Menopause, Strength Training, and Weight Loss with Artemis Scantalides

[00:00:01] Alright everybody, welcome back to the Barbell Therapy podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Brett Scott, and with me today is Artemis How do you say your last name? I forgot to ask you that. That's okay. It's scantalides Scantalides Yeah, so today we're gonna be talking about drive a ginis

[00:00:22] Yes, we are Strength Training, Weight Loss So if you are a woman of the ages of 45 plus this is definitely an episode you're gonna want to listen to We're gonna go through all things related to these things, plus probably a whole lot more

[00:00:37] Artemis has walked the watch as a coach, has a personal personal fitness endeavor, and has done a lot in this industry For a long time now, and she is 48 and has dealt with some of these issues as well

[00:00:48] So I'm excited to have her on here, and as a small ask, I know 90% of you that listen to this Won't actually hit like or subscribe, but if you enjoy these episodes, please do so

[00:00:59] Like subscribe, leave us a review because it makes a whole big of a difference To get us this podcast to continue to grow and reach more people that need some of this help that we're trying to offer to them

[00:01:09] So Artemis, thank you for coming on and tell us a little bit about your personal and professional background As a coach and an athlete, and how it's brought you to where you are today Helping women of the ages of 45 plus fight menopause through fitness

[00:01:25] Thanks so much for having me on Brett Yeah, so for my I just my professional background, I'll start with that and I started I started working in the fitness industry in 2003 part time as a spin instructor I knew that I wanted to do this full time

[00:01:43] And but I just wasn't ready to make the leap from my office job So I started out part time as a group fitness instructor and then five years later in 2008

[00:01:54] I left my I paid off any dead I had and made sure I had a little bit of savings Got my Nazm CBT my first kettlebell certification and just took the leap and started training full time

[00:02:06] I started out in a commercial gym, I worked for two commercial gyms one of them I was the coach and I grew up in the other one I was a group of fitness instructor I also had a private business on the side for coaching and workshops

[00:02:19] And then my vision was to own my own gym and to build a global brand and empower women through strength training And I'll get into my personal background in a minute, but that was because I used to

[00:02:33] I started out studying classical ballet when I was three and a half and so I had just dealt with a lot of body image issues And eating disorders and eating disorder and so I found my way

[00:02:45] And so with that in five years later in 2011 I started I opened my own small training gym in Boston And I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts and I It was like kettlebell and functional training focused because I was like I became a kettlebell expert

[00:03:07] And I ran that for five years while I was running that I started an online business An online fitness coaching business in 2013 really before like online training was a thing

[00:03:19] But that's because I had started writing a blog in 2012 and it was really about empowering women through strength training And the journey for me to train for the Iron Maiden challenge which I'll talk about in a minute

[00:03:34] And so that led to people who were reading my blog both nationally and internationally who wanted to do fitness coaching with me So I launched my fitness my online fitness coaching business in addition to running my gym

[00:03:50] And then I also that led to speaking engagements so I ended up getting speaking engagements at like perform better and And other conferences and summons and things like that And then in 2014 I completed the Iron Maiden challenge and launched a workshop called I'm not afraid to lift

[00:04:10] Which is a women's strength workshop both mental strength, mindset and physical strength teaching them how to lift Then my husband and I who he's an athletic trainer and he He had an opportunity to work for Cirque du Soleil as a head therapist out in Las Vegas

[00:04:28] And at that point in our gym we've been running for five years and we had learned that having a brick and mortar really wasn't for us I really enjoyed the online training and the workshops, but the brick and mortar just wasn't our jam

[00:04:40] Which we originally thought it was going to be so we closed our gym in 2016 We moved out to Las Vegas when I moved out to Las Vegas

[00:04:47] I continued to build my online business and then I ended up getting a part-time position with Cirque du Soleil as the strength and conditioning coach for their resident show And so I was there like 15 hours a week training the artists, so that was just an amazing experience

[00:05:04] And I was building my online business then in 2019 I left Cirque to just go all in on my online business because it was growing really really fast

[00:05:15] The coaching as well as the workshops and I just said well I just have to like completely focus on this and build this business And then in early 2020 pre-pandemic I pivoted my business to business coaching, specifically helping fitness and healthcare professionals

[00:05:31] Start growing scale their online businesses which ended up being very timely because a lot of fitness professionals lost their jobs at commercial gyms They needed to build their online businesses So it was really great because I was able to have a lot of impact

[00:05:44] And for me I was living my code of commitment of impact over income So that was just like 2020 was just even though it was a tough year for everyone and very much a transformational year

[00:05:55] For a lot of people it was something that just allowed me to have a lot of impact And then in 2022 I just was burned out from running my businesses And I ended up going back to corporate for about a year and a half

[00:06:11] And then now I live in New Orleans and I left the corporate world in October 2023 to move to New Orleans Because my husband ended up getting a job at Tulane as the director of sports medicine

[00:06:22] And it was very fortuitous because I was ready to come back and start building my business again and get back to fitness coaching And I'm still offering business coaching So that's my professional background. It's really hard because I am 48 and I have done a lot

[00:06:38] But my five and keep my personal background a little bit more brief But I started studying classical ballet at age three and a half And I studied with the Boston ballet and a private instructor as well

[00:06:52] It was a very large part of my childhood like all the time I was like five, six days a week dancing I was in the nutcrackers like year after year and mid-summer's an extreme I would go to like dance camps during the summer

[00:07:04] And I really thought I was going to be a ballerina And then I realized that I was not going to be a ballerina at some point in high school And my body never fit like the classical ballet body type

[00:07:16] Which I think things have shifted a little bit more these days And that they accept the athletic bills and the legs and the butt and things like that But my body never fit mold and so that was very challenging for me

[00:07:29] Because I was constantly trying to you know, outsurseize my my genetics And start of myself and things like that And then I discovered Kung Fu when I was 27 So I stopped dancing, hung up my ballet slippers

[00:07:44] Started studying Kung Fu and I loved Kung Fu because no one cared about what you looked What your body looked like in a leotard in tights They just you know, I was literally wearing like MC Hammer pants Like baggy Kung Fu pants and a baggy deert

[00:07:59] All they cared about was like how strong are you and like how many pushups can you do And like how fast is your kick and things like that So that was very empowering for me because it helped me to shift from focusing what I looked like

[00:08:11] To focus on what I could do And around that time I started to get into kettlebell training Fell in love with kettlebell training because it is movement based So someone who has a background in ballet and Kung Fu

[00:08:22] I'm all about the movement and having things be movement based And we're finding the skill and kettlebells really just match that for me Then that led me to get what my RKC certification Which is now, I know they split off and other strong first in RKC

[00:08:39] Russian kettlebell challenge certification and that was in 2011 And I learned about something called Iron Maiden Challenge Which for women is a 24 kilogram or 53 pound Tactical grip strict pull-up Strict military press and pistol squat And no one my size had ever completed that challenge

[00:09:01] For the listeners, I am 5 foot 1 I currently am weighing in at like 1-10 to 1-12 And at the time that I completed the Iron Maiden Challenge I was like 1-12 to 1-14 So I'm not a big person And at that time Jack, though

[00:09:18] If no one's watching or has followed her, part of this is Jack This is, I mean, yeah, this is a true statement And I'm very proud of my muscles Like, I should be I don't know, you must know Tony Boevekio

[00:09:34] But like I used to, he was my power lifting coach And he was amazed at my arms He would look just looking me and be like, you really don't do bicep curls Are you sure you're not just doing them secretly? When no one is watching

[00:09:46] I'm like really Tony, I don't do bicep curls And then like he would see my arms He's like, your arms, your triceps are literally like loaves of bread Hanging off your arms Like Arnold Schwarzenegger says they need to be He was awesome It was awesome So anyway

[00:10:04] So that I completed the, I was trained for the Iron Mead and Challenger at that time Like I think Not only had no one in my size on it But I think only three women had completed it And so it took me three years to train for it

[00:10:15] And I did attempt it in the fall of 2013 And I failed And came back and just completed it about eight months later Until I 2014 And so that was pretty amazing for me And then after that I got into power lifting And trained over at Cresty Sports Performance

[00:10:32] With Tony Bobeco And he was running a women's power lifting group And I was 39 When I started power lifting And I did my first Power lifting knee When I was 39 It was a push pull Like goal was to deadlift 300 pounds And I did I rolled in

[00:10:50] And deadlifted 300 pounds Which was amazing But just After I finished training for the Iron Mead and Challenger I discovered I could actually Even though I had to work with a barbell For like three more than three years I discovered oh my god I can deadlift like 250 pounds

[00:11:06] Which was pretty cool Because you know It was almost twice my body weight But so then That and then I did power lifting for a little while And then I'm when I moved out to Vegas That was when I started to And we'll get into this discussion

[00:11:24] But like that's when I discovered that I had had I have a lot of health issues with my thyroid I've had a lot of mental health issues with my thyroid And so I really needed to And work on that and just get physically healthy again

[00:11:39] Well I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to disclose too much on that Because we're going to talk about all that stuff Yeah So there's a lot there And so then What has brought you into working with women That have been a pause

[00:11:54] Because for us the reason we wanted to have you on this podcast Is We have a ton of women that we train in the gym are ages 45 plus that are dealing with, you know, insomnia, night sweats, pot flashes, mood swings.

