How to Stay Young, Smart and Fit Forever | Gabrielle Lyon on Health Theory

Animal protein and plant protein are totally different. And if you have a diet of plant protein, it is very hard to sustain and calorically devastating cuz you need between 25% 40% more. So it's like six cups of quinoa for one small chicken breast. Everybody, welcome to Health Theory. Today's guest is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. She's a functional medicine doctor who completed her fellowship in nutrition and geriatrics from Washington University, one of the best medical schools in the world. She's board certified in family medicine, has a doctorate in osteopathy, has her own clinical practice, and has made a name for herself by taking an integrative muscle-centric approach to health and wellness. Welcome to the show. Haha, thank you for having me. Yeah, for sure. I'm super fascinated by your muscle-centric approach. That was sort of the very beginning of my journey was realizing if I wanted to get the body composition that I wanted to get, that I needed to put on some muscle. Um and you're the first person I've heard talk specifically about taking a muscle-centric approach. So I'd love if you um just quickly give like a uh rapid description of what it means to be sort of muscle-centric. That'd be amazing. So I practice this concept of muscle-centric medicine. And it's really this idea that muscle is the organ of longevity. Right now everybody focuses on adiposity, being over fat. There's the constant struggle against bulge. But that's the wrong way of thinking. It's not about being over fat. That is just the byproduct of being under muscle. So the true way to fix everything is optimizing muscle tissue and really changing the paradigm of thinking. It's not about being over fat, which is why it hasn't worked. It truly is from a metabolic perspective about being under muscled. So, talk to me a little bit about when we look at what it means to be optimized for muscle mass. I get why being obese is wildly problematic. Fat itself is an organ. It's a It signals to the rest of the body. It's pro-inflammatory. It can hurt joints just in terms of being too much weight. Um one, why hasn't focusing on that worked? And then two, why is muscle the answer to the problem? Yeah, certainly. Well, it's kind of like what you focus on you get more of. And by constantly focusing on the pathology of adipose tissue, it's the wrong perspective. And I think that that's largely what's wrong with the Western medicine approach. It's constantly chasing the outside pathology as opposed to really getting Yeah, it's it's a And when you do that, you're constantly chasing your tail. But really, it's truly an issue of muscle tissue. So, defects and issues with the muscle actually happen first. Adiposity is secondary. And how I really like to think about it is it's like a suitcase. Stuffing, you know, a whole bunch of stuff into a suitcase, which would be carbohydrates or glycogen, and really overpacking it, and then having things spill back out. And that's exactly And then when it spills back out, that's when you get fat. All right. So, I had an employee who used to be an Olympic level swimmer. And when he detailed what he ate, I was like, "Bro, you are going to die so soon. This is crazy. How are you not morbidly obese?" He was like eating french fries and chicken nuggets from McDonald's and eating something like 12,000 calories. I could be a little off, but it was so absurdly high that I was like, "This is insane." And he was quite lean. So, is the hypothesis the reason that he was lean that he's using his muscles so much and he's in a state of burning the carbohydrates at such a ridiculously high level that he's sort of unable to put on the fat because the muscles are essentially taking care of it. And that's a really good framework to think about it. There that would be multifactorial. Certainly the amount of output that he has with all that activity, he's utilizing a ton of carbohydrates. Because he's a carbohydrate adapted athlete as opposed to say someone who eats less carbohydrates and more fat. So, the reason he didn't get fat was probably number one, he was young. His hormones were good, right? High testosterone and he was putting in so many hours that he was utilizing everything. So, people have I think a high-level understanding of their three macronutrients and they probably have heard things like carbohydrates cause you to store fat and water, that the muscles burn glucose like at at that level. But my question is where it begins to get fuzzy for people is like what's happening when you use your muscle? Like muscle mass even just having it is going to be protective, is going to allow you to consume more calories without putting on adipose tissue. So, I think explaining to people maybe the function of muscle as an organ would be really helpful. Oh, my pleasure. Probably my favorite topic. So, muscle as your metabolic currency, it is largely responsible for your resting metabolic rate, which is really essentially the calories that you burn at rest. It is one of the largest sites for glucose disposal, which is exactly what you were talking about. Whatever Twinkie diet he was on was being utilized by the muscle tissue. And another component of skeletal muscle is that it's a site of fatty