Kind: captions
Language: en
the body is changing whether we want to
believe it or not when we are younger we
are driven by hormones when we are older
older
30s 40s we are now no longer driven by
hormones we are now driven by dietary
sensing mechanisms
you have to account for dietary protein
you have to
[Music]
dr gabrielle lyon welcome back to the
show thank you thanks so much for having
me i'm very excited and we're in person
this time which is wonderful now i've
been thinking a lot about your area
around muscle and muscle being the organ
of longevity yeah i know you wanted to
make sure that we covered that and that
really is um
where i'm i'm i'm getting very
interested in what the the interplay
going on in the body is between muscle
fat glucose and i'm going to lay a
hypothesis on you that i think will set
us up well for the conversation so uh
modern diet has introduced just a
massive amount of glucose into the
system our body has mechanisms or
mechanism
we will debate uh for dealing with that
once it gets inside the body
those mechanisms are evolutionary
selected for
so they're advantageous but it is a very
complicated dance
i've recently had a couple different
people on the show talking at this the
glucose issue and fat storage issue and
insulin resistance from a really
interesting angle um so i feel like i'm
beginning to understand how by having
these constantly elevated levels we end
up insulin resistant we're not able to
get the glucose out of our bloodstream
which causes a whole host of downstream
effects which we call metabolic disease
um okay so
now we introduce your idea of muscle yes
being the the organ of longevity and and
it being a
uh an organ that secretes
hormones myokines yep okay so
the dance becomes i can control my
intake through glucose you can control
from a diet perspective or
insulin or you say
i can control my insulin through my diet
i can also though control my insulin
response
by you having muscle and using the life
out of it because it will suck the
glucose out of my bloodstream okay
and burn it for
fuel
so muscle skeletal muscle is responsible
for 80 some percent of glucose disposal
okay
now the final capstone to my thesis is
is so my thesis in a very um simple
sentence is you are existing in this
incredibly delicate balance between what
you eat
your insulin response to what you eat
and
you the muscle that you carry and how
much you use it yes and so
when i was first going through the
things that you say about how critical
muscle is
it begs the question that in a time of
famine muscle's actually dangerous
because muscle needs
this energy it's going to burn energy
and so if
my
response to fructose
is to essentially become pre-diabetic
and that's good because it causes me to
store a tiny bit of fat to cling to the
fat that i have and to store extra
glucose in my bloodstream
and that's what get got us through
the winter famines then i was like well
wait a second if muscle is this hungry
organ then it would be problematic and
then i thought well that's exactly why
we lose muscle so rapidly if we're not
working out when you think about and
there's some interesting concepts here
so the the idea that in famine the body
tries to protect itself you're
essentially talking about a highly
protect itself by staying alive yeah
highly catabolic uh no fuel is coming in
there's basic energy needs that we have
skeletal muscle is one turnover in
skeletal muscle is not great let's say
it's a couple grams a day
meaning i can't use it as quickly as i
can it takes longer muscle turnover
takes longer so the body goes through
and i want to push on that turnover that
word does yeah we're going to
immediately click for me okay we're
going to talk about it because it also
brings up this concept of longevity is
it gluconeogenesis nope it is the
replacement of
body proteins it is the regeneration the
cleaning house and the replacement of
body proteins like liver goes through
protein turnover intestines go through
protein turnover bone
you know like you said there's a dance
that's happening and i was storing that
and so i'm let's
stay in the context of famine if we can
for a second
so i don't have incoming nutrients or
not very many
so i'm breaking down my muscle to
provide in essence in part the body will
use that those amino acids
to protect your organs okay so that they
can have their
turnover of cells the cells can die and
be replenished with healthy healthy new
cells right that is a non-negotiable and
not for
gluconeogenesis at all well
gluconeogenesis the way in which i think
about gluconeogenesis is brown chain
amino acids or proteins in general can
be utilized by the liver to go through a
process of gluconeogenesis
and would that be happening in a period
of famine or would i just completely
shift over to ketone production
so over a period of time eventually you
would shift over to ketone production
the body doesn't want to lose its
skeletal muscle
skeletal muscle is very important but
i will say
it's something that the body would give
up for the other organ systems let me
ask this
so
as somebody who
um works out very consistently
but if i even reduce my intensity my
muscle and and don't change my diet my
muscle mass will begin to dwindle so my
body is is responding and my hypothesis
