Protein Myths, Strength Training and Healthy Aging

Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper and today’s guest has something for the serious athletes looking to optimize performance as well as the 80 year old concerned about muscles wasting way. And frankly, everyone in between. Professor Stuart Phillips is a tier one Canada research chair in skeletal muscle health and aging. His research, get this has been cited over 32,000 times. And if you’re not currently following him on Twitter, you’re going to want to. It’s @Mackinprof. We talk about protein myths, muscle development, aging, and even growing research around sarcopenia. I’d followed him for years on Twitter, and I really enjoyed our chat. Folks, if you’re looking to pursue your wellness coach certification before the NBHWC requirements and thus your costs increased significantly this fall, you have one more chance. The June course filled a month early. So we added one final opportunity in July for those wanting to meet that fall NBHWC deadline, feel free to reach out. We can answer all your questions, it’s Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com, or you can access an ebook that walks you through every single detail right there on our website CatalystCoachingInstitute.com under the resources tab. We also have a number of resources available on the new coaching channel, which is literally youtube.com/coaching channel, if you’d like to take a peek there. Now, let’s talk protein, aging and strength on the latest episode of the Catalyst, Health, Wellness, and Performance podcast. Professor Phillips. It is a pleasure to have you join us today. Thanks for coming on the show.

Stuart Phillips

My pleasure Bradford.

Dr. Cooper

The, the research that you focus on is around protein, aging, skeletal muscle, sarcopenia. All of these are, to me, at least super fascinating, very interrelated and seem to be growing by the day in terms of the interests. What’s your, why? What, what took you down this path instead of something else?

Stuart Phillips

Yeah, I I’ve been at McMaster university now for 22 years and I would probably say that in the early part of my career, at least the first 10 years, we focused a lot on the interaction between exercise and diet and specifically protein in younger folks. And we looked at how protein could support basically resistance training or any type of exercise to enhance adaptations. And then I guess, along with a lot of other people, and, and as I’ve gotten older as well, your interest sort of tends to shift. And I took on a directorship of a center here that has a mean age in terms of membership of almost 72. So it’s a community access program that we run and all of a sudden things began to shift quite drastically for me. And, you know, I realized that the aging demographic was one that needed some solid advice. And so we shifted our research focus to, uh, to aging probably for the last say eight to 10 years.

Dr. Cooper

Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, we had Kelly McGonigal on a couple months ago and I loved her term. She said, well, my understanding is most research is me-search. She said it kind of comes from what’s going on in your life and where things are going. So I liked the way you said that. A lot we can cover here. Let’s start off with, let’s look for a big idea that our audience might find intriguing in each of the four. So protein, skeletal, muscle aging and sarcopenia, let’s start with protein. What would be the big idea that isn’t obvious to folks that might be listening?

Stuart Phillips

I think protein, uh, has sort of undergone a little bit of a Renaissance. When I was first going to exercise science meetings about 20 years ago, it was all about carbohydrate and its role in enhancing performance. And then we had a big shift to, towards a lot of sort of higher fat if you like, diets and their effects. And so low carb, high fat ketogenic. And protein is really the, sort of the orphan nutrient in the sense that it really doesn’t have the same degree of exposure as the other two. And I would say that in the last, probably at least five to six years, there’s been an increased focus on protein and people that are interested in it, but it’s always against this backdrop of, uh, you know, the recommended dietary allowance being sufficient and at 0.8 grams of protein per kilo per day, that’s not a lot of protein. And that too much protein causes and the usual ones are, it causes your kidneys to fail and or it causes your bones to dissolve. And so, you know, it’s sort of all, you’re eating plenty, don’t worry. Uh, we think the RDA for the record is too low or you’re eating too much. And so it’s sort of, there’s no seemingly middle ground where you could probably eat more than the RDA and yet not eat so much that it would pose a health risk. And that’s really where we’ve been trying to focus our research more recently.

Dr. Cooper

So before we move to the next one and we’ll come back to this, but can you give us some guidelines? Is that 0.8 grams per kilogram per day, where you’ve landed at this point?

Stuart Phillips

No, uh, we think that that’s not sufficient and we think as a minimum, we need to bump that up to about 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram per day. And I would say that for most people, particularly as you get older, the closer you can get probably to double, the RDA about 1.6 grams per kilogram per day, would be where people should aim. And I have friends who, uh, you know, they would sort of say, Oh, well, you can go higher than that. And I definitely agree. You can go higher. There’s there’s no question about that. To me, at least the benefits begin to plateau off a little bit around 1.6.

