204: Women, Muscle, and Metabolism: Cutting Through The Myths With Dr. Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

Today we’re cutting through the noise with Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple - exercise physiologist, researcher, and straight-up myth-buster when it comes to training, fueling, and empowering women.We’re talking about:

• Why most training advice for women is outdated (and flat-out wrong)
• The truth about protein needs, creatine, and menstrual cycle training
• How to avoid losing muscle while on GLP-1s (yes, we went there again)
• Whether weighted vests are a gimmick or a game-changer
• And so much more!

This is a no-BS, science-backed conversation for any woman who’s tired of being told to eat less, lift light, or shrink to feel worthy.Lauren holds a PhD in Kinesiology and Exercise Physiology. Her research explores sex-based differences in strength and hypertrophy, protein metabolism, and how women actually adapt to training. She’s on a mission to help women train smarter, fuel better, and push harder - with real science, not recycled fear tactics.Follow her on Instagram: @drlaurencs1
Thank you Cured Nutrition for sponsoring our podcast!We LOVE Cured products and know you will, too! Whether it's popping a Serenity gummy to help you take the edge off after a long day, or taking a Flow gummy to help you crush your workout - Cured has something for you. ⁠⁠⁠Enter our code 'CTC' to receive 20% off your purchase from Cured Nutrition!⁠⁠Follow the pod: @cutthecrapwithbethandmattFollow your hosts:Beth: @bethferacofitnessMatt: @mattlaarfit
Join our Patreon for monthly workouts, challenges, recipes, and to become part of the Cut The Crap Community! This month we are doing a step challenge and are crushing our workouts. Become a member today for exclusive content! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/cutthecrappodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit our website to learn more about us, contact us, inquire about collaborating with us and more: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cutthecrappod.com/⁠⁠Like this episode? Why not share it with a friend!Send us a DM on Instagram to let us know what you think of this one, and with episode ideas! If we use your comment or suggestion, we'll give you a shoutout on the podcast!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Lifting weights is pretty simple if you just break it
down to okay, let's go to the gym. If you
belong to a commercial gym, you probably have a little
circuit of machines that you can just cycle through day one.
That's an excellent place to start. If you don't have
access to a trainer, great, go and do that and
you can kind of hit all the major muscle groups
and start getting more comfortable performing those movement patterns and

(00:23):
then say, okay, this is what's challenging. Can I do more?
And so I just feel like everyone is trying to
act like exercise is so much more complicated, right it
needs to be, and it ends up with people jumping
from you know, today it's trampolines, and next week it's
the way to invest, and you know, the week after

(00:44):
it's I have to be sprinting or whatever. The thing
and consistency is the most important thing that we can
preach here, and all of this marketing and confusion is
just getting people at a program hop in a way
that they are like, well, I'm not accomplishing any thing.
My body's not changing. Not surprising because you are never
sticking to anything.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Welcome to cut the Crap with Beth and Map, the
world's number one no bullshit health and fitness podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Are you ready to cut the crap with your diet
and exercise, get strongest fuck, and build a healthy relationship
with food. Then you've come to the right place.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
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(01:43):
These recipes are already in my Fitness Pal for easy
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Speaker 3 (01:51):
We believe that fitness is for everyone, so this is
our way of getting you started on your health and
fitness journey at a price most everyone can afford. So
what the fuck are you waiting for? I'll see you
the patreot. What's up everybody? Today? We are joined by
someone who's redefining what it means to train like a
woman and becking it all with science doctor Lauren Klensos
Simple is a powerhouse in the field of exercise physiology

(02:14):
with a PhD focused on how women respond to strength training, protein,
and everything in between. She's on a mission to challenge
outdate of fitness myths, which is why we love her
and help women get stronger, smarter, and more confident in
the gym. So, whether you've been told to eat less,
lift light, or adjust your workouts based on your cycle,
this episode is about to flip all that bullshit on
its head. Welcome Alenzos Simple. How are you doing today?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Awesome, thank you for being here.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah, super excited to have you.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I figured we can bust some of these myths that
everybody sees all over the internet that I get asked.
I'm sure you get asked, Matt gets asked. We get
sent videos.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
What do you think that.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Can you have to send us the video? You already
know the answer?

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, what do you think? I would say?

Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's funny because I never really planned or intended to
get into the quote unquote mythbusting space. But really, my
motivation for being more active on social media is the
more and more people I see kind of weaponizing science
and miss quoting science or using it to sell something.

(03:20):
And it's incredibly frustrating because it's not like misinformation in
fitness is new. It's been around forever. But I feel
like we're in this new wave where people are kind
of using science to sell the thing or push the message.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, it's kind of frightening right now, actually, especially with
all the codes and the products and the supplements and
the microdosing, the dlp ones and the peptides. It is everywhere,
and everyone's on social media. We're talking like young children,
teenagers are seeing these things, and it's I mean, we

(03:56):
need people like you on the internet to you know,
more than these people do.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
I agree. It's really really frustrating, it's dangerous, and I
feel like we're going back in time to where we're
making everything about hormones. We're literally distilling women to only
their hormones, whether it's menstrual cycle or a menopause, or
fear mongering about oral contraceptives. And with the now the

(04:27):
glp ones everywhere, we are reverting to a place that
I think is really really scary for women.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah. I agree, Yeah, those are some things, especially with
the glp ones that we've been talking about a lot
on this podcast with last week with micro dosing and
the influencer trend with that, and then we talked with
doctor Spencer Mandalski a couple of weeks ago about it
as well, and I'm sure, well, we definitely want to
dive into that with you today. But everything you just
talked about like fantastic options for us to kind of
dispel some myths and speak the truth in the science

(04:55):
behind what wellness influencers aka grifters are kind of staying
out there.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, all right, I'm going to ask first because that's
to do with metabolism and menopause. So does your metabolism
decrease during menopause? I mean we've heard that a lot,
about two hundred to fifty two fifty to three hundred
and fifty fewer calories they say per day.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, there is actually an excellent study that has been
done on this topic looking at metabolism through every life stage,
so including childhood, pregnancy, well into older adulthood. And with
all of these claims about menopause specifically, we need to
look at the window of the menopause transition and then say, okay,

(05:41):
is metabolism changing appreciably during that window, or is muscle
mass or is fat mask you know, whatever the question is.
And when we look at metabolism, there is an age
related decline, but there's not a sex difference. So we're
seeing this in both men and in women, and it's
typically not until your early sixties, which is beyond the

(06:03):
average age of menopause.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
So there is a difference, but there's no difference between
men and women essentially, is what we're seeing.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Correct. And you know, with all of this, when we
talk about the age related decline, whether it's metabolism, whether
it's muscle mass, a lot of this is highly linked
to inactivity and so on average people get older, people
become less and less active, and we have a kind
of downstream effect that will lead to many problems that
contribute to decreased physical function leader in life.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Sure. Yeah, that's one thing we want people to understand too,
is like you said, it's decreasing the activities like activity levels.
You know, as a sixty year old man or woman,
we're not as active as we were twenty or thirty
years old, right, We're not chasing kids around. Maybe we're
further along in our career now, or maybe we have
a cushy dusk job or higher level things like that,
and we just we aren't moving around with our non

