Pam Peeke, MD: Hi, I am Dr. Pam Peak, and this is episode number 500. And 45 closing in on five five oh of the Bold and the Brave, her podcast. Now, today I am joined by someone. I had a stalk for months to get 'em on. Come on now, Darren. I am so excited I can't stand myself, so I'll just immediately share who this very, very special person is, hailing from the beautiful country of Canada.

What can I say? Dr. Darren Kow now he is a professor and director of the Aging Muscle and Bone Health Laboratory Director of Research for the Athlete Health and Performance Initiative, and passed associate Dean of the Graduate studies and research in the faculty of kinesiology and health studies at the University of.

Regina, no, I'm not gonna say it the other way. Um, of Regina Canada. Oh my gosh. like, that's an entire sentence I don't even know where to begin with that. literally one of the world's experts in this field. and, I gotta say I got a chance to meet, Darren, last month for the first time when I was, Moderating a panel, an expert panel, and I'm just telling you, Darren, you're totally cool.

Welcome to the Herb podcast.

Darren Candow, PhD: Oh, thanks so much for having me and the, and the fine words and I'm really excited to be with you and, to talk about everything health, especially for females.

Pam Peeke, MD: Okay, so. This lovely episode is gonna be popping up right at the beginning of the year. We're talking January. All right. You know what's happening. First of all, I'm just really curious to know, 'cause I'll share my thoughts too. Are you someone who sets resolutions like at the beginning of the year?

Do you kind of go down that rabbit hole? What do you do?

Darren Candow, PhD: It's a great question 'cause I think we're all susceptible to always wanting to improve and, do better. And I, I would say, yeah, there's always little things like, oh, maybe I wanna exercise differently or change some things. And I think the last two years for me personally, I was like, okay, in 20 24, 20 25, can I get an additional amount of sleep per night?

I think that's really important. And then of course life happens. You get busy, you fall back to the same pattern, and that's probably why. For those that are encouraged by a New Year's resolution, just say for a fitness center, it usually lasts about two weeks and then for some reason everybody goes away.

And the originality people, uh uh, stay there as well. But one thing I've learned, especially with the holidays. is that you need to be kind to yourself. I think life has gotten really stressful, especially since COVID. I think that's where we've identified stressors and you turn on the news, whichever it is, and life has just really become stressful.

And I think if you need to reward yourself or take some time with family or. To eat that extra chocolate, whatever it is at the holidays to make you feel better. I think you can be okay and, kind to yourself with the idea that when the holidays are over and we're back to sort of normality, there's a few little things that people can focus on and hopefully we get a chance to talk about it today.

They're not grand in gesture. I think, uh, I think a lot of people when it comes to health and fitness, we think we have to revolutionize the, whole industry. I think we can just do a few key things, which will substantially help.

Pam Peeke, MD: You know, research actually shows you're absolutely correct. at the gym it's like, we used to call them resolutes. So they show up and it's like between two and four weeks. It's like they do the disappearing act and it breaks my heart. and actually for people who are really trying to hold onto some level of a, as it were, resolution, kind of good to go for 60 to 90 days and then things start petering out if they haven't already.

so there's a lot of that going on. Interestingly, over the years, and I'm sure you found this too, There are a number of people who actually do incredibly well with, what we call milestone start dates. I started reading about some of this when I looked at milestone birthdays. when the last number in your age is nine, You're perched on the precipice of rot row.

another zero, especially after the age of 40. it really tends to stimulate people, so there is. Research that shows, this could be, really compelling motivation. I have memories of patients who, absolutely surprised me. By doing exceptionally well, by choosing January one is kind of a day to, restart, hit the, you know, reboot, button, and then come back at it a year later.

Why it's it's kind of easy to remember. It's like a January one kind of, power play here. they're in the grand minority. The mass majority are, kind of stumbling around and, okay, so now you're gonna hear my philosophy. My philosophy is simple. Every single day is a day to do a new reboot.

Every single day they're all sacred. It's just that some come with a little bit more meaning, like the birthday things. What do you think of my thoughts?

Darren Candow, PhD: No, totally. Think to your point, I, I think a lot of people have false or overhyped expectations when they start this resolution and, and it becomes too daunting because the question is why did they start and then suddenly stop? and the question is, you is it, the stress of winter, uh, lack of daylight, too busy, the cost of gym memberships.