[00:12:09] And one of the biggest things they complain to us about is they can't lose weight. And then there's these other things you've just discussed, like having a drive a giant of, which a lot of people aren't discussing in public or with other people,

[00:12:22] which there's a ton of issues. And then I've even heard other women talk about the feeling of uselessness or that they, you know, they feel like there's no reason for them to be around anymore in some sorts. And so kind of this depressive state too that comes along

[00:12:36] with it and all the things that are happening. So what got you to focus on this population that you want to work with? Well, I would say if first started when I was in my early 40s, after I moved out to Vegas, and that was when I discovered

[00:12:53] so after running my gym for so many years and just really going hard building my business, I learned when I got out to Vegas that I had Hashimoto's. I had low Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune thyroid disease. And it a lot of women have it.

[00:13:11] And for me, it runs in my family, my grandmother, she had hyperthyroidism, and my mom has hypothyroidism. So it runs in my family, and then it will also come up now there's some links, they talk about, like physicians talk about there is a link to trauma,

[00:13:31] childhood trauma can cause it, or just general distress. So I was diagnosed with that, and then I was diagnosed with low testosterone and then after being on the birth control pill for so long like low progesterone, and I had other hormone imbalances as well.

[00:13:51] And so I started working with a functional medicine specialist to get healthy again. The good thing is that when you are moving into do hormone replacement therapy, which is what I was shifting into, getting on thyroid medication and then doing hormone replacement therapy for testosterone and progesterone

[00:14:08] is what I started with. And now I do estridial repositories, which drive a dive, a dive, a giant animal talking about that. But when I moved into that, I was really just reading a lot. There's one physician who's like the OG, her name is Sarah Godfreyd,

[00:14:27] and I just started reading all of her books. And I was already doing a lot of things right with my lifestyle, with my nutrition. I was strength training. I was eating whole organic foods. Just already being a fitness person,

[00:14:42] I was already dialed into a lot with my lifestyle. But then I learned that there was just so much more than I could do as well, especially as it comes to making sure that your circadian rhythm is regulated

[00:14:54] and you're going to bed and waking up at the same time. Every night, usually you want to get to bed by 10 or 10 30 and then wake up between 6 and 630 and no, that's not always possible for everyone. But whether it's like a Sunday or a Wednesday,

[00:15:09] you want to be going to bed at the same time when waking up at the same time within 30 minutes. So that's a regulate cortisol. And so I learned all these things about that. And then from there, I wanted to help other women

[00:15:22] who were in the same boat as me, even though it was my early 40s. I hadn't started going through. I started didn't start to have the all the signs that I had when I turned 45. I was having night sweats.

[00:15:35] I will say like the night sweats started when I turned 40. And it was night sweats around my period. And typically that happens because around your cycle, you have fluctuations in hormones and it's due to low-projects thrown. So then it gets exacerbated when you are going

[00:15:53] through the menopause years. And so that did start when I turned 40 and I was like, what is this like these nights sweats here? But taking progesterone does definitely help with that. So when I went through all the hormone replacement there would be started working with the functional medicine

[00:16:13] specialist. I launched a program. It was a 45 day hormone reset. And it was really about teaching women about nutrition and lifestyle changes that can just help to optimize hormone balances. It's not like a fix, but you have to do both. If you're going to do hormone replacement therapy,

[00:16:32] you do need to pair that with everything in your lifestyle and exercise and nutrition. You can't do one or the other. You really have to combine the two. So it was just helping women to understand that your lifestyle is part of the process,

[00:16:47] especially if you're going to go down the hormone replacement therapy route. So I would say that is what kick started me getting into this area and then personally when I turned 45, I started to experience much more drastic symptoms. So what typically happens with women

[00:17:10] and I know, and I can say this because I went through it myself and I'm someone who is because of my background because I am an athlete. I do work in the fitness industry. I took for granted my lifestyle supported my physique

[00:17:29] and not just how it de-esthetics but also just how I felt. And all of a sudden when I turned 45, it was like my body wasn't my body anymore. The same things that I had been doing for years, over and over again for fitness, nutrition, my lifestyle.

[00:17:47] They didn't work anymore. And all of a sudden I was cranky, irritable, I was having more anxiety and I have a history of panic attacks and that started when I was 31. So I would say like I did start to have signs. Let me just go back here.

[00:18:05] When I was in my early 30s, I had signs of the low thyroid in terms of panic attacks and then rain knows symptoms where I would lose all my fingers and my toes would get really cold and I would lose all the circulation

[00:18:20] and they would turn blue and when I lived in Boston, I would get these sores on my toes. So that's an indication. If that's happening to you, that's an indication of you probably have a low thyroid. So when I was 45, these symptoms just got even worse

[00:18:37] and what really got even worse was just I felt inflamed all the time and bloated. I had more night sweats and then I even experienced like so when we as women, we go to our annual OBGYN every year, we go we have our gynecological exam

[00:18:57] and we're asked the question, do you have painful sex? And I think this is a perfect example of how there is not enough information available to women and it's not talked about enough because every time I would go, I'm like why do they keep asking me

[00:19:17] if I'm having painful sex? Like what does this mean? And this is me going to an outlapathic physician. And I think we should talk about that at one point, just outlapathic versus functional medicine specialist. So going and I'm like why do they keep adding,

[00:19:31] no, I'm not having painful sex. Well, I learned what they were asking me about. So in when I turned 45 was 2021 and my husband and I were on vacation in Hawaii and we were having, we were going to have sex

[00:19:48] and we started to and I was like I can't do this. This is like so painful. Like, I'm gonna get really personal and graphic but I'm like, this, it felt like someone was just scratching sandpaper on my insides. It was so bad.

[00:20:01] I was like I cannot do this. And I'm like this is what the gynecologist means by painful sex. And oh my God. And so I reached out to, I was like, and then I knew what it was. I was like, I know it's because something is happening

[00:20:18] in terms of I am probably in Perry Menopause right now and I don't have enough vaginal lubrication because I don't have enough estrogen. I reached out to my functional medicine doctor that, that why I was on vacation. I was just, I felt like my sex life was over

[00:20:34] and I was 45 years old. It was a horrible feeling. So when you talk about when women say they feel they are depressed and they don't, they feel like they don't matter anymore. Like yes, there's definitely like malaise that comes with hormone balances and depression

[00:20:51] that definitely comes with it. But it's also because when you start to have symptoms like this, especially when you think your sex life is over and you're only 45 years old, it's a horrible, horrible feeling. You're like, oh my God, I can't, I'm too young for this.

[00:21:06] And my doctor reassured me and he said, no, this is perfectly normal, this is perfectly common. It's okay, you don't need, you don't need to do now they're doing like, you know, estrogen replacement therapy like in patches and stuff is like, you don't need that

[00:21:24] and he's like, we'll just start with some vaginal estradiol depositories that I'll immediately bring some lubrication back to your vagina and everything will be restored. It's okay, it's okay. And it was just so great to be working with the right person. He's not an alicathic physician.

[00:21:39] He's a functional medicine specialist. He is very, he calls himself like a fitness physician because he completely understands fitness and nutrition. He's there a lot of physicians who don't and he reassured me and made me feel a lot better. But I still did feel just like washed up

[00:22:00] and like dried up from like a better word, you know? It sucks. So all of that was happening and I did start to get like one common thing that women will get as little to just start to they just like me.

[00:22:17] They will not change anything in their diet or their exercise or their lifestyle and then all of a sudden they will feel bloated in flames, they'll get visceral fat, they'll get these other things like night sweats and hot flashes. They'll have painful sex and things like that.

[00:22:36] And so I did start to get some visceral fat around my belly which was like this and in my entire life has never ever happened. I don't even know what's going on with my belly. And yeah and there was like whatever foods that I had been eating regularly.

[00:22:53] Like it's like it doesn't matter how healthy I eat I'm just constantly bloated and inflamed. So that really was a very challenging year and so when I, you know, shortly thereafter I stepped away for my business to just like take a break from being an entrepreneur

[00:23:13] but when I came back when I left corporate and I moved to New Orleans and I just had some, I felt like we're fresh having stepped away for almost two years and I was able to even though over those few years I did dial in a few things.

