look every time I've tried to do math on

the fly on this podcast in my head it's

like okay * 9 different processing mode

yeah but people can look it up yeah okay

look it up um so the thing with cold

water exposure is the whole conversation

about ice cold ice baths and how cold it

is it's too cold for women because when

we're looking at that severe immediate

jump into that icy cold it causes such

severe constriction and shutdown so

women do really well and get that whole

dopamine response and everything if the

water is around 16° C which is 55 to 56

degrees Fahrenheit which is chilly it's

chilly it's not warm no it's go dive in

San Francisco Bay right and that is

enough to offset that severe

constriction survival but it is cold

enough to invoke all the changes that we

want with cold water

exposure so it's a temperature Nuance

that's that sex difference and like I

said when I have Open Water swimmers who

are going to do a long swim or they're

going to do a triathlon and the water is

colder I have them do cold water

exposure especially face exposure into

the cold water um to get them habituated

to that initial severe constriction and

sympathetic activity that we don't want

to happen before a

rice with heat being the true like true

heat that we're talking about with sauna

we see a lot of metabolic changes for

women so we're having better insulin and

glucose control we're seeing uh a better

um expression of our heat shock proteins

and the uncoupling and and the

rebuilding of those proteins that are

cardiovascular responses and then for

women as we get older and have the

offshoot of hot flashes night sweats

that kind of stuff if you're doing heat

exposure you're sending a stronger

stimulus to the

hypothalamus and you're also getting a

better serotonin production from the gut

because we have 95% of our serotonin

produced from the gut which lends to

better temperature control and shuts

down hot flashes I think some people

might be confused by the idea of using

sauna in order to reduce the hot flashes

um so I'll just remind people that your

brain has a set of neurons in the medial

preoptic area that's sort of a

thermostat if you will controlling core

body temperature and if you heat the

surface of your body your medial

preoptic neurons say oh let's cool down

the core of the body now if you stay in

that heat too long you'll cook your your

body core body temperature will go up

but conversely if the surface of your

body is made cold the internal milu of

your body will heat up because those

medial preoptic neurons will say oh

you know this this is like putting an

ice pack on the uh thermostat which is

what um graduate students and post talks

used to do in the labs side working

because it was a battle over the the

heater right some people were in hot

some people were in cold so there was

always this this business in any event

um so it's not that you disapprove of

the of using deliberate cold exposure

you just recommend that women do

deliberate cold exposure with

temperatures that are maybe in the um

low 50° Fahrenheit um Range as opposed

to the really H frankly just painfully

cold for anybody um you know 38 to you

know 50 degree temperatures right we did

a pilot study looking because Wim Hoff

has been down to New Zealand quite a bit

and so you know his breathing and ice

bath stuff has been making the rounds

and working in the high performance

people wanted to do that but we have few

athletes that have really severe

endometriosis it's like well we could

look at using cold exposure to help

control that and what we found over the

course of this study was that if we were

to do deliberate cold

exposure around ovulation and then hold

it for 10 days over the course of three

menstrual cycles it attenuated the

endometriosis because endometriosis is

an inflammatory disease right so if

we're looking at inflammation process

and growing the tissue if we can dampen

that inflammation and create a response

that learns that inflammation and

dampens it then it helps with

endometriosis interesting that's another

Avenue that we really want to take when

we're looking at Cold deliberate cold

exposure wow

fascinating as a cautionary note if

anyone is going to explore Wim Hoff type

methods um please please please do not

combine cyclic

hyperventilation um or hyperventilation

of any kind with breath holds and water

exposure not even in the depth of a

puddle um there have been drownings

associated with people doing cyclic

hyperventilation in various contexts not

just related to Hof breathing but um

basically people who are not skilled um

and even some who are skilled combining

cyclic hyperventilation breath holds and

water in any form cold or warm water

idea just don't if you're going to do

any kind of cyclic hyperventilation

breathing my labs actually published on

this in a clinical trial do it on dry

land or don't do it at all and if you're

going to do deliberate cold exposure um

limit your breathing to slow deep

breaths make sure that you're um well

supervised and um just stay alive please

yeah so we didn't incorporate any of the

Wim Hof breathing we just Incorporated

the deliberate water cold water

exposures cold and temperature generally

is such a potent stimulus and it's

exciting that people are starting to

explore this especially the in my

opinion the the sauna work uh one thing

I suppose that we should um discuss very

briefly before we move on since we've

been talking about resistance

training we've been talking about

deliberate cold exposure there is

evidence that doing deliberate cold

exposure not so much in the form of a

cold shower but in the form of a um

submersion up to the neck post strength

or resistance training say in the four

but probably the eight hours after

resistance training because of the

attenuation of the inflammatory response

which sounds like a great thing it

actually can inhibit some of the

strength and hypertrophy gains that one