is that it's so afraid to carry more
muscle than it needs that the second i
don't need it meaning i'm not putting it
under that level of strain it goes cool
i'm getting rid of no i would i would i
i would say that that is not a
hypothesis i would go with cool so
let's take a 21 year old since they are
[ __ ] just primed man so on the
twinkie diet and they're right
that the body thrives under activity
and whether you take a human whether you
take an animal if you essentially
domesticate them and they are not
training they will lose muscle
and so i have a theory that that's the
body the body is giving you a signal
which is
these tissues are calorically expensive
and it's dangerous to have anything
that's calorically expensive so
with some wiggle room if i see nutrients
or demand
back off then i'm going to
shed
those muscle tissues
but muscle we know is
really really important for longevity
yes for morbidity and mortality which is
why you don't want to be in a famine or
not using but the i i think
another way to think about it is that
yes it is a metabolically
expensive energy driven tissue it is
and it takes a lot of effort and energy
to maintain that tissue
but i don't think it's the body trying
to get rid of it i think under
well
thought out conditions
training increase in energy increase in
dietary protein the body will do
whatever it can to maintain that tissue
i do think it's interesting how you're
phrasing it and how you're thinking
about it that the body would be trying
to get rid of it but i i don't we have
to i think we yeah i am almost certain
that you and i agree 100
on
how important muscle is like i'll say my
hypothesis
includes the fact that
uh if you want to survive for a long
time you better have good quality muscle
on your body because if you're right
that that's the store of these building
blocks then i want to make sure that i
always have that and should i ever
lose it that i immediately when that
insult whether it's the famine a great
illness or something like that is gone
that i rebuild that muscle so
if
the nutrients stop coming in the body
goes okay whoa like this could now that
i have these very expensive tissues i
may need to prune them back even though
i know like oh god i don't want to do
this and i would really appreciate if
you would or wait can i can i please so
or is it that because you're not getting
enough nutrients the rest of your organs
need to function
so having a high amount of skeletal
muscle that can be then utilized for the
protection and the utilization and
energy for all the other organ systems
is necessary
yes because you because without the
brain without the heart without the
liver without the kidney
it
a problem in those tissues will have an
immediate effect will the body pull from
let's so we'll come back to the famine
in a second um which is not happening
right now it's not and that's a big part
of the problem but for people i think to
really wrap their head around what's
going on for a long time for just an
unimaginably long period of time
there would be periods of massive food
scarcity and so
understanding the dance
becomes interesting to me so stepping
out of the famine for a second and going
back into what you're saying so
organs are critical and the body's going
to do whatever it needs to do to protect
that
so
when the nutrients are coming in
well my i assume my body will
preferentially choose to take
the proteins the
whatever yeah from what i eat versus
from skeletal muscle yes
yes okay right so there are
20 amino acids there are nine essential
you are going to eat those for you know
based on a lot of the current research
there is some other uh data out there
that suggests that some of the gut
microbiome may be able to scavenge for
some of those essential amino acids
which is incredibly interesting and how
does it hand those off to us
as metabolites um
well these are proof of concepts right
now and they're in rodent models
what is happening is what they believe
is that when an individual is eating a
very high fiber type more veg vegetarian
vegan diet
that the gut microbiome can
turn a bit into what like a ruminant
would be so that is one way in which
some people
can be able to get some essential amino
acids but i don't want to
go down that rabbit hole yet because it
is still proof of concept but i do think
it's very important
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but going back to what you said about
muscle and going back to what you said
about famine i think it's an interesting
concept in the way that in my mind the
fittest
most muscular individual the the people
that have the most muscle are going to
be able to survive
because they're going to have more yes
but let's talk about the myostatin gene
okay so the myostatin gene and i have
thought about this and i'm not sure what
to think about that so
i have a guess okay it's way less
educated than yours but it's nonetheless
a guess
uh so for those who don't know what the
myostatin gene is the myostatin gene
actually inhibits the creation of muscle
and if you break the myostatin gene you
get what they call double muscling where
if you've ever seen a double muscled cow
it's crazy they look they look like a
bodybuilder yes it's insane
and