[00:23:29] I was really able to focus so much more like 150% of my time on just learning as much as I could about going through parry menopause and menopause and having these symptoms and experiencing this and what can you do to overcome it because you can overcome it

[00:23:51] and you can get rid of that visceral fat and you can get a lubricated vagina again and enjoy sex and you can get your sex drive back. Like it will all, you can. And so that was, since this was so personal to me

[00:24:08] and I knew and I know that there's not enough information available to women and it goes to, there's a couple things that go on. So and I just feel like I'm like talking talking so please feel free to interject and ask me a question. I think questions.

[00:24:23] Yeah, that's okay. So yeah, go ahead, ask the question and then I'll remember my thought but. Well you already mentioned a lot of it right but women aren't always aware of the symptoms of what menopause is or isn't or if they're starting to start that process or not

[00:24:42] but brain fog is a big one you have. So we've listed it on a whole document here. So brain fog, frozen shoulder is a big one. We see orthopedically. So if we get physical therapy patients that's a question we should be asking them

[00:24:55] is do you have some of these signs and symptoms because if you do have a frozen shoulder well we can help you with that too but then in the same breath if systemically there's hormonal issues, sleep issues, all these other things nutrition issues, weight gain, inflammation, bloating.

[00:25:14] It's going to be much harder to get you a successful outcome or it's going to take a lot longer. Right. Or so these are things we might need to address on the sideline as well as vertigo is another big one that I don't think a lot of people

[00:25:24] know about ringing in your ears or tonightess. The heart palpitations, I'm just going to list them all off here just so people know anxiety, panic attacks, bloating, inflammation, the night sweats, visceral fat or what most people know is belly fat or fat around your organs

[00:25:40] that's basically accumulating there. The vaginal dryness talked a lot about now and then musculoskeletal issues as well. So even for me, I had a parasitic infection. So I want to talk a lot to you about functional medicine too because I had a parasitic infection which basically

[00:25:55] I was a nine out of ten gut dyspiosis. I wasn't absorbing nutrients that were literally going right out of me and I had a testosterone level of 180 which the norm is from three to 12 hundred and no regular doctors able to help me accept the functional medicine doctor

[00:26:11] which really put me back on the path. But with that being said, same for men with these hormone issues too of I started a, I couldn't sleep at night, I kept waking up every hour. My training went work for me for years

[00:26:25] in a, I gained 40 pounds without, but trying not to. So there's a lot that happens to our hormonal system with all this and this is one of the main things that's happening. So I want to go back to what, what would you say the difference is

[00:26:40] for women in working with a functional medicine doctor versus an allopathic medicine doctor and can you define the two of those for people too? So they know the difference. Yes. And then just quickly you were saying you were like waking up,

[00:26:52] you don't have to have just like night, nights, swat's and hot flashes to wake up. Women go with your menopause will like low wake up at like three o'clock in the morning and they're like, I'm a, and you're up. So yeah.

[00:27:05] So an allopathic physician is your standard doctor, primary care physician where covered through insurance that you will go and see for your annual physical, your annual gynecological exam, which now I think we're doing our two years. So there's that. And then a functional medicine specialist

[00:27:28] is more of a holistic. They have more of a holistic approach to, to medicine and they're looking at the whole body, they're looking at your lifestyle. They're looking at their, have a lot of knowledge in fitness, nutrition, supplementation, and compared to an allopathic physician

[00:27:53] who will say you get blood worked on in an allopathic physician. There is a standard range of quote unquote normal that the allopathic physician will be like, oh yeah, your thyroid is normal, which is what happened to me. And mine was like on the border, right?

[00:28:11] Of low, but it was quote unquote normal according to an allopathic physician's standards. But then when I went to go see a functional medicine specialist, they don't accept quote unquote normal as you know, it's not enough. They have different ranges and numbers that they are looking at.

[00:28:30] So when I went, that was like so first, I was in 2017, I was seeing an allopathic physician 2018 is when I started to work at the functional medicine specialist and they looked at my blood work and they were like, oh my God,

[00:28:42] you have low thyroid and you have Hashimoto's antibodies. You have all of this going on, it was just a totally different story. And they will work with you and help you give you guidance with your lifestyle, nutrition and supplementation. And they will look at numbers

[00:29:02] that are actually really more accurate. And if you follow those numbers, you're going to have better results than just going in and out with an allopathic physician who's billing insurance and they just wanna like see you in like seven minutes. Yeah, I wanna stop right there

[00:29:21] and hyper fix it on that for a minute. Because I think people need to know the way our medical model is designed our primary care physician is preventative in a sense of when you go in, their main job really is to make sure you don't have cancer,

[00:29:39] you don't have heart disease, you don't have some active infection or something and that you're doing okay. They have an average of seven minutes with you. They have a ton of documentation to do, they have a ton of patients to deal with.

[00:29:53] And it's not necessarily the doctors fault, it's the medical models fault, but they are not set up to set you up for success. And if you're not basically dying in there and you're getting by, they take that is your fine. You're good, you have nothing to worry about

[00:30:09] where for a lot of us we wanna be optimal like me and you. So when you go to a functional medicine doctor, when I went, we sat down for two hours. We went through my childhood traumas. We went through my past anti-biotic use.

[00:30:26] We went through my work and stress. And they pointed out she pointed up to me. She's like, do you think your childhood? I had an alcoholic mother growing up which is like you think you're eight out of 10 adverse childhood

[00:30:40] event score has anything to do with why you're addicted to stress in owning a business and four businesses and this and that. And it starts to put things together. And then when I went for blood work, she sent me to a footballer, and the footballer was literally like,

[00:30:54] her jaw drop is like holy shit. She's like, I have never seen so much blood be ordered to be drawn for someone. And I was like good because the physician is only gonna look at a couple certain things and not the whole full picture of how everything

[00:31:09] it directs. Just because you go to your doctor and they say you're good, if you're dealing with something, trust your gut advocate for yourself and get another answer and look elsewhere because the traditional medical model these days is not gonna support you

[00:31:25] in what you really truly need and want. I just wanted to put it. Yeah, no it's true. And I think it's a great example when you're talking about the gut issues you have because functional medicine specialists, they look at the gut and 80% of your immune system

[00:31:39] is below the gut lining. It's like in your gut. So like if your gut is screwed up then everything else is going to be out of whack. So they look at, they'll take, you'll have to give it still samples and things like that

[00:31:52] so that they can run tests and just make sure that that's healthy. And your poops are very telling. So if you're not looking at your poops, you need to start looking at your poops. They need to be a three or four on the Bristol scale

[00:32:05] or as Paul check calls them policemen poops. Like they're very telling and if you're not pooping, you need to start pooping. You need to figure that out. So we can talk about that too. You want that too. And with my whole thing too,

[00:32:18] what I dealt with, it was concerning when I'd go to a GI specialist and they didn't do a stool sample or I'd ask them about things like BPC, the peptide that is pretty much well known now to help with some of the gastric things that happen

[00:32:35] in the small intestine and they didn't even know what it was. And it's like, what are we doing here just throwing drugs at everything and not looking at the lifestyle side? So I want to start with this of, I've heard numerous different things from different people, even professionals,

[00:32:52] dietitians, doctors, whatever. What is your outlook on hormone replacement therapy for women because I've talked to one dietitian that told me that basically, if a woman over 45 wants to lose weight she needs to go on weight loss medication, I've talked to a very good dietitian.

[00:33:14] Yeah, that I didn't take that as... No, no. I've talked to another one that said that's, HRT is an option but there's plenty of other things women can do and I've talked to another one that says if you want to lose weight in your over 45

[00:33:32] and you're having these symptoms you likely need to be on hormone replacement therapy, problem being most PCPs and primary cares don't know the truth about hormone replacement therapy. Right. We have this one shitty study from, I think... 1970s, the 90s. The women's health initiative, yeah, yeah.

[00:33:54] I think they used like horse estrogen? Yeah, they were using a coin estrogen, yeah. So, and we also, when we talk... Yeah, so, so I want to go off on this point. Okay. Well, there's a few things here. I think it's important to highlight first of all,

[00:34:13] like physicians, they get very little education on menopause during their training. That's like even OBGYNs only get like a handful of hours learning about how to treat women after menopause and any physician will tell you that. So, there's that problem there

[00:34:33] and then there's a history that goes back to ancient Greek enrollment times of women getting gas lit by, for going through menopause. So, Greek enrollment, their Greek enrollment physicians they thought that a woman's period, when they menstruated, they were releasing toxins from the body.

