#27: Ali Gilbert - Leveling Up Men’s Health: on Wellness, Hormones, and Overcoming Bias - Architect of Resilience

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Architect of Resilience podcast, where
we explore the secrets of overcoming life's challenges and
unlocking unstoppable strength through deep personal
conversations and expert insights. You know,
I woke up, like you said, it's early this morning. I go
downstairs and there's

(00:21):
a big, giant pile of Great
Dane poo right next to my recording area. I
could. Here's the funny
thing. You know, Great Danes are big dogs, right? Yeah.
And he is afraid to go outside.
Something scared him, you know, maybe a noise, branch

(00:43):
falling. I don't know, like a few weeks ago, maybe a month
ago. And so my wife has to escort him
outside so he feels safe so he can go poo.
And he must have needed to go last night. I heard him whimpering.
And I think that there's also. I told you, I got a big project. Some
separation anxiety. So he chooses to go do this by

(01:06):
my desk because normally I work all day from home and I haven't been.
And he sits on the couch next to me all day. So
anyway, that was my morning. How was your morning?
Welcome to the show, Allie. Can you still smell it? No,
I took care of that right quick. It was actually. I don't know,
it was a non smelly one I'm thankful of because it's happened a

(01:30):
couple times over the last month where I'm like, oh, my God,
I've gotta. I've gotta open the. The giant sliders and freeze
myself out. Yeah, I mean,
we. We have a golden retriever. He's. He's gonna be three in March. And so
we're getting another puppy in March. And I was
like, all right, brace yourself for middle of the night

(01:52):
poop cleaning up. Poop. What we do,
those are our children. You know,
Charlie will get up. But.
Yeah, yeah, I figured you'd appreciate because
I knew. I knew you had. For some reason, I thought you already had two
golden retrievers, but I guess the plan is for two,

(02:14):
so. Yes, the plan is for two. We're picking him
up at 16 weeks. His name is still going to be
decided, but likely another transformer since we
have Galvatron. So we are working on the name.
All right, well, I'd like to welcome you
to our. To the show. So this is for listeners,

(02:36):
Ali Gilbert, renowned fitness professional,
specializing in men's health, particularly hormonal optimization and
strength training. With over two decades of experience, Ali has
transformed the lives of countless men by addressing critical
issues like low testosterone, metabolic health, and
performance enhancement. Her innovative methods combine cutting edge

(02:58):
science with personalized coaching. Empowering her clients to achieve
lasting vitality and strength. Allie has
been featured in prominent health and fitness publications and is a
sought after speaker on subjects ranging from athletic performance
to lifestyle optimization. Her approach transcends the
gym, encouraging a holistic view of health that includes

(03:20):
mental resilience, recovery, and work life balance,
which makes her an amazing guest for our
show today. So thank you.
Who wrote that? That was really good. I'm
steal that because it wasn't me. I don't know who did
writing. I

(03:42):
did. So.
So tell me what inspired
you exactly, to focus specifically on men, men's health, and
optimization in your career? Because
it's a niche that is kind of
uncovered and was back when I got

(04:04):
into it in around like 2010.
So the quick story of it is when you
graduate with an exercise science degree, you want to train
athletes. And then you realize that unless you go right to
the pro level, they're all broke. It's a weird market.
So I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is a very

(04:25):
affluent area that has nine golf clubs, a lot of the
Wall street guys. So I was working in a gym there
and I happened to play, I happened to train a lot of guys that
were like, yeah, I play golf. And I'm like, golf's not really like a
sport. Like, I never considered it one. I played soccer in
college and then I was like, well, these guys are like super

(04:47):
type A, very driven, want to work hard. They could afford to
train. Maybe I should learn something about this. So I looked
up on the Internet about golf fitness, and then you have
tpi. So I dove in on all the
Titleist Performance institute courses and then became the golf
fitness person in Greenwich. And that brought me all guys

(05:10):
as a clientele. And they felt very open or
very comfortable being open with me about energy
and, you know, wanting to lose their love handles and belly
fat. And the discussion turned from anything golf related
to more of that and then hormones and all that. And I was like,
nobody really covers this with guys. And they feel

(05:33):
very comfortable talking about it. And a lot of them, you
know, shy away from getting blood work or even thinking
about TRT because it's so highly stigmatized
that no one was talking about that. So dove in on everything.
Men's health and went to medical conferences, spoke at medical
conferences. Just learned everything. Everything I could

(05:56):
fast forward now, here we are. And that's what I'm
primarily known for. Yeah, and it seems like there's
quite a shift. I remember those days too. Even like 10 years
ago, and still now it can be
Hard for people to find the resources to
deal with those issues because it's

(06:19):
most primary care doctors are not,
not in tune. Which still seems baffling with the, you know,
where we're at with the state of information availability that you
still have to know the right person that actually understands these
concepts. And so, you know, having a referral network,
some people don't like having, you know, an online,

(06:43):
you know, care at peace as well. Although that
is, that certainly seems to have changed post Covid.
Are you seeing in each, you know, how is.
That's a good question. How has that impacted cause I know you're affiliated with
Merrick Health. Actually I'm wearing my Merrick. I got this
badass flannel that showed up. It's nice.