acid oxidation. So, we hear a lot about high cholesterol. Well, actually muscle is so metabolically active, that's one of the fuels that it uses. So, truly the three components of muscle as a metabolic organ are number one, resting metabolic rate. It determines everything about what you're doing. Muscle mass is incredibly unique in multiple different ways. You know, really not just as locomotion, which I think in our 20s, we all think about muscle as locomotion and looking good in a bikini or mankini, whatever you choose. But, really the the true essence and the true benefits of muscle are far beyond that. Just as it's ability to utilize calories, utilize energy. And you know, of course, we have to get into the topic of the importance of high-quality protein, which I'm sure that we'll talk about. But, muscle in and of itself is so interesting. It's actually an endocrine organ. So, when you contract it, it secretes things. It secretes proteins. One of these proteins are called you know, this group of proteins is essentially called myokines. So, it's responsible for all those things that I mentioned, the resting metabolic rate, the glucose disposal, fatty acid oxidation, but also interestingly, just as you had pointed out of the fat adipose tissue being an organ, which is the nemesis of muscle, right? It's the nemesis of muscle. Muscle in itself, when you contract it, also secretes things. These myokines go throughout the body and are anti-inflammatory. Things like interleukin-6, BDNF for brain function. It's just multi- just there's many, many. So, BDNF is is something brain-derived neurotrophic factor, if I'm getting that right. So, that's the people have referred to it as sort of a feel-good chemical. So, you talked about muscles and endocrine system. For anybody that's not familiar with endocrinology, that's basically hormones. So, um is that what triggers the release of BDNF is the actual contraction of the muscle? I mean, it's certainly part of it, yes. And especially now, when you think about that balance of inflammation, muscle also releases interleukin 6, which people always think of, you know, as the cytokine storm, as this interleukin that causes all these damaging things down the line, but truly, muscle, as an organ, secreting interleukin 6, actually has an anti-inflammatory effect. So, walk me through then when my my tissues are at rest, um the the metabolic rate is that the tissues are what repairing themselves? Like, how does that They're just very active. They're turning over, you know, they have mitochondria. It's just an active tissue. They break down protein, you know, build new protein. It's just this kind of balance between an anabolic catabolic effect, continuously turning over. Okay, so anabolic being building muscle, catabolic being tearing it down. Um talk to me cuz because this is one of the things that ends up making muscle so critical for people to understand as they get older, more and more critical. You've talked about how muscle is basically a storage place for um amino acids. Um and I know that like if somebody gets severely burned, they almost can't take in enough amino acids. Um as you get older, if you get sick, muscle, if I'm not mistaken, muscle is one of the like most direct predictors of mortality. Um Yes, and morbidity. If you want to survive, the more muscle you have, the more likely you will survive. So, what I'm assuming that's like a a form of catabolic where the body's like, "Yo, we've got a problem in in the immune system. We've got a problem within the case of burns trying to um replenish the tissues." So, what is the body breaking the muscle down into? So, it typically breaks it down to amino acids. So, it's an amino acid reservoir. And those amino acids are utilized for fuels. And it's really a storage form and also uh you know, it goes There's other proteins in the body that may require it. But, typically it's that amino acid reservoir. It's really interesting. So, I've always Not always, but certainly in my once I became aware of what's really going on in nutrition in the body, um you recognize that fat has this incredible role to play, which is you can imagine us out foraging, hunting, and there's a period where you don't have any, and it's a battery. It's essentially like, "Hey, mitochondria is going to need it for the process of generating ATP, which is the energy that actually keeps the cells alive and allows them to function." And then, so you're like, "Whoa, it's actually really powerful in a context where we can't just overeat, overeat, overeat." You get why the ability to store fat is this incredibly powerful thing. So, I'm going to store basically potential energy. Um fantastic. Literally, you're You're the first person I'm aware of to talk about musculature as a storage mechanism as well and being able to store um many different things that the body ends up needing. Um why don't want to weigh You don't want to do that. So, you don't want to rely on your store of amino acids. You don't You want to keep that muscle as healthy as you can for as long as you can. And that's really where this whole kind of question of dietary protein comes in. Because as we age and just really overall, there's only two ways to stimulate muscle mass. And that's I'm sure you know from the Quest days is dietary protein, right? That's