(06:54):
exercise activity as much, and perhaps we're not hitting the
gym regularly and we're under muscle as well as a
result of that.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
I think it's also if you are somebody who's retiring,
how are we spending our retirement. You know, my mom
is more active than she ever was because she's retired
and she has become an avid hiker and she's also
a runner, and she'll travel around the world, are going
on these hiking trips with friends, and so she's incredibly
physically active. So it's not that you can't, it's what

(07:23):
you prioritize.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, So I hear this a lot, and
just yesterday, Actually, you know, I don't lose as weight
as fast as I did in my thirties, and it's
like I suddenly woke up and I'm thirty pounds heavier.
It's like that doesn't really happen overnight. And you're not
the same person you were at thirty. I know, I
am definitely a lot different twenty two years later.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, And when we think about I think there's a
big tendency to blame everything on hormonal changes. Yeah, but
if it were true that the decline of hormones equals
fat gain, would see it in everybody, and really we
see it in maybe sixty percent of people, And so
there are some people who don't experience it at all,

(08:08):
which is a great indicator that it's more than just
the hormones, because eventually everyone is experiencing this hormone decline,
So we need to make space for people who have
this lived experience, but also just understand that it's more
complex than just one thing, because whenever we change something physiologically,

(08:31):
other things change in response to that. And so we
can look at somebody who is going through the menopause
transition and is experiencing really poor sleep. That's going to
have downstream effects on your adherence to your exercise program
and your diet. Perhaps that is going to fuel depressive
symptoms that are going to influence your motivation to engage

(08:55):
in those sorts of physical activities or adherence to a
diet program. And so there are a lot of things
that I think contribute to this feeling that everything has
changed overnight, but it's really not the case. When we
actually drill down and kind of audit all of these things.

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That'scure Nutrition dot com slash CTC as coaches and you know,
influencers science communicators. How can we take the lived experiences
like you mentioned, but also help work towards helping people

(10:20):
understand that it's not just any one thing like you
just just said, Like your experience is valid for sure,
but it's not this big catastrophic thing that you think
it is.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
I struggle with this because I think it should be
good news that, hey, actually we have the control. This
isn't just happening and there's nothing we can do about it.
I would think that's the worst case scenario, right, is
we have no control over our health, we have no
control over our body competition. That's not true. And we
know the things that work, and the things that work

(10:52):
are pretty simple. That doesn't mean they're easy, but they're
pretty simple. They're easy to explain, and for the most part,
they don't cost much. And for whatever reason, we've kind
of gotten into this warped reality where the message comes
across that it is so complicated you couldn't possibly understand it.
And this is true with some doctors and PhDs online

(11:16):
talking about this stuff and explaining it with language that
is unnecessarily complex and makes it sound like well, I
clearly need to buy your book or your supplements or
your program because you know something I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Right. Do you feel like they use those overly complicated terms,
science y terms to confuse people so they can kind
of promote these products to them.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
I do, because the truth is, human physiology is complex,
and so you know, we can have a conversation about
the mechanisms underpinning this or that, or why we might
hypothesize that, you know, estrogen could affect this, or progesterone
could affect that. We can certainly have those conversations, but

(12:01):
I think it's really important to distinguish what is scientifically
interesting versus practically relevant. And if it's not practically relevant,
why are we communicating it to the masses. That's a
huge problem in the science communication that I see.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
I agree there. Yeah, So kind of speaking about physiological differences,
are there and strength training in particular, are there any
meaningful sex based differences in hypertrophy hypertrophy responses to.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Training, not in their response to training. It's more about
the starting point. So when biological males go through puberty
and experience that surge in testosterone that is a company
by an increase in muscle mass. And so if you
take two untrained adults and one is a man and
one is a woman, the untrained man is going to

(12:51):
be more muscular and stronger on average at baseline than
the untrained woman. But relative to that starting point point,
we are able to gain similar amounts of muscle mass
and strength provided we are doing you know, appropriate training.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Okay, So speaking of appropriate training, then should women train
differently than men muscle will get or get stronger. Is
that one of those myths that we constantly hear.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
It's a huge myth. And I think one of the
things I see thrown around a lot is we have
no research in women. It's all in men, and therefore,
for some reason, the solution is, let's just make some
shit up and tell women that they need to do
things differently, when the reality is there are many studies
that were, you know, maybe initially conducted in men and

(13:43):
then we've replicated them in women. So practical training strategies
like rest periods or how many reps you should do,
how much volume should you do, how much frequency should
you do, and there are plenty of studies and younger
and older men and women and more, and more and
more we see while there are differences at the individual
level in how we respond to certain protocols, when we

(14:06):
look at all men or all women, we're not seeing
meaningful sex differences.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
So a squad is a squad, a hinge is a
hind no matter if your man or.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Woman right, and more importantly, being able to coach somebody
or coach yourself, you need to take on a program
that is appropriate for your goals and that you're going
to be able to adhere to for the long term,
because it doesn't matter if you do something for a month.
We're talking about what is sustainable. What is that actually

(14:38):
going to allow you to get those continued adaptations. So
individualization is key. But if I'm coaching someone, the first
ten questions will have nothing to do with oh, and
so what is your sex?

Speaker 3 (14:53):
Sure? Right, probably diving into lifestyle factors, injury, history of restrictions, Yeah,
like that, I'm assuming.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, yeah, and skill level right. If someone's never been
to the gym before, I'm not giving them deadlifts on
day one, right, and preference because the amazing thing about
strength training is that there are so many ways to
go about it that can be effective, and so you
want to use machines, great, You want to work out
at home with some appropriately loaded dumbbells, cool. If you're

(15:23):
excited about doing more technically challenging exercises like a barbell squad,
like a barbell deadlift, that's great, but we need to
make sure that you know you are accomplishing the technique
components before we really load that up.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, I was just talking about that with clients last night,
talking about the seven fundamental human movements and how there's
so many ways to accomplish them. You know. Yeah, you
don't just have to get under a barbell and squad.
You can do split squads, you can do whatever you
need to do. There's always a way to get it done.
And I think, especially for women, I think deadlifting especially
is one of those things that has a bad rap.