(07:07):
But yeah, it seems like during the course of that actually
there was a lot of shift for comfort level
with remote healthcare services.
Have you, have you seen that? And how's that impacted, you know,
your work? That has been honestly like
the best thing. Because I want to say in 2012,

(07:29):
one of my first businesses, I had partnered with a doctor
to create a non insurance
based company where people had access to better
hormone panels and specialty testing, things like Dutch
test, micronutrient tests, like, like genetic testing, all of that.
And this was before you can buy labs online. So we were

(07:51):
kind of the only place that offered that. And
then shortly after, I want to say three years maybe,
labs became available online very easily where you can just go on a
website, download your acquisition and then go to any local lab to get
the draw. So I did not feel right
about the product anymore because we would have to

(08:14):
mark them up significantly because of cost of business
and the interpretation and all of that. So I was like, you know what, this
is out of my integrity to charge this price when people can get it online
now and then if they want a consultation, you know, they can go that route.
So when that became available and then when covet hit
and they relaxed all the telemedicine laws, that made it

(08:36):
a lot easier for people to get access to providers that I
knew because otherwise it's like, hey, do you have a doctor in, in
like, you know, random North Dakota? And you would need
someone in every single state. Yeah, it was. Yes.
And as you know, that's like impossible because it's really
hard to find somebody that understands active

(08:59):
men and understands the needs of somebody who's not
stick but just kind of wants to be proactive in their health in
every single state. So telemedicines like a
huge godsend And I spent years trying
to find providers in different states to
not partner with, but, like, build the referral

(09:21):
trust. And part of the problem with that is
even if I knew the physician, I didn't know the staff. I didn't
know anybody else that our clients would be
confronted with. So sometimes if the customer service wasn't on
point, it would reflect bad on me. I had no real
say or control. And then when Merrick

(09:43):
Health developed their program, I was like, oh, this
is amazing. Because now I know the
providers, I know the health coaches that have access to our clients.
So everyone's on the same page, because, as you know, men typically
will piecemeal their health together, where they get
labs over here, and then they have conflicting views from

(10:05):
this doctor and then this person online and then their coach, and
they're getting a training program here and then nutrition here, and they're
trying to make everybody talk to each other and make it all work. And it's
very difficult, especially when you're in the middle and you're hearing all these
conflicting viewpoints. So it's been a godsend for
us to have access to Merrick because then legally,

(10:27):
like, we can't prescribe anything, and that's not
our lane. But we do involve it for our coaching
because our clients need it. And a lot of guys, 40s,
50s, they've never had their hormones checked ever.
So it's awesome. Yeah, no, that's
the piecemealing it together so strikes home, because

(10:50):
I started on my HRT TRT journey in
2010, actually. So the same time that you started getting into
this, because I, I was affected by the stigma
as well. I'd like to spend some more time talking on that, but
I had measured extremely low for testosterone for years,
and I was competing as an athlete, and

(11:13):
I, I, I would wear it as a badge of honor, like, because I'd
show up at competitions and I'd be competing against, you know, people that
were using, and I'd be like, yeah, and I'm cleaning. But
even though it didn't give me any bonus points, but
I, I, I
chose to try to chase those

(11:36):
numbers at the detriment of my health because I was
so low for so long, and my goal was to
wait till I was a submaster. So 33, the 33
age class up. And so that's when I went, went on. That's why
I remember the year, because I was 33.
And then after that, people would constantly reach out to me

(11:59):
for years about they would see
the changes that happened with Me. And they'd ask me because,
hey, I've got men's health
issues, right? They'd hit me up on the side after the gym.
And it was really easy to help them
locally because I would refer them to my doctor.

(12:21):
But then when it started to be online, it was like, for years, like,
I don't know what to do other than tell you how to try to find
a good doctor. And that's a weird conversation to try to
create, you know, education and difficult because you can't.
Your level of us, how you assess somebody is hard to
transfer to someone else. And yeah, when Merrick came along, it

(12:43):
was a game changer. And that's why I was immediately on board because I was
like, this answers a big issue that I
have because I deal with so many
people remotely, and this is just over and over and over a thing. But
let's, let's talk about the misconceptions about
testosterone therapy and hormone therapy

(13:04):
that you encounter. There
are so many. And I would think, you know, the
best place to start is a lot of men
associate testosterone with muscles
or with sexual health and that's it. And
they don't realize the benefits of it are far

(13:26):
beyond that where it comes to brain fog energy,
just quality of life. So a lot of guys will think, well, I don't need
testosterone because everything downstairs works great
and I don't necessarily need to turn into a
bodybuilder, which you and I know. The
dosage is the big difference with that. And bodybuilders

(13:48):
not only are on, you know, upwards of 10 times the dose of
therapeutic, they still have to go to the gym and they still have
to eat correctly in order to do what they need to do. So it's
not that injecting is going to turn you into this muscle
explosion the next day. But, you know,
the side, the side effects of low

(14:09):
testosterone correlate highly with depression
and an anhedonic attitude. And guys
really don't really think, oh, yeah, that's low testosterone, until they become
educated. And now there's so much education around
that. But a lot of the times the stigma is
somebody in their ear, either medical or their

(14:31):
friends, who are saying, oh, that's bad for you. It's going to cause a
heart attack, going to cause cancer, you're cheating.
Like all these negative things where
women, when they go through menopause, like, no one bats an
eye, that they go on hormone replacement. And even
before menopause, like, I'm not in menopause and I have to take

(14:52):
progesterone and granted it's not an anabolic
hormone, but still it's a hormone. But no one cares
where. Because testosterone is associated with an anabolic
hormone and the steroid act in 1990, a lot of
people associate it with going on steroids. And that's like a constant
debate online where people are like, you're not clean if you're on

