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Being STRONG is more than just how much weight you can lift.
The Strong New York Podcast is dedicated to inspiring you to become your strongest self- in the gym, in business, in relationships and in life.
Join Kenny as he sits down with his strong as fuck buddies and shoots the shit on what it takes to be strong willed, strong minded and physically strong. Season one features everyone from entrepreneurs and local business owners to doctors and industry leaders in the fitness and wellness space.
With over a decade of experience, Kenny Santucci has made himself known as one of New York City’s top trainers and a thought leader in the health and wellness industry. After transforming his life at 15 years old through fitness, Kenny made it his mission to transform the lives of those around him.
Kenny has trained some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jon Bon Jovi, Liev Schreiber, and Frank Ocean, and has been tapped as a fitness expert sharing his training approach with Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Runner's World, SHAPE, Well+Good, among other publications.
Kenny is the creator of STRONG New York, NYC's only Health and Fitness Expo. Strong New York is an immersive day of workouts, wellness experiences, panel discussions, and inspiring conversations with the best in-class wellness professionals, industry leaders, and change makers who are sharing their expertise on today's hottest wellness trends and first-hand experiences on how to optimize your overall health and life.
You can find Kenny at The Strength Club, his private training and group strength training facility in the heart of Manhattan located on 28th and 5th Ave in New York City.
This episode is powered by Celsius. Now, whether you're in the gym or you're on the run, or hey, you're just doing a podcast, grab yourself a can of Celsius and live fit. So this is a shameless pitch for strong New York, September 27th, right at the Glass House on 48th and 12th Avenue. We are throwing the biggest fitness and wellness event this city has ever seen.
Every year it gets bigger and bigger. This year we'll have 5,000 people, 80 plus brands, and you will be there. So make sure you get your tickets@strongnewyork.com. It's that simple. Alright, we're back with another episode of Strong New York podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Santucci. And thank you guys all for listening.
Uh, we are over 40 episodes in, so I'm very excited about that. When I first started doing this, I was like, all right, we're gonna do this and we're gonna see it all the way through, which is. I will start, I will continue filming these hopefully till the day I die. Um, but as always, we are powered by Celsius.
So thank you so much to Celsius. My favorite drink is now a sponsor of the podcast, so grab yourself a Celsius and live fit. Get as jacked up on Celsius as I am today. We have our first ever returning guest. She was in season one where we're still the strongest fuck podcast, and now she is back because she had helped us with, um, well, she was.
Speaker at Strong. She's, uh, helped us with our Summer Shred Challenge and she's a fan favorite, so we brought her back. Rachel Shear Kenny here in the house. Thank you so much for coming back. I'm so excited to be on your podcast again. I didn't know I was the first returning guest. You were the first returning guest.
I'm so honored. Yeah. And uh, no. And when you were like, oh, I'm gonna be in town. Tell everybody why you're in town. I was shooting with Peter Hurley, so for those new head shots today. So for those of you who don't know who Peter Hurley is, he's probably one of the greatest, uh, portrait photographers.
Greatest seven shots ever. Yeah. Gabriel Lions headshot did, uh. Is it Ava pompous? I mean, he get your name wrong. He's done. Everybody's, everybody. Everybody. Uh, he's phenomenal. Yeah. He's very blunt and very honest. He's like a kid. Yeah. And so he'll, he'll tell you if you do not look good at all. There was a girl he was shooting and he was like, your smile's great smile with your teeth.
They're just yellow, but we'll whiten that. Like Oh, really? Honest. And I was like, oh, you said that? Yeah. He's, he's unapologetically, but he's great. He's great. Yeah. So when He's beautiful shots. When we were at Gabs event. I had sat next to him at the dinner. We went to that that last night, and he was just like such a down to earth real guy.
I loved him. And I was like, and at first I didn't know, I knew his name, but I didn't know what the hell he looked like. And then when he introduced himself, I'm like, oh shit. I know who you are. Yeah. Yeah. Such a great guy. Yeah. Um, so what are you up to? Yeah, thank you by the way, for, uh, the summer Shred challenge.
You like, kind of completed the circle of like what we needed. Yeah. That was such a great challenge. I think it was incredible to be able to dive into both of the aesthetic side mm-hmm. But also gut health and nutrition. Yeah. So I hope everybody got a ton out of it. Well, I think there's a lot of, uh, I mean, with all the information out there.
People are still so confused about like what they should be eating, what they should be doing. You know, even the other day I went to an event for Men's Health and one of the, uh, one of the sponsors, I guess for the event was Beyond Meat. Beyond Beyond Meat. Beyond Meat. Oh, no, the Franken Food. Yes. Food.
It's so bad. And this dude was the guy who was, I guess he's the CEO or founder or whatever it is, was so passionate about. You know, kind of the history of why people should eat plant meat. And I'm like, meat, which I said, I go, this sounds fucking weird, but he went into this whole story about um, how we like lived on the planes and they were like, they were millions of buffalo.
He goes, do you think they were killing a buffalo a day for people to eat? I go. Yeah, I'm pretty sure feeding meat and PR for thousands of years. For thousands of years. Yeah. Hunter and gatherers. I mean, the reasons why we have these big teeth here in the back of our mouths. I don't wanna say what they're called.
I'm not a dentist. Mm-hmm. But, you know, we've been hunter and gatherers for, like you said, thousands of years. And you know, it's not to say that somebody can't still get in. Protein through eating a plant-based diet. And so, but I think a lot of people don't realize though, is it has to be a full-time job.
Like it's literally a full-time job if you're gonna try to eat real whole food number one. Mm-hmm. And a lot of these other substitute foods like the Beyond Burgers and all of these other. Hyper processed foods, one that they're terrible for you. They're terrible for your gut. I can't tell you how many people come into my practice with a ton of gut issues.
They're on a plant-based diet, and then we have to transition them, and as soon as we put them on more of a whole foods based diet, even a carnivore diet, they see massive improvements in their gut health. And fiber is great. We know for the microbiome, but as a whole, I mean. To actually do a plant-based diet well.
