#156: Deanna Mutzel, DC- Muscle Building for Women

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Over the next four weeks in our member's area Dr. Deanna and I will be sharing over 35 how-to videos to help you build a foundation of fitness for a lean and healthy physique.

We’ll focus a lot on losing belly fat (and other stubborn body fat).

But really, the goal is much higher than that: your health is number one.

MasterClass Group coaching call schedule:
Wednesday October 5th, 2016: 5:00-6:00 PM PST
Wednesday October 19th 2016: 5:00-6:00 PM PST
Wednesday November 2nd 2016: 5:00-6:00 PM PST
Wednesday November 16th 2016: 5:00-6:00 PM PST

While Fat loss and fitness are not the most important things in the world, but as we discuss in the course, they form the foundation for health—which is the most important yardstick.

Over the next weight weeks, you can cut your learning time down by benefitting from a distillation of 40 combined years of serious fitness and nutrition experience between Deanna and me.

We’re parents and working professionals just like you—not professional fitness models with hours to spend in the gym and preparing meals.

After years 15+ years of personal carb cycling, intermittent fasting, long duration cardio and resistance training, we’ve worked out a dependable strategy that burns belly fat.

There’s a lot of mixed information about exercise, carb-cycling, fasting, and feeding the microbiome these days. We’ve analyzed the science and present it to you.

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Podcast Transcription:

01:30 How and Why to Build Muscle:

Mike: Hello and welcome back. It's Mike and Dr. . Today we're going to talk about muscle. We've gotten a lot of questions or comments from a lot of you, so thanks for that. A lot of you have asked about, how can I build muscle when I'm in ketosis? Do I train differently? Do I eat differently? What about periodization? How can it slow down the aging process? Why should you build more muscle? We're going to tackle all these questions. Dr. Deanna have been lifting combined 40+ years. I started back in '98. When did you start?

Dr. Deanna: When I was 19, 20. Yeah. I'm 40.

Mike: Yeah, so for quite a while. A lot of things change over time with age and hormones and all that, and we're going to talk about that, life flow and having kids and working and owning your own business, and you're really starting to grow food lab side, so we can talk a little bit about that. Let's start with you, Dr. Deanna. You get a lot of questions from your patients and clients about muscle. You know, some of the things that you've articulated to me, that they're concerned about is, you know, I'm lifting, but I'm not building that muscle. Or, why should I build muscle, and here's the big one I want to start with. It just came to mind. It was, I just want to be toned. Come on, just, I want to
be toned, I don't want to get bulky, but I just want to get toned.

Dr. Deanna: I get that every day.

Mike: What's up with that.

02:35 The Healthiest Way to Look Ripped

Dr. Deanna: Well, what does that mean really? I want to ask you that Mike. I mean, is there such thing as just being toned? Because obviously, most women, they don't want to look like the typical body builders. Right? They want to look all …

Mike: What women do you know, that lift weights and look like a body builder?

Dr. Deanna: That lift weights, that look like a body builder? Just fitness models.

Mike: Yeah, just, like, in your life, I mean, outside of fitness models, and people that are probably doing drugs. Here's the thing. When you scroll through Instagram, and I'm not going to mention names, but when you see the person that looks super ripped and super jacked, they're sponsored by a supplement company, they're on drugs. That's the bottom line. Look, I mean, I know a lot about anabolic steroids and drugs and selective androgen receptor modulators, SARMs, they're out right now. Look, every one in the fitness community that's being sponsored or paid, I would say that 95% of them are on drugs, okay?

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, yeah.

Mike: You're not going to look like them, unless you do drugs. That's a huge point.

 

Dr. Deanna: Right, and there's many different body types too. You know, say, I have an easier time putting on muscle versus someone who's more ectomorph, who, you know, I have a history of sports, so I have that muscle memory, and I lift very heavy for me, you know, like the gym, but, so, can you talk to me about that? Like, how does that work? I mean, our …

03:45  No Such Thing as Toned Muscle:

Mike: Let's tackle toning, then we'll talk about hypertrophy.

Dr. Deanna: Okay.

Mike: Is there such a thing as being toned?

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: This is, I think, especially amongst women, in endurance athletes, you know, men as well, because they don't want to put on size. You know what I mean, because coming from a, I was a pro 1,2, as a bike racer, and a lot of people didn't want to put on muscle because you know, your power to weight ratio becomes skewed, and that becomes harder when you're climbing or racing, so I get it. Is there such a thing as toned muscle. I really don't think so. I think you either have hypertrophied muscle, and you have low body fat. If you're looking for long, lean, toned muscle, what that really means, is that you're low body fat, and your vascular and stuff like that.

04:28 Training a Different Muscle Type for Low Body Fat:
How do you get low body fat? Well, you can do a combination of like high intensity interval training, with some aerobics. You know, and so your sets and reps might look a little bit different, so, instead of failing at 8 to 10 repetitions per set, your failing at 15 to 20. You're going to train a different muscle type.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You know, kind of that slow twitch muscle type, and you're going to increase capillary density around the muscle and neuromuscular load, and so, you're really going to cause adaptations within the muscle, but you're not going to get that hypertrophied look.

04:58 Chronic Cardio and Muscle Loss:

Dr. Deanna: What about chronic cardio? Why is that a bad means of getting lean? Because, you know, over time, people just start looking skinny fat.

 

Mike: Right, yeah, well, because the mindset where people are like, “Oh, I'm trying to lose weight, so I'm going to do cardio.” Then, really what happens is they restrict their calories.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: And that tends to burn muscle, you know, so it can be counterproductive long term, so we see that a lot. Even dieting body builders, who have a high protein, you know, 300, 400 grams of protein per day, and they're doing cardio twice a day, sometimes 2 hours
of cardio, they're losing muscle mass, even when they're on anabolic steroids, right?

 

They're body's in a favorable environment to maintain lean muscle, yet they're still losing muscle mass a little bit from the cardio. They're losing strength, so, you know, I talked about this a lot on the podcast, you know, when I went from like a body building routine, and then I hurt my back doing dead lifts, so then I started doing, you know, road racing on cycling, because I couldn't lift, you know, because my back hurt. I lost a lot of muscle very quickly, and strength very quickly, and I regained that over time, you know, but so, when you're doing a lot of aerobics, you burn muscle.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, it's not good. You know, when I head to the gym in the morning, I see just all the cardio equipment.

Mike: It's packed.

Dr. Deanna: Everyone's on cardio equipment, and honestly, they all look the same as they did 2 years ago. The same people at the gym. They haven't changed. In fact, they look worse, and I'm thinking, you know, if they would just get into the gym, and lift weights, they would probably notice a significant difference, you know, because as we get older, we lose that muscle. We have to preserve that.

