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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Defying Age and Enhancing Longevity: Strength, Diet, and Wellness Wisdom with Christine Boev
Unlock the fountain of youth with the remarkable Christine Bove as we explore the terrain of anti-aging and longevity. From Christine's athletic prowess to her protein-powered comeback post-motherhood, our conversation is a treasure trove of insights on how a well-orchestrated diet and the alchemy of weightlifting can defy the aging process. Ditch the confusion around health and embrace the simplicities of a life filled with vitality. Whether it's harnessing patience for a transformation that lasts or understanding the hormonal shifts that require our attention as we age—this episode is your roadmap to a life not just lived, but lived well.
Dive beneath the surface with us as we illuminate the benefits of weight training, especially for women navigating the 45-55 age spectrum. Say goodbye to the intimidation of the weight room and hello to a future where your bones and muscles thank you for the care. But why stop there? Learn how our proactive steps and biannual lab checks could see us thriving well into our centennial years. And while we're at it, let's debate those trending temperature-related wellness practices and the role they could play in your health journey. From infrared saunas to the mat of yoga, join us and Christine on this enlightening expedition towards everlasting health and youth.
Hello and welcome to Health Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen, and joining me today is welcome. Another wonderful guest, christine Bove. Today we're going to talk about all fun things to do with anti-aging how to not look old and wrinkly like me. So without further ado, let's welcome to the show, christine. Christine, it's a pleasure to have you today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me, Anthony. I have a passion to help people live a long life, but a high quality life and really just understanding the basics of biology in terms of your hormones, in terms of why we slow down when we age and all the things that we can do to try to prevent that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how about not balding by the age of 18?
Speaker 2:No, Well, I don't think you had any control over the hair on top of your head.
Speaker 1:No, unfortunately not. It was like my dad looked at me and goes I was young, Well, you're going to look like me one day. And that thing came real quick.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Nothing nothing you can do about that?
Speaker 1:We want to. I want to ask you first kind of how you got into that health and fitness role and what kind of kickstarted you on this path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have a PhD and I'm a registered nurse. So I've always been into helping people live their best life and I've always been an athlete. So my whole life I've been in collegiate athletics. I was a springboard diver and I was always you know, relatively you would say I was healthy and I was always you know, relatively you would say I was healthy, like most women.
Speaker 2:After I had children and, you know, life started to take its toll and hormones and the environment I wasn't able to maintain my level of athleticism in my current state. So I went on a quest to really understand how do you live well, how do you take care of your body, fuel your body? And at the end of that discovery I came to the realization of what most people know that there's no fad diets, there's no keto or anything like that. It's you've got to have a sensible fueling plan. It's got to include macros and a lot of protein, and if you don't lift weights, then you're not going to build muscle and you are going to age more aggressively. And so I took that information that I've been able to apply to my own life and I share it with others, and it's been really fulfilling to help people, men and women of all ages, to really figure out that this aging puzzle doesn't have to be so complicated. There's just so much information out there that it does get confusing and overwhelming. Like who do you listen to?
Speaker 1:Oh, the information is, I don't even have words, right, it doesn't matter what you tell people. They're like, well, I saw this on tiktok and it's like, oh, how's that going for you? Um, but no, really, it's just. Everyone thinks they're an expert in our field because their friend lost 10 pounds because they tried the I'm gonna eat just mcdonald's burgers every day and then lost weight and goes, look, this works. And didn't understand that just anyone could just eat the same thing every day and lose weight and it's just water weight, but whatever, not getting semantics of it. It just that's why there's so many experts. Quote unquote for those assuming audio in our industry is because the data is just overwhelming and if you're not paying attention to it every single day, like you and I are, it's a lot. So they need people. People need it simplified down and they need the right avenue that people return to.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and they almost need a prescription. I need you to do this, I need you to follow this recipe, and I think people, more than that, need the accountability to do it, because you know like, I can tell you what to do and I can give you the directions, but if there's nobody looking over your shoulder trying to encourage you and push you, then people don't have the I don't like to use the word willpower, but they just don't have the discipline to stick to anything. And the other issue is people are so impatient. They expect things to change so radically and so quickly. And what I remind them is it took you 30 years, 40 years to get to your current condition. You can't expect for things to change in a month, even six months. You know most of my clients. I'm like give me a year, give me a year of your full, undivided attention and I can change your life. But most people get really impatient after about six weeks of thinking that they're doing, you know, the right thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or even what they think is the right thing. Like you said, it's just who knows? So, with all of that being said, right, so what's the? What do you think the first step is for somebody who's looking hey, I don't like the way I look, I'm looking older? I mean, we're talking mostly the 45 to 55-year-old crowd when you really start noticing changes in your body and you're not liking the way you look. Women are starting to hit menopause and their hormones are starting to change, so what do you think the answer is as far as preventing themselves from looking older than they actually are?
