276. Simplifying Food: Liz Wolfe on the Magic of Macros (especially as we age)

Audience favorite Liz Wolfe is back! Macros matter more than you might expect. Liz and I both cover macros in our work, although from different (yet complimentary) angles, so expect a wide-ranging, dot-connecting conversation that'll give you a deeper understanding of the magic of macros.
 Among the Questions Explored:

• What exactly are macros and how do I balance them to quiet food noise and reduce emotional eating?   
• Why is protein so crucial, especially as I age?
• How do I know if I'm getting enough protein?
• Wait, I don't have to fear carbs?!

About Liz: Liz Wolfe is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Certified Personal Trainer, and best-selling author who encourages women to embrace their inner (and outer) badass while keeping the efficiency high and the drama low. She's the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Eat the Yolks, host of the award-winning Balanced Bites Podcast, founder of IdealAge supplements and Daily Aminos+, and creator of the Own Your Metabolism program. Connect: Instagram, Facebook, Website

Mentioned:

• Liz Wolfe's 8-week Own Your Metabolism course is open through June 28th (Use code "Ali50" for $50 off!) 
• 271. Over 40 Metabolism Myths with Liz Wolfe, NTP and Certified Personal Trainer
• 164. Radical Healing: Light, mitochondria dysfunction and weight gain with Brandon Mentore
• 117. Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong with Journalist Angela Saini

Connect with Ali & Insatiable:

Transcript

Ali Shapiro [00:00:06]:
Hello, y'all.

Ali Shapiro [00:00:08]:
It is summer here officially in the Northern Hemisphere. Well, actually, I'm recording it the day before sun summer, but you'll be listening to this on Thursday, June 20th, and we're when we're that's when we're releasing it, and that is the solstice. It is summer summer time as Will Smith saying. So that means lots of picnics, parties, and travel. In other words, lots of disruption to our routines. I personally love this right now. I'm just in this season of I gotta mix stuff up, guys. I am changing my workouts.

Ali Shapiro [00:00:48]:
Gonna go to a new hairdresser. Who knows what is next? However, this kind of disruption to my routine, not the kind I'm choosing, but, like, last week, we went to a graduation party or, lots of birthday parties going on right now. Right? This kind of disruption to my routine used to really stress me that out. Okay? Because it made me feel really out of control with my food. I wasn't really thinking about how fun all the events would be. I'd be like, oh my God, what am I going to eat? There's going to be all this delicious food. And I would just say, okay, I can only start my diet or new nutrition goals once these parties are over, or I just have to skip the events. Okay? But one of the main things that changed my needing, what I thought was like a strict plan to eat or any plan was learning how to balance my macros about 2 decades ago.

Ali Shapiro [00:01:47]:
So I teach about macros in my work because they offer the structure to both balance your blood sugar, so you'll feel satiated and craving free, and you'll be able to be moderate with yummy desserts. But they you'll also get the results you want, but they also allow for the flexibility of not having complete control over your food all the time. Like when you're traveling, when you're, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike as we were when we were coming back from Philly, not a lot of options and maybe seeing something delicious at a picnic you want and you only want to eat one serving. So, for example, last week, we were at a graduation party for my cousin, Denise, and her husband, Dave, and their daughter, Grace. And Grace is just graduated from high school, getting ready to college. We went out to the burbs, and I don't go to a party and eat beforehand. I just that rule was never one I really, like, stuck to, but I also wanna share in food with everyone. I was gonna see my aunt and uncle, yada yada.

Ali Shapiro [00:02:52]:
So I knew how to eat there based on this gorgeous buffet they had so that I would actually feel satisfied and satiated. And I ate, they had their they have a Polish background, so there was, Kebab, what is it called? Kebab it's not it's kind of like a sausage type food. They had sauerkraut, so I got my veggies in. I forget what else I ate, but I knew I needed to get that protein to feel satisfied. And I didn't know if I was going to have dessert or not. But when they brought out dessert, they had these, like, oh my god. They were delicious. They were just, like, little tiny pieces of cake with, like, mint chocolate in them.

Ali Shapiro [00:03:35]:
And so I was able to have 1, and, actually, I went back for another one because they were so delicious. But I was able to have 2 of those and then stop and be super moderate because my blood sugar was balanced because I knew what macros I needed. Okay? That was not me 20 years ago. Right? And or like one of another example is one of my Truth With Food clients just last week said, you know, oh my god. Now that she knows how to get her macaronis met, she's like, I can walk past a doughnut and not even care. Right? So this happens when we're at parties and picnics, but also, when we're just in our everyday life. It really changes once you know your macros. So you get the structure, so you're gonna feel satiated and satisfied, but the flexibility when you don't have control of your food.

Ali Shapiro [00:04:26]:
And so I wanted to teach about macros, and because of this, especially in a time where most of us will be out of our routines. And we got such great feedback on my podcast with Liz Wolf a couple weeks back. She and she came on to talk about our over our metabolism over 40 and those and bust some metabolism myths that I wanted to have Liz back on to talk about changing our macros and what works for us as we age, because she teaches about macros in her own Your Metabolism class, which is coming up for registration, open today through June 27th. And she's offering insatiable listeners $50 off with the code Ali 50, a l I 50. And we'll put the code and the links to the program, in the show notes if you're interested in it after, you hear this episode. Because we need to understand our macronutrient profile, and it can shift as you age. I know mine shifted for sure, and I figured that out because of my insomnia. Or maybe you've never known what macros work best for you and you really realize, like, I gotta figure this out because I'm struggling with cravings, I'm struggling with hunger, especially in perimenopause and menopause.

Ali Shapiro [00:05:48]:
As our macro needs shift, what used to work, It feels like what I used to eat doesn't work anymore, meaning health, weight, sleep, all the things. So I want to you to learn more about macros to help you get on the path of the right foods that work for you in this season of your life or fine tune if you're finding you have hit some frustration with your nutrition and health goals. Because this is just important for your health, and it's not just summer anymore that changes our routines and schedules. I was listening to one of Brene Brown's podcasts, and she had a futurist on. I believe her name was Amy Webb. I believe that's right. And she said that people a 100 years from now are gonna look back on this period of time and say these people were generation t, meaning generation transition. So bringing this down to the nutrition level, understanding our macros is so important because of that structure flexibility combination it gives.

Ali Shapiro [00:06:51]:
Okay. So onto the show. But before, more about Liz, if you aren't familiar with her or her work. Liz Wolf is a nutritional therapy practitioner, certified personal trainer, and the best selling author who encourages women, all women, but especially the 40 ish crowd, to embrace their inner and outer badass while keeping the efficiency high and the drama low. After spending the latter of her thirties in denial about in denial about the milestone that is the big four o, She realized that getting real about the aging prog prog process is not just a privilege, but an empower, exciting, and necessary step to living your most fulfilled life. Liz is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Eat the Yolks, host of the award winning Balance Bites podcast, founder of Ideal Age Supplements and Daily Ominos Plus, and creator of the Own Your Metabolism program. Again, that program is open for registration today, June 20th through June 27th. And if you use the code Ali 50, a l I 50, you'll save $50.

Ali Shapiro [00:08:02]:
You can also connect with Liz on Instagram at real food liz, and we'll include all of this in the show notes. Alright. Enjoy this episode. It was a lot of fun, really insightful, and I know that you'll come out of this feeling like you don't have to wait till diet starts tomorrow, and you can handle any situation with enjoying your food and feeling healthy at the same time. Enjoy the show. Liz, thank you for coming back on the show. Everyone loved your first episode. And, actually, like, we looked at the data, people listened to the end of the the 90, 100 minute show on metabolism.

Ali Shapiro [00:08:46]:
That's a big deal. You're telling me, especially in this day and age, yeah. Yeah.

Liz Wolfe [00:08:51]:
Andrea Wien It's just that chemistry. It's that chemistry we

Ali Shapiro [00:08:54]:
have together. Andrea Wien It is. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to have you back because last week in my Truth with Food group, which is running right now, one of the women, she was so funny. She's like, You know, when I first realized that I had trauma, I just looked at everyone and was like, Oh, we're all just traumatized. And she now has learned about blood sugar. And she's like, You know, now I realize, oh, everyone's just hungry, too.

Liz Wolfe [00:09:23]:
We are. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, just hungry.

Ali Shapiro [00:09:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. And so, I know that you talk about macros and you know about them so much, and I teach about them too. And we we teach about them, I'm assuming, a little differently. But I wanted to have you back on because macros changed my life when I learned about them, through, I tell everyone, I learned really about them through Barry Sears' The Zone Diet book. Like, yeah. And I didn't eating his food did not help me, but learning the concept of macros really was, like, the first, I would say ring around the spiral staircase that got me to start to repair my relationship with food, my body. And so I wanted to talk to you about macros today Yeah.

Liz Wolfe [00:10:13]:
If that's if that's cool. Totally. Did I think we talked about this maybe when you came on my podcast, which hasn't aired yet as of this recording, your appearance on my show. But did we not say can we talk about how Barry Sears is back? No. Is he? He's totally back. Well, he I don't think he ever left, but he's got this Instagram account that appears to be relatively new. So So I followed him the other day, and he totally followed me back, and I had this moment where I was like, oh, Barry Sears is following me. But, yes, the the whole zone thing.

Liz Wolfe [00:10:43]:
But I wanna actually can I interview you quickly and ask you how like, tell me more about how the whole macros thing changed your life? Was it satiety? Like, what was it?

Ali Shapiro [00:10:55]:
Yeah. So, you know, I this was my early twenties, and I was still heavily steeped in diet culture. I mean, we didn't even have language for that back then. But I was really I had read a couple books that was like, Oh, cancer survivors should be vegetarian. And so I tried to be vegetarian. And I remember my roommate in college and I, we would eat those soy dogs. I mean, I think they still have them. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:11:22]:
And so I was eating all this fake vegetarian food. Maybe I didn't do it correctly, but I was still having insatiable cravings. I was hungry. Blood sugar and realizing, Oh, I need meat, just it really it changed my satiety, my hunger, and that protein was like, Oh, my God. Then I could kind of layer everything else, but the protein realizing like And it was just this real Also, my work comes from a developmental lens. It was also developmentally where I started to be like, Woah, maybe there isn't one answer here. Maybe you really have to just figure out what works for you. So Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:12:05]:
What about you? How did you get into macros? This is making

Liz Wolfe [00:12:08]:
me think about that. This macros thing is actually quite new for me, but it's kind of the culmination of many years of trying to figure out what generally works best for most people as a starting point. And so it sounds like you started from a really good starting point. I, you know, I bounced in and out of a lot of things, but my starting point was actually Atkins, another, you know, old school male doctor that, you know, supported program. But but it did. I think it was the satiety. I think it was realizing that if fat wasn't bad, I think that was really big for me too because, like, you and I have talked about, we our age bracket, we kind of straddle the low fat, like, fat being bad thing, and then now the carbs being bad thing. So we're kind of we've been steeped in both worlds, which is just kind of funny.