Mm-hmm. It literally has to be a full-time job for that person who's doing it. And I think there was, I forget what the documentary was on Netflix, remember? Oh, forks Over Knives or something, right? No, it was some documentary about how. You can still achieve optimal athletic performance eating a plant-based diets.
Yeah, and I've watched all these athletes, but what a lot of people don't realize is for those people, that is literally what they did full time to. Eat enough protein to support skeletal muscle mass. Getting it from a plant-based source, you're gonna have to eat an abundant of beans, of rice, of quinoa, of nuts and seeds, and all of these plant-based foods, and you're gonna be on a really high carbohydrate diet.
Is it possible? Yes. But for the average American who's not gonna count their macros and who's not gonna make what they're eating a full-time job, I don't like thinking about food. Mm-hmm. All the time. I'm an entrepreneur, I want to eat good food, and I wanna know it's doing what it needs to for my body, and then I can shift and focus on my life around me and not make what I'm eating a full-time job.
And so to actually do it well it. Literally has to be a full-time job. And I think that's also a massive disconnect for a lot of people that they don't realize. So is it possible? Yes. Is it ideal? No. Where you could get high quality protein, grass fed and finished beef, wild caught fish, pastured chicken, and get a good cut of protein throw on there some.
Vegetables, maybe some starches. Make it whole foods based and you're gonna hit your protein and you're gonna give your body what you need instead of having to, I mean, make it your full-time job. Or if you're not, you're eating all these processed foods and then you're not supporting skelet muscle mass.
And then we're running into issues with diabetes, insulin resistance, and other metabolic issues down the road. Yeah, I, you know, I've actually had, uh, I don't know if, did you meet Jamie? Dr. Jamie at, uh, strong last year. I dunno, she was there anyway. She had told me years ago that, you know, the sickest clients she's ever had, were all mm-hmm.
You know, uh, vegan and, uh, plant-based. And most of these people have some serious gut issues and, you know, where, where does the gut issue come from? Because if meat has what the nine essential amino acids. How are you getting? All those amino acids from plants, you just have to eat a a, an abundance of it.
I mean, how's that work? Yeah. So we have to get in different types of plant-based foods mm-hmm. To get all of the amino acids that our body needs. And we have a full amino acid pool. And so. We can add in different protein sources to try to get all of those amino acids, but rarely are you getting the same amount of amino acids and let's say a hundred, a hundred grams of chicken as you'd be getting in, let's say a hundred grams of quinoa.
Yeah, right. And so you'd have to eat a ton of quinoa, which means the calories and the carbohydrates are gonna be 10 times higher. And so that's why most of these people are on a pretty high carbohydrate diet. And then. If they're not eating a Whole Foods based, maybe more paleo type diet, then we're eating more processed foods, and we know that can also wreak havoc on the gut and a lot of our gut bacteria.
To answer your question about how this impacts the gut, the bacteria in our gut, they ferment off of carbohydrates and fiber. There's a lot of different things that can lead to something called dysbiosis in the gut, which is an imbalance in the good and the bad bacteria. So we have, you know, trillions of microbes living in our gut, and they play a role in digestion.
They play a role in our mental health hormones, thyroid function. It's connected to almost every system in the entire body. And these microbes eat. What we eat every single day, and they love fibers. They also play a role in our. I should say they also respond to our body's stress levels. Mm-hmm. And so when somebody is eating a very processed food diet, and if we also look at the average American who has a lot of stress in their life, their body's operating.
Maybe more in a catabolic state, a breakdown state. And then what happens when the body's in more of a stress state is the gut begins to shut down. It stops producing digestive enzymes. And then let's say you pair this with a diet that's full of. Processed foods, artificial foods, and what can actually happen is you begin to feed a lot of the bad bacteria in the gut.
Mm-hmm. So a lot of people end up with bacteria overgrowth, dysbiosis, which leads to a lot of other issues, hormone issues, thyroid issues, mental health issues, their gut's really inflamed. And then if we also look at the foods that we're eating that are full of. Pesticides herbicides. That also plays a massive role in our gut health.
So it's environmental, it's the foods that we're eating, it's our stress levels. And all of these things are gonna play a role in our, our gut. So it goes beyond just the food. But I would say the food, of course, is a massive part. Yeah, no, there's definitely a, a problem with, um, the understand. Like I, there's just so many voices out there and so many people saying different stuff, for instance.
I went for the, uh, blood test a couple weeks ago. Yeah. This co one of the companies that we're working with with Strong, uh, they were like, Hey, we'll do a full blood panel on you. I don't remember what time of day I actually took the test, but my LDL levels came back, uh, at like 157. Oh, so they were high.
They were high. Yeah. Now I all at, do, you know, I don't remember. I could look it up, but, um. I was like, wait, I eat pretty clean. I don't, you know, and they were like, well, you're probably eating too much meat, too much red meat. But when I do eat red meat, I'm eating pretty lean. Yeah. But cholesterol's not the problem.
And that's what a lot of people get wrong is cholesterol is not bad. Our body actually makes all of our hormones out of cholesterol. Mm-hmm. Now, some people can have different genetic predispositions where they can have issues, which can lead to more hyperlipidemia and a lot of more cardiovascular risk factors.
Mm-hmm. And so we could run an extensive cardiovascular panel on you look for something called LP Little, A oxidized LDL. That's gonna give me a lot more information than just looking at your LDL, your total cholesterol and your HDL. If you eat a lot more animal protein, probably your LDL is gonna be a bit higher and if you're maybe not getting enough Omega-3 fatty acids, most of us are not.
'cause we get that from fatty cuts of fish like salmon. That's typically gonna be a bit on the low side. But we can't isolate just a lab marker. We have to look at the full. Person. Mm-hmm. And so if I were to look at your glucose, your insulin levels, I would imagine that your insulin levels are gonna be pretty low.
