LONGEVITY: Start Doing This To BUILD MUSCLE & Live Longer! | Gabrielle Lyon

The body is changing. Whether we want to believe it or not, when we are younger, we are driven by hormones. When we are older, older, 30s, 40s, we are now no longer driven by hormones. We are now driven by dietary sensing mechanisms. You have to account for dietary protein. You have to. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, welcome back to the show. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited and we're in person this time, which is wonderful. Now, I've been thinking a lot about your area around muscle and muscle being the organ of longevity. I know you wanted to make sure that we covered that and that really is um where I'm I'm I'm getting very interested in what the the interplay going on in the body is between muscle, fat, glucose, and I'm going to lay a hypothesis on you that I think will set us up well for the conversation. So, uh modern diet has introduced just a massive amount of glucose into the system. Our body has mechanisms or mechanism, we we will debate, uh for dealing with that once it gets inside the body. Those mechanisms are evolutionary le selected for, so they're advantageous, but it is a very complicated dance. I've recently um had uh a couple different people on the show talking at this the glucose issue and fat storage issue and insulin resistance from a really interesting angle. Um so, I feel like I'm beginning to understand how by having these constantly elevated levels, we end up insulin resistant, we're not able to Right. get the glucose out of our bloodstream, which causes a whole host of downstream effects, which we call metabolic disease. Um okay, so now we introduce your idea of muscle Yes. being the the organ of longevity and and it being a uh an organ that secretes hormones. Myokines, yep. Okay. So, the dance becomes I can control my intake through glucose. You can control your insulin. Are you saying just in general? through my diet. I can also though control my insulin response by you having muscle and using the life out of it. Because it will suck the glucose out of my bloodstream. And burn it for fuel. I'm not sure what word. uh muscle skeletal muscle is responsible for 80-some percent of glucose disposal. Okay. Yep. Now, the final capstone to my thesis is So, my thesis in a very um simple sentence is you're existing in this incredibly delicate balance between what you eat, Mhm. your insulin response to what you eat, and you the muscle that you carry, and how much you use it. Yes. And so, when I was first going through the things that you say about how critical muscle is, it begs the question that in a time of famine, muscle is actually dangerous because muscle needs this energy. It's going to burn energy. And so, if my response to fructose is to essentially become pre-diabetic, and that's good because it caused me to store a tiny bit of fat to cling to the fat that I have, and to store extra glucose in my bloodstream, and that's what get got us through the winter famines, then I was like, "Well, wait a second. If muscle is this hungry organ, then it would be problematic." And then I thought, "Well, that's exactly why we lose muscle so rapidly if we're not working out." When you think about and there's some interesting concepts here. So, the the idea that in famine the body tries to protect itself. You're essentially talking about a highly Protect itself by staying alive. Yeah, highly catabolic. No fuel is coming in. There's basic energy needs that we have. Skeletal muscle is one. Turnover in skeletal muscle is not great. Let's say it's a couple grams a day. Where Meaning I can't use it as quickly as I can use that. longer. Muscle turnover takes longer. So, the body goes through a And I want to push on that turnover. That word doesn't immediately click for me. Okay, we're going to talk about it because it also brings up this concept of longevity. Is it gluconeogenesis? No, it is the replacement of body proteins. It is the regeneration, the cleaning house, and the replacement of body proteins like liver goes through protein turnover. Intestines go through protein turnover. Bone. You know, like you said, there's a dance that's happening. was storing that in So, I'm let's stay in the context of famine if we can for a second. So, I don't have incoming nutrients or not very many. So, I'm breaking down my muscle To provide, in essence, in part, the body will use that those amino acids to protect your organs. Okay. So, that they can have their turnover of cells. The cells can die and be replenished with healthy healthy new cells. Right. That is a non-negotiable. And not for gluconeogenesis at all? Well, gluconeogenesis, the way in which I think about gluconeogenesis is branched-chain amino acids or proteins in general can be utilized by the liver to go through a process of gluconeogenesis. And would that be happening in a period of famine or would I just completely shift over to ketone production? So, over a period of time, eventually you would shift over to ketone production. The body doesn't want to lose its skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle is very important, but I will say it's something that the body would give up for the other organ systems. Let me ask this. So, as somebody who works out very consistently, but if I even reduce my intensity, my muscle and and don't change my diet, my muscle mass will begin to dwindle. So, my body is is responding, and my hypothesis is that it's so afraid to carry more muscle than it needs that the second