Embracing Aging with Nutrition, Strength Training, and Mindful Eating for Women’s Health
Are you ready to embrace aging with vitality and strength? Join us for an enlightening episode of Real Food Stories where host Heather Carey engages in a transformative conversation with Dr. Christine Boev, a PhD-prepared ICU nurse and expert in metabolic health and anti-aging. Together, they tackle the pressing health concerns that many women face during menopause, such as weight gain, decreased energy, and mobility challenges. With a focus on nutrition, Dr. Boev shares invaluable insights into how women can maintain their health and vitality as they navigate this significant life transition.
As women enter midlife, the importance of a balanced diet cannot be overstated. Dr. Boev emphasizes the role of macronutrients—adequate protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats—in fueling our bodies for optimal health. She provides nutrition advice that encourages a shift away from restrictive diets and food fads, promoting instead a lifestyle rooted in sustainability and wholesome eating. This episode is packed with healthy eating tips that empower women to make informed choices about their diets, focusing on mindful eating practices that respect individual food journeys and family food influences.
Strength training and mobility exercises are highlighted as key components in preventing osteoporosis and maintaining muscle mass, crucial for longevity. Dr. Boev passionately discusses the significance of movement and how it intertwines with nutrition and health. As they delve deeper into the conversation, they explore the potential risks and benefits of weight loss medications, providing listeners with a comprehensive view of their options during midlife.
Throughout the episode, Heather and Dr. Boev share personal stories and insights that resonate with women facing similar challenges. They emphasize the importance of individualized approaches to health, advocating for a positive embrace of aging. Whether it’s through cooking for health, understanding food beliefs and culture, or tackling weight loss myths, this episode is a treasure trove of information for anyone looking to enhance their well-being.
Don’t miss this opportunity to gain expert insights into women’s health and nutrition, and discover how you can cultivate a vibrant lifestyle well into your later years. Tune in to learn how to navigate menopause health with grace and confidence, and equip yourself with the tools to make empowering choices for your body. Join us on this journey of midlife wellness and unlock the secrets to a fulfilling and healthy life!
Transcript:
Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. I’m so excited to share with you my interview with Christine Boeve. Christine is a nurse and a PhD, and Christine knows a lot about anti-aging and how to stay your healthiest and your most vibrant all the way into your 90s and beyond. Christine and I had an amazing conversation,
Speaker #1
so I hope that you can take the time to listen in. I am here with Christine Boev today, and
Speaker #0
Dr. Boev is a PhD-prepared ICU nurse with extensive training and experience with health, wellness, fitness, and anti-aging. Her areas of expertise include metabolic health, supplementation, and the use of alternative therapies to enhance cellular health. In addition, Dr. Boav is a devout yogi who believes that mobility is the key to health, especially as we age. And her goal is to be able to maintain her current aerobic condition, including handstand pushups, when she is 120 years old. Christine, thanks so much for coming on today. I’m really excited to talk to you because I know that anti-aging seems to be such a hot topic right now. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it just seems to be everywhere. There’s new books coming out and all sorts of buzz on the internet. And I know this is especially intriguing for women in midlife who are going through menopause, as are many of my listeners. So I believe that there’s a quote understanding sometimes that women in midlife lose their periods their estrogen dips, and it’s over as far as feeling vibrant and youthful. Women are gaining weight, they lose their sex drive, or exhausted, and a lot of fear sets in about getting older. I also believe that there’s this fine line between actually trusting that we can age in reverse, you know, as I’ve heard all over the internet, to aging so that, like you said, you can at least know you have really great mobility at 100 years old. So I don’t think any of us want to age and be unwell, right? So tell me about you and your take on aging, what women can do to feel like they are at least in control of their lives and bodies as they get older.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Heather. It’s really great to be here and talk to your audience. This is the. audience that I typically work with, so middle-aged women who experience the same struggles that you and I deal with every day. And I refuse to believe that as we age, we can’t get better, or at the very least, we can’t maintain our current level of mobility. And the reason I think that so many people are convinced that this is a possibility is we’ve learned a lot. in the last couple of decades about metabolic health, about anti-aging, about what are some of the key things that we as women can do to try to prevent any of the disabling things that happen. So making sure our bones are healthy and strong, working on our mobility so that we don’t suffer a fall and break our hip and then end up really moving backwards. And one of the things I think is the most strategic for us is to keep moving. So whether that be your current walking regimen, your yoga regimen, weightlifting, I think is a huge part of helping women, especially to prevent osteoporosis, to prevent osteopenia, which is the weakening of your bones. And to make sure that you are maintaining some degree of muscle mass, there’s a lot of great research that people with higher degree of muscle mass live longer. So their morbidity and mortality go down significantly. And so we’re talking about these things. We’re talking about aging well, much more so than we did 20 years ago. I feel like historically, you know, people would retire, men and women, they would retire and then they would just like life would kind of pause and then their body He pauses with them. So our bodies like to be in motion. We know that our cells are happier. Our blood pressure is happier when we are moving. And so I think the key is to have some sort of mobility regimen that we stick to. And it doesn’t have to be handstands and headstands. Anything is better than nothing. Truly anything. And also find something you enjoy. Right. Exercise should not be torture for anyone. It should be pleasant. And there are so many things that we can do. I know here on campus, we just did a goat yoga session with our students where we literally had goats sitting on the backs of the students and they loved it. They were laughing. They were, you know, joyful. And that translates to great mobility.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I’ve actually done goat yoga before. It is hysterical. I know it’s really funny.