(16:00):
Most people when they think of deadlifting, they just think
of traditional barbell deadlifting. But there's also I mean, what
we're doing is we're training the hinge, right and man
or woman, you're going to be hinging every day in
your life, so we need to train that in some way.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
I come from initially from a personal training background, and
it's one of the hardest movement pathes to teach someone,
even if you're in person, it's really really challenging.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, they used to say hips out, nips out.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
I have them get towards the back of a wall.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Right, it's like kick the car or kick the car
door with your butt, almost like you're shutting the car
door with your butt.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
That used to kind of work.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I also like the one putting a flash light in
your butt and then showing everybody behind you the flashlight.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Right, I've ever heard of that one that we got a.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Good kick out of our clients, but that's one of
my favorite ones to give, like just show everybody the
flash light.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
My gosh, I want to chat about the weighted best
situation going on right now. I don't know about you,
but I mean the weighted Best. I mean, we all
know it's been around forever. I mean I have one,
and I do it when I done the murph, right,
But other than that, it's like collects dust and now
everybody like it's your menopause right of passage, Like everyone
apparently knows you're in menopause. If you're walking down the

(17:16):
street with a weighted best, is it worth investing in
a weighted vest, does it help build muscle and bone density.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's not enough of a stimulus for muscle or bone.
So when we look at a lot of the studies
that people are sighting, they're not actually studies where people
were walking wearing the vest. There's only one that I'm
aware of, and it showed no difference. So you had
people who were inclined walking on treadmills wearing a vest
or not, and yeah, there were no differences in changes

(17:46):
in body composition or bone. And it's not surprising because
no amount of walking is an appropriate stimulus for muscle growth.
You know, we need the contraction of the muscle. We're
not doing that with walking. We need movement against resistance,
we're not doing that with walking. And for whatever reason,
this is being sold as this sort of one stop

(18:09):
shop fitness solution, and that's really really disingenuous because the
data doesn't support that. The only use case I can
see maybe is if you want to wear the vest
while exercising, meaning we're doing walking lunges or we're doing
squats while wearing the vest. But eventually that vest isn't

(18:33):
going to be challenging enough, so then we need a
heavier one pounds, right, and when you think just about
the way that that load is going to distribute and
how that's going to influence your mechanics, it's it's just
not It would not be my go to for.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
For any kind of expit, right, rather than giving them
a weight to vest and do squats with or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
And the thing is, I don't see anybody using it
that way. Everyone's losing it for walking.

Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
I saw a doctor trap our deadlifting with her weighted
best on and then doing chin ups and bench pressing
with weighted best as well.

Speaker 4 (19:12):
This is completely which is that's frightening.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Especially bench pressing that there's no use case for that,
I mean not for the other stuff either.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
No, And I wish that particular individual would stop posting
videos of her exercising because she should not be influencing
anybody on how to exercise. She clearly needs some education herself,
so somebody should send her a personal trainer, right, No, couple.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
It's the amount of hate I do get to when
I talk about weighted best is crazy.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
People are like, let's just let.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
People do what they do and I'm building muscle, and
it's like, then go to the gym, Like, I just
want you to really just walk.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, and I get it. I get both ends of
the spectrum. You know, I think the claims associated with
way to vest are way overblown. As we just talked about,
it doesn't have any significant impact on fat loss, building,
muscle building, bone density. The only thing, Like, it's very
use case specific, right, if you want to improve your
hiking ability, good use case. If you want to improve

(20:17):
like if you're a long distance runner, ultra marathon or obviously,
good use case for that. But for general population, they can,
like you said, just go to the gym, lift some weights,
get your cardio in in a way that you prefer,
that you enjoy, and that it's not that complicated.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
I mean, if for some reason it gets you excited
to go for a walk that you're not otherwise going
to go on, then sure, But I just I can't
imagine that's the case for most people, because the vast
majority of people will say they're really uncomfortable, they're sweaty,
and so you're less likely to go for that walk regularly,

(20:54):
especially now in the middle of the summer, when you're
making that walk far less comfortable, and for what benefit?

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Right, And it causes a lot of issues for a
lot of people that shouldn't be wearing them, like shoulder
back pain. I've gotten messages about that. It's like because
it's not a one size fits all, like these people
are pushing it to everybody. Not everyone should be wearing
a weighted vest, especially if you already are and you have,
you know, a significant amount of fat to lose.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
You can also change your gait, yeah, I mean, and
you can end up having issues because that you wouldn't
otherwise have had if all of a sudden you're adding
this and then you're walking differently and your mechanics are different.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Definitely, enjoyment is adherence. But I don't see people, like
you said, I don't see people enjoying weight invest in
the way that they're being purported to be beneficial for people.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
I'm waiting for the ankle weights and the wrist bands
to come out next.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
That'll probably be next. Everything comes full circle.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
Right, I'm calling it.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's going to be like your please know you trifucked
a pack.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Someone sent me a the other day of these women
who are promoting this program where you're jumping on the
mini trampoline, which is a throwback to oh wow, like
the early two thousands, maybe late nineties, but they're saying like, oh, well,
there's an upper body component and so you know, look
how jacked my arms are. But they're just flapping their

(22:21):
arms while jumping on this mini trampoline and I'm just like,
my brain is about to explode. Oh what I got
doing does not compute.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Like jumping is great, go jump? Everybody needs me jumping more.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
But that ain't it right, and it just overcomplicates. Lifting
weights is pretty simple if you just break it down
to okay, let's go to the gym. If you belong
to a commercial gym, you probably have a little circuit
of machines that you can just cycle through day one.
That's an excellent place to start. If you don't have
access to a trainer, great, go and do that and

(22:57):
you can kind of hit all the major muscle groups
and start getting more comfortable performing those movement patterns and
then say, okay, this is what's challenging. Can I do more?
And so I just feel like everyone is trying to
act like exercise is so much more complicated, right it
needs to be, and it ends up with people jumping

(23:19):
from you know today it's trampolines, and next week it's
the way to invest, and you know, the week after
it's I have to be sprinting or whatever. The thing
and consistency is the most important thing that we can
preach here and and all of this marketing and confusion
is just getting people at a program hop in a
way that they are like, well, I'm not accomplishing anything.

(23:40):
My body's not changing. Not surprising because you are never
sticking to anything.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah right, Yeah, I stick to the boring, basic shit
and just do them consistently and get really fucking good
at it. Yeah right, But that's not sexy. That's You're
not going to sell a program doing basic stuff, you know,
that doesn't get people excited. Where seeing somebody squatting and
bench pressing with a weighted vest and some Mankel weights,
that's gonna get people like, huh, I haven't been doing that.