essential. And then, resistance training. But, in society right now, we have we have really two fundamental issues. We have this fixation on obesity, and that is the pathology versus the cure, which is under muscle. So, that that's one venue. And then, you have this dietary component where people are incredibly confused about optimizing protein. Protein is incredibly emotional for people. And it's really the key macronutrient for maintaining muscle mass and also helping with obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease. These are are pathologies. These are metabolic pathologies that can be corrected by having healthy muscle tissue. It's interesting. So, let me ask a super pointed question. You can only pull one lever. So, if you you have two levers, you have diet and you have muscle mass. Which would you have somebody pull for longevity? You can have an amazing diet, but you have very little muscle mass, you don't do a lot of exercising, or you're like my swimmer friend and you have in just incredible output. You're exerting yourself tremendously. You have a great amount of lean body mass. We all know what swimmers look like. They look fantastic. Um but your diet is a Twinkie diet, like you called it. Which of those two levers is going to be more impactful? Okay, so I'm going to tell you what the research shows and then I'm going to tell you my personal experience. Word. So, the research would say, "Hey, if you had to prioritize one over the other, prioritize resistance training." Okay. That being said, in clinical practice, I have absolutely never seen that work. If they prioritize dietary protein and they get that first meal right, by lunch they feel better. I'm not asking them to wait 4 weeks. You nail that first meal, by the second meal you feel better. You want to deal with body composition, you want to deal with optimal aging, you want to overcome this concept of anabolic resistance, which we can talk about. The only and most effective, and again, this is my personal opinion based on seeing hundreds and you know, I've been at the bedside of hundreds of dying people. Geriatrics is no joke. And if I could pull the lever and go back in time, what would I tell them? You know, I would say you've got to do both, but when you're young, you have more flexibility and you can out train a bad diet. But as soon as those hormones begin to change, if you have low quality protein, and by the way, protein is utilized in a dose response. So, it's a a meal dosage. It's really a 30 to 50 g meal dosing. So, that's between 4 and you know, 5 to 6 oz of protein per meal. And if you go under under that, you are below what's called this leucine threshold. And I I want to make this very palatable for people. So, basically, there's essential amino acids. And out of these essential amino acids, that's really what determines the quality of a person's diet and the quality of protein. So, when they are sub threshold of one particular amino acid, which is leucine, if you eat food that is sub threshold to that 2 and 1/2 g of leucine, you will be skinny fat. You will never activate the proper mechanisms to turn over muscle protein synthesis. And this is a huge problem in our society. You know, there's nutrient sensors in the body. So, hitting that particular amino acid load, which is really 4 to 6 oz easy, and it's easy for people to anchor their meals in, you know, 4 to 6 oz of protein, and then you stimulate your muscle tissue, which we know is an endocrine organ. Let's talk about that. If you're not trying to bodybuild, if you're not trying to get bigger, So I'm thinking I know somebody love her to death. She's amazing. But her diet is ridiculous. But she's skinny. Her whole family skinny. It's crazy. And so I've always said I guarantee if you look at her biomarker she's going to be skinny fat. She's going to be probably pre-diabetic judging by how she eats. It's you know pure insanity. Cuz I I want to differentiate between busting your ass in the gym and what you're going to get from that and then just like hey even if you don't care about the gym even if you don't buy into that uh there's just a quality of tissue issue and if you think of it as an organ it's like saying the quality of the tissue of your liver or your kidneys. It's like this matters. So if people could do one thing and leave this conversation with nothing else other than muscle is the organ of longevity and eat high quality protein animal protein and plant protein are totally different and if you have a diet of plant protein and it's very hard to sustain and calorically devastating cuz you need between 25 and 40% more. So it's like six cups of quinoa for one small chicken breast. If you really wanted to think about the amino acids necessary to stimulate that tissue. And listen that's not the only way to do it. Could we add in branched-chain amino acids to lower quality protein? Absolutely. But why would you do that when we have you know cattle or a ruminants that have that we've been consuming for two and a half million years and have the capacity to take low quality plant nutrition and produce high quality nutrition with that is nutrient dense and highly bioavailable for humans. So I understand I've heard you say the same thing. Like I understand people have they may have a a moral desire to eat plant-based