I don't need it, meaning I'm not putting it under that level of strain, it goes, "Cool, I'm getting rid of No, I would I would I I would say that that is not a hypothesis I would go with. Cool. So, let's take a 21-year-old since they are [ __ ] just prime, man. So, I'm a Twinkie diet, and they're just jacked and tan. I get it. So, if they stop working out, can we not agree that they will lose muscle? Maybe not as fast as I will in my 40s, but they will lose muscle. I would say, yes. And why do you think the body does that? I think that the body thrives under activity. And whether you take a human, whether you take an animal, if you essentially domesticate them, and they are not training, they will lose muscle. And so, I have a theory that that's the body the body is giving you a signal, which is these tissues are calorically expensive, and it's dangerous to have anything that's calorically expensive. So, with some wiggle room, if I see nutrients or demand, back off, then I'm going to shed those muscle tissues. But muscle we know is really, really important for longevity, for morbidity and mortality. It's something that the body needs to maintain to be healthy. But the I I I think uh another way to think about it is that, yes, it is a metabolically expensive, energy-driven tissue. It is. And it takes a lot of effort and energy to maintain that tissue. But I don't think it's the body trying to get rid of it. I think under well thought out conditions training, increase in energy, increase in dietary protein, the body will do whatever it can to maintain that tissue. I do think it's interesting how you're phrasing it and how you're thinking about it that the body would be trying to get rid of it. But I I don't to I think we Yeah. I am almost certain that you and I agree 100% on how important muscle is. Like I'll say my hypothesis includes the fact that uh if you want to survive for a long time, you better have good quality muscle on your body because if you're right that that's the store of these building blocks, then I want to make sure that I always have that and should I ever lose it that I immediately when that insult, whether it's the famine, a great illness, or something like that is gone that I rebuild that muscle. So if the nutrients stop coming in, the body goes, "Okay, woah. Like this could Now that I have these very expensive tissues, I may need to prune them back even though I know like, 'Oh god, I don't want to do this and I would really appreciate if you would Or wait, can I can I So or is it that because you're not getting enough nutrients, the rest of your organs need to function? So having a high amount of skeletal muscle that can be then utilized for the protection and the utilization and energy for all the other organ systems is necessary. Yes. Now let's cuz without the brain, without the heart, without the liver, without the kidney it a problem in those tissues will have an immediate effect. Will the body pull from Let's So we'll come back to the famine in a second. Um Which is not happening right now. It's not and that's a big part of the problem. But for people, I think, to really wrap their head around what's going on for a long time for a just an unimaginably long period of time there would be periods of massive food scarcity. And so, understanding the dance becomes interesting to me. So, stepping out of the famine for a second and going back into what you're saying. So, organs are critical and the body's going to do whatever it needs to do to protect that. So, when the nutrients are coming in well, my I assume my body will preferentially choose to take the proteins, the whatever, from what I eat versus from skeletal muscle. Yes. Okay. Right. So, there are 20 amino acids, there are nine essential. You are going to eat those for, you know, based on a lot of the current research. There is some other data out there that suggests that some of the gut microbiome may be able to scavenge for some of those essential amino acids, which is incredibly interesting. And how does it hand those off to us? As metabolites? Um well, these are proof of concepts right now and they're in rodent models. What is happening is what they believe is that when an individual is eating a very high fiber type more vege- vegetarian vegan diet that the gut mic- microbiome can turn a bit into what like a ruminant would be. So, that is one way in which some people can be able to get some essential amino acids. But I don't want to go down that rabbit hole yet because it is still proof of concept, but I do think it's very important. This episode is sponsored by Athletic Greens. Get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Simply visit athleticgreens.com/impacttheory. Now, enjoy the episode. But going back to what you said about muscle and going back to what you said about famine, I think it's an interesting concept in the way that in my mind the fittest, most muscular individual, the the people that have the most muscle are going to be able to survive. Because they're going to have more of but let's talk about the myostatin gene. Okay. So, the myostatin gene And I have thought about this and I'm not sure what to think about that. So, I have a guess. It's way less educated than yours, but it's nonetheless a guess. Uh so, for those who don't know what the myostatin gene is, the myostatin gene actually inhibits the creation of muscle. And if you break the myostatin gene, you get what they call double muscling. Where if you've ever seen a double muscled cow, it's crazy. They look they look like a bodybuilder. It's