(24:06):
Maybe that's the missing piece for me.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
And I think that's why so much of this is
successful on social media, because yeah, the kind of basic
information isn't going to get traction because it doesn't have
any kind of fear. It doesn't tell you you were wrong,
it doesn't give you some mind blowing new conclusion or suggestion,

(24:28):
and that's what sells, and that's what gets traction, and
then that's what people seem.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, there's no dopamine hits.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
You're telling people do the boring basic right scroll she's
just repeating her in control.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
I just got to give it time and work really
hard at it.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
I know it's funny people get mad and really I'm like,
you're in control. That's a good thing.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
But now I'm not. It's my hormones.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Oh, but you can control so much. It's powerful to
actually take that control. I want women to know that.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
That's so powerful, to know that you're in so much
more control than you think.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
I think it's for whatever reason, a lot of these
hormone focused messages or programs or whatever are getting a
lot of traction because women somehow feel seen and heard.
And he says, oh, now someone's finally paying attention to me.
And so you know, we're talking about my menstrual cycle,
we're talking about menopause. And in a way, that's good

(25:27):
that everyone is being more open, but it's just opened
up this whole issue of let's really hyper focus on
it in a way that ends up being really disempowering
because you're saying, you know, because you are in perimenopause,
you must do this, or you should never do that,

(25:49):
or because you're in this phase of your menstrual cycle,
you know, stay in bed for two weeks and don't
move because God forbid, you're gonna lose muscle. And so
all of this is is really really disempowering, and it
really takes the agency away from the individual woman to say, hey,
like I've I haven't, I've never thought about this, so

(26:12):
why would I start thinking about it now?

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Right? Yeah? Yeah, That's how I feel when I hear
about cortisol. I'm like, oh my god. And I had
never needed.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
To talk about cortisol until I got on Instagram.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
I know, it's.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Crazy because you're yeah, I mean, we're having conversations about
things that really don't matter and that we don't even
know how to measure. If I'm at home, right, like
I having measured hormones in many, many, many, many women,
I can tell you don't know what phase you're in.

(26:48):
You don't know if you're ovulating, and so then saying oh, yeah,
well you're ovulating, so you need to change your exercise program.
You don't know that you're ovulating, and if all women
knew they were ovulating, we wouldn't need to assess it
for fertility purposes. So it's like there's just some sort
of insane disconnect here where we all of a sudden think,
not only are all of these hormonal shifts important, we

(27:11):
can feel them internally, We know they're happening. When you don't,
you have to measure it, and there's no reason to
measure it, right.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, And that's that's a great kind of segue there
into talking about the menstrual cycle and training adaptations and
in cycle sinking and things like that, because that's something
we see so often. Is so, should should women be
adjusting their training based on their menstrual cycle? Because that's
something that the cycle sinking that we see is very
prevalent as well.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
So the short answer is no, and it's for a
couple of reasons. The first is these cycle sinking training
programs encourage women to switch things up in a very
meaningful way such that consistency goes out the window and
there is no ability to progress and practice the movement

(28:01):
and increase the stimulus, make sure it's regular. It doesn't
matter what your goal is, you need to do it
often in order for it to be effective. So the
idea that you should be drastically changing the way that
you exercise based on these assumed hormonal changes is not
in line with any type of smart exercise programming any

(28:26):
coach would prescribe under any circumstance. And the variability in
women throughout their cycle, the cycle length, the phase length,
the degree to which those hormones fluctuate, that's not something that,
as I said, you're actually aware of. And so the

(28:47):
idea that oh, everyone has this sort of cookie cutter
cycle and we can all do this for a week
and that for a week, that makes no sense either
because of this variability that we see. But you know,
a lot of these programs would essentially have you cut
your training volume in half. Oh, if we look at
the year and clearly that's going to.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Delay your progress, that's not a great way to make
progress at all. Now, So if women are listening and
they're not and they've been subscribing to that modality of
training cycle sinking and they're not seeing the results that
they want, that's something to look at. Then it's like, Wow,
I haven't been able to be consistent with pushing myself
doing the same basic, boring things that everybody keeps talking
about or maybe not talking about, I guess, but we will.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
And even from an adherence perspective, right, so if we
want habit building, we need to do things regularly. And
so by oh, you know, this week I'm lifting mates,
and next week I'm cycling, and the week after I'm
doing yoga, then I'm not building any habits and I'm
not getting better at that squat or deadlift because I'm
only doing it for one week out of the month.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, it's essentially what they're doing is program hopping, you know,
which is very popular. I think women have been targeted
that for decades with various exercise programs, diet programs. You've
got to change it up, you've got to confuse your muscles.
They're going to get used to it, right.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
It's funny because a lot of the myths that were
around that really we're targeting men, or at least we're
kind of being consumed by men many years ago are
now kind of resurfacing and they're targeting women. A lot
of it kind of comes from old bodybuilding culture and
it's come right back around but now it's just for women.

(30:29):
The things like you need protein immediately post workout, or
it's all about your hormones, or you need to be
doing this rep range in order to get this Like
a lot of that is it's not new, it's just
resurfaced in a different.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Way, recycled.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Or you can't process more than twenty five grams of
protein for meal, or.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Things like if you are a woman, then you either
should be fasting or you shouldn't be fasting, or I
mean I writ an article. Yeah, it was like depending
on the length of your your index finger and your
ring finger, then this can tell you what type of
fasting you should be doing.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
What type of fasting. There's different types of fasting, so like.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
What kind of windows are best for you omes or something?

Speaker 4 (31:20):
I got it.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Okay, I see those quizzes. I've never seen the one
about your finger length, but I've always The most common
one I see is what type of fasting based off
of your body type? Right, which, as we know body types,
that's that's like bullshit when it comes to like this,
how you lose fat according to your body type? This
is whatever, Like wow, we just keep repackaging the same
stuff and you mentioned in there two about like the

(31:41):
rep like rep ranges too, Like that's a common myth
that I see with with women is, oh, I want
to get toned, I'm gonna lift light weights high reps
because I don't want to get bulky. So what's the
truth behind that.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
No one ever got huge without trying really really really hard,
and often without some pharmaceutical stance. So I think one
of the biggest disconnects there is, Yes, lifting a really
really really light weight can feel hard. That's why certain

(32:12):
exercises and pilates will feel really difficult. Or a bar
class where you're holding one pound weight like this for
thirty minutes, like, yeah, my shoulder is going to get tired.
That doesn't mean it's an effective delt building exercise. And
we see the flip side messaging too, where you know
you must do five by five you have to lift
really really heavy, And both of these are are not

(32:35):
the right message because one encourages entirely ineffective training and
the other puts people off lifting because that sounds intimidating
and the people they're going to get injured. And no
one should start day one doing a five y five.
That doesn't make sense, right, But in reality we know
it needs to be sufficiently challenging. So that's going to

(32:58):
be different for different ex sizes, for different people, and
it will change over time because what was challenging today
might not be challenging next month, especially if you're newer
to the gym. But as long as it's challenging, you
can do lower reps at higher loads, or relatively higher
reps at lower loads. But if you finish your set

(33:20):
and you could do another ten more, it's not challenging enough.
You need to increase the load definitely.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
On a note of like, lifting will make you bulky
if you're you know, lifting heavy will make you bulky
if you're a woman. The way I like to explain
it is use myself as an example. I've been lifting
weights for twelve years and I'm not bulky. I have
muscle mass, for sure, but I don't look like a
bodybuilder because I haven't been training to acquire muscle mass
in that way. And you know, I've lifted really heavy weights,
but that didn't make me bulky, you know. So I'm like,

