Strength Renewed

00:20
We're on. Yeah. Hi, Mix. Hi, Jess, how are you? Well, I'm doing really well. I hope that my sound quality has improved immensely. I got a big girl microphone. I know. Do I sound like Whitney Houston? You, oh, I was. You're like, not really. No, I was not expecting that to come out of your mouth. I love Whitney. Do you know, in my- She's my favorite artist too.

00:49
My age six, my sixth birthday. It was on a Saturday and we had the show in New Zealand. I just want to take a moment and think about Mickey as a six year old. Okay, I'm there, go ahead. Okay, good. And I was, we were having a birthday party because I'm a twin. And RTR Countdown was on, that's ready to roll Countdown. Number one song when I was six, Jess, was I Wanna Dance With Somebody. The best song ever.

01:19
I know. It was amazing. I love it. When I'm having the absolute... I think I told you, I think there's been like science to prove it, but there's Jessica to prove it. If you were having a terrible day, just want everybody to know, you go ahead and turn up Whitney real loud that song, I want to dance with somebody. Think about Mickey as a six-year-old, but more than importantly, just turn it on and have like the dance party of your life. And I guarantee you will, after the three and a half minutes of the song is done, and you've done your thing and you've said all the words.

01:48
You'll feel so much better. Oh, so much better. I know. We could end the podcast now. That's all. I know we could. Yeah. Another fun fact though about Whitney, before we get onto the conversation we're speaking about, but apparently the movie, The Bodyguard has the most number one hits of any movie soundtrack because she did all those amazing songs. I loved that movie so much. I still, again, I mean.

02:16
Now this whole podcast, I'm going to be thinking about Whitney Houston. I have nothing. I may have the mic Jessica, but don't go there. Don't go there. Well, hopefully I'm coming to you live with a little dream of Whitney Houston into the mic. I love it. It's nice. It's good. Happy Monday to you. Happy Super Bowl Sunday afternoon to me. Okay, Jess, what is it about Super Bowl?

02:42
Super Bowl, I'm hearing a lot of, I mean, obviously I know what Super Bowl is, but I tell you what, everywhere on my feed, not about the game, it's all about the food. Like why is it all about the food? Would you like to know what were what terribly unhealthy things? Mostly it's, it's a nutritious nightmare. Yeah, you do. Years ago, I went to a friend's Super Bowl party and it was really fun. She had a, she basically did the food to match.

03:09
the teams. So like today, the Kansas City Chiefs are playing the Eagles and somebody asked me, well, what is the food? And I was like, well, I think when you're in Philadelphia, you eat Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, right? Which sounds pretty great. And then if you're watching Kansas City, I think they're known for their butter cake or something like that. Anyways, I'm just imploding with the caloric goodness. But it's an afternoon where you...

03:37
watch the best commercials and all the land and you root for whoever. I'm a 49er fan, so neither of these are my teams. And you eat a ridiculous amount of chips and dip and seven layer dips. And there's just a lot of dippy things, just a lot of sauces and dips. I think that would sort of be the way that I would describe what you eat. And is that going on in the DBSC household this afternoon? We're like...

04:07
Probably a little bit more low-key to the way we Jeff and I are we were invited to Super Bowl Our son is at a Super Bowl party. So that's great. So he's he's like I'm out My daughter is eight and she can give two fucks about Super Bowl. So she's with a friend So great my dear like husband is actually one of those people who legitimately likes to you know, sit down like himself Yeah, watch the game like he actually loves

04:33
to watch the Super Bowl, no matter who's in it. So being at a party is almost distracting for him. So I had to politely decline this really nice offer of going to the party and he'd much prefer to kind of sit in a relaxed state. And if you wanna know one other like little fun fact, Jeff grew up in Maryland. And when he was really little, his dad passed away when he was young. So he has a nice memory of watching the Super Bowl with his dad, eating what they call beans and Franks, which is very, very healthy hot dogs.