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's a couple of things. Number one, it's not just preventing what you're looking like, but at that point you're at your midlife point and you've got to make a decision whether you are going to radically change the way that you take care of yourself or not. Otherwise, you're going to spend the next half of your life fighting chronic disease and illness. So the likelihood is that you and I are going to die of four things cancer, heart disease, alzheimer's and neurodegenerative diseases, and metabolic disease like diabetes. So a lot of clients come to me and they're like I went to the doctor, I'm pre-diabetic, I don't want to have diabetes. And those are the best types of clients because it's like well, we can help you, right, we can help you prevent getting diabetes. That has everything to do with lifestyle changes. So often it's that realization that if I don't do something and do something pretty significant and drastic I'm going to die, and I'm going to die and live the rest of my life in a condition that is not favorable. So I think oftentimes in this midlife phase you're faced with your own mortality and you're like oh man, I've got to change the way I've been doing things. So that's, you know, that's the first thing that I tend to talk about with clients is we get really dark right Like do you want to end up with diabetes? Do you want to end up with poor wound healing With my male clients?
Speaker 2:Do you want to have erectile dysfunction? That typically is a motivator. If you're not able to have sex anymore, you're like, oh, that's not good, I've got to fix that. So figure out your motivation, your why, your purpose, and then starting with small steps. I don't think that me putting somebody on 180 grams of protein and weight training every single day when they haven't done anything is going to be successful. So I tend to ease people in. If you're very obese, we'll just start with walking and then we'll really focus on nutrition and fueling because, as you know, 80% of your body composition is how you fuel. The other 20% is your strength training, your walking, your aerobic exercise and things like that. So let's focus on your nutrition first, which is arguably the hardest part for most people. You know most people. I can give you a exercise routine and you'll go do it, but if you eat like crap, nothing is going to change, and that's the problem that I see a lot of times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. The food part is where a lot of people get lost, and but I can also argue the fact that I don't think it's not a willingness to learn. I think it's that they're learning the wrong thing. And I mean just myself. My phone hears me talking. Right, everyone knows that, and I'm scrolling through Instagram and it's the running joke Eggs are going to kill you. No, the next video eggs are the best thing for you. Spinach is going to kill you. No, spinach is the best thing. Like little things like that. And if I'm a regular consumer and listening to all this, I'm going to go wow, this is really overwhelming. This person says doctor, this one says PhD, and they're both telling me different things. Like screw this, I'm out, like who do I listen to and how do I know, even if I'm listening to an individual, that I'm getting the right information? So is there anything you can tell the audience, like how do you know who to go to and who to trust?
Speaker 2:I think that's a really good question. The reason that I think people trust me is I've been able to show them what's worked for me. So it's kind of like if you go to your doctor and they're 350 pounds, I'm not going to take your advice on health, wellness and nutrition because you don't know how to take care of yourself. So I think you've got to consider the source and see how they are able to conduct their own lives and then make the decision as to whether or not you should trust them. And for me, most people do really well following macros and following a high protein diet that really focuses on building muscle, because muscle is your longevity organ. The more muscle you have on your frame, the longer you're going to live and the higher your quality of life, and so that is a great starting point for most people.