(33:47):
I didn't do it by accident. You're not going to
do it by accident either. You have to be really
really intentional.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
I mean I'm been training for a decade too, and
I'm definitely I've been trying to get bulky and still hard.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
It's hard to tell. I mean, people need to know
that it's really hard to get bulky.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
And so few women are eating in a calorie surplus
while doing really good training such that they would even
be able to optimize their rate of muscle growth.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, they've been constantly dieting and lifting heavy weights. You're
still you're not going to get bulky. You're not You're
not feeling your body properly, right, You're not going to
grow by being in a calorie defictit your entire life.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, I guess this would be a good takeaway into
should women train fasted? Or is it okay for women
to train fasted? Because I know it's been said out
there that women should not train fasted. It's a huge no. No.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
This is another example of something that was a controversy
kind of resurfacing, but now it's only for women. And
it's interesting because when this was a thing in twenty
ten ish, I want to say, it was the opposite.
It was you should be doing your cardio fasted because
it's going to be better for fat laws. And so
all the bodybuilders or you know, physic focused folks were

(35:01):
doing their fasted cardio or they were actually slipping bcaa's
while they were doing it, so they weren't really fasted.
But that's neither here.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Nor the body building protocols somehow continue to make it
in the general population, especially for women, Like what the
hell anyway? I digress.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, I mean I think someone asked me where did
the one gram per pound protein recommendation come from? And
it pretty sure it's from the bodybuilding community because it's
been around from them for a very long time, and
I think it's just been more adopted by mainstream fitness.
But when we think about fasting, a lot of the

(35:41):
message that's really targeting women is saying things like, if
you're fasted, it's going to increase your cortisol, and if
you're training in the morning, your cortisol is higher, and
there's a lot of cortisol fear mongering, right, So it's
going to cause you to lose muscle, and it's going
to cause you to gain body fat, and none of
them this is true because it completely ignores your normal

(36:04):
physiologic function, and cortisol is somehow getting this really bad
wrap for no reason. Cortisol is important. It's not just
the stress hormone that we know. It's also involved in
blood glucose regulation, blood pressure regulation, it helps immune function,
and it's supposed to be highest in the morning, and

(36:25):
it's supposed to increase with any kind of exercise, and
it's supposed to increase with prolonged fasting. But these are
just normal responses. Just like when we eat a meal,
we have an increase in blood glucose and then an
increase in insulin, and that's a normal response to a meal,
and it's not something that you ever need to think

(36:46):
about or worry about unless you are diabetic. So same
with the cordisol here. It's true that chronically high or
chronically low levels of cortisol are a problem that is
a disease state. So if you have anorexia, a pituitary tumor,
if you have cushings, if you have addisons, these are

(37:06):
clinical conditions, and that cortisol dysregulation is a symptom of
a clinical condition that needs to be addressed. But if
you are a healthy person, we don't need to worry
about cortisol and fasted training should just be up to you, right,

(37:26):
if you like to train really early in the morning
and that's convenient for you, or if you're someone who
feels like if I eat right before I go to
the gym, I got a lot of GI issues, that's
fine because what really matters is your overall consumption of calories,
sufficient protein, and we don't need to focus on these

(37:46):
nuances of nutrient timing. That Again, it's another example of
just over complicating things for women.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, I know. When I used to work out
four thirty in the morning, I definitely was fasted. I
was eating a meal. If I did anything, it was
like I maybe had a protein shake or something on
the way to the gym, but like I had my
meal at ten o'clock at night, so you know, I
was still fed. And it really is dependent on your
goal too, like if and that's what I want to
encourage people to do, is experiment whether festing works for

(38:15):
you in the morning for working out. Right, don't have
a meal, go work out, See how you feel. Did
your workout suffering? Did you feel like shit? Okay? Now
next time, eat something before your meal. Maybe have some fruit,
maybe you know, have some caffeine before your workout. See
how you feel that that's going to be the best
answer for you.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, And just to pick up on one thing you
just said, there a lot of this messaging sort of
implies that overnight we are you know, emptying the tank
and so we wake up, we have no stored glicogen,
we have no possible energy. Right, you you ate last night,
so you're not resetting overnight such that you have absolutely

(38:54):
no fuel on board to sustain what for most people
is a thirty five maybe an hour long training session.
So you know, I think if we are talking about
really long, really intense sessions, if we're multi day for athletes,
then fueling becomes more of an important conversation because we

(39:17):
have these performance goals. But a lot of this really
dogmatic messaging around you know, you should never do this,
it's going to be terrible for you. What that means
is for the vast majority of people, they're getting to
the gym when they can, right, and maybe that's not
even at the same point every day. But when you
say messaging like that and then they say, well, the

(39:38):
time I had was first thing in the morning, but
since I'm not supposed to train fast. I'm not going
to go and then and then they just don't go
at all, and that's the worst scenario.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, I agree, it's very discouraging. Yeah, black and white thinking,
it's very It does keep people from making progress that
they just need to find a way to do and
work within because they don't these ways of think don't
accommodate different lifestyles, right, And everybody's life.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Is different and not every workout is going to be
amazing and that's fine, right.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, exactly, that's important for people to know. It's like, oh,
I felt so crappy in the gym today.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
Is that normal? Yes, it is. It's so normal.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
Call it a heavy gravity day, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
And maybe you're someone who realizes that, you know, I
actually do I feel better or I'm able to perform
a little bit better if I have a couple of
meals in me and so, I you know, ideally, if
going to the gym was my full time job, then
I would want to train at three pm. But then
we come back to reality and we say, okay, but
if you're if you're going to be able to do

(40:40):
that session and you don't feel like, oh, that was
the best ever, but you still got it in. It's
better than just skipping it all together. And so when
we start to get really bogged down in these nuances,
then we're losing the bigger picture, which is, Okay, one
workout isn't making or breaking anything for you. It's a
out that consistency over time, and a coney.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
In a country where majority of Americans aren't reaching the diet.
You know, the movement recommendations and strength training recommendations. It
really needs to be find a way of getting it done.
Doesn't matter what it is. Just fucking do something. Something
is better than nothing. Don't care if you're facett or not.
Don't care if you're doing homeworkouts, gym workouts, whatever it
might be. Just do something that's right.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
I mean, I think a lot of this you would
think that everybody is exercising and doing it wrong, based
like the conversations we're having. That's what you would think,
and it's certainly not the case. To your point.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yeah, I'd like to talk about creatine, and I know
I think you've talked about this before, but I get
so many questions about creatine. I think that's probably the
number one supplement question I get, and a lot of
times I'm just like, okay, you know, like it's just
always a supplement, but creatinees the number one. Should everyone
be taken creatine? Should menopausal women be taken creatine? What

(42:00):
your thoughts about creatine?