Dr. Cooper

Okay, excellent, great, great starting point, uh, skeletal muscle. Let’s talk about that a little bit.

Stuart Phillips

Skeletal muscle. Well, there’s another tissue that’s sort of undergone a Renaissance in terms of our understanding of its importance. I mean, I think we always knew that, you know, if you didn’t have good skeletal muscle and it didn’t have good function that you were getting weaker and obviously becoming frail, but I think, and my former mentor in this area, Bob Wolf wrote a pretty seminal article in which he said that the role of skeletal muscle is underappreciated and probably metabolically so, it’s the greatest thing in terms of tissues that we have in our body for disposing of blood glucose, after a meal, and it plays a large role in thermogenesis. So I think it’s really important that we bear in mind that it’s not just the tissue that keeps us moving, although it is that, that it’s the tissue that also has a tremendous role to play in metabolism as well.

Dr. Cooper

Aging, next one up, what’s the big idea in aging right now? There’s so much coming out. Obviously a lot of that is because the population is gradually shifting in that direction a little bit, but what would be one of the big ideas that maybe we’re not aware of?

Stuart Phillips

I don’t know if there’s any big idea that we’re not aware of other than that, just the, the demographics, this that are staring everybody in the face, but the concept of aging I think is changing. And, and so we have 500 community members and when I line up pictures and I say, you know, what’s your concept of aging and there’s a variety of pictures that form this collage. None of them pick a picture in which older people are sitting on rocking chairs on a porch, for example, you know, kicking up and I’m good. And I don’t say that they don’t want to have some sort of downtime and as they either approach retirement or beyond retirement, but their, their visions of how they they’re growing old, I think are a little bit different. A lot of them aspire to be active. A lot of them want to travel and just a different view of how the aging trajectory should be. It shouldn’t be a sort of a wind down, they’re kind of looking to kind of keep up with things. And, uh, some of them do probably more than they did actually when they were working. So I think it’s a shift as much in the demographic, but people’s concepts of aging are changing as well.

Dr. Cooper

We interviewed Earl Fee who has the world record in the 800 meters. And it’s just so amazing to hear he’s at the track two or three times a week. He’s 90 he’s 90.

Stuart Phillips

It’s interesting. My colleague at the university, Marty Gibala and I have, uh, an online course hosted on Coursera called a hacking exercise for health. We talk about Earl and we talk about, you know, people who are defying aging really by doing what they do. And he’s obviously a great example, but there are lots of others from different types of sports and sporting events and Clarence Bass, a great example of a person who’s kept himself in shape from a, a body and physique perspective. That is just, Oh my goodness. He’s, he’s cheating, cheating his years by us.

Dr. Cooper

Love it, love it. And let’s actually throw that course out again because I think that’d be something people are very interested. So everyone it’s called Coursera. And professor Phillips. The title of this one specifically is hacking exercise for health. Excellent. Last one, sarcopenia big idea from sarcopenia.

Stuart Phillips

Yeah. Sarcopenia, uh, the terms old it’s been around now for probably closer to 30 years. And initially when Irwin Rosenberg coined the term, it was poverty of flesh writer, simply in his case, he was talking about loss or wasting of muscle as we age. But the term has evolved now to include not just muscle loss, but the loss of the function of the muscle that goes along with it. And then you’re beginning to see the, the shades where that begins to step into, and when it gets to a point where you don’t have enough muscle and your function has gone down that, you know, you’re approaching frailty. And so I think that the two concepts are interlinked. I think that we’ve got a greater appreciation of what it means to be mobile as you get older and by mobility, I don’t mean just physical mobility, but obviously social mobility and sort of community mobility, really sort of an expanded definition from the original one, but an absolute explosion in terms of our understanding of people who as they age are not mobile, just, just do not do as well. And, you know, that’s, that’s, I think a big key for understanding how to age successfully

Dr. Cooper

When it comes to sarcopenia. Is it just based on your current activity levels when you’re 70, 80, 90, or are the things you’re doing in your thirties, your forties, your fifties, do they have any kind of carry over or is that simply too far in the, our past history that it really doesn’t have an impact? But if someone’s 35 right now, or, or 47 right now, and listening to this are there things they can be doing that will be beneficial outside of just establishing habits when they are 70, 80, 90.