food and I get that dude as somebody who's absolutely I just love animals and I long for the day where we can lab grow meats and that there was never an animal um involved in that process. But I'm also just selfish enough to say I'm going to protect my health. Um, you know, when you look at obviously sustainable farming and things like that, I'm all for it. I couldn't be more behind that. Um, but wanting to understand sort of at a mechanistic cellular level what's happening, and I don't care what the answer is, vegan, vegetarian, animal, a mix thereof, um, I just want to understand like at a cellular level what's happening, um, and to get that I think understanding the what branched-chain amino acids are, why they matter, and how the profiles differ from plants to meat, I think it'd be really helpful. Yeah, I I couldn't agree with you more. So, really the quality of our diet, and this is globally, the quality of our diet is largely dependent on protein. So, there's 20 amino acids, and nine of those are essential. Of those essential amino acids, And essential meaning I I cannot produce it in my body. Exactly. So, the key branched-chain amino acids, and when you think about branched-chain, it's just the structure, right? It's just a nomenclature. You've got leucine, isoleucine, and valine. And out of those three, which by the way should all be consumed together, cuz everything in life has its own balance. Of those three amino acids, leucine is the most relevant for protecting the organ of longevity. And on a cellular level, having the right amount at one time dosed appropriately, which is where that 2 and 1/2 g, that's from the that's just from research. You know, it's really truthfully it's between 1.8 to 2.5 g of leucine, which the majority of people are not going to go, "Hmm, how much leucine is in my food?" right? It's not on the back of a label, which just goes to show you how protein has been the black sheep of the macronutrient family for decades. When you look at a label, all it simply says is protein. But understanding on a cellular level that really eating protein at a meal-centric dosing, meaning you at one time, you're not drinking protein shakes over a course of 2 hours, but at one meal at a bolus amount, you are getting between 30 and 50 g of protein, which would translate to between 4 and 6 oz of high-quality protein would reach that leucine threshold. So, once you reach that leucine threshold, you trigger this um this complex called mTOR. mTOR is a mechanistic target of rapamycin, which then is actually a nutrient sensor. Anything below that, the body's like, "Mm, I don't care. I'm not going to put on muscle." Or, "Mm, I don't care. I'm not going to really stimulate this very expensive, elaborate process for the body." It doesn't care. So, that's where you get skinny fat because you're grazing all day at this low threshold meal. Especially important in aging because you don't have that flexibility. And when I say aging, I'm talking about 40s. You know, you've got to stay on top of it, but once you reach that threshold of arguably 2 and 1/2 g of leucine, which you could have a 2 oz of fish and then a scoop of branch chain and get up that leucine level. But, mechanistically, you need that branch chain, that essential amino acid to then trigger the rest of what needs to happen for muscle protein synthesis. And listen, the way that they measure muscle protein synthesis, it's not like you eat it and then you're laying down protein. It true I mean, that's not an accurate assessment, right? I would be um not being truthful if I said that, but it really is a period of time. Over a period of time as you continue to do with anything correct, optimized habits, you then can protect your tissue. And protecting tissue is everything. You know, and it's very dangerous because when people do weight loss, you know, you lose some fat, but you also lose tissue. And now we're in a situation where we're not outside and we're not doing resistance training, and we're not actually moving that endocrine organ. So, you know, it becomes much more difficult to maintain and recoup that tissue. And the tissue is just one aspect. It's truly the metabolic aspects, you know, of the of muscle. And if you want to prevent diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular, you know, cardiovascular disease, the whole spectrum, tissue, you know, muscle tissue will do that for you. And then you put on high-quality protein, you're going to keep inflammation low, you're going to keep calories in check, you're going to upregulate your thermoactive feeding. These are all really important. You're going to do You're going to have lower blood pressure because some of the amino acids, one in particular, helps lower blood pressure. I mean, this is amazing stuff. It's a muscle-centric approach to wellness, and the paradigm is totally wrong. Yeah, it feels very different. Like when when I started working out, you can actually feel just the difference in in a lot of things. You can feel the difference in mobility and strength and just overall well-being. Um and then some of the data in terms of how people bounce back from long-term chronic illness. I know in the cancer community, one of the the things they look at is when muscle mass gets too low, they're just like they're they're one