Speaker #1
I know.
Speaker #0
And it’s, yeah, exactly. And I agree with you. And I tell my clients this all the time that pick something that you enjoy and that is fun for you. Just because everyone tells you that you should be running, if you hate running, it doesn’t mean that you have to go running. But there’s a difference, I think, between focusing on cardio, right? And then focusing on weight. training and weight-bearing exercises, especially for women in midlife. Can you talk a little bit more about that? That is, I mean, I think, of course, cardio is good and moving and not being sedentary, and there’s a million benefits for that. But I’d like to hear your take on the benefits of strength training, because, you know, as we age, right, we lose our muscle mass, and the best thing to do is to lift weights.
Speaker #1
I agree. So when I work with my clients, I really prioritize strength training. Not that there’s anything wrong with cardio, but I feel like we’ve been doing it all wrong. So when you decide on a given day, like, should I lift weights or should I do cardio? If you can only do one thing, I always encourage you to pick up the weights and it will increase your heart rate when you do that. The mistake… we’ve made, especially women, is we do this high intensity cardio where we’re spiking our heart rate into zones four and five, which are your anaerobic states, which spikes our cortisol. Cortisol, which is released by your adrenal glands, tells your brain, hey, you need to store fat. Well, that’s contrary to what we’re trying to do. So if you’re not going to pick up the weights, which you definitely should, then at least… do some sort of cardio. We call it zone two training. And you know, you’re in zone two, when you can carry on a conversation throughout the exercise, yet it’s difficult. So you don’t want to be super out of breath. So you and I can’t sit here and have this conversation. But zone two for me, my heart rate’s around 120. And what that does is it allows us to make more mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of our cells. And it also helps our metabolism to really think about pulling from those fat stores versus only grabbing the glucose that is floating around in our bloodstream. And if you are unsure about, well, I don’t know what to do when I go into the weight room, I would work with a trainer. YouTube has every video on the planet that can help you safely lift weights. and we don’t have to lift. really heavy weights. I have an 18 year old son. His goal is to bulk up and build big muscles, right? My goal is to have nice lean toned muscles. So if you’re unsure, I always tell people start with higher reps, moderate weights, you know, 10 pounds, 12 pounds, so that you can do 15 repetitions of an exercise, you can finish, you’re still, you’re still, you know, working. but you’re not grunting, you’re not struggling, you’re not going to failure. Because unless you’re somebody who’s looking to get into fitness competitions, then we probably are just looking to tone, to sculpt, to redistribute some of our body from fat to muscle. And again, associated with living a longer, higher quality life, depending on how much muscle you carry on your frame.
Speaker #0
Yeah. A lot of the women I speak to, or I’d say there’s probably this dual belief that, you know, if you lift weights, you’re going to get too bulky. You’re going to like look too, too big. You’d have to really be concentrating right as a woman. I think as a, you know. on lifting very, very heavy weights very frequently. Is that correct? Right. I mean, you can, right. I mean, so there’s a huge benefit to lifting heavy, but what, what’s your thought on that? You know, like that women are going to like get too bulked up.
Speaker #1
It is incredibly difficult to get bulked up without being intentional. So if you, if you are looking to get bulked up, then that’s wonderful. But the way that you’re going to go about your strength training is completely different than what I do. You’re going to be lifting 60-pound dumbbells to failure where you’re grunting and your veins are popping out of your neck. It’s really hard to do that. That would be the least of my concerns for somebody who’s starting to enter the world of strength training. You are really going to just do light to moderate weights, higher repetitions. And if you go to a fitness center where they offer strength classes in the group training, start there. If anybody has body pump, the Les Mills, that’s a great way to do strength training too, because they do high reps, low to moderate weights, which is perfect when you’re just getting started. But Heather, you and I would be, it would be really difficult for us to turn into bodybuilders for sure.