Stuart Phillips

It’s a great question. And I think a lot of it is couched in understanding when people say, you know, when does sarcopenia start by, I get more and more sensitive about it, but this year, for example, it starts at age 56 and next year it’ll start at age 57.

Dr. Cooper

Let me guess your age.

Stuart Phillips

Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean the, the, the main point is that I think for a lot of people, you know, when we’re kids and we’re growing and we get in our twenties and we’re usually pretty active and we’re doing stuff is we’re not losing muscle, but I think when we can take that first job, and for most of us, we spend a lot of time sitting behind a desk and also a lot of sedentary time. And then we have kids. And so you’re finding time for exercise, as opposed to it being something that was easy to slot or easier to slot into your schedule, then it may be, it does start for some people in their thirties, but it’s definitely measurable for a number of people by the time they hit their fifties. And you can begin to see a little bit of functional deficit. People seek out the hand rail when they go up and down stairs. And a lot of people say, Oh, that’s a safety thing. Well, maybe a lot of people feel actually they don’t have the mobility that they once did. And, and, and this is it’s safety as much as it is actually, I kinda need that hand rail to some degree. So those are small and subtle things. And then obviously as things progress into your seventies and eighties, then it’s, it’s a little bit more difficult. So as a preventative measure than it should be, as you said, development of habits that start earlier in life, because it’s always easier to mitigate decline than it is to reverse something that’s, that’s happening later in life. That having been said, it’s never, in that, you know, underscore never too late to start. And it always is associated with some sort of functional benefit. And, you know, I mean, it’s, to a degree it’s akin to the smoking cessation message, anytime that you quit smoking, it’s always good. Uh, the benefits tend to dwindle the longer we’ve been a smoker. So to flip the analogy, then the longer you’ve been a sedentary person, the benefits tend to be harder to reap, but they’re always there.

Dr. Cooper

Great analogy. What would surprise the average person most in terms of some of the discoveries you’ve made in your role, in your position, in what you’re doing there at McMaster?

Stuart Phillips

I don’t think we’ve made any major discoveries that would sort of, you know, qualify as Nobel prize status, but we’ve certainly, uh, through the research that we’ve done emphasized two things. So as the two stimuli for, for maintaining good and healthy muscle, the far more potent of the two, and it’s not an argument about, can you get one in the absence of the other is physical activity. So a really interesting series of studies, and it’s not just our work but a lot of other people’s as well, where we have taken older people. And we have said to them, these are healthy older people. So for two weeks, you’re only going to take 1500 steps a day. And a lot of people said that is crazy 1500 steps, we wouldn’t go there. But in the current climate of social distancing or physical distancing, there are probably a lot of people sitting at home right now who, unless they take the time to go out for a walk with a, if they’re wearing a pedometer, for example, would find, 1500 steps actually, that’s exactly where they are. And what we found in these older people was the two weeks of that basically made them not to a huge extent, but mildly insulin resistance. So they’re there, you know, if they were a little bit overweight and some of them were probably pre-diabetic anyway, then they get pushed into the zone that we would call actually, you’re now type two diabetic. And stunningly to us, and this really was surprising is that with two weeks of return, to just normal daily physical activity, most people didn’t get back to where they were. So the impact of physical inactivity is incredible. It’s it happens quickly and we become deconditioned fairly quickly. But in that study, we found one or two, they might not be Earl Fee type individuals, but people that were taking sort of 15 and 16,000 steps a day, and that’s a lot of walking and these people were metabolically, they were, you know, they were like a shiny tack. They look like a 30 to 40 year old instead of the 60 to 70 year old. They were not that diet doesn’t play a role in muscle health. It absolutely does. And in health in general, but I think it’s really, I mean, it’s the right way to put it as it’s difficult to out diet the declining muscle mass and function that you have without being physically active. Naturally the two together are better than either one alone. That to me, it really sort of emphasized what it means to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, even for a short period of time and people who work in medicine, they know this, uh, getting patients up and out of bed earlier rather than later is obviously the strategy. But that was something that in recent memory, I was just, I remember when the students showed it to me, I was like, Oh my Lord. And we had to basically, uh, admit to our participants that we, we needed to bring these people back in and get them on an activity program.

Dr. Cooper

Wow, wow. That is really interesting. Let’s come back to the protein dosage for a second. You mentioned, you know, minimum 1.2 grams per kilogram per day, 1.6, as we get older and older, is this in a, you know, you said it shifts one year, every year as your birthday hits, but is that 60 plus when does that recommendation kick in?