Your glucose fasting would probably, okay, you are fit, you're healthy. Uh, what percent body fat are you at? Do you know, maybe 10, 11, 10% body fat? Yeah. So you're gonna be metabolically healthy in terms of what your insulin would be at for you to have that. Low of a body fat percentage. Mm-hmm. So you're gonna be more insulin sensitive.
We could look at your inflammation level. So something called CRP homocysteine, and if you have some inflammation, okay, maybe that's a little bit of a red flag. But the problem is the combination of systemic inflammation in the body. It is insulin resistance, which. Type two diabetes. Mm-hmm. Combined with this hyperlipidemia and these cholesterol issues, that is actually what's playing a role in cardiovascular risk factor.
So that's why we have to actually look at the person you are somebody who's metabolically healthy. So if I were to see your LDLA bit on the high side and your total cholesterol high, which also being on TRT can cause your testosterone to be a bit higher mm-hmm. In itself, then I'm not gonna be worried about it.
Maybe I wanna run a bit more of extensive cardiovascular panel. And if you have oxidized LDL, that's high, I doubt it. Or we have LP eight, which is genetic. That's a bit high. Okay. Maybe we need to pay a bit more attention to this, but that's what I mean. We can't just isolate it and we have to look at the full person.
So I honestly wouldn't be worried about it. And it's gonna be because you're getting. Cholesterol from the proteins you're eating. Yeah. Well one of the recommendations was maybe you should get on, uh, you know, a, a vegan diet. Oh, got it. Or a vegetarian diet for Yeah, like two or three weeks. And I'm like, I don't know if that's gonna work.
You know, so you, you, I would rather fast for three or four days than switch over to just eating. Vegetables and shit. Even a better recommendation, let's just say, okay, this is something that is getting a bit too high and we need to pay attention to, which we should look at the full picture first, number one.
Mm-hmm. But doing the Mediterranean diet is gonna be 10 times more effective, which is still gonna be high in protein. It's gonna emphasize more fatty cuts of fish. Olive oils. Mm-hmm. The Mediterranean diet is gonna actually help increase HDL. Yeah. Um, which is what's going to carry the cholesterol molecules to the liver to be able to eliminate it effectively.
And so doing something like that still high protein is gonna be 10 times better than doing something that's like plant-based. I agree. And they didn't even offer that as an option. I actually take a Omega-3 fatty acid. Yeah. Most people need it. Yeah. I'd say nine out 10 people who we run labs on are deficient in Omega-3 fatty.
Yeah. Sense. I don't even think I was deficient in it, but I still take it. Yeah. Just as like, yeah. I take that, I take magnesium now. Yeah. Um, I take. TRTI take a bunch of shit so my hair doesn't fall out and I take a a thyroid. Did you start, whose hair getting on TRT at all? I don't know if I did or if it was just me getting old.
I don't know what it was, but I did, I recently have done PRP, um, I'm on, uh, minoxidil. So we, my back is getting hair, what we could, we could run and test. And so if you're converting a lot of your testosterone into. Hydroxy testosterone. Yeah. And for some men it can create more and that's what's happening.
Hair loss, women, acne. Yeah. That can create more of the hair loss. How often? So I guys lose hair. When they get on testosterone. They get acne. How often are you, uh, prescribing women to take testosterone? I know there's a lot of girls out there who are like, should I be on it? I have one of my coaches at my other gym in New Jersey, she's 52.
Yeah. She takes a low dose of it. She looks incredible. For her age, I'm, I'm a fan of. Yeah. You know, and it's not about just looking at the number, it's about looking and treating the person. Mm-hmm. I think so often, just like we were talking about earlier, we isolate these numbers and the person can be miserable.
They can be struggling with fatigue, low libido, and someone could look at your testosterone and be like, oh, it's totally fine. Well, could you feel better? Yeah. If it was optimized, great. But should we also still explore maybe why It's a bit on the low side. I also am a big believer of that too. Mm-hmm. In functional medicine, there's many reasons as to why you could have low testosterone, um, environment, toxins play a massive role.
It could be because of stress, it could be because of diet. And so I'm all for, let's get on TRT, but let's also simultaneously work on all of their. Of these things that could be influencing your testosterone levels. 'cause where we see one thing that's maybe off or low, we're probably also gonna see other things that are off and low in the body as well.
Mm-hmm. Because the body is an interconnected system and so it's not just like one thing, it's lowered. And so when we can optimize these core things that are influencing your hormones, we're gonna fix the whole system anyway. But women and testosterone, you know, if they're struggling with symptoms.
Libido, maybe struggle maintaining their skeletal muscle mass. Most women don't put on a ton of muscle getting on testosterone unless maybe they do too much of it. Mm-hmm. Testosterone is very androgenic and mildly anabolic and so, yeah. So I, I try to explain that to people. Everybody's like, well, you're Jack now because you're on testosterone.
I go. It hasn't made me jacked. It just gives me the ability You maintain muscle better. Yeah, I would imagine. But it gives me the ability to work out without pain anymore. You know? It, it only allows me to be fired up and more excited about working out, but it, it's not an energy and all. Yeah, it's not anabolic stout, right?
Mm-hmm. It doesn't like, help you build muscle mass. Mm-hmm. Right. I, I don't know. I'm asking like, does. Does it help you build muscle? No. It's gonna help build skeletal muscle mass. Yeah. It is anabolic, but it's far more androgenic. Okay. Than it is anabolic. And so yes, it for, for men who, let's say get on a higher dose of TRT.
Yeah. And maybe their levels were at around 300 and now they get on testosterone and they're up to 700, 800. That guy's gonna be able to build muscle easier probably, and he'll probably increase his weight getting on it. But for women, where a woman's testosterone range is between 30 and let's say 130, she's not gonna be able to take enough testosterone to make it that anabolic for her to put on a ton of muscle.
Now if she were to get her testosterone, which actually my mom did this, it's hilarious. My mom was prepping for her first power lifting competition and she's on testosterone and she had this, this thought, she's like, I'm gonna up my testosterone and I am going to like increase my strength and my recovery and, uh.