05:02
and very, very healthy baked beans. So as part, since I married him, part of the tradition that we do at the DBSC house, if you're asking, is we certainly have some chips and salsa and dippy things, but we are very certain to have hot dogs and baked beans in honor of Jeff's dad so he can kind of have this sweet memory of their time together. So that's what our table looks like. Oh, that sounds great.

05:27
Harry and Mickey should come to the DBSC household next year for a Super Bowl party. I'm trying to get it so you guys can have a house here and spend half of your time in New Zealand and half your time in California. It's not a crazy dream, is it? No, it's not a crazy dream at all. As soon as I said that- Before I go, how did you do your podcast? I'm like, this amazing world of technology. My best friend can live in New Zealand and I can live here.

05:49
We can be together. The magic happens. After we're done here, I'll go bring you, I'll show you, I'll take you into the room and you can see what is laid out here. I'll take a picture of it. I would actually love that. And I did actually realize as soon as I said that that Jeff is so uninterested in Barry and I coming to a Super Bowl party at your house. To your point, how distracting. How he wouldn't be able to watch the game. Cause he's not a total curmudgeon. He just likes to like kind of sit there in all seriousness and just sort of watch it. But yes, I would say people love to

06:19
They love to have as much cheesy cheese dip and sour cream and beans and all of the chips and all the drinks. Well, I tell you what, we're talking about... There's lots of beer for you. Oh, I don't mind that. I'll tell you what. So we had friends over on Saturday night. This is to the point of our conversation today. And he relayed a stat that he heard as the average number of calories that someone might eat on a Super Bowl day. Do you know what the number is?

06:46
I'm going to guess and I'm going to guess. I'm going to say that the average number is crazy. It's a crazy guess. But I'm going to say the average number of calories is 3500 calories. Okay. He got a stat of 11,000 calories. Holy shit. I don't even know how that's possible. Actually, I'm not even sure if it's possible either. But all I do know is that if you think about like the most calorie-laden food, they're typically built in like...

07:12
sauces and all these things. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's not sometimes people are like, well, it's, you know, it's not really like the salad you ate. It's like six helpings of dressing. You know what I mean? That you just dumped on that was like 2000. You didn't need to do that because you can have this over here and it'll taste just as good. But it's like, you know, it's like hot dogs in a crescent roll or you know, I mean, and by the way, the other thing that gets you is guess how long the Super Bowl lasts? Like four hours or something? Four hours. Oh, yeah. And all you're doing is you're...

07:41
for the people that are not us, you're eating, you're watching a game, you're couch quarterbacking, you're having another hot dog and a crescent roll. Before you know it, you've had 11 or 13. And you might be having some frozen deckeries. I was thinking 3500, but yeah, I mean 11,000. On this particular day doesn't seem unreasonable because they're, I think people almost like papoo you if you have a veggie platter. They're not really into that. They're sort of like, like we've been saving our calories for the month and here we go. So this is kind of what this feels like, you know.

08:09
And to be fair, he surely he must have been overstating it. And if anyone is like going, that's a lot of calories, albeit one day is neither here nor there really, in the big scheme of things. I mean, 11,000 maybe. I know actually. And there is a lot. You may have to be doing this several days of detoxing, but you know what? We are here for a good time, Mickey and Jess are. And I kind of, I love to know, I love the concept of like, people gathering and eating, you know, kind of.

08:38
fun foods and so I did get kind of a funny dip that I got talked into at a store. So again, for that same reason, because why not? Well, I think I did. I tried it. I'm also a sucker. There's like certain stores where you go in and they like they're doing like demos. You know, like here, you can buy this, this cheese here and you can get this cracker here. And if you combine it like this. So yes, I am 100% that person. I buy whatever you're selling. Yeah. So.

09:06
They have that for us. This is a wonderful segue into weight loss resistance though. Too many 11,000 calorie days people and it's not really weight loss resistance that you're sort of like, I've got to ask some serious questions. But yes, so one thing I wanted to chat about today, Jess, which I found super interesting is I listened to a podcast and we'll pop it in the show notes for people to be able to listen to it themselves. Yep. It was on a podcast called Validy.