Liz Wolfe [00:13:00]:
It makes me it really ages me, it feels like. But it was definitely Atkins for me. And I think without really realizing it, probably was the protein that was keeping me so balanced. I wasn't thinking about blood sugar regulation or anything like that. At the time, I was just thinking about what was gonna help me lose weight, but I could still gorge on something. You know? So Yeah. Just take up little pieces of stuff here and there. But then at this point in time, thinking a lot more about mid life.

Liz Wolfe [00:13:28]:
You know? We wanna talk about age brackets, thinking about being in our forties and what's gonna work best, not just from the perspective of, you know, blood sugar balance, but also how are we supporting muscle mass and all signs point to protein, not just protein. I know we're gonna talk about carbs too, but that first number one thing is certainly protein.

Ali Shapiro [00:13:48]:
Yes. Yes. Yeah. I think you bring up such a good point of, you know, when people are trying to get out of diet culture or people are saying, you know, don't count calories, all this stuff, it's And we're like, why are people still doing that? It's because we don't know what's actually working. Right? It's like, oh, overall, what we're taught is some strategy of restriction is working, whether it's calories, carbs, fat. And so it's like, oh, I'm being good as long as I'm restricting, right? Like, again, this is all Anything. Restrict something. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:14:20]:
Yeah. But thinking about what a tweak it is to go When we talk about carbs from Adkins to what I think of as more Mediterranean and stuff like that. So it can make such a difference. So that's why I really wanted to talk about this because I think sometimes people are making it more complicated. And I think macros Well, first of all, tell people what macros are. I mean, I think some people really know, some people don't, because some of my clients, when I'm like, Let's just track your protein for a couple days. And they're like, Well, I'm not trying to body build, or I'm not trying to lose weight, or I wanna lose weight. And I'm like, No, macros can be for everybody.

Ali Shapiro [00:15:01]:
So- Yes. Doctor. What are macros? And let's start there. This is gonna

Liz Wolfe [00:15:07]:
be a long one for me. I'm sorry. This is how I do it. But macro to me represent a return to balance and learning what balance looks like again because we've really forgotten. We've really, really forgotten. And what stinks is that our instincts are so messed up and so de attuned from all of these years, decades of dieting and doing crazy things that we have really forgotten what balance looks like. And so in order to retrain ourselves, there's sort of the camp of intuitive eating, which I think is wonderful for many reasons and can sometimes go awry for others. And then there's also the quantification of it where you're actually learning by the numbers what balance looks like.

Liz Wolfe [00:15:46]:
So looping it back to what macronutrient what macros actually are, we are talking about macronutrients, protein, carb, and fat. There's a really interesting conversation right now around alcohol being a macronutrient, but needless to say, we are not going to actually talk about that today. Is it the same

Ali Shapiro [00:16:04]:
that. Is it the same people that paid to have studies tell us alcohol was healthy? I mean I don't.

Liz Wolfe [00:16:11]:
It's just people that need something new to talk about, I think. And I don't know. But, I mean, it's true. Like, there is a caloric value to alcohol, and it's not it's not protein or carb. I don't know. I I have no idea. But, you know, people will be like, well, alcohol is a micronutrient too. Okay.

Liz Wolfe [00:16:27]:
Well, we're gonna skip alcohol for the sake of this conversation. We're just gonna talk about the actual raw materials of energy, like, structure and, you know, hormone balance and stuff like that. So when we talk about macros, we're actually talking about balancing protein, carbohydrate, and fat in the ideal, quote, unquote, ideal ratios for form and function, mostly function. But I think that's the association that people have with, like, bodybuilding and physique type stuff because it really is there is an interaction between form and function oftentimes. So, you know, bodybuilders will go way heavy on the protein and their macros will be a little bit different. But in general, if we're, like, talking about the zone, for example, and what I think works really well is I'm pretty sure Barry Sears, advocated, what, 30% of calories from protein, 40% from carbs, and 30% from fat. Does that sound right?

Ali Shapiro [00:17:21]:
Yes. Yes. Okay. And what I tell everyone too is like so I think of these on a spectrum like well, when people get conflicted about like vegetarian, vegan, Mediterranean, paleo, keto, ultimately, a lot of those diets have a ton of stuff in common, right? Like, you should be doing a lot of variety, you should be doing whole foods. But what ultimately makes them different is just Their macros are what makes them different. Right? So vegetarian, you want Most people will do more carbohydrates, more plant based fats, more plant based proteins. The zone Mediterranean, what you're talking about, that balance is like, okay, you can do a little plant protein, a little bit animal protein, a little bit plant fat, a little bit plant, animal fat, and that's like the middle, the moderate middle. And then on the other side is like paleo and keto, which are just different macronutrients of quality of more animal heavy, both fat and protein, and less carbs.

Ali Shapiro [00:18:21]:
But, ultimately, all those diets are what they're really just saying is we're recommending different macronutrients.

Liz Wolfe [00:18:26]:
That's Yeah. You're manipulating your macros in a different way.

Ali Shapiro [00:18:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. So we can forget all the marketing terms of vegetarian, keto, this or that, especially I like how you say form and function. We're going to talk a lot about function. And just what's essential is the macros to me. And I like teaching it because of that. And also, I think it gives people flexible structure. So if you know what you need, you can go out anywhere and just fill in your plate based on what it is.

Ali Shapiro [00:19:02]:
And that same client, she travels a lot for work and she's like, Oh, this became like I could almost gamify it. Once I knew what I needed, it was like, Oh, let me find that here and that there. And I was like, yeah. I was like, you took this feeling that used to make you feel out of control around food because she was like at a work event. She's like, I'm in a hotel. I had no control over my food at all for those 5 days or 3 or 4. I forget how many days. But because I had that structure, but there was flexibility in there, and I gamified it to myself, it was I felt amazing.

Ali Shapiro [00:19:37]:
And I think that's why learning macros is philosophically so helpful for people.

Liz Wolfe [00:19:44]:
Oh, that's very interesting. And for me, it's, you know, I I like the the macro framework, and it's what I use in my work right now. There are a couple different ways that we approach it, but I always just start with the protein. Carbs to me are equally important, but I think learning to eyeball protein is really, really important because when you are travel so, for example, I went to Hawaii for, like, a week or 10 days. I can't even remember. And right in the midst of going through my own program. And I was like, you know what? You know, I I want people to understand what this generally looks like so we can be balanced. So we're not weighing and measuring everything every single day because that sucks.

Liz Wolfe [00:20:26]:
I mean, some people like it, more power to you, but I think it sucks. And when I was in Hawaii, I was just like, I know what x amount of protein looks like, and I'm gonna just aim for that. You know? If I'm gonna have a sandwich, then there's gonna be a ton of protein on it. I'm not gonna worry about the rest of it. So there is a way that you can sort of use that stuff. Maybe you're not know, might fall into place, it might not. But at the very least, you're getting the building blocks that you need.

Ali Shapiro [00:20:58]:
Yeah. Well, let's start with protein then, because I feel like, especially once you turn over 40, you start hearing a lot about protein. And it was I mean, when I found myself £30 postpartum and was working with a sleep coach on my insomnia, she was like, Just track for a couple days. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm eating a keto diet. I thought I was getting enough protein in, but I hadn't tracked my food in like 15 years. So what's and and then, of course, you, like, click on a couple protein things. And and next thing you know, your whole feed is like, Oh, my God. You know? You need so much protein.

Ali Shapiro [00:21:37]:
And I did a keynote speaking event in March for this YPO group of women. They were amazing. And I was talking about how menopause isn't just like one and done, like your period ends and you're through menopause, how it's like this reverse puberty, and it's this giant physiological process and why protein is so important in that. And it's like the gasps when I put up like 0.7 grams to 1 gram of weight, 0.7 grams to 1 gram of weight, people are like So So I wanna talk to you about that because I'm also curious if you think we're gonna backtrack on some of those recommendations, but we'll get there. We'll get there. So, what is so wonderful about protein, especially the older we get? Oh, oh,

Liz Wolfe [00:22:26]:
my gosh. So many things. Well, first of all, structurally, I think a lot well, I think a lot of us are probably watching our parents age right now, and we're like, how can I use the information that we have now that maybe we didn't have before, maybe our parents didn't have to age better, to not suffer when you're 70, 80, to not fall and be breakable and be fragile? So protein is really kind of the antifragility nutrient, and I didn't I didn't coin that. Somebody has said that. I just don't know who. I wish I knew who to give credit to for that, but it is. Because protein provides the building blocks for number 1 muscle mass, so basically everything else as well. So if we're not eating enough protein, we don't have the raw materials to maintain our muscle, and muscle is how we move through the world in a functional way.

Liz Wolfe [00:23:12]:
It's how we go up and downstairs. It's how we lift a bag of cat litter off the floor. It's how we do all of the things that we need to be able to do and remain, you know, safe, healthy, and functional, and independent for the long haul. And the reason we should care about that now and not just worry about that when we're 70 is because now, forties, is when we start to see age related decline in muscle mass, and that's multifactorial. There are a lot of reasons that happens. The biggest reason is because our lifestyles change and have been changing for a decade up until now, probably more than that. And the piper, I think, comes to be paid in our forties, and it sucks, but it's the reality. In order to change that, in order to shift that so we can have the best next 40 years possible, it's eating enough protein and it's resistance training.

Liz Wolfe [00:23:58]:
Those two things there's just no way around that. I wish there were, but there's just not. There are multiple manifestations of it and multiple ways you can make it work for you depending on what you're capable of. This isn't meant to be an ableist conversation. There are things that you can do seated. There are lots of things that you can do that will provide the stimulus that you need, but those raw materials for that stimulus is protein.

Ali Shapiro [00:24:22]:
Got it. And what do you do you agree with the So for everyone listening, the current guidelines that I've seen, and again, there's controversy over this, is 0.7 grams So if you think Let me backtrack. You think of your ideal healthy weight, whatever that is, and then you multiply that by 0.7 to 1.0. And so if someone's ideal weight was £150, that would be anywhere between 105 to 150 grams of protein a day. What do you think about those guidelines?

Liz Wolfe [00:24:59]:
It's so you know, when I think about here's what I think about when I think about those guidelines is that they're probably correct. I mean, you you know Stacy Sims. You've interviewed her. You introduced me to her, which, yay, she's gonna come on my podcast as well. And I know those are her recommendations. Hers are, like, 1.4 to 2 grams per kilogram, which evens out to 0.6 to 0.9 grams per pound. So for me at a £150, that would be a 130 5, I believe. Oh, no.

Liz Wolfe [00:25:28]:
No. Who what would that be? Would that be a 135? I'm not great with math. I gotta whip out my calculator here. Let's see. So you go. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:25:36]:
That would be a 135. 35. Okay.