05:57 Cardio and Cognitive Health:
Mike: Totally. You become more catabolic as you age, but, look, let's pause. I want to do a little side step. There's nothing wrong with cardio.

Dr. Deanna: No.

Mike: In the sense, it's really good for your brain. When I first started really doing cardio, this is probably 2000, end of 2002, 2003, my academics in school, you know, I went from like a C student, to the honor roll, in Biology, in Cellular Molecular Biology, and so, why? Because it really brain derived neurotrophic factor and neurogenesis really improves when you're doing aerobic training. There's a lot of benefits to cardio from a mental cognitive stand point, but cut it off at 20 to 25 minutes.

Dr. Deanna: Or, at least, just keep lifting weights. Just don't just do cardio, right?

Mike: Yeah. Cardio is not the foundation.

Dr. Deanna: I mean, you have to maintain your strength. Have to maintain your strength.

Mike: Totally.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

07:09 Move Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Mike: Yeah, and here's the thing, we talked about that. When people go to the gym, they get in a routine of what is comfortable. Some people don't like pain.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: Let's face it. You know, it's like work is stressful, life is stressful. They don't want pain, they just want to go to the gym and just like blow off some steam, but you know what? If you're going to get results in your physique, you need to induce some pain.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.
Mike: I mean, this may sound a little meat headish, and I'm sorry guys, but it's really the case, so if you want to transform your physique, it's going to make you more resilient, and your pain tolerance goes up. Because when you're lifting weights, that last rep, we're going to get into all the details, but that induces a lot of pain.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: And it's challenging, and it's uncomfortable. Some people that I know, and I've had this before, you probably have too, where you puke and you throw up, on leg day.

Dr. Deanna: No, Mike, I haven't had that happen.

Mike: Oh, come on!

Dr. Deanna: I have in a track race, but I get what you're saying, yeah.

Mike: Right, and so that's the level of grit that you need to cause muscle gain.

Dr. Deanna: This close.

07:59 Building Muscle

Mike: You know what I mean? That level of grit, so, if you're struggling to put on muscle, because I get this question a lot. You know, in our first series of the weight loss master class, people are like, “I'm doing everything, but I'm not putting on the muscle,” and I wanted to just like sit down with them, I'd say, “Okay, what does your exercise program look like? Like how many sets? Are you going to failure, or are you maxing out at 12 and you have 10 more in the tank?”

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.
Mike: What I mean by 10 more in the tank, is like, you could really do 22 reps. You need to increase the weight. You know what I mean?

08:33 Twelve Week Periodization:

Dr. Deanna: For 15, you think? Like 12 to 15 or what are you thinking like periodization.

Mike: Yeah, that's really good, it depends where you are. You know, like, for you, you've been doing athletics your entire life, you know what I mean, so you could jump into maxing out at 6 reps or 8 reps, and not cause injury, but if you've been relatively sedentary, you do tennis once a week, you know, you walk the dog, go to the park, I think it's good to start slow. Because you don't want to get an injury, because the fastest way to get overweight is to be hurt and sedentary, right? You want to start slow, and I think, what does that look like? You know, kind of failing at a 12 to 15 reps.

Dr. Deanna: Always, or do you switch it up to maybe like, I get this question a lot, higher reps, lighter weight, once in a while. I mean, is it just about maintaining strength or getting stronger, or do you have to kind of switch it up a little bit with how much weight you're using?

Mike: Yeah, I think a 12 week periodization program is really good. You know, and so we did that back in high school football, back in like 2000, 2001, you know, with the strength coach.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.
Mike: This has been time tested, a lot of body builders do this, and they'll go through periodization, and so, that's a really good point, because some people just jump around and do a different, because they hear about it. Keep the body guessing, so they do a different exercise every time they're in the gym.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You're not giving your body enough time to induce that adaptation, so you need to at least stick to the program for 6 to 8 weeks.

Dr. Deanna: What are the best exercises to build muscle.

Mike: Well, the compound movements, but I just wanted to do overview, and get more narrow and narrow as we go on, you know what I mean? To give people more specifics, so the overview here is that, you need to really kind of stick with something for at least 6 weeks. You know, the same exercise, sure, can you vary your rest, whatever, yeah. You could rest longer or shorter, but you're going to increase your weight over time, and you're going to cause that hypertrophy, that damage, that epoch, the exercise post oxygen debt, you know, the post exercise oxygen debt, and what that does is really increase your fat burning after you exercise.

Dr. Deanna: Is there a plateau, Mike? You know, someone like me, who's not-
Mike: Totally. It's not, so strength and mass is not linear. I mean, think about it. If it was linear, we would just get bigger and bigger over time.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You know what I mean? You and I would probably be 300 pounds of pure muscle, but that doesn't happen. It's not linear. It ebbs and flows. You get stronger and then weaker, and then you kind of hurt your knee, and then like, oh, you do too much yard work, so your back hurts, or you pick up the kid wrong and then your elbow hurts. You know what I mean? This is real life, you know. This is real life. You know what I mean? You're going to get injured. You're going to not sleep well. You're going to be stressed out.

10:58 The Workout for Rookies:

Dr. Deanna: You're saying between like, 6 to 10 reps?

Mike: For a rookie, novice, never been lifting, or you've been very inconsistent, you're trying to change your physique and really burn fat long term, start at 12 to 15 reps.

Dr. Deanna: Got it.

Mike: Okay? We're talking at least 4 days a week of training, or 5, and you're going to alternate, okay, so it would look something like this. Right? You're going to do legs one day. You can do back the next day. You can do shoulders and then chest and biceps and arms. Something along those lines. There's a lot of different splits, and that's why I think it's good to read body building books.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: You know, I read the Encyclopedia of Body Building back when I was 14 years old, 13 years old actually. Muscular Development was a great book that, they have a lot of different tips on how to do workout programs and structure them. I think it's good. Starting out with hitting every body part at least once a week.

Dr. Deanna: At least once a week, okay.

Mike: For your rookie, 12 to 15 reps at least 3 to 4 sets per major body part.

11:59 At the End of 12 Weeks:

Dr. Deanna: At 12 weeks would I do the same exercises, and then just increase my weight?

Mike: Well, you can do a couple different things. You can do a deload, like 2 weeks of deload. You can do some more crossfit style exercise, so crossfit you know is basically like more of an endurance format of resistance training. Instead of squatting and failing at 8 repetitions, you might do like 20 repetitions of the squat.

Dr. Deanna: Okay.

Mike: You know what I mean? You're working a different part of your engine, so I think that's why CrossFit is good if you don't have any lingering injuries, like low back, hip, knee, bicep. That's why I personally can't do. I do crossfit style lift, like Olympic lifting, squatting and dead lifting, and I think that's good for a lot of people. Cleaning, and some of the real jerky movements, because it's really explosive with a lot of time under tension, a lot of repetitions, that leads to injury.