you get that some people hypothesize
that basically some bodybuilders that
get to like an elite elite elite level
have a way less active myostatin gene
and
that to me is another signal that the
body is like i want muscle but i can't
just slather it on like it's it's a
difficult it's a difficult process and
it is
we become forged by our training we
become when you say it's difficult
meaning meaning skeletal muscle is not
an easy process to put on right the idea
that we can just work out and put on
skeletal muscle people are different
this idea of being able to put on muscle
in general it takes effort and energy
meaning it takes physical energy it also
is an
expensive nutrient process in the body
right it requires
a whole host of things to go right it
requires being able to
trigger mtor subsequent muscle protein
synthesis you have to have the building
blocks you have to have the correct
stimulation then you have to have muscle
damage then you have to have rest it's
not necessarily an easy process
and the more well trained you are the
more difficult it becomes to put on
muscle so by you know for you
to maintain your muscle mass you
probably put a lot of
extra effort
into doing that and it becomes more
difficult as we age because the skeletal
muscle you know
aging is a process
and when we age things in general
oftentimes become more difficult
building muscle is one of those things
the efficiency of being able to build
muscle
muscle as a nutrient sensor goes down
its efficiency goes down
insulin resistance in skeletal muscle
goes up just part of normal aging
whether you're training or not these are
fundamental things that happen
talk to me about the anabolic
resistance and i'm looking at that in
the context of
insulin resistance is it the same where
i've given it too much of something and
the body's like yo back off no
but it's a it's an interesting thought
process
as we age
the
muscle becomes less efficient at
utilizing protein muscle utilizes
protein obviously for protein turnover
and for muscle protein synthesis which
is so valuable
you know and oftentimes i talk about
muscle as the end point and eating for
muscle health the reason one of the
reasons i talk about it is exactly for
the reasons that you were talking about
if you can optimize for skeletal muscle
then the subsequent effects on the rest
of the body like being able to have
proper tissue
turnover for liver and intestines all
happen so if you reach that threshold
for muscle which you're absolutely right
is a highly energy
taking process the rest of the body is
gets what it needs so if you eat for
high quality
muscle
if you eat high quality protein you
create high quality muscle so are those
two things and just correlated and it's
really the intake of the nutrients that
matters the intake of the nutrients
absolutely matters
absolutely matters and when we age
anabolic resistance which is really
defined as the efficiency of protein the
efficiency of muscle to utilize and
sense protein goes down skeletal muscle
is a nutrient sensing organ
when it gets enough of the amino acids
it goes through a process of protein
turnover interesting so hold on let's
let's really put a fine point on that
that's interesting i've never heard that
before i've heard it said and this makes
a lot of sense to me that um
food are signaling molecules
and that's what i heard you just say
which is that is a nutrient sensing
organ right so the muscle is listening
for the signal of the food that i eat to
say ah cool there is adequate amounts of
protein available to me right now and
that turns something on yes
exactly
um
and that would be the branch chain amino
acids
as we age the ability for that skeletal
muscle to sense that decreases okay
sorry and i know i'm derailing this a
little bit here um but now going back to
incomplete proteins like are found in
because one of the things you take the
most heat for
is you know saying some of the protein
that you're going to get in vegetable
matter isn't going to be as complete so
which what you just said would predict
which is that if the muscle
is looking it's sensing that signal
and the signal comes in the form of
branch chain amino acids right and the
branch chain amino acids from the
vegetable matter keep me in some sub
threshold where it doesn't click over
into this
that it's not you know we use protein as
a blanket term but it's complex
you're looking at 20 different amino
acids it's not the
protein that we need essentially it's
the amino acid requirements that we have
and skeletal muscle has very specific
amino acid requirements
to do the turnover do what is necessary
and to do turnover to be able to
maintain its structure to be able to put
on new muscle to be able to maintain its
health
this comes in the form of branch chain
amino acids
as we age the sensing mechanism
of one of one of the branched chain
amino acids which we've talked about
before is leucine that sensing mechanism
decreases
the way in which we which ultimately
leads a less efficient turnover
leads to
subsequent sarcopenia
decrease in muscle function
muscle strength muscle mass as we age
by optimizing for protein intake you
know specifically high quality protein
then just like you said
high quality protein is typically what