Liz Wolfe [00:25:39]:
There you go. So 135, which is doable if I'm really, really focused on it, if I'm really committed. And I think I think it's okay if you miss a couple days. You know? I think it's okay if you're not fully compliant every single day of the week. But from what I understand, most of this research is done on men. So I know there was some literature that seemed to suggest that point 8 grams per pound is basically the scientific maximum for at least body composition changes or improvements. But what these studies don't take into account, which I think is why it makes Stacy, like, the the foremost expert on this, is the impact of estrogen on our anabolic response, on our ability as midlife women and then on to menopause, our ability to actually build and maintain muscle. Estrogen is involved with that.

Liz Wolfe [00:26:28]:
And so for that reason, I think we actually do probably need regularly 0.6 to 0.9 just like Stacy says grams per pound. I think 1 gram per pound is a lot, but it definitely makes the calculation kind of straightforward and easy. But I also, you know, we're talking about the zone. We're talking about macros. If I was to calculate my macronutrients, and I don't know how Barry Sears does this because I shamefully, I have not read the zone diet in many, many years. But does he calculate that based on total daily energy expenditure? Because that ends up giving you an entirely different number that for many people can be very, very intimidating. So do you want to talk about that real quick?

Ali Shapiro [00:27:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So and I go ahead. Okay. So what we you were saying trying to calculate, like, based on your weight versus daily energy expenditure is how many calories you're actually taking in. Yes. Yes.

Ali Shapiro [00:27:29]:
Yes. So go ahead.

Liz Wolfe [00:27:30]:
Okay. So I do this just as an exercise with everybody that comes through. Well, me 1 on 1 with me and also my program. So we will calculate based on total daily energy expenditure. So we're always kinda talking about calories, which drives me nuts a little bit because how we generate energy, it's not well represented by this idea of calories. And there's multiple reasons for that, but there is no literally no equation that we can put to this to to figure out how much energy we're actually creating on a daily basis. All we've got is calories. It's an imperfect measure, but it's the best we got.

Liz Wolfe [00:28:04]:
So I do wanna throw that out there. It ticks me off, but it's what we got. So I will step people through this. Your total daily energy expenditure, you can go online. There are scientifically validated, fairly accurate calculators where you punch in your weight, your height, and your activity level. For me, my total daily energy expenditure, the number of calories that I need each day is around 2,300, which flies in the face of, right, like, diet our diet years where it was, like, 1200 calories, 1800 calories max. Like, I can't even imagine what my body was going through when I was giving it literally barely enough to actually lay in bed and survive.

Ali Shapiro [00:28:41]:
I know. And we were growing then. Like, you need more when you're growing.

Liz Wolfe [00:28:46]:
Oh, it's painful to even think about. So when you calculate based on your TDEE. Right? So mine is 2,300 calories per day. You would go 2,300 calories per day, and then you're going to multiply that by 30%. Right? 30% of your calories from protein. So 23100 times point 3, that's 690 calories from protein that I would need each day based on this calculation. You're gonna divide that by 4 because there are 4 calories to every gram of protein, And then I end up needing, quote, unquote, needing, if I wanna eat 30% of my calories daily from protein, which is aligned with the zone diet recommendations, a 172.5 grams of protein per day, and that is a shit ton of protein. I mean, that's almost more than I even wanna deal.

Liz Wolfe [00:29:33]:
I, like, I don't even know how I would do that. So and that's let's see. Divided by I'll divide that by 30, which is a really large serving of protein. That would be 5, almost 6 really large servings of protein every day. And that's extremely intimidating. And depending on, you know, if you're generating less energy, I e, if you need fewer calories each day, and it depends on your lifestyle, that figure is gonna be a little bit less intimidating. But I'll take people through that just to see the range of recommendations. Because when you're calculating my body weight, again, we got to 135.

Liz Wolfe [00:30:05]:
That's a lot more doable. So for me, it's, like, here's this range, 135 to 172. Maybe on a really demanding day or really demanding week, I'm gonna focus on pushing it up a little higher above 135. But if I can just, most days, hit 135, I think I'm in pretty good shape.

Ali Shapiro [00:30:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating to think of it in terms of total daily energy expenditure. Like, it just would use I mean, that's like a 40 gram difference, which is like a whole other meal.

Liz Wolfe [00:30:38]:
Yeah. It's a whole other big ass meal. So I forgot if we curse. I don't know why I've been so into cursing. Yeah. You're you're

Ali Shapiro [00:30:44]:
you're allowed. You're allowed. It's it's we don't always, but we just mark it explicit so people can feel free. Okay. Good. Freedom of that.

Liz Wolfe [00:30:52]:
America. Exactly. Yeah. It's wild. And I don't know if that's how, you know, Barry we're talking about Barry a lot. Hey, Barry. I I don't

Ali Shapiro [00:31:00]:
want him to pass you the torch, Liz. I think now that he's following you on Instagram, maybe he's like, who do I pass the torch to?

Liz Wolfe [00:31:06]:
He's are we looking? I was like, I would love I would love that. It's very interesting. I don't see any other way to calculate it. Maybe he has a caloric. But if we're talking about a percentage of calories from protein, then how else are we gonna do

Ali Shapiro [00:31:20]:
it? Yeah. Oh, my God. And that's this is where I think intuitive eating because I now that I've, the past several years, been working on my protein, that just intuitively feels like, oh, I could never like, that much different. That just feels like, well and so question for you, how do you do people ask you this or or tell the people who are listening? I think what's tricky about aging well is you can't necessarily feel if you're losing muscle mass in the short term. Right? Yeah. But in the short term, how do you know if you're getting too much protein or not enough? What are the signs and symptoms that that you tell people about?

Liz Wolfe [00:32:08]:
That's so individual, I think. I like for people to pay attention to just the basics, which this actually ends up bringing carbs into the equation as well because I don't think we can talk about one without talking about the other. And that, I think, is the big downfall of the conversation right now is that people are just talking about protein and not enough about carbs. I'll I'll wait I'll wait for you to bring that up more before we go into that, but in general, it's recovery. So the people that I work with are also doing resistance training through my programs for that. So the number one side metabolism.

Ali Shapiro [00:32:45]:
Own your metabolism. And it's

Liz Wolfe [00:32:46]:
the it's the own your fitness app is part of own your metabolism. So when you own your metabolism, you also get access to the own your fitness app, which is all of the the programs. This is 6 week programs. I have 6 week programs I have for people. And it's recovery. That's the number one thing. And that's the thing that people see the most quickly. And that's the feedback I get the most, which is, like, I would usually be sore for 3 days after a workout like that, and I woke up today ready to go.

Liz Wolfe [00:33:14]:
And that's that's what it is because when you're working out and you're doing what you wanna do to maintain muscle, you have to do some kind of resistance training to maintain muscle. When you're doing that, you're also causing your muscles to basically you're basically damaging your muscles. And the idea is when you build them back with the raw materials of protein and carbs, you are enhancing your muscle mass and you're building muscle mass. And and that's the whole that's the whole point. When you're not getting enough protein, that process is limited, and you feel like crap the next day.

Ali Shapiro [00:33:48]:
I love that. That is such a good point. I didn't think of that. I tend to tell clients, like, if you still feel really like, you feel like you've eaten a lot of food and you're still really hungry, like, genuinely hungry, not, like, sugar craving or tired, I tend to think, like, maybe you need a little bit more protein. Oh, I agree with that. Yeah. You do? Okay. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:34:10]:
Yeah. I do. Yeah. And then I think if you're getting too much, your poop it's hard to poop. Right. Your poop is so funny. Would you agree with that? Like, that can be kind of

Liz Wolfe [00:34:24]:
Yes. But I think if you're not getting enough carbs, that those things can also happen because I do know and and it's also fat. Right? And I think oftentimes, people are like, but I'm eating so much protein. I shouldn't still be hungry. It's because that's all you're eating is protein. You're eating, like, protein and fiber. That's not enough. That will not that will not add to your energy bucket, number 1, and that's a big thing.

Liz Wolfe [00:34:46]:
When the body is desperately seeking sources of energy, it is going to drive hunger. That's that's the whole point. So you could be you could be eating all of this protein, and one of the good things about protein is, yes, it is highly say satiating in part because it takes up a lot of space. You know? It takes a lot of chewing and all of that, and that activates all of those hormones that are, you know, translating signals to your body of whether or not you're full. But if you're not eating adequate carbohydrate and you're not filling in those gaps with fat, all of these communication systems that your body uses to figure out whether you're full or not are not gonna work properly. Let alone, you're not gonna be, you know, pooping functionally. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:35:31]:
I think what you're bringing up I love that you're bringing up carbs in relation to protein. And I think this is why blood sugar like, I remember when I would talk about it. I was like, it's not just for diabetics. And and now we have the CGMs. Like, it's become more mainstream. Mhmm. But I but even those CGMs, it's like, was it stress? Is it too much? Like, I I think the real I think it hasn't blood sugar is complicated for for because it takes some time to see the relationship. It's not just like do you does that make sense? Like, it's not just like do this, don't do that.

Ali Shapiro [00:36:04]:
It's like, well, maybe you need to do this and add the carbs, or you maybe need to add more carbs. So there's, like, a you really have to, like, know your own like really learn your body instead of just listening to what people are telling you, which is why I think it can be tricky for people.

Liz Wolfe [00:36:21]:
Well, that's why why it's hard and you wanna bring people in on something that is generally that generally works well and then tweak and adjust from there. And, unfortunately, people are people. We people don't want to have to think about that stuff, which I understand. And I do my best to create things where people don't have to think about it, but yet at the same time, they're still learning. They're still figuring things out. But it's but it's difficult, I think, from where we sit because we wanna lead with that. We wanna be, like, well, you know, we can't do this one size fits all. So you're gonna have to really engage with the process, and people are already overwhelmed.

Liz Wolfe [00:36:56]:
They Yes. That's too much. So that's a messaging problem. That's not anybody else's problem other than mine.

Ali Shapiro [00:37:05]:
Well, no. I mean, I think that's very practical and pragmatic. Like, let's start with something that genuinely works and then you can tweak from there. Because Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you're hungry and you're not recovering and it's overwhelmed, if you can even just improve 20%, 30%, 40%, it's like, oh, okay. I put out the fire of feeling like shit. And now I can actually tweak from here.

Ali Shapiro [00:37:31]:
Because I think about even phases of life. Like my son is you have littles right now too. They need more carbs right now during their life. Like he is just I feel like he inherited my dad and my sister's like, go, go, go. Esa's just like always running, always going. And it's like, they even send us like videos from school and I'm like, he's the one who's always like, just like running up the, you know, I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, I'm like, I can. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:38:00]:
Yeah. And so he needs more carbohydrates now. And we actually, I think, need more protein as we age. But bringing in this phase thing makes me think of, on the interview that we did about metabolism with you, everyone will link to that in the show notes. I can't tell you how liberating. I know it was probably just a one off for you, but when you said, okay, there's a maximum amount of muscle that you can probably put on, right? Yeah. Everyone can. And it was like Because I have plateaued with my muscle for about a year, and I was like, what needs tweaking? Is it my stress? Is it like, oh, my God, I even need more protein, which, you know, I just, like, wasn't willing to do.