12:47 Deloading and Switching it Up:

Dr. Deanna: Deloading. Explain that for our viewers, who don't know what that is.

Mike: Kind of a rest week. You know what I mean? It's good to plan this out initially. You know what I mean, and there's a lot of psychological reasons for this progress. This notion that when you achieve a goal, other things in your life are seemingly more achievable. You know what I mean? That's why I love weight training. Like you mentioned, the people at the gym that you see on the same treadmill, the same elliptical machine, that have been there for years, their body doesn't change and they might gain weight, exactly like you said. Why? I mean, how many different ways can you progress on an elliptical?

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike:I mean, literally, the thing only goes so fast. When you go too fast, I mean, I've done sprints on an elliptical, it starts shaking. You know what I mean? That's why lifting weights is really good, because one time, you're bench pressing 135 pounds, that would be 2 45 pound plates. Then, you add on 10 more pounds the next week. You know the next thing you know, you're lifting 225. You know, so you're like, “Dude, if I can tackle this in the gym, why can't I double the sales of my business? Why can't I get the courage to introduce myself to this networking group, or do toastmasters, and get up.” You know what I mean? Progress is a huge motivator you know for like congruency and consistency in our life. That's why I love weight training. I mean, you know, I think both of us have garnered a lot of self-confidence and personal development through the gym.

14:09 Workout Duration and Rest Periods:

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, and how long would you say, I mean, for me, I generally am there for about an hour, and I'm done at about an hour, is that too long, or is that okay?

Mike: It really depends, like on your rest. You know what I mean? We kind of side stepped away from like really finishing up on periodization. If you're going for hypertrophy, so you want to, again, you're looking for a tone looked, but again, to get that toned look you need to build the base of muscle first.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: Right? To build muscle you might need longer rest periods.

Dr. Deanna: Okay, yeah.

Mike: This can be 60 to 90 seconds.

Dr. Deanna: Okay.

Mike: Some body builders wait 3 minutes in between.

Dr. Deanna: Wow.

Mike: You know what I mean? And that can literally be the amount of time you need to fully kind of recover, replenish a little bit of glycogen, get rid of lactic acid, get your breath back, get some water. I mean, we're talking, like you were lifting very heavy and very hard. This would be more for advanced people.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: But, if you're just starting out, 60 to 90 seconds is good. Again, going back to your question about training time. You know, like, is 45 minutes too long? Is an hour too long. You know, when you, after having Inez, like, let's share your personal story. You know, you were, you weren't working at the time, because we had just moved to Seattle, so you, you know, your job was being a mommy, and put the kid in day care, you wanted a little break, and you were training a lot. What happened to your physique at that point?

Dr. Deanna: You know, well, in the first year, it's hard to tell because I had all that hormone in me, but I was really just, I was lifting, but I think I was doing more cardio, and not a lot. Like, my abs, they took about a year, because I know I wasn't lifting very heavy, and my nutrition was probably off as well, so yeah, it was probably over training, too much cardio, not heavy enough weights, so it took a while for me to feel like I got my body back. Does that make sense? Like, probably over a year, when I know, looking back, that if I would have just focused on getting that muscle back. Because while I was pregnant I really couldn't lift heavy. I lifted throughout my pregnancy, but it was just kind of to maintain them muscle. Just to be safe.
I probably would have had much quicker results if I would have just hammered into the weights safely, and cut on the cardio, did more HIIT training with the cardio.

Mike: Yeah, so, some people would say that you looked toned.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike:Because you were pretty lean, you didn't have a lot of, like you have way more muscle now, and not that you've gained a lot of weight, but I think that muscle just, I mean in my opinion, and I think a lot of men, and women would say this too, because you get a lot of comments, just have a better look now.

16:35 Muscle and Hormones:

Dr. Deanna: No, just more curvy in the right way, you know? Definitely, you know, I feel more confident. I like the look of muscle, and I feel healthier. You know, definitely, I think it's more anti-aging, and also to protect the joints. Being a chiropractor, I see, you know, a lot of patients with hip problems, and because they don't have any muscle protecting their joints. Just seeing that, I know that building that muscle is just really healthy in every way. Protecting the joints. For the hormones and –

Mike: Libido, hormones, talk about-

Dr. Deanna:Yeah, libido, everything, and even, like my menstrual cycle is just dead on. Before hand, it wasn't, so something was happening, when I was over training and not lifting very heavy, so I just generally feel healthier in every way, and strong is the new skinny, guys, it really is. It's more attractive, I think, viewed by most, than, and even a lot of the models out there on the magazines, they're displaying a lot of like, more of the muscle.
[00:16:00]Because skinny's out. Skinny's unhealthy. It's not attractive.

Mike: Yeah, it's definitely old school.

Dr. Deanna: It's old school.

Mike: To summarize, like, how I interpreted what you were doing. I knew you were over training, but you didn't listen to me.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: And I'm not like being condescending at all. I'm just saying how it is, right, I was always like, “Deanna, you got to lift, you got to lift,” but you had this little person in the back of your head or on your shoulder, your subconscious, said, “No, no, no. I don't want to look too big and bulky.” You know, I think a lot of people unfortunately still have that, because they were taught that like lifting weights is for men, but it's for women, it's for elderly people, it's for young people. You know, we have our 4 year old, teaching her how to do pull ups and sitting there hanging, you know on our pull up bar in our garage for 15 seconds so she can develop that arm strength.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: I don't think there's an age that's too young. I mean, yeah, maybe 1 years old obviously is too young, but you know, our ancestors were moving, lifting stuff, gardening, hunting, and so, we need to be doing that too.

Dr. Deanna: You know, and I always loved muscle. I don't think that I was afraid of getting necessarily bulky, although getting pregnant, women you know this, it messes with you. Especially if you've been small your whole life, and suddenly you're huge, and you give birth, and there you just have this flappy stomach. You're like, “What the heck am I supposed to do now,” so, yeah, it kind of plays around with your mind a bit. Then, I had basically like 2 hours in a day to pick and chose what I wanted to do for a workout while my daughter was in daycare. Naturally most people, and I got caught up into this, focus on more of the cardio. Well, I've got, you know, 2 hours. By the time I hit the cardio, I get an hour of cardio in, and maybe just like 20 minutes of lifting, but, looking back, I really should have just focused more of that time and chose the weight lifting, and then the cardio as the icing on the cake, because cardio is important.
I get up, it's my morning routine. Every morning I go for, you know, a walk and some sprints, and it makes me feel good. Does it change my body? Probably not as much as lifting the weights does. The lifting sculpts me, and I definitely am more vascular and leaner, the heavier that I lift. I know this for a fact. I've played around with it, and-

Mike: And your abs come in more.