Speaker 2:And the thing I like about macros is you can really diversify and you can customize. I have clients who are vegans who follow their macros. I have clients who are on carnivore macros. I have clients who are on carnivore. It kind of is a one size fits all, depending on like where your preferences lean towards, as long as you understand like I've got to get my protein in and if I can start there, I'm going to make a lot of gains in terms of putting on that lean muscle mass that's going to keep me youthful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot does come from just having an understanding of what a macronutrient is. Sorry, I didn't. Just for credibility reasons, I should just explain the three macronutrients of proteins, carbs and fats, and any single person that tells you to avoid one of those, you should just run the other direction. I'm saying I'm going to avoid you Absolutely. You do need a blend of all three of them. That's like the three macronutrients. Blend of all three of them. That's like the three macronutrients. So just a key point focusing on the protein as something you were talking about in order to help build muscle is, I'm going to agree with you is probably the easiest thing to look at. If I'm going to tell people to sit inside of certain grams per for all three, yet again, it's becoming a lot of information.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to learn how to track my food, my food. I'm going to learn how to scan everything in. I'm going to have to learn how to measure. Like I can't just go off eyeballing about what I'm putting in my mouth. I actually have to look and break it down. If I'm home cooking, if look at the ingredients I'm adding into the meal I'm making, that's going to help calorie pack that meal. So if I wanted to super simplify, the easiest way to be would be just to start with protein, kind of like you said, and say, hey, for week one, let's distract your protein intake. It's the easiest. You just kind of look at what you are, you weigh it out, it starts teaching you how to weigh, it starts teaching you how to track what you're putting in, and protein overall is just going to keep you full. So you're not going to have to worry about sitting there being like, oh my God, I'm hungry. Did I not eat enough today? At least you're getting on the right track.
Speaker 1:So I guess my first question following into that is I see the tides turning on this, but it's still a huge thing. Women, especially in that age bracket the 45 to 55, kind of as like a bad running joke, we'll do anything but weightlift. So and you see it across the board and then people like yourself who do weightlift, I mean clearly they always say, well, I don't want to look like you. Well, it's hard to explain. You're not just going to lift the dumbbell in order to all of a sudden look like arnold, especially as a female. So, uh, if you could explain kind of how, the avenue of that and kind of helps cut that fear once and for all, we can get women into the weight room. How would you approach that subject?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the mistake that I made in like probably my late 20s to early 30s, was I only did cardio, and you'll see that a lot at the gym. If you go to the gym, you'll see like the same people on the same elliptical over and over again, but the problem is they don't look any different. Their body composition never changes. So I think the science has really caught up with the rest of the world. That shows that you really want to focus on strength training, not just to build your lean muscle mass, but also to support bone health, because there is this condition called osteopenia, which means your bones are getting weaker over time, which can lead to osteoporosis, which can lead to fractures and breaks and things like that, which will put you one foot in the grave a lot quicker.
Speaker 2:So, for men and women, you want to protect your bone health. You really want to make sure that your bones are nice and strong so that if you do suffer a fall, that you're not going to break a hip or crack your skull open or whatnot. So I can work with somebody who's got a couple pair of dumbbells. I work with people who prefer machines at the gym. It doesn't matter, as long as you are getting that resistance training in, and I'll start with just three days a week where we'll do a push day, a pull day and a full body day, and that seems to be a nice starting point for people that they're like, oh I can do that and I can do a great workout in 45 minutes. I don't have to dedicate an hour and a half of my life to my strength training portion of my workout. So you've got to make it reasonable.
Speaker 2:You've got to make it pleasant, and it can't be too complicated because then it's going to be too overwhelming. So it's that keep it simple. That is going to help people feel comfortable, because some people have never picked up dumbbells before. They have no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So what would be a simple way for someone approaching the weight room that wants to do it on their own? What's that actionable takeaway item you can give to them?