Ali Shapiro [00:38:41]:
But it was so liberating to be like, Ali, you're probably at the max that you can build. It was just like, okay. So if people are at the max that they can build, and I know that's not the majority of people, right? We know that if we look at the statistics, most people are not lifting enough, they're not doing all that. But for those of us who have maybe reached our peak in so many ways, do we have to maintain that point I'll just say 0.6 to 1.0, you know, as a as a general range.

Liz Wolfe [00:39:17]:
My answer is I don't know. Because I think a lot of the literature, like, it's not following people for 20 years. It's not following them through the phases of life. It's certainly not following women through perimenopause and menopause. We have these small cohorts, these short durations, relatively short, based on versus the information that we actually need to know. So the way I feel about it is that if we can get people on a baseline of protein intake that is responsive to their level of activity, responsive to their goals, that is sustainable. Because when people I think when people talk about something being sustainable, they're thinking about, can I they're not thinking about what really works for me in my life? Like, you're talking about you have reached a level of muscle mass that is it's what you're gonna get when you're maxing out your protein and you're doing your resistance training, and that's awesome. Now we work on muscle quality because muscle quantity is is it's a different it's a different equation.

Liz Wolfe [00:40:17]:
It's a different argument. So, yes, many of us want more muscle, but once we have an adequate amount of muscle, we want to enhance muscle quality, which you can do your entire life. You can be 85 years old and enhance your muscle quality. You might not be able to add more muscle tissue. That's a lot more difficult, but you can make the muscle that you have function better. So but I think when people think of maintenance, they think of, can I what kind of sprint can I be at? What kind of grueling pace can I force myself to sustain? It's not that. It's what actually works for you in your life, and I think people get really intimidated by that. But when you've got these basic pieces together, you figure out where you're at and then you start to play.

Liz Wolfe [00:40:59]:
And this is where Now, I'm on off on a total tangent, but this is where the evolutionary argument, I think, comes in. I don't think that argument is always useful looking at nutrition or lifestyle from an evolutionary standpoint because and that's where the paleo diet fails and that's where a lot of these approaches really, really fail us. But it's also, in some ways, it's, like, our fault for buying so wholesale into something and not asking enough questions, you know, not not antagonizing our own beliefs enough. I learned a long time ago in college, I worked in opposition research. For a very brief period of time, I thought I wanted to be a politician, and then I went and I did opposition research for a political action committee in Washington, DC. And I was like, this is a lot.

Ali Shapiro [00:41:45]:
I don't think I'm cut out

Liz Wolfe [00:41:46]:
for this life, so here I am. But at the and, ironically, at that point, I was actually paying really, really close attention to macros and fiber. I was charting it. I was, like, obsessively doing that within the context of 1200 calories a day. Anyway, funny little parallel there. Where was I even going with this? Oh, so the evolutionary argument, when we talk about evolution and nutrition and what we are kind of evolutionary prime evolutionarily primed for. It's an interesting way of looking at things. It's an interesting paradigm, but we are also modern humans with modern stressors that are completely out of the range of the stressors that we are evolutionarily primed for.

Liz Wolfe [00:42:27]:
So, really, it's just this shit show of us moving around pieces trying to figure ourselves out, and that is the nature of it. There is no framework that can tell us exactly what we are supposed to be doing because our stressors are out of context with our primal bodies. Our lifestyles are out of context with our primal bodies, and we just have to figure out a way to deal with all of it individually. That's the truth. But I think there is some interesting, maybe, thought experiments that could be done thinking about the seasonal variability of foods. And I think it is probably evolutionarily appropriate to cycle in and out of different ways of eating. So I personally don't think we should be at a protein sprint all the time. I think we should be until we get to a point where we are relatively healthy and stable, and then we start playing with I calling it I call it cycling your macronutrients.

Liz Wolfe [00:43:20]:
So cycling your protein down, cycling your carbohydrates up, that type of thing.

Ali Shapiro [00:43:26]:
I love that because, I mean, nature is always just like the framework. I mean, I don't understand. Obviously, nature is always evolving in complexity, and no one completely understands it. Yeah. However, it has a seasonality approach. Right? And when you look at I think this is kind of I think of macro so much in relationship to blood sugar. And the other foundational process is gut health. We know that the healthiest guts have so much variety.

Ali Shapiro [00:43:51]:
And nature builds that in if you eat seasonally. So I can see, like, you know, right now and we'll get to carbs because you know, I'm on your list and you were talking about fruit. And I've always eaten fruit, but I've been trying to add more because I we'll talk about carbs. And how I'm curious how you've altered your diet to get less fat. We'll get into that. Yeah. But it's like, okay, now it's like I bought watermelon, blueberries, grapes, because they're all at the store right now because it's hot as hell here. And it's like, oh, I feel like this right now, and I'm sleeping so much better with more grapes at night or more watermelon.

Ali Shapiro [00:44:26]:
So I can just but it's like I never want fruit in the winter. It's just like, oh my God, I'm freezing. I hate going cold. So I can see how the carbohydrates, when the days are longer, right, you need more carbohydrates versus when it's winter and you're just trying to preserve, you know? Yeah. You need more of a tea.

Liz Wolfe [00:44:46]:
Well, there's a light component to it as well. Right? So

Ali Shapiro [00:44:49]:
Oh, stick to my laser. To light

Liz Wolfe [00:44:50]:
and all your and it's out being outdoors as well. It's not, like, indoor light. But your light exposure patterns also impact your blood sugar regulation. So it kind of makes sense. During the summer, you have this boundless availability of certain macronutrients of fruit that you're gorging yourself on that, but you're also getting this added benefit environmental inputs that also help your body regulate blood sugar.

Ali Shapiro [00:45:15]:
Well, and I love that because food is ultimately we're eating the light of it, the light that grows it. So, for insatiable listeners, I did a whole podcast on light 5 years ago. It still stands, and so we'll link that in the show notes about light, and mitochondria function and all that stuff. 5 years

Liz Wolfe [00:45:36]:
See, you're early. You're early

Ali Shapiro [00:45:39]:
to it. Well, I think this is a whole side note, but I think light was so important in me overcoming my infertility diagnosis because we had just gotten a dog at the time and I took him out. I went in the park and I think it helped my thyroid and my cycle. So, I mean, I think working with the naturopath helped the acupuncturist as well. And I think the light was huge, huge. So, yeah. So, okay. So I wanna talk about carbs since we talked we were kind of chatting about that.

Ali Shapiro [00:46:14]:
And I wanna talk about some shortcuts and something that you taught me about collagen in your Clean 6 Challenge. You mentioned it probably, again, as a throwaway comment in your email, but I was like, What? You go, What? What? My collagen doesn't count, but I do feel a difference in terms of satiety, but shortcuts. Because I know people listening to this are gonna say, oh, my god. How do I get this much protein in? So shortcuts, including protein powders. Take it away, Lisa. Yeah.

Liz Wolfe [00:46:49]:
But, I mean, those are the easy shortcuts. I will generally do one protein shake each day. I'll do 2 breakfasts. So this is where I advocate for the 2nd breakfast. I'll wake up. And one of the yeah. We get 2 breakfasts now. 2nd breakfast is the best.

Liz Wolfe [00:47:03]:
So it's really important, especially for women and especially women in midlife to get in a good amount of protein and carbohydrate within a relatively short period of time after waking up. And that has to do with your cortisol rhythm. It has to do with a bunch of different things, your energy generation, your thyroid health, all of that. So my favorite thing is to have a protein shake first thing in the morning because so many of us were like, we can't. It's gonna be more than an hour before we're actually we've got breakfast on the table. We've gotta get kids off to school. Our kids are home for the summer. We've gotta deal with all of that.

Liz Wolfe [00:47:38]:
So it is just too hard to reliably get a good, like, real breakfast in within 30 minutes to an hour of waking up. So it's like wake up, get a protein shake in that's got some good vitamin c rich carbs and a little bit of fat and the protein that you need, and then you're good for an hour or 2. And then you can work on putting together a nice leisurely breakfast that you wanna eat that is made of real food and that you're excited about. And for me, that is just, like, perfection. I love that. So it's it's perfect. And then you've got your first, your protein shake, which is rich in, what, 20 to 30 grams of protein depending on the type of protein that you're using. Then you've got your protein rich breakfast, then you've got 2 meals after that that you gotta nail your protein.

Liz Wolfe [00:48:24]:
And at that point, you've gotten 4 protein rich exposures meals with, hopefully, some good carbohydrates, and that really is a good baseline.

Ali Shapiro [00:48:36]:
Yeah. So

Liz Wolfe [00:48:37]:
that's my that's that hack. And then there's another hack that I also incorporate every single day, and it's my essential amino acid supplement. You knew I was gonna say that. But it's so it makes things so much easier. I can't quantify the essential amino acids in the supplement. I can't compare them to, like, a actual amount of food. I don't think I'm allowed to do that, and I'm still really careful about that because I don't wanna run a foul with any regulatory organizations. But I look at it like a serving of protein.

Liz Wolfe [00:49:06]:
I always, always, always drink my essential amino acids during my workout to give those raw materials directly to my body when it's demanding them. I think it's such an amazing hack, not only for recovery, but also just for overall, building block intake, amino acid intake.

Ali Shapiro [00:49:22]:
Yes. And we will link to your central amino acids. I've been taking them during my workouts. It feels like this really nice I don't wanna compare it to everyone drinks a different amount of caffeine. But it's like this nice, subtle it feels like I have caffeine throughout the workout rather than getting, like It's clean energy. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing, too, that in my keynote, that people were a little like, Oh my God, I was saying how I learned this from Doctor.

Ali Shapiro [00:49:49]:
Stacey Sims, especially in menopause, you need to get protein after a workout within like 30 minutes, really. And they were like, 30 minutes. And I was like, Yeah. And your essential amino acids, now that I'm drinking them, because I bike home from the gym, I'm like, I have a little bit more time. It just brings less stress to the whole experience, you know? Yeah. Because you put a workout in, you want, like, the the results, you know, or the the benefits, I guess.

Liz Wolfe [00:50:16]:
Yeah. And after a workout, you're oftentimes you're not hungry for a full meal. And this is the the peril of a lot of these recommendations where it's like eat a meal that's rich. I know we like to, you know, be as natural as we can, but getting in a meal of whole real food within this window of working out, it's, like, I'm lucky I even got out the door. Yeah. Anything that happens with regards to post workout nutrition is gonna be in the car or during the workout. And I think it's and and, also, you're not hungry. After a really good workout, your blood flow is shunted to your extremities.

Liz Wolfe [00:50:48]:
Right? It's not in your digestive system. And I think that's another thing. The one thing you might be hungry for, which is for a reason, is carbohydrate because your body wants to replenish the energy substrate because that's what carbs are. They're an they're an energy source. Your body wants to replenish those, not only to believe that it's safe again after you just ran from the dinosaur or whatever it was for however long or at you just lifted all of these boulders or whatever. Your body needs to replenish that. So you get in those essential amino acids. Maybe you have some kind of carb rich snack.