insane. And you get that some people hypothesize that basically some bodybuilders that get to like an elite elite elite level have a way less active myostatin gene. And that to me is another signal that the body is like, "I want muscle, but I can't just slather it on." Like it's it's expensive tissue. it's a difficult process and it is we become forged by our training. We become forged it's difficult, meaning? Meaning skeletal muscle is not an easy process to put on, right? The idea that we can just work out and put on skeletal muscle, people are different. This idea of being able to put on muscle in general, it takes effort and energy, meaning it takes physical energy. It also is an ex- expensive nutrient process in the body, right? It requires a whole host of things to go right. It requires being able to trigger mTOR, subsequent muscle protein synthesis. you have to have the building blocks, you have to have the correct stimulation, then you have to have muscle damage, then you have to have rest. It's not necessarily an easy process, and the more well-trained you are, the more difficult it becomes to put on muscle. So, by, you know, for you to maintain your muscle mass, you probably put a lot of extra effort into doing that, and it becomes more difficult as we age because the skeletal muscle, you know, aging is a process. And when we age, things in general often times become more difficult. Building muscle is one of those things. The efficiency of being able to build muscle, muscle as a nutrient sensor, goes down. Its efficiency goes down. Insulin resistance in skeletal muscle goes up. Just part of normal aging, whether you're training or not. These are fundamental things that happen. Talk to me about the anabolic resistance. And I'm looking at that in the context of um insulin resistance. Is it the same where I've given it too much of something and the body's like, "Yo, back off." No, but it's a it's an interesting thought process. As we age, the muscle becomes less efficient at utilizing protein. Muscle utilizes protein, obviously, for protein turnover and for muscle protein synthesis, which is so valuable. You know, and often times I talk about muscle as the end point and eating for muscle health. The reason, one of the reasons I talk about it is exactly for the reasons that you were talking about. If you can optimize for skeletal muscle, then the subsequent effects on the rest of the body, like being able to have proper tissue turnover turnover for liver and intestines, all happen. So, if you reach that threshold for muscle, which you're absolutely right is a highly energy uh taking process, the rest of the body is gets what it needs. So, if you eat for high-quality muscle, if you eat high-quality protein, you create high-quality muscle. So, are those two things in just correlated and it's really the intake of the nutrients that matters? The intake of the nutrients absolutely matters. Absolutely matters. And when we age, anabolic resistance, which is really defined as the efficiency of protein, the efficiency of muscle to utilize and sense protein goes down. Skeletal muscle is a nutrient-sensing organ. When it gets enough of the amino acids, it goes through process of protein turnover. It goes through on. Let's Let's really put a fine point on that. That's interesting. I've never heard that before. I've heard it said, and this makes a lot of sense to me, that um, food are signaling molecules. And that's what I heard you just say. Muscle is a nutrient-sensing organ. Right. So, the muscle is listening for the signal of the food that I eat to say, "Ah, cool. There is adequate amounts of protein available to me right now." And that turns something on. Yes. Exactly. Um, and that would be the branched-chain amino acids. As we age, the ability for that skeletal muscle to sense that decreases. Okay. So, I know I'm derailing us a little bit here. Um, but now going back to incomplete proteins like are found in cuz one of the things you take the most heat for um, is, you know, saying, "Ah, some of the protein that you're going to get in vegetable matter isn't going to be as complete." So, which what you just said would predict, which is that if the muscle is looking it's sensing that signal, and the signal comes in the form of branched-chain amino acids, Right. and the branched-chain amino acids from the vegetable matter keep me in some sub-threshold where it doesn't click over into this. That it's not, you know, we use protein as a blanket term, but it's complex. You're looking at 20 different amino acids. It's not the protein that we need essentially, it's the amino acid requirements that we have. And skeletal muscle has very specific amino acid requirements. To do the turnover what is necessary and to do turnover to be able to maintain its structure, to be able to put on new muscle, to be able to maintain its health. This comes in the form of branched-chain amino acids. As we age, the sensing mechanism of one of one of the branched-chain amino acids, which we've talked about before, is leucine. That's sensing mechanism decreases. The way in which we which ultimately leads a less efficient turnover, leads to subsequent sarcopenia, a decrease in muscle function, muscle strength, muscle mass as we age. By optimizing for protein intake, you know, specifically high-quality protein, then just like you said, high-quality protein is typically what we think about animal-based proteins. Does it just have to be animal-based proteins? No, but these are hard fast in the literature. High-quality protein is