Hold your mom. It's hilarious. Um, she is 56. God bless our lifting competition. Right? Bless. That's awesome. Incredible. Love that. Yeah. She's the oldest woman to compete. No shit. Our lifting competition. That's awesome. But she started to get some very interesting symptoms that she probably would not be happy with me.
Hair staring. No, no, no. It makes things grow. Okay. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm getting, I'm picking up what you're putting down makes. Things grow. So it's very androgenic. So yes, hair growth is one of it. Um, for women, it can lead to acne. Eventually it can actually change a woman's voice, so it's gonna actually thicken the vocal cords.
And so women will actually start to stand the sound like a man. And so if a woman wants to make a a sex transfer, she's gonna get on a large dose of testosterone. Mm-hmm. Right? And so that's what the androgenic effects are, is it's gonna actually give more of these mascul. Effects. Mm-hmm. Um, but my mom started doing it to me.
Oh yeah. And some of that, and I'm like, don't do that. I think her levels were up to 500 and I was like, holy shit. Yeah. Like, she's a guy at that point. Oh, she was becoming one. I was like, mom, don't do that. You need to go down. And now she's at, at a good dose. But for most women, if they're getting just, they're just optimizing.
Yeah. Yeah. Say they get their levels up to 80 or a hundred as a woman. They're just gonna feel better. They're gonna increase their libido, they're gonna have more energy levels. Mm-hmm. They'll still maintain skeletal muscle mass easier. They're, but they're probably not gonna put on a ton of muscle. It's not gonna make them big or bulky or in any of that.
So one of the things that we want to kind of cover at Strong New York this year, it's like optimizing women's health, you know, pre and postnatal. As well as thyroid women are far more prone to thyroid related issues. Oh, for sure. And especially if we look at the diet community, most women. Over diet, yoyo diet.
They undereat. They Yoyo diet. Yeah. They put themselves in a lot of restrictive eating. They do a ton of cardio and women also have a much more sensitive, sympathetic nervous system. And so we see a lot of hypothyroidism in women. Men, yeah. We see more low testosterone and those type of issues, but women way more prone to have.
Hypothyroidism, which isn't always diagnosed correctly in conventional medicine. A lot of women actually will have just suboptimal thyroid function or a sluggish thyroid, and they could massively benefit from supporting their thyroid function. Doesn't mean necessarily getting on, you know, bioidentical hormones.
'cause thyroid support is also bioidentical hormones. Mm-hmm. So the, the thyroid, it, it produces hormones. And so we can get more on bioidentical instead of synthetic form, which is often recommended in conventional medicine. Or we can identify why the thyroid is sluggish, which is probably a byproduct of stress and undereating.
Yeah. And now Nourish doing a bunch of cardio. Yeah. Or we're missing different micronutrients and we can support the thyroid and we can bring the levels back up and we can heal the metabolism. 'cause most of the time these women are also struggling with something called metabolic adaptation where their entire metabolism has slowed down.
And so if I were to, you know, ask a woman if she's counting macros, and she may say, well, I can't lose weight. I can't lose weight. She's like, I'm in a caloric deficit. Right? If she was counting macros. She's probably not actually in a chloric deficit because through chronic dieting, through not supporting skeletal muscle mass, her entire body has slow everything down.
Thyroid function plays a huge role in metabolism. Mm-hmm. Well, it's a muscle mass. We know as metabolically active, that plays a huge role in metabolism, so we're not doing anything to support that. And so the body begins to adapt to this lower caloric intake. And then right when they go out to eat and they binge eat and they have all the booze and the drinks and all of that.
Then they put on fat, but then they end up in this yo-yoing place where now they're underused and over fat in the long run, and now this woman is going through menopause and it's incredibly difficult for her to make any kind of a body composition changes. Yeah, so there's definitely a generation of women.
Who are my age, who were cardio bunnies. They just wanna do cardio. They would never eat. They'd go out and when they went out, they would just drink. And I see so many of these women who were in and around my age and even a little bit younger who. Think the only way to stay in shape and the, the definition of beauty to them is like, they're so afraid of getting bulky and jacked, but they'll run.
And I've been bulking for a decade of my life, Kenny, and I am as big. Look Jack, I could look good. No, but not jacked. I'm, I'm lean, I'm strong, I'm fair. No, you look great. But I always tell women, I go, do I look big to you? And they're like, no, I want, I want a body like that. And I go, just so you know, I've been trying as hard as I can to put on as much muscle.
Yeah, for a decade of my life, and this is as big as I've gotten, and I'm like, I have not done a lot of restrictions. No, but you have a great shape to you, right? Like you, you've built your legs up. And so I see so many of these women who are like only doing Pilates and bar classes and all this stuff, and they have no ass and no legs, and they think like the skinnier they are, the better off they are because they're so afraid of getting into this like bulking.
Situation. Um, are you seeing that a lot of these people that are kind of suffering from a lot of these symptoms are the ones who are obviously not eating enough protein and they're not adopting this, you know, the kind of the, I don't wanna call it a carnivore lifestyle, but it's the, you know, adopting, lifting and things like of this nature.
So. The question is, am I seeing more issues with, uh, with people who are like, I don't want to bulk up. I'm gonna run more. That's the key to Oh, massively. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, there, there's two sides of the spectrum of what we see when we're looking at, let's say, metabolic related issues. We're all familiar with the typical standard American diet.
I think I said on our last podcast, the The Sad Diet. And so yeah, overeating a bunch of processed foods, artificial foods, not doing any type of resistance training or workouts, and then we're under muscle and we're over fat. As a byproduct of that, we, we understand that, but then there is this other side of the spectrum, which is also most Americans who are.
Incredibly stressed out. They're burnt out with how they're working. They're not getting enough sleep. They're over caffeinated and they're doing a ton of cardio. And then also they're undereating, and so they're not actually eating enough. Maybe she is trying to focus on protein, but for most of these women, they're just undereating.
They're in massive restriction. Yeah. This side also has metabolic issues just like this side does, who's eating a lot of the processed foods and overeating. It's a different type of metabolic issue, but we're seeing everything begin to slow down and adapt in the long run we're seeing. This person underused just as the same.