09:36
Oh no, I think it's validity. Her name is Belle. I don't listen to the podcast. I only listen to because Dr. Bill Campbell was on it and he is a weight loss, physique and obesity researcher. So he spends his time in the trenches working with people, not necessarily those who have obesity. That's not really his target population. His target population are more the people that we...

10:04
see a lot of the time, the 10 pounds maybe overweight, the not quite comfortable in their skin and trying to get already fairly lean people even leaner. Like I would say that would sort of be his target. A hundred percent. His target demographic. I think it's important to like a fairly lean person to get them even leaner. Yes. That's it. And interestingly, up until maybe six months ago, I'm not sure I made that up, but you know, a few months ago, maybe a year ago,

10:34
Dr. Campbell has really sort of hung his hat on the idea that it is actually just about calories. Like if you eat less calories than you expend, you will lose weight. So he's very clear on that. And if you listen to the likes of Layne Norton, of other people in the field, this is what they will say. And to a large extent, I agree. Like to create, if you create a deficit.

11:03
then you were going to burn body fat because you particularly, obviously if it's less than what you, well, the definition of a deficit is you're eating less and you're burning. However, he said the person that has swung his opinion on this is his wife because his wife came up against the problem that you and I talk about all of the time with our clients is that she was doing quote unquote

11:33
everything right, still not seeing results in perimenopause. And so he's now thinking, there is something else going on here and there is weight loss resistance going on in this category of the population. And I've been a little bit remiss to just try to explain it a way that, oh, they don't know what they're doing. They aren't tracking properly. They're overestimating

12:03
Like his wife, for example, she did everything 100%, still couldn't lose weight. And so for him, as a researcher, it took that personal experience, as it always seems to do, to challenge his thinking. And to his credit, he is now researching this. And in addition to just his wife, he's also said he has had received several thousand messages actually from women of our age group.

12:32
who've experienced the same thing. So I love seeing a scientist and a researcher change their mind in the face of new information, because not everyone does that. So I think that's super important. So then the next question would be, OK, so clearly this woman was acutely aware because she was a science experiment, basically. So she was tracking her food. When we say perfectly, there's no such thing, but she was as.

13:01
perfect to this clinical trial, essentially, that she had because she was literally part of this experiment. So she was very, very conscientious about her dietary intake. She was very conscientious about her strength work, I'm guessing, and she was still suffering from some amount of weight loss resistance. So now we move into this really elusive topic called HRT. Was that the next step for her?

13:31
which I felt would be quite good for us to have on the back of our previous conversation last week about, you know, is HRT the only answer? And it's like, well, no, here's this laundry list, all the other things that you need to consider. And then, and because of course, you know, it isn't just weight loss resistance that we experienced through perimenopause, there's a whole range of symptoms that you and I have discussed and talked about sort of troubleshooting last week. But the conversation of HRT came up as...

14:00
because on the podcast, the host asked the question, well, would HRT help with weight loss? Is that the missing, is that the magic sort of ingredient, if you like, that is going to then help someone shift past the resistance and actually start seeing the results of what they're doing. And the reality is, so I've got two answers actually. I'll tell you what,

14:29
or not two answers, but I've got a few things, a couple of things I want to chat about briefly, of course, because you know that I can be quite verbose. But essentially, where the research is right now, we cannot definitively say that HRT would help someone get over the weight loss resistance. But what we do know is that if hormones are an issue and you're doing everything right, then there is...

14:58
the potential that they could help. And I just do want to go over some of the reasons if that's all right, as to why they could potentially help.

15:11
And so the comfort, but just to, we're also clear. So we started by talking about this one doctor who was like very bombastic about calories in calories out. That's the way you lose weight. Then studying his wife religiously, she was sort of somewhat of perimenopausal age, she was really struggling. She was doing all those things. He's like, okay, really then the next step is we should examine like, you know, HRT in this conversation of weight loss resistance, correct? No. He said, okay. I think that.

15:41
previous concept of calories and what is going to be required for weight loss, we have to shift that conversation because right now, when you set up a diet, just very briefly, you want to drop those calories by about 25%, say, from what they would previously be to elicit the deficit. So that is what she was trying to do and it wasn't enough. So he has, in fact, so he talked about...