Speaker 1 (42:02):
People get excited about creatine because it's one of the
only supplements in fitness that does anything at all.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
If you're not lifting weights, if you're not doing any
kind of high intensity exercise, creatine is not doing anything
for you. So I think, unfortunately, it's protein, protein, protein, creatine, creatine, creatine,
And then we forgot like, oh wait, actually the stimulus
for muscle growth is lifting weights. So I can sit
here and chug creatine and eat protein all day, I'm
not building muscle. So I think it's really important to

(42:37):
just have appropriate expectations about it. And if we say, okay,
I can you know, lift this weight ten times, maybe
adding five grams of creatine per day gets me at
the eleventh rep. Maybe not necessarily, but maybe.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Right, And that's sort of not making a huge difference
for the.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Vast majority people won't make a noticeable difference at all. Yeah,
that's said, it's safe, it's relatively inexpensive as far as
supplements go, and there there is no creating for women
or creating for menopause.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
It's creating.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Just because it's pink. Yeah, it's all the same, and
you can get it anywhere and it's all the same.
It's it's one ingredient. So you know, there's there's not
a ton of downside. But I think it really depends
on your approach to to supplementation and if you're somebody
who want But all the talk about it being a

(43:38):
must for mid life women, I think is so overhyped
and all of the conversation around cognitive benefits. The data
there is high high dose and in populations that have
a traumatic brain injury or Alzheimer's or clinical depression, and

(44:01):
the research is in combination with an SSRI, and that
doesn't make it even though that's an interesting line of research, right,
so we go back to scientifically interesting versus practically relevant.
So that's interesting, that's cool. That doesn't make it a
brain booster for us, because we're talking about people who

(44:21):
have some sort of deficit that then we are correcting.
And that's true pretty much with supplements across the board.
It's not like oh, take, we're all a baseline, and
then more and more is better and better and better,
and so there's a huge disconnect with that area of
science communication with creating. I don't think we're anywhere near

(44:41):
the point where we should say, oh, yeah, everyone should
be taking it for cognitive health and we should all
be taking twenty grams per day because that's what they
did in these studies, when in reality, people who try
to take high dose creating like that in a loading
phase in a fitness context often have really really severe
GI stress. Yeah, and they can't tolerate those doses.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, that loading phase, that's just complete bullshit anyway.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, I always tell people, you know, if you have
a horrible relationship with the scale and you're not training
right now, there's no reason for creatine because you're gonna
come to me and you're gonna be like, oh my god,
the scale went not five pounds, I'm so loaded.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Da da.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
It's right, we're getting out its questions about creatine, but
we freak out when the scale goes up exactly.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
So it's like, no, why are you just worried about
this stuff that really doesn't fucking matter, Like I would
just want you to move, and I, you know, I
don't have to worry about loading up creatine.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
Just get a consistent gym schedule first.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
And I'll call myself value. I'm not taking creating right now.
I haven't been taking creatine in a while, and I
love creatine. I'm on big advocate for it, but I
don't personally take it right now, and I don't know
any difference from when I wasn't taking it.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
I have taken it and haven't taken it for considerable
amounts of time, and I don't notice the difference either.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
So it's not something that when I was thinking, I
was doing my powerlifting so and I'm not doing that anymore.
So my training is completely different, so I can't really compare.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Sure, Yeah, I think one of the other things we
need to remember when we think about making health based
decisions is there's only a finite number of those decisions
we make in a day, and so if we start
getting super focused on supplements, then often just subconsciously, people

(46:24):
will say, Okay, I did something for my health, right,
I took my supplements this morning, and then that can
end up leading to not making as many health promoting
decisions later in your day.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Uh huh. I supplement sell so quickly because they think
they're immediately doing something for their health by clicking that
credit card to get something in the mail.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Yeah, the dopamine hit dopamine nation.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
And taking the supplement is easier than cooking. It's easier
than going for a walk. It's easier than going for
the gym. It's faster, but the benefits are are nowhere
near the same. And so that's where we can start
to get a bit. We just start focusing on the
wrong things, and the online space of today isn't helping

(47:11):
refocus people. It's all about shiny objects and yeah, you know,
spending more money.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Oh yeah, yep. One reason we don't talk about supplements
a lot better than myself. Get your walks in if
you're not hitting your steps, if you're not in the
gym two to three days a week, if you're not
getting a good night's sleep, practice practicing good stress management, Like,
you're really fucking wasting your time focusing on supplements.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
I have supplement PTSC because I at one point was
one of these women that consistently bought supplements, thousands of
dollars in supplements. So now I'm just like I'm not
anti supplement, but I'm like, don't ask me about supplements.
Go get your blood tested. Like I'm not about I'm
not gonna be here like yeah, you need to take
magnesium and you need to take this.

Speaker 4 (47:53):
It's like that's not for me to tell you.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
And what we're seeing with some of these is, you know,
we have to remember that every thing that you're taking
probably processed in your liver. And so the more and
more and more we take, the harder, we think we're
doing something health promoting, right, But with some of these
there it's not a it's not risk free and it
depends on you know, other medications that you're taking, other

(48:18):
supplements that you're taking, and if you actually need the thing.
There are some even vitamins that two high is not good,
two love is not good, but too high isn't good either,
and so we we we shouldn't go into this mentality
that more and more is better because there can be
real downsides.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, especially because with supplements too, they are the dosages
that they're getting, and these supplements are of the daily
daily values of recommended values. It's like absolutely insane. They're
way over doing it.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, and sometimes you're doubling up because you're taking a
multi and that has and then you're taking additional vitamin
D and right taking a B complex and then you
end up kind of inadvertently. I've had so many conversations
with people that they don't even really know what they're taking,
they're just taking.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
That's one of the first things I do with a
new client was, let's audit the supplement usage here. And
it's usually quite quite astounding. Oh well, that's what we're taking,
and I get it, Like, like Beth just said, I
earlier my journey I started ten plus years ago. I
was spending hundreds of month on supplements, testosterum boosters as
a male, you know, bullshit. I was fat burners, water pills,
hydroxy cut BCAAs, all of those things. I was doing them,

(49:27):
you know, and I was not making any progress whatsoever.
I was probably I was very unhealthy still because my
lifestyle was shit back then. And you insting my intermittifaesting.
I was fasting for days on end, right Like, yes, yes,
I think too. What we want to talk about is
like GLP one usage perhaps right now and women, because
we're that's a very big topic right now. Menopausal women

(49:50):
especially are early being targeted yea and things like that.
One of the common things that we hear about GOLP
one usage is like, oh, you're gonna lose muscle. You're
gonna lose muscle, right, if somebody is taking a GOLP
one under the direction of their doctor, like, like, we
recommend and you're doing it responsibly, what's some advice for