And actually, I would almost argue this person also ends up with a lot of the gut issues, the thyroid issues, to go along with it. And so both of these people would be metabolically unhealthy. Well, are you seeing now that some of these people are jumping onto GLP ones and making their situation worse? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And GI mean, I think there's a time and a place for all medicine. Mm-hmm. You know, I think all medicine was created because there is a certain scenario where it could massively benefit somebody. You know? Are there people who getting on GLP one if they're really struggling with food addiction and other things going on, that it could really help that person?
Sure. Antidepressants, right. If somebody's in a really bad place mentally and to just get them back up to a different baseline to be able to actually function in their life. Mm-hmm. Could that be beneficial? Yes. Um, I'm pro root cause, but I'm not against medication. But I think the problem that we run into in conventional medicine, and we could almost argue now even in the alternative health space, is we are just giving these things out to everybody.
We're giving out antidepressants. Yeah. Anybody who has any kind of symptom of depression, you know, will say, do you fit the criteria of symptom clusters? If you fit this criteria, here's an antidepressants Hardest thing ever to get off in your life. Yeah. Okay. Are you struggling to lose weight? Okay, well that'll be easier.
Have GLP one and so. I am not against the use of it in different scenarios, but I'm against just giving it to everybody because we don't know these long-term effects. And as somebody who was put on antidepressant when I was 15 years old, 'cause I was bullied and I had emotions coming off of it in my mid twenties was the worst experience I ever went through in my entire life.
And so people don't realize when you get on these things, when you try to come off of them later. What that is actually gonna do to the body. GLP one does slow down motility in the gut. We know that. And so if you are also somebody who has a ton of gut issues, which most gut issues like sibo, small intestinal bacterial, oral growth, which is a type of dysbiosis, very common, it's the main root cause for IBS, irritable bowel syndrome Motility is a big part of the issue.
And so. I would not recommend anybody to get on it who has a lot of gut issues. 'cause they'll also make that a lot worse. Yeah. I had a, an ex-girlfriend who, uh, she had gut issues terribly. She was also heard of hot girl IBS. Yeah. Because like, I actually had hot girls and got IBS and she, um, she also had, she was also addicted to, uh, Adderall.
Um, yeah, so I think that made her situation even worse and it took her years to get off that shit. Um, I, and I think, I think used responsibly, you could take GLP ones and testosterone, things like that. Like if you have somebody monitoring it. But when it becomes just this quick fix to things, I think that's when it becomes a problem.
So I think we've demonized a lot of these drugs. Because people overuse them, but I think used the right way. All these things are absolute miracles. You know, I, I've seen so much success with clients and people that I work with. And, you know, just friends of mine who are using these drugs responsibly and get a lot of great results from it.
Yeah. And it changes their lives. Um, but I think it's the people who abuse them that kind of give it a, a bad name. Yeah, no doubt. And I think we just have to ask the question of, you know. Do we want to temporarily address maybe this core symptom and issue? And if the answer is yes, great. Right, and that's often what we need to do.
Mm-hmm. If somebody's really dealing with depression and they're in a really bad place, we may need to address that symptom for a period of time. There's nothing wrong with addressing the symptom, but if you are somebody who wants to be. In a place of optimal health, if you want to mentally feel your best physically.
Operate your best by doing these things, we're not actually fixing the core root of where dysfunction is. And so that's where I'm a big believer. If I, I want to be as optimal. Mm-hmm. I wanna have a clear mind, I wanna have a regulated nervous system, and I wanna have optimal function. And so if there's symptoms in my body.
These symptoms are a whisper for me to take more notice. They're like the check engine light on the car. Okay? So I need to explore where these things are coming from in my body. So if I just do something to mask this symptom or this symptom and this symptom, right? It's sort of like the smoke alarms going off in the house and we're just turning off all of the smoke alarms with the fire is still in the house, and so we're not actually fixing the core issue, and it's just gonna cause more issues in the long run for most people.
Now, I know everybody is, you know, case by case basis, but what would you recommend that most women post menopause should be? You know what? What's their cocktail? What should most women be on? Well, the risk of metabolic issues and osteoporosis mm-hmm. Goes up massively when a woman transitions into menopause.
And so the best thing that she can do is focusing on skeletal muscle mass. And if she hasn't focused on it for a lot of her life. We're probably in a place where we are more prone to have insulin resistance if we don't already have it. Mm-hmm. And it is unfortunate where a lot of these women, when they transition into menopause because their, their insulin resistance just goes up in of itself as they transition into menopause.
Then you add in that somebody's really underused. It just is gonna make things really, really difficult. And then the osteoporosis aspect. Supporting muscle is one of the best things, but vitamin D levels as well, so, mm-hmm. Making sure vitamin D is optimized, but same thing, how do we promote bone health?
You don't see a lot of osteoporosis in people who are doing resistance training. Yeah. Now, if you had to say, because one of the questions I get asked all the time. It doesn't matter who it is. Young people, old people, it doesn't. Everybody's like, all right, what supplements should I be taking? Because everybody thinks, all right, that'll be the quick fix.
That's something I could do. It doesn't take much dedication, you know, obviously. I tell everyone, well, let's get you consistent with coming to the gym and getting you lifting weights and things like that. And then when you could do that really well, then we could talk about supplementation. So what are the supplements that you recommend?
Because I only in the last year or so had started with the omega threes. Mm-hmm. And magnesium. What are some stuff, what are some things that people should be taking right now if we're not getting testing done? Mm-hmm. And we're just talking about what should throwing shit up against someone. Should most people be taking omega fatty acids?
Mm-hmm. High quality. E-P-A-D-H-A. Most people are deficient. Vitamin. What are some brands that you like? Uh, we use Metagenics quite a bit in my clinic. Okay. It's a good one. A lot of um, fish oil, I dunno if you ever get in the fishy burps, but some of it can actually be rancid, not good quality, so you wanna get good quality omega fats.