defined by amino acid content. It's not a negotiable nebulous concept. These are hard fast biological numbers. And each protein has very specific roles in the body. And specifically as we age, and if you're thinking about famine and fasting, specifically as we age, the branched-chain amino acids, in particular leucine, is required by skeletal muscle to begin that process. As we age, this concept of anabolic resistance, meaning there's a decrease in efficiency, the body becomes know what's happening at the cellular level? Well, yeah. There's a decreased sensing of mTOR. Okay. And mTOR, um, which I understand vaguely enough to be dangerous, is, uh, basically what has to happen for us to grow. Yes. It's mechanistic target of rapamycin. There's mTOR 1, mTOR 2. And it's in all cells? It's in all cells. It's a Will it happen differentially in different cells? And it's stimulated by different things in different cells. And in muscle, Like what? I'm going to tell you. Break it down. Can't wait. In muscle, it's exquisitely sensitive to leucine. In areas like pancreas or liver, it's exquisitely sensitive to energy, extra calories. It's sensitive to insulin. Regardless of macronutrient? Well, arguably, it would be more sensitive to insulin and glucose, in say the liver or the pancreas. But, skeletal muscle is exquisitely sensitive to amino acids. That sensing mechanism decreases as we age. So, then this brings me to this concept of longevity, which is very hot right now. People talk about longevity, and there's this conversation of decreasing protein intake, because that's going to help longevity. hypothesis. I have no idea. It's because of the stimulation of mTOR. So, they're worried about cancer? Yeah, they're worried about cancer. But, if you were worried about cancer, And by the way, mTOR is signaled by exercise in skeletal muscle, as well. So, it's not an mTOR issue in muscle. Let's talk about Athletic Greens, my friends. The all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. To help each of us be at our best, AG1 by Athletic Greens simplifies the path to better nutrition by giving you the one thing with all the best things. One tasty scoop of AG1 contains 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients, including a multivitamin, multimineral, probiotic, greens superfood blend, and more in one convenient daily serving. And right now, Athletic Greens is doubling down on supporting your immune system. They're offering our audience a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Simply visit athleticgreens.com/impacttheory. That's athleticgreens.com/impacttheory and get your free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs today. athleticgreens.com/impacttheory. All right, guys. Take care and be legendary. But I I just want to to stay on this longevity topic of individuals saying you should reduce your dietary protein because of longevity, which that's probably the worst piece of advice I could ever give someone. Let's define longevity. What does that mean? Is it living from to 95? Or is it living to 95 and a half? And the question is, do you want to be mobile and healthy, or do you want to be frail and sarcopenic? If we believe in the hypothesis of anabolic resistance, which arguably we should, this is well documented in the literature, you look at my mentor's work, uh Dr. Donald Lehman or Stu Phillips, any of these guys, Van Loon, you know, uh this is a well-documented phenomenon that as we age, our capacity to generate, heal, um keep muscle goes down. So, I just told you about the sensing mechanism and that we actually require more dietary protein. Really, we require high-quality protein because we require that amino acid stimulus. So, if you now further reduce dietary protein from aging individuals, and aging can start in your 30s, how are you going to then stimulate tissue? You have to be very careful about how you want to age and this concept of longevity. Longevity for a C. elegans or a fruit fly doesn't take into account the complexity as a human human agent. Is that where they're drawing that from? These are not human studies. You're not looking at randomized control trials. You're not looking at good high quality data to support a reduction in dietary protein. And as a trained geriatrician, no geriatrician says, "Hey, Study old people. Yes. You you need to reduce your dietary protein. We know that skeletal muscle protects against disease. It protects against morbidity. It protects against mortality. Muscle is an organ system. It's an endocrine organ system. When you contract it, it secretes myokines. These myokines, you know, the the most studied myokine is interleukin-6. Goes throughout the body. It affects bone. It affects liver. It affects nutrient partitioning. What group do we put interleukin-6? Is that considered um immune response? It So, in it is an immune response when it's released from macrophages. It is a myokine when it's released from skeletal muscle. is. You You and I talked about this last time. I don't I still don't know. So, the myo So, this is This is actually a newer science and this really comes from the work of Pedersen and she has essentially paved the way. She's an immunologist and internal medicine. And what a myokine is, it's a protein released from contracting skeletal muscle. And when we are deconditioned and when we are not training, you don't secrete interleukin. Interleukin-6 once it's in the bloodstream? What it does, there's there's thousands of them, which is interesting. kinds? Interleukin 6, decorin, irisin, there's