would otherwise experience so if you're

going to do deliberate cold exposure

best to not do it in the eight hours or

even on the same day after resistance

training geared towards developing

strength and hypertrophy increases no

problem to do it first in fact maybe

even some performance-enhancing effects

of doing it first there's some athletes

that stand for doing that but just want

to throw that out there is there

anything else you want to add to that um

which is different from heat exposure

because heat exposure you want to do

afterwards the phas of dilation yeah

because it extends that training

stimulus

and also the passive

dehydration from training will stimulate

greater blood volume improvements oh

interesting so after a good weight

training session if one has the luxury

of doing it get into the sauna for up to

30 minutes make sure you're hydrating

you want slow rehydration because part

of it is that dehydration and the

decrease of oxygen at the level of the

kidney to stimulate more EPO so with

more red cell production you have

natural increase in plasma volume so

it's a blood volume expander o so now

we're getting into Real Performance

enhancement is this true for men and for

women yep yeah uh let's walk through

this protocol I like I like this this is

uh this has not been discussed on this

podcast so um somebody does their

resistance training M finishes up drinks

eight or 16 ounces of water with a

little salt in it maybe and then hops in

the sauna yep for how long up to 30

minutes okay no longer no longer no

longer yeah they'll probably be a little

bit thirsty in there you're looking for

a little lowlevel dehydration is that

right yep okay um the ranges that I've

seen published in the finished studies

are as I recall and I'll double check

these numbers 186 degrees Fahrenheit up

to about 210

Fahrenheit um and the higher end only

being for those that are heat adapted

yeah one can cover their head with a

towel and actually feel more comfortable

because the brain is insulated the

surprises people they think putting a

you know something on their head would

make it excessively warm but you

actually protecting your brain from some

of the Heat and people will put a towel

over so that they when they breathe it

doesn't burn the inside of their nose

and their mouth either um I'm always

like if you're going to be in and it's

that hot just move down a level so on

the floor y y um and this stimulates the

production of more red blood cells MH

okay which then translates to what in

terms of athletic performance you have

an increase in your

cardiovascular effort and because you

have greater amount of blood volumes you

you have greater amount of pretty much

blood circulating so you have more

available for um muscle metabolism heat

loss um so it's akin to going to

altitude so people will go to altitude

to get that blood volume boost but not

everyone responds to altitude you have

responders non-responders over

responders okay this is why when I go to

Colorado I'm gasping for air while I do

a walk but then I come back to C Level

and I feel better my endurance is better

but some people might not experience

that effect true this is I was telling

the guys before we started that I've

been in ARA at home in preparation for

going to Park City because I live at a

beach town and going to Park City I am a

significant responder to altitude and I

won't be able to have coherent meetings

at altitude if I am not adapted so okay

yeah so this explains why when I've gone

to meetings in Colorado at altitude some

people can have a drink that first night

and they're perfectly fine even though

they normally live at sea level and I'm

trying to trying to see the stairs

correctly even though I don't drink y

that would be it very interesting so you

can use post resistance training sauna

exposure to

improve performance yeah you can use it

um post cardio as well so anything that

is giving you that passive dehydration

from training because you're not because

you will become passively dehydrated

when you're training right you can't

keep in as much fluid so I'm saying

passive as in you're not able to stop

that dehydration and then you go into to

the sauna and you are extending that

training stimulus because your heart

rate is elevated you're putting your

body under stress from

dehydration and the body responds in

kind of we need more blood volume so

let's let's jump start that I love it

logically watertight and um I'm going to

give it a try yeah what other training T

tricks tips do you have up your sleeve

Dr Sims what you want to talk about um

do you have any favorites besides that I

I Delight in these and I know other

people will as well um do any come to

mind I mean you've T us about

Shandra um about posttraining sauna

exposure to improve performance by

increasing red blood cell count yeah

there is there anything else that

Springs to mind no no no

pressure uh I'm a fan of what I call the

track stack that we used to use for

track athletes but then for really

significant high intensity work so track

stack is kind of the idea from the old

bodybuilding set where you're taking 200

milligrams of

caffeine uh lowd dose baby aspirin MH

but then I add beta alanine used to be a

fedrin I know so I'm I'm old enough to

remember when they would sell it as the

triple stack with a fedrin but some

people dropped dead and they took it off

the market y hey it came back on the

market in New Zealand last week did it

really yeah it gets you going yes it

does it's um it's Speedy y um it's

dangerous yeah but the track stack which

has beta alanine and not

ephedrine is really good at encouraging

an extra top end effect because you're

having the caffeine you're having a

little bit of the blun blood thin from

the aspirin and then the vasodilatory

properties and the carnosine aspect for

muscle contraction from the beta alanine

and so like training for gravel races in

