MAFIA MOMENTS: Medical School is Broken with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Download MP3Hi, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Meat Mafia podcast on today's mafia moments. We are going back to our episode with Gabrielle Lyons to talk about her experience in medical school, and then we dive deep into the topic of protein and muscle building and the effects that that has on on your quality of life and overall longevity. So I hope you guys really enjoy this episode. This one was incredible.
Speaker 1:And in the full length episode, we get into really a lot about Gabrielle Lyon's philosophies and life style choices that lead to her being a high performer. So go check out that full length episode. I will link to it in the show notes. And without further ado, Gabrielle Lyon.
Speaker 2:Nobody has ever asked me that question. And I I so this is great. I never have an opportunity to talk about it. I would say I probably cried more in medical school and residency than I have ever done in my entire collective life.
Speaker 1:Really?
Speaker 2:When I went to medical school, I absolutely hated it. I hated what I was learning. I hated the way in which the information was provided. It is extremely rigorous. And the quality of life as a medical student, as a resident, and we were chatting before the show.
Speaker 2:My hundred my husband works a 100 hours a week. This is not the way to set up individuals to care for other people's health.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:If, you know, you it's it's like when you tell a kid it's don't do what I, do do what I say.
Speaker 3:Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it
Speaker 2:shouldn't be that way. No. It should be that you do what I do because I am an example, and I can embody the information that I'm giving you. Right. I absolutely struggled with the conventional, way in which medicine was taught and administered.
Speaker 2:There there are 40,000,000 people easily on statin drugs. Right? 40,000,000. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's getting I mean, there's no real trend markers to show that that's gonna, like, force correct.
Speaker 2:I mean, some people need them, but some people don't. And I would say there are many, many, many people that likely do not need statins yet are placed on them. We have to think what are the long term implications of the actions that we're taking. Yeah. And who is ultimately responsible?
Speaker 2:So as physicians, there are standards of care that you are supposed to meet. If a patient does not meet, lowering their, for example, hemoglobin a one c, then you will institute a medication versus a physician being trained in how do we actually address skeletal muscle? How do we actually address nutritional science so that we can move the lever for people? I really struggled with it for a long time. And in fact, there was a time where I debated even going to residency.
Speaker 2:Wow. Because your
Speaker 3:background is so unique where it's like it's not like you're going into medical school blind. You basically had, like, the ultimate, like, nutritional internship with your godmother at 17 years old. So you kinda have a like, an idea of what you wanna do, and then then you're going to medical school and you're like, yeah. But what they're teaching me doesn't really match up with what I ultimately wanna do. I imagine maybe that was some of the conflict as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I and I wanna say that understanding in order to become an expert in anything, you do have to go through the necessary steps that are painful to get a breath of knowledge of what is happening. You cannot truly master a craft without going through the rigors of what that craft asks of you. Is that is that fair to say?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 2:Which is why I went through medical school. Because in order to appreciate the impact of all these things that I talk about now, if I had skipped that part, then it would be almost as if I wouldn't know what I didn't know. And I think that we see that in the influencer world and individuals that speak on certain topics that they don't necessarily know what they don't know and and how that actually stands up in in clinical practice.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, yes, it was a tremendous challenge. And I knew that the only way to move the needle for people was to do it this way.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:At least for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At least for me. And also, medicine is great. You know, I mentioned my husband was a seal for a decade and now is a surgeon. We need that.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We need medical interventions.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we need a much more aggressive way of lifestyle management.
Speaker 3:Definitely. What was the name of the, geriatric patient that you said that you fell in love with?
Speaker 2:Yeah. We'll just call her Betty.
Speaker 3:Betty. I'm just I'm fascinated just by your experience on death because like you had said, before you asked that question, I was like, maybe I've been exposed to a nursing home once. And it had a really profound impact, but that was all I've really been exposed to people in that chapter of their life. I'm just curious for you, for someone that was exposed to death and dealing with a lot of people in that final chapter of their lives. What were just some of the key reflections or takeaways that you had maybe about, you know, health with your patients, but also just like yourself and maybe, like, just your potential in the way that you were living your life up to that point?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Life is short. Mhmm. Life is short, and we are very distractible.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And we are distracted by things that don't matter much, and they replace the things that potentially matter most. And even now, I think a lot about social media, and I think a lot about the use of our devices. And it's not that they're a problem. And I used to think that they were a problem. The devices, social media, that this was the problem.