thousands. Again, this is new emerging science and arguably what we should be studying. I'm starting to look at blood levels post-exercise in my patients. Right? And this just goes back to a broken obesity model, which we know you're not over fat, we know everyone is under muscled, right? When we are talking about the general population, you know, typically people don't have a good solid founda- foundational muscular base. They don't. And this idea that we would further reduce dietary protein is going to have a much more negative effect. And the Here's another question. Do you think there are problems with So, cuz I'm trying to get to muscle, obviously hugely important. I couldn't agree more with that. It just that makes so much sense to me. The question is what, and maybe it doesn't even matter, but which is more important, the the muscle or the fat? So, for instance, Muscle. somebody in my life who is lovely, lovely human. They're really [ __ ] strong, like really strong, but they're also morbidly obese. And so, what is the muscle going to protect them enough from the obesity? And the story I've always told myself is that because he has such a massive surplus of calories and so much of it is insulin-secreting that he's in a growth phase all the time, mTOR is just kicking off like crazy. He's also eating too many calories. The muscle can only do so much. At some a point at which the muscle just can't carry the burden of your diet. Yeah, you know, I and I when I think about insulin, I think about when I think about carbohydrates, I think about it in a meal threshold, not in this 24-hour period, but carbohydrates are okay. You just got to make sure that you are not overextending yourself in terms of a meal-per-meal basis. Let's say someone has really, really healthy muscle, but they're over-consuming calories, they're not going to have a chance. There has to be some you know, there has to be some balance. But these issues start in skeletal muscle first, and I think that that's very misunderstood. Everybody's focusing on adiposity, everybody's focusing on insulin resistance, and if you care about root causes, you have to care about skeletal muscle. So that's where it feels like it's maybe complicated. So if if this guy who has a ton of muscle can still end up having the problem, it feels like muscle is necessary but not sufficient. You have to both have muscle and a diet that isn't overwhelming your system. Yes, it is necessary but not sufficient. I love the way you put that. And wouldn't it be great to see this guy lose some fat, adipose tissue? And I think that that would make a lot of sense. You say that he has a lot of muscle, but what individuals that we see when we see MRIs or we see cat scans, there's fat infiltration into skeletal muscle. Skeletal muscle becomes marbled. You know, there's no free lunch or no free pass. Mhm. If you struggle with obesity, it's not just limited to visceral fat. It does get into the organ, it does get into skeletal muscle. This ultimately affects this this cycle, it ultimately affects your ability to manage, you know, glucose, it affects your ability to manage substrates, it affects the health of the muscle. You know, we talked a little bit about myokines and you know, the big the biggest, most famous myokine is interleukin 6, and when you contract skeletal muscle, it actually does this whole body crosstalk where it can lower some inflammation throughout the whole body, right? So exercise is in and of itself, I don't want to say anti-inflammatory because oftentimes the process of exercise does create free radicals, you know, there's this you these these concepts, like you said, are very complex. Yeah. It's not just this way and that way, and I think that we try to oversimplify it. But, to the best of our ability, there are some fundamental things that are important to understand. And that is we have to address skeletal muscle. You must. Get your muscle. And while I I understand that it makes people afraid, it doesn't mean that it's true. Fear can be validated, but it doesn't have to be true. That's a really we could derail this entire episode around that sentence. Um but I is that we're not having transparent conversations. Mhm. And this is really what I'm fighting for. Because of dogma, you're saying. of dogma. It is Now, I've been I've been in this space for 20 years. 10 years ago, this was not a conversation. The sort of ethical thing. Animal cruelty, ethical kind of a a conversation. Bad on the planet. It wasn't It wasn't that way. And what's happening is that at the very heart is this anti-animal dogma. And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to eat animals, and there's nothing wrong with not wanting to harm animals. Okay? I I can appreciate that. But, what's happened now is there's not transparency around it. So, this whole conversation then goes to well, how can we get people to stop utilizing animal products? Well, we're going to scare them. We're going to generate so much fear. We're going to put out fake educational documentaries. We're going to completely obliterate the science. or sinister? It's sinister. It's It's totally conscious. The people at the top, it's totally conscious. And then what's happening is then it's getting into um you know, it's then training physicians, and then it's affecting influencers that are then going ahead and talking about longevity and reducing protein. And they believe they're saying the right thing, they're not. They believe they're saying the right thing for the body or for the planet? body. But they're not