(15:14):
trt, you're not natty, blah, blah, blah. So I try
to explain to guys, listen, like testosterone replacement is
bringing you to where you should already be
biologically. It's not catapulting you into
what you see in bodybuilding. And so understanding that
difference is crucial because you and I know there's a lot of guys walking around

(15:35):
who are on testosterone that don't stereotypically look like
it because they don't take care of their health. Yeah, most,
most people that I know because again I, people are pretty open with me about
this with my background. And you wouldn't think because
they don't look like a, you know, a bodybuilder at all, they just look like
a guy. Right. And that you hit

(15:57):
on a point there. Like the feedback that I consistently get from people
that I've mentored through the years and have ended up
deciding to make that choice. The life
changing impacts are typically around the
depression, the brain fog in the energy and then how that
affects their career as well as

(16:19):
their marital life. It's just
like that is often like the big driver and man, it
is, it is life changing for people not
realizing like this, this fog that's been with
them, these low energy, this, you know, haze that's just
affecting everything in their life or just significant level of

(16:41):
depression that they're constantly battling
and trying to, to work through that and trying to take care of their
family and you know, all of this, these pieces on top of this.
And yeah, they're afraid to be associated with the other side of
it. And that other side, like to be clear, when I went on
TRT at 33, that was, I didn't go on TRT.

(17:03):
I was waiting for the point of when I would be on that to then
use anabolic steroids, which is what I did. I, I use
steroids from 33 to in my early 40s. There was
about 10 years there. So,
so yeah, the, what I say when people don't associate like
the, the things that I did in that realm with being on trt, that's not

(17:25):
the case. Let's,
let's clear, let's clarify that I didn't, I Didn't use some TRT to squat
a thousand pounds.
So. But yeah, I, I just wanted to
reiterate that. That point because that's. It's. It. It's

(17:46):
a. It's amazing. And when we think about motivation
and resilience and how that plays a
role in life, so we can sit there and talk about the mental
aspects of mental toughness and, you know,
overcoming setbacks, but when you're
dealing with that, I mean, would you. What are your thoughts on.

(18:08):
On motivation, resilience, mental toughness
as it relates to also dealing with hormonal deficits?
I like to talk about that with guys because I find no
one really talks to them about it, especially entrepreneurs. Like,
it's very isolating being a business owner, not really having
people who are maybe at the same level as you or

(18:31):
understand what you're going through until you go to events where you're in the
same room as people. But I talk to them
about what impact they want to make in their business and in
their home life. Because a lot of the time, you
know, if you are in a room and then someone walks in a room and
they just have this physical stature about them and

(18:53):
presence, it immediately draws attention, it
immediately draws respect. But if their confidence
is matching that, then
it's like this subconscious trust. So I tell guys,
if you walk into a room and you're commanding respect by
how you carry yourself, which can be aligned with

(19:15):
how you look, not just from testosterone, but also from taking care
of the physical and the nutrition and all that, do you feel
that that will bleed into your business and amplify everything in your
life, from home life to your friends, your social
circle, all that stuff? And the answer is yes, because
they know what it's like to see people who have

(19:37):
that presence. And I was talking to one of our guys
last week. He's 6 foot 2, he's
around 240, and he's like, being
tall already. People, you know, they look at you, but
he's like, if I could get a V taper and my clothes were actually
fitted and I had the confidence to match. There's an

(19:59):
immediate trust factor. People want to do business with you because they respect
you, take care of yourself, you're disciplined. It just
says things without having to say things. And of course,
you get the trolls online that are just like, they're shitbags who look
good and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that's not who I'm talking about. You
know, social media, you can argue anything. Well, it does

(20:21):
resonate Take a step. I mean entrepreneurs
or you know, career professionals,
executives, you know, you, you think about all the things like you know,
being the I, I think of about being as a boardroom
athlete, right? Like you need to be at your A game, you
need to, you need to be mental clarity, you need to be able to recover,

(20:42):
you need to be like these are all things that roll into
that and optimizing your health is going to allow you
to perform better as a boardroom athlete. We're talking
about like that's where you really want to have your peak performance.
You don't want to be, you know, again having, having the
mental fog, the not recovering from sleep.

(21:04):
Like you're like there's a reason you need to take care of
yourself and take care of your mind and your body in that realm
if you're going to operate in that matter. I mean
to me I, I highly, and this is
like who I, I try to
identify and help realize that they need

(21:27):
to be focusing and treating themselves like an athlete
more so than anyone else because it has a much larger impact. It
has an impact on the business deals that you're trying to close
to the people that work for you and that are impacted like
their livelihoods. All these people, not just your own family, are
impacted by your performance. Right? That's a big

(21:49):
thing. That's bigger than you know, winning a race.
Like, you know, like right now I told you
I've got a new gig that I'm focusing a big part of my effort on.
Like I walked in when I sold kabuki and
I'm running, you know, an organization, part of an
organization that's a division of Toyota Company and I walk in, you know, I

(22:11):
got 150 employees and pushing, you know, millions of dollars.
Like there's a big in being able to step up and walk it to
your A game and walk in and have people respect and you be able
to confidently make the decisions that you need to make.
You know, it comes around to optimizing
your, your health like your mind and your body.