Speaker 2:So what I do is I just come up with basic exercises with a couple pairs of dumbbells and maybe a bench and I'll work with them. If they're remote clients, I'll send them videos. I'll have them send me videos back and just as a starting place and just that kind of reassurance that you know what you're doing, you're doing it correctly, you're not going to hurt yourself. You know people are worried about back injuries and lower body injuries, so we want to avoid that at all costs and if you don't have good form, then that's, you know, clearly an issue. Also, not pushing it too hard, especially initially. But what I tell people is, if you've done a good workout, you should be sore the next day, you should feel that body part that you just worked. I did legs yesterday and I was walking down the stairs just now and, like I remember, yeah, I definitely did lower body because my legs are very sore I know that I was able to do what I wanted to do in terms of exerting some force on those lower body muscles.
Speaker 1:What would be a good place? I'm listening to the show, right, Christina? I want to just do this on my own. I want to go. What's something, a good first thing I can focus on as an individual, listening and really take with me as I go along on this journey?
Speaker 2:By place do you mean location or what do you mean?
Speaker 1:Like, what can I do? Like right, If I want to step, I'm nervous. I don't want to step foot into a gym, I'm all by myself. I've never been here before. What's somewhere comfortable I can be besides the where I'm used to the treadmill and elliptical. Like what's something I can do for myself as a good first step.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you already belong to a gym and they have machine circuits, I would go ahead and just do the circuit or work with somebody at your gym and say, hey, I've never done this before. I think asking for help is really important. But then at some point it's really good to work with a coach who can design a workout program that is specific to your needs and specific to your athletic capabilities and things like that. But a lot of my clients prefer just to get some dumbbells and work out in the comfort of their own home, where you don't have an audience, you don't have to deal with waiting for machines, you don't have to deal with crowds, and for me personally, I love just walking down to my basement and doing my workout in the comfort of my own home. You don't have to spend a lot of money. You can get dumbbells at Walmart and really have an effective, you know equipment to do a really good workout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just keep it simple. This is the easiest way. I mean even like using a step outside, just going up and down the step is super effective workout. Just I'll personally add to that the biggest muscle in your body is your gluteus maximus maximus, but if you're really looking to burn a lot of calories and have a muscle that's easy to add lean muscle mass to, that's a great place to start because overall you could add muscle to the like, even easily to the bigger muscle groups, and really increase your bmr. But I want to talk a little more about the anti-aging stuff, because that's kind of what we hopped into originally. So we went into counting nutrition in the macros, we went into going to the gym. What else can I do? If I'm focused, I really want to worry about like not looking older than I am or anything like that. What can I do to prevent that anti-aging component?
Speaker 2:So there's a couple of different categories that I think about when I'm thinking about anti-aging. The first one is hormone optimization. So at some point, if you're in your 40s or 50s, you should be regularly checking your hormone levels. So, males, you want to. You're free in your total testosterone. You want to check your DHEA levels, you want to make sure that your thyroid gland is functioning appropriately, and then at some point, you might want to work with a provider to optimize your testosterone levels.
Speaker 2:It's becoming much more accepted in this medicine area that people are doing testosterone replacement, and it has nothing to do with the weight room and it has nothing to do with your muscle. It has to do with your overall well-being and longevity. So that's one area. Females, same thing Checking your estrogen, your progesterone and then your thyroid gland as well. And do you really want to suffer through menopause, perimenopause? Is hormone replacement something that you want to consider?
Speaker 2:Again, it's becoming much more acceptable that we've realized that the side effects that they thought were terrible with hormone replacement are not really the case. So a lot of people do not prescribe hormones. Based on the Women's Health Study Initiative, that was done way back when, and the average age of the participants were in their 70s and the flaw the fatal flaw of that study was the age of the participants. So what they found was oh, a lot of these people are ending up with cancer or heart disease. Well, they didn't control for the fact that they were old, and just by virtue of getting older, you're at higher risk for cancers.