[00:34:57] And so, when they stopped releasing these toxins and they started to go through menopause, then these Greek enrollment physicians, they would just do crazy things to get the toxins out, like put leeches on women. And then, you know, because of the hormone imbalances,

[00:35:14] they would say, oh, she's gone mad. She's crazy, right? There was like this mad menopause. So, it goes... There's this history of women getting gasated and this happens now too because alpathic physicians, when they go through their training, they don't get enough training on menopause

[00:35:30] and what women go through. So, women are told, oh, it's all in your head. You know, go see a therapist, get a hobby, have a glass of wine and then... Yeah, so there's that whole history there. And then, there is the Women's Health Initiative,

[00:35:48] that was a study that was done in the 90s, that has set the precedent for how hormone... What people think, what physicians think, about hormone replacement therapy. So, summary of that study was, they were testing how the impact of how hormone replacement helped

[00:36:09] or didn't help cardiovascular disease and stroke. And they had two groups, one received estrogen only and one received a combination of estrogen and progesterone. And then, what they learned through that study was it ended up in... The estrogen only group and ended up increasing their relative risk

[00:36:29] to which doctor, Mary, Claire, Haversh, who talks about this in her book, I'm so glad she wrote this book and it came out. There's a difference between absolute risk and relative risk. So, relative risk is a smaller percentage, a much smaller percentage.

[00:36:47] And so, the media blew that out of proportion and the results of the estrogen only group was released to the public. And the big headline coming out of that was that hormone replacement therapy causes cardiovascular disease and women. So, then the study ended or was like,

[00:37:08] it got shut down and then all these women who were receiving hormone replacement therapy were taken off hormone replacement therapy and then hormone replacement therapy got a bad rap. Well, fortunately now, I think little by little, especially with books like the new Metapods is starting to turn around.

[00:37:27] Now, the key to that is I mentioned the two groups estrogen and estrogen and there was an estrogen only group and then an estrogen and progesterone group. So, to answer your question, do I think women should do hormone replacement therapy? Yes, absolutely yes, 100%.

[00:37:41] Women should never go without estrogen. Never. You definitely have to go and see your physician so they can determine what is right for you, especially maybe if your breast cancer survivor and things like that, you need to make sure that I would say if your alipatic physician

[00:38:00] is not a fan of this, get a different doctor. Find a functional medicine specialist. My physician is my functional medicine physician. He's taking on new clients. You can message me, I will refer you to him. So, you can find a functional medicine specialist

[00:38:15] who will run your blood work and take you through the right kind of hormone replacement therapy. So, yes to that and it is you need to have a combination, women should never go without estrogen. It's going to help to prevent having us,

[00:38:34] consistently having estrogen through a parent menopause in menopause and it should start happening before you are quote unquote like technically menopausal, which is clinically, it's been a year since you've had your last period. You really want to start it before that happens, but if you don't it's okay,

[00:38:52] that it helps to be more preventative if you start it before you are quote unquote in menopause. And you want to have a combination of estrogen, progesterone, whatever you need to replace, even I take for me, I do to weekly testosterone injections, I take progesterone compounded,

[00:39:16] micronized at night, 175 milligrams, and I do estradiol suppositories every single day, every night. So, and of course I take thyroid medication to make sure that I keep my Hashimoto's antibody stand. So with that it is like yes, they should. However, to you were asking me about this dietitian,

[00:39:43] so I think like the other history with that too is I think the protein recommendation from the RDA is like a perfect example that it's like, you know, excuse me, it's 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, right? I think it's what they is like half as much

[00:40:05] as what you should be having, but that's just goes to like, that's just for survival, right? That's just like for the bare minimum that your body needs to stay alive, not to sustain and build muscle, right? So now the new research is one, two,

[00:40:24] 1.3 grams per pound of body weight, so it's like double that. That's what you should be doing. However, most, one, was it? One point three, one to one point three per pound? Yes. Wow, okay, that's, that's news to me, so that's cool. Yes. So do you fall Gabrielle Lyon?

[00:40:46] No, yeah, follow Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. So she has all like the recent research on protein, her and her mentor, Dr. Donald Layman. Yes, yes, so minimum, just say, keep it easy, one gram of protein per pound of body weight, especially for women who are,

[00:41:07] it's when you get older and you go through menopause, it is harder to maintain and build muscle. So more protein is better. So I'm giving this as an example because this is, that's not the correct amount of protein. However, there are dietitians out there

[00:41:25] that will be like, you have to take this, you have to take this, I was actually speaking with a coach on Monday and he recommended one gram per pound of body weight and then this his client went to go had a dietitian,

[00:41:39] who said, oh no, you just need half that. It's like, no, this is the current research. This is the current research. Why are you not up to date on the current research? So this is like a perfect example because when it comes to hormone replacement therapy,

[00:41:53] there are a lot of physicians out there who are not up to date on the current research. And so that's why I got a bad rat from the women's health initiative. It's continued to maintain that bad rap, but there's new current research out there

[00:42:08] that says that women should not go without estrogen and yes, 100% women who are going through menopause should do hormone replacement therapy. But you shouldn't just do hormone replacement therapy. You have to use all the tools in the toolbox. You have to do fitness, nutrition, supplementation, lifestyle,

[00:42:30] so all of that. I want to say there too. I have a friend that's a physician and he works in primary care right now and he was saying, the most they got is about a three hour lecture in nutrition in school

[00:42:42] and then he's like we don't have anyone. We don't have nutritionists or dietitians coming in telling us the new up-to-date things on nutrition and he goes, we get drug reps that come in and tell us all about how their new drug

[00:42:54] is gonna save everyone's life and change the world which there is financial bias in all of that and he knows that and he's up to date with some of the stuff but he still says based on the requirements of his job

[00:43:07] just to keep his job like he's behind the ball on all this stuff. So we need to make sure of that as well. The other thing I wanted to point out too for probably women that are now still listening to this men, probably have tuned off by now.

[00:43:21] But if you have a partner too that's around this age or even younger sometimes, the same has happened with men and TRT or testosterone replacement therapy in that there were some poor study designs back in the day where they found men on testosterone had had an increased,

[00:43:38] I say that with quotes. An increased risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease and prostate cancer but what they failed to recognize is that there was a lot of poor study design there too as well as all men across so they found men had

[00:44:00] I think it was an 11% increase in the risk of prostate cancer yet all men are at an 11% risk for prostate cancer so it really cancels itself out because at some point most men are going to get it. So I still have men on my K, you know what?

[00:44:16] You're having all these symptoms, your recovery score, your sleep score like let's get you to a doctor let's get this figured out and they wanna go to their primary care first and the primary care says no that's gonna increase your risk of XYZ

[00:44:27] which is not true but everyone just wants to listen to their PCP and not always. Yeah. Advocate and investigate a little bit further unfortunately so. Well I think part of the problem too is that people don't wanna pay out a pocket for functional medicine specialists

[00:44:41] and that's a thing. If you want to have a long health span and you want to resolve these issues and you're not getting what you need from your alipathetic position, you're going to need to pay out of pocket to work with a functional medicine specialist.

[00:44:56] You need to spend the money. I pay out a pocket to work with my physician and it's worth every single penny because it is going to increase my health span. I'm going to have more quality, I am hoping and praying that everything I'm doing

[00:45:11] which I'm like given that I'm 48 and you know people fall on the floor when they find out what my age is. I have a feeling that it's going to extend my health span so be willing to spend the money to work with the right people

[00:45:28] who are truly going to be able to help you feel better. Yes absolutely. And so one thing I have to say too is it's like the chicken or the egg rights. So do you think all women once they start experiencing any of these symptoms

[00:45:47] should go on hormones, most of them or should a lot of them be addressing lifestyle factors first but I think the problem is like if you're harmonally imbalanced and you're having issues with sleeping night sweats, irritability mood swings, it's really hard to dig yourself out of that hole

[00:46:11] if just chemically you're imbalanced. Where it's like, so do we put this person on this first or do we try to get them sleeping better, get them do these daily routines and habits that are going to maybe help? What does your thought there?

[00:46:26] I think they should start with their lifestyle first and the reason why I say this is because, well if you just go into a hormone replacement therapy and you're not doing anything with your lifestyle it's not going to make an impact.

[00:46:38] So you have to start with your lifestyle first and I like for example, so it took a very long time for me to finally regulate my Hashimoto's antibodies and the reason for that was in 2018 I was working with not the physician I work with now

[00:47:04] but a different specialist and everything else was fine except for we couldn't simulate, we couldn't seem to get my antibodies down. We couldn't seem to regulate my thyroid. However you would never know it with if you looked at me

[00:47:18] and just how I trained and the energy I had and she said to me, the reason why you're able to you don't have those typical symptoms that someone who has Hashimoto's typically has is because of your lifestyle. You have all the right ingredients.

[00:47:37] Then I had that time when I was doing a lot of reading about what helps to regulate the thyroid and Hashimoto's. I learned about how cortisol is essentially like the mother of all hormones. So if your cortisol is out of whack, other things are out.