the top end Sprint you do a couple of

Sprint sessions with that and it's

increasing your training stress during

the training so your adaptation is to

that higher stress should anything be

done in terms of recovery to make sure

that you offset that additional stress

that's achieved with this track stack

yeah um just making sure that you're not

stacking two days in a row of high

intensity work like really making sure

that you're recovering well because it

is a significant stress on the body what

about sleep we hear so much these days

about the importance of sleep for mental

health physical health performance I

think this is a great thing a great

Trend are there female specific

requirements for sleep that vary across

the menstrual cycle Andor by age or just

generally you know do men and women need

to think about the need for Sleep

differently yeah um part of it is the

obvious like when you're talking about

sleep temperature right women and men

have variations in their sleep

temperature and what's optimal so

looking at that like you need to create

an environment for you that is cool

comfortable which is probably going to

be different from your partner who might

be sharing your bed so that becomes a

sticky point we talk about the menstrual

cycle there are definitive changes in

sleep architecture we're seeing that in

around the mid ludal to the premenstrual

so you know that about 10 days before

your period starts significant change in

your slow wave sleep there's less of it

latency is increased so you have a

longer time to get to sleep and you have

more light sleep so overall you know

less of that deep recovery sleep and

this is where women tend to have more of

their mood issues too because of

estrogen's play with serotonin in the

brain so we really need to nail down our

sleep hygiene in that time period um so

looking at things like eleanine and

appenine and looking at your room

temperature and the screens and all the

things that you've talked about for the

most part about sleep and sleep hygiene

super important and then of course as

you get older in both men and women

becomes more difficult to sleep but we

see significant issue with insomnia in

women who have really bad hot fleshes

and significant uh menopausal symptoms

and again this has to do with lots of

the perturbations from temperatures of

night sweats increased sympathetic load

um not being able to get into a

parasympathetic state so this is where

working with a specific sleep specialist

might come into play we can also look at

using some adaptogens the Rola stacked

with

theanine um and looking at the cold

temperature getting people to use the

non-sleep deep rest or Yoga Nidra or

some other kind of meditative property

that they can then access when they're

in bed so there's a lot of different

things that we have to be aware of um

and again in that par menopausal State

we see that significant change in sleep

and sleep architecture and quality of

the sleep but men don't have the same

thing so women have to be a little bit

more aligned with what's happening from

a hormonal profile standpoint because it

does definitively affect serotonin

melatonin and sleep architecture because

of the interplay that estrogen has on

the brain and The receptors makes very

good sense we'll put a link in the show

not captions to some zeroc cost um

non-sleep deep breast yogan nras we've

put out a couple with my voice if you

prefer another voice I a big fan of the

ones by Kelly boy who's contributed to

um The Waking Up app it also has

terrific um non-sleep deep breast yoga

nras out there and there are S as well

um you mentioned a few supplements

theanine um appenine which is chamomile

extract um maybe let's just have a

general conversation about supplements

what's your thought on supplements um

how do you place them into the landscape

of nutrition they are after all

supplements not Replacements but um the

word supplements I I believe is a little

bit misleading um because there are

food-based supplements you know like a

protein powder um there are supplements

designed to achieve a specific Al come

and then there are supplements that are

kind of a um designed to be a more you

know support for a bunch of things you

know kind of insurance policy um what

are some of your favorite supplements in

any of those categories specifically for

women and perhaps even specifically

During certain phases of the menstrual

cycle Andor per menopause menopause I

just threw about nine questions at you

okay the number one is creatine creatine

for women doesn't matter what age it's

really important we're seeing a lot for

brain mood um and actually gut health so

five grams of monohydrate per day

sort of to five three to five yep um

preferably of course Crea pure because

the way it's produced so if you're

looking at Crea pure it's the German

company that produces it uses a

water-based wash to produce the creatine

interesting whereas others use an

acid-based wash and we see a lot of side

effects with the acid base wash like

gastric distress yeah so people are like

I'm really bloated and I have nausea and

stuff from taking creatine I'm like is

it Crea pure actually no it's like

switch to creapure and so they switch

and they're like oh my gosh I feel so

much better noted yeah um and then

vitamin

D3 really important especially um when

we're looking at all the information

that's coming out from cardiovascular

muscle brain everything that goes with

vitamin D also with iron so vitamin D is

really important for absorbing and

maintaining iron

stores uh so those are the two big ones

and then sorry I just wanted to stop you

for a moment um as it relates to

creatine I hear two general lines of

concern one I hear more often from women

my understanding is that because

creatine brings water into the muscle as

well as supporting the phosphor creatine

system of the

brain the water into the muscle

component means yes people who take