16:10
the fact that you need an even more aggressive calorie drop to just kickstart that process. So it's not enough just to create a deficit of 25%, which is pretty standard, you might need to go to 40%. So if you think, Jess, of someone who's eating 2000 calories a day to then drop to 1200 calories a day, that's a significant drop, but that is potentially what might need to be required.

16:40
But the other thing he also talked about was actually reducing overall stress, like reducing the stress that's created through high intensity workouts, just walk. So really offloading the stress that the body is experiencing because he really felt that stress was sort of playing a role. Okay. And then the question came up from the host. He didn't say anything about HRT. She asked, would HRT help? Okay. So now we're at the part of this story.

17:09
does HRT help with weight loss resistance? And the answer is, Well, we don't know. It is unclear because, and one of the reasons it's unclear is because there's very little research done in this space in women of our age who are in her position, who are taking HRT for that, for a particular purpose. It might be weight loss resistance that is the reason. And you know, you and I talk about this a bit, like people talk a lot about the,

17:38
wanting to go on HRT for particular symptoms, but for many of the symptoms, they may have other symptoms, but they also have this weight loss resistance that they're experiencing. So will it help? Well, a couple of things to be, I guess, to consider with HRT if you're doing everything right is that it could help reduce fat gain, especially the visceral fat, so the fat that is in and around your organs.

18:08
which is pro-inflammatory. And this is because declining estrogen reduces your ability to tolerate carbohydrates. So you become more insulin resistant. So if you are given an estrogen patch, for example, and you go on HRT, this will help improve that insulin sensitivity. Okay. So that's one way where HRT might be helpful.

18:34
Also, of course, HRT, when combined with strength training and protein, may help preserve lean muscle mass, which will support metabolism.

18:43
Okay. Estrogen therapy does change or modulate cortisol levels. So this may reduce stress-related weight gain.

18:56
And there's a question that it could help support thyroid function as well.

19:03
So it sounds like there's some things to look at. Like it could definitely be a benefit. Where could it be? You know, what are some side effects? Well, this is, yeah, this is a great question because, you know, it's not like, and my friend Lara, Lara Bryden, who I'm sure a lot of listeners will be really familiar with her. She's written three books based around women's hormones now and women's metabolism. And she is actually pretty against estrogen.

19:31
replacement through the perimenopausal cycle. And the reason for this is because there's a lot of fluctuating estrogen at this time. And so estrogen is three times higher a lot of the time rather than low. So by giving estrogen, it might just really add fuel to the fire. And so some of these like really common symptoms of high estrogen levels like

20:00
breast tenderness, like mood swings, headaches, bloating, decreased libido, fatigue and brain fog. These are all symptoms potentially of a high estrogen load. So this is why she's not a fan of just giving estrogen out the gate through perimenopause. So the whole thing, it's super interesting, isn't it? Because to Dr. Campbell's point, which is,

20:30
Lara talks about this as well, maybe underlying a lot of it is the stress that's placed on the body. Even though there are mechanisms there with giving estrogen, there's reasons why it could potentially look like it could be helpful from weight loss resistance. But if the underlying issue is, say, a stress-related issue that the body's just been tightly

20:58
like a rubber band about to break. But that's where you're at. Then the HRT isn't necessarily going to help that. No. And in fact, it's the reducing stress that could potentially help that. So that's such an important point, I think, that I want to empower when we both do. But here, this is sort of to better understand what HRT even is. Here are the pros and a little bit of the cons. And again, there is such.

21:26
there's so much more research to go with this, but this is kind of what we know so far. But it's almost like, you're almost sort of, I think for it's very difficult for people because they almost have to sort of gamble slightly. You know, that's why I think it's always a good idea to like take this stuff. If the symptoms are really impacting your day to day life, you know what I mean? Then it might be worth it. Otherwise you really have to understand like this is a great way to think about it. You're kind of...