Speaker 2:If you were to take a step back, we are actually the problem. We are the distractible ones. And the question becomes, can we sit with discomfort? And one of the biggest things and and I use that as an example because I would love the listener to think about what is it that they are replacing? What is the discomfort that they are really working on replacing?
Speaker 2:One thing is for certain, nobody gets out alive. And we all have a time.
Speaker 1:Of
Speaker 2:course, we don't know when that is. And the way in which we live our life will allow us to courageously face that time.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But if we don't live actively, then death becomes much more foreboding and scary.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I I think regret I think at the end of life, the biggest thing that you hear people talk about is the regret that they have had.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Spending time with friends and family.
Speaker 1:Oh, what's up, guys? It is ad read time. I won't be long here. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by CrowdHealth. CrowdHealth is reinventing health care, not health insurance.
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Speaker 1:They're a great company. Use the code Meet Mafia. Let them know we sent you. Thank you guys so much. Now back to the episode.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I can't help but think about is just, like, this idea of outsourcing our responsibility, whether it's outsourcing our responsibility for our health, which is probably something you felt like Elizabeth taught to you, which is like nutrition. Like, we as people should know how to fuel ourselves for a healthy life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or outsourcing the responsibility of, like, taking care of your parents into later ages of life so you actually have some intimacy with the last few days. And we we just outsourced this entire these very important aspects of life to other people. And I feel like that's kind of the root of all evil where it's like we just don't wanna take accountability for certain things and these things are actually our lifeblood. Like, what we put in our body is gonna fuel that great life. How we take care of somebody else, like, is kind of reciprocity, like you were saying before the show.
Speaker 1:Like, you can only hope that someone's there for you in your later date stages of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think about, like, that with my even my own parents. It's like, I wanna be there. I don't wanna just, like, give that away to somebody give that responsibility away to somebody else. Yeah. Because, like, my mom did that for her mom and, like I said, an important step.
Speaker 1:So I'm just curious, like, that idea of, like, outsourcing responsibility seems like, something that's very, like, prevalent in everything that you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it becomes a a challenge because as anyone that has ever had an aging parent, it's very difficult. And the culture here is isolated. Mhmm. It has to be a community thing.
Speaker 2:And which is why I love the meat mafia. You guys have a community.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the more community you have, the better you can withstand what what life has to throw at you. It's not a if. Mhmm. It's a when.
Speaker 1:It's a when. Totally.
Speaker 2:And you have to have your teammates. Your teammates can be blood. Your teammates can be relationships. But you have to be able to be in the foxhole with people who have your back and whose back that you have, and you are willing to step up and be there for them. But it is not an isolated moment.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. You know, it can't just be Harry's your best friend, so you just have Harry.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Totally.
Speaker 2:It has to be, how do we create a community of like minded individuals with values that align, that have integrity and honor and discipline and resilience, all the things that I value.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that's how we survive impact with the outside world.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Yes. Interesting. It just seems super counterintuitive to, like, take your elders or the loved ones or the people that have, like, all this rich wisdom that tribes typically will, like, prize and live with the elders. And we just kind of outsource it and just put it into a nursing home. And I had a pretty interesting experience because, my girlfriend's grandmother passed away, like, 2 months ago.
Speaker 3:Really long life, 89. She had, like, a 4 year battle with lymphoma. And, when they told her that she was gonna put her on hospice, it was like the whole family just kinda flooded around her because so it was, like, her 3 kids, 13 grandkids, couple great grandkids. And I just it was interesting because it was, like, it was this really sad event. But at the same time, it really brought the entire family closer together.
Speaker 3:And they gave her, like, this amazing kind of send off as she, like, you know, went on to the to her to her next life. And it just made me think about, like, that's really how we should be thinking about, you know, transitioning people and being there for them in the last days of their life. And I'm sure you saw, like, the downsides to that, but I'm sure you also probably learned an amazing perspective for you with your family, like, how you wanna be there and really show up for them too.
Speaker 2:It was probably my most valuable training. Mhmm. And I've done a lot, unfortunately, a lot of training, which I don't recommend anybody doing unless you wanna be in school for, like, 17 years. And the center of the earth might even become cooler by the time you you finish all your training. The most valuable training that I ever received wasn't my nutrition training, wasn't the training from seeing these high level researchers or how to run a study or how to do a clamp or a muscle biopsy.