Dr. Deanna: My abs come in more, and I've done everything. I've done, you know, the classes where I'm lifting light weights, you know, kick boxing classes. You name it, and I was just killing myself for like 90 minutes.

Mike: With all the bands.

Dr. Deanna:All the bands. Nothing. Nothing would change, and I'd have a ton of women ask me, you know, they say to me, they come in the office, I do some nutritional consults, and they say, “Deanna, like, I am doing everything I did 10 years ago, and my body, not only is it not changing, but I'm getting like a stomach. I'm getting a pouch.” And I'm like, “I been there. I been there. Lift heavy.” And I don't filter, I'm so unfiltered. I'm like, “Look, get back into the gym, get with a trainer, and have them teach you a good trainer. Just get back to the basics with like the bench presses and the squats and the dead lifts, and very safely again, meet with a trainer so you have the right form. You may need to start with body weight exercises which we show in our course, which is really important just for stability, because you don't want to get injured, but your goal ultimately is to be able to do those basic movements, and to get stronger, and that's what's going to take off the fat. That's what's going to get you lean and change your body, and there's just no excuses. We all have it in us, you know? Yeah, we all have different body types, but still, I mean, you can be your best you. We're just helping you be your best you.

Mike: Yeah, and again, so that mindset that you're going to get big and bulky, just delete that from your brain. It doesn't exist, get it out.

Dr. Deanna: Get it out.

Mike: It's over, it's done. Okay, we're not going to talk about that any more.

Dr. Deanna: It doesn't exist, you don't have to spend hours of cardio and hours, you don't have to work out all day to have a great body.

Mike: No.

Dr. Deanna: Really.

21:07 The Core of Weight Training:

Mike: I mean, if you're not being paid to work out all day, then why would you work out all day. That's the beauty of doing this weight training like we're talking about. Pull-ups, push-ups, military presses, overhead presses, squats, dead lifts. You know, it's not going in there and doing a bunch of bicep curls.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: I mean, you know, I haven't talked about this that much, I mean, I haven't done biceps for a year and a half.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.
Mike:You know, how do train biceps just by doing pull-ups and dead lifts and things like that, you know?

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: Don't go in there and do these accessories. Accessories are just that. They're like dietary supplements. I love supplements, but the core is real food. The core of your workout training program is squats, dead lifts, military presses, pull-ups. You know, that's the core, and the accessory is like when you have time.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You know, like if you're not rushed, and whatever, you finished everything out, and your like, “okay, I have a little bit more in the tank, I'm going to do some accessory work.”

Dr. Deanna: Right, and do the glute stuff. That's a great accessory because they're large muscles.

Mike: They're huge muscles.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, that's a good one.

Mike: But, Deanna, I want to finish this off a little bit, so just to summarize, when you were doing a lot of cardio, you were doing a lot of booty bar and stuff, and all that's good. You know, it's really good to get people moving. I'm not trashing any of that, we both like-

Dr. Deanna: Yeah. Felt that burn. I felt that burn.

Mike: We like yoga too. Yoga's great too, it's definitely not enough.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: Right?

Dr. Deanna: It's not. It's great though.

Mike: But you looked flat.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: You kind of, let's be honest, lacked a little resilience.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike:I mean, look at you now. You're developing this business for a food lab, you're going out there cold calling, getting new customers and stuff. I mean, 3 or 4 years ago when you were doing all this cardio, you would have never been able to do that.

Dr. Deanna: I was tired.
Mike:You were tired and fatigued.

Dr. Deanna: I was freaking tired, you know? Just like anyone else. I was just, I was exhausted by the end of the day, and you're dead on. I have so much more energy now. I'm on my way to 41, and I feel better than I have in years, and I really attribute that to the proper training and the proper nutrition. It is everything. You know, food is medicine, and also weight training is medicine too, so it is a combination. We definitely have to, you know, in our e-course we talk about you know, how to eat correctly, and we talk about keto-adaptation and why keto could be great for you if you're trying to burn fat and maintain your muscle. It's really exciting stuff. It's new age stuff.

23:11 Resilience and Confidence from Weight Training:

Mike:Yeah, and so again, the resilience garnered from resistance training, you know, carries over to so many aspects of your life. That's, I guess, the main driver here. It's not like, who cares really what you look like? It's like, how much confidence you have. We know, people that are missing legs or have been war victims and stuff like that, and they just have this confidence and this charisma and a lot of that can be garnered through like the progress you get in the gym.

Dr. Deanna: Oh, yeah.

Mike: And that's why I'm excited about it.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, because when you feel your best you, everything works out. Everything kind of falls into place. It's about being balanced, okay, and the 2 major components of being balanced, honestly, I think we both agree with this, is diet and the proper training, but there also is sleep and managing your stress. They're 2 other huge components, so we definitely need to talk about that, and we do in our course, on how to do that. Let's talk about anti-aging and muscle, because I get that a lot, especially from women. How does it help you age gracefully?

24:11 Muscle and Anti-Aging:

Mike: Yeah, it's a super important question, and it kind of goes back to like what we were talking about earlier with your training program, and how you were doing a lot of cardio and these booty bar things.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike:You know, you really weren't engaging a lot of muscle groups at once, and it's neural load. Neural load. This neurological load that comes through squatting and dead lifting and really activating those muscles and causing that damage. What the body's trying to do is recover and repair and so it raises androgenic hormones, you know? Things like testosterone, things like growth hormone, and these are the hormones that are involved with you know, the fountain of youth. You know, and they're kind of the a lot of bioidentical hormone doctors are recommending testosterone for women, you know, for libido issues, for preventing muscle atrophy and sarcopenia and so forth, and obviously we know that Low-T, low testosterone in men is a huge phenomenon. It's an epidemic at this point.
You know, so many men in their 20's and 30's are now have low sperm counts and low testosterone, so again, how does weight training do that? Well it's a combination. That neural load and just activating a lot of muscles at once stimulate those, you know, androgenic hormones which are really good.

25:16 It’s not the Burn:

Dr. Deanna: Like, challenging weight we're talking, because a lot of classes they do engage a lot of the muscles, and if you are dead tired after and you feel the burn, and sure got the hip flexor nice and tight, but really? What does it do? Does that mean that you're building muscle just because you're burning?

Mike: Yeah, so it's not the burn. It's the load.

Dr. Deanna: It's the load.

Mike: You have to get the load going, and so that's … I mean, how many people do you know that have done P90X and they lose a little weight, but then they go back and forth, they go back and forth, you know?