And I think a lot of people don't realize they can still get fitness benefits from things at home. They may can slightly alter their diet or composition of their diet slightly. I think what happens is personal trainers may. Indirectly sell a product that can't achieve as quickly. So I think a lot of people may join a gym and think magically that a personal trainer will substantially put on muscle mass and lose body fat.

And as we all know, that takes a months and months and months of dedication. And I think sometimes a lot of people go into it, pay a lot of money in January for a gym membership. And after two weeks of saying I, I'm not noticing any results. If anything, I'm more stressed 'cause I have less time to play with my kids.

I'm stuck in traffic. So I think the achievability. Uh, what we're selling is overhyped. And I think if we come back to understanding what works and what doesn't, it might be more achievable or attainable for a lot of people. But I agree, every day is a new day. It's like the movie Jerry McGuire.

You jump outta bed, clap your hands and say, let's go. and I think if we can have that, the glass is half full mentality, instead of it half, empty and leaking, we'd be better off.

Pam Peeke, MD: I completely concur. I'm also a firm believer of low hanging fruit. What's most accessible to you? Right. given the craziness of your life. So if it's a pair of sneakers and mismatched socks and out the door you go for, a long walk. Rock on. That's a fantastic way to start this whole thing.

And if it's a mile, kudos to you, and you build up over time and you feel better and better all the time. Everything starts. With smaller steps. you and I have been athletes and athletic for years, because we're smarty pants, because we work in this field. You know, I'm surrounded by my colleagues at the American College of Sports Medicine and my lord, you've been at it forever up there in that beautiful country of yours.

So, for us, we know how much work is involved in building the muscles that we have and the strength that we have, the endurance and flexibility and balance that we have. It is, I mean, I'm sorry folk. It's work. However, that being said, you could divvy that work up into smaller steps.

Much smaller steps. And this is where, when people were first told about high intensity interval training, they ran the opposite direction. They went, oh no. It was like, oh my god, that looks like torture. But what if I told you, you just had to hold it for one minute.

So that's your little friend up there in Canada. What's his name? Martin? Yep.

Darren Candow, PhD: Marty Gal and John Little have shown these exercise snacks. So if you see a set of stairs, take the stairs. And, and it's funny you bring up A-C-S-M-I was at A-C-S-M-A few years ago in Denver, and this is a medical conference. Everybody was taking the escalator and I purposely took the stairs in the middle because you should be practicing, uh, what you preach.

But yeah, any movement throughout the day is great. And you also bring up an important thing is I think, you know, when people talk about moving, I personally think walking is one of the most favorable ways to to move. this mythological 10,000 steps a day is there with no real evidence to say, why?

What if you only did 9,800? It doesn't have to be 10,000. And I think a lot of people say on their watch, I only got 6,000 today. And then new research has come out that 3000 seems to be the minimal amount. So. Maybe if you're just starting out, say, my goal is to get 3000 steps a day, which is very easy to do by walking around the house and, and performing activities of daily living.

So don't sell yourself short if you only get a few thousand a day and then work your way up. But I, I realize why they put the 10,000 steps, that should at least encourage more physical activity. Anything is better than nothing, and I think we need to realize that moving forward from a population health perspective, you can do resistance type exercises with body weights or light exercises in the comfort of your own home.

you may have a treadmill, whichever it is. You know, here in Canada it's difficult to go outside and, and exercise in the winter months. icy roads, a lot of snow. So what do you do alternatively? And, and I think we need to provide more options for people to do that, but exercise snacks is a phenomenal way.

If you park in the parkade and you have three floors before your apartment, take the stairs a few times a day, you'd be surprised at how much that improves cardiovascular benefits. And minimally, it'll have beneficial effects on endurance. So I agree, the more we do, the better off we'll be.

Pam Peeke, MD: and starting again in small bites. And I think a lot of this and, let's go into some real delightful physiology. You exercise physiologist you, and that is, we're talking to women out there. And women are interested in knowing, well, how long does it take to build muscle? women, look at some of the usual gym goers and see women who've been in there for years.

and they look very toned and strong and they've got some muscles that are really popping here and there, depending upon your genetics, obviously. which is extremely important. but, let's reign in expectations and make it real. So go for it.

Darren Candow, PhD: So I think if you're consistently training, just say at least two days a week, it could be a whole body routine, whichever it is. It's likely the, based on the evidence-based research, it's gonna take three to four weeks to notice a minimal detectable change. The longer you do it, the better.