Mm-hmm. Um, vitamin D most people are deficient in vitamin D, so getting on a thousand IUs. Is 2000 I use for people who we do testing on and who are really deficient. Mm-hmm. We'll put them up to 5,000, 10,000 I use. Oh, wow. Um, a lot of people are deficient in magnesium. I just like magnesium too for sleep.
Magnesium, glycinates great before bed. It's gonna help with sleep. It's a muscle relaxant, a magnesium citrate or oxalates if you're constipated and get on that one. But it doesn't absorb very well. So if you over do the magnesium citrate, you'll just have to go to the bathroom a lot. Um. I'm a big fan of probiotics, but probiotics can be a hit or miss as well.
Yeah. And so high quality probiotics, um, good strains of bifidobacterium lactobacilli, uh, spore based probiotics are great for supporting the microbiome. But, um, I'd say those would be the core ones. But really what I would say is most people should get. Testing done to identify what supplements should I be on, because most people, they have a, I don't know if you've seen the whole graveyard of supplements, of like drawers.
I know I've had that for a while, but it's like we have all of these supplements and we're just sort of guessing on what we should take. And so the most ideal thing to do would be like you said. Exercise, nutrition, get some testing done, and what does my body actually need? Mm-hmm. Do I need to support something called methylation?
Do I need more omega threes, vitamin D, magnesium? What's going on with my gut microbiome? What should I do for that? And that's gonna be of course, the most ideal. Well, I mean, I guess I know the answer to it, but. Getting blood work done with someone who's not working out, not eating right. For instance, I have some clients and some family members who don't eat very well.
They don't really exercise, so them getting blood work is obviously gonna tell them well. Your, your body's in a shit position. Should they get blood work done then, or after they start doing a lot of the things that, like sleeping better, cleaning up your diet, working out, like, I think those are the, I think we should get it done immediately.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's one, it's good to see what's actually happening in your body based off of the lifestyle that you've been leaving. Mm-hmm. I actually think we should encourage people to get blood work done when they're. And they're teens when they're in their early twenties. Mm-hmm. Also too, let's just say you are a guy and now you're 30 years old and your testosterone's at 400, but you never actually had your hormones tested when you were 20 years old.
You don't know if there was an actual decline. Has this always been your baseline testosterone levels? Mm-hmm. Or did you actually decline? So I'm a big believer one, start getting labs done. Sooner than later, get a good baseline and then track that over time. But if you're somebody who's not really living a healthy lifestyle, like let's actually look at what is happening in your body based off of the lifestyle that you've been living.
And then after that, we can tailor what we need to do specifically to you. And then let's track these changes over time. You know, I can tell a client I feel like I. Have ran so much labs on people. I can look at them and say, oh, I this and this and this will be off in your labs. Like I feel like I can really, yeah, read somebody's labs just by looking at them, them not everything.
Right. I, I dunno if someone has like a parasite and like a microbiome test, but I'm pretty good. If I were to look at somebody, I could probably tell you. Most of the time what their metabolic labs will look like. I could tell you maybe what their adrenals would look like. Mm-hmm. If I ask them a bunch of questions, um, if I do ask more symptoms about their gut, I could probably tell you what their microbiome tests.
And I'm right. Not all the time, but most of the time. And so I could tell somebody, Hey, you're inflamed. You're really inflamed. They're like, okay. But when I run that, could you see it in their skin? You could see in their skin. Oh yeah. Their skin, their gut. Just their entire body. Yeah. They're inflamed. Yeah.
And their, their mental health, which sometimes people don't even know that, they don't feel good until they actually start to, or they don't feel good until they actually start to feel good. Right. It's just the baseline place that they've, your body kind of just adapts to film like shit. Yeah. It's just, that's just their, their normal.
Right. I kind of feel that way when I look at people today. For instance, I was having lunch with a buddy of mine downtown and we're sitting there and this guy comes out and I was like, that guy's never fucking worked out. A day in his life. He had a football shirt on, like, um. Like it was a, his high school football jersey.
I was like, that guy played football. Like I'm a fucking astronaut. There's no way that that guy's ever played it down a football. He's like, well, how could you tell? I go, you could just tell his shoulders, like he had no muscular development ever in his life. You could tell guys who at one time or another played a sport or did something physical.
Same thing with women, like you could tell if they at one time played a sport or something. People kind of just. When they have no muscular development on their upper body or their legs, you are, you're like this, I could, you could just kinda get an, uh, a sense of like what somebody has done in the past.
Mm-hmm. Like even at an older age. Like, I have a client who just started working out in his sixties, you know, and he could move pretty well. Mm-hmm. Because now he's in his eighties and stuff, but, um, he, uh, I could tell he is never really worked out as a kid. He just doesn't have the. The movement patterns that you would expect from somebody who.
Who once was athletic. Yeah. Yeah. Most people lose three to 8% of their skeletal muscle mass. Mm-hmm. Per decade after the age of 30. Wow. And so if we're not starting when we're younger with. Trying to support skeletal muscle mass. I mean, this is why when women enter into menopause and we get older, this is the root of aging at the core, the best thing that we can do for anti-aging is supporting skeletal muscle mass.
Now, does that mean that you will lose. Skeletal muscle when you are in your thirties and forties? No. If you are doing resistance training and you're supporting skeletal muscle mass by eating enough high quality protein, you're gonna be protecting it. Mm-hmm. Over time. But for the average person, right, they just continue to decline and decline over the course of their life.
And then they get into a place where they run the risk of sarcopenia, metabolic issues, and then we see. You know, all of these things later on, I, I'm not very well versed on like, pre and probiotics. Pre and probiotics. Yeah. Like what, what's the real difference in what should be people be taking? Everybody was like, I'm on a probiotic, I'm on a prebiotic, and yeah.
So. Prebiotics. So pre is gonna be the, the food for the bacteria. So think biotic bacteria. Yeah. And so we get prebiotics from our foods all the time. And so these are gonna be different types of fibers in our diet. So onions, asparagus. These are all different types of fibers, all of the cruciferous vegetables and our entire diet.