creatine 3 to 5 grams per day will gain

a few pounds of body weight that's solid

body weight in the form of water within

the muscle so solid in air quotes it's

water but it's within the muscle

um so they should know that um it's not

a given though interesting it's not a

given there are some women on the lower

dose of three that don't experience the

water gain okay and this is not bloat

like water subcutaneous water this is

water within the muscles correct so it

will be uh stored within lean tissue um

and then I do hear concerns about

creatine uh causing hair loss I my

understanding is there is zero evidence

for that no evidence there is a smidgen

of evidence that it might increase

dihydrotestosterone levels but it's like

one study marginal increase and then

people linked dihydrotestosterone to

hair loss and so then the the conclusion

people drew was that somehow creatine

increases hair loss but you're saying

zero evidence no evidence we see that

women who start taking it midlife are

complaining about it but it's actually a

progestin driven thing we see

progesterone and fluctuation

progesterone can exacerbate any hair

loss so if women are experiencing that

and they're saying oh it's creatine I've

read all this stuff on Creatine no it's

not okay so we've got creatine D3 um a

th000 IUS per day 5,000 IUS I guess it

depends a little bit yeah uh being very

close to Antarctica in the southern

hemisphere in the

winter uh very low sunlight exposure

um looking around the 5,000 same with

upper Northern Hemisphere UK that kind

of stuff closer you get to the Equator

the less you need the one concern is

like a day here where it's foggy and

it's supposed to be sunny and people are

like great I don't you know don't have

to worry about going out in sun exposure

but then the next day it's bright and

sunny and they're like ooh sunscreen so

they put sunscreen on and not getting

the right sun exposure so then again it

is a lifestyle thing so basic is two to

5,000 great Okay so we've got creatine

vitamin D3 what are some of the other

supplements that you um that you take or

that you I don't know if we say suggest

but that you um perhaps suggest women

consider yeah so protein powder a really

good high quality uh because the amount

of protein that women should be getting

is often difficult to eat um so again

supplementing not using as the main

stay uh that's one to consider and then

again I'm about adap

so looking at the different adaptogens

ashanda is a good one holy basil or

Tulsi is another one Shandra and then

getting into some of your medicinal

mushrooms Lions man Rishi those are the

two big ones that I look to and often

have women

use if these

adaptogens blunt cortisol because

certain ones do like ashwaganda which by

the way I do think people should cycle

if they're going to take it high doses

right cuz there are some ISS issues with

liver and thyroid and thyroid problems

if people take ashwaganda high doses for

too long so that's um important to note

but assuming that the adaptogens are

reducing cortisol levels um in addition

to doing other things is there a

particular time of day or night that

people should consider taking them

should they avoid taking it early in the

day my understanding was that you you

want a bit of that cortisol uh bump

early in the day but you certainly want

cortisol lower later in the day yep and

I think the problem is people think that

they don't want any cortisol and they

think that would be bad that would be

bad they don't understand that the body

has fluctuations of cortisol throughout

the day and that's normal if we're

looking at having issues with sleeping

and that anxiety provoked from that

sympathetic drive and elevation to

cortisol let it peak in the morning

after you're waking up and look late

afternoon like 4:00 when it starts to

dip to take your adaptogens then because

then it feeds forward to being able to

relax more which feeds forward to better

sleep for something like Shandra where

you're looking for that brain Focus you

can have it in the morning it doesn't

necessarily have as big an impact on

cortisol that you see with something

like Tulsi or ashanda because Shish is

more stimulatory the other two are more

calming um I put some in my morning

coffee and then in the afternoon when I

need to pick me up instead of more

caffeine I'll us Shandra because it

gives you that boost without the effects

of caffeine and it doesn't interfere

with sleep so there's a time and a place

to take them and yes some need to be

cycled on some need to be cycled off but

I tell women what are your main symptoms

what are the things you're looking to

control and we can look and see what

kind of adaptogens we can use and how we

place them what's the story with

pregnancy and training yeah you um is

there an official word on this you know

uh assuming a woman knows that she

pregnant from the very beginning of

missing a period where she's in a

position to make decisions about

training or not training training at a

given intensity or or not um what are

your

recommendations the human body is really

interesting and when you get pregnant

your body tells you what you can do so

we see that you have a reduction in your

Anor robic capacity on purpose your

body's trying to be protective you do

have an expansion of your blood volume

so endurance is really good but you

can't do

high-intensity um when we're looking at

the general guidelines that are out

there they've gotten rid of the heart

rate rule they are now telling women to

be as active as they can be without

creating injury and without trying to

make gains so that means if you're in

the weight room you're not looking to

improve you're looking to maintain if

you're doing cardiovascular work and you

have a specific class that you love to

go to yeah but don't beat yourself up

that you can't hit that high in

intensity you're going for the social

aspect you're not trying to gain Fitness