(50:11):
women or anybody using a GLP one to avoid losing
muscle while taking a GLP one.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
So it's true that.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
You'll lose muscle, because when we lose weight, we don't
only lose fat. So we lose and that's true if
you're losing weight with nutrition and exercise, or if you're
losing weight after bariatric surgery, or if you're losing weight
with the assistance of a GLP one. So it's important
that I feel like sometimes people just hit on the
GLP ones and forget that. Oh no, it's when you

(50:40):
lose a large amount of weight. This is something we
just to be concerned about.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
It's not exclusive to GLP ones, right, one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
However, whenever we lose a bunch of weight, regardless of
the strategy, it should be to prioritize the fat loss
and maintain as much of the muscle that we have,
And of course the best way to do that is
to lift weights during the weight loss journey, and of
course to try to consume adequate protein as well, but

(51:07):
lifting weights is going to be the key thing that
you can do. And so it's very important that people
who are on substantial weight loss journeys are lifting and
trying to maintain their muscle because it's i mean, not
only from a health perspective, but even from a kind
of esthetic perspective. If you lose a bunch of weight

(51:27):
and you've lost a substantial amount of muscle, you're probably
not going to be that happy with the way that
you look, because the body composition that most of us
are striving for is one with some visible muscle and
a lower level of body fat. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, like I was just talking about with when I
was doing all those supplements, guess what I wasn't doing
back then. I wasn't strength training. So I lost a
bunch of a bunch of weight I got. I lost
over fifty pounds. I went from two fifty down to
one seventy by crash dieting. But I was just a
smaller version of my body compositions. All skinny fat didn't
have any muscle definition. So you mentioned protein requirements. Then

(52:05):
making sure you're getting adequate protein and in conjunction with
strength training, what are like, what is a good protein
recommendation for women?

Speaker 4 (52:14):
We do see?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
I think across the board everyone agrees the RDA of
point eight grams per kilogram of body weight is shula,
and there's a clear benefit to increasing that to about
one point two grams per kilogram of your body weight,
which would be aero point five four ish grams per pound.

(52:37):
I want to say, so that's more, but we're not
talking crazy quantities. Then we can argue about what you know,
is one point four actually a little bit better than
one point two? Or is can we go up to
one point six? Sure, so let's say a minimum of
one point two grams per kilogram. Or if we don't

(52:58):
want to talk numbers, which I think most people probably
don't need to, then we can say, let's have a
good serving of high quality protein with every meal, plus
a high protein snack or perhaps a protein shake, and
that gets people. For someone who's never paid attention to
their protein intake, that's a really good place to start

(53:20):
because that is probably bumping you up into that appropriate range.
And then we can talk about protein in a more
practical way that because when we have these arguments about
should it be one point two or one point four,
and then we actually say, well, how much protein is that?
And are we even able to distinguish between one or
the other once we account for all of the measurement

(53:41):
error in how we're weighing our food or if we're
cooking something and how it's changing, or the packaging all
of it. So I think, yes, protein is important. Yes,
most people could benefit from from from increasing their protein intake.
But again that protein is going to optimize the results

(54:02):
you get from lifting weights. If you don't have the
stimulus for growth, those amino acids aren't going to the muscle.
So it's about optimizing your results. It's not a kind
of equal opportunity should I eat protein or should I
lift weights?

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Right?

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Sure, And speaking of optimizing results, I think one thing
people don't consider enough is that their recovery. Right, that's
really where your body's getting stronger too, So getting a
good night's sleep, and that's one thing that for menopausal
women especially is not highlighted enough the impact that it
has on the appetite, regulation, recovery and things like that.
But if you're in the gym killing yourself and still

(54:40):
get getting inadequate nutrition, but you're not sleeping and allowing
substantial recovery, you could still not be seeing the results
that you want as well. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 4 (54:49):
I would.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
I don't know how common that is, to be honest
with you, I think that it's my concern about saying, oh,
we really need to prioritize recovery is that people who
aren't training enough or aren't training hard enough, they don't
need to worry about their recovery. They need to get
to the gym. They and one hundred percent you're right.

(55:13):
You can be training too hard, you can be under recovered.
But when we start throwing out all of the things
and recovery and prioritizing that becomes one of them. Then
we open up to the door to do I need
an ice bath? Do I need the sauna? How many
days off should I be taking? Like I should never
train two days in a row. And it's like whoa, whoa, whoa,

(55:35):
We're not professional athletes. Let's pump the brakes I.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Don't think most people are. They're not they're not overtraining, right,
that most people are not overtraining. I guess when I'm
talking about recovery, I'm talking about like, get a good
night's sleep six d eight hours of quality sleep.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Sleep is one hundred percent important, and I think that
if you're somebody who is experiencing menopause related symptoms and
those are interfering with your sleep, then that is something
that you would want to address. But talking about and metopause,
hormone therapy can be very effective for treating symptoms, not
for preserving muscle mass, not for losing body fat, but

(56:13):
for treating symptoms. It's your kind of gold standard treatment
if it's appropriate for you. That said, when we start
taking hormones, often you're going to have other side effects
and doses will need to be tweaked, or formulations will
need to be tweaked, or the way that it's administered
might be tweaked. Because there's so many options. Right, So

(56:37):
when we then start adding this compounded GLP one microdosing
to the mix, this is a very scary thing in
my opinion, because we don't want to start taking ten
new things and then we have a bad reaction and
we don't even know what it was a reaction too.

(56:57):
And so if you're somebody who really needs help dialing
in some of the symptom management, focus on doing that,
and make sure that you are under care of somebody
who can guide you and monitor you over time. And
be really, really careful about getting these hormones from the

(57:20):
internet from somebody who's just writing you a prescription and
never going to check in with you again. And then
certainly also be careful that you're not adding in a
ton of other supplements or falling for this microdosing DLP
one stuff that it could set you up for a
much longer term journey in trying to address the root problem,

(57:42):
because you would get into this mentality of more and
more and more is better.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Yeah, I agreed.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
Wow, we covered a lot today. I love it.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
One last question because I can't believe it's almost two already.
Thank you for are your time today. It's so amazing.
Oh my goodness, who how would you show people or
tell people who to trust on social media? Because I
think that's such an issue right now, is there's so
many voices, so many people have something to say about
how do you know who to trust when it comes
to like how they talk about nutrition science and you know, fitness.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
Great question, What are some like red flags? I guess
would be an easier question.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
I think really extreme language is a problem. Fear based
messaging is another red flag, sort of implying that there's
a single solution to a problem, an overemphasis on supplements
and the way that they do or don't interact with

(58:49):
other voices in the space. So when we think about
good science good medicine, it's really a collaborative effort of
we will lean on each other and check in with
each other, and that's what moves the field forward. It's
when everybody works together, because the researchers do the research

(59:10):
and then the science, and then the medical practitioners will
put that into clinical practice. And we have different areas
of expertise, and that doesn't make us better or worse.
It's just different. It's different education. And unfortunately, I think
that everyone feels like they are equipped to communicate science