Liz Wolfe [00:51:22]:
One day, I will meld the 2, and I will have a source source of carbohydrate in my essential amino acid supplement, but I think people aren't quite ready for that yet. That's what you do, and your recovery elevates by, I mean, leaps and bounds. It's incredible.

Ali Shapiro [00:51:35]:
Yeah. I just realized as you were saying that we need more, like, caretaking metaphors for evolution. Like, you just ran across you have a pack of 9 kids. You're running around taking care of them and gathering the bat you know, I had Angela Sini on who wrote, inferior, and it was about how science got women wrong. And it was talking about, like, these hunter gatherer, like, analogies and how actually women, like, got the berries and the leaves. And that's actually what we ate more consistently because it was, like, very rare that you actually got the saber tooth tiger or whatever. So I'm just like, Oh my God, we need more caretaking metaphors for evolution and all the energy.

Liz Wolfe [00:52:18]:
We do. Someone should do that.

Ali Shapiro [00:52:23]:
That's not the hill I'm gonna die on. So someone else, keep going. But okay. So we have teas carbs and we need to talk about that because that is very scary for people. But just in terms of collagen and protein supplements, powders. I know there's whey, there's collagen. Dairy can be like hit or miss with me. Like, it depends on so can you people are gonna ask, I know, about your favorite protein supplements or or your thoughts on and on well, this could be its own podcast, so let me try to narrow the question frame.

Ali Shapiro [00:52:58]:
Like, a lot of people are taking collagen, myself included, to try to get those 10 grams in. And you told me I was wrong, but I wasn't triggered because I've done my work. So I was like, oh. And so tell us about why maybe collagen doesn't count towards our or why it doesn't? There's no nuance here. It doesn't.

Liz Wolfe [00:53:23]:
I'm softening on that just because

Ali Shapiro [00:53:25]:
Oh, you you know,

Liz Wolfe [00:53:27]:
when you start out with this stuff, you're, like, not that you're nickel and diming people, but you're like, no. I want you to focus on whole sources of protein, like, with all of the essential amino acids. Collagen supplements contain what? Proline, hydroxyproline, and, what what's the other one? What's the other one to call it? Gelatin. Wait. Yeah. Yep. Okay. You want I'm shorting out right now.

Liz Wolfe [00:53:52]:
Shorting out with my amino acids. Those are not the amino acids that are building, like, those that muscle. They're not the amino acids that are involved in, like, that structural muscle support. They do support the structural elements of, like, your connective tissue and that's important too, but it just doesn't quite translate when you're talking about the number like, how many grams of protein you need to support your muscle mass. But I think I was I think it's important to know that to know that a, quote, unquote, protein shake should not be comprised only of collagen peptides. But if I'm gonna I like, I'm not gonna nickel and dime somebody over 10 grams of protein. So sorry. Like, you know, it's not if if people were trying to get 50 grams of protein out of their collagen, I'd be like, nowhere.

Liz Wolfe [00:54:42]:
That's not how it works. But if you're just kinda 10 grams

Ali Shapiro [00:54:46]:
I only are one of who cares. With my oats. I I reversed

Liz Wolfe [00:54:51]:
my prior statement about that not counting, and you may count that towards your protein intake. Just understand that it is building and supporting tissue. Your whole sources of protein are supporting your muscle mass. They're supporting they're supporting everything, but I think it is worthwhile to include that. I think it's important. Just know that it's not exactly, like, a one to one exchange.

Ali Shapiro [00:55:13]:
Yeah. I love that because a lot of people who listen to this self identify as perfectionists. And when you're for everyone listening, this isn't like if you don't what Liz is saying is, like, if you don't get, like, you're a 150 grams or whatever every day, it doesn't mean your muscle is starting to atrophy. Like, don't panic. Like, this is about what you do consistently over time. There's room for error. You know, I say room for error. There's room for imperfection.

Liz Wolfe [00:55:40]:
Well, and maybe we think of it as a bonus. Maybe instead of thinking of it as it doesn't count, we think of it as a bonus. So there's your bonus protein.

Ali Shapiro [00:55:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just real quick, people are like, Get to carbs, Allie. I can feel it. Feel it. But with your essential amino acids, you can't officially say that they replace protein. And if someone wanted to use them to help with their recovery, improve their workout performance.

Ali Shapiro [00:56:05]:
I take mine when the workout's starting going and then I finish what I have left on the way home and as I'm eating breakfast. How do you recommend am I doing it wrong as well? Tell me. You're doing it wrong.

Liz Wolfe [00:56:19]:
That doesn't count. If it doesn't count, your entire effort is wasted. No. My favorite way to do it is to have it be my workout water, and then my my deadline is I finish it by the time I get home. That's the way I like it. Yes. I think that's probably the optimal window. Finish it within, you know, 30 minutes.

Liz Wolfe [00:56:34]:
But the good thing about these essential amino acids is that they are absorbed like that. They're absorbed really, really quickly. There's no digestive process that they need to go through. So doing that, drinking them during your workout and immediately after just takes advantage of that window, and you're not having to contend with digestion, which I think is something not a lot of people talk about in the post post workout window is, yeah, get a full meal in, but how long is it gonna be until you actually break that down and digest it and those amino acids are available to your bodily system? Which is why I'm I'm just so obsessed with these. I'd never I've been in this business for, like, 15 years. I never released a supplement before, and this is why. This was the this is why this was the one because it really is so effective and just so crucial, I think, especially for women in our age bracket.

Ali Shapiro [00:57:23]:
I think you're really good at curating stuff. Like, I like your recommendations. So Thanks. Yeah. And I'm highly discerning. So, You are highly discerning. I am. Because as you were saying about in the beginning, like, oh, is the zone back again? I feel old that the trends that when I was, you know, first paying attention to nutrition or coming back around, I'm like, oh, I've been around.

Liz Wolfe [00:57:46]:
The zone diet is to us now as like bell bottoms were to our parents, and then, you know, they

Ali Shapiro [00:57:51]:
started wearing

Liz Wolfe [00:57:52]:
bell bottoms again. It's just

Ali Shapiro [00:57:56]:
I know. We did at the library, we did a tie dye thing. Esa loved it. And he we were biking past our neighbor. Well, he was biking. I was behind him on the way to the park. And Esa said to our neighbor, he's like, I made this tie dye at the library. And she was like, I had the original tie dye in the sixties.

Ali Shapiro [00:58:13]:
You know? And I was like, I went over his head, but I was like, oh, God. I'm at that age for different things now. All right. So carbs, because I have found, again, when I was started tracking and I was like, Oh my God, if you're eating real food most of the time, right, it is actually hard to get the amount of carbs that you need to help you sleep, as you mentioned, help you recover. I love that you brought up that point. That wasn't even on my radar when I was prepping for this. Why do we need carbs? Why were we scared of carbs? Talk to me, love. There are

Liz Wolfe [00:58:56]:
so many things. I don't even know how I'm gonna, like, fill this time appropriately. We're so scared of them. I say this a lot. Carbs, like, are to us right now or to the cultural zeitgeist right now as fat was in the nineties. We are unfairly demonizing carbs and, specifically, certain types of carbs. And we we've done this without even thinking, and I'm guilty of that. I remember 10 years ago when I was, you know, working in a CrossFit gym, I got, like, CrossFit certified.

Liz Wolfe [00:59:25]:
I was really into paleo. I was all about this stuff. And I was telling people, like, you should really only you should not eat fruit, maybe berries as dessert, and you should always eat if you're gonna eat carbs, you should eat sweet potato, but not white potato. And I never, like, I never thought about these recommendations. And I'm going back and I'm like, this was so obvious. First of all, like, the glycemic load of an apple is less than that of a sweet potato. So I'm just now I'm going through all and I'm, like, none of that made sense. Never in all of history has someone become insulin resistant from eating an apple.

Liz Wolfe [00:59:57]:
It's just the the way we feel about fruit is so illogical and crazy, and I don't I I'm sorry that I contributed to that hysteria. But in learning more about just the physiology, how carbs work in the body, First of all, insulin plays a role in amino acid uptake. So your ability to actually assimilate the protein that you are eating effectively also rests on the insulin response that we get from carbohydrates. So for me, it's like, yes, we set our protein targets first because I think that is what most people need to really get in the basket. But shortly after is, okay, then now we need carbs too. This is how many carbs that we need to bring into the equation in order to actually fulfill your energy needs. Carbs are also, in the way they relate with protein, they're protein sparing. So, basically, this means when you have adequate carbs, your body does not steal your protein to convert it into energy.

Liz Wolfe [01:00:59]:
We don't want that. That's not that's not a good thing. We want our protein to play the roles that protein is supposed to play. In an emergency situation, you know, the body can activate all the emergency switches and convert protein into energy, but the body very much prefers energy from carbohydrate. And carbohydrate also comes with all of these other co factors that our bodies use for a 1000000 different things and that our gut Those are probably Those are probably my favorites and relating protein to carbs and the fact that we actually need carbs in order to use protein properly, I think is probably the most compelling. But there are many, many more reasons as well. Wow. That is so interesting about And like I kind of

Ali Shapiro [01:01:51]:
knew this, but you saying it. Now, I really understand it and how you said it is, if you don't get enough carbs, you're, like, robbing Peter to pay Paul, right, from your muscle. It's like, oh my god, you're working so hard to get that muscle. And then it's like, you don't give carbs. And it's like, Oh, we'll just take that whole year it took you to put on 2 or 3 pounds of muscle. You know? Oh, my god. Yeah. Yeah.

Liz Wolfe [01:02:16]:
They're all related to each other. And, obviously, you need fat too, but fat is easy. I mean, fat is more than twice the, you know, calories per what I mean, a couple eggs, some nuts, avocado. Like, that stuff, all you gotta do is garnish your food, and you've got wonder it's more delicious, and you've got your fat intake, and, woo hoo, that's great. You don't have to work that hard at it. It's a little harder to get your protein and your carbs.

Ali Shapiro [01:02:38]:
It is. And I wanna talk to you about that because after we just so we order with carbs, like keep on carbs and recommendations. But I was I was talking with a client. We were joking because she went to the doctor. She's in her, late forties, you know, in perimenopause. And, you know, once estrogen declines, you know, cholesterol goes up, you know. And we're like, Oh my God, do we have to eat, like, the low fat diet of, like, you know, the American Heart Association minus the SnackWells? You know, like it's like Oh, man. So, I wanna talk to you about like what swaps you've made.

Ali Shapiro [01:03:13]:
But first, carbohydrates. What are your recommendations for people? We had Esther Blum on, who I think you also had on your podcast. Yes. And she recommended, you know, in perimenopause, menopause, if you're not active, about a 100 grams a day. But if you're active, kind of pairing 1 to 1 with how much protein you get. Do you have different thoughts on that? This

Liz Wolfe [01:03:37]:
is an interesting lifespan span of life that I work in right now because I do think, things do change as you get older. Right? Yeah. And this is why women aren't studied because we can't study the all the hormonal fluctuations that we have make it really, really hard to standardize any kind of approach to figuring out WTF we actually need and when. So I'm not arguing with that. I'm not a woman in menopause. Right? My age bracket is kind of that sweet spot of trying to get things figured out before you're too deep into perimenopause, which

Ali Shapiro [01:04:12]:
I think is extremely important.