illness away from demise. And same thing with old people, it's like, "Hey, you might be able to survive the flu if you've got enough muscle to see you through." Um but if not, then you could really be in trouble. So, it's interesting to hear that broken down. I I want to go back to what you were saying about that first meal, um which I think you're quite careful not to necessarily refer to it as breakfast, but your first meal, um getting getting that right. Um I'd love to hear what right is. Like in the real world, am I eating eggs? Am I eating chicken breast? Am I eating quinoa? Like what am I eating? You not eating So, if you get that first meal right, if your meal is bolus with protein, you do a few things. Number one, you stimulate your muscle tissue, which is arguably the most important organ, right? But number two, there and there's really good data that it actually helps with satiation. And blood sugar regulation. So, you are not going to be chasing 90 minutes later your um blood sugar. You are not going to be obsessed in your mind and not able to focus because you want to eat or you feel like you have to take a nap. Yeah, I encourage people to try to overeat um steamed chicken breast. It's like good luck. Like you will tap out long before you get obese, that is for sure. Um so, what are Give me some ideal protein sources. Am I eating Is it chicken breast? Is it red meat? So, we eat a lot of beef in our family, beef, bison, eggs. Uh we are not a low-fat family. So, you know, for breakfast for us might be half a pound of bison each with a little bit of olive oil and maybe some avocado. But we're low-carb for that first meal. We tend to do carb back loading or if we're going to have carbohydrates, use carbohydrates around a meal. Now, my husband is a SEAL, so they you know, they kind of like go crazy and train and then eat and train. Navy SEAL for anybody wondering. No, arguably he's probably an animal, but it's okay. Um so, that's how we but the first meal is always the same. Why do you do carbs later in the day? That's interesting. Because you've been up and you've been utilizing your tissue. So, you depleted your muscle glycogen essentially. I I listen, the the the data would show in a 24-hour period. So, I want to be very careful to say this is my experience because the data will say, "Well, in a 24-hour period, how much carbohydrates are you utilizing?" And I would say it's much easier to backload your carbohydrates or utilize them around training. Perhaps post-workout. So, I do believe that training low glycogen state is very beneficial. Do you work out fasted or do you have your first meal? do. So, I work out fasted. And do you do you have a strategy behind why you do that? So, I think that training low, I like my body to become very proficient and and efficient on its own. I like to be able to make all the glucose I need. Right? And because my diet is high in protein, there is what happens is it goes through gluconeogenesis. So, truly, for every 100 g of protein that I eat, my body generates 60 g of carbohydrates itself. So, I am not reliant on quinoa for breakfast or carbohydrates. My body becomes so good at making and generating its own that it allows me any carbohydrates then? You know, truthfully, I don't eat a bunch of carbs. It when I work them in, it would be, you know, possibly if we had a really busy day. We have a little infant, you know, and we have no child care, so we're just kind of you know, busy and we're training and you know, if I've gone for a lot of training that day and I'm running around chasing her, I might have you know, and it's meal specific. So, there's a carbohydrate threshold, which is how I like to think about carbohydrates. I might have you know, 20 g of some kind of carbohydrate in the evening. And and truly, the carbs that I love, and everybody says this, are green leafy, you know, vegetables, but I really like things like cilantro and chives, things that maybe have more medicinal purposes. And that's really what we use. So. So herbs as medicine, which ones, what effect? I am certainly not an expert on herbs, but I will tell you one of the things that we use is this isn't an herb, but I'm just very strategic. So like in the morning I'll use something called Sun Up Green Coffee. And it's it's this one company that I just really love and I have no connection to them, but they have a product that I think nobody knows about that everybody should and it's raw green coffee. So it looks like tea. I don't make it. I get it Clear like that. It didn't look it taste like tea. And it really and it has a high amount of polyphenols. Which I know that there's a lot of debate in, but I believe in polyphenols. So what what does what do the polyphenols do for you? So they're antioxidant. They have numerous effects, anti-cancer activity and I will tell you that I am able to maintain my body composition by doing these very strategic things and just being very conscientious of utilizing simple tools. That I have found incredibly helpful. Like for example, jalapenos. Using raw jalapenos with capsaicin. You know, the whole goal is optimizing body composition. And you utilize these in an you know, over a period of time in enough amounts and the body generates its own effect. And listen, this is totally subjective. You do have to control for