[00:47:52] There's something called the pregnant alone steel where cortisol steals from pregnant alone. Pregnant alone is a pre-hormone for a gesterone and estrogen. So when cortisol steals from that then you get lower gesterone and estrogen. I'm not going to get into a whole dissertation about that right now

[00:48:11] but I was like, oh my gosh, we haven't tested my cortisol so I mentioned it to her. She's like, yes, let's test her cortisol and low and behold, I was diagnosed with stage to adrenal dysfunction which is essentially my cortisol was a flatline.

[00:48:25] It was just like my, and you're supposed to like you wake up. You're supposed to have this nice peak like between eight to nine thirty and yeah and then it's eventually supposed to make its way down so you can go to sleep at night. That wasn't happening.

[00:48:38] So I had to, I implemented additional things with my lifestyle to regulate my cortisol. And once I got my cortisol regulated then my, my Hashimoto's antibodies went down to a normal level. It was in remission and I regulated my thyroid.

[00:48:56] However, the reason why I'm giving this as examples is because fortunately based upon my lifestyle, my nutrition, my fitness choices, I was not suffering like many women who have Hashimoto's suffer while I was trying to regulate that. So to answer your question, start with lifestyle changes first.

[00:49:15] Stop drinking alcohol. Alcohol increases your increases cortisol because it doesn't, you don't wind down. It like it jacks up your cortisol so you have the stress response happening in your body and then it increases your risk of breast cancer,

[00:49:31] especially as you get older and you're over forty five. Stop drinking alcohol or just drastically minimize it. Like I have a drink once in a while. The last drink I had was like, I know it was February 3rd because my dad's birthday and I had a beer

[00:49:45] but I don't drink. So stop drinking alcohol, start walking, getting an minimum of like 10,000 steps a day, start strength training four to five times a week. Like start to get your make all go grocery shopping, make all your meals, prioritize protein,

[00:50:02] go to bed early where blue light blocking glasses at night. Get out in the morning, get some sunlight without sunglasses on before 10 am. So you can get some vitamin D and start some implementation like vitamin D,

[00:50:16] get enough fiber in during the day, vitamin K, omega-3 is like I could go on and on but start to like do things in your lifestyle that are going to help to support some natural changes in your body.

[00:50:32] Then once I would say once you're doing that for a good like 30 to 100, you know, one to three months, then go get some blood work done and then go and see the functional medicine specialist and get the blood work done and then have them prescribe hormone replacement therapy

[00:50:51] because you're going to be in a much better position at that point. Now, a little like my physician for example, he helps with supplementation and he can give you fitness and nutrition recommendations. So if you did something that you don't think that you have the knowledge or not

[00:51:10] just the knowledge, the discipline to do yourself, then work with, you could work with the functional medicine specialist plus a fitness coach who knows who is like a holistic fitness coach and does these things like me and work with

[00:51:26] those two people and so that everything is happening at the same time. You're getting the blood work done and the HRT, but you are also being adamant about changing your lifestyle nutrition and you're starting to exercise the right way.

[00:51:40] So I want to back up to from in here. So one thing I was just thinking of too is another big issue women face is bone mineral density. Starts to drastically reduce. I think there's some big misunderstandings there that doesn't.

[00:51:55] I think there is something that came out of one of the studies on females that showed some inferences about bone mineral density with I think estrogen replacement that showed issues with bone mineral density, but I think that's misunderstood and actually continuing to have estrogen

[00:52:13] progesterone, ester dial all these things, actually help keep your bone mineral density higher, correct? Yes, that is correct. So we see too many people in the clinic that are over the age of 50 and they have issues with bone mineral density

[00:52:32] they're on phosomax or one of these other drugs, which actually for those of you that don't know if you're considering one of the drugs or on one of them, they make the bones harder to the point where they get brittle and then they become almost ceramic.

[00:52:46] So if you got for a bit you fall, you're actually at a higher likelihood of breaking your hip if you're on this, but I think it's more than five years or so. So that's another thing where hormone replacement therapy is more natural

[00:52:58] there's probably less side effects to it if taken and dose correctly and we're not going to have some of these issues later on in life with disability because once we see you start breaking females in your age disability starts through rapidly increase.

[00:53:12] Yeah, rather than go on the physicians who rather than go on medication, take a vitamin D supplement. So for women who are going through menopause it is harder for our bodies to absorb vitamin D. So vitamin D supplement is necessary even if you live in

[00:53:36] Florida, even if you live in Las Vegas. We're not outside enough to get enough vitamin D. If you haven't had blood work done to determine what how much you should be taking you can take 4,000 IU safely on a daily basis.

[00:53:51] So definitely start adding if you're not already taking vitamin D take at least 4,000 IU daily. Start taking that. I take 5,000 IU when I lived in Boston. I was diagnosed with low vitamin D and my physician have been on 10,000 IU but don't do that.

[00:54:09] 4,000 is like safe because it can get toxic for some people at some level so just like so take vitamin D. We need vitamin D. Make sure when I talk about like getting outside, getting sunglasses free, sunlight in your eyes.

[00:54:23] It helps vitamin D. It also helps with producing helping your body to produce melatonin so that you sleep better at night. So don't go to the medication route. Go with the vitamin D route. With vitamin D too, I think it's still standard practice but you actually want

[00:54:40] vitamin K with that as well. Yes, I think we're trying to get more interest annually. So K too is what you'd want to take with that as well because without K too it's not going to absorb as well. Exactly.

[00:54:52] Do you see two, that's an issue with men where testosterone is rapidly dropping earlier and earlier in life due to what we presume is stress? Do we see women having, we see girls start to have their periods early in our

[00:55:12] earlier. Are we also seeing women start to go become menopausal early in our earlier in life? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. That is a good question though. Yeah, just if we're kind of constantly thinking about finances and the

[00:55:27] cost of living these days and and work stress. Yeah. Yeah, we're in this adrenal cycle of just fatigue as this something that could potentially throw us out of whack as well. Yeah, I mean, I've spoken to women who are like in their mid 30s and like 30

[00:55:43] mid to late 30s who are experiencing symptoms of hormone imbalance and I do think a lot of it is lifestyle. It's just constant like screen time and content is just this constant stimulation and high stress all the time.

[00:55:59] And to your point about like, you know, the reason why one of the reasons why I started to perform a replacement therapy was just not only for my struggles, actually my husband is the one who introduced me to it because he started to do testosterone

[00:56:11] replacement therapy and he's two years younger than me. So he was like in a slight 30s. But yeah, so this is like for men too if there's any men listening to this, like get your blood work check. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:56:26] And don't just go to the regular doctor go to the functional medicine doctor or some other non-traditional type doctor. And do you know who have alley Gilbert is? Alley Gilbert specializes in working with men if anyone knows who alley Gilbert is.

[00:56:42] So I've heard her name of the area. Okay, so and then I think the other big issue for women is too is they're just kind of like you said women are kind of gaslit in this and it's like fine like this is just part of life.

[00:56:56] This and that when do we need to suffer through all or most of these symptoms or what's the deal there? Yeah, and I think women are just expected. Oh, as soon as you hit menopause like you don't matter anymore, you're washed up.

[00:57:12] This is this is just what happens when you go through menopause. You're just supposed to have hot flashes and suffer and not enjoy the second half of your life. And it's all it's bullshit.

[00:57:23] It's just it falls in the category of women being gaslit and so no you don't have to suffer. I feel good like it doesn't mean that I don't occasionally have like a night sweat

[00:57:37] or I have a gastro, you know, like get some bloating or feeling flamped or anything like that but generally I feel great and it's because I'm doing all the right things and I check in with my physician. It's about like checking in with your physician.

[00:57:52] It's recommended, I think if you can get your blood work done once a quarter that's a good recommendation because maybe there are some minor adjustments that need to be made. So no, you don't have to feel like crap and honestly since I've been back on on social media

[00:58:09] and back running my online business and I have been just like scouring the landscape on the internet for like what information is out there and what is really cool that I am seeing is that there's this whole culture of women who are empty nesters

[00:58:29] who are in their 50s who are just learning how to do the right things and getting jacked and sharing about it just because they're passionate about it and all of a sudden they're like, oh my gosh, I've figured out the solution to feeling good when I'm 50

[00:58:45] and if you're menopause and here it is I want to share it with my girlfriends. And so I think these are people who are not coaches and I love that, I think that's great because they're spreading the word and as coaches I think we need to do

[00:59:00] maybe we need to do a little bit better. I am seeing more coaches out there sharing right information but you know there are women who are not who were taking into their own hands, which is great and they're just doing it. But as coaches,

[00:59:16] like we need to start to lead this sort of revolution as well. Absolutely. And so one, I guess the inspiration to reach out to you was a few weeks ago. I've followed you for years,

[00:59:30] but you posted the other day about women doing endless cardio and not doing creatine and not doing enough strength training. So as far as fitness and training goes in weight loss too, I guess because that's one of the, you know, in a gym that's where most women are

[00:59:49] complained to me that they're stuck. Where are women going wrong with working out? What are they doing too much of? What do they need to be doing more of? They're differently. Yeah, I definitely think that we'll for our generation

[01:00:04] are we were raised with that with the wafesthetic? Was the ideal aesthetic? And just doing? Yes, like, you know, just being really skinny, no muscle. Like Kate Moss, you know? No Kate Moss is, I mean she's just a model from a long time ago, but

[01:00:28] yes. So just like this very skinny aesthetic and just not building a lot of muscle, there are women in my age group who are afraid of getting bulky. Like it's not like I think there's another

[01:00:42] generation behind us that they're they are choosing strong over skinny and I think that's great. But this generation, those of us who are in our mid 40s going into our 50s, we I think that is

[01:00:55] definitely prevalent. So women are afraid to lift weights. They're afraid to get strong, build muscle. They don't want to get bulky. And we don't have enough testosterone to build that kind of mass.