Liz Wolfe [01:04:14]:
So and so and I've talked to Esther about this at least briefly. And my thought is if I can catch people before menopause, we can lay a foundation that is different from what the majority of women are going into menopause with now. And so that might be an accurate thing to say for women, I I don't know, who have a certain history, who have a certain level of muscle mass, that are going into menopause now and want certain results. But for me, I'm thinking, how do we get a really solid metabolic foundation, Provide the body with what it actually needs. Get you to where you wanna be and then send you off into that phase of life, and maybe that's gonna look different. I honestly don't know. So that's a just big giant I don't know. I think it is probably flawed in some way to what this comes down to is saying you have to earn your carbs, whereas I feel like you have to earn your activity.

Liz Wolfe [01:05:14]:
So it's like we're moving and and because you're moving now, you can have your carbs. My thought is, like, you need to make sure that your movement is properly fueled first so that you can actually do that movement and perpetuate it and leverage it into something bigger and better, better resistance training programs, you know, more movement, more function. You know? And that's so that's kinda where I come down. But I'm very actively listening and very actively watching to see how this all shakes out for women.

Ali Shapiro [01:05:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good point. And I think this comes down to listening to your body, at least in the short term, right? Because I think what you're saying is some people and this was I think I had a lot of I didn't go through perimenopause, menopausal well muscled. I don't think that. But I had spent 10 or 15 years just eating consistently, eating healthy, moving relatively enough, that I think even though I didn't know what was happening and again, I was postpartum, so that's another layer. But I think I was able to build back because I had that base of 10 or 15 years going into it, even though I wasn't adequately prepared for it. And I see having lost 25 of the pounds and putting on some muscle, my A1C is still ticking up.

Ali Shapiro [01:06:37]:
And it's like And one of my clients is a naturopathic physician. She's like, That's very common. And I'm like, Oh, but I don't wanna be the average health status. So it is tricky, I think. But I think people can look at their recovery, right? Do you feel like you have energy for your workout and recovery? I also tell clients if like after a meal, like an hour later, they just feel exhausted and their brain because your brain needs so much glucose. I'm like, Okay, if you're still hungry, you probably need some more protein. If you feel exhausted and you hit a wall, you probably need more carbohydrate. Would you Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [01:07:19]:
Yeah. So are there any more signs that maybe not pooping, constipation?

Liz Wolfe [01:07:24]:
So how many times do you feel like your people should be pooping a day?

Ali Shapiro [01:07:29]:
I think you don't get people. Once. Once a Yeah. At least once. I know in other cultures, they're they're pooping, like, 3 times every day.

Liz Wolfe [01:07:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's for sure you need to be pooping once a day, but also you need to look at consistency. Right? There's the

Ali Shapiro [01:07:45]:
the brisket of your poop.

Liz Wolfe [01:07:46]:
The quality of your poop is very important. This was something that I learned from Diane Sanfilippo. It's like I just pounded that into my head 10, 15 years ago, however long it was. So it's that it's, like, you should feel good. You should feel good. You should not feel, like, 2, 3, 4 o'clock every day that you need a nap. I mean, sometimes you will. I actually drove to Whole Foods yesterday.

Liz Wolfe [01:08:09]:
My kid fell asleep in the car, and so I took a nap in the car while she took a nap. Nap. Some days, you're just wiped. The temperature is getting really hot right now. It takes time for your energy systems to adjust. So, of course, ask yourself, like, are the seasons changing? I mean, I have a little congestion right now because every time it gets super hot or super cold or the seasons change, I get a little bit of that. I get a little bit of fatigue. What is the overall situation that's going on? But if you are generally experiencing, like, super low energy or ravenous hunger, like, anger versus hunger because I do like to differentiate.

Liz Wolfe [01:08:42]:
It's normal to be hungry. When you are fueled properly, it's okay to get hungry, but it should not disregulate you to the point that you literally cannot be in public or, you know, speak to your children because you're gonna eat somebody alive. You know? That's that's what we don't want. But hunger itself, it's not a bad thing. It's just a it's a sign. And I like to say there's a difference between being full and being fueled, like, which I think folks that are on very low carb, high fat, high higher protein diets, they're so full just because they're carrying a big lump of food around in their stomach all day. That's not necessarily what you want. You know? So there's a spectrum there, I think.

Ali Shapiro [01:09:22]:
Yeah. And I just wanna, like, make peep people listening, like, think about what Liz said earlier about not getting enough carbs pulled from your muscle. Because, again, I think in the short term, if people are trying to get off weight, it is harder in perimenopause and menopause, not because you can't do it, but because you do need to cut calories, but the how it gets done, no one talks about or no one learns, Right? That's what your own your metabolism course is about. It's like, how do we actually get to the point where we can do that if we want to do that? And I think what ends up happening is you get a little panicked when you can't lose the weight that it feels like came on overnight, which was definitely my case. Although, thank God, I had done all the work because I was like, don't panic. You know, like, short term hacks always come back to bite you in the ass. Yep. However, I think low carb diets, people keep doing them because they will cut weight in the beginning, but long term, you're you're losing your metabolic engine.

Ali Shapiro [01:10:29]:
Is that is that fair to say?

Liz Wolfe [01:10:31]:
Yes. It's fair to say. And the other thing is while you were saying that the difficulty if I had somebody that came to me at 45 wanting to lose weight who had never been on a diet in their life, I can put them on anything and they would lose weight. Hormones in general notwithstanding. It's the number of trips to the well that also have a different and also makes a difference. Yes. Our hormones make a difference, but if you have spent the last 20 years bouncing from diet to diet, you have also think of it this way because our beautiful bodies are so amazing at adapting to keep us safe. You have given your bodies your body the signal in a million different ways that it needs to not let that happen again.

Liz Wolfe [01:11:17]:
So you're on low carb. Your body makes all of these adjustments to try and make it so that you can stay healthy and survive. You went low fat. Your body did the same thing. You went low calorie, your body figured out how to engage all the mechanisms that it has to drive you to eat and not be able to do that again. So it's not just that it becomes so hard at 40, 45, 50. For some reason that is only correlated to your age and your hormone status, it is also the adaptations that you have forced on your body for the previous 20 years.

Ali Shapiro [01:11:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. I know. But if you send those signals of safety for long enough, it doesn't mean you're doomed. It's just going to take longer.

Liz Wolfe [01:12:02]:
I agree with that.

Ali Shapiro [01:12:03]:
And hopefully, I know one of the things that I'm really learning, it's my spiritual edge is like trusting and timing, but hopefully, as we get older, it's like we just have the wisdom that things that are sustainable and healthy just take the time they're gonna take, which I hate that phrase, but it is what it is, which I also

Liz Wolfe [01:12:21]:
And we have to be ready. We have to be willing to do something different. That's the the the first masterclass I ever did on metabolism. I was like I started it out by just being like, we have to do something different. We have to. Because if you're here looking for the same thing, you're gonna get the same thing, which is that whatever it was didn't work, and I had to do it harder, and I had to do it more. And now I can't eat anything, and I can't eat ever, and I'm miserable. Help me.

Liz Wolfe [01:12:48]:
Like, more of that is not gonna do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [01:12:52]:
What are your some of your favorite carbs? And do you have, like, 10, 15 more minutes? Because I Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're good. Okay, good. What are some of your favorite carbs?

Liz Wolfe [01:13:01]:
Oh, I love all the carbs. I love fruit, and I love seasonal fruits. So I'm just really looking forward we we just gorged ourselves on strawberries, which is not, you know, gorging is not balanced, but whatever. They were really, really good. Strawberries, blueberries from our farm. I'm really looking forward to watermelon, but we do we do all the fruit. There's a really interesting, it was limited, but it was interesting. A study that was done on it's I guess, they called it the satiety index.

Liz Wolfe [01:13:30]:
And what I found really interesting, they looked at a bunch of different types of foods, very broad spectrum of foods. So they weren't necessarily, for lack of a better term, comparing apples to apples, but they looked at things like dairy, protein, crappy foods as well, apples, potatoes. And what really was interesting to me is that apples and white white potatoes were off the charts with regards to satiety, like, actually keeping you satisfied for a longer period of time, well beyond protein, well beyond anything else. But what was basically aligned with dense sources of protein like fish were apples and oranges. And I thought that was so fascinating. And so many of these old wisdom that, you know, like, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, that type of thing. Yeah. It turns out that apples are actually pretty amazing.

Liz Wolfe [01:14:14]:
They have a fiber in their peel. They have a sac a polysaccharide in their peel that promotes, really good beneficial bacteria in the gut called ecormancia that everybody's talking about right now. And they also have all kinds of other good things. They're really satiating. They they're easy to eat. They're in this really portable package. So I've always, you know, got an apple with me or something like that, an orange or an apple. Love that.

Liz Wolfe [01:14:39]:
So fruit. Fruit, I think, is where it's at, especially because that's also where we get some really good vitamin t c, citrus fruit. And that's supportive to your adrenals and your thyroid, which is also what what we want.

Ali Shapiro [01:14:49]:
Yeah. Liz, I wanna who's who's everyone talking about that long ass

Liz Wolfe [01:14:54]:
Not everybody's talking about AUMAN side.

Ali Shapiro [01:14:56]:
Nobody even knows talking about the various bacteria in their face.

Liz Wolfe [01:15:01]:
My sample size is skewed. I think I follow maybe I follow the wrong people or the right people.

Ali Shapiro [01:15:07]:
No. No. I wouldn't be at a party. And someone's like, oh, my God. Everyone's talking about that really long I can't even remember what you said. I mean,

Liz Wolfe [01:15:17]:
I remember what man. Tanya. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what's funny is I was I do a little section, really small section in own your metabolism on, probiotics on on beneficial bacteria, basically. And what I tell people in that section is that we have only been able to isolate and keep stable a very small number of actual strains of bacteria. Like, bifido is great.

Liz Wolfe [01:15:45]:
We know bifidobacterium has a ton of wonderful beneficial effects. But there are some really important bacteria, microbiota in our guts that number 1, we're just finding out about, but number 2, are not easy to stabilize and put in capsules. So our best bet is not necessarily to take probiotics in these strains that we think are good even maybe even acromancy is one of those things, but to actually feed the good bacteria in our guts with food. So with different types of fiber, for example, from apples. I think that's probably a better long term approach for most people versus taking a probiotic.

Ali Shapiro [01:16:24]:
I'm so glad you say that because I I've always thought this. I'm like, they don't we don't we're never gonna find all of them in our lifetime. Nope. And I don't know if you saw the Wall Street Journal published this study, maybe it was 4 or 5 years ago, but MD Anderson Cancer Institute, they divided people into 3 groups. 1 was the control group, 1 they gave probiotics, and then the other group, they just had them eat a lot of variety. And they looked at who responded better to the chemotherapy. And the people who ate the most variety responded best. And it was kind of this like this is And to me, if you take people who are really sick, you get more like I don't know.