Speaker 2:The most valuable aspect of my training was seeing death on a routine basis. And it is so profound because death is not necessarily about the end. It's about how you live courageously in the middle. Mhmm. And that in and of itself was just so profound.
Speaker 2:And and listen, you can talk to the warriors of our culture. And again, we are a military family and, you know, the warriors, the military operators, they I think they have a really good perspective on death. They're they're ready. And I listen. I'm not saying that for everybody, so don't get mad at me.
Speaker 2:But again, the the operators that I interface with, there's it's not something that they're afraid of. Mhmm. And it's part of the job description. Mhmm. But I would say for the rest of us that who haven't gone to war or not faced with that, we have to be able to live courageously.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And in order to do that, I think there's a tremendous amount of discomfort in the moment of being deeply present about the decisions that you are making, whether it is food, whether it is what you are saying, whether it is how you are spending your time. And the more we can bring that into focus, especially with all of these distractions.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I I feel like the quality of of our life is is gonna be better.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Gabriela, you'd mentioned with, patient Betty that you had noticed some early patterns of the brain imaging of Alzheimer's. Were you able to reverse any of those symptoms? It was too late for her?
Speaker 2:No. She she didn't have overt symptoms. Mhmm. You know, maybe there was some small cognitive deficits. But one of the things that we see is that, again, the brain is an organ, and body composition is directly related to many of these diseases that we talk about, that we think about as the trajectory of aging.
Speaker 2:What are those diseases? Well, if you look at the CDC, what are the this I'm gonna I'm gonna blow your mind for a second. Because I I've I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I I put this in my book. If you look at what the CDC says the top reasons of, you know, death are, morbidity, mortality. You're looking at heart disease.
Speaker 2:You're looking at Alzheimer's disease. You're looking at cancer, kidney disease. Diabetes is on there. Nowhere on there is obesity. Nowhere on there is sarcopenia or loss of skeletal muscle, which is arguably at the root of many of these challenges or death from these, illnesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it became fascinating to think about how we think about these illnesses. We think that they are something out there that we age, and then you get Alzheimer's. Or you age, and the the longer you're alive, the the higher the likelihood of getting cancer or kidney disease or diabetes. But these are diseases, many of which begin in midlife.
Speaker 2:30. Mhmm. Cardiovascular disease doesn't just happen.
Speaker 1:Right. It's
Speaker 2:not like being pregnant. You either are or you're not. It's kind of like this, right, this, like, slow progression over time. And brain the brain, these challenges with cognitive impairment begin midlife. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And they are directly related. Again, there's a genetic component of Alzheimer's, but it's just directly related to body composition. We saw that the wider the waistline, the lower the brain volume. Lower brain volume, as you can imagine, is not good for a number of things, including memory, executive function. And if we really care about the way in which we age, we have to care when we're younger.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And again, I think that that's why you guys are doing such a great job because you're caring about it when you're younger.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We appreciate it. And also too, it's it's a matter of what you were saying before trying to build community around it and make it cool. Like, there's so many things as a 20 year old that can distract you from being a healthy person. It's all the exciting things like going out on the weekends and social being social, which for most 20 year olds is like going out 2 or 3 times, drinking, not taking care of yourself the next day, and you're setting yourself up to just be on that hamster wheel of being unhealthy.
Speaker 1:So, like, how can you actually make it fun and enjoyable too? Totally. Like, oh, like, being healthy is, like, you're just, like, the odd duck and you're kind of the outcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And think about it. Think about the habits that we create when we're younger, and you see this. So you know people that are 10 or 20 years older than you. Right?
Speaker 3:Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you still see them trying to either course correct habits that they have had for 10 to 20 years.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Definitely.
Speaker 2:If we can nail the habits earlier, you don't have to spend a lifetime trying to rework the architecture of your life and your habits.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. The amount of mental strain that goes into trying to fix these things over a long period of time if you don't course correct early on is, I mean
Speaker 2:Hard pass.
Speaker 1:Like, that's I can't even think about how much mental strain goes into that. It's so stressful too. Like, living with that, trying to, you know, manage all the other things that life is gonna throw at you. And then you're also trying to, like, course correct for your health. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Should be the source of your Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, I hear again, I've been seeing patients for over 15 years. Mhmm. And people will say, well, I I don't have time to work out, to cook, to do x y and z. And in my mind, I think, you don't have time to do those things. Do you know how much time it takes to be sick?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. What else are you doing? Like
Speaker 2:What if you don't have time for health, then you are definitely not gonna have time for for illness. And this is where when you are younger, how how old is your average listener?