we think about animal-based proteins
does it just have to be animal based
proteins no but these are hard fast
in the literature high quality protein
is defined by amino acid content
it's not a negotiable nebulous concept
these are hard fast biological numbers
and each protein has very specific roles
in the body
and specifically as we age and if you're
thinking about
famine and fasting
specifically as we age the branch chain
amino acids in particular leucine is
required by skeletal muscle to begin
that process
as we age this concept of anabolic
resistance
meaning there's a decrease in efficiency
the body becomes do you know what's
happening at the cellular level
well yeah
there's a
decreased
sensing of mtor okay and mtor
which i understand vaguely enough to be
dangerous
is uh basically what has to happen for
us to grow yes it's mechanistic target
of rapamycin there's m21 m2 and it's in
all cells it's in all cells
it's a will it happen differentially in
different cells it does and it's
stimulated by different things in
different cells and then muscle like
what i'm going to tell you
can't wait
in muscle it's exquisitely sensitive to
leucine
in areas like
pancreas or liver it's exquisitely
sensitive to energy extra calories
it's sensitive to
regardless of macro nutrient well
arguably it would be more sensitive to
insulin and glucose in say the liver or
the pancreas
but skeletal muscle is exquisitely
sensitive to amino acids that sensing
mechanism decreases as we age so then
this brings me to this concept of
longevity which is very hot right now
people talk about longevity and there's
this conversation of decreasing protein
intake because that's going to help
long-term fair hypothesis i have no idea
it's because of this stimulation of mtor
so they're worried about cancer yeah
they're worried about cancer but if you
were worried about cancer
and by the way mtor is signaled by
exercise in skeletal muscle as well
so it's not an mtor issue in
muscle
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and be legendary
but i i just want to stay on this
longevity topic of individuals saying
you should reduce your dietary protein
because of longevity which that's
probably the worst piece of advice i
could ever give someone
let's define longevity
what does that mean
is it living from
to 95
or is it living to
95 and a half
and the question is
do you want to be mobile and healthy or
do you want to be frail and sarcopenic
if we believe in the hypothesis of
anabolic resistance which arguably we
should this is well documented in the
literature you look at my mentor's work
uh dr donald layman or stu phillips any
of these guys van loon
you know this is a well-documented
phenomenon
that as we age our capacity to
generate heal
keep muscle goes down
so i just told you about the sensing
mechanism and that we actually require
more dietary protein really we require
high quality protein because we require
that amino acid stimulus
so if you now further reduce
dietary protein
from aging individuals and aging can
start in your 30s
how are you going to then stimulate
tissue
you have to be very careful about how
you want to age and this concept of
longevity longevity for a c elegans or a
fruit fly
doesn't take into account the complexity
as a human human agent is that where
they're drawing that from yes these are
not human studies you're not looking at
randomized controlled trials you're not
looking at good high quality data
to support a reduction in dietary
protein and as a trained geriatrician no
geriatrician says hey study of old
people yes you need to reduce your
dietary protein
we know that
skeletal muscle protects against
disease it protects against morbidity it
protects against mortality muscle is an
organ system it's an endocrine organ
system when you contract it it secretes
myokines these myokines you know the the
most studied myokine is interleukin-6
goes throughout the body it affects bone
it affects liver it affects nutrient
partitioning what group do we put
interleukin-6 is that considered um
immune response it so in it is an immune
response when it's released from
macrophages it is a myocain when it's
released from this
okay you you and i talked about this
last time i don't know i still don't
have much
so this is this is actually a newer
science and this really comes from the
work of patterson and she has
essentially paved the way she's an
immunologist and internal medicine
and what a myokine is it's a protein
released from contracting skeletal
muscle
and when we are de-conditioned and when
we are not training
you don't secrete interleukin
2 once it's in the bloodstream well it
does there's there's thousands of them
which is interesting of different kinds
of myocain
decorin irisin there's
thousands
again this is new emerging science and
arguably what we should be studying i'm
starting to look at blood levels
post-exercise in my patients
right and this just goes back to a
broken obesity model which we know
you're not over fat we know everyone is
under muscled right when we were talking
about the general population
you know typically people don't have
a good solid foundation foundational
muscular base
they don't and this idea that we would
further reduce dietary protein is going
to have a much more negative effect and