But as a caveat here. a lot of machines that you will get at any fitness center, whichever, is simply measuring lean mass. Now, for those listening people think, oh, that's muscle, right? unfortunately no lean mass is everything from blood to connective tissue to organs, a soft tissue, but one component of lean mass is muscle and we estimate of 50% of that i, is muscle.

So don't get discouraged by if you think you're not, I improving a lot of muscle mass. It does take a long time to do that. And as a preface, when you do a resistance training session, your muscle proteins are turned over for about 24 hours to 36. So you need to do that for weeks and weeks on end before they sort of get bigger proteins and allow the muscles to grow.

I think if you're looking for the quickest results, and this is important for those that are thinking of the New Year's resolution, I think. Muscle performance benefits come almost instantaneously. In other words, if you go to a personal trainer or you start to exercise, I think instead of thinking of muscle mass, which is crucially important, think of, I'm gonna get muscle performance benefits first, and then the muscle mass benefits may become later.

The only evidence we see where they come almost simultaneously is with something called blood flow restriction. Now, that's a very specific type of training. that's for older adults or athletes, but for the general population, I think you should expect an improvement in strength and endurance first, and then afterwards, when you do those repetitive bouts, muscle mass will occur.

So I like the idea that, hey, I'm starting in January. I'm hoping to improve the amount of weight I can lift, or the amount of times I can lift it in as little as a few days. So for example, if you were to train, just say bench press on Monday, the very first day in January.

And you come back Wednesday or Thursday, you can likely do the same amount of weight or the same repetitions, but a few days later over the week. And when you come back you're like, wow, I increased it by five pounds and I did the same amount of repetitions. That's a good news day because your neuromuscular system has been turned on and is creating more of a, a, stimulating effect to the body.

And a lot of your viewers likely know this, but the number one reason you're placed in long-term care facilities worldwide is not the lack of muscle mass, it's the lack of strength. Frailty a hundred percent. If you're able to, carry groceries, shovel the driveway by yourself, walk those stairs, that's where we get into muscle performance benefits.

The muscle mass will come later. Crucially important for glucose disposal and, and longevity, but I think focus on performance first and then the muscle, will come after.

Pam Peeke, MD: A myth I've heard from so many women at. Any age, but, you obviously know this is gonna be an order of magnitude. As women get older, you said, oh, I'm gonna take a month or two off. I'll be fine. I'm not gonna lift weights for one or two months and you know, I'm getting busy and I got some stuff going on and whatever.

And then lo and behold, when they get back to lifting again, they're shocked. Okay. Now tell us what happened Darren.

Darren Candow, PhD: So the old myth is that, oh, my muscle turned a fat, and this is typically during the holidays. People say, I went away and didn't train for a month, and my muscles got really soft and flabby, so the tissue actually turned a fat. And unfortunately, that's not what we see.

So muscle goes through a period of atrophy or shrinking when it's not being stimulated. We all know Arnold Schwarzenegger got larger muscles with bodybuilding, that's called hypertrophy. So we all can adapt and respond to exercise. Obviously females have a lot lower, uh, anabolic hormones and structure of the muscle, although we respond on a relative basis the same way.

they're not gonna get massive, big and bulky without anabolic steroids. So that's one of the biggest myths there, that anybody on the planet should definitely resistance train. That's, that's. the first. The second is that what happens during periods of forced inactivity, bedrest, immobilization, you broke your leg or you choose not to exercise your muscles shrink.

Then your metabolism shrinks, and then we all know how easy it is to eat a surplus of calories and put on body fat. So I think one of the foundational things for the listeners is please exercise, but at least focus on weightbearing or resistance type of training to stimulate that muscle to sort of maintain what I call an anabolic environment.

If you like to do massive amounts of cardiovascular exercise, you get substantial health improvements. From a cardiovascular perspective and longevity, the only issue with long duration or lots of cardio without weight training is you decrease the size of your muscles because cardio is very catabolic. So I think for those listening and really trying to improve body composition, I think you need to do both.

If you wanna live longer and better, I substantially recommend doing weight training and cardiovascular exercise with that.