(22:35):
Let's dive into the world of optimizing your overall health. With
pushing my physical limits, I encountered significant reductions in my health
and I reached out to Merrick Health as the premier telehealth
service. I loved their personalized health coaching. From the comfort of
my home they empower you with the choice of self service diagnostic
labs or what I chose the guided optimization with

(22:57):
expert interpretations of blood work health coaching and with medications
delivered to my door. Merrick Health is your partner in optimizing
your health listeners can seize a fantastic 10%
discount off their first blood work with code
resilience@mer health.com that's code
resilience for 10% off. Yeah, I like that

(23:18):
term, the boardroom athlete, cuz it aligns.
And I love like quoting my friend Jay Faruja because Jay
talks about how these guys have like, you know, eight, nine, ten
figure bank accounts, but like a three figure physique.
And it's so true because growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, like
I saw that firsthand with a lot of these guys where the

(23:40):
one thing they couldn't buy was the body. And you know,
they'd roll up in the Ferrari, you know, Bugatti, whatever.
You have the Rolex, like all that stuff, but you
can't buy the presence
and the confidence and you know, the body that comes along with
that. Like to an extent, yes. You can get like plastic

(24:03):
surgery and all that stuff, but still the feeling and
then the confidence that comes with that and like the
empowerment and like you said, eliminating brain
fog or at least reducing it significantly. Like if you're in an important
meeting, you don't want to be trying to search for these words that you can't
articulate and then you sound like a dumbass because you're just

(24:25):
like. That goes away when
you're able to overcome the suboptimal
hormones because that does play into it. But going back to like guys,
considering the fact that testosterone is just having to do with their boner and
just having to do with their biceps is not true. It is
everything. And I think you nailed it when you said that. Yeah.

(24:47):
So I love that statement. It's the
one thing that you can't buy because that
is so on point.
It's something to be proud of, what
we build through. It's a
demonstration going back again to that

(25:08):
boardroom athlete concept. When you walk
into a room, being able to look the part
of, I am, you know, I'm a
disciplined individual and I do what it takes to get
results. Right. Does that strike home with, you know,
to you? 100%. It's the

(25:30):
same kind of alignment when you meet someone who
trains because you can tell by how they look. And
the best example is like when Charlie and I go to Disney World.
There's very few fit people at Disney World, but when you see
one, there's like the, the fit person, not, we call it
like this mutual respect that you're like, yeah, that person gets

(25:53):
it. And that's similar to what living
that life and looking a certain Way radiates,
Right? So it's just. Yeah, it's super true
because it is. It is rarer and rarer. Like an airport.
Disney. Just America. Like, there's not a lot of people
who are fit looking. And now people

(26:15):
see somebody who has visible abs or has muscle, and it's like, oh,
they must be on steroids. Okay, so now in order to look
remotely fit, that just means you're on steroids. That's where we
are now. We are now. Okay, great. That is where we
are. I mean, that is just like the
really interesting sentiment and discussion where it goes really

(26:38):
fast. Anyone? Right now. It's hilarious.
Oh, my gosh. It's just like, you know, because I get trolled
all the time on online, and people are like, oh, how much
trend are you on? And how much blah, blah. And I'm like, have you met
me in person? I'm £120. Like,
seriously, I'll show you my blood work. I was with Dr.

(26:59):
Serrano two weeks ago. We had our appointment because I.
I was on trt and I came off literally because
I got very lazy with my injections. And I told Serrano,
I was like, I. I just haven't taken it. And he's like, how do you
feel? I'm like, I feel fine. He's like, all right, just stay off and see
what happens. My testosterone's 18. Like,

(27:22):
it's not, you know, 4,000. Like, a lot of these
guys online think. And I'm like, you guys are just so
warped in your thinking that, you know, people who grow up as
athletes, like, when you play sports, that helps you develop
your body. And then as soon as I hit 40, I was like,
yeah, I kind of want to look more a certain way. And

(27:44):
I've been working with my coach, you know, Luke, for seven years,
and now I look that way, and I'm
unapologetic about it. Like, I like how I look, but people always
assume it's because of some chemical soup that I'm injecting
and completely dismiss everything else that goes into it. And it goes back to
bodybuilders who are on a lot of things, still have

(28:06):
to go to the gym and put the work in.
Unbelievable. So
let's change gears a little bit. I.
You've been hosting this event for a few years now,
the Silverback Summit. Can you tell me about it?

(28:27):
So it's basically an event I created three years ago
where it satisfies the need to bring the medical world and the
fitness world together for men's health.
Because nobody was talking to each other, and the collaboration
is so heavily needed. But also something that was not
regulated by any of the medical organizations, where all my

(28:49):
trusted TRT practitioners could come and talk
openly about how they do TRT in their
own practice. And some of the things that are often not
discussed at other medical conferences get discussed here. And then I
brought in business experts and fitness and nutrition. And so
then everyone in that same room, you're covering literally

(29:11):
every aspect of entrepreneurship, where somebody
who's a coach, a medical practitioner, or even someone in a
completely different industry, like we've had accountants, real estate investors,
all that who attend could still benefit from attending because they learn
about this is the Truth with Men's Health. But this is also a room
full of guys who understand me and get

(29:33):
me. So I feel like I'm with my people because you know
how it is when we go to events. Like, we're around people who study
what we do and live the life that we do. So we. We feel
like we're around our people. And that's the environment that I wanted
to create for guys, and we've successfully done that,
and it's grown every year. And it's just awesome to see more than

(29:56):
ever the friendships that come out of that and the fact that
these guys hang out now separate from
Silverback, and they collab on podcasts and they talk to
each other, and I see people collabing. I'm like, wait, you guys know each
other? And they're like, yeah, I met at Silverback. I'm like, oh, my God.
It's just cool. Well,

(30:18):
let's. Yeah. When is. When is this year's
event taking place? Hopefully November
13 through 15 in potentially
Dallas. We've narrowed it down to three venues. I like
having it no in November because for a lot of us, it's like the last
event of the year. So that's what we've traditionally done. So.