Ali Shapiro [01:17:06]:
You just it's it's it's more pronounced because they're sick, but we can apply that to and I was like, yeah. I was like, nature has this design so that we're eating all this variety. We eat seasonally. Now, again, if you go on antibiotics or you're coming in a very acute state, that might help, but they were saying the problem with probiotics is they're only introducing like 4 or 5 strains and then those over colonize the whole variety that you want to all thrive together. And it's, you know, it's kind of like, white kitchens on Instagram. It's like, too many.

Liz Wolfe [01:17:42]:
No more.

Ali Shapiro [01:17:44]:
Yeah. I didn't do a

Liz Wolfe [01:17:44]:
white kitchen. I was this close.

Ali Shapiro [01:17:46]:
I didn't know any better. Instagram- I love white kitchen, but

Liz Wolfe [01:17:49]:
it was just like after

Ali Shapiro [01:17:50]:
a while, it loses its own. Yeah. For sure. So what are some of the swaps that you have made as you learn more about how important carbohydrates are? Once I realized, oh my God, I gotta get my fat down, I gotta get my carbs up, I stopped baking, for the most part, with almond flour and started baking with oats. I did start picking some of the leaner cuts of meat. It just used to be like, Whatever, lamb, whatever. And now it's like, Oh, okay. More chicken, more turkey, more cod, lower fat protein.

Ali Shapiro [01:18:28]:
Because if you are eating a whole foods diet, it is really hard, I find, to get your fat down. Like even you talked about eggs. In my mind, I used to categorize eggs as protein and it's like, Oh, my God. They're fat. You know what I mean? Well, this is

Liz Wolfe [01:18:44]:
where it starts to get intimidating and scary when you're thinking about doing this across every meal all day long. And this is where I like to incorporate the concept of cycling a macronutrient where and I hate it sounds it sounds like the stuff that I told people not to do at one point. But listen, we always have to be open to new new approaches. But if I wanna have, like, a really high fat like, if I wanna have a filet with roasted asparagus, it's just something that's, like, more it just sounds so nourishing and just so delicious. I would probably look at doing, like, alright. I'm gonna most of my snacks are gonna be just, you know, leaner protein. Or not. Excuse me.

Liz Wolfe [01:19:23]:
God. That is my number one pet peeve. All protein is lean. That is. Meat. Lean meat. Leaner cuts of meat and carbs. So protein shake made with some fresh squeezed orange juice or an apple and a meat stick, something like that.

Liz Wolfe [01:19:39]:
My breakfast maybe one of my breakfast is heavy on the carb and fat or I'm sorry, heavy on the protein and fat, which there is an argument that our body will metabolize protein well also with the presence of fat. That's another one. That's Weston a price ism. That's not something I invented, but there's also research there. So maybe you're shifting the content of your meals rather than the overall the overarching content of your diet. Because I can enjoy a low fat meal. There's many different low fat meals that I really enjoy, and there's other high fat, high protein meals that I really enjoy. So that's where I get with my people is after we've laid this baseline and we know what a meal that looks like, 30% of, calories from protein, 30, 40, 30, or however you wanna say it, 40, 30, 30.

Liz Wolfe [01:20:27]:
We know what a meal looks like with that, but then maybe we get to the point where 2 of our meals each day look like macro perfect, 30, 40, 30. And then the other 2, we're cycling 1 out. Does that make sense?

Ali Shapiro [01:20:41]:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, and I love that because, again, that's where especially once you understand satiety and what causes you to feel full and satisfied, you can start to Like last night, we were ordering out because we were at my parents' pool. I mean, they don't have a pool. It doesn't matter. But we ordered We were like, oh, I don't feel like cooking. So it was like, they we got nachos at the Mexican place up the street, and they had beans on it.

Ali Shapiro [01:21:10]:
And I was like, oh, I should do chicken because I didn't eat a lot of protein yesterday. And I was like, but I feel like the carne asada. And I went for the carne asada, and it was like, I just want a really savory, rich meal.

Liz Wolfe [01:21:21]:
Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [01:21:21]:
And but now, today, it's like, okay, I'm done with that. You know, like, okay. So I just think that, again, offers the flexibility that also makes it sustainable, and probably what we inherently need anyway is to cycle. I like your word cycle between those. So, yeah. Yeah. Because I'm thinking even, like, again, this brings another layer of, you know, nuance complexity, but it's, like, the days that I'm just, like you know, if it's raining out and we're just sitting around, I don't feel like I'm, like, doing that much. But, like, most days where it's like, all right, getting up and going to the gym in the morning, walking us at a school, working, taking a walk to bring down my cortisol, going to pick them up, running around playing monster at the playground.

Ali Shapiro [01:22:06]:
You know, it's like, Oh, my God. By the evening, I have different needs than if it was like a weekend or something that was more chill. So

Liz Wolfe [01:22:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. And some people find that they this is another thing I think we all need to assess. I feel like most people that I talk to and work with do better with carbohydrates at dinner, but not everybody. Some people sleep better with a higher fat, higher protein dinner. I think that just depends on what kind of metabolizer you are, which is not my my wheelhouse. But I and most people I work with do better with a good, like, dense source of carbohydrate at dinner. Yes.

Ali Shapiro [01:22:38]:
And especially for perimenopause and menopause, that really I've had so many clients who they were trying to go low carb. And I'm like, all right. If you're just gonna start, start at night and then track your sleep. And it's like, oh my god. Because, right, you bump up. You get a nice insulin bump. And so insulin and and glucose are the dominant glucose isn't a hormone. You

Liz Wolfe [01:23:04]:
get Glycogen?

Ali Shapiro [01:23:06]:
Yeah. That is dominant instead of cortisol. So that's what keeps you asleep. Oh, I see. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. So it's just like, Oh, my God.

Ali Shapiro [01:23:14]:
Yeah. You talking about, like, orange juice, I mean, I don't have orange juice, but and fruit really got me the last couple of nights because we have the summer fruit and it's my sleep. I'm just like, yes. I have to I have to get more carbs at night than I than I

Liz Wolfe [01:23:27]:
have to do. People don't realize how powerful food is in determining and even resetting their circadian clock.

Ali Shapiro [01:23:34]:
Mhmm.

Liz Wolfe [01:23:35]:
It's really, really profound. People think of it just in terms of light, which is obviously very important, but there are multiple ways that food interacts with your circadian clocks and can even help to reset them. Like, this is this is a hack I learned from Joel Green who is kind of like a biohacky type of guy. And he was talking about how a huge meal, like, a huge breakfast one day with a little bolus of vitamin d, which for me, it's like eat a big ass brunch outside. That's how I

Ali Shapiro [01:24:02]:
do it.

Liz Wolfe [01:24:03]:
It's a really great way to reset your circadian rhythm, and it works. So that's like, you know, whatever. People can call it a cheat meal. People can call it just what they wanna do when they wanna do it. But knowing that there is some utility to, you know, a frittata pan you know, the type of brunch I like to do, which is a little of everything, you know, like eggs benedict, pancakes, everything. But there's some utility to that in your timing. You can still do what you wanna do, but I hate the word hack it, but, you know, hack it, incorporate it in a way that actually does some good for for your rhythms overall. I love that.

Liz Wolfe [01:24:37]:
I love that. We are

Ali Shapiro [01:24:37]:
we're so I mean, food is is what connects us to nature, right? So it's not just like it makes sense that it would help reset us. Any other swap outs that you or any other easy things? I'm thinking it was summer. You could put chickpeas on your salad. I'm just trying to think of what Oh, yeah.

Liz Wolfe [01:25:00]:
This is see now, I'm so interested in the, like, the data part and the quantifying part as I look at everything as, like, one pillar of resetting your metabolism. So fiber being another one of them, lentils, chickpeas. Yeah. I love really deep dark fruits. So, like, cherries are wonderful because they contain anthocyanins that can really do a bunch of other really wonderful things in your body in terms of your metabolism. So things like that. But I love seasonal. I love what you said about food and light being intertwined, and that we're actually consuming the light that grew the food.

Liz Wolfe [01:25:35]:
I think that's really, really cool. And I love you know, I use this is not a trick. This is not a swap. But one thing that has actually given me a lot of freedom recently is thinking of fat. Oh, God. This this is not the time to open up this can of worms, so I'm gonna do it anyway. It's thinking of it as a garnish, and that sounds limiting, and it sounds like I'm taking something away from myself. But I think I was throwing so much fat containing food at myself.

Liz Wolfe [01:26:04]:
I just drenching things in olive oil and eating as much fat as possible because I thought that was the right thing to do for my body and my hormones that I actually kinda lost the joy in it. And now I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, I'm gonna add sunflower seeds because I know they're rich in these wonderful polyunsaturates and I'm gonna use pumpkin seeds because they're rich in zinc and like I now I'm starting to appreciate fat for this amazing resource that it is. All the different types of cheese. It's just like cheese. I love cheese. Avocado. Like, what a beautiful thing.

Liz Wolfe [01:26:38]:
So I feel like I am now savoring my fat in a way that I was not for many years. And that's that's what kinda got me there.

Ali Shapiro [01:26:46]:
Yeah. I have definitely cut back because, again, to get enough carbs and protein, you do it. So I'll do a little less dressing, a little less and just not slather the I was just like slathering the butter again. Yes. Yes. I was going away.

Liz Wolfe [01:26:59]:
I was going at it.

Ali Shapiro [01:27:01]:
Yeah. So, I'm like, we can cut back. It's funny though because Esa loves this certain bread. It's like whole grain and glycophete free. But whenever he wants bread, I'm like slapping the butter and I'm like, he eats a blood sugar balanced. And for a long time, he's like, I don't like butter. So we would, like, do it in secret because he he loved butter, but he thought he didn't like butter. So now it's out in the open that he's like, yeah, I do love butter.

Ali Shapiro [01:27:24]:
So we don't have to hide the butter anymore. So he still gets a ton, but he's growing. And, he fell off the growth chart. So he needs to He needs to like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. One last question.

Ali Shapiro [01:27:38]:
So so, I, obviously, you know Carlos. And one of the things that he let me know is that there's been a spike for cortisol and emotional eating. And cortisol, especially as you get older, right, and especially closer to perimenopause and menopause, but in again, my feed is all about cortisol. And now people, I think, are afraid of cortisol. And it is true that the further you get into menopause Doctor. Stacey Simms talks about being, you know, sympathetic drive dominant, which just means you're more prone to cortisol. And in my Why Mining This Now program, which is going to be live everyone in September, we approach this from the emotional stress that makes you then turn to food. Right? And that, obviously, when you're emotionally stressed, your cortisol goes up and that can make you turn to food.

Ali Shapiro [01:28:35]:
And so that's the emotional angle of how we address that. But there's also a physical angle to that. And I have found that about my clients start to realize that about 50% of what they thought was emotional eating was just not getting the right macros, not eating the right stuff for them. So, how do you see the physical angle of cortisol when you're not getting what you need impacting what people think of as emotional eating. Is that is that a question? Can I can I say that?