Pam Peeke, MD: Yep. That makes all the sense in the world. And then my thought is this, with the aging process as a woman ages, let's say now she's 50 to 60 and she's trying to play the same games again. Okay. My feeling is, and you tell us the science, is that the older you get.

your wiggle room disappears. So when you're 20, yes, you do have more wiggle room. There's no question you're metabolically hotter and you know, more efficient, et cetera. But once you get past 50 60, alright, you lose that edge. And so, in my feeling, you tell us what the research shows that in the aging process, you'll, Regress back to, a much weaker place and drop that lean body mass strength and performance much faster than if you were 20.

Am I correct?

Darren Candow, PhD: A hundred percent correct. So as we agree, the biological process of aging is awful. and this is interesting, it starts usually in the fourth decade. So we have a, a, a classification called sarcopenia, that's the age related reduction in muscle performance, muscle mass, and functionality. And we're all susceptible to that.

Does that mean we're all going to get diagnosed with sarcopenia? No. But let's preface this. Typically compared to our twenties and thirties, as we get older, we're weaker. We have less lean mass and we're not as functional. So that means performing activities around the house is definitely more difficult.

We seem to accumulate more body fat. And then of course, if we have a reduction in muscle, that's probably having a detrimental effect on bone density. So from a physiological perspective, some of the viewers may have heard of something called anabolic resistance. And this is a documented theory that as we get older, we have a blunted or less response to resistance training and dietary protein specifically.

So in other words, as we get older, we actually need to do more weight training and we need to eat more protein. I think we failed for a couple decades saying we needed to do less. And the rates of accumulation or growth are substantially reduced compared to we when we were young.

So I think it's more crucial now if you're 40, uh, years of age and listening and older, you need to exercise on a regular basis for the rest of your life. You wanna emphasize high quality proteins to compensate for the muscle loss, and I think it's better to start earlier on, than ever, especially from a muscle memory and a bone health perspective.

So I think the only fountain of youth, if we can come up with anything, is exercise. To be honest, I don't think any pillar powder will ever come close to exercise.

Pam Peeke, MD: I, I so agree. when people come up to me and they say, oh, I want your glow and I want your body, I. Said, that's, that's nice. And they said, well, what do you do? What are your supplements? What do you, you know, there's gotta be something. And I said, yeah, well come to the gym with me, you know, I'll show you exactly what I do.

and then it's like, no, I don't wanna be part of that. I'll sweat and my hair will go to hell. so, at the end of the day, in all seriousness, it's like thinking of your future self now. I know it's kind of strange. And weird. I know that it's kind of strange and weird to try to imagine yourself at like, so let's say you're 40, 45 and you're trying to say, how am I to improve my 70-year-old self?

Okay. It's very difficult to understand what that is, quite frankly, because the stereotype of someone who is 70 is like a little marginal here. and so then you say, well, gosh, what am I aiming for and what's going on? So I just, I think your point is so powerful.

Build the foundation right now. Just build it. And there is a sarcopenia, okay? sarcoplasmic is muscle and penia means less of. So what's happening in the seventh decade of life is an age related sarcopenia. That's normal. That is comp. I don't care who you are, a master's athlete, whatever.

No one's gonna escape this. However, if you enter. Your sixties, which is when this occurs. If you enter your sixties with a higher level of total lean body mass, right, and also performance and functioning strength, then the delta or the change from that to the age related change is gonna be a nothing burger now.

the only way you're really gonna know in a big way, is you look at your own performance. If you're an elite athlete, say a master's track and field, you'll see a change your performance. Well, duh. You know, you're 65 and you're not 55 anymore, and you could really see it there.

Right. But, Hmm. so I think it's really important, to build that foundation. one of the things I'd love for you to do. Right now is to just go through the life of muscle in a woman's body, the trajectory throughout life. So she starts life out at little baby and little girl.

What's going on with the muscle?

Darren Candow, PhD: Yeah, it's turning over quite rapidly during infancy, and that's usually why they require the highest amount of protein of, of anybody on the planet for growth and development. And then we go through peak height, velocity, you know, the increase for, for, uh, females, progesterone, sterol, estrogen, and a small amount of testosterone.

And then we get to the adolescent. Years. And then once peak height velocity occurs, we typically think, and this goes for males as well, that we've probably achieved the most amount of muscle mass we're going to have usually entering the age of 30 or around that proximity. The good news is it's never too late to start.

We can have centenarians who have never lifted weights, start performing resistance training and get beneficial effects. So. With that saying, why not build up the mountain as much as you can in your adolescent and early teen years? And that's why I'm a big proponent of children performing resistance type of training.