(30:40):
But we do have tickets for sale. We've sold a lot of tickets without people
knowing the dates or the location, which is a test
of it, to how much people enjoyed being there. So that.
That is a. That is a. That is a very strong testament
when people are buying that without any of the. Those details, other
than roughly it's sort of in this month. Yeah. Yeah.

(31:03):
Because then they're like, you know, people will ask, well, can you have it, you
know, in the middle of nowhere, like Pennsylvania? I'm like, no, it's going to
be somewhere easily accessible. We have nine
different countries that fly over to attend this so
if people can fly from Australia, you can come on a three hour
plane flight. Nice.

(31:25):
Well, let's, let's talk a bit about strength because,
well, I think silverbacks are strong. And
in your view, what does it mean to be truly strong physically,
mentally and emotionally?
Physically lift more than me? That's a requirement, at
least for the guys. I say that in jest because I

(31:47):
can bust our clients balls sometimes when they're lifting less
than me. Yep. And they like that. But
I think you can appreciate this working with people online.
The one huge hurdle with the strength
training or the, the fitness part is
you, you can't really teach

(32:09):
failure or executing reps in a way
that like we grew up in the gym where people were just like
screaming, bent over, like falling on the floor. So a lot of people
leave a lot of reps in the tank and then until we see a video
where we're like, bro, you had like 10 more in you. Getting them
to train hard enough I think is a skill set in

(32:31):
itself. And that creates a form of empowerment
because sometimes guys just training on their own, like they think they're pushing hard
and then when they actually push hard, they're like, oh my gosh, I could
actually hit numbers I never thought I would and not hurt
myself. So that would fall under like the
physical category. And then with

(32:52):
the mental and the emotional, it's
not allowing setbacks or adversity to
completely break somebody. And my
personal viewpoint, like whenever something
happens, because being a business owner, there's always that happens. Like,
oh my gosh, how am I gonna, you know, find a solution?

(33:14):
And my team knows that anytime something bad happens or something
negative, I always look at the positive part of it. I'm like, okay,
this happened, we can't control it. How do we move forward? What
is the solution versus swimming in the. I can't believe this
happened. I can't believe this happened. Like that's just going to perpetuate
negative feelings. And you can't live in that type of

(33:37):
an emotional state. Especially if you have people that depend on you,
family, employees, whatever. You have to be able to move
forward. And how you overcome that says a lot about you
as a person because then you will see that for obstacles in your
future. And this could go for anybody who's been through a
hellish childhood or had an amazing childhood and never

(33:59):
really had anything very greatly impact them in
a negative way. But I try to educate our
clients whenever they see something as negative and
guys in the negative space and coaching guys have body
dysmorphia just like we do as women. They get emotional
about the scale sometimes, you know, certain body parts or they

(34:21):
can't see their abs, like, the way they want. So it's talking them through
that and then creating unbreakable
confidence for them to plow through the rest of their
life. And I do see that change when guys do
bring on trt, because we have guys who
train, you know, a few years before they actually go on it. And

(34:43):
since we've handled the physical part, the nutrition,
sleep, stress management, and then we bring in testosterone,
their whole aura changes. Like their confidence on
camera, the way they speak, the way they make decisions,
like, it just amplifies it. It's a game changer for
guys as long as they're taking care of the rest of themselves.

(35:07):
Yeah, you certainly have to take care of all those things independently and not
rely on that as a. As
a shortcut. Right. Can you. You know,
the moments you talked about of trying to look
at the positive instead of swimming in it. And I like to call those moments
the. The pit. And can you think of an

(35:29):
instance in your life where you were in, you know, in
one of those moments, and it was, you know, you're proud of the
decisions and how you walked through that
and how that affected either you or the people around
you?
Oh, man. Trying to think of, like, the one that has, you know, the.

(35:51):
The biggest effect.
It doesn't have to be the biggest, but more of just, like, walking
through kind of the process of what it was, how you looked at
it. Yeah. As a. As an example. So it doesn't have to
be the. The biggest, most impactful.
Probably the most relatable example is, you know, people who

(36:13):
travel a lot. If your flight gets delayed, canceled, it's really
annoying. There's nothing you can do to control
it. So I'm just like, okay, this is annoying.
All right. What else can I do in the time that I'm delayed? How can
I be productive? How can I change the schedule around
in order to satisfy not having to

(36:35):
stay up all night or, you know, something like that. Those are one of the
more relatable things. Like traffic. Like, people get so
annoyed over traffic, like, there's nothing you can do.
So use that time to outline
something in the future. We've had
issues with some of our payment

(36:56):
management software where it would. Over
Bill. Not Bill randomly billed people,
and it caused a loss and a lot of money.
Can't control it. What's the solution? Don't let it happen
again. We. We've had, you Know
people, there's always somebody in someone's life that ends up

(37:19):
not being the person that you thought they were. And you can only learn
from that situation and then improve on,
probably communications, really, where a lot of things break down
in business and relationships overall. But
I always am trying to be a better leader, trying to be
somebody that allows someone the safety and the