Speaker #0
Yeah. No, I always say that, that it would be, it would take a lot of effort, I think, to just really get bulked up. But so I think then in what then happens is. Or some women that I know, you know, like there’s lift these like tiny little one to two pound weights while they’re doing their cardio. And so I think what you’re saying is that we need to lift a little stronger and heavier to build our muscle, which then in general, you know, helps with our strength and helps, I know, with metabolism and all sorts of benefits.
Speaker #1
Well, and also women make the mistake is we only want to work our lower body and our abs. we have this whole other upper body that needs our attention. So I typically break it up into three different sessions. So one day we will just do lower body. So quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, big, big muscle groups. This morning I did legs. One day I normally do chest, shoulders, triceps. And I usually mix abs in most days. I like to, you know, I like to work the abs because as females, when you’re going to gain weight, it’s going to be right in the midsection. You’ll notice that that’s going to either expand or contract the quickest. And then another day I like to do back. Your back is huge in terms of your core strength, your stability. It’s a huge muscle group. So I like to work my back. I like to work my biceps together in one day. So ladies, don’t neglect your upper body. It is just as important as your lower body and as your core for stability, right? So when you’re trying to carry your groceries up the stairs and, you know, carry your babies and your grandbabies in your hands, you’ve got to have that upper body strength. And also like to prevent falls, right? Our core is huge for our balance. and the biggest… The worst thing that can happen to you and I right now is a bad fall where we break a bone, right? It’s going to set us back years. And so thinking about balance and coordination and then throwing in some mindfulness with that too, like paying attention when you’re walking, like where are the cracks in the sidewalk? Where’s the curb? The number one place to get hurt is when you’re stepping down, stepping down off of a curb, stepping down off of the stairs, off of your porch. that’s when we tend to lose our balance and get hurt. So really always thinking about like, where am I going? What am I doing? And being careful because a bad fall when you’re in your fifties and your sixties and your seventies, it could, it could be detrimental. So you want to do everything you can to prevent that.
Speaker #0
That’s such a good point. I mean, that, that this strength training and doing exercise and everything is not just for. vanity sake, right? But it’s also for our real life situations, right? We don’t want to fall. We want to be able to get up off the ground. We want to be able to have our balance. And, and it’s, so that’s another really great reason to keep exercising, moving, not be sedentary, not lose our muscle mass and especially, you know, do strength training.
Speaker #1
My favorite thing about yoga is that it forces you to be able to get down on the ground and get back up using your own strength. And so for your listeners who have never done any yoga, there are foundations courses where you’re just stretching. You’re just getting your muscles loose. You don’t have to do the 110 degree power vinyasa fancy headstand yoga. But I do think if… If there’s one thing you can do to, you know, in addition to strength training is get that yoga component at least once a week so that you’re stretching, you’re working on your balance, your mobility, your flexibility. It all matters. And you want to be able to, no matter how old you are, get down on the ground and get back up on your own. Right?
Speaker #0
Absolutely. Yes. And I think yoga is… a great addition to all the other movement that we’re talking about. I know some, again, some women that I speak to, or even myself included, sometimes have been like a little intimidated by yoga because I’m not that flexible, you know? And so, you know, and then you, right, you’re on the internet and you see, you know, it’s either like you’re a yogi or, you know, I don’t know if that’s for me. So I, but I agree. I mean, I think it’s, you can start with. gentle yoga, you can start with, but anything, any stretching, anything on the ground where you have to get yourself up or you can improve your flexibility is really important.
Speaker #1
Absolutely.