Speaker 3:Probably anywhere from late twenties to early thirties.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Yep. Strike while the iron is hot. Mhmm. These diseases of aging are not happening out here.
Speaker 2:When you are younger, you are primed for muscle health.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Muscle is the organ of longevity. When you are in your twenties thirties, this is your prime muscle building focus. And everyone's thinking, I know that I do CrossFit, but it's it's not from that perspective. Mhmm. If we think about it, how do we safeguard against aging?
Speaker 2:How do we become strong and capable to show up in the best way possible for our lives and really create a positive environment and impact on the world. Skeletal muscle is so much more than that. It is obviously, everybody thinks about skeletal muscle as being jacked and tan, but it's this metabolic organ. It's your metabolic metabolic sink. It's your amino acid reservoir.
Speaker 2:It's your site for myokine production that these are hormones that interface with everything. Not to mention, if you do get injured, I'm sure did you both play baseball. Right?
Speaker 3:Yes. Yep.
Speaker 2:Did any either of you get injured?
Speaker 3:Definitely. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Did you have to stop training or put a body part in a sling at any point?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I
Speaker 1:would just
Speaker 3:hit in my knee. Yeah. It was brutal.
Speaker 2:You totally you overachieved.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And after a period of time, you see that there's atrophy.
Speaker 3:Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And this is the time where you have the capacity to build that reservoir
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:For when that happens, because that's actually how aging happens. It's these series of catabolic crises
Speaker 1:that
Speaker 2:would be considered a catabolic crisis.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But one, because you're young and healthy and had your nutrition dialed in that you were able able to overcome.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:But the older and more mature you get, if you are not as physically capable, then the downstream effect of losing that skeletal muscle, never being able to go back to baseline will affect insulin sensitivity, will affect glucose, will affect potentially triglycerides, and a whole host of of things that create a ton of issues. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:there's one more thing. Probably the most important thing is that who you have to become to develop skeletal muscle is a disciplined driven human.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yes. That's something that a lot of people overlook too. Harry and I have been exploring this concept a lot on the show. Like, if we talk about hormone health for a guy, it's very easy to just be like, oh, I wanna get my, you know, total testosterone to 800 or a1000 or whatever the number is. And it's like, we focus on a number instead of looking at it as, like, you're if you get it to that number, it's a gateway to becoming a better version of yourself, a different person.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Muscle is currency.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:It is it is your health currency. It is the pinnacle. But when we think about currency, it is the only currency that you cannot pay for.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You can't bargain. You can't sell it. You 100% of the time have to earn it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's also a very it seems like the concept of muscle building or reclaiming your health, it's a very fair pursuit. It's like you bring up the college baseball analogy. Like, you know, you can work as hard as you want, but someone might be more talented than you. You know, you could train, you know, to be great at a corporate sales role, but someone just outperforms you or they know the boss.
Speaker 3:It's like it seems like muscle building and vitality and reclaiming your health is one of those things where if you make the investment, like, almost anyone could, you know, get those ideal levels. Do you think that that's true?
Speaker 2:Yes. I do. And people will say, oh, are there potentially non responders? I mean, I we probably all have a a skeletal muscle mass cap. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I don't think that we know how much muscle mass would be ideal for an individual. Again, because the models are really based on sickness or averages, and we know that the average population really isn't that healthy. But it is all about the effort to reach a particular potential.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily knowing exactly what that potential is.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And, of course, I will say though, I'd like to see improvements if you set a standard for yourself, not a goal. But if you set a standard for how you're going to go through life, I would like to see progression. I would like to see if you are doing x number of squat, that this is the weight that you are in some way improving. Because life is definitely about how do you continue to get better at things.
Speaker 1:Alright, guys. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode with Gabrielle Lyons. And if you did, I highly encourage you to go check out the full length episode at episode number 235. That's 235 with doctor Gabrielle Lyons. We go deep on a number of great topics, so go check that out.
Speaker 1:I will link to it in the show notes. And, also, if you guys have not already heard, we have a promo going for Noble Origins. That is our beef based protein powder. We have a 15% off deal for Father's Day. That's 15% off.
Speaker 1:We do not discount this product often, so go stock up on Noble Origins. Use code father's day. That's fathersday@nobleorigins.com. Also, go check out our friends over at CrowdHealth. They are crushing it.
Speaker 1:Love what they're doing. Link to them in the show notes as well.
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