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: Again, I think it comes back to there's no objective marker that you're really improving. What do you do P90X faster? I mean, is your heart rate lower when you're doing P90X or something. I mean, I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm being realistic. That's why strength training is so good, because you see the weight increasing, and so you're like, “Okay, I am a weight lifter.” You know, when you identify with being a part of a group, you behave like group members within that group are supposed to behave.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: So, you eat higher protein. You know, you cut, you lower your carbs. You go to sleep, I mean, here's what's interesting about this, like when I was working on the book Belly Fat Effect. I wasn't lifting as much weight because I was busy. You know, I was sitting a lot, so my back was hurting me more, so I wasn't squatting and dead lifting.

Dr. Deanna: Right.
Mike:I would have 2 to 3 glasses of wine, like I would go to bed at 2 in the morning, and I didn't really care, because I'm like, you know what, I'm not lifting anyway, so I don't, I'm not going to get sick. I'm not like over exerting myself, you know.

Dr. Deanna: It was like the shining, guys, just FYI.

Mike: You know what I mean? But, if you're lifting weights … Check it out, if you're lifting weights, you want to go to bed earlier, so it's this habit, this keystone habit that forces you to consume less alcohol. That causes you to go to bed, because let's face it, by 10:00 if you're lifting hard, you're tired man. You can't stay up till 11:30 watching TV or Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is. You know what I mean?

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You need that sleep, and if you don't get the sleep, you're going to be wiped out the next day. Then the next night you're definitely going to get to sleep. You know what I mean? And that's the thing that's so important. Is it's the keystone.

Dr. Deanna: Adaptation, too.

Mike: Yeah.

Dr. Deanna:Adaptation is huge. You talk about that a lot. Not only with weight training, but with you know, nutrition, right? I think that that's really important to me, because we get caught up in these, you know, certain ways to train, and our groundhog day. Certain ways to eat, when honestly, like some people that you see who have more diversity, who eat healthy but who have more diversity as well as like in their training, look better, and they're not as like focused on doing everything perfectly, so, that's something we definitely, you know, need to talk about.

Mike: Yeah, let's kind of finish up the hormones thing though. I think, you and I both have experienced this independently. You know, when you're lifting like that, I mean, there's multiple mechanisms. You know, we could articulate all this, you know, the androgens that are increased and stuff, but the bottom line is like, when you're strength training heavy, your hormones can become rebalanced. You know what I mean?

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

28:32 Thyroid Dysfunction and Strength Training:

Mike: I get this question too a lot, like, “Well, what if I have thyroid dysfunction? What if I have adrenal fatigue?” Weight training's probably the best thing that you can do if you have adrenal fatigue.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike:Cardio's not. What is cardio mimicking? The fight or flight response. Cortisol, noradrenaline and norepinephrine, are going to increase when you're doing chronic cardio. I mean, hello, I used to do that, and I was more adrenal fatigued and tired, I mean, because I was biking sometimes 6 hours a day, you know, training with professionals, racing with professionals in boulder Colorado. Like, I wanted to be Lance Armstrong and race in the tour de France, and like, I was the most tired and sick that I've ever been in my entire life.

Dr. Deanna: Our bodies are smarter than we are, innately. You have to think that way, is that, what does your body think of, when you're running for an hour, or biking for 2 hours.

Mike: Running away from a saber tooth tiger, right?

Dr. Deanna: Right, it's thinking cortisol, it's going to jack up, so no longer you have a, you know, a juicy tummy after doing all that, because naturally your body wants to preserve what it can because it thinks something's wrong. It's not natural for us to be doing those types of things for long periods of time, like studies state right? Not to say that, you know, if you're training for a marathon, it's wonderful. If it makes you happy great, but, you just have to be aware that it's more of a performance thing, than it is, like don't do it for looks, because it's probably not the best way to go about having like the body of your dreams. But if you're doing it for like competition, which you agree, yeah, go for it, it's wonderful, but you might have some hormonal problems afterwards.

Mike: Yeah, if it's your life goal to do a marathon, or to do an iron man, then cool, knock yourself out.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

29:28  Fat as a Consequence of Chronic Cardio:
Mike: But there will be consequences and I get emails from doctors that are like, “Dude, I'm gaining weight and I'm like training.” I noticed this too when I was biking, you know, competitively. Some of the people I would train with, they had a lot of belly fat and like fat on the back of their legs and stuff. You know, I kind of buffered that a little bit, I've mitigated that by always strength training. I mean, I still got really skinny and lethargic and had adrenal issues and all that, and then, you know, we'll wrap up the anti-aging thing, I felt like I aged faster during those years of my 20's.

Dr. Deanna: Okay.

29:56 Telomeres and Chronic Cardio

Mike: For sure, so, like, you know, wrinkles on your forehead. Lines like that. In fact, I did my telomere test. This is really interesting, you'll find this really interesting. Telomeres are the protective caps on our chromosomes, and so they kind of keep DNA tight and stable and protect it from ultraviolet radiation from the sun and x-rays and free radical stressors, right, so you want more active telomerase, that's the enzyme that repairs the telomeres and you want longer telomeres. Well, I did my telomere test, this was 2008, and it showed that I was 45 years old, biologically.

Dr. Deanna: Really?

Mike: This was when I was training a lot.
Dr. Deanna: Oh my god.

Mike: So I took that and I didn't really, I was like, whatever, that test sucks, you know, because it was a western blot and there's this fish method that's a little bit different. I was like, oh, it's probably just the western blot is inaccurate, but I was being biased and not looking at my real lifestyle. You know what I mean? Because people get psychologically addicted to endurance work. There's endorphins that are released. Let me just tell you guys, if you've been doing endurance training for a while, those same endorphins, once you start lifting heavy, you get those same endorphins and they actually feel pretty good after you exercise as well.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You know what I mean? That same high you get from a runner's high, you get that if you're lifting heavy, but if you're just lifting periodically, you're not going to get that, because you're not going to really like engage as many muscles.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: Again, going back to libido, you know, when you're training like that, doing a lot of cardio like you were, I was, you libido takes a big nose dive.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, it really does. Sadly.

31:23 What to Do For Adrenal Fatigue:

Mike:Okay, going back to the questions we get a lot. If your adrenal fatigued, what should you do? Lift weights, okay, that's the best thing you can do for your adrenals. Why? Because it's short term, and it's going to re-synchronize, I really believe this, your whole hypothalamic, pituitary adrenal axis. The HPA axis that becomes dysfunctional in adrenal fatigue is going to become resynchronized. Again, why is that? Because you're going to be tired, dead tired by 10:00 at night, and so you're going to be getting your sleep, you're going to be boosting growth hormone, and resyncing your circadian rhythm.

31:54 Burning Fat:

Dr. Deanna: And burning fat throughout the night too, the more muscle you have.

Mike: Totally.

Dr. Deanna: Oh, yeah, that's key.