Speaker #0
So let’s talk about food and aging. I know you’re a big proponent of macros. Does your macro philosophy, and I want to hear a little bit more about how you go about that. Tell me a little bit more too about how this goes along with just anti-aging and being healthy.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So more than half of the people in the United States are either overweight or obese. And if you are overweight or obese, your risk of all cancers doubles, your risk of cardiovascular disease doubles, your risk of Alzheimer’s disease doubles. So as much as I love to embrace, you know, you be you, you will not live a long, high quality life if you are overweight or obese. So we’ve got to think about how you fuel your body so that you are reaching your optimal health. And I always talk to my clients about fuel. We don’t talk about diets. We don’t talk about things that you can and can’t eat. I treat my body like a sports car. I want to give it the best possible cleanest gas so that I can function at my highest. And so macronutrients is a very easy way to manage your fuel. in a way that doesn’t deprive you from anything. I don’t believe in saying you can’t eat anything, right? You, if you want to have birthday cake, then you should have birthday cake, right? But you’ve got to figure out what the rest of your day is going to look like so that you can accommodate that without having it sabotage your whole, the whole fueling of your body. And so for the majority of my clients right now, they’re mostly women our age. And they’re looking to lose weight, right? Because as you go through menopause, perimenopause, and as a slight tangent, as women, we tend to put everybody else before our own priorities and our own self. And so we’ve spent the last 10 years taking care of everybody else except for ourself. So now it’s like, geez, I’m 20 pounds heavier than I was. What’s happening? I need to finally focus on my own health. And so… When I’m working with a client who is overweight, we look at the proportion of macronutrients. So there’s three of them. There’s carbohydrates and proteins. So in addition to the misnomer that you should do tons of cardio, the other misnomer is you really shouldn’t eat carbohydrates. Well, carbohydrates is what fuels fat loss. So if you limit carbohydrates from your fueling source, then… you’re not going to feel like you have any energy. So I don’t know who came up with the, you know, high fat, low carb, but it’s not helpful for middle-aged women at all.
Speaker #0
Well, that’s the diet industry, right? I mean, that’s the diet industry coming up with, I mean, because you can, you’ll lose weight quickly, right? On the keto diet or the paleo diet. Maintaining it is almost impossible, but.
Speaker #1
And then when you start eating back to normal, you gain it all back and then some. And so every time you lose weight and then you gain it back and then some, it completely sabotages your metabolism. So every time you do that, your metabolism, you know, it’s, I think of your metabolism, like a furnace inside of your body and that flame just dampens every time. So if you eat with the proper macronutrients, what you’re doing is you’re fanning your flame. You’re getting your metabolism working again. And so what I advise is, um, prioritize protein. Protein is really important in order to maintain your lean muscle. And so as a general rule, I recommend one gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. And so if you’re 140 pounds, but 110 of that is lean body mass, then you’re going to try, and again, it’s not easy, but your goal is to be around 100-ish grams of protein a day. And we really work with different strategies to incorporate. protein into your diet. One of my favorite is collagen protein. I put collagen protein in my coffee every day. It’s great for your hair, skin, and nails. It’s a great protein source. And you don’t even know it’s there because it completely dissolves. So about one gram per pound of lean body mass of protein, and then probably 45% ish carbohydrates that not from like rice crispy treats right But your carbohydrates need to come from good fuel sources. So I eat a lot of fruit. I eat a lot of vegetables. I love rice. If I could eat chicken and rice every day, the world would be a better place. I love rice, any kind of rice, brown rice, white rice, jasmine rice. It’s such an easy complement to a protein that makes that macronutrient pie chart work. Potatoes, sweet potatoes. You know, really, there’s so many. good carbohydrate sources, oatmeal, quinoa. So don’t limit your carbohydrates and then keep your fats. Most of us have fat on ourselves that we’re storing. So our body is going to, we want to switch to a fueling source where we’re starting to pull from those fast stores. We don’t need to eat a ton of fat, right? But when we do eat fat, focus on that Mediterranean diet kind of fat, those monosaturated unfats. your olive oil, your avocados, you know, your olives, like things that are your monosaturated. The other thing that you got to really worry about as you get older is cardiovascular disease and atherosclerotic plaque that builds up in your arteries. One of the contributing factors to that is saturated fats. So we always need to be mindful about, you know, what kind of saturated fats that we’re putting into our body because that plaque. builds up over time, right? We want to keep those arteries nice and squeaky clean. And so having moderate protein, carbohydrates, low ish, I don’t like low fat, but on the, you know, your fat is your smallest piece of the pie,
Speaker #0
right?
Speaker #1
If you can eat like that consistently, then you’re going to be fueling your body so that you have the energy to move your body and to lift the weights and to do the zone two cardio. And to try some yoga. And it’s really like all of that matters, right? You have to fuel, you have to move. And then the other thing, and you haven’t asked me about this yet, but you’ve got to hydrate. We are chronically dehydrated as a population. We don’t drink enough water. And so I don’t care what you put in your water. You know, if you want lemon, whatever, it doesn’t matter, but get your water in because a lot of times you think you’re hungry, but you’re not really hungry. You’re just dehydrated. you’ve got to drink. And so I always have water next to me. I try to drink a gallon a day. I’m usually quite successful because I like to drink water. I’ll put some electrolytes in and I’ll do lemon. I’ll do all sorts of things just to jazz it up a little bit. But at the end of the day, you’re getting the fluids and that’s what matters.