calories. But there are things that we just as scientists or as practitioners, physicians don't necessarily understand. But I can tell you that it works. So I use chlorogenic acid in the morning. never heard of that. What is it? That's the green coffee. That's why I use the green coffee. Chlorogenic acid? Yeah. Has high amounts of chlorogenic acid. You're going to try this? those syllables put together before. Chlorogenic acid, okay. It's a compound that helps with fatty acid metabolism. Very interesting. Okay, so we have our green coffee and then what else are we doing in terms of um herbs? Um a lot of cilantro. And they you know there's some belief in through what mechanism I don't know but very detoxifying. You know a lot of individuals with quote heavy metals will utilize cilantro base kind of compound. Cilantro, parsley, chives, garlic. You don't like I'm not coming in your house. It's all right. But it it would be interesting because I think that that's the you know I think we're all looking for ways to optimize longevity at the not just at the end of life so it doesn't really matter if you live to 100 versus 105 or 95 to 100 if the last 5 years suck, right? So how do we live a way that surpasses what we've seen for longevity but the quality of our life is together and that's the question is not the length right so it's not quantity of life. It truly is quality towards the end. So really I'm starting to experiment with these things as it relates to longevity and quality while keeping Really fast give people a bit of a breakdown on your background in geriatrics. One I don't know that everybody knows what geriatrics is and then two I know you spend a lot of time in palliative care so what that is and sort of the it's given you sort of a tough edge and no approach to this that I really respect. So first what is geriatrics and palliative care and then what have you learned from it? Yeah and I'm going to tell you where muscle centric medicine came from. There was a turning point moment that was during my fellowship. So geriatrics is really it's taking care of aging and it's over the it's 65 and older and that's what's considered geriatrics. And then palliative care is the end of life. So you are really at the end of your life whether it's a month or so, and and that's really transitioning to the other side, whatever that other side is. So, when I did my fellowship at WashU, it was a 2-year fellowship, and part of the deal was I was going to get to do nutritional sciences. So, I've trained 7 years in nutritional sciences, but the deal the deal is in order to do clinical research, so I did 2 years of clinical research, part of the way that it worked was as a physician, I also had to have clinical duties. Part of those clinical duties, the agreement was, you know, there's always a give and take. Um the agreement was I got to do obesity medicine and run a weight loss clinic and and image people's brains and be part of euglycemic clamps and do all this really rad stuff. But in order for me to do that, I had to take care of people in nursing homes at the end of life in the hospital and geriatrics, and I'm sure everybody many people have had aging parents. It is not, I mean, diseases of aging are heart-crushing, bone-sucking, like it is so harsh. And that's why I feel so passionate about this message, because I've actually done the work and sat at the bedside of these people. You know, and at the at that moment in time, you can look back and, you know, people have a lot of regrets. And I will never forget in the muscle-centric medicine came from a very specific moment. Part of um the research I was doing is I was imaging people's brains. It was obese brains midlife. Incredible women, round, you know, late 40s, early 50s. And I have to change the name of this woman, so we'll call her Sarah. And Sarah was the nicest woman, and she had three kids. She'd been overweight her whole life. And I'd sit with her, you know, we did 24-hour euglycemic clamp, sit with her, and you really get to know these people. You see them at multiple points in the study, and uh one of the parts of the study was imaging her brain. Just to see what her brain looked like. And when we imaged her brain, she had a lot of like flattening of her matter. And it came from midlife obesity. And we knew that within, you know, really 10 years down the line, she's going to have a Alzheimer's. What is flattening of the matter? What is that? Is that gray matter. Right? So, that the brain's So, that the wider the waistline, the lower the brain volume. So, Alzheimer's There are many There are many multiple different aspects of Alzheimer's, but Alzheimer's is type 3 diabetes of the brain. Mhm. It's a metabolic illness that can be prevented just like diabetes, just like cardiovascular disease, just like hypertension. And listen, I I want to say this with a little bit of reserve because there are genetic components. However, lifestyle choices midlife, having access to the right information, changes the trajectory of aging. I was so heartbroken when we reviewed her fMRI study. I was heartbroken because all she told me was, "You know, I've emotionally eaten my whole life. I have three children. I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I put everybody first." And her habits were so deeply ingrained, and she was