(59:33):
without necessarily having the proper background and training to do so.
And that's not only people who are influencers or science
communicators online. It's also people at home that are saying, well,
just let me read the abstract and I'll figure it
out for myself. I think we need to be careful
about that, because there is a skill to being able

(59:56):
to critically analyze a paper and to say, okay, well
is this meaningful just because those authors said they found
a statistically significant difference? What does that mean? Is that
something that we should be implementing. Does that change our recommendations?
What does that paper look like in the context of
the broader literature, because we never just want to look

(01:00:18):
at one paper. So I think unfortunately we have some
big voices with degrees and large followings that are very
dismissive or combative with other voices in the space. And
that's not good because that means you're dismissing other experts,

(01:00:42):
and if you care about your audience, you should want
them to have access to everybody. Because Spencer and Nadolski
will know way more about GLP ones than I do.
He prescribes them every day, and so you should follow him.
Hunter is going to know more about menopause hormone therapy

(01:01:03):
in a clinical setting than I do. She prescribes them
every day, and that's good because I can say, oh, Hey,
I know, have you seen this whole microdosing thing? Am
I aware? Are are you aware of something I'm not?
And then that helps. But yeah, none of us are
ever afraid to ask questions and check in and say like, hey,
am I off base?

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Here?

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Am I missing something? And unfortunately there are voices that
don't care and that will just cherry pick to promote
their message.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Yeah, I create that echo chamber blocking and blocking preemptively,
we find out a lot like why is this.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
That's worried someone? You're blocking other researchers and scientists from
your page.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Wait pointing out, hey, in this study, actually they wore
that weighted vest for eight to ten hours per day.
And I get blocked right for pointing out it's just
a fact about the stuff. So it's not being argumentative necessary,
and that's a problem.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Being okay with being wrong is a really good trait
to have, right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
And saying I don't know, because there's a lot that
we don't know, and if we knew everything, we wouldn't
need more science and we'd all be out of jobs.
So there's nuance to the way that we need to
talk about things. And there are some things that we
need to say, you know what, maybe there's something there,
but let's wait for the research, because we can't rely
on animal based models in order to make recommendations about

(01:02:28):
your exercise and nutrition. And I think one of the
one of the issues that I have with supplements is
the way that they are overmarketed to everybody and then
all of a sudden we're losing that kind of individualization.
So somebody who pushes a lot of supplements, that's another

(01:02:50):
red flag for me because I think a right they
have such a vested interest financially, that is your judgment clouded?
Are you really able to maintain your integrity when you
know that, oh, posting this is going to make me
a ton of money, even though Collagen's probably crappy, but

(01:03:13):
my bank account is going to increase from promoting this message,
whether I believe it or not. And so it's slippery, Yeah, Harry, slippery.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much for being here. This
was amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Really you also now I mass research for you making
application of science simple?

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
So is that did you research for that? And review?

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Is that your Can you tell us a little bit
about that because that sounds super interesting to me and
I'm thinking of actually joining that for more information and
getting things broken down.

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
So I co own the Research Review with other PhDs
Eric Trexler, Eric Holmes, and Mike Zordo's and we all
have kind of different areas of expertise. But in each
monthly issue, we will write usually eight to nine articles,
and sometimes there's video content in there as well, where

(01:04:13):
we're looking at recent studies and we're critiquing explaining what
they did. And so it's really a good resource for
somebody who wants to understand more about the science and
wants to stay up to date with the literature. But
we're kind of breaking it down so that you don't
have to because scientific articles are not written in a

(01:04:35):
way that that you know, we write or communicate in
a life and so this allows translation.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I usually have like Alan explain something to me, or
something is like I have no idea, you know, but
that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Yeah, it's cool. And when we cover all sorts of
relevant fitness related topics, so you know, whether it's more
kind of strength based training stuff or nutrition or supplements
or kind of overall health behavior change, whatever's kind of
interesting and exciting for us is what we typically decide

(01:05:14):
to write. About and it's cool because it kind of
keeps us learning more. And I think science communication is
so important because historically so I mean not even historically,
it's still true today, so many scientists kind of do
science and publish research and then it remains just in
this echo chamber for other scientists when it's like, especially

(01:05:36):
when you're doing things in this field, what's the point
if we're not sharing it with the public.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Yeah, yeah, And this breaks it down so it's easy
to understand for those that actually don't do the research
and things like that and write to the stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:05:50):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
As coaches, we rely on like yeah, it's like good
reviews like that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely awesome. So where can people find you?

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Yeah, so if you're interested in mass check out massresearch
review dot com and we have a free issue that
you can download on on the website there too, And
I'm on Instagram at doctor Lauren zs one and I
have a podcast called Front Page Fitness with my friend
and colleague Eric Chrexler, and we talk shit about bizarre

(01:06:23):
fitness related headlines that we see and you know, the
New York Post and yeah, so good a lot alignment
with what we do here then, Yeah, that's where I
got that good tidbit about the finger length and fasting dream.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Oh my gosh, reminds me of like the ectomorph and
mesomorph tests from what's his name?

Speaker 4 (01:06:44):
Yeah, I remember taking those.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Oh my god, one of the craziest. I know we're
wrapping up, but I'll just share this because it was wild.
This whole new trend where you're supposed to decide, you know,
what is going to fuel your body by either you're
in your kitchen or you're in the grocery store and
you close your eyes and if you sway forward, it's
a yes, and if you sway backward, it's a no.

Speaker 4 (01:07:08):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
I saw that one for the first time on TikTok,
Like I think I might even done a video about it,
where or I was just making myself lean towards pizza,
you know, like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Only here guys, Okay, I don't know, just trying to
think it can't get any crazier.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
Then all of a sudden, that's a trend.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Your gravitational pull is pulling me towards the pizza.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
You know, here's what your body needs.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
There's one more trend that's absolutely horrifying, and I'm just
starting to hear it. I don't know if you guys
have heard it yet that now apparently everyone has lipadema.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
Yeah, I have not heard that yet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
So a lot of people are saying that everyone, you know,
people should be getting checked for a lip adema.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Gotcha.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
That's that's the next thing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
When finness influencers are starting to back like doctors. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Well, inflammation was taken so right, it has to be right,
so we need to recycle it. So like cortisol is
going to be out, insulin's going to come back in
cellulate and those sellulite as the new epedema.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Yes, interesting, Okay, good to know. I'll keep my ear
out for it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Good times, good times. Thanks for being here, Lauren, be
really thank you you and we'll pluck you soon. Hope
you enjoyed this episode, so why not share with a
friend who needs to hear it. Send us a DM
on Instagram or email us at cutthcrappod at gmail dot com,
and join our patreon at Patreon dot com Slash Cut
the Crap Podcast. As always, we appreciate you and thanks
for being here.

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