Mike:Well, that's the thing. When you do cardio training, like you're burning fat while you're training, but then it kind of stops over time. When you're weight lifting, you're not burning fat while you're exercising, your burning glycogen and glucose, but when you're done, this is what's really interesting, this glycogen sparing effect. Check it out, and we're going to finish up on thyroid hormones afterward, but when you're doing weight training, you cause oxygen debt, and you deplete your muscle glycogen, so the body's like, “Okay, while we're repairing glycogen, we're going to burn fat for energy.” Your fat burning continues to climb up after you do weight training, whereas if you're doing just cardio, yeah, you're going to get a little bump in your resting metabolic rate. You're going to burn a little fat, but not nearly as much as if you do weight training.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: That's why if you look at a sprinter versus a marathon runner, you know, and you look at their fatty acid oxidation while they're exercising, you know, really, I think weight trainers burn a lot more fat, and particularly keto-adapted.

Dr. Deanna: Keto-adapted, yeah, the key.

Mike: Huge amount of fat burning.

Dr. Deanna: And what's the best time of day to weight train? Is there

Mike:Finish that off. One thing though, if you have thyroid dysfunction. People ask this all the time. I have Hashimoto's I don't think I should do weight training. Yes you should. You know why? Because the more muscle mass you have, the more leptin sensitive you are, because leptin receptors are found within muscle tissue, so there's unfortunately thyroid disease and thyroid dysfunction is so pervasive and prevalent amongst women nowadays. For a variety of reasons, but when you become more leptin sensitive, you take the immunological load off the thyroid gland. It's way better, in my opinion, than doing cardio.
Even if you're fatigued, you don't have a thyroid, you're on synthroid,  whatever it is, you know, weight training is going to be really really good for you. Why? You're going to increase those leptin receptors within your muscle tissue. That's going to decrease your level of inflammation. That's going to take the load off your thyroid, which is really good.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: Okay.

33:50 Optimal Time of Day for Training:

Dr. Deanna: Time of day, time of day. When should we weight train? Is there a better time? I mean, obviously, you know, based on our busy schedules, some people don't have that …

Mike: Flexibility.

Dr. Deanna: The flexibility.

Mike: Or the option, they have to train in the morning.

Dr. Deanna: I have to train in the morning, but…

Mike: Whatever works for you. That's the thing. It's like, what's the best time to take your multivitamin? When you remember it. That's the best time. Seriously. Like, when should I check my finances? When you remember. Just make it a routine and a habit. That's the thing. It's like, just pick a time and stick with it.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: You know?

Dr. Deanna: Between 8 and 10pm.

Mike: No, I mean-

Dr. Deanna: You don't want to at 3 in the morning, unless you're working for UPS.

Mike: If you looking at for optimal, it's between 4 and 6 pm.

Dr. Deanna: Really? I can't do that.

Mike:We talk about this a lot in the weight loss master class, some of the bonus videos that I made is, you know, okay, so you're level of catabolism, is lowest, and the neurological energy, the amount of like muscles that you can recruit via your nervous system while you're training, is highest between 4 and 6 pm.

Dr. Deanna: Even if you're tired? Like after a long day of work? You still get the same effect?

Mike: That's the thing. For some people, they're just wiped out. You know, maybe they're on their feet all day. You know, maybe you're working at a day care and you're chasing kids around or you're a chiropractor or you're a medical doctor then for someone like you, you might be better off first thing in the morning.

Dr. Deanna: Definitely. Yeah. I get a little bit tired by the end of the day, you know?

Mike: Totally.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah. I prefer the morning.

Mike: Then you can have a crappy workout, or if you're tired and you're working out, then you take caffeine, that effects your sleep.

Dr. Deanna: Right, yeah.

Mike: Here's the thing. It's like, what's the right diet? How many grams or milligrams of MCT oil should you have per day? How much fat should you have? It totally depends! That's the thing, like there's no rule. What works for the fitness models is different from what works for us is different from what works for you.

Dr. Deanna: And that can change over time too.

Mike: Totally.
Dr. Deanna:That's the art of it. It's really an art. You have to just learn how to be in tune with your body and know certain things like when am I over training, what is true hunger. You have to get to know you, and I think the best ways to do that are obviously getting enough sleep so you can think, and such things as like meditation and just Heart Math and just living presently, because I think you can make better decisions, generally.

35:54 Workout Plateaus:

Mike: Yeah, totally. You know, a great way to asses over training, if your plateauing, if you're not getting the results you used to get, or you're feeling really lethargic or tired, and then one of the favorite tools that I like is HRV4 training app.

Dr. Deanna: Love that.

Mike: I'll put the link below this window, with Marco Altini and he's the creator of that app. So, it's our first morning parasympathetic you know, check in really, and so it looks at your heart rate variability, and that's been spot on for me for quite a while.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, me too. It's really accurate.

Mike:It's really cool. Again, all these little tools may seem like that's another thing I have to worry about or think about, they become a habit and it's like automated in your life. Once you start doing it on a regular basis.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: And you want to do it, because you want to get better at the gym, you want to keep your hormones balanced, you want to, like we talked about earlier, like slowing down the aging process, you know. One of the hallmarkers of low aging, or, sorry accelerated aging is low muscle mass. You want to slow down the aging process, maintain the muscle every time. Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle, that's the medical jargon for low muscle mass with elderly age, you know, is very devastating. You think about people that you hear about, like someone's grandfather or grandmother fall and breaking a hip, and then they pass away 6 months later. You know why? Because they get chronically inflamed, chronic infection. They're sitting around, and so humans are meant to move.

37:18 Muscle Loss and Aging:

Dr. Deanna: Do you know the statistics on the rate at which muscle does decrease as we get older? Say in like 40's and 50's and is it the same for men and women?
Mike:
Yeah, it does vary a little bit for men and women, and I think it's like 1% per year, but look, there's a lot of people, like you can maintain that or offset that, so this is like a biohack or a way to optimize your aging process, is through resistance training, because you can keep those hormones elevated for long periods of time.

Dr. Deanna: Resistance train. This is the take home point. Get in the gym, just do it, even if, you know, you're 40 years old and you've never picked up a weight in your life, it's time. Now, sign up with a personal trainer, and just do it, because it will not only save your life, you know, it's just anti-aging.

Mike:Right, and a great way to offset blood sugar rise, and this notion of inflamaging, that we get more inflamed as we age. I didn't make that word up, you can go into pubmed guys and Google inflamaging. Literally, the longer you're on this earth, the more inflamed you're going to be. Now, how can we offset that? By maintaining more lean muscle mass, because muscle releases myokines. These are signaling molecules that actually modulate the immune system in a beneficial way. Muscle's a leptin and insulin sponge, and glucose sponge. Really, I mean, if you were to have a Gatorade, again, we never, I haven't had a Gatorade for probably 20 years, but if you were to have one Deanna, about 80% of the glucose from the Gatorade, guess where it would go?