obese, her muscle tissue wasn't there. She literally in the next decade was going to have Alzheimer's. And she had no idea what she's in store for or what her family was in store for. And at that moment, I knew that chasing body fat was the wrong thing to do. It was all about muscle as this metabolic organ. And if she had turned her attention to the against that? Because it controls body composition. So metabolically The The bigger the waistline, the smaller the brain. Why? Yeah. What mechanistically is happening? Because it is very inflammatory. So there's insulin receptors in the brain. You know, it can affect the blood the blood-brain barrier. Insulin resistance in the body and insulin resistance in the brain. And one of the other things and and we'll talk about muscle, but the the the protein component affects satiety. So that overeating, that emotional eating your body is going to feed until it gets the protein that it needs. And that's that's something interesting looking at cravings from that perspective. Yeah, and it's actually called the protein protein leverage hypothesis. And this is well maintained throughout species. Where they will feed, so you'll continue to eat and overeat and overeat if you're eating a low protein diet until you reach that protein need. For these satiety mechanisms to shut itself off. Very troubling. So now, give me what does muscle do that interrupts that Why is it anti-inflammatory? Like if we look at what I just laid out is how we get too much insulin into the system. What's muscle's role in? So muscle is the largest site for glucose disposal. Glucose in and of itself is cytotoxic. It is really critical to get glucose out of the bloodstream and take it up. One of the ways, the largest site for disposal is actually muscle tissue. The more muscle you have, the more metabolically healthy it is, the more that it's actually utilizing nutrients appropriately. The more carbohydrate flexibility you actually have. So it's in and of itself protective. And we talked about when you sleep when you contract it by secreting myokines, it is anti-inflammatory. So, if fat is the nemesis of muscle, Talk to me about what the muscles is secreting. Um this isn't uh interleukin-6 I'm familiar with only because of what's going on with coronavirus, so that sort of cytokine storms and stuff is that's become more um people are talking about it more. Uh but the other stuff like what you just said, which I I couldn't even tell you what you just said. Um what's that called again and why is it anti-inflammatory? So, the interleukin-6 is really the big one. That's what muscle is famous for, but when you think about muscle tissue as it relates to inflammation and obesity and really protecting Sarah, the story that I told you, if she had been able to get her tissue under control just mechanistically from getting her protein intake up, right? And making sure that that tissue was emptied. But because she was largely inactive and you know, there's this this concept where when the muscle is full, everything starts filling back into the tissue. Or it just can't get in. So, basically you have an increase Remember there was this whole big discussion about branch chain branch chain amino acids cause diabetes because everyone with elevated glucose also had elevated branch chain amino acids. I've never heard that before. Tell me more. There was some research that had come out where people had mistakenly said, "Well, those with elevated levels of branch chain amino acids, it correlates to high level, you know, it correlates to diabetes." Branch chain amino acids in the bloodstream. correct. And actually, that's absolutely true, but not for the reason people think. The reason it was true is because branch chain amino acids are utilized by the muscle. Uh let me guess. So, you this is that backup mechanism, right? So, the branch chain amino acids should be going into the muscle, but they're full What are they full with? They're full of glucose? No. Full of glucose, they're full of fat, they're full They're just full. They can't accept any more substrate. Because they're not being used. Exactly. Now we're on to something. Now we're on to it. So, these diseases of obesity, these diseases of being over fat, they are not diseases of being over fat. They are diseases of impaired muscle. So, if you fix that muscle tissue and that's through lifestyle, keeping inflammation low, keeping calories in check, and truly we are domesticated as a planet. Can we define fix? So, when we say fix cuz if you had stopped shy of the word fixed, I would have said add more muscle, which is where I always expect you to go. Um is this a a game of quantity and quality? Primarily quality? Um These are great questions and I I don't think anybody knows the answer. And here's why, because muscle is the most under appreciated organ. We have percentages of body fat that we know are not great. But we don't know I don't know what percent muscle mass you should be. You don't know what percent muscle mass I should be. And this is so important to understand because if we really truly want to help obesity, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, it's really about optimizing muscle tissue and and nobody knows that answer. I would say from a professional opinion, quality and quantity matter. Of