here's another question do you think
there are problems with so because i'm
trying to get to
muscle obviously hugely important i
couldn't agree more with that just that
makes so much sense to me
the question is
what and maybe it doesn't even matter
but which is more important the the
muscle of the fat so for instance there
is somebody in my life who is
lovely lovely human
they're really [ __ ] strong like
really strong but they're also morbidly
obese
and so what is the muscle going to
protect them enough from the obesity and
the story i've always told myself is
that
because he has such a massive surplus of
calories and so much of it is insulin
secreting that he's in a growth phase
all the time mtor is just kicking off
like crazy but he's also eating too many
calories
the muscle can only do so much
so there is a point at which the muscle
just can't carry the burden of your dog
yeah you know i and when i think about
insulin i think about
when i think about carbohydrates i think
about it in a meal threshold not in this
24 hour period but
carbohydrates are okay just got to make
sure that you are not over extending
yourself in terms of a meal per meal
basis
let's say someone has really really
healthy muscle
but they're over consuming calories
they're not gonna have a chance
there has to be some
you know there has to be some balance
but these issues starting skeletal
muscle first and i think that that's
very misunderstood everybody's focusing
on adiposity everybody's focusing on
insulin resistance and if you care about
root causes you have to care about
skeletal muscle
so that's where
it feels like it's maybe complicated so
um
if if this guy who has a ton of muscle
can still end up having the problem it
feels like muscle is necessary but not
sufficient you have to both have muscle
and a diet that isn't overwhelming your
system yes it is necessary but not
sufficient i love the way you put that
and wouldn't it be great to see this guy
lose some fat adipose tissue
and i think that that would make a lot
of sense you say that he has a lot of
muscle
but what individuals that we see when we
see mris or we see cat scans there's fat
infiltration into skeletal muscle
skeletal muscle becomes marbled
you know there's no free lunch or no
free pass
if you struggle with obesity it's not
just limited to visceral fat it does get
into the organ it does get into skeletal
muscle this ultimately affects this
cycle it ultimately affects your ability
to
manage
you know
glucose it affects your ability to
manage substrates it affects the health
of the muscle you know we talked a
little bit about myokines and you know
the big the biggest most famous myokine
is interleukin 6 and when you contract
skeletal muscle it actually
does this whole body crosstalk where it
can lower some inflammation
throughout the whole body right so
exercise is in and of itself i don't
want to say anti-inflammatory because
oftentimes the process of exercise does
create
free radicals you know there's this you
know these these concepts like you said
are very complex yeah it's not just this
way in that way and i think that we try
to oversimplify it
but to the best of our ability there are
some fundamental things that are
important to understand
and that is we have to address skeletal
muscle you must get your muscle and
while i i understand that it makes
people afraid
it doesn't mean that it's true
fear can be validated but it doesn't
have to be true
that's a really we could derail this
entire episode around that sentence but
um but this is what's happening is that
we're not having transparent
conversations
and this is really what i'm fighting
because of dogma because of dogma it is
now i've been i've been in this space
for 20 years
10 years ago this was not a conversation
the sort of ethical thing animal cruelty
ethical
kind of a conversation bad for the
planet it wasn't it wasn't that way
and what's happening is that at the very
heart is this
anti-animal
dogma
and there's nothing wrong with not
wanting to eat animals and there's
nothing wrong with not wanting to harm
animals okay i i can appreciate that
but what's happened now is there's not
transparency around it so this whole
conversation then goes to well
how can we get people to stop utilizing
animal products
well we're going to scare them we're
going to generate so much fear we're
going to put out fake
educational documentaries we're going to
completely obliterate i think they're
wrong or sinister
it's sinister it's it's totally
conscious
the people at the top it's totally
conscious and then what's happening is
then it's getting into
um
you know it's then training physicians
and then it's affecting influencers that
are then going ahead and talking about
longevity and reducing protein and they
believe they're saying the right thing
they're not they believe they're saying
the right thing for the body or for the
planet for the body
but they're not understanding that
at the very heart of that is is actually
coming from an anti-animal narrative
and what's happening is there's no
transparency in the data and
our expectation is now to lower
the quality of evidence to be able to
say well no plant and animal protein are
the same
no they're not
last 20 years this has not been a