[01:01:12] It takes a lot of work to bulk. You got to eat a lot of food and you have to be on a specific program, like it takes so much work. I was just going to say I wanted to stop and just use

[01:01:23] common logic here of I've been trying I'm 32 now. I've been strength training since I was 14 at least four or five days a week. And I wish I could get as big as women think they're going to

[01:01:38] get the moment they lift away because it's asin I'm like I put so many hours into the gym and I'm still you know maybe I have bodied us more for you a little bit. I'm not quite where I want to be,

[01:01:48] which I think keeps me successful is that you know there I've never satisfied with where I'm at and just stop doing what I'm doing. But in the same breath like ladies you're not gonna fucking

[01:01:58] grow these coconut delts and these biceps ripping out your arms. Unless you have a crazy set of genetics like I do know some women that just have a more muscular build that like yeah I've seen

[01:02:11] pictures of them when they were five years old and like a leotard and it's like they had delts then they still have them now even if they stop working out for a year they're probably still going to

[01:02:18] have them but if you don't have them without crazy testosterone replacement like 10x of what you should take you're probably not gonna like wake up with a penis with these huge upper traps

[01:02:31] or biceps because you lifted weights. I just I still I just wish I could have the gains that women think they're going to get the moment they pick up a weight. I yeah it's crazy and so that I mean

[01:02:45] that belief that limited belief is very prevalent and and of course there the fitness industry tailors to that with things like orange theory and you know and I think orange theories find to

[01:02:59] do like once a week but you need to be strength training. So women should be strength training and I used to teach this when I was in my 30s like prayer at my body composition whether I was in my

[01:03:10] 30s or in my 40s now has always been better when I've been lifting more and doing less cardio like running less so I would say the women should be training strength training four to five times a

[01:03:26] week do not be afraid to lift heavy weights you need to lift heavy you need to put on the muscle and help you to do that and so cut back on so much cardio zone two cardio is totally having its

[01:03:41] moment right now but it's like you can do zone two cardio every single day like I go for a walk with a kettlebell in my backpack and just that's my cardio once in a while I'll go for a run

[01:03:53] but I'm not like running and that was one of the problems that I was having too was back when I was 45, 46 as I was like for some reason I started running more and now I've like cut back on that

[01:04:07] I was like running doing two running workouts and one of them was like a long run and then I'm like discovered that I actually felt better and I didn't do the long run when I kept if I went for a run

[01:04:17] it was like three miles and then I don't know it's been like two weeks or maybe three weeks since I last went for a run I've been prioritizing strength training zone two cardio those two things

[01:04:29] zone two you can do every single day and if you're working to get 10k steps in a day you can make your zone two cardio part of like combine it with getting your steps in right just go for a long

[01:04:41] walk and so do that and then to help you with the muscles to maintain and build the muscle eat one gram of protein per pound of body weight spread it out over the day I would say like

[01:04:56] four meals if you can make sure that your breakfast is high protein so this is a huge mistake that women are making I actually had a call with a woman the other day and she was sharing with me for

[01:05:09] breakfast that she ate oatmeal with almond butter and berries and there's no protein in that there's no like the complete protein in that at all so what happens is when you wake up you're coming

[01:05:23] out of a cat about your your body's in a catabolic state because when you sleep you essentially are fasting for however many hours that you're sleeping when you wake up your body's in this

[01:05:35] catabolic state it wants protein and it wants protein because it wants to initiate protein synthesis now there's liver protein synthesis and there's muscle protein synthesis if you are going through menopause and you want to maintain and build muscle we want the protein synthesis to happen

[01:05:54] and we want to have as many cycles as possible during the day so we want to kick it off with our first meal in order to kick it off with your first meal you need to make sure that you're eating it off

[01:06:04] protein clean complete protein like egg whites Greek yogurt you enough of that that it kicks or way protein that it kicks off that you get two and a half grams or more of looseine and it

[01:06:19] kicks off a muscle protein synthesis cycle because after that first cycle ends in like two to three hours when you have your next meal say you have you know like 25 grams you have like 40 grams of

[01:06:32] protein at your breakfast it kicks it off when you go to have your second meal your body's not in a catabolic state in a more it's at baseline right so it's not like below baseline so you're

[01:06:43] going to be able to have another cycle of muscle protein synthesis so have a high protein breakfast and then before you go to bed at night make sure you're last meal of the day is also

[01:06:53] high protein because you're about to go to sleep and not eat for eight hours and if what happens is your your body if it doesn't have enough protein from your meals when you sleep it will go to your

[01:07:06] muscles to produce to do liver protein synthesis so that that will happen I usually have casing before I go to bed at night which is a slow diet fasting protein but so they need to do that

[01:07:19] get your steps in quit alcohol cut back on caffeine one cup of day before 10 a.m. eliminate any added refined sugars strength train four to five times a week zone two cardio every day

[01:07:31] combine your zone two get in your steps in 10 k steps each protein how how long should people think we should define zone two cardio two for people that don't know that zone two cardio is

[01:07:44] basically when you're at a brisk pace where you could still have a conversation and if you're wearing some type of fitness wearable I can Apple watch or like a woop you should be between

[01:07:56] now I'm black now math is it 15 and 60% your max heart rate yes or so okay so this wouldn't be a run you shouldn't be out of breath doing it per se you still be able to have

[01:08:07] a conversation but again you're you're moving so sometimes it does take if you're on a walk like some people that are in better shape like you might need a steady incline you might need some

[01:08:16] weight on your back to do so and get into that zone but you're not killing yourself so so how long should people be doing that for like 30 to 30 to 40 minutes I go for a two mile

[01:08:26] walk it's usually like 35 minutes yeah and is that essential worship people just be doing this instead of high intensity cardio I would so if the thing about high intensity card it's great

[01:08:41] and it's great and it's also good for like bone density all of that is true it just takes longer for your body to recover from high intensity interval training so if you're doing high intensity

[01:08:55] interval training I would just say limit it to like one to maybe two times a week and just make sure that you have ample recovery time afterwards so like maybe you do want to week and you do it

[01:09:07] as your last it's unlike your your last workout day of the week so that the next day you have like the full day off because you want to make sure that your body is fully recovered so it doesn't

[01:09:18] get in you're not over training or you don't raise your cortisol and you can also just really maximize any strength training benefits that you're getting when you're lifting and so I guess

[01:09:30] we should I want to define this too then are we talking about what when we say or when you say that are you talking about high intensity interval training or are you talking about high intensity like

[01:09:42] long duration like high perceived rating of exertion distance running or just any type of endurance training or both I'm specifically talking about high intensity interval training so like if you're

[01:09:56] doing sprints on the treadmill and you're like for me it'd be like getting my heart rate up to like keeping it above 145 like 145 to like 168 during my sprints like 20 minutes of sprints or something

[01:10:08] like that. You said limit that that to once a week or twice a week what did you say? I would say like if if you're strength training four times a week you can probably do it twice a week if you're

[01:10:18] strength training five days a week like once a week okay um and just curious on that too what about for women that aren't uh men of Paul so we even men like can they get away with doing more high

[01:10:31] intensity interval training? I don't know the answer to that question. I can speak like based upon like my husband's experience which is um so he is the director's sports medicine for Chilean and he's responsible for the women's basketball team so he just a little while ago

[01:10:49] he finished up the basketball season with a women's basketball team and during season he just like didn't have a lot of times he was trying to manage like the admin duties of being a director

[01:11:00] plus like traveling with a women's basketball team so it was like he was just doing whatever he could just to do something. So he did he like joined orange theory he was going to orange theory like twice a week

[01:11:11] when he was traveling he was like running more than he was lifting so he found that he was like doing more cardio and like running more and doing orange theory more when he was in season since he's