Speaker 2:So most physicians now are much more into the literature the current literature on hormone replacement therapy, and so if you want to look and feel better, that's something you should definitely talk to your provider about as an option. You want to make sure your thyroid gland is functioning properly. Over time it can get sluggish and that is your metabolic powerhouse of your body. If that starts to slow down, you're going to feel tired, you're going to feel sluggish, your metabolism is going to slow down. So, from like a biological standpoint, that's one place I would start. You know if you're feeling exhausted, if you're low energy, see where you're at in terms of your hormones, and then you can make a decision with your provider whether hormone replacement is something that you want to think about.
Speaker 1:And just to add, what is hormone replacement therapy? Some people may not know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you're a male, then it would include supplementing with testosterone and it's usually an injection that is twice a week. If you're a female, it is supplementing with estrogen and progesterone, which is typically an oral supplementation. Some people use estrogen patches, but this would all need to be prescribed by your provider and you want to monitor your labs. So I get my labs checked every six months and I'm checking for all sorts of things, but basically every hormone produced by my brain, my thyroid, my cholesterol, all of my cardiac markers of heart disease, and I am just looking for any opportunity to improve.
Speaker 2:I personally have a goal, like I feel like I'm going to live, unless I get hit by a truck or something. I should easily make it into my one twenties with high quality, but doing that with a proactive approach. You know and like oh hey, this, this enzyme is a little bit high or this marker of inflammation is a little bit elevated. I wonder why. You know, what can we do about it? How can we address that and that's how I deal with anti-aging and longevity is really through a proactive approach. But hormones are prescriptions per se.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, and then you were going into another topic what else you would do besides hormone replacement therapy. What was that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so then I was just telling you when we got on, I just did cryotherapy, and some great anti-aging strategies have to do with temperature. So one of my favorite things to do is spending time in the infrared sauna. That has very strong, researched anti-aging properties. It brings down your blood pressure, it detoxes your body, it's good for your lymphatic system. So I spend probably I wish I could spend more time, but I'm usually in the infrared sauna three to four times a week for about 45 minutes.
Speaker 2:Cold therapies are another great option. These are all strategies to decrease inflammation, and so cryo it's about three-ish minutes in a cryotherapy tank. The one that we just did was minus 170 degrees and again, it just shocks your cells so that they're not releasing those inflammatory markers that tend to disrupt your system. Cold plunging has some great science behind it as well to decrease inflammation. It has shown to help with mood, anxiety, mental health. So there's a lot of opportunities in terms of temperature extremes that can help with anti-aging, but the biggest one is mobility. You have got to move your body. So you know, in addition to strength training, just walking, walking every day as much as you can is huge. Never taking the elevator, you know, always looking for opportunities to increase your steps. Yoga is amazing for your mobility as well, and just being able to get on and off the floor without assistance is huge. Just mobility is everything. Because you'll hear the phrase move it or lose it, and that is completely accurate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You have to get moving. Moving even with the little stuff in life. Just I like pacing along the phone. Huge perk it gets you moving more steps than you can even imagine. Especially when you get into conversations like me, you're still walking fast. A little interesting study popped on cold plungers and cryotherapy I think, like a week ago, so brand new.
Speaker 1:Uh, it actually shows that it does not doesn't help increase lean muscle mass. It actually can decrease lean muscle mass or combine with retraining. Each other was pretty interesting because I know a lot of people use it for recovery, for things like that, so it's kind of counterintuitive. But on the flip side of that, it does help, like you said, a lot, especially with mental health. Like through the roof research showing how much it can help someone's mental clarity, focus, those things really helps like bring everything together. So it's more just everything has its pros and everything has its cons and I think it's just important to understand that with everything in life. Right, because certain people shouldn't use the infrared sauna. If you have certain chronic diseases for the general public, go for it. I love the sauna. I could sleep in a sauna and I am a freaking scorpion, I think because I could literally just pass out on the sun just like four hours and I feel amazing afterwards yeah, yeah, I just want to add, though, with the anti-inflammatory properties, which don't aren't related to muscle mass.