understanding that at the very heart of that is is actually coming from an anti-animal narrative. And what's happening is there's no transparency in the data. And our expectation is now to lower the quality of evidence to be able to say, "Well, no, plant and animal protein are the same." No, they're not. Last 20 years, this has not been a conversation. of branched-chain amino acids. No, or any amino acid. And there's this whole argument about it. Now it's So now then it's the longevity piece. Reduce protein because it's going to affect your longevity. Longevity defined as what? Six months? And also, have you that were the case, let's say that plant uh based proteins actually did make you live for an extra six months. What kind of muscle mass would you have? Would it Would it? Yeah, but if if it seems to me that if it actually makes you live six months longer, that's worth talking about. But But we don't know that to be the case. Right. I mean, like I said, a fruit fly isn't the same. And you know, I have taken care of people more than I can count at end of life. That last six months is brutal. So, are you saying that what I'm trying to understand cuz the analogy you always use is that what? It gives you six more months? If it does, I think we have to talk about that. But is your hypothesis that that data is flawed? You're looking at the wrong animals in humans based on It's about the quality of life. Okay. And at the end of life that like maybe it doesn't It's possible. It's possible. about that? Well, it's possible. You know, I'm never going to say, "Okay, well, you know, these are things that are highly complex. Is it possible?" Maybe. But let's say let's say, "Okay, that's possible." Towards the end of life, you want to be mobile. You don't want to have a broken hip and be spend the last 6 months in a nursing home bedridden. Or you don't want to spend your time in an Alzheimer's ward. These things are related to skeletal muscle. Alzheimer's as well. There's a metabolic component to Alzheimer's. It's type 3 diabetes of the brain. If you care about Alzheimer's, you have to care about connect muscle to metabolic disease for me. Exactly what's going on? Okay. Skeletal muscle is your primary site for glu- glucose disposal. And I use the term disposal to get it out of the bloodstream. Anything to get it out of the bloodstream. So, right? So, when you think about skeletal muscle, you have to think about glucose utilization or disposal. You have to think about fatty acid oxidation. Skeletal muscle. Healthy muscle stabilizing blood glucose, which you've seen. So, I don't get too much insulin secreted. So, I don't get insulin resistant. that's more of a dietary thing, right? So, when you have too high of a glucose load, you're going to get a subsequent insulin response. Right? That that is what happens. So, skeletal muscle for all these ways in which it can help dispose of nutrients is really what we're thinking about when you think about metabolic syndrome. Ultimately, it is a intake issue. And I think that you Meaning I could control it through my diet. You could, but you still want to have healthy skeletal muscle for all the other things. No doubt. And it gives me a lot more flexibility in my diet. Gives you flexibility, gives you you know, there's mitochondria, it gives you a lot of positives. Okay. So, now coming back to the longevity piece, we've got people and I'll be generous and say they really really have amazing intentions. They want to protect animals. They want to protect the planet. They don't have any evidence that it's better for us yet, right? Cuz the science is you can't now animal protection is different than planet protection. And I think that we just have to be really clear. Animal protection is animal protection. All the other lines of narrative really go back to animal protection because the data doesn't support that, you know, it's just that these cows are now killing the environment, right? That's not true. You know, if we look at the US, it's greenhouse gases, industry, transportation, and electricity. 50% of our fruits are flown in. 25% of our vegetables are flown in. So, that it can't be so convoluted. It has to be I I think there just has to be transparent conversations. When you talk about longevity, I think we have to define longevity and we have to have these health conversations of what are the endpoints that we're going to be looking at. And when you say define longevity, I think it your debate is maybe longevity isn't the right question, it's quality of life is the right question. I and I agree with I yes. And I you know, I was thinking before I was coming here, you know, what is a different word that we can use because people talk about longevity, which is just the span of life, you know, and then there's terms thrown around like healthspan. I think it really is about quality of life and it can't necessarily be And a big part and I agree with this, but so if I'm putting inappropriate words in my mouth, just tell me, but a big part of quality of life for you is really strength. Yeah. Of course. And we know that to be true, not just my personal opinion. Well, I think a lot of people don't really think about strength. They will when it starts to decrease. When you can no longer lift something up to put it in your overhead bin when you're flying. Or you can It's crazy how as you get older, that's like the most dangerous thing you're going to do is walk around. Right. But if you listen to the current narrative, that is going to be inevitable. And that's very scary. You know, this