I really think it has a plethora of benefits there. And specifically for females bone density, the bone will respond to loads placed on it. So if we can get the highest amount around the third decade. Then if it does start to creep down, you know, you get busy with, life having a family, you decide, I don't want to exercise, whichever, at least you had more to maintain functionality.

Can you do things around the house like carrying groceries, walking the stairs, that'll help maintain activity. but we all know the catastrophic effects during the perimenopausal menopausal transition for females, My God. I don't know why we have such limited research in this area. I do think it's a hot topic, but we don't actually know the catastrophic effects of estrogen cessation from the ovaries.

What is the detrimental effects it has to skeletal muscle and bone. We think it is there, and that's why I really encourage the populations in the the postmenopausal. And late post-menopausal please resistance train. At least that's gonna be a stimuli to, the body independent of estrogen or hormone replacement therapy or not.

So compared to males, females go through way more catastrophic detrimental effects from a human physiology perspective, regarding hormones and muscle and bone loss. So we try to achieve it peak, and then of course, obviously we want to have more when those age-related reductions come down. Yeah.

Pam Peeke, MD: It's like banking, bone and banking muscle so that you know what's gonna happen. There's absolutely no question. again, I don't care who you are. Your bones will lose bone mineral density. there's a simple trajectory, right? it sort of somewhat follows the muscles early on in life, you know, in terms of peaking around the age of 30 or so, and back and forth.

This is assuming again, forget the outliers. Who are the super elite athletes and also people who are kind of genetic. Wild people, who are just born with a boatload of muscle, to start with. Well, there are a lot of them. You know, look at, Serena Williams, for God's sake.

You couldn't pray for that muscle. You know, it's there, it's her. and then, when things happen, like you fracture an ankle and you can't really move around or back and forth. you're starting from a higher point and, I know that life is simply gonna hit, you become pregnant, you can't exactly start marathon running, it's not gonna happen.

And you gotta be careful about resistance training during that time too. So really at the end of the day, you have that full. Trajectory, but What is the body composition of an 80 or 90-year-old woman look like?

Darren Candow, PhD: Yeah, so there's a substantial reduction in lean mass. And, and, uh, an accumulation of of adiposity or, or body fat, primarily around the limbs and in trunk areas well. And then sadly, the tissue that we never see in the mirror is bone density and that will go down a as well.

So unfortunately, the two precious tissues go down. And the one that most of us, likely don't want I is an increase in, in body fat. It goes up. So there is body repurposing a recomposition in a negative way. and again, we think exercise can have a profound beneficial effect.

Diet will also be there, but exercise has gotta be there. If you're having or hoping to have any achievements, you bring up a great point. Typically, as we get older, you talk to a financial advisor about your pension for retirement. No one ever talks about, okay, let's talk about a health pension for longevity.

We want everybody to live longer free of disease. Why would anybody wanna live longer with a, a chronic metabolic disease? So it is interesting. We don't have these health coaches that sit down and say, what are you doing now to get you to the healthy retirement? From a health perspective, it's usually just financial advice.

So it is interesting that you're gonna have all the money in the world, but if your body's deteriorating, it doesn't mean anything. Yeah.

Pam Peeke, MD: I love that issue. Pension, just as pensions in the USA are disappearing. Great. You had to bring that up. A little trigger point there. Alright. Now when we come back, I'm gonna share, I think, a little bit of a solution for what happens when you're not a hundred percent engaged, but you wanna keep that metabolism stoked during funky times in your life.

Okay, so when we come back, I'm gonna share and

we're back. Okay. So life hits, things are looking a little funkadelic. This is the way I look at it. See if you like this, Darren. Okay. If you're someone who's quite sedentary and Terry and has never lifted weights and has really not done much of the physical activity thing.

Alright, then what I love to do is think about this. I remember the first time I built a fire, it was an epic failure. It was horrible. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Just keep throwing logs at it and they say, Hey, where's your kindling? And, and then the damn fire would go out.

And I was learning how to do this early on you know, one of my friends said. Figure it out, use your head now, come on now. We got multiple degrees here, we can make this work. So I thought, Hmm, okay. So I slowly but surely methodically built up the fire and then I would light at it, and then it would get hot and the flames would kind of come up, and then I'd nurture it a little bit more instead of just sort of throwing everything at it.