[01:11:21] been out of season he's shifted back to strength training more and doing loaded walks like me and he's like I'm having so much better result like the results I'm losing weight like my

[01:11:33] physique is better. I feel better like yeah I mean he knows these things too like he's the CS. Yeah he knows but it's like but but I think that like when you like go through those

[01:11:48] periods where like I'm just going to do this because like I do something and got to do something and then you go back to like you know what feels good so I mean he feels great doing what I'm

[01:11:59] recommending and yeah I'll say it too for my own personal experience so I was never a runner I had my whole issues with everything last year. I started I got diagnosed with the parasitic

[01:12:14] infection and like got through it but then I just couldn't lose weight and I did some genetic testing through a functional medicine doctor we found I had two genes basically it said like one was

[01:12:22] I got to be at a significant color deficit to lose weight like 20% more than most people and then I also need to do like an hour half of cardio a week to lose weight so I started doing zone two

[01:12:34] and then I started like introducing some interval training and I started working up I was running like twice a week in a moderate pace for like a half hour so and then one day I just went out

[01:12:47] and was actually hung over RAN eight miles and I was like if I could do this I can run a half marathon so I'm training for half marathon right now which I've never even done a single race before my

[01:12:56] life and I've noticed now so in November I did a weightlifting competition and I cut down and I was I was running once maybe twice a week 20 to 30 minutes now that I'm training for this I'm running

[01:13:09] three days a week and one one run is like eight to ten miles a week and I am gaining belly fat my strength this my hunger is like in not insanely out of control but it's definitely more than it was

[01:13:25] even on days I'm not training and it's just much harder to recover so I definitely I can't wait to be done with this race and go back to my more intense lifting and less intense

[01:13:37] I go I'm gonna go back to just 30 minutes of cardio maybe twice a week because I'm finding the same thing is that so I think that might go for everyone not just women it's a lot I mean it's a lot of stress on

[01:13:49] your body and it increases inflammation it raises your cortisol it takes your body longer to recover when I was in my 30s I posted pictures of me in my early to mid 30s

[01:14:03] doing more cart like spinning and running versus like when I was like 38 just like training for that because I've been true test for me was training for the Iron Maiden Challenge for three

[01:14:16] and a half years like training for this strength I wasn't freaking running I was just like lifting heavy shit so like and I looked at my body composition between like 34 and 38 and my body

[01:14:28] composition was so much better when I was 38 because I was just lifting all the time and yeah I was like walking or if I like or maybe like once a week I think I was doing like sprints on

[01:14:41] a truddle but it was really just like lifting lifting because I had this very specializing I was lifting for so I think that that is very very very telling and then one one thing I wanted to just

[01:14:51] because you mentioned like genetics so we talk about why I think it's important to highlight why is lifestyle important why are all the why is this fitness and nutrition important well there's this whole field called epigenetics which studies how the environment impacts how your

[01:15:11] genes express themselves so only 25% of aging were you going to get into this? I have a really good quote from an old instructor of mine that always said genetics loads the barrel behaviors environment pull the trigger. Yeah 100% and it is there it is like

[01:15:32] studied and that like 75 to 80% of aging and disease is based upon your environment and your lifestyle 20 to 25% is genetics so that means you have control over 75 to 80% of how you age how your genes express themselves and whether you're going to get this disease or not

[01:15:59] why would you not like take advantage of that and do everything in your power to control your lifestyle in your environment to the best of your ability so that you can quote unquote age well

[01:16:12] and be healthy and prevent disease. Yeah I think a big misunderstanding here for people too is the whole family history thing so I think even medical professionals sometimes don't realize this too if you just because you have a family history of heart disease, diabetes,

[01:16:30] low back pain is it genetic or is it because are you just going to end up with diabetes because all you knew how to eat was refined grains, pasta and sugar and can you change that or not?

[01:16:42] It's not necessarily that it's something you're just born with I remember saying oh well my dad had a bad back so I have a bad back it's like no no you just don't know how to move well maybe

[01:16:52] and you don't have or you're not utilizing the tools at your exposure or it's like a available to you yeah the tools that you're able to yeah yeah so it's like people see this and

[01:17:07] it's like well yeah he has it so I'm going to have it it's like no that's not the case at all there's an 80% chance you can change this if you're willing to do the work for it. Right yeah my dad

[01:17:17] is a great example because heart disease runs in our family and both his brother and sister died and his mother died of heart disease my dad is 85 years old and he has far exceeded when there

[01:17:29] ages and he's like I'm going to make it to 90 like I think my dad is just like a great you know he has he's a great example that still kick in knock-in one god bless. 100% and then another thing

[01:17:46] you said you want to discuss to was managing and fighting oxidative stress in my country health so what did you have to talk about there? Yes absolutely and I think you talking

[01:17:58] about like the running and so a big part of and you asked me about creatine too so supplementary when it comes to yeah when it comes to supplementation when it comes to supplementation

[01:18:16] as you get older it's all about choosing the supplements that help you to fight oxidative stress and reduce inflammation so like omega-3s do that and like any sort of adaptogens like there's an adaptogen mock-a-root is great actually for low estrogen and will help with libido and low

[01:18:40] estrogen and it is an adaptogen which means that it like fights stress varies and there's a supplement called uralithin A because the reason why is because as we get older it's harder for our mitochondria

[01:18:54] to get rid of the old mitochondria and build new ones and that's I mean that's what our cells are doing every day throughout the day all the time they are just regenerating and we want to improve

[01:19:09] the mitochondrial health and we want to be able to make sure that our mitochondria are able to continue to do that as we get older so these things that we're doing like not doing like so much

[01:19:21] intense cardio all the time and doing the strength training in the zone two cardio and taking supplements that help to counter that that will help our mitochondria continue to thrive and keep us healthy

[01:19:35] and you will you will feel and you'll notice the difference in your energy you will notice the difference in your like in your bowel movements like if you have like healthy bowel movements

[01:19:49] in your digestion so that is a huge part of like I was on a podcast a few weeks ago and one of the questions is like what supplements am I taking and it's supplements to help with generally to counter

[01:20:05] oxidative stress and support mitochondrial health and then creatine what the part that creatine plays in that is energy right it's going to help your it's going to help you have more energy there's

[01:20:19] not just there's so much research out on creatine it used to just be like this meat head supplements for for built muscle building but now there's studies out there there is a professor a PhD

[01:20:36] Darren Darren caned out he's in Canada he studies creatine and he studies not just muscle health but bone and brain health and it helps to increase just energy in general and energy in your muscles

[01:20:50] and performance when you're lifting so it's not just like for exercise and strength training it's also like just general brain health like for example he talks about how like if you travel

[01:21:01] across time zones and your jet lag to bump up your creatine intake because it helps with brain health and an energy in ATP and so it's which is essentially like cellular energy and so it's

[01:21:14] going to help you manage that jet lag better. What's your idea that on Monday when I got back from Phoenix at one thirty in the morning and so just for the women out there just to be a reinforced

[01:21:26] creatine is not a steroid it's not going to make you huge and bulky and bloated and all the things that we say it's one of the most tried true and tested supplements especially if you're

[01:21:40] getting it from a decent source. Great team on a hydrate. Yeah yeah don't go for any of the you know creatine monohydrate it just sounds boring and like a chemistry experiment but really

[01:21:55] you know it's not sexy so so many brands try to rebrand it and reinvent the wheel with it where it's like it's a Creolecoline or this non-blok formula or this is that you just want creatine

[01:22:07] monohydrate it works it's the one that works we have science behind it and that's actually relatively healthy for you and the other piece there too people still have concerns about a

[01:22:18] causing kidney damage. No no no it doesn't do that. No so as long as you as long as you don't have kidney disease that's already preexisting you are likely a good candidate to be on creatine

[01:22:33] so I just wanted to make that. Yeah if you and it's like if you have kidney disease or like you know liver issues like that and you're seeing a physician just have to either ask your physician

[01:22:42] to take it or tell your physician because it just it increases creatine in your blood so but it doesn't cause those issues at all and it is yeah there was something else I was going

[01:22:55] to say but go ahead and I'll think it was going to say about creatine oh we make creatine we make creatine in our bodies and when you eat me like you're eating a certain level of creatine so

[01:23:06] like you're just like bump when you supplement you're just like bumping that up so it can help because the and the reason why you want to supplement it is because research shows that specific

[01:23:19] amounts support muscle bone and brain health so like five grams a day that will take care of all of your muscles right if you want to reap the bone and brain benefits doctor yeah

[01:23:34] doctor Darren Kando he recommends like 10 grams a day right broken up in like maybe like two five grams doses so yeah it's yeah take it I just tried it started taking earlier when I

[01:23:49] I I just started taking it over the past year and I'm just like why oh have I not always been taking this what is wrong with me I don't understand yeah and um I think there's some evidence too