When it's full of these good healthy fibers, we're gonna be feeding different types of microbes in our gut, different types of probiotics. Uh. Probiotics in our gut. Those are the good bacteria. And so we can take this in the form of a supplement. Um, there is some people who argue that most of the probiotics out there actually don't even survive through the acidity of your stomach.
Mm-hmm. And so that's, so they, they die off, um, spore based probiotics. There is some research that they do survive, uh, the acidity in the stomach and they do colonize to the gut. But a lot of the probiotics have been studied. Still have transitory benefits so they can benefit the immune system, they can benefit the gut lining.
Um, there's actually now a, a str different strains of probiotics called a psychobiotics that have been studied that can actually modulate the bodies. Stress response through the vagus nerve. And so supporting neurotransmitter production, therefore supporting mental health. So we know people who have dysbiosis, a low diversity in their gut or inflamed gut.
They're more prone to mental health issues, anxiety, depression, because most of our neurotransmitters are actually produced in our gut bacteria. And so yes, we can take them through supplements. The most ideal way to build a robust and healthy microbiome would be to eat 20 to 30 different fruits and vegetables that are brightly colored all week long.
Most of us are not gonna do that. No, I know. I don't do that. No, I don't do that at all. And so most of us have. A very low diversified microbiome. There's something that I actually started recommending to our clients in my practice. It's called the microbiome mashup. It's one of the the best ways that you can actually support gut health through real whole food and not through supplements.
And so let's say you go to the grocery store, you go to the farmer's market and do pick out. 20 to 30 different fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices. You wanna think rainbow? Get a food processor, process up all of those and put them in different ice cube trays. So blend it all up, put 'em in the freezer, and then every single day, take one or two ice cubes and cook your eggs in it or put 'em in different stews or soups, or really, you don't lose a lot of the fiber, like the good.
Ports of it when you Oh, you're blending it all up. Yeah. You're not cooking it and so you're just, you're, but you're blending all of it together and so you're getting the fibers, but you're also getting a diverse amount of polyphenols. And so polyphenols are what give fruits and vegetables their bright colors.
Wow. These are incredible for supporting the microbiome. And so the microbiome mashups a great way to do it. Are a lot of pe, I mean, do you, do you find that a lot of people need to take. Premium probiotics. I, I think that pre and probiotics can be good. I'd say though that most people have gut issues. Yeah.
Most people do. Yeah, because most people eat a shitty diet, and so if most people eat a shitty diet and they have stress and they're not getting good sleep. If they're not gonna have a good microbiome. And so what's actually common is you'll hear people who are eating, let's say you know the standard American diet, and they're eating their chicken nuggets and they're eating their french fries and their foods all like that white cream color.
And then they decide they wanna eat healthy. They're like, all right, I'm gonna eat healthy. And they start eating broccoli and start eating asparagus, start eating chicken, and they're like, oh my goodness. I feel worse. What is going on? You know, I actually felt better when I was eating this food over here, and I'm feeling worse.
I'm feeling more bloated eating these healthy foods. What is happening? Well, I'll tell you what's happening. As before, they weren't getting a lot of fiber. And their microbiome was accustomed to the foods that they were eating. And now all of a sudden they started to introduce all of these different fibers that their microbiome hasn't been used to digesting and breaking down.
And then let's just say they have already dysbiosis, bacteria overgrowth. And now their biome is fermenting on all of these fibers and producing gas and bloating. And so this person may be like, well, I don't wanna eat healthy. I felt better. And they try to actually go back to maybe what they were doing before.
And so sometimes this person actually needs to slowly transition and introducing more fiber because the gut bacteria aren't there to actually be able to break it all down. But it's very common. I've, I've actually cleaned up my diet significantly in the last five years. And I've definitely noticed now if I eat anything deep fried or yes, fast food esque, I don't even eat fast food.
But if I go eat like a burger from like one of these like fancy places here in the city. And there, there's a ton of shit on it. I just can't eat it anymore. Yeah. It kills my stomach. Well, you know what it's like to actually feel, feel good, and operate at a high level. Mm-hmm. And so when you already operate at this place and then you.
Start to notice these subtle things that pull you out of it. You could say we become sensitive. Mm-hmm. I know. I felt like that for myself. I'm like, I'm like way more sensitive. I used to eat these foods and it was not that big of a deal. And are we really more sensitive or do we actually just know what it's like to feel good and operate at a high level, and we're more in tuned now with the things that throw us off and make us don't feel good.
I don't know. That's a true question I have. I, uh, when I cut weight for tournaments and stuff for Juujitsu, um, the guys in the gym are always shocked at, they're like, how'd you lose weight? I go, well, I just cut back on eating as much as I did, but the days leading up to my competition, I'll eat just watermelon and steak.
And if I'm training a lot, I'm, I'm like, shedding weight. I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. And the night before, um, Christy could tell you, that night before one of my tournaments, I ate like a giant steak and I weighed that night, I weighed like 1 95, and the next morning I was like 180 9. Mm-hmm. Because I'm guessing all that meat had to get broken down.
And I think. Just eating pure protein. Some fats. Yeah, I know what kind of steak you're doing, but let's just say you're even doing a ribeye. Yeah, that's so you're getting some fats, which you know good, because otherwise you're not getting really any fats at all from your diet. It's just pure protein and you're not gonna be as full.
But then, I mean, you're probably not eating a ton of carbohydrates. I mean, yes, there's sugar and watermelon, but for. For your size and how much muscle you have. I can eat a whole lot of You were definitely probably in a caloric deficit for sure. Yeah. And that's what I was telling him and I was like, I'm, I, I'm, I feel hydrated.
Mm-hmm. I feel good. Mm-hmm. Um, and it, it takes so much for the body to breathe down. Meat actually felt pretty good too. Very flat. Everything. Yeah. I, I felt amazing the next day. Like I went for a two mile run before the event and everybody's like, wait, you ate? I go, yeah. Because it takes so much for the body to break down all that meat, all that protein.