Speaker #0
Yeah. No, I think that we are definitely dehydrated in this country. Although sometimes you see these women walking around with these big gallon jugs in their hands and I don’t know if they’re actually drinking them they’re just holding them more but you know so I think we’re a little I think it’s like this dichotomy we’re a little obsessed with water you know but but we’re still not maybe not drinking enough of it and I agree with you that when you think you might that you’re hungry that you actually might be thirsty and to lean on that first and you’re the way to know that you are drinking enough
Speaker #1
is your urine should look like lemonade. It should be a clear yellow color. If it’s getting concentrated yellow, dark yellow, then you are dehydrated. So that’s an easy way to be like, okay, I need to drink.
Speaker #0
What’s your take on drinking lemon water in the morning? I know you just said, just flavor it with whatever, you know, what you want. But some people I know are just very stuck on, you know, I have to start my morning with lemon water or I have to start my morning with a bulletproof coffee or what’s your take on that?
Speaker #1
I think if it works for you, lemon water is super healthy. And so the idea there is if you ingest it. in a fasted state, then you’re going to get those changes to your pH that are going to help you be optimized. As far as Bulletproof coffee, it’s got a lot of saturated fat in there. So you would need to fit it into your macros if it’s that important to you. For me, it’s not that important for me. I’d rather spread my fat out throughout the day. But I think coffee in and of itself is a gift from God. Drink coffee. I, I, I, when people villainize coffee, I get a little offended. Um, there’s, there’s so many good things with coffee. There’s polyphenols in there that we need for antioxidant support. Um, coffee’s good for your mood. There are countless studies that people who drink coffee live longer. So, you know, when people villainize coffee, I’m like, Oh, come on.
Speaker #0
Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think coffee is, has a lot of health benefits. I’m, I am so. incredibly sensitive to caffeine. I wish that I wasn’t. I wish that I could drink coffee all day because I think it would be great. But I know I’m just incredibly sensitive to it, unfortunately.
Speaker #1
I like my coffee, but I do stop drinking. I don’t drink any caffeine afternoon because it does mess with my sleep. So you do have to be very mindful about how it impacts. your sleep and when that cutoff time is for you. You know, some people have coffee before they go to bed and that, that works for them. And that’s, that’s pretty probable. Most of us can’t do that.
Speaker #0
Yeah, no, definitely not me. You know, we’re talking about our strength training and exercise and food and, you know, balancing out our nutrients and everything. And what is in the headlines right now. And I think everyone is wildly curious about are the newer, I mean, these drugs have been around for a while, but for diabetes, but the newer weight loss drugs that lots of women seem to be leaning on for quick, effortless weight loss, like Ozempic. These are diabetes drugs that were originally prescribed for just that. And then it was discovered that the weight loss was a side effect. And so then all of a sudden, lots of people are on these drugs.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So there’s two of them that are quite popular right now. You mentioned Ozempic, which is some eglatide. And then the other one is Manjaro, which is terapatide. And they’re both peptides. So peptides have been around for a long time. The pharmaceutical companies realized that we could market these peptides and make a lot of money off of them. There is no such thing as a magic bullet for weight loss. There are going to be pros and cons to everything that you try. But basically what these drugs do is they’re called GLP-1s. They’re glucagon-like peptide receptor agonists. And they work in a very similar way to bariatric surgery. So you take them, it’s a once a week dose. And what it does is it delays gastric emptying. And so you feel really full longer. And in turn, it suppresses your appetite. So the reason why people lose weight on these medications is you’re not eating as much because you’re not as hungry. It also increases your insulin sensitivity. So if you’re a type 2 diabetic, then you make insulin, right? But your cells aren’t as sensitive to it. And so most people with type 2 diabetes are also overweight. They go hand in hand with metabolic syndrome. And so there’s guidelines for these medications, right? Your BMI has to be on the higher side. your hemoglobin A1C.