(37:41):
comfort, Comfortability to approach me with stuff.
Because people say I'm easy to talk to, but then there are people who are
intimidated to bring things to my attention.
And I try to tell people, like, the best thing that someone can do for
you is provide feedback, whether positive or negative,
because that allows you to change things. Because if someone doesn't know something,

(38:03):
they can't change it. You know, like, if I was like, Chris, your. Your
flannel shirt is so offensive to me, even though it says
Merrick, and I love Merrick. I don't know if I can do this podcast with
you wearing that shirt. Whereas if I didn't tell you that and I just let
it build up and then build up every time I saw you wearing that, it
would just make me angry and negative, and I don't like that. So I don't

(38:25):
like how people feel. You know, they have to hold themselves back
from saying what is on their mind, obviously, in a
respectful way. But I always tell people,
like, feedback is a gift, because that's what one of my clients
told me, and I totally understand that. Because if you don't
know something, you really can't change it unless you're telling someone, like,

(38:47):
something they can't control. That's, like a physical feature. But the
Internet never fails to tell me how they hate, like, my hair
or muscles, I don't give a. So. So obviously it's people. If it's people you
care about, like your family or your staff members or
anyone like that, I think that can be very
powerful. Yeah. Being able to truly

(39:10):
ask for critical feedback or deep feedback
and the willingness to just listen and accept and try to
look at how that can help you without trying to
respond or explain or fight. What
is being said is. Is that is a true
leadership trait. To be able to, you know, separate

(39:32):
that and look at that from a perspective of, how can I
grow from this? This isn't a negative. This is just. This is
just feedback. And there's nothing hurtful about
feedback. It. It can only be positive. Right? Because
I. I can. Because I can learn from it.
All right, guys, we talk a lot about mental resilience on this podcast,

(39:54):
but let's Talk about another type of resilience. That's movement
resilience. We want to move well, recover better, and do it
for life. And it starts with your feet. And you can start today with
Naboso. Naboso is a sensory technology company founded by
a functional podiatrist. And all their products feature a
texture to stimulate, strengthen, and awaken your feet.

(40:16):
I use their splay toe spacers and Neuroball to release my feet at
the end of every day. They also have these textured recovery
socks that feel like a mini massage when you walk around. If
you're looking for an effective way to bulletproof your feet, head to
nemoso.com that's n a
b o s o.com and use code

(40:37):
resilience for 20% off.
It's a huge. It's a huge gift. And
what I've learned managing a team. Because now I. I didn't have
a team forever. I was operating on my own. The
last four years, three, four years, my team has
grown. So instead of getting mad when they maybe

(40:59):
don't do something how I want it done or mess up,
I say, okay, did I provide them the
tools to execute this correctly, or is
this them not wanting to do it correctly
alone? And it's never them not wanting to do it. It's
always my fault, and I always own that and tell them that

(41:21):
I didn't put you in a position that allowed you to succeed at doing
XYZ or I failed to communicate that I wanted you to do
xyz. And then it makes the other person
feel a lot better about telling you these things happen. But
also they don't feel like they're going to be positioned as the bad
person. It's really. It's always the leader's fault. It always

(41:44):
is. Unless, obviously, it's some completely
outlandish
issue. But I think you know what I'm getting at. Oh, I
do. So
when is, you know, still on this topic of strength? When is
the first time that you realized, you know,

(42:04):
the value of the strength that you've developed inside the
gym, outside of the gym?
Probably, like when I first got comments on how I
looked. And

(42:26):
I'm trying to think of when it was related to. To strength. Because I didn't
always look the way I do now, but I want to say the way I
do now is a byproduct of being able to get stronger in the gym.
Similar to, like, when we tell clients who want to look a
certain way, but they're so focused on, like, losing weight Losing weight. Whereas if
you get really strong and a lot of the big lifts, the byproduct is

(42:49):
you look a certain way. So training for soccer during
college was probably at that point,
because when I first came in as a freshman, I was part of
the world of women who were afraid to lift because we didn't want to get
too big. So we would go to the team weight room and do our lift
and then we would all go to the campus gym and do cardio after

(43:10):
and hope we wouldn't get caught. And I would get caught because I would go
for a run, like off campus. Somehow coaches would just like
drive by and be like, ally, what are you doing? So we would never
hit the sets and the percentages that our strength coach wanted us
to. And then when I realized that that's stupid because I was in
an exercise science degree, then it was more

(43:31):
empowering for me to be able to push bigger lifts.
And then the fact that I was able to pull out, you know,
50 pound dumbbells for clients to demo during the
start of my personal training career
to the fact that now I do pull ups with loaded weight.
And that just feels empowering to me. And to know that

(43:54):
like I can do that is pretty
cool because people will associate. If you look ripped, you probably have
zero strength. But I can back it up with having both,
which makes me feel good. And then people are like, oh,
okay, I can trust her. Like she can actually probably kick my ass
or something like that. I like that. That's great. I probably can.

(44:17):
What are your personal non negotiables for health and performance?
So for me, I definitely have to go for a few walks during the
day. Like I walk our dog quite often. But
I did want get one of those like walking pads for the desk
I broke down. I was like, I'm never gonna buy that. And then I did.