[01:24:01] now that it also helps with fat burning and fat oxidation I correct her maybe not I don't know about that but I mean I wouldn't be surprised there's like so many because it helps to

[01:24:16] increase it helps because it's in times of metabolic stress it counters the effects of stress on the body so I wouldn't be surprised that like if it helped that because it knows it supports metabolism

[01:24:35] and is it still beneficial for endurance athletes like runner cyclists and things to take creatine I always remember in gym class in like high school my not professor teacher was like don't take creatine if you're running because you'll crap up or something and I was like I think

[01:24:51] that was 20 years ago now but that's not true no it's yeah it's not just if you're strengthening it's also if you are an endurance athlete there there have actually been some studies that like um how creatine supports muscles and strength training there's like similar with like

[01:25:08] with running as well but yes okay cool and then I think my last thing to hear is and this might be a giant can of worms but managing stress what I think people have a

[01:25:27] misunderstanding of what stress is because we do have plenty of people too like me and you that are love working out or addicted to it probably push too hard too often and because like me I never

[01:25:39] like doing doing zone two because it didn't feel like much of a workout you feel great after not looking back when I was doing like oh yeah like I felt really good then but like like no I

[01:25:48] need to feel like I did something really hard so between realizing that even working out is stressful that raises your cortisol we need to healthy therapeutic dose of it but just like I tell

[01:26:00] people all the time it's like if you're taking Tylenol for a headache you don't take the whole bottle that will kill you so we need to dose our exercise but what other things especially women in

[01:26:12] the stage we're up center there too what things should women be conscious of and what things should they do to help manage their overall stress so we don't run into cortisol overload adrenal fatigue all these different things mm-hmm I think the the best thing is to

[01:26:33] especially now since we have like phones and screen time and computers like number one manage your screen time so I a good example is like I noticed if I wake up in the morning

[01:26:46] and the first thing and if I instead of like I usually read in the morning like a book like I don't but there we know my phone I read like a paperbook on purpose because I just like

[01:26:57] step into my day my mind is calm and I'm reading a book and if you pick up your phone and you're looking at your screen like that's gonna make you anxious like the whole day and I notice if I do

[01:27:09] that and I get on social media first thing then like the rest of the day I'm just like I feel like I have a million things to do and I'm like really anxious even though maybe I don't have a

[01:27:18] million things to do so you want to make sure that you create a routine and book ender day with with rituals that help you to ease interior day without stress and you feel organized and that help

[01:27:32] you to wind down at night what that looks like is avoid looking at your phone first thing in the morning like for the side would say for like the first 30 minutes to an hour in the morning like

[01:27:43] a void getting if you have to like check your text messages or whatever if you're a mom I get it but like if but avoid looking at like your emails and your social media and find something that

[01:27:54] you enjoy doing in the morning that for like and it can be like for 15 minutes 15 20 minutes that just helps you to step into your day grounded that could be reading a book that could be just like

[01:28:06] writing out like the top you're to do list which is like the top five things that you need to do that day that make you feel like you won the day or journaling I used to journal a lot in the morning

[01:28:18] like gratitude writing out your gratitude and your journaling could be like your gratitude plus maybe you are like setting out your goals so I am a big believer in manifestation so maybe you're just like writing out like what your goals are and you want to manifest

[01:28:34] and then you're to do this so just like do that and then if you can schedule in time to get outside whether permitted and go for a walk and you can make that your zone to cardio

[01:28:48] like start getting your steps in start with like one mile you don't have to do two miles like me start with one mile that will probably take you if you're walking at a solid pace

[01:28:59] like a mile will take you like I know if I'm walking really fast without a kettlebell on my backpack it's like 15 minutes but like you can it'll be like 20 minutes or less

[01:29:09] if you're doing that so do that get outside don't wear sunglasses so you can just work on getting your vitamin D getting that melatonin going if you have a dog maybe you want

[01:29:19] to be able to do zone to cardio with your dog definitely not with my dog she's a French bulldog so she's like so pokey but maybe if you have a German shepherd or a colder retriever a dog

[01:29:29] that likes to walk fast then that works out for you so I would say do that in the morning and limit coffee like have like that coffee raises cortisol it is a drug

[01:29:43] and it will stay in your body for 12 hours it has a half life so it's like only six hours later half of it is still in your body and then like so say if you have a glass of a cup of coffee at 11

[01:29:56] am and you go to bed at 10 pm that cup of coffee is affecting your sleep at 11 pm because it takes 12 hours for it to leave your body one cup of coffee before 10 am in the morning so that's your

[01:30:09] morning then as you come into your evening where blue light night time blue light blocking glasses if you're watching TV and like when wake up in the morning open all the blinds and

[01:30:22] everything when you come home at night in the sun is setting close all the blinds right we want to simulate because now we have all this artificial light we need to start to help with our circadian

[01:30:31] rhythm to help with our cortisol to help us sleep better to help us manage stress in that way you want to simulate what's happening outside as if we never as if we don't have artificial light

[01:30:41] you know turn down the blinds where blue light blocking glasses if you're watching TV or if you're on your phone I would say like I stop looking at my phone at around 730 at night like I

[01:30:55] might watch TV and like put blue light blocks that blocking glasses on but I keep my phone away I do not look at my phone until like I do use as an alarm so do bring it into my bedroom but

[01:31:07] like I don't yeah so and then at night if you can also do evening gratitude helps as well you can do that if you are so I used to meditate a lot of haven't been meditating a lot

[01:31:19] of just like the reading has helped me in once in a while journaling but like a 10 minute meditation session just closing your eyes you can use an app like brain FM Gabrielle Bernstein has some good

[01:31:31] guided meditations that are like 10 minutes it'll just close your eyes help you help to settle your brain and just like ease into your evening I also the other thing that helps me in the evening

[01:31:42] say before I'm at home with my blinds close my blue light blocking glasses on what signifies the end of my day and helps me to wind down is taking my dog for a walk I take her for like a

[01:31:53] mile walk and it just really helps me to it's like the ritual that ends my day and if I have any anxious energy from my day I get it all out just it helps me to clear my mind on that walk

[01:32:04] so find those rituals and things that help you to start your day grounded and wind down and end your day grounded so that you can go to sleep with you know with minimal stress.

[01:32:20] Awesome well that was a whole lot of information for me anything else you wanted to add. I think we talked about so much and I just hope every I hope people are not sick of here

[01:32:32] and you talk. I'm not like I was talking a lot. I think there was there was a lot of good stuff in there and a lot of things people need to hear and a lot of things that are misunderstood

[01:32:42] that people need to know about which is the whole point of me doing this podcast is the bring these things to fruition for people so Artemis where can people find you and I also had I was telling

[01:32:52] people that I was doing this podcast like her name is Artemis like what kind of name is that so I can people want to know that too. Artemis is Greek she was the Greek goddess of the hunt in the

[01:33:03] moon she's Apollo's twin sister she's like one of like you know they're like the seven most important Greek gods and goddesses like Apollo and Athena and Artemis and Zeus and Haran.

[01:33:14] Haran wasn't a god she was like a demi god but anyway my dad is Greek and my mom when she's pregnant the mission was studying Greek mythology so they made me Artemis and my brother

[01:33:27] my sister is Mary she's the oldest in Mary. Yes she's like the family name like the Maria you know like every Greek family has to have a Maria and then my brother he's Liani this and he's a D.P.T.

[01:33:40] he's in in the York so he got like King Liani this right. Yeah so. All right and where can people find you Artemis? On Instagram is the best place to find me my handle is I am the Artemis I am this is a new

[01:33:57] Instagram account I am rebuilding my Instagram following I deactivated my old account in 2022 so I'm starting fresh and so yeah just follow me there send me messages if you have questions

[01:34:10] about anything we talked about today or anything that we didn't talk about today please send me a message I always read all my messages. Yeah I'll say to you Artemis just puts a ton of good content out

[01:34:22] on even her just Instagram story which is like you were talking about the creatine thing and I was like oh I learned some things about creatine that day that I didn't know like the whole brain health thing

[01:34:30] I did not know was part of creatine I was like I'm gonna reach out and see if we can get you on a podcast so thank you so much for coming on this was great and I can't wait to share this with at least the

[01:34:40] members of the gym so they can start taking positive steps towards battling my things they're dealing with so again thank you so much and thanks for having me was great. Maybe we'll have you on again it's

[01:34:52] I'm point to discuss maybe some of the stuff more in depth depending on what I got for questions from people so if you like this episode again please like rate subscribe leave us a review and if you have other things

[01:35:04] you want me to talk about on the podcast please reach out at barbell.therapy on Instagram or visit barbelltherapy and performance.com and we will try to get that's those questions you thank you again. Thanks bye.