Speaker #0
has to be on the higher side. So if you’re somebody with a normal BMI and a great A1C, you should be thrilled, right? That you are metabolically fit. You could take these medications, but what I’m going to tell you, Heather, is what you normally lose. So if you are a normal weight person and you just like, oh, I gotta lose these 10 pounds. The 10 pounds that you typically lose are going to be muscle. And that is frightening to me because I don’t want to lose muscle, right? We know that muscle mass is associated with longevity. And so, yeah, maybe your scale is going to go down, but there’s a couple of studies where they did DEXA scans of patients who were on these medications. And they’re not eating as much, but they’re not eating. They’re just eating the standard American diet, which is just pretty unfortunate. And instead of losing fat, they’re losing muscle. So what I would say is if you do meet the criteria for these medications, you must be supervised by a provider. You’re overweight. Your A1C is higher. You must incorporate strength training while you’re taking these medications and you must make sure you’re taking in enough. protein. If you do those two things while you’re supervised by a provider, then you’re probably going to come out okay. Now here’s the problem. When you stop taking them, you’re going to be very hungry again. So it’s really important that you work with your provider to taper off of these medications because the rebound appetite that happens when you go off of these medications is is pretty profound. So there’s no magic bullet to losing weight, but if you do meet the criteria and you’re trying to work on your metaballs, your supervision of a provider, strength training and protein are huge to make sure that you don’t lose muscle. And that’s the main part of the vacation because otherwise you’re just going to gain it all back again.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I’ve certainly heard a lot of people going on this drug who have 10, 20 pounds to lose, then having that rebound of weight gain back. It seems unethical, right, to have a doctor prescribe a medication when you just have 10 pounds to lose. And, you know, there could be, I mean, there’s, right, we could just work on ourselves and work on just losing weight. the healthier way because the side effects sound pretty brutal and we don’t want to be losing our muscle. Absolutely. Are there any other side effects that happen when you go to medications?
Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, some people report nausea and vomiting. That’s the most common. 40% of people who take this medication report nausea and vomiting. Ozempic more so than Manjaro. Manjaro is two different types of peptides combined. So it works a little bit better. It has fewer side effects. It’s also a lot more expensive. So there’s your cost benefit with that. The other thing you’ve got to be careful of is it increases the amount of beta cells that are released from your pancreas. So when you take these medications, your pancreas is working harder. So you’ve got to regularly monitor your amylase and lipase levels so that you don’t end up with pancreatitis. So there’s a risk with that. So again, you must be medically supervised if you’re going to be on these medications so that we’re monitoring your labs. We’re checking your amylase and lipase to make sure that you don’t, you end up with pancreatitis. You’re going to be admitted to the hospital for about a week. And that’s a pretty unfortunate situation to be in to try to lose 10 pounds. But there are some natural ways that you can increase your GLP-1. The most easy is exercise. So think about what happens. Like you go to the gym, you have a good strength training session, and then all of a sudden you’re not hungry. Well, it mimics the same thing, right, that Ozempic does. Berberine is a supplement that also helps mimic GLP-1. I’m a big fan of probiotics. I take a probiotic every night before I go to bed. And then polyphenols. I can’t say enough about how important polyphenols are in your overall metabolic health. So we mentioned that, you know, you can get polyphenols from coffee, you can get polyphenols from green tea. I take a supplement every night for polyphenols. Polyphenols feed the good bacteria in your gut. And so when you think about that microbiome and being, you know, all the good bacteria and then, you know, there’s the bad stuff too. polyphenols are like fertilizer for your good bacteria. And so however you get, you know, polyphenols are typically your green vegetables, your green tea. Whenever you get those, that’s going to help not only with your metabolic health, but with your immune system.
Speaker #1
Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit more about supplements because I am, as a culinary nutritionist, I’m about food first. I’d rather get all my, you know, when possible, I’d rather get All my… nutrients and supplements through food. So you’re talking about taking a polyphenol supplement at any time, but polyphenols are found in food. So what’s the benefit of taking the extra supplement or the extra probiotic? We could get those from fermented foods. Tell me what your take is on taking some extra supplements. Is it more is better?