And then lo and behold. Yours truly had a roaring fire, then I discovered something else. Okay. To keep it going right. All I had to do was throw in a little kindling, Just stoke it. Stoke it. That's the important thing. I was stoking it and then, it would just keep going and I always, in the back of my mind, get back there and stoke that little mother.

Okay. I look at physical activity the same way. At some point you just build the fire. you don't have to have a roaring fire, you have to burn the house down. but you gotta have something as a base, right? Then when life hits and weird things go on, then what you do is you stoke it.

So instead of, let's just say for some reason you can't do high intensity interval training like you normally used to. Well, you can walk. That's stoking it. Right? And let's just say you have a fractured ankle. Last time I looked the rest of your body looked pretty good. Okay.

So how about working your upper body in your core? Kinda like in that, and from what I gather, I could be wrong. Uh, just by doing that it also stimulates, the legs, very nicely too. 'cause there's, kind of a holistic integrative, Response of the body. So there's always, knock on wood, outside of you being comatose or something, there's always a little something, something you could do.

And I think that people minimize that. They say, well, I'm not doing the big workout, so address that issue, why is it that that is so important? rather than just throwing the whole thing out and saying, oh, I'm gonna have to start two months later.

Darren Candow, PhD: Yeah, I, I totally agree. I think doing anything during the day keeps blood flow. Heart pumping really well, more active cognitive effects. It's a plethora of benefits, and I love that analogy of a little bit each day. Soaking the fire. It's very similar to nutrition about eating, starting with a, a good fire with energy.

And then when the fire's dying out, put in a little bit more energy there and you metabolize it, but. I love those ideas and I think what's happened is I believe in the United States and here in Canada, we recommend 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week.

And and most people say, whoa, that's impossible for me. I barely have time to eat. I'm so busy. And then as we already previously talked with these little exercise snacks, can they accumulate? So I think what happens is the messaging, I think a lot of people realize or, or maybe are getting misinformation that we need to do.

Hours a day, and if I don't do hours a day on a week, it, it's not gonna make any difference. And I think we're starting to get the message out that anything is better than nothing. You don't have to do an cumulative amount per, you know, I don't have to go out and run two and a half hours on Monday.

I can do a certain little amount. Walking at lunch with a friend, most people think, oh, I didn't even know that had any benefits. But yes it does. So I think awareness, is an important and more messaging. But I love that idea. Stoke the fire when you need to.

Life throws you curve balls. You know, with holiday travel you guys just had in the United States on the eastern seaboard, there was big flight delays out of Atlanta. People are like, okay, now I can't work out today. I'm stuck in the airport and I'm like, you probably are stuck there for a few hours.

Did you realize if you walk through that Jefferson airport, you're gonna get 10, 20,000 steps? But they're not thinking of it because they're focused on other things. So I think take advantage of, life. When life throws curve balls at you kind of, sort of embrace it. and by walking through the airport, that's your day of physical activity and maybe you'll get some cognitive effects to deal with some of those stressors of a delayed flight or snow storm.

So I think we try to look at every day, as you mentioned, reset, what can I do today to cause some positivity for that health pension down the road?

Pam Peeke, MD: Just assuming the vertical position instead of sitting on your behind at the gate, waiting for yet another delay or. Or whatever the issue is. Many times I'll just stand up and what I'll do is, I'll do my, calf raises. It feels so good, so I'm up and down. People, stare at me and that's fine because I look good and there's a reason why.

Okay. And when I say I look good, I look fit. Okay. The only word I want anyone to use is. Fit. Yeah, she looks fit. No wonder she's doing those little calf raises and, doing that kind of thing. And, and then I do my, calf stretches. You know, I could pull against one of those chairs and back and forth and, one day, uh, one of the women behind the desk, came up to me and, and she said, you know.

You've inspired me. She says, I'm usually stuck here too, and I haven't really thought about what else I can do. So like, what's that about? why aren't I doing a little something too? And then she said, tell me what you do. And then I, I'm sitting there giving a little lesson and everything in the middle of the damn gate.

two hour delay. and I mean, that's the way to really keep this going. start a fire. Keep it stoked and then, life hits. You said it yourself, in a big way. Now let's pivot over real quickly then. we want strength training. If you haven't heard that, that is one of the most important things you could ever do in your lifetime.

Then you better clean out your ears because. That's what we've been saying and ranting and raving about. Let's pivot quickly to nutrition. Women are now, oh no, get off that TikTok right now. Okay. I saw you doing that. you're like, but it's the latest craze and you know, all I have to do is drink water in the morning.