you're trying to maintain I think the

very worst possible scenario is someone

who superactive and stops doing

everything because they're afraid

because then they get deconditioned and

then they end up in a worse State than

someone who was sedentary who's now

encouraged to walk during exercise um it

hasn't been well researched because you

can't get ethics to study pregnant women

very well so we go on a lot on um case

studies and cas study notes and the

bottom line of it all is you stay active

and you can do resistance training you

can do all the cardiovascular work and

your body will tell you what you can and

can't do I've been asked whether or not

pregnant women can do deliberate cold

exposure probably no fewer

than 2500 times on social media and I

never have an answer and but I always

default to the cautious answer which is

uh please don't until you talk to

somebody who actually has an answer yeah

just because it sounds like a very

precarious situation but in all honesty

I don't know I'm just biing time there

and just saying please go ask somebody

who can give you a definitive answer yes

so we see women who have a high risk for

miscarriage that anything that they do

that's incredibly stressful for the

first 12 to 20

weeks will put them at a higher risk for

it so being very cautious especially

with cold because we know that there are

so many different nuances doing

something like hot yoga when you're

pregnant is not there is a research so

it's not

detrimental yeah because when we're

looking at blood flow diversion that way

when you have slight hypoxia to the

placenta and to the baby there is a

rebound effect that increases the

vascularization so that the baby has

better nutrients we see this also with

like exercise and exercise intensities

this is why people people are now saying

you need to have some kind of blood flow

change and increase in core temperature

to create these vascular effects within

the placenta to improve nutrient and

nutrient delivery to the developing

fetus so Heat's good cold I'm not so

sure of but probably not extreme heat

not extreme heat so that's why I mean

like hot yoga is not going to the sauna

Hot Yoga sits around 40° Celsius so what

is that just around 100 degrees

Fahrenheit

and in that situation if you're feeling

too hot you leave you lie down on the

floor don't try to stay for the whole

class um but it's not going to be

detrimental unless you're pushing

yourself too much again everything in

moderation especially when you're

pregnant it's almost the inverse of what

we know for males which is if men want

to conceive they should avoid the sauna

because we know that heat is detrimental

to sperm viability in a in a real way so

much so that I tell guys if they are

trying to get their partner pregnant

that they should bring an ice pack into

the sauna they should insulate that ice

P don't put it directly on the scrotum

for for other reasons but that it's a

you know that the effects of heat the

negative effects of heat on sperm are

are real yeah but there's also an

interesting it's not just a trend

there's actually some research showing

that um cooling the testicles leads to

increases in testosterone which is on

the face of It kind of um

counterintuitive

because turns out that it's about the

Vaso

constriction causing the subsequent

increase in blood flow increased Vaso

dilation so the inverse of what you just

said which is that during the heating

process the hypoxia induces more

vascularization of the of the placenta

yeah so um when talking about

temperature one always has to think

about the surface of the body versus the

brain response as we talked about

earlier and then what's happening during

the delate heat or deliberate Cold

versus what's happening after the

deliberate heat or deliberate cold right

everything in biology is a process not

an event yeah and I should make full

disclosure I started as an environmental

exercise physiologist and my PhD was all

in heat and heat research so I'm a

little bit biased towards heat but I've

done a significant amount of research in

the hot and cold thank you for the

disclosure uh I see it more as a uh as

an indication of of real knowledge so

thank you this is an aspect of your

training I I knew a little bit about

based on your Publications but I didn't

realize the depth of knowledge so we're

all benefiting here including this

earlier protocol of sauna post training

you can bet a lot of people are going to

start incorporating that I think we

might need to name that I've done this

from time to time named protocols um

because people are reluctant to name

them after themselves maybe we call that

the um the uh The Sims protocol or

something like that

the anyway your discomfort will be other

people's U

benefit now seems like a good time to

address some specific questions related

to the age brackets that you mentioned

earlier um in anticipation of sitting

down with you today I asked some

different women that I know you know if

you could ask the world expert in

exercise physiology hormones and um and

nutrition Etc as it relates to women one

question what would it be and one of the

most common questions I got in the 50

and up category was what is the most

efficient way for a woman older than 50

to train for the maximum health span and

lifespan benefits I love this question

because I get it all the time we have to

turn our brains away from everything

that's been predicated before to this

point so if we're looking for longevity

and we're looking at what we want to do

when we're 80 or 90 we want to be

independently living we want to have

good propri reception balance we want to

have good bones and we want to be strong

so this is where we look at 10 minutes

three times a week jump training so this

isn't your Landing softly in our knees

this is like impact in the skeletal

system uh a colleague in friend of mine

Tracy kle did a PhD and um post not a

postto but post research on this and is