Speaker #0
I think it depends. I’m not somebody who would be consistent with fermented foods. So I want to make sure that I am fertilizing my microbiome consistently. And I’m very particular about the types of supplements that I take. So I’ve done a lot of trials and tribulations and starts and stops with different things that work for me. I actually, there’s a company called Viome. I have no affiliation with them. It’s V-I-O-M-E. And you can send a stool sample to them and they will tell you what’s in your microbiome. And then they will recommend what types of supplements specifically for the bacteria that is growing in your gut. So that’s where I started, especially with the polyphenols, because the recommendations there were you need more of those. And I wasn’t I’m not getting enough from what I eat. And so as much as I agree with you, yes, you should try to get as much from your food as possible. But if I want to truly optimize my lifespan, my immunity, then for me, these are small trade-offs that I don’t think are going to hurt me, but I think they are going to help me. Knock on wood, Heather, I rarely get sick. And I do because I am very careful in keeping that your gut microbiome. it dictates all of your immunity. And so I’m very careful about keeping that kind of in check, um, and making sure, you know, that, you know, sleeping my, we can talk about stress too, but your stress is lower and that like all of that informs your immunity. So I do take, um, several different supplements. I, my husband and I both take, um, fish oil and krill oil every night. Um, just to keep our blood nice and slippery because we’re both at high risk for atherosclerosis based on our parents, based on our genetics.
Speaker #1
Um,
Speaker #0
I take magnesium every night and that’s one of my, like if I had to choose one that I couldn’t live without, it’s definitely magnesium. It helps your central nervous system kind of chill. It helps me go to the bathroom. It helps me sleep. Um, And so it’s for me, like that would be my I can’t live without. supplement for sure. And I live in Rochester, New York, so I take vitamin D. We do not get nearly enough sun here. And so if you’re in
Speaker #1
Connecticut, yeah, I also do take vitamin D as a supplement. Yeah. Because I was deficient in it.
Speaker #0
Yeah. So again, there’s not a one size fits all for supplements. I’ve been on the same supplement stack now for several years. I don’t see myself changing because it’s working. but everybody should talk to their provider and figure out what works for them. But if you haven’t had your vitamin D levels checked and you live somewhere like Connecticut or Rochester, New York, you probably, you’re probably deficient.
Speaker #1
Yes, absolutely. So it sounds like supplements are personal to everybody, right? I mean, what works for you might not work for me and, and it’s important to get, right, some vitamin levels checked and And even get your stool sample, you know, send it off to Viome and have, you know, and really get things a little more personalized for you.
Speaker #0
Absolutely. Everybody’s different. And you know, what, what your needs are, aren’t my needs. And so you’ve got to figure out what works for you, but you’ve got to be careful. Supplements aren’t regulated. So you don’t know what you’re getting when you walk into a supermarket and there’s like a thousand different supplements on the shelf. You don’t know what’s in there. There’s a lot of fillers and extra stuff in this that you don’t, don’t serve you. So you’ve got to be really careful with that.
Speaker #1
Yes. I say this to people all the time that there is no regulation. There’s no FDA watching over supplements and you could really buy whatever you want in Whole Foods. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a little scary. So it’s definitely worth doing your research with supplements for sure. Let’s just talk quickly about sleep and stress and aging and the importance of sleep. We, I think we both would both agree that sleep is vital. But as far as aging, how important is it? Because I hear women all the time. I mean, they’re going through hormone changes, reflection, you know, and like they’re barely sleeping. They’re waking up in the middle of the night. They’re, I don’t know, surviving on five hours of sleep. I personally could. I mean, my sleep is everything to me. right now. So I could not live like that, but definitely my number one priority, just because at the very least of my energy the next day, I need to feel like I can get through my day. But as far as aging, what’s your take on not getting enough sleep? And then also, roll that into stress because I mean, not getting enough sleep is very stressful. And I know that there are two separate topics.
Speaker #0
Yeah, but they’re very interrelated. So I’m with you, Heather. Sleep is everything to me. If you ask my kids, I am in my bed with my book at 930 and 10 o’clock, my lights are out. And sometimes I feel like I’m pretty lame, but at the same time, I’d rather be lame and show up as the best version of myself for them. I get up on the earlier side. I’m usually up at five, but if I can get that seven hours, 10 to five, then I’m in pretty good shape. So a couple of things that really impact your sleep. We talked about caffeine. For me, noon is my absolute stopping point for caffeine. The other thing that people don’t think about is all of the artificial lights in your house, the screens, your phones. So you’ve got to be really careful about the light block of glasses at night. We changed all of the light bulbs in our room to amber lights. You can get them on Amazon. They’re super cheap. And that was… those led lights are absolutely terrible for your sleep um any of your clocks that have lights just get rid of them or turn them the other direction because if you wake up and you look at the clock and it’s like this bright red light it is going to miss your circadian rhythms the other thing for women is temperature so temperature is huge because you know people who get night sweats have the temperature fluctuations. perfect world you want to sleep in a cooler room now there’s all sorts of different mattresses they tend to be pricey but if you have any way to cool off the surface of your mattress i highly recommend it i have an euler and it’s a um pad that’s connected to a water tank and it cools off the and i love it and then i set it so that 10 minutes just starts to warm up And then I start to wake up because I can, like, I start to feel it. So it’s fabulous. Temperature is huge. The other thing is going to bed and waking up at the same time is, if you can, especially on the weekends. I know, like, sometimes on the weekends, it’s like, oh, I could sleep in. But it will cause disturbances when you look at your sleep as a whole.