course, I'm not talking about in the extremes of, you know, a bodybuilder in the Olympia, although that's incredibly healthy tissue, right? Oh, can I tell you a secret? Here's something I would love to know. How does muscle mass correlate with um surviving coronavirus? I thought about that kind of early on and I thought, "Ooh, I do wonder." Well, if you think about it, the higher the muscle mass, the better the protection against all cause mortality and morbidity. Just in general. People need to let that one sink in. Across all cause mortality. I agree. So, listen, if someone goes in they're on a vent or they're aging, I mean, what are the things that are going to be most important? Muscle tissue. You want to survive? You've got to be able to support your system. Yeah, man, it's crazy. Muscle, muscle, muscle. So, now let's talk about how do we get some muscle? So, obviously, we need to eat, we need to get our leucine levels right, we need to eat a certain amount of protein, which I think you said roughly 1 g per lean body mass. That's the recommended amount. I actually that's the what is would be considered in the literature. 1 g per pound lean muscle mass, and I would say that's a great starting point. I would say it should be 1 g per pound ideal body weight. Okay. So, I mean, lean muscle mass is very variable. little bit of fat, you're saying. Mhm. Yeah, sure. Whatever you want, as long as calories are me. I'm 180 lb. What should I grams of protein. 180? Yes, sir. Okay. And then, you know, what's your caloric target? We would, you know, I would probably break up your protein meals in 50 g or so. Could you go over? Yeah. Would you have much metabolic benefit? No. So, 50 g of protein per meal, so 7 * you know, 6 would be 32 g, so I mean, brother, you're going to be eating a lot. Or if you didn't want to do that, you would have a lower dose of protein and then had to add in your branched-chain amino acids. So, that's one strategy. And then you asked about fats, so fat is more, you know, for For I like to keep them a minimum of 80 g for hormone production. So, I would say a minimum of 80 g of fat. But again, this is all based on calories. And carbohydrates, take it or leave it. And I'll tell you what is more important is also as you age, and we all become more mature, hate to admit that I'm aging, but we are, is that you actually have to get that meal threshold right. So, you would be doing yourself a service by getting 50 g of protein per meal because you're going to get a robust response for muscle protein synthesis and anabolic resistance. Mechanistically, the body becomes kind of um immune or desensitized to amino acids. So, you require more amino acids at one time to get the sensing more robust. And especially in aging, like in geriatric population, you need that sensing mechanism to be very robust, and that's where your amino acids come in. And getting that, you know, amount per meal correct, so you overcome this anabolic resistance. And to lead into resistance exercise, right? That is essential. And um there's a lot of questions or someone, you know, if someone is aging, there's some great work out there from McMaster University, and they say, you know, they've shown that it's not the heavy weight, it's the two fatigueability and exhaustion. That's interesting. It is interesting that they would get the same benefit because for a long time I said, go out and work as hard as you possibly can until you want to quit at least twice or throw up. And that may not be the the that may not be a overarching recommendation. So, really having a well-designed, trained program, you know, planned out program is essential. And you'll respond quicker if you're under trained or or detrained, right? And then the more advanced you get, the less gains you're going to make. But, resistance training is key. Mhm. I love it. I love your approach. If you were going to make one recommendation for people to make one change that would have the biggest impact on their health, um what one change would you have them make? Optimize Optimize your I only get to pick one? Only one. So, I want to know, are they eating more chicken breast? Are they hitting the gym? Are they sleeping better? Whatever. intake. Number one thing that they can do. I love it. Look, I love your whole approach. I think this is so powerful and so important, and I hope people take it seriously. Muscle will change your life. I will just tell you that from experience. Um where can people connect with you? So, I'm very active on Instagram, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, l y o n. Um and then there's a link I have a YouTube channel. There's a link in my Linktree in the Instagram. Um I have a free protocol on my website for people who are just getting started and interested in a protein-centric approach, and that's drgabriellelyon.com. Um Twitter, same name, Facebook. And I have a newsletter where I always vet scientific information, and I put a few studies that I think are incredibly relevant and also great resources. So, it's very well curated. Nice. I love it. Well, guys, subscribe to that newsletter. And speaking of subscribing, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe here. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Thank you guys so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.