(44:38):
It does help. But I don't do it for anything other than like
not important meetings. If it's just like a social meeting type of thing.
Um, and then I'm very anal with like my sleep
schedule. So I don't like taking late flights. I'm always taking
the first flight out. Less chance of delay. You're not getting
in late screwing up your sleep schedule. So I will

(45:01):
redo, like if, if travel calls for, hey, you can get home on
a red eye. Like I'm never going to do that. It's always going to be
the earliest flight. And make sure my travel schedule
complements that. No matter where I'm going,
always having, you know, High protein, Always
trying to control the restaurants that I

(45:22):
go to with people or have a say in it. But I
wouldn't say that's like the law. I won't be like, no, I'm not going out
with you guys. I'd always find a way to adapt. But
stuff like that. And I don't really drink alcohol anymore. If I
do, it's like, at Silverback, I had a drink for a
photo shoot. I'll have some to dry out, but it's not part of

(45:44):
my life anymore. And, you know, part of the mental
health aspect is associating with people that align
with those same goals. So keeping the circle
small and focusing on my personal energy and
who I give that to. Because we give a lot online. You know how
it is. Like, you're constantly answering messages and you're creating

(46:06):
content, and there's a lot. And I wish I could help the
entire world, and I wish I could do it for free, but
unfortunately I can't. And I have to protect
how much I give and when and all that. Yeah,
that's. That was great. Thanks.
Have you. What challenges have you

(46:29):
faced in advocating for men's health? And
if so, how have you addressed them?
Early on, I would get trolled by certain doctors
online who are popular. I'm not going to say
any names, but then they. They quickly
realize the people I associate with are brilliant in the men's health

(46:52):
world. So that didn't really
resurface until the last few years where my popularity on social
grew and I get completely targeted.
Like, sometimes I'll get comments where people are like, why are we listening to a
woman talk about men's health? That I just laugh because I'm like, well, you
must be new here. And also, there's

(47:14):
so many guys now that are women's health coaches. But
when you flip it around, it seems like it's this bizarre,
you know, like, God, that can't be possible. And
being strong in the gym and looking the way I do, I think helps that
because if I was like 100 pounds, like super
skinny, super long blonde hair that, you know, came

(47:37):
across as somebody that didn't have a physical presence, I
think things would hit a little bit different. But no matter what you do, like,
someone's going to be mad on social media. So people will come at
me regarding things that I say because they have
heard the opposite, especially when it comes to TRT
or even, like, protein. I mean, my team edited a

(47:59):
reel to. To make me say every man should eat 200 grams
of protein. And I don't remember what I said, but
I think it was more around guys who weigh over 200 pounds, at
least 200 grams. And the hate I got for that was
amazing because it was like everyone still thinks that your kidneys are going to
die. Oh my God. And that it gets stored it as body

(48:22):
fat. And so the next day I posted like the actual studies that
showed like that Jose Antonio did, showing overfeeding of
protein, showing the blood work, showing what happens. But of course they don't want to
pay attention to that. So I get attacked with that stuff.
But mainly it, it's more, you know, the
testosterone claims and then what their doctor said. And that must be right

(48:44):
because it's their doctor. And so it's constantly refuting
that or I have to tag one of my providers because I'm
not a doctor. So it hits different coming from them. But
even then people still argue. So, yeah, what
trends or breakthroughs right now in men's health excite you?

(49:04):
I think that the, there's better acceptance
of TRT for men, even though there's still the
challenges that we have. I think a lot of men are more open about
considering it, especially with the education provided about
how it can be very safe and just
encouraging guys to get their blood work done no matter what, just to see where

(49:26):
they are. So I think that there's hope there that guys
will become less shy talking about
it and talk more openly about it,
especially now that more and more people are going on it
and whether they need it or not, it still still at least gaining
in popularity because there is a lot of positive around that,

(49:48):
especially with the podcasts and all
the social media content and stuff. The big challenge is just
filtering who's and who's pushing their own product
and then who's actually telling the truth. So
like people will say, I sell trt. I'm like, I don't sell trt. I
can't legally sell trt and I don't sell it black market.

(50:11):
So no one's paying me. Like, people think we get paid to do
videos. I'm like, no, I pay a ton of money to get these
videos edited. It's actually the
opposite. Anyway. I'm sorry I go off on
tangents, but yeah, that's part of like the
positive. And that's what honestly, like, my mission with Silverback is

(50:32):
to create global education for men to
get the care that they need, especially because they internalize so
many things and they don't discuss it and they don't seek out
treatment And I don't blame them because a lot of the time it's like
they're hitting a wall. I mean, there's so many guys in
my DMs where they're on this protocol and it's just trash

(50:54):
because some of these clinics are just opened by
whoever, especially here in South Florida. Like you can get anything and
they get treated like a piece of paper, just another
number. And then they've seen like two or three clinics or
doctors. They come to us and then I'm like, let me
take you to where people know what they're doing at Merrick. And you're

(51:16):
not going to be on one shot every 10 days with 15
peptides and then an estrogen blocker and all this other stuff.
Oh, drives me crazy. Well, and that is, that's a negative
with kind of the growth in this stuff is that there are,
you know, a lot of. And I think that that's maybe where some of the
negativity comes from is it's easy. How are people

(51:38):
filtering out? You know, the people doing true,
legitimate and wanting to help people with their health versus
the TRT mills. Right. Which is I guess what we'd
call. Call them. But there's so many of these popping up
online where, you know, it's not really about taking care of somebody's
health so much as, hey, let's run some basic panels and you

(52:00):
know, you know, get somebody on a script. And that is
not the clientele that I deal with. I know it's not the clientele that you
deal with, but for the audience,
you know, they can't differentiate. A lot of times if they're,
you know, rolling across content and stuff like that. And I think it has, has
an impact on the, you know, the positive side of the industry

(52:22):
as a whole as well. It does.
And there's a lot of garbage out there. And
unfortunately, our health care system
sucks. So everything is out of pocket. So
everything's going to be cash based. And obviously clinics have to
make profit. You know, providers have to make profit.