conversation at the level of branched
chain amino acids or any amino acid and
there's this whole argument about it now
it's so now then it's the longevity
piece reduce protein because it's going
to affect your longevity
longevity defined as what
six months and also have if that were
the case let's say
that plant uh based proteins actually
did make you live for an extra six
months
that's what kind of muscle mass would
you have would it would it yeah but if
if it seems to me that if it actually
makes you live six months longer that's
worth talking about
but but we don't know that to be the
case right
i mean like i said a fruit fly isn't the
same and you know i've taken care of
people more than i can count at end of
life that last six months is brutal so
are you saying that what i'm trying to
understand because the analogy you
always use is that what it gives you six
more months if it does i think we have
to talk about that but is your
hypothesis that that data is flawed
you're looking at the wrong animals in
humans it's about the quality it's about
the quality of life okay and
at the end are you conceding that like
maybe it doesn't it's possible that you
live longer it's possible i mean again
i'm not even gonna argue that who cares
about that well it's possible you know
i'm never gonna say okay well you know
these are things that are highly complex
is it possible maybe
but let's say let's say okay that's
possible
towards the end of life you want to be
mobile you don't want to have a broken
hip and be spend the last six months in
a nursing home bedridden or you don't
want to spend your time in an
alzheimer's ward
these things are related to skeletal
muscle
alzheimer's as well there's a metabolic
component to alzheimer's it's type 3
diabetes of the brain if you care about
alzheimer's you have to care about the
fast connect muscle to
metabolic disease for me exactly what's
going on okay skeletal muscle is your
primary site for glucose disposal and i
use the term disposal to get it out of
the bloodstream anything to get out of
the bloodstream
so right so when you think about
skeletal muscle you have to think about
glucose utilization
or disposable
you have to think about
fatty acid oxidation
skeletal muscle
healthy muscle
stabilizing blood glucose which you've
seen so i don't get too much insulin
secreted so i don't get insulin and
that's more of a dietary thing right so
when you
have too high of a glucose load you're
going to get a subsequent insulin
response
right but that is what happens
so
skeletal muscle for all these ways in
which it can help dispose of nutrients
is really what we're thinking about when
you think about metabolic syndrome
ultimately it is a
intake issue
and i think that you meaning i could
control it through my diet you could
but you still want to have healthy
skeletal muscle for all the other things
no doubt and it gives me a lot more
flexibility in my diet gives you
flexibility gives you you know there's
mitochondria gives you a lot of
positives
okay so now coming back to the longevity
piece we've got people
and um i'll be generous and say they
really really have
amazing intentions they want to protect
animals they want to protect the planet
so then let's just have any evidence
that it's better for us yet right well
you can't now animal protection is
different than planet protection
and i think that we just have to be
really clear
animal protection is animal protection
all the other lines of narrative really
go back to animal protection because the
data doesn't support that you know it's
just that these cows are now killing the
environment right that's not true
you know if we look at the u.s it's
greenhouse gas is industry
transportation and electricity 50 of our
fruits are flown in
25 of our vegetables are flown it
so that it can't be so convoluted it has
to be i think
there just has to be transparent
conversations
when you talk about longevity i think we
have to define longevity we have to have
these health conversations of what are
the endpoints that we're going to be
looking at
and when you say define longevity
i think
your debate is
maybe longevity isn't the right question
it's quality of life that's the right
question i and i agree with i yes
and i you know thinking before i was
coming here you know what is a different
word that we can use because people talk
about longevity which is just the span
of life you know and then there's terms
thrown around like health span
i think
it really is about quality of life and
it can't necessarily be and a big part
uh and i agree with this but uh so if
i'm putting inappropriate words in my
mouth just tell me but a big part of
quality of life for you is really
strength
yeah
of course and we know that to be true
not just my personal of course i think a
lot of people don't really think about
strength
will when it starts to decrease when you
can no longer lift something up to put
it in your overhead bin when you're
flying or you can fall it's crazy how as
you get older that's like the most
dangerous thing you're going to do is
walk around right
but if you listen to the current
narrative
that is going to be inevitable
and that's very scary
you know this idea that we should not
focus on skeletal muscle and continue to