Mm-hmm. You know, and I wasn't eating a lot. I mean, that's pretty much what I had all day was like a steak and a side of watermelon. Um, but I woke up lighter and I felt great. And I, I think this idea that you have to starve yourself before. Competition or like, especially in the sports that I like or I've kind of grown up doing.
Like when I was wrestling, we would starve ourselves for like a week out. Oh yeah. You know, and spit into cups and things like that. It was, did you do like the water cutting too? All the time. Yeah. Yeah. It was miserable. I never even did that when I competed in bodybuilding, which is bikini bodybuilding.
Yeah. But, but still, you have to be pretty lean for that stuff. Yeah. Were you, were you I barely did prep. I mean, I was just sort of a little bit, a couple weeks before. Yeah. I, I feel like I stayed pretty lean, but I've been trying to put on weight and bulk as much as I can. But now you were in that world.
Were you, were you taking any supplements? Were you taking any, the supplements? Yes. No. Were you taking any like, um, like any hormones? Yeah. Or anabolics Anor. Anor or anything like that? No, I never did any of them. Really. Yeah. And you got that lean from it. Yeah. Well. I mean, for me, getting lean has never felt super difficult.
Yeah. I would say my body is more of the ectomorphic type. Mm-hmm. Body. And so I've struggled more so with putting on muscle and putting on weight, which is why I was like, I've been like bulking for the last decade. Yeah. Now I've been like trying to eat as much as possible and put it on. Um, so I know, but.
Yeah. Never had to do any of that actually, when I was really lean though, so I, I lost my menstrual cycle, all of that. And I did start to have, you know, different sort of health issues because it's not healthy. It's not healthy for a woman to be at that low percent body fat. Yeah. And so it may look good in terms of aesthetics, but if we're talking about optimal health here, yeah.
You know, that's not the, the most optimal place to, to be. But of course, so you know, when I'm that lean. My hormones are gonna completely plummet. My thyroid is gonna plummet. And so I remember going to see this practitioner and he was like, your testosterone is really low, right? My thyroid was really low, so I got put on thyroid medication at the time, and I didn't really understand functional medicine.
I wasn't certified yet, so this was back when I was. I don't know, 22 years old. And so I got put on thyroid support, but he looked at my testosterone. He is like, you have no testosterone. And so he, I got put on testosterone for a short period of time. It was 30 days only. And I'm all for testosterone for women.
But again, why was my testosterone low? It was low because of the metabolic stress. Mm-hmm. That I was under. And when we're under stress. Especially metabolically at a low percent body fat. The body is going to slow everything down. So we talked about the metabolism slowing down, but thyroid is gonna decline, hormones are gonna decline.
The body is in an energy conservation mode, so it's gonna downregulate everything. So he put me on testosterone and I started to look like I was going through puberty all over again. 'cause I started to break out. So I was like, this is dumb. I'm getting off of it. Yeah. And then as I shifted out of.
Competition mode and I started to put on more weight. I actually ended up putting on 15 pounds, which is, I was really lean. And so if, like right now I am 1 23. Okay. I was 1 0 5 when I was competing. Oh, wow. So Pam. Yeah, I was really little. Yeah. Like I was, I was too little. I mean, I was 22 years old and so that was a decade ago.
I'm, I'm 32 now. Um, but as I worked on my metabolic health. You could say I reverse dieted, but I focused on putting on weight and I did it over a slow period of time focused on building muscle. Yes, of course I put on fat. I needed to put on fat. My thyroid levels came up and actually now my testosterone level is incredible.
It's actually sometimes. When I've had it done, they're like, it's a bit too high, and I've had to try to bring it down, but it's a naturally high. I work on skeletal muscle mass. Mm-hmm. I feel incredible, but I fixed the root of the issue. And so it was the metabolic stress. I fixed that my hormones are great without it, and so like I'm all for getting on testosterone and all of that, but for me, that was the root of the issue and I actually didn't end up needing it at all.
So we're on a, a bit of a group chat. It's me, Christie, a couple of girls from the gym. Sometimes we'll send pictures of certain people from Instagram mm-hmm. Back and forth, and we'll send pictures of like these girls with these tiny waists and these huge asses. Mm-hmm. And they're, I'm like, her ass is fake.
They're, it's almost like impossible to. Be that you have to look at the legs. It's their hamstrings. I say that all the time. Hamstrings is their muscle there. Yeah. If there's, because you can't build your ass without your hamstrings. I got muscle, butt. Yeah. But now you, you're seeing a lot of these women who have these like thick, lower bodies and no upper body and they're like, well, I never train low, upper body.
Um, could you kind of take us through what do you think these people are doing? If they're like super lean up top, like very skinny, but then they have these huge asses and legs. Like are they training legs? I mean, I mean I would, I have to like visually look at the photo. You gotta show me an example her, that one girl.
Is it possible, yeah. To like. Focus most of your resistance training all on glutes and legs. Mm-hmm. And then not as much on upper body. And you're gonna build more lower body. Yeah. We see the opposite with guys, right? Yeah. The guy with the skinny leg. The big upper body. Body shoulda a exact opposite, right?
So it's possible, but you know, it also could be, you know, a woman who isn't. Doing it based off a building sculpt muscle. I don't know. Yeah. Could be. Probably faking a BBL L or something like that. Yeah. Oh, that's very common these days. Well listen, we, I think we gotta get outta here. I think that they'll kick us out then.
Fun. But Rachel, thank you so much for coming back. Where could everybody find you? Instagram is at Rachel Sheer and my website's rachel s sheer.com and that's where everybody could, uh, they can learn more about our functional medicine process. Nice. All the testing and work with myself or my team. She is incredible.
She helped everyone on our challenge. So, uh, we're hopefully gonna do it again in the fall. You're gonna do the gut test. I still need to do my gut test. I definitely wanna do that 'cause I think my gut is fucked up. Um, but guys, as always, thank you so much. Like, subscribe and share with a friend. Uh, this is another episode of Strong New York podcast.
So guys, stay strong and live long.