Speaker 2:Inflammation is directly related to those four causes of death that we talked about. So cancer and metabolic disease and heart disease and Alzheimer's are directly related to inflammation, and heart disease and Alzheimer's are directly related to inflammation. So if you're thinking about those temperature extremes to cause an anti-inflammatory mechanism, that's a good way to think about it is this is going to help me live longer, because I'm trying to decrease the amount of inflammation in my body, and we haven't talked about cortisol, but cortisol is, you know, your stress hormone that goes up as we don't sleep if we deal with, you know, a lot of stress in our lives, and all of these modalities also help to kind of bring that cortisol level down, which will, in turn, help you live longer, which is really important turn, help you live longer, which is really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and cortisol is the devil, but you do need shots of cortisol. I think it's just important to understand why we have cortisol to begin with. It's meant for stress, right, we need to do that burst of energy and stress, but it's short and that's what people pretend to forget. When we're in nature and we hear a cracking in the back quarters of, levels spike because we're like, oh shit, we're being hunted, like that's what it's meant for. Are you going to stay and you're going to fight, or you're going to run away and try to get it before you get killed, like quick, but the second you get away from the danger, your cortisol levels regulate and drop.
Speaker 1:What we tended to do in our society now, because we're no longer being hunted, is we take micro cases of it, like work stress, and then we compound that work stress and make it bigger deals than it actually is. When you know what, in the long run, most of it doesn't really freaking matter because, the way I look at it, is it going to kill you? No, okay, let's stop overreacting about this. Yes, it may suck, but you know there are ways around it. You're not going to die right now. So let's keep that cortisol kind of in check and figure it out from there.
Speaker 2:I read a study recently that we are supposed to be in our parasympathetic spike 80% of the time and then sympathetic that fight or flight only 20%. But with technology and all of the stimulation, like you said, that micro, we flipped it. So as a society, we are 80% of the time that we're awake, our sympathetic nervous system is dominant and our parasympathetic is not, and that is the complete opposite of how we are evolutionarily wired to be. So our body's really pissed at us right now because we're constantly spiking cortisol, which spikes our blood sugar, and it just causes this generalized stress and you know. So how do you fix that? It's really trying to control your environment purposely. You know. Put your phone on, do not disturb, spend some time in quiet meditation like how can you decrease the amount of sympathetic in your life? Because it's hard. There's so much stimuli that is constantly being thrown at us constant every day.
Speaker 1:I had 15 phone calls today like I'll just tell the audience this morning we're supposed to do this, and I was like I just got 45 messages, but I had to like get through it so I could bring myself back down and be like all right, cool, we're ready to go. Let's kind of move forward with all of this. But it's so true, people got so addicted to the algorithm on our phones and the technology that's meant to hit that sympathetic response and gets riled up, it'll get give us a hint of dopamine and it becomes addicting and that's when that response really pushes through. We don't spend a lot of time like down, like just really observing life. Or when we go sit outside, what do we do? We scroll through our phones like no, sit outside, bring yourself down 90s right yeah, yeah, so true, I only was.
Speaker 1:I was alive for all of it, but I was really young.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was a. It was a great time to be in adolescence, it, you know and in college, um, because there were no phones, there was no videos, there was no social media.
Speaker 1:It was very pure yeah, I couldn't agree more. So, christine, I do want to ask you just start wrapping this up is if you were to summarize this episode in one or two sentences, what would be your take-home message for the audience?
Speaker 2:yeah, my take-home message is your ability to live a high quality life well into your 90s and 100s is within your control. It requires a lot of discipline and focus and your own work of making sure you understand how you control your destiny, but it's completely doable. There's so many people like myself and Anthony who have role modeled health and wellness, and you just have to follow the right advice of people who actually know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And then the second question how can people find you and get ahold of you and learn more?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the best way is on Instagram. It's Dr Christine Boeve. So Dr Christine Boeve and you can send me a message if you guys have questions. I like to post content on health, fitness, anti-aging, science, whatever is relevant at the moment to really extend that quality.
Speaker 1:I love it, christine. Thank you so much for coming on. Guys. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Health and Fitness Redefined. Don't forget, forget, hit that subscribe button and join us next week as we dive deeper into this ever-changing field and remember fitness is medicine. Until next week, thank you, outro Music.