idea that we should not focus on skeletal muscle and continue to try to address obesity is a broken paradigm. We are focusing on the wrong tissue. Obesity is not the problem. It is not the root cause. It's skeletal muscle as a root cause. And diet, yes? Well, yeah. But they the two kind of go hand in hand, right? Cuz because you can deal with more bad diet if you have more muscle. Yes, but you also have to nail diet for a quality of life going forward. Partly because I have this um sensing organ that is waiting for a certain amount and kind of protein. lot of energy. When I say energy, I mean both physical, mental, and food-wise energy to maintain. Mhm. It is not easy to put on muscle, you know. Facts. I mean, I listened to Alan Aragon. He's amazing. He would be amazing to have a conversation with. You know, I was asking him about how much muscle could someone put on in a year. And if you are totally untrained, you might get 12 lb, maybe 12, maybe 24 lb. That would be outrageous. 24 lb if you start from scratch. You would look so different. But that would be outrageous, right? This is like at the absolute upper level that, you know, we don't really see happen. Mhm. But the reality is it takes so much energy and effort, again I use those terms kind of interchangeably, to actually put on tissue. What's so cool about this organ system is that we can actually add to it. And I like to think about it as we add to it, we add to our life. All right. This is so powerful. Give people in like just one a quick couple sentences the thing they should be doing, whether it's diet, working out, whatever. Let's start with resistance training. You have to train hard. Whether, you know, volume is what's what is what is important, but you have to get the volume in and you have to get the stress in. The body thrives under stress. There's this concept of we should have less stress, we should No. Your body requires physical stress. After you get that physical stress, you know, whether you're doing high-intensity interval training, you need to you need to train, you know, resistance training, you need to strength train, and you need to do aerobic training. You do. And you probably need to work harder than you think you're working. I think you've said you need to feel like giving up at least twice and about to vomit. And people will argue with me and they say, "Oh, no, that's not true." Well, okay, but as you age, the tissue it becomes more and more difficult to respond to. And number two, you have to account for your changing hormonal milieu. The body is changing, whether we want to believe it or not. When we are younger, we are driven by hormones. When we are older, older, 30s, 40s, we are now no longer driven by hormones. We are now driven by dietary sensing mechanisms. You have to account for dietary protein. You have to. Yes, you have to account for carbohydrates. Yes, you worry about insulin. Yes, you worry about fat. Yes, I do worry about total calories, but you have to get the foundational piece right up front. And that is high-quality training is a non-negotiable. And number two, high-quality proteins. And that is not the narrative that is being discussed. It is obesity, longevity, and that stuff's all It's You know what it is? It's a distraction. It is a distraction from core fundamental things that are action-oriented that people can do. Losing weight is challenging, yes. How about we focus on a positive, like building muscle, optimizing for dietary protein, and then let's see what your blood glucose levels are. Then let's see what your triglycerides are. Then let's see what your energy is. So, this is now moving from fat-phobic to muscle-centric. Let's look Not Let's stop looking at all these obesity endpoints. At you know, elevated insulin, glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol. I mean, that's great, but these are all diseased models. Why don't we start looking at myokines, which I think we're going to have to talk about in the next episode. But why not look at post exercise blood levels to see are we training? Are we stimulating our tissue? Skeletal muscle is an organ system, just like the thyroid. It should be tested and treated as such. Facts. Um This was so fun. Thank you so much for um letting me like practice, rehearse like this whole sort of integrated idea. Um I think it's really fascinating. The complexity of all this is so crazy, and getting people focused on muscle mass and working out, I think will reward people so richly. When you're young, when you're middle-aged, when you're old, like being strong is awesome. It's protective. Um It looks good. Like there's a whole host of reasons um to do it. Where can people follow along with you? Learn more. Yeah, they can find me on Instagram, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. My YouTube, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. I have a lot of conversations with my mentors, and we talk a lot about the science behind this stuff. My website, I have a great newsletter that I pick uh data and things that I'm reading and I I send that out. And if people would like to apply to be a patient, they can do that through my website, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Amazing. This was amazing. Keep doing what you're doing. It's absolutely so critical that people understand the role of muscle in this incredibly complex dance of metabolism, metabolic disease, all of that, it's absolutely absolutely critical. And speaking of things that are critical, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.