developing an app on it to show women

how to jump to improve bone mineral

density over the course of four months

of this type of training people have

gone from being Osteo um pic to normal

bone density so it's a different type of

stress so if your concern is that which

a lot of women do have a concern because

they lose about onethird of their bone

mass at the onet of

menopause wow yeah significant yeah

goodness gracious if you don't do

something as an intervention so we see a

lot of women are like oh I'm going to go

on menopause hormone therapy to stop um

bone loss yeah it can be a treatment but

I always look at an external stress that

we can put on the body that's going to

invoke a change without Pharmaceuticals

so jump training heavy resistance

training and Sprint interval training

those are the three key things and from

a training standpoint and then from a

nutrition standpoint getting protein

protein is so important when you start

telling women they need to look at

around 1 to

1 1 G per pound which is around that 2

to 2.3 G per kilo per day they're like

whoo that's a lot of protein it is

because we haven't been conditioned to

eat it few scrambled eggs it's a chicken

rest at lunch it's a small steak at

dinner plus other things right exactly

and it doesn't all have to be animal

products I mean you're looking at all

the different beans and things that you

can put together and that's the other

big thing that in order to build the

muscle and to keep the body composition

in the state that we want it to keep

going for longevity those are the big

rocks the Sprint interval training the

heavy resistance training the jump

training and the protein I'm thinking

about this and I'm thinking about my my

mother who's 79 years old she'll be 80

at the end of June and is in good health

walks a lot Gardens does some yoga but

does none of the things that you're

describing so Mom please I'm gonna I'm

going to um send her to listen to this s

in the same vein yeah what about the

women out there age 20 to maybe we make

it the 20 to 40 bracket um and if we

need to divide that more finely we can

um um what is the most efficient way for

them to train for health Vigor and

Longevity uh making things fun for the

most part I don't want people think that

it's a chore so if you're someone who's

been told you need to run and you hate

running then don't run like that's

common sense and I say that because I

see little kids in non- US countries

that have to run across country and you

see these kids when they're six years

old and all running around the field and

they're the the kids that hate running

that aren't natural Runners and then

they hate physical activity for the rest

of their life so I put that in like when

you are exercising you want to find

something that you find fun when you're

in your 20s to 40s you have more room to

get away with things that might not be

optimal for you when you start to get

older big rock again is resistance

training it doesn't have to be heavy

resistance training like I said earlier

to failure you're periodizing if you

want to do a block of Olympic lifting go

for it if you're like I'm not

comfortable doing that kind of lifting I

want to do more machine stuff great but

we want to make sure you're changing it

up all the time to keep things moving

and shaking with regards to strength and

hypertrophy and then it becomes more of

are you training for something that's

endurance are you looking for just

longevity for brain health we need to

have some lactate production because

women as I said at the beginning of the

podcast are more oxidative we don't have

as many of those glycolytic fibers so

what we're finding in older research is

that there's misstep in brain lactate

metabolism because the brain hasn't been

exposed to it especially if we're

looking at women who are being studied

now it hasn't been in a societal context

to do that kind of work the younger we

are and the more that we can keep our

our glycolytic fibers going by doing

high-intensity work the more we're

exposing our brain to lactate the better

we see fast forward to attenuating

cognitive decline and reducing the

plaque development of Alzheimer's this

is why women who are in their 40s plus I

want them to do the Sprint and the high

intensity work for that lactate

production start early because then you

can take some of those type two B fibers

that could either go more aerobic or

anerobic and make them more Anor robic

so those are the two big things for

women who are younger and then you can

play around with the other things if you

want to be an ultra endurance athlete

yeah not really ideal but yeah you can

do that that's fine you'll recover well

now forgive me because you've said it

several times throughout today's

discussion but I really want to drive

home a key point that I think for most

people men and women is not obvious but

is really important when you say high

intensity you don't mean a class or a

run uh where you're drenched in sweat

and gasping for air at the end

necessarily correct let's disambiguate

high intensity from what most people

think of high intensity which is a

really hard workout a tough class where

they had me moving the whole time doing

a circuit Etc what does the appropriate

high-intensity workout look like okay so

uh if I talk about true high-intensity

interval training if you're a runner

it's going to the track and doing sets

of

4800s okay so 400 a lap yep 800 two laps

right so you're looking at between a

minute and four minutes of of hard work

at 80% or more with variable recovery so

that's why use a track as a as an

example so if you do one lap and you're

like uh I'm going to walk half a lap and

then do it again that's adequate

recovery tough yeah it's hard right but

it's not like you're going to be there

for 90 minutes doing as many 400s as you

can because you have that variable

recovery it might take half an hour to