Dr. Deanna: I don't know.

Mike: Muscle. That's where it goes.

Dr. Deanna: Scary.

Mike: Yeah, it's amazing, so a lot of our glucose and our glycogen. Glycogen is stored glucose, you know, from blood sugar, it goes into muscle tissue. Okay, so if you didn't have that muscle tissue, where would that glucose go?

Dr. Deanna: Into fat.

Mike: It would get converted.

Dr. Deanna: Into fat.

Mike:Via lipo, you know, lipogenic pathways, to make fat. It would deposit still in your muscle tissue, but it would cause damage, and it would form ceramides and intramyo lipid deposition which would cause dysfunctional muscle and all that, so, the bottom line is you want to maintain that muscle by moving it around and all that, and the best way to slow down the aging process is by moving muscle and I want to finish off with one more point. You asked about like does anabolism slow down with age, and yes it does a little bit, but that's the important point of having post workout amino acids and protein.

39:24 Post Workout Supplementation:

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: Whether it's from real food, whether it's from supplements. You know, real food's always better, but I love Xymogen XymoBolX. It's a great amino acid formula with argenine and hisanine. I love having that into workout and post workout, so that's a nice way to keep that [inaudible 00:38:20], this driver of muscle protein synthesis activated.

39:53 Keto-adaptation:

Mike: The cool thing about being keto-adapted, and we'll kind of transition a little bit for meal timing and stuff with keto-adaptation, is your muscle protein synthesis is higher. That's really interesting, you know when you're keto-adapted, you actually burn more fat for fuel, and your mps level, your muscle protein synthesis is higher.

Dr. Deanna: Because it increases leucine, correct?

Mike:In the blood. Yeah, I think that's one of the mechanisms. There are other mechanisms too, it reduces the inflammatory response, it makes you more insulin sensitive. When you're insulin sensitive, you can drive more amino acids and glucose into muscle tissue in a post workout window, which is really cool, because insulin is great post workout.

You know, it's a very anabolic, it's a key signaling molecule, so there's a lot of benefits there. Again, slowing down the aging process, or you know does your level of recovery change with age. Yeah, but who cares? Just lift anyway.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike:I mean, don't be all, “I'm not going to lift because like, my amino acid, you know, my muscle protein synthesis declines with age.” That's a bad mindset. That's like saying, “Oh, I can't make money,” you know or “buy the house of my dreams because I'm over 50.”

Dr. Deanna: Just sleep.

40:52 Building Muscle While in Ketosis:

Mike: We're going finish off now and talk a little bit about you know building muscle while you're in ketosis, and this is a really, this takes a lot of tinkering and testing, because when you start keto adapting, you start to lose, I think you lose water retention. You know because you're not eating those carbohydrates, and you kind of feel like, “Man, I'm getting skinny,” like, “What is going on?” But, I think stick with it, because things do improve over time.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, adding some salt in there too helps.

Mike: Salt helps, and then one of the things that I get asked a lot about is like, “well, I'm losing weight too quickly when I'm in a ketogenic state.” What do you do? Well, eat more calories.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: You know, that's like …

41:33 Ketosis and Meals:

Dr. Deanna: How many meals a day though. We don't graze, when you're ketos. Let's just talk about this, because this is huge.

Mike: On lifting days, I think 3.

Dr. Deanna: 3 meals a day.

Mike: This is for me. It's totally different, like there's other people, Dominic, eats one meal a day. Like, people are different. On lifting days, especially if I'm doing back work or legs, where there's a lot of muscle groups involved, I like to have 3 meals a day, because I feel like my recovery's good, my HRV the next morning is good, my breath acetone is fine, and I don't feel like emaciated and skinny. When we're doing intermittent fasting, that's when you lose muscle and you feel tired and weak, and you're like what am I doing? Who cares if I'm in ketosis all the time. I don't have cancer, you know, thank goodness, you know, so it's not, or I don't have epilepsy, so I don't need to be in ketosis every minute of the day.

Dr. Deanna: We're going to be in and out of ketosis.

Mike: Yeah.

Dr. Deanna: That's fine. Generally, I know you don't count your calories.

42:25 Don’t Count Calories:
Mike:Well, you can't count calories. Count how much you're exercising. Focus on the words that you're saying to yourself, you're positive self-talk. Don't count calories.

Dr. Deanna: Don't count calories.

Mike: It doesn't work. It doesn't matter.

Dr. Deanna: Get rid of the scale. Don't count calories, don't count your macros.

Mike: Check your blood sugar, and check your breath [acetone 00:41:14]

Dr. Deanna: Right. Okay, perfect.

Mike: If your blood sugar is spiking, your breath acetone is low, you're not in ketosis, your balancing blood sugar, then change what you're eating. That's what I think you should track and count.

Dr. Deanna:You know what, I did track my macros. I know we did a podcast a couple weeks ago, and I was telling everybody that I track my macros, not because I wanted to become very obsessive, because I just wanted to know generally how much fat I was eating and carbohydrates and proteins. But, I don't do that anymore, because I find that gets super obsessive and that does effect the gut micro biome, because I was finding I was shifting things out of my nutrition, such as like onions and really important things for the gut, so you know, you might need those things to measure in the beginning, but you'll get a pretty good idea eventually, you know, of what you eat and so forth. It's just getting down to eating real food, getting rid of the processed crap, and you know, not eating a ton of carbohydrates. The good carbs when you do, slow carbs and no carbs.

Mike: Yeah, and instead of counting your calories, what you can do is just get one of those cheap composition notebooks, you know, at Walgreens or Rite-aid or whatever, and write down what you're eating, and then compare your blood glucose and your acetone and your strength and how you feel, and really just go like how are your pants feeling. If your pants are really tight, and you look in the mirror, and you, you know …

Dr. Deanna: Like, in the waist line, because you might build some muscle in your legs, which is okay, but …

Mike:Yeah, then change things around a little bit, like decrease a meal, or cut down on, because a lot of people think, like, “Oh, I'm ketogenic so I need to have a lot of cheese, need to have a lot of fat, a lot of bacon.” You know, yeah, that's more Atkins style. Like modern day ketogenic is not Atkins, you know. You need to have those flavonoids and those phytonutrients and microbiome boosting compounds and healthy fats, you know. It's
not just about total quantity, you know, and, so that's the thing, and so when people start lifting, they notice that, you know, those foods become more and more important. The healthier foods, because you want performance. You know, this isn't just about maintaining high blood ketones. Like that's cool. That's one attribute, but that's really myopic. You know, we want to look at the whole picture.