Stuart Phillips

Yeah, that’s a great question. And I, and I wish I could give you a hard and fast answer. I think when you’re beginning to get into your fifties, you need to pay a little bit more attention to your nutrition. And I think consumption of what I call nutrient dense sources of protein. And so by that eggs, meat, if you choose not to eat meat, then obviously vegetable sources of protein. So pulses, legumes, and dairy, and my sort of go-to solve for a lot of people who tend to be smaller breakfast, eating people is, is Greek yogurt has been a, like a savior food almost to get people to consume a little bit more protein at breakfast. And so it’s a recommendation. That’s not just the total amount, but also to try more evenly distributed protein across the day. And so most people tend to eat a small amount of breakfast, a larger amount of lunch, but then the vast majority in the evening, and what we’re advocating for is actually to try and spread that out across the day. So if it’s 1.2, uh, you know, three larger meals of about 0.4, or if it’s 1.6, three larger meals about 0.5 grams for kilos per meal.

Dr. Cooper

Cause I do hear that a lot from folks that they’re, they just, how do I get that extra? It seems like folks can get close, but then the extra 20, 25, so Greek yogurt, what do you think of the protein powders? There’s so many options now, thoughts on that, guidance on that is that a good filler? Is that a bad filler?

Stuart Phillips

I’m not opposed to supplements. We obviously do a lot of work at my group with isolated supplemental sources of protein. We’ve done the most work with dairy source proteins, mostly whey and casein. We’re just finishing off some work with, uh, believe it or not with potato protein and now, everybody goes into this wow, how much protein is there, are there in potatoes? And I, my point is, there’s not a lot, but we grow a couple of billion, tons of potatoes, and we don’t eat all of those potatoes. And so people are looking for ways to isolate the ingredients, but we’re doing work with pea protein as well. So my take on those is that they are a useful ingredient to have if you don’t like to, so they’re convenient. If you don’t want to prepare the food, you can put them into shakes or you can mix them into yogurts or puddings or whatever it is. And so from that sense, they are helpful. They don’t have a lot of extra energy usually or calories associated with them, so that they’re free from the energy load that might be associated with consuming the same amount of protein in food. But what they don’t have usually anyway, is if you were to eat an egg, for example, or a piece of meat, or if you were to drink some dairy or if you were to eat, um, legumes, then they don’t have all the other nutritive benefits that are associated with the food. So, you know, you don’t want to shift your entire repertoire to just these protein foods, which a lot of it tends not to be older, but a lot of younger athletes, when we say, wow, you need to get some more protein, then they just switch over to shakes and nothing but. So food first, and if you can’t do it that way, then protein powders and most of them, uh, I would say that you would get from a health, food store would be some degree of certification. I would look for made in somewhere in North America. I tend not to tell people to go to imported sources just because of some of the regulations that are missing and obviously don’t overdo it.

Dr. Cooper

Are there any additional recommendations around male versus female or athletes versus non, or is that 1.6 down to 1.2, pretty straightforward, regardless of male, female athlete, not weight lifting, endurance athlete, et cetera, et cetera.

Stuart Phillips

Yeah. Great question. We don’t think that there’s any sort of sex-based difference. So, so I say men or women, there’s nothing particularly compelling that I can see and not our work, but looking at other people’s work as well. That would make me say that it’s different for men and women. So to be clear, though, we do, obviously the doses are scaled of body weight, and so women tend to be smaller, lighter. And so the doses of protein would necessarily then be smaller as well, whether you’re a very active person or you’re particularly sedentary, I think probably more active people in general, they’re burning more energy. They tend to eat more food. And so chances are they’re going to be eating more protein as well, and possibly push that up to the neighborhood of the upper end, where I think things really begin to taper off at about 2.2 grams of protein per kilo. And so that’s the one gram per pound threshold. And if you’re a really active person, if you’re going out there and working pretty hard every day, or even if you’re doing some of these events that people are taking on now, which I think power to you, if you do them, but sort of weekend long races and triathlons and everything, then you, you would have no problem hitting that protein intake

Dr. Cooper

In terms of strength, development, maintenance, optimization, do your recommendations change over the decades. So would the advice you give a 40 year old be different than the 60 year old, the 80 year old? Or is it just based on your lifestyle? We want to do just a little bit more.