40 minutes max and then you're gassed

out can't do it anymore if you're

looking at a gym situation I look I I

like to look at something like every

minute on the minute where you might be

doing uh 10 deadlifts at moderate

intensity weight and it Tak 10

repetitions yeah so it takes you 50

seconds to complete that then you have

10 seconds to move to the next exercise

that might be thrusters so you know a

squat clean thrusters so it's a squat

pulling the weight up overhead so you're

doing maybe eight of those in that

minute and you might have 10-second

recovery you go to the next exercise

that might be um kettle bell swings and

you're doing explosive kettle bell

swings and you'll finish you know 10

seconds to go you go to the fourth

exercise I don't know toes to bar or

some other kind of vup some other high

intensity and then you have one minute

completely off so you've had four

minutes of really heavy work with maybe

10 seconds to move to the next exercise

one minute completely off and then you

repeat that three times and this is

high-intensity interval training this is

not what you would consider resistance

training for sake of building muscle or

strength correct you're using these

loads these machines the the pike you

know hanging from the bar and bring your

knees up or lsit or something as a tool

to get the heart rate up continually y y

very different than resistance training

the mo the way most people think about

it correct so this is the cardiovascular

high-intensity interval training and the

subset of that is Sprint interval

training and this is something that's

really really hard and people don't get

it I don't necessarily mean running it

can be whatever mode of activity but

it's 30 seconds or less as as you can go

so this is your N9 or 10 on your rating

and perceived exertion 110% it's Max

effort on the rower on the airdine bike

running if you like of those the skier

the battle ropes battle ropes are big so

30 seconds all out then rest what 10 15

seconds repeat no you want to because

now we're looking at that top end where

we

want uh regeneration of your ATP you

know all of that system and central

nervous system recovery so this is 30

seconds all out could be two or three

minutes of recovery oh nice because I'm

not looking at Tata where you're 20

seconds on 20 seconds off because that's

not the intensity we want we want you to

go all out and recover well enough to be

able to go all all out again you're not

leaving anything in the tank so those

are what I mean by high-intensity

interval training or or when you're

looking at polarizing your

cardiovascular work that's the top end

those are the two examples of your top

end and then your recovery is that long

slow walking on another day where you're

not going and doing a tempo run you're

not doing a 5k easy jog because that put

you in that moderate intensity and if I

heard you correctly earlier you are

suggesting most women do one or two days

of high-intensity interval training plus

3 to four days of resistance training

for sake of building strength and muscle

which looks very different it's more

warm up do

a couple work sets you know two to four

work sets of you know an overhead press

two or four work sets of maybe a barbell

curl two or four sets of some dips or

whatever whatever um one's you know

personal choices yeah okay got it um

very different Far and Away different

than what most people men or women are

doing out there which is um a lot of

StairMaster treadmill jogging maybe some

Lifting for hypertrophy because I look

at the general consensus of what's out

there in the fitness world is all based

on Aesthetics and body composition and

so people have this mentality of I need

to be hypertrophy to Get Swole and I

need to do long slow stuff on the cardio

machine to lose body fat but that isn't

what we're after we're after let's

create really strong external stress to

create adaptations not only from a

neural and a brain standpoint that's

understanding it but but also feeding

down to metabolic change because if you

have a really significant high stress we

see epigenetic changes within the muscle

that increase the amount of what we call

the glute four Gates so you know the

proteins that open up that allow

carbohydrate to come in without insulin

so we're expanding that acute um glucose

uptake through an epigenetic change the

other thing that it does is it causes a

an acute inflammatory response that your

body learns to overcome and it's really

important for women to do that because

as we start to lose estrogen we lose a

significant anti-inflammatory agent so

this is why we see that increase in the

visceral fat especially when we're

hitting your your mid-40s onwards is

because now you have this increase in

free fatty acids and the inability for

inflammation to come down so the muscle

cell is going I don't know what to do

with this so get circulated to the liver

and the liver stores it as visero fat

whereas if you do that high intensity

work it creates that change within the

muscle to understand pull that in let's

use it let's also bring more

carbohydrate in and more glucose in use

that which helps use free fatty acids

and it also creates a significant

anti-inflammatory response at the level

of of the mitochondria and within the

cell itself which is what estrogen used

to do so if we look at those external

stresses it's not about body comp and

Aesthetics per se it's about the

molecular changes that we want to invoke

to get that body composition and the

brain health that allow us to be 80 or

90 and independently living and in terms

of nutrition you mentioned women should

shoot for 1.1 1.2 grams of quality

protein per pound of body

weight what other types of foods do you

like to see women ingesting so um are

you a fan of fruit yeah great well these

days you sort of have to ask in these

circles uh vegetables y yeah fiber is

important yeah absolutely and then in

terms of starches to um to replace