Liz Wolfe [01:29:09]:
It is a question. Well, I think it goes back to I mean, you know what I'm gonna say. The signals of safety. Right? It doesn't matter if we're in physical danger or an emotional danger. Our body interprets it as danger. Danger is danger. And so if we're emotionally unsafe, if we're physically unsafe, doesn't matter, that cortisol goes up and our body is basically asking us when that cortisol rise, are we safe and can you show me that we're safe? And glucose, sugar is like the easiest way to tell the body that it is resourced, I. E.

Liz Wolfe [01:29:42]:
And this is that primal part of us. It's, like, do I have the resources to survive this? Yes or no. Whether it's emotional or physical. And our body's preferred type of energy is derived from carbohydrate. So this is why we're, like, I need all that. And you know, of course, there's also, like, of course, you want all the crappy food. You want all the usually carb dense food. The stuff that's really quickly digested, tastes good, calms you down emotionally because what it's telling you is that your resource is that you have what you need to get through whatever it is.

Liz Wolfe [01:30:14]:
That's how I look at it. And so, it's beautiful. Before. Yeah. You think you've gotta thank your body for that because your body is protecting you. I think you've said this and I've said it too that your body is always looking out for you. Always. It's always trying to adapt to whatever situation it is, and that's something that we should be grateful for, and appreciative of.

Liz Wolfe [01:30:34]:
So but we are we counter cortisol with glucose, basically. And there's other things involved. Right? The adrenals produce the cortisol. We need to support the adrenals. So everybody's on the adrenal cocktail with all the vitamin c and whatever, and that's great. But our adrenals also need to be nurtured with the with the carbohydrate. So in that scenario, maybe you're choosing a different type of carbohydrate. But in my opinion, while we work on the stress, while we work on the the physiology of that, hopefully, we can bring down your baseline cortisol release over time.

Liz Wolfe [01:31:08]:
That takes time. But in those moments, I personally would probably reach for something versus trying to just, intellectualize myself out of it.

Ali Shapiro [01:31:18]:
I love that. And I also think, you know, if you have regular consistent carbs in the moment Yeah. Oh, yes. I would say that too. Yeah. Yeah. Like overall, it's gonna bring down the amount of cortisol that however the cortisol is being produced. Because I think what people do is, again, strategy of restriction, let me cut carbs, and then you're so depleted.

Ali Shapiro [01:31:42]:
It's almost like taking out like, okay, you're not on an interest free credit card. You're on like a 25% interest. And then whatever happens, it's like, Okay, now it's time to pay the debt. And it's like you're going for the cheapest Now you're going to a payday loan. You know? I mean

Liz Wolfe [01:31:59]:
You're starting with your shoelaces tied together. You're starting the race with your shoelaces tied together. Okay.

Ali Shapiro [01:32:04]:
That's a much better metaphor because I think my metaphor No.

Liz Wolfe [01:32:07]:
I like the payday loan metaphor.

Ali Shapiro [01:32:08]:
Oh, no. That's I don't know if that's true, but I don't even know do they I don't even know if I've never gotten a payday loan. But I Overall, I have.

Liz Wolfe [01:32:17]:
I need a beer. You have? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And, like, right after college when I was, like, I'm not gonna ask my parents for help, but I had no money because they spent it all on

Ali Shapiro [01:32:27]:
it was, like, a

Liz Wolfe [01:32:28]:
$350 payday loan. It's just ridiculous.

Ali Shapiro [01:32:31]:
How long

Liz Wolfe [01:32:32]:
did it take you

Ali Shapiro [01:32:32]:
to pay off?

Liz Wolfe [01:32:33]:
I don't even remember. I probably didn't even pay it off. I I mean, I'm sure I'm sure I did. But I I'm sure I paid, like, you know, twice as much for it. But I like that analogy. But but you're totally right. If we are sending our body signals that we are not just sending signals. If we are resourcing our bodies on a consistent basis and they have reserves to pull from, which by the way oh, here's another real quick.

Liz Wolfe [01:32:56]:
Bringing it full circle. Your muscles can store, like, I can't remember how much more, but, like, 5 times more glucose than your liver. So we talk about glucose being stored in your liver which is an important, you know, but but your muscles can store way, way more, which is another reason why we want to optimize the amount of muscle that we individually can have. Yeah. So you're storing those resources.

Ali Shapiro [01:33:21]:
It's something like that. It's in my program.

Liz Wolfe [01:33:23]:
I can't always remember everything that's in my program. I don't have that

Ali Shapiro [01:33:26]:
right of recall,

Liz Wolfe [01:33:27]:
but it's in there. And some crazy amount more than our liver can store.

Ali Shapiro [01:33:31]:
Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. I just love your word resource because I think that feels like a giant exhale. Like, I'm trying to resource myself. We all know when we've slept well, we're a better resource. When you have money in the bank, we're your resource. Like, whatever it is, that feeling just feels like So thank you for I thought

Liz Wolfe [01:33:49]:
that money analogy is so good, the money in the bank analogy. Do you have that in the bank to deal with whatever pops up?

Ali Shapiro [01:33:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. It can really buffer that. And again, you experience it as, Okay, maybe I need something, but I'm gonna do something a little bit healthier than the super sweet stuff that is going to help permanently, but then take more, cost more later. So, yeah. So tell us about your program because, it opens, right, in July? Yes. Okay. You know what?

Liz Wolfe [01:34:21]:
I should probably tell people about 2 things. The when is this going up? It's gonna

Ali Shapiro [01:34:25]:
go up this Thursday, June right before the solstice. June 19th.

Liz Wolfe [01:34:30]:
Yeah. Oh, I love that you said it like that right before the solstice. I love that. Okay. So if it's going up then, the first thing I should tell people is that the we are opening the, subscriptions to the amino acid supplement to Ideal Age Daily Aminos Plus. So if those are interesting to you, wait until 20th. Is the 20th Thursday? Monday?

Ali Shapiro [01:34:52]:
I think Tuesdays. I could be wrong.

Liz Wolfe [01:34:55]:
I don't know. Just make sure you wait until 20th to go to ideal age.com. That's gonna take you to my manufacturer's shipping portal at MD Logic. You can buy Ideal Age Daily Aminos Plus. And if you want to, you can sign up for a subscription. And during the subscription launch phase, we are doing, like, an extra extra discount so you can lock in 20% off of 3 units every 3 months, which is, like, I really can't give that discount any lower than 3 units. But so it would basically be you'd be getting 1 unit a month, but you'd be shipped 3 every 3 months, cuts down on shipping costs on materials and all of that, plus free shipping. So you lock that in for life, and I don't care if you just wanna try them and you wanna order them once and cancel your subscription, I won't be mad because, obviously, I want you to like the product, but we'll also be doing 15% off to every 2 months, and I believe potentially 15% off one.

Liz Wolfe [01:35:49]:
I can't a 100% remember right now. I'm holding a lot of things in my head, but you'll be able to see that at by going to ideal age.com, and ideal age is exactly what it sounds like. We are we can make any age our ideal age. So that's the brand, Ideal Age. And so you can lock that in. And then the program, which is, you know, part of this whole ecosystem, is own your metabolism. It is an 8 week program that covers all of the things that you need to know about your metabolism, especially what happens to it after 35, what really happens to your metabolism after 35, and what to do about it so that you can go on to do whatever it is you wanna do, whether it's lose weight, change your body composition, level up your fitness, or just live a really good, beautiful, healthy life.

Ali Shapiro [01:36:38]:
I love that. And we will put links to everything in the show notes. And it is going out on 20th. I was wrong. I had the dates wrong. So

Liz Wolfe [01:36:45]:
Perfect. Okay. Well, then we're perfectly aligned. And then the proctored, the live cohort of Own Your Metabolism starts on July 1st.

Ali Shapiro [01:36:55]:
Ah, I like that.

Liz Wolfe [01:36:56]:
1st of the month. 1st of the month.

Ali Shapiro [01:36:59]:
Wake up. Wake up.

Liz Wolfe [01:37:00]:
Oh my gosh. And enjoying our age once again.

Ali Shapiro [01:37:04]:
Is there anything I didn't ask you that you wanted to include in our macros?

Liz Wolfe [01:37:10]:
No. You're so good. You got everything. Oh, good.

Ali Shapiro [01:37:12]:
That

Liz Wolfe [01:37:13]:
was a great episode. You're a great interviewer.

Ali Shapiro [01:37:15]:
Oh, thank you. You are too.

Liz Wolfe [01:37:18]:
Thanks. We should do this more often.

Ali Shapiro [01:37:20]:
I know.

Liz Wolfe [01:37:23]:
No. Thank you, friend. This was seriously wonderful. I love well, I love your

Ali Shapiro [01:37:28]:
people too. I love that they listen to me all

Liz Wolfe [01:37:28]:
the way to the end of that last episode.

Ali Shapiro [01:37:29]:
Well, it

Liz Wolfe [01:37:30]:
was a great very honored.

Ali Shapiro [01:37:31]:
Yeah. And we will link to that episode. It is such a great overview of metabolism, and it will be encouraging, I think, for people who I think so. Most of my listeners are like, I mean, we have 35, but most are 40 and over. And I think sometimes the dominant cultural narrative is it's all downhill. And it does not have to be. I actually went mountain I guess people are like, you went mountain biking. I took my bike and I went in the park, in the forest near our house, which was definitely, like, all gravel.

Ali Shapiro [01:38:04]:
And I'm like, I guess I mountain biked. But I just I was just biking to me, but it was so exhilarating and I was like, Yeah, I'm starting something new at 45, now that I'm muscled up, you know?

Liz Wolfe [01:38:19]:
Yeah. Now that you're all now that you're all beefy, you can do all that stuff.

Ali Shapiro [01:38:23]:
Yeah. Well, you realize, like, again, I'm really showing my age, but I love that you kick this off of, like, we see our parents. And again, my parents are almost 80. They have taken great of themselves, but you still inevitably see that, see certain things. And I'm like, I'm worried about balance now. Like, on the bike, it was like one time I almost wiped out, but I felt myself That stuff really matters. So It does. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [01:38:47]:
It is all about as we age, like, yes, weight loss is often still going to be the hook for people and you can achieve that by really also focusing on the aging well, because, yeah, that's really important. So

Liz Wolfe [01:39:04]:
Oh, and by the way, I should have said this and I'm sorry. I should have let you wrap it up, but I do provide you mentioned balance. My fitness programs, which are part of Own Your Metabolism, you get a year membership to the Own Your Fitness app. They are fully designed, like, to hit all of those different points, balance, agility, stability, strength, power, all of that because you have you really do have to do it all. You can't do just one thing. You can't just run on the treadmill. You can't just walk. Really, we wanna hit all of those different domains in order to set you up for life.

Ali Shapiro [01:39:40]:
I love that. I love that. That. I love that you can include aging and weight loss, you know? That's controversial these days. So thank you, Liz. Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you so much.