Stuart Phillips

Yeah. I think the protein recommendations probably don’t shift too much. One thing that we’re becoming aware of is that as people get older, they begin to experience something we call anabolic resistance. So to explain that to people, it’s sort of the protein equivalent of insulin resistance. So if you’re insulin resistant, clearly your muscle tends not to respond to insulin as well. And so you don’t take up the glucose that’s in your blood and it stays in your with anabolic resistance. It’s similar, but it’s not a hormonally triggered process. There’s something going on that we probably don’t understand fully just yet. But if you give an older person the same dose of protein that you were to give to a younger person, you would get a more robust, uh, stimulation of all of the processes that are involved in, uh, building new muscle in a younger person than you would in an older person. Having said all that, uh, the way to combat that is, is clearly to be as active as you can, as in the older age, uh, for as long as you can. Despite all that, as we know, and, uh, looking at even, you know, sort of blue zone physiology, I mean, aging happens, right. And all you can do is maximize your chances, but I still do come back to what I said earlier is that it’s hard to out diet aging, but you can certainly out activity aging if you’d like. And so I think being physically active for as long as you can into older age is really the true key to aging successfully.

Dr. Cooper

Okay. So let’s take that word maximizing and shift it to the strength training. Would your guidance for actual strength training change over time? Do you suggest higher percentage of one rep max, do you suggest lower? Does that shift? Is there types of strengthening, you know, the larger muscle groups, the squats, the dead lifts, you know, those kinds of things for the person who isn’t just wanting to get by, but literally wants to thrive as they move through their 50, 60 seventies, eighties, any guidance you can provide on those fronts?

Stuart Phillips

I’ll take sort of two tracks in answering that and say that depending on what it is that you want to do. So it’s, as with most things, but particularly with weightlifting or resistance exercise, the principle of specificity is, is the winner. Um, so if you’re somebody that is keen on lifting the heaviest thing, you can just one time. So that’s the powerlifter, then that’s the sport you need to train for. And that person should be aiming to probably tap out at the high end. So 2.2 grams of protein per kilo, or the one gram per pound, if you’re somebody who is interested in being stronger, and it’s definitely advised, there’s all kinds of, uh, observational data that would suggest that the stronger you are, the better you do, the longer you live, probably pragmatism begins to win out. So, and by that, I mean, and here’s where the me-search comes in. Um, as somebody who’s spent a lot of time in gyms, when I was young, you know, I lifted weights that I can only dream of lifting now, and I tend to have a different event horizon. So when I was younger, it was obviously associated with the sports I was playing and trying to be strong for those. Now I’m looking to stay strong and age well. And so I dial back the weight. I don’t necessarily try and hit a specific repetition max. Instead I try and work to a high degree of effort. And I, and I like to try and hit that degree of effort and people say, what, what does that mean? If you were to imagine a scale, or if you’ve ever seen one, a rating of perceived effort is zero out of 10 is I’m sitting in my chair. 10 out of 10 is actually I’m at the max. Like I cannot do another. And I don’t think you need to get to 10 out of 10. If you’re a power lifter, obviously that’s where you want to be. But for most mere mortals looking to age, well, I think somewhere in the, at least seven to eight out of 10, if you want to take it to nine out of 10, go for it. But the absolute, you know, you’re falling off the bike or you need to drop the weight on the gym floor is not where you need to be. And I, I try to aim for that zone and around 12 to 15 repetitions, to be honest with you. And I think that that would for most people, if you do that at least a couple of times a week with bigger lifts, if you can. And by that, I mean, the squats, the dead lifts, a shoulder press, chest press, and, uh, some type of pulling exercise. You’ve got it all. Comfort, squatting lot of people it hurts. And my advice then is, uh, don’t squat. There are lots of other forms of leg, exercise, extensions, and hamstring curls that you can do to, to keep yourself functional. And my, phrase these days is no pain, no pain, because if I miss a week of training that, you know, because of an injury, that’s a drag, but, uh, I’m looking to do this for years and years. And so, uh, I try not to put myself in a situation where I miss any training due to any physical injury. Having said that, I know as soon as I say this, everybody will say well, but if you do it right, and I’m like, absolutely, if you do it right, probably injury risk is a, is a minimum, but I find that a lighter weight is a little bit kinder too. This would be the Holy grail is if somebody could figure out how to stop joint aging. So because my knees and hips and shoulders and elbows complain when I lift things that are too heavy, to be honest.