(52:44):
But there is a line being drawn where if
you're telling someone that they need all these different
medications, then they likely don't, especially with
peptides. Like, like the other day I had a guy come to me,
there's 14 peptides that someone recommended him
take because he simply said, I just don't

(53:06):
feel good yet. And he's on TRT and all that other
stuff. And I looked at his labs and I just asked him a few questions
about his lifestyle and I was like, dude, you need. You
really need thyroid. And honestly, I think you have sleep apnea.
And no one ever asked him that. And I was like, this is crazy. You
don't need all these peptides and all this other stuff and like,

(53:28):
seven keto dhea. I was like, what in the hell is this gonna do for
you? Like, stuff like that. So I tell guys, like, if you're given
200 milligrams of testosterone once a week with anastrozole
and then like, ganaderellin or enclomiphene,
run. Yeah, that person doesn't know what they're doing. No
idea what they're doing. No idea. And I see it so often,

(53:51):
and it's like, my heart
breaks because this is like every day I get DMS of these
protocols. And, you know, that's wild.
It's a guy, the other day, his test was below
100 and he's in his 30s. Below 100. His
estrogen, even though estrogen on paper is not, like,

(54:13):
the true reflection of what is in a guy, his estrogen was 8
and he was given 200mg tea and clomiphene and
anastrozole. And I was like, what? When you're this age
and your testosterone is that low,
it is reflective of something else, like likely
massive stress on the pituitary. And he was a

(54:35):
military veteran, so it makes sense, but that's not.
The answer is slap some TRT with a bunch of other shit. Like, there needs
to be some more investigation into what's going on. But
can you imagine if he stayed with them? Like,
yeah, probably potential. Especially with that background TBI or something
like that. Being a driver with that. Yeah,

(54:58):
yeah, yeah. And then crush that estrogen even more. That's going
to do good. Oh, yeah. He's going to be hating life.
He. And the reason he questioned it. He's like, this seems like the starter
pack you talk about, and if my estrogen's so low, why am I
on this? And I'm like, oh, my God, I got you. Don't worry. But you're
right, you're right. It's malpractice in my mind. Yeah.

(55:21):
Straight up. So tell me what you think about
the vision for the future. Where do you think the conversation
is going as it relates to men's health heading into the next decade?
Hopefully it comes down to
understanding all hormones and not just the focus
on testosterone, because there's a lot of guys who have

(55:44):
suboptimal thyroid. There's a lot of men who are not Even taking
a multivitamin who are depleting themselves of nutrients
because they're eating very poor quality food, they're
not sleeping. So I think the discussion
surrounding everything in their
lifestyle, all the hormones to get them to where they want

(56:05):
to be and then continue to advocate
for, like, training and cardio, because
I think, you know, cardio has made a big comeback. Hate saying that,
but it's made a comeback in the fitness industry. Oh,
now we call it Zone two instead of aerobics. Fine. Whatever
term you want to use. I think that guys are realizing that that's

(56:27):
necessary for health reasons and it's not going to make them
scary skinny and small and have their muscles fall off. So
I think men are starting to see that because
leaders in tech and
everywhere else are actually changing their physique
around everyone except Elon Musk, but everybody

(56:49):
else looks different, so. Oh, there must be
something to this whole taking care of yourself and
then going that direction. I think that we're going to see
more of that and people are not going to just be like, yeah, it's fine
for me to be a slob because I own six
supercars. Yeah, we need must to get on the.

(57:10):
The boardroom athlete train. So I don't think that's going to
happen. But I did a reel on that. I did a reel on
Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg because obviously, like,
Zuckerberg and Bezos look completely different from where they.
And I knew it would trigger people and it did. And it's just funny,
the conversations and the misconceptions that come around that. Because then you get

(57:33):
the whole group of people who are like, oh, they, they only look that way
because they have money. I'm like, interesting, because I know a lot of people who
have not near a fraction of what these guys
have and they're in shape. Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Yeah. Had nothing to do with it.
That's been a really great discussion for our early morning

(57:56):
Sunday. Your early morning. In my early
morning. I guess it's not so early over there.
Where can people find out more about you,
learn about your services, where to follow you on social media,
all that good stuff. Slide in my DMs

(58:17):
on Instagram at the Ali Gilbert. I
answer everything. I'm quite responsive. So that's where I
spend most of my time. Awesome.
Been absolute pleasure having you on this morning. Telling you
about my dog poo. That was a great way to start
the day. It's a great way to start Sunday off. I love it. So

(58:39):
shitty.
That should have been your joke because you're the dad. You know,
my wife has all the comedy in the relationship. So
similar to our relationship. Weird when you marry geniuses.
She and I have had that conversation, too.

(59:04):
The similarities. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I bet.
No, this has been awesome. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Look forward
to seeing you in person again. And,
yeah, it's been a pleasure. Cool. All right.

All Episodes

#27: Ali Gilbert - Leveling Up Men’s Health: on Wellness, Hormones, and Overcoming Bias

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#27: Ali Gilbert - Leveling Up Men’s Health: on Wellness, Hormones, and Overcoming Bias