21:53
I mean, you're taking it in a little bit of a roll the dice because you're not exactly sure, like, what is the root cause of it? So it's like, it only sort of helps you if it like, it matches the root cause it can help. That's exactly right. And it feels a little frustrating, I imagine, to be sitting here listening to this thinking, there are so many reasons why it could help, but there are so many reasons how it might not help at all. And I would say, Jess,

22:22
nothing is set in stone. You can go to your doctor. And I would recommend in fact that people buy Lara's book, Hormone Repair Manual. We'll put this in the show notes as well, like a link to it. And it's an excellent book. And part of it is because Lara provides scripts that you can take and have so you can easily have the conversation with your doctor. Because a lot of us look like

22:48
our doctor like they are the voice of authority and they've got the last decision. Whereas your doctor is like a supermarket checkout operator. They're there for a service. That's not meaning to be disrespectful to supermarket checkout operators or doctors, but they're in service roles. So they are there to provide you with the service and you are, you just need to own a little bit more of your own health and take that responsibility.

23:18
and have the conversation with your doctor. And Lara does a great job of providing you with prompts so you can have that conversation. And I think that's the important thing because a lot of us just don't know what to ask. And then we feel a bit flustered and then we just look to the doctor for cues. And then, you know, it's an intimidating conversation anyway but if we feel in any way that the doctor is going to, going to,

23:46
have a negative response or immediately not be on board with it, then we'll probably backtrack quite quickly and then we'll just take what they say as gospel without actually recognizing that they don't necessarily have all of the answers as well. And hopefully there is on board with you coming to them with your knowledge and they're open to learning from you as well. Correct. So just again, but also we, there's...

24:13
seems to be two kind of major big buzzwords right now, and that's HRT and that's GLP when it comes to some lifeboat in the weight loss resistance world. So we'll talk about GLPs at another point. But for the purpose of today, I think for weight loss resistance, keep wearing your weight vest, keep doing your resistance training. That's all really good. Be so unbelievably mindful about, not on Super Bowl Sunday, but...

24:40
so unbelievably mindful of, there's Jeff, right? See? Yeah. Screaming at the television. But to be super mindful of what you're eating, but also to be mindful of all of the messaging. Because I think if this is a, Mickey and I are having these conversations with you, right? Because we want you to sort of.

25:06
quiet a little bit of some of the outside noise because you're getting so much information. And I'm not saying that take our information as gospel, but maybe just focus here first, right? Because there's just a lot to be had. Let us kind of do some of the vetting for you, give you a little bit of a less overwhelming space to think about HR, to just even the idea that, to think about it, that when I take this, and for some people,

25:35
they are going to take it and their symptoms are going to improve immediately. That is a population of people. There are going to be some, by the way, that might make them more bloated than they were before. And then there's going to be a little bit of the in-between because what they're experiencing, to Mickey's point, is high levels of cortisol from their jobs or their lives or whatever. And the HRT may not be able to mitigate that particular piece, right? I kind of see it as like...

26:04
you know, like water kind of squashing these little fires in your body. And like if it's doesn't, if it's something that can't be put out by this fire, it's not going to help it. Again, I speak and I try to speak, um, in, in straightforward terminology that hopefully is helpful to you all. But that, I know that was really big for me because I just thought, like, people are telling me the outside world is telling me to take this. If I'm experiencing perimenopausal symptoms and I'm going to feel better.

26:33
or I'm going to be, you know, followed my weight loss resistance will kind of dissipate. And it can do that. But it may not do that too, I guess is my point. But here we want you to start having these conversations. We want you to start thinking about it a little bit differently. It is an option to talk about with your doctor, even if they try to talk you out of it or to also tell you that

27:02
there isn't enough research to have that, give them some questions, push them a little bit. Mickey, you reminded me today that the metaphor you were making about the checkout person at a grocery store is in the sense that they are there to serve you, believe it or not. We're so concerned that the doctor's like, oh, I'm not sure if they're gonna accept this, but really it's not like that. You need to let them know, you know your body, you've heard this, you hear it all the time, but you know your body better than anybody.