Dr. Cooper

Let’s come back to aging. You you’ve talked about this a little bit, but for the person who doesn’t necessarily want to be an athlete, but they want to be healthy as they age again, beyond what we’ve talked about, activity levels, any specific tips that you’re pulling out of your research that might get missed in the recommendations we normally hear?

Stuart Phillips

So I think the biggest thing from a protein standpoint is around, uh, one single, uh, amino acid in this case, amino acids to take everybody crashing back to 10th or 11th grade biology are the building blocks of protein and one particular amino acid of the, of the 20 that we need to make protein. And that is leucine and leucine is particularly enriched in, uh, in dairy proteins, you know, whey protein, which is the small fraction of protein in milk, uh, is very high in leucine. That would be the one thing that we’re continually seeing now come up in our research is that it’s, it’s sort of like the, uh, the amino acid. The analogy I like to use is it’s like the thing that flicks the light switch. Although I think it’s a little bit more like a dimmer switch. In other words, as soon as you’ve got some leucine in the system, the system begins to turn on, and then there’s probably a maximum level of the lights are as bright as they’re going to get, but without that, uh, amino acid, then it’s really hard to get everything going if you like. And so food sources or protein sources that are rich in leucine are things that you probably would want to emphasize to maintain your muscle. And that’s the, the one subtle nuance that, you know, when people are really interested in this, I would say that this is something that’s come up now again and again.

Dr. Cooper

So milk you’ve mentioned that a couple of times. And what, what do you say to the person who says, well, no, I can’t drink milk. That’s terrible. And it has all these terrible things. And it seems like there’s a lot of headlines around that. I have not dug into the research, but what can you tell us about milk, the value of it, the reasons to ignore the folks that are out there pointing in a different direction. Let’s chat about that a little bit.

Stuart Phillips

Sure. Uh, well, I think in, in the spirit of full disclosure, I need to point out that, uh, our group has been supported by the US national dairy council by the dairy farmers of Canada. And I have given talks on their behalf, so I haven’t gotten rich doing it, but I will say is that all that work has been peer reviewed and then published. And so people can go out and take a look at it if they want. I understand people’s concern around milk. And I understand a lot of, uh, arguments around not wanting to drink milk or, or consume dairy. What I would say is that the evidence is strongly in favor of a health promoting effect of dairy. People can choose milk. Uh, I have no issues if people choose not to consume it, alternatives would be like a, soy drink, soy as a protein is, uh, a high quality protein. It contains a high proportion of leucine. It’s just a little bit harder to, uh, get it into your diet if you’re interested in consuming it, unless you want to consume it as a powder, but it’s also not something that’s associated or the people are overly enthusiastic about. So let’s just say that I choose milk for a number of reasons. So first it’s, it’s a nutrient dense source of protein. It’s got lots of other nutrients that we need. It’s fortified with vitamin D in North America and in most parts. If you’re concerned about things like RBST, and, you know, I won’t define that for people, but people who are concerned will know what I’m talking about. You can get, you know, 85% to almost, I think now 90% of US dairies are, or don’t use RBST anymore. If you concerned about hormones, that’s another weird thing that comes up. Uh, the evidence for that is surprisingly sparse and thin. But I understand, you know, I don’t want to say it’s not for everybody. There are alternatives, but just be diligent about the ones that you pick, because I will say that, you know, a soy drink or soy milk is usually very close to, to cow’s milk, but rice milk or almond milk are usually much lower. In fact, almost exclusively are much lower in protein than the other two milks, if you will. So buyer beware do a little bit of your homework and don’t get caught out too much by sort of sensationalist headlines, because I think that the evidence would show you that people have been drinking milk for well, thousands of years, really it’s fossil records to suggest that, and there’s been no truly consistent negative health condition associated with increasing consumption of dairy.

Dr. Cooper

Perfect, good review. All right. Our audience loves hearing all these experts that come join us and talk about areas of their health and wellness, where maybe they’re struggling a little bit. Do you mind opening that curtain a little bit and saying here’s an area I haven’t figured out. Here’s how I’m trying to work with it. And here’s kind of where I’m hitting hiccups.