And you no, no. how are your little muscles gonna feel? With no food on board, no fuel. So how do you do this, Darren, in a reasonable, low hanging fruit way that is easy for a woman to understand.

Darren Candow, PhD: Yeah, well first is probably ignore 95% of social media. Uh, I think. Doing way more, way more harm than good. And ironically, a lot of people who think their famous influencers have, have never done a research study or measured anything in the body. So first thing is probably ignore 95% of what you hear on social media and then go to the science where they've actually measured changes in the human body.

And I think the easiest thing from a nutrition standpoint, perspective is if you're trying to lose weight. You need to go on a calorie reduction. If you're trying to gain weight, you want to go on a calorie surplus, and that's easy to say because then someone says, well, how am I gonna know I'm on a, what they call the diet?

If that becomes a little bit too difficult for you, then I want you to sort of alter your perception and say, I'm gonna focus on high quality protein throughout the day. The nice thing with protein is it really doesn't like to get stored as body fat. It has a plethora of benefits in the body, and if you consume too much of protein.

You actually get an increase in metabolism and a decrease in body fat. Unfortunately, if you increase too many carbohydrates or fat, it doesn't have the same effect. So I think the first thing people should do is look at a total amount of calories they're consuming. Secondly, emphasize high quality proteins.

You can also get very high quality proteins from, plant-based sources. So if you're a vegan, vegetarian, don't worry. for those that do consume animal based products. dairy and or meat has a high concentration of what they consider essential amino acids. So those are the two first things I would consider.

The nice thing with protein. Also, it increases your, fullness or satiety. Therefore, that might reduce the amount of cravings for sugars or saturated fats.

Pam Peeke, MD: Darren, it is so important to get that protein in in the morning. So why should women do that? And especially people who are saying, oh, but I'm doing intermittent fasting and I'm not supposed to start eating until like 2:00 PM.

Darren Candow, PhD: when you wake up, you're sort of in a net catabolic state to the body. Think your muscles are sort of craving for energy or building blocks, and those little Lego blocks are the amino acids in protein. So it's a very great way to get protein into the body early on.

And Don Lehman's clearly shown that early on protein ingestion has favorable effects on building bigger and stronger muscles from a muscle protein synthesis perspective. So the other good thing, using your fire analogy, if you have protein early on. High quality protein breakfast, you only need smaller amounts throughout the day, and it might be easier to achieve that.

So I'm a big proponent of having a high quality protein breakfast.

Pam Peeke, MD: So we've come full circle. We've looked at the entire trajectory of muscle strength performance throughout a woman's life to. Time and Dr. Darren Kau has given us the guidance to how you nourish that by having a protein centric mindset. That's what you do, and stop all that other stuff.

But I want all this to happen overnight. Take your patient's pill. Write now. Okay. Rain in your expectations, you're going to do just fine. Consistency, please. Consistency. If you can brush your teeth, if you can take a shower on a routine basis, literally rinse and repeat and keep that maintenance going.

Well, you can do it here too. And oh my gosh, the rewards are absolutely amazing. Alright, Dr. Darren Kow one. Short little nugget of wisdom for women to run home now and just put to use.

Darren Candow, PhD: Think of exercise as the cake. Protein is the really nice icing that'll cause you to have it taste better. And then there's a whole bunch of other things called sleep, hydration and socialization with family and friends. That is the cherry on the cake. So I think those things should be really emphasized moving forward from a health perception.

Pam Peeke, MD: Okay. This cake has no calories. So, ladies, just C. C, calm down, calm down. We're, we're in fantasy land right now. Dr. Kdo, I cannot begin to thank you enough on behalf of the entire community and the team here with the Herb Podcast. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This I could just go on forever, but then you wouldn't like me anymore. So, but thank you so much for being on the Herb

Darren Candow, PhD: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Pam Peeke, MD: All right, so now I wanna also thank my wonderful sponsor, SORAY Vitamins, minerals and Herbs, rooted in nature and their new her Life Stages products. Scope 'em all out at soray, S-O-L-A-R-E y.com. And now take a moment to leave us a review because we love hearing from you. That's why.

Now everyone, this has been a production of Podcast Health. I got a little something for you and that is your time in this world may be limited, but the things you can do with that time are not. So get on out there and car a dm. Come on now.

Seize the day. Rock on. Thanks for listening everyone.