glycogen especially if people are doing

these high-intensity interval training

sessions and the resistance training um

what are your preferred sources it

depends on who I'm working with uh I

have some people who love cocoa pops and

kids cereal o i cringe at that stuff um

but you know I prefer I prefer rice and

oatmeal and I like a really good

sourdough bread with butter or olive oil

you know guilty of that yeah but there

are some people who like the ultr

processed stuff so I'm like okay if you

really really need it then you can put

it on top of your yogurt after training

as part of your carbohydrate uptake it's

the only time because glute four levels

are so high you're basically pulling

everything into glycogen at that point

anyway um but

ideally carbs are all the different

colorful fruit in veg and if we're

looking at sweet potatoes or Kuma if

you're from other parts of the world

yams all those kinds of things sprouted

bread fantastic kenoa amorth all of

those different types of things it's

just staying away from the ultra

processed and when we look at women it's

really important to have a very

significant diversity in the gut

microbiome so we see there's a

definitive decrease when we start to

have hormonal shifts because of the way

the gut bugs help deconjugate or unwrap

some of our hormones and shoot them back

out in the circulation so as much fiber

colorful fruit and veg as you can but

also it's the 8020 rule right 80% of the

time you're spot on 20% is life because

otherwise where do we get our chocolate

and our whiskey and there's some data

that chocolate is good for us especially

the the low sugar dark chocolates what I

look at is how it makes you feel makes

you feel good right yeah yeah we one has

to live yeah um and fats um where do you

like to see women get their fats from

again I'll do a full disclosure I have

been um vegan since I was in high school

because of an incident of a field trip

to a pig slaughter house and driving

down the five but that's my own

preference so when we're looking at fats

um it can be from a lot of different

sources I prefer women to have most

their fats from plant-based stuff not

because I am plant-based but because of

the effect it has on the body but there

is a time and a place for animal fats

too um um the whole fear mongering of

saturated fatty acids from dairy has

been disproven so if we're looking at

what kinds of fats you want a

conglomerate but you want most of them

to come from Whole Food plant-based not

from Ultra processed um and then of

course you're reaching for some real

butter you're reaching for some 4% fat

yogurt or something like that to

complement your avocados your nuts your

seeds and your olive

oils that all sounds very r and

delicious in my opinion yeah it's it's

too Common Sense people don't do it I

think if people hear it from you they'll

do it um I think people just need to

hear it in the context of a

non-diet um context and you've done an

amazing job today of explaining how

nutrition fuels training training fuels

changes at the level of the muscle the

liver Etc that allow one to ingest more

fuel in fact a lot of what I'm hearing

is that women should probably ingest

more quality fuel

to offset these cortisol spes and feel

better while training and to train more

which um everyone agrees provided it's

done properly is is great for

us kind of a fun hopefully fun question

for you if you had a magic wand and you

could get all the women uh on earth now

and going forward to make a change or

changes you don't have to pick just one

in terms of nutrition how they think

about their hormone cycle exercise

Health span lifespan what would it

be I think I would have everyone

understand their intrinsic selves

because we have been inundated so much

with sociocultural rhetoric and so much

external noise that women have forgotten

what it means to listen to themselves

and their bodies I mean that's the one

thing that I have to retach women to do

so often so if I could have a magic wand

and have every woman understand what

their bodies are saying and what their

Cycles are saying and per menopause is

normal it's everyone's going to go

through it if you have had a menstrual

cycle just to intrinsically understand

what their body is so then they have the

tool to be able to implement external

stressors that's going to be beneficial

for

them well Dr Stacy Sims this has been

tremendously educational for me and I

know for everybody listening and are

watching um you've taken us on an

amazing tour of the best ways to train

with cardiovascular training and

resistance training those tailored

specifically for women as well as

touching into some protocols for both

men and women that are immensely

powerful talked a lot about the

menstrual cycle I get asked about the

menstrual cycle and how it relates to

training and vice versa so many times

and um thank you for providing clear

actionable answers and you've also

educated us on caffeine supplements

including um revealing some supplements

that I didn't know existed which is a

which is a uh not a common occurrence

for me yeah I win and um many wins many

many wins thanks to you and on and on so

just such a a rich data set here um

presented with such Clarity and in an

actionable way so on behalf of myself

and everyone listening and watching I

just want to say thank you I know I know

you've come a very long way from the

other side of the Equator not just to

see us but given that your time is so

precious um that you've come to visit us

and share with us your knowledge I just

want to say uh a really deep heartfelt

thank you yeah thanks for having me it's

been fun and we'll have to have you back

again maybe we'll come to New Zealand

you should come down definitely thank

you thank you for joining me for today's

discussion with Dr Stacy Sims to learn

more about her work please see the links

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