Dr. Deanna: Right, and it's keeping those veggies up. That's important.

Mike: Totally.

Dr. Deanna: Variety of vegetables, you know, bitter greens, you know. That should be I think the main part of the diet. Even if you're ketogenic.

44:57 Pre and Post Workout:

Mike: Yeah, so let's kind of finish this discussion up with pre and post workout. A lot of people that listen to our podcast are keto-adapted, they're doing a ketogenic or low carb diet. One thing that I've found is having a later lunch is beneficial. You know, so having lunch around 2, having a lot of fat so that when I train at like 4:30 or 5 or even sometimes 5:30, you know, I don't have to have another meal before hand.

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike: And I feel a lot of energy that way, and then post work out, you know, you definitely want to get some nutrients in there. I know there's some people promoting, oh no, no, you don't eat after you exercise. I've done that, you get weak.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: I mean, let's just be real, like, yeah, if you're doing P90X and all these like Insanity programs, fine, do whatever you want after you exercise, but if you're lifting weights, you want to recover, right? You want to get amino acids in there so that like you can recover properly, and I found real food and protein shakes, whey protein, and Xymogen, XymoBolX, which is a really cool amino acid product we'll talk about later, that optimizes my recovery, but what about you?

Dr. Deanna:I think the same thing for me. I been doing the XymoBolX during the workout, and I've really noticed a difference, and it tastes really good, but, I think post workout, I try to do the one scoop of protein about 20, 25 grams of protein in the form of whey or beef protein, and I'll do that within the first 30 minutes and then you know, I'm pretty hungry after I lift, so I think, like even an hour later, I'm not timing it by any means, but I'm really kind of thinking about what real food I'm going to ingest, and that's when I'm usually eating like the sweet potatoes and the animal meats and just a really good substantial meal, and then, and this is just based on my schedule, because I lift around like 11:00, so, I'm eating lunch about 1, 1:30, which is good for me. Dinner is generally a lot smaller, just something to kind of get me by. Some fresh greens from our garden, a little extra virgin olive oil or one of our homemade dressings, which we have in some of the videos.

I think my main focus is generally about 1 to 2 hours after I lift weights, so that's on like lifting days. On the days that I'm not lifting, I'm just really focusing on a lot of dark leafy greens, good variety, good fats, moderate protein, you know, nothing obsessive, just trying to make sure I'm getting enough of everything in nutrition.

Mike: Yeah. You mentioned sweet potatoes and stuff like that after workout, and I got this question a lot. Like, you know, “So where does MCT oil come into the equation?” For you, for example, like, you don't really care about always being in ketosis, because you're maintaining physique, you're just like overall health, right?

Dr. Deanna: Right.

Mike:Generally low carb, but for someone that wants to maintain high levels of blood ketones, and also wants to replenish glycogen a little bit and have some carbs in there, on the carb cycling days, throwing in some MCT oil is really good, so that you can like have your cake and eat it, too.

Dr. Deanna: Sure.

Mike: You know what I mean? Even though you're having the carbs, if you have MCT oil with it, it won't kick you out of ketosis, which is pretty cool.

Dr. Deanna: Oh, with the carbs?

Mike: Yeah.

Dr. Deanna: That is so interesting.

Mike: I've been doing that like post workout shakes and stuff like that too. Experimenting, and so it's a way to stay in ketosis while you're having carbs. It's kind of unique.

Dr. Deanna: Oh, I thought we weren't supposed to have fat post workout immediately because it stopped the absorption of protein.

Mike: There is some discrepancy there and stuff like that, but I mean if you're trying to maintain high levels of blood ketones, like, you do need fats right with a meal.

Dr. Deanna: Oh, okay. This is good to know. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah, so the MCTs can be used, like in a protein shake, and that's what's kind of cool. You can have the best of both worlds, so you can get all the amino acids and a little bit of the fast acting carbs to help to replenish glycogen, but then you can maintain. It's not going to kick you out of ketosis with the MCTs.

48:22 Listen To Your Body:

Dr. Deanna: Would you say that your breakfast in the morning is pretty high fat?
Mike:It totally depends you know, like, how hungry I am, like how intense the training was the day before. That's the thing. There's no rule and there's no, like, I do this so you should do it.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: Some days, you know, I wake up and I'm just not hungry.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah.

Mike: I just wait till I'm hungry. I know for some people like, “Wait, no, no, no, tell me what to do.” That's what you do, listen to your body.

Dr. Deanna: Listen to your body.
Mike: Then, this is where meditation and Heart Math comes in, because there's no rule, just because a guru does it doesn't mean it's going to work for you, doesn't mean it's going to work for me, so, some days when I wake up, I'm like, oh, my gosh, generally, after back day and leg day, I'm starving for breakfast, so I'm not going to do some fast because a guru said it's good for me. I'm going to eat food, because I want to recover.

Dr. Deanna: Yeah, and you're going to chew, and eat it mindfully. That's important too, not just eating on the way to work. You know, you want to make sure that you're really focusing on what you're eating. It's a big deal, for how it's absorbed, wouldn't you agree?

Mike: Yeah, it's a big deal. You know, I hope, I know we kind of rambled and went all over the place, I hope there was some nuggets here for you guys. Would love to answer any questions that you do have, so if you're still watching, or listening in iTunes, I really appreciate that. If you're listening in iTunes, you can watch us over on YouTube at High Intensity Health, on our YouTube channel. Please post a comment below this video if you have any questions. Some of the studies in the weight loss master class that we are launching. It's going to be available in the description below this video as well.

As always Dr. Deanna, I really appreciate all your insight, your great questions, your good dialogue, and your different perspective. You added a lot of unique perspectives and I like that you were able to admit on air, you know, to the world, of some of the mistakes, we all make mistakes, right? But like, you know, you're bias at one point in your life, and just hammering the cardio and now you're realizing that, well, that wasn't so good, and so it's cool that you admitted you. I appreciate that.

Dr. Deanna:Well, thank you, and you know, also too, for any free recipes that you may want, we do a lot of free recipes on our Instagrams. Real food lab, at Real Food Lab, and Metabolic Mike, so we show, kind of our everyday, what we eat, and how to make it, and now that they have the IG stories which is kind of neat. I've been doing that a lot more and kind of taking you through step by step on how to make certain homemade dressings and very simple recipes that are super healthy and nutritious. Nutrient dense.

Mike: Right, because we're not being paid to be fitness models, like we're real people that work out to optimize our health, so if you want to learn practical ways to just make a quick, 15 minute meal, check us on Instagram and also on the High Intensity Health members site, we do have a member portal where we give you more in depth details and tutorials in the kitchen, so, as always, I'm grateful. I appreciate you guys tuning in. Look forward to catching you on the next episode, and have a happy healthy day.