Stuart Phillips

I’m a morning person. I don’t function particularly well from an intellectual standpoint after pretty much 6:00 PM. Yeah, I, you know, and I get it. Other people are completely the opposite and, you know, I’ve got three teenage sons who, you know, would challenge me on all those grounds. So, um, I’m up before them, but they’re up much later than I am. So I like to start my day with, with exercise, with physical activity, whatever it is. Usually I like to go to the gym. I like to lift more than I like to do aerobic work, but I do both. I travel a lot or I did not so much these days. I find it really, really challenging when, when I travel too. And I think this is sort of, uh, you know, the confession as much as I talk about the benefits of physical activity, if I don’t do it, first thing the morning, my desire to do it as the day goes on drops. And I have a friend who is a psychologist and he would say, well, there’s a lot to do with people sort of feel like, I feel like my battery is charged and I am ready to go first thing in the morning. And then as the day goes on, certain demands pull you one way or another. And it just drains a little bit of energy out. And then that’s mental energy, but maybe it’s, some of it is physical too, you know, who knows. And if you say, you know, a lot of people like let’s go for a run at lunchtime, I am, you’d have to yank me out of my chair, it would be hard. And so I struggle with that. I struggle, when I, when I travel as well. So I just have to literally have to force myself. And when I think about that for myself, somebody as passionate as I am about exercise, I then try and relate that to people to say, you know, if you’re talking to people who aren’t maybe as passionate about it, how difficult it must be sometimes to motivate themselves. So I never begrudge anybody. Uh, the time of day that goes for, if I work in an extra, like a kinesiology department. So exercise science, people work out at all different times, but for me, if I don’t do it in the morning, it’s hard. And so when I travel or when, you know, in the current circumstances that we’re in, it’s hard to, uh, get out there and do it when you don’t have your regular thing. And I’ll, uh, I’ll be free to admit that. So I have to, I, I gotta poke myself pretty, pretty hard sometimes.

Dr. Cooper

Alright, last question, final words of wisdom for health and wellness coaches or folks that are in a role where they’re trying to help other people with their health, wellness performance, any of those aspects.

Stuart Phillips

Yeah. So I like to sort of say to people that, I use Jack Elaine’s quote all the time, and I think it’s, it’s absolutely perfect in paraphrasing it’s exercise or physical activity is king, nutrition is queen, when you put them together, you’ve got a kingdom. The third leg of that stool, if you’re sort of sitting on it, because you can’t have a stool with two legs, obviously is to be socially connected. And, and to feel like you have a purpose in life. I think when you bring those three things together, uh, things really begin, you know, the, the rest become not details, but they become smaller problems. And so get yourself physically active. If you’re not, if you’re physically active, stay there and maintain it and do everything you can to be as active as you can. The older that you get, try and dial in your nutrition. And, and I won’t tell you, you know, one thing or another beyond what I study and that’s to make sure the protein is at the level and yeah, have something where you can talk to friends, family, church, groups, social groups, anything, it doesn’t matter. And, you know, we’re just about to kick off a really big project here, trying to get physical activity and nutrition knowledge out to some people with tremendous barriers of opportunity in our city, lower socioeconomic status and older people who really, a lot of them are just lonely. They’re just happy to see people. And so going for a walk and even, um, you know, connecting with a few people is a big deal. So, uh, those are the three things I think if you dial those in, then, uh, you’re going to be fine.

Dr. Cooper

Excellent. Professor Phillips really appreciate it. Thanks for jumping on with everything else going on. Uh, thanks for making time for us.

Stuart Phillips

Absolutely. My pleasure Brad. This was, it was amazing. I appreciate guys like you, uh, getting the word out. It’s, uh, it’s a tremendous opportunity. Thank you for that.

Dr. Cooper

Perfect. Couldn’t do it without ya. Great stuff, professor Phillips. It is amazing how information we once thought of is something for the muscle heads in the gym now holds one of the keys to successful aging and quality of life. Thanks for tuning in, next week, marks our 100th episode, and I can promise you it’s one you do not want to miss. By the way, if you’re relatively new to the podcast, we’ve put together some direct links to some of the more popular episode categories, things like nutrition, sleep, athletic performance, and the business of coaching over at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Just go to the podcast tab, you’ll see it there. And you can always reach out to us with any questions, Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Now it’s go time. Let’s take those steps to pursue better than yesterday in our own lives and help support those around us in doing the same. This is Dr. Bradford Cooper signing off, make it a great rest of your week. And I’ll speak with you soon on the next episode of the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance podcast, or maybe over on the new YouTube coaching channel.