27:32
But I think if you can come to our space, if you can come to the living room of Mickey and I, we are literally diving our hearts and souls into this very topic. We are both experiencing this, you know, perimenopause symptoms too. We're with you, we understand it, and we're trying to better understand it so that all the information that we're giving you, myself included, I can feel a little bit more empowered by it, less like it's happening to me, but more that I can do something about it. Yeah, and I would just like to...

28:01
I'll finish up by saying that you don't find this stuff in the research because it is an understudied population, the perimenopause, menopausal transition, who are gaining weight. I mean, don't get me wrong, in the health literature, there are a gazillion studies on women with overweight and obesity who have a lot of excess body fat, but there are just a whole lot less.

28:31
There are definitely some studies, but hardly any of women who you and I deal with on an everyday basis. So this is probably why you're told it's always calories, because actually there's nothing else to sort of guide the researchers as to give you a different answer. This is what I love about Dr. Bill Campbell. He's like, someone's got to study it now. And that's what he's doing. Yeah, good. Well, we're here for the literature. We're here for the research. But you know, really, you know,

29:00
be mindful and I'm going to go back to this. You know, we talked about this several months ago with you, but I'm going to go back to writing my, you know, kind of keeping a clear space to know exactly what I'm eating, you know, each day, because I think it just allows me to have like some kind of perspective. So when I do go back and wonder where these symptoms are being caused, at least I have like data points. I think that's important to have.

29:26
And I would be curious to, maybe on our next show, I'd love to know your HRT story, too. I'd love to know when you started it and how it's helped you and why you're continuing to motivate you to do all the things. Because this is just where we are right now, what we have to do. But frankly, it's also kind of a privilege, too, you guys. So I hope you can not think about being

29:56
30s or 40s or whatever, as some like, think, oh God, I'm here and have dealt with this. It's actually kind of amazing. There's some incredible, you can build strength too. You can literally have a whole host of wonderful things happening to your body right now. And it's certainly a better time than maybe it was 10 or 20 years ago when there wasn't even the research that's available to us now. But Mickey and I are here. We're getting tons of questions too. So I think we'll kind of open it up as well and kind of

30:25
answer the questions that are coming in from you guys. But I'm going to go and eat some hot dogs and dip and take out. I can't wait to see what that looks like. Awesome, Jess. Great to talk to you as always. Bye, everybody. Bye.

30:45
Well, that was as usual, another IOPoD. Again, I always say the best part of these podcasts and conversations together is that I never want them to end. Amazing. I love it. I'm so pleased that you get a lot from it too. Honestly, it's great. What are you grateful for today?

31:07
I'm grateful Jess that this morning, this sounds very superficial, but I am quite grateful that the last long training run is done for this ultra. And now we're just counting down the days until it's done. But I'm also very grateful to have been out there on a Monday morning and it was just beautiful weather. It was super beautiful summer smells and birds and whatnot. So actually that was very lovely. So it was a lovely last long run. How many miles was that just for a run? Oh, not many. It was...

31:35
I don't say that. Okay. It was only about 11 miles. Only 11 miles. That's a lot of miles. Yeah. And what about you, Jess? What are you grateful for? I am grateful that I am grateful that my mood has improved not from 11 miles, but truly my mood has improved from our conversation today. I love that we're helping people and I love that I'm actually helping myself as well. So I feel like I'm part of our community, our collective community.

32:04
of feeling helped. And I'm grateful for our relationship. I'm really grateful to continue like it. I mean, I might say this every time and then I'll try to think of something else too. But this is, you know, the fact that we're bringing children into the universe, it feels really good. And so in the sort of like, you know, early stages of this, something we were working on for a long time, but like it feels awesome to be able to do it. And I'm really grateful for that.

32:33
I love that. Nice one. I feel a little more empowered. There's nothing worse than when you feel a little bit unempowered. I agree. And also when you don't quite have a plan. And I think it feels really good when you just take, I always say, habits are made by the smallest steps. So I have a little bit of an action item to do and things feel better that way. The world is a little more open. I love it. Nice, this. Yay. Yay. Now you get to go eat. I know you're hungry.

33:02
I'm sorry.