Speaker #1
There’s a million different ways to track your sleep. We don’t.
Speaker #0
Have a good day. too obsessed with that but you’ll know if you wake up and you feel you feel good right if you feel like okay i’m ready the snooze button is the double do not hit the snooze button once it’s time to get up if you could just get yourself vertical it’s going to make all the difference right yes um but if you lay there and you’re like you know you hit snooze my kids they set six o’clock in the morning and I’m like, you guys, like. And they’re like, we can’t, we just can’t get up. So, but they’re, they’re teenagers. So, so yeah. So environment, temperature, timing, light, caffeine, you should not eat two hours before you go to bed. And here’s the reason. Your digestive system also needs to rest. And so if you’re eating, like if you go to bed at 10 and you’re eating at 8, your poor digestive system doesn’t ever get a break.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
One of the things that is directly related to aging is we have this system in our brain that’s called our glymphatic system. And our cerebral spinal fluid gets a cleansing every night. But it cleanses best when you’re in a deep sleep. And so if, you know, in that cleansing is helpful to prevent amyloid pox, proteins that are associated with it. So the more deep sleep that we get, the cleaner our cerebral spine fluid is, the clearer our brain is. So it gives us this amazing opportunity to kind of refresh. My biggest mistake is I sleep with my dog. And she likes to sleep. I just, yeah, so I guess there’s a trade-off. That’s my trade-off. Yeah,
Speaker #1
we’re probably used to it by now, right? You’ve got to sleep deeply before you sleep.
Speaker #0
And then folding that into stress. So if you are not well-rested, then you’re going to wake up with your sympathetic nervous system that fight or flight just activated. And we do not understand or realize how… powerful stresses and how toxic stress can be. And every time our sympathetic nervous system is just stimulated, again, we released cortisol. Cortisol is necessary. We’ll die without it. But too much of it causes us to store fat. It weakens our immune system. So really, like if you’re living in a state of constant stress, your health and lifespan is going to be significantly shortened. There’s lots of different ways to tackle stress. I love essential oils. I try to meditate every day. It’s probably one of the hardest things to do. However you get to your place of calm, just deep breathing is incredibly powerful to just get your sympathetic nervous system to just calm down. Yeah,
Speaker #1
I tell people. it’s sort of like exercise, just pick something that’s going to help you stay calm. It doesn’t have to be, I mean, meditating is fantastic. I love it, but it can be yoga, right? It can be your yoga practice is just helping you just breathe, calm down because we are all under extreme chronic stress. Half of us don’t even realize it. I mean, just sitting in traffic, looking at the internet, the 24 hour news, you know, it just, just little things like that, that are avoidable. We are just drowning in and it’s, yeah, really affecting our metabolism, our anxiety. It just, you know, just reverberates to so many things.
Speaker #0
Yeah. And just being present, trying to stay in the moment. It’s so difficult because there’s a lot of, you can’t worry about what’s already happened. It’s done. And most of us worry about what’s going to happen, which is kind of pointless, but if we could just be in the moment. as much as possible and then just bring yourself back to being in the moment. Living with gratitude is huge. There’s so much to be grateful for and it helps with some perspective on life and then some of that stress, you know, at bay, which is huge.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Christine, thank you. I mean, we talked about a lot. We talked about exercise and strength training and supplements and macros and our food. We talked about supplements and stress and sleep. We covered a lot of ground and that’s fantastic. And it was just wonderful to speak with you and get your perspective on everything.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Thank you for having me, Heather. This was great.
Speaker #1
Sure. And how can people reach out to you if they want more from you or want to work with you?
Speaker #0
Dr. Christine Boeb, so D-R-C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-B-O-E-B. And I do one-on-one with health and fitness coaching. I would talk with men our age to help with the specific strokes that we deal with, because it’s not easy. We’re complicated. And we all need a little bit of help.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I will link that in the show notes.
Speaker #0
Thank you.
Speaker #1
When the episode goes live. Thank you.
Speaker #0
It was just really nice to talk to you and get your perspective on things. So thanks so much.
Speaker #1
And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.