try to address obesity is a broken
paradigm we are focusing on the wrong
tissue obesity is not the problem it is
not the root cause
it's skeletal muscle as a root cause and
diet yes well yeah
but they the two kind of go hand in hand
right because because you can deal with
more bad diet if you have more muscle
yes but you also have to nail diet for
a quality of life going forward partly
because i have this
sensing organ that is waiting for a
certain amount and kind of protein it
takes a lot of energy when i say energy
i mean both physical mental and food
wise energy to maintain
it is not easy to put on muscle you know
facts i mean i listen to allen argon
he's amazing he would be amazing to have
a conversation with you know i was
asking him about how much muscle could
someone put on in a year and if you are
totally untrained you might get 12
pounds maybe 12 maybe 24 pounds that
would be outrageous
24 pounds that would be outrageous you
would look so different but that would
be outrageous right this is like at the
absolute upper level that you know we
don't really see happen
but the reality is it takes so much
energy and effort again i use those
terms kind of interchangeably to
actually put on tissue
what's so cool about this organ system
is that we can actually add to it and i
like to think about it as we add to it
we add to our life
all right
this is so powerful give people in like
just one a quick couple sentences
the thing they should be doing whether
it's diet working out whatever let's
start with resistance training you have
to train hard
whether you know volume is what's it
what is what is important but you have
to get the volume in and you have to get
the stress in
the body thrives under stress
there's this concept of we should have
less stress we should no
your body requires physical stress
after you get that physical stress you
know whether you're doing high intensity
interval training you need to reach you
need to train you know resistance
training you need to strength train and
you need to do aerobic training you do
and you probably need to work harder
than you think you're working
i think you've said you need to feel
like giving up at least twice and about
to vomit and people will argue with me
that no that's not true well okay but as
you age the tissue it becomes more and
more difficult to respond to
and number two you have to account for
your changing hormonal milieu the body
is changing whether we want to believe
it or not when we are younger we are
driven by hormones when we are older
older
30s 40s we are now no longer driven by
hormones we are now driven by dietary
sensing mechanisms
you have to account for dietary protein
you have to yes you have to account for
carbohydrates yes you worry about
insulin
yes you worry about fat yes i do worry
about total calories but you have to get
the foundational piece
right up front and that is high quality
training is a non-negotiable and number
two high quality proteins
and that is
not the narrative that is being
discussed it is obesity longevity
and that stuff's all it's you know what
it is it's a distraction
it is a distraction from
core fundamental things that are action
oriented that people can do
losing weight is challenging yes how
about we focus on a positive like
building muscle optimizing for dietary
protein and then let's see what your
blood glucose levels are then let's see
what your triglycerides are
then let's see what your energy is
so this is now moving from fat phobic to
muscle centric
let's look let's stop looking at all
these obesity endpoints
you know elevated insulin glucose
triglycerides cholesterol i mean that's
great but these are all diseased models
why don't we start looking at myokines
which i think we're going to have to
talk about in the next episode but why
not look at post exercise blood levels
to see are we training are we
stimulating our tissue skeletal muscle
is an organ system just like the thyroid
it should be tested and treated as such
facts
this was so fun
thank you so much for
letting me like
practice rehearse like this whole sort
of integrated idea
i think it's really fascinating the
complexity of all this is so crazy
and getting people focused on muscle
mass and working out i think will reward
people so richly
when you're young when you're middle
aged when you're old like being strong
is awesome
it's protective
um it looks good like there's a whole
host of reasons um to do it where can
people follow along with you learn more
yeah they can find me on instagram dr
gabrielle lyon my youtube dr gabrielle i
have a lot of conversations with my
mentors and we talk a lot about the
science behind this stuff my website i
have a great newsletter that i pick
data and things that i'm reading and i
send that out and if people would like
to apply to be a patient they can do
that through my website dr gabriel line
amazing this was amazing keep doing what
you're doing it's absolutely so critical
that people understand the role of
muscle in this incredibly complex dance
of
metabolism metabolic disease all of that
it's absolutely absolutely critical and
speaking of things that are critical if
you haven't already be sure to subscribe
and until next time my friends be
legendary take care peace