Season 1 Episode 4 of Quiet the Diet Podcast with Michelle Shapiro, RD

The Protein Episode: Protein and Muscle Mass for Healthy and Longevity with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

In this episode, Michelle chats with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, functional medicine doctor and expert in muscle-centric medicine. They talk about the importance of high-quality protein and muscle mass for health and longevity, and address what muscle mass does for our health beyond our aesthetics. Then, Dr. Gabrielle shares some personal anecdotes of her own history with veganism (!!), leaving her with serious health effects and jump starting her career in protein-forward medicine.

They discuss:

• The importance of protein and muscle mass in aging and longevity 
• Muscle mass is more than aesthetics and physical activity – it’s impact on the immune system, inflammatory responses, nutrient utilization, and hormones! 
• Focusing on the QUALITY of muscle tissue (not just quantity) 
• Importance of protein consumption for health and longevity. What this means for vegans, vegetarians, and plant-based diets. 
• Why are we seeing a push for plant-based eating right now? (Hint: It goes back to World War II) 
• Dr. Gabrielle’s “origin story” – Why she has made it her mission to emphasize the importance of protein and muscle mass in her everyday practice
• Dr. Gabrielle’s history of drastic health effects following a vegan and macrobiotic diet, importance of including animal protein in our diets

I know I don’t have to tell you this but this post is only for educational purposes. It is not nutrition or personalized medical advice. We want you to get the most from the episode but to keep that in mind as well and we really hope you enjoy it

Intro to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and Muscle-Centric Medicine

Michelle Shapiro

This episode of the quiet the diet podcast marks the start of a 3-part series focused on different macronutrients. So this episode is on protein. And I had the just most ridiculous level of honor to bring on my dear friend Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who has been dubbed the queen of protein by me but definitely by other people too. This episode really focuses on protein and muscle and the hotly contested topic of is meat consumption really bad for us. We touch on if it’s potentially positive for us, and what we can do to incorporate protein into our our diets in our lives. In the show notes, you’ll also find a guide for incorporating more protein into your diet and a bit more from our team. But I really want to talk about the star of the show today. And I could not be again more freakin excited to bring Dr. Gabrielle Lyon to you. As a practitioner, she is someone who constantly advocates for her patients as a friend, she’s exactly the same way. And she’s one of the most vocal voices in the conversation around protein and and really animal consumption as well. And I believe that the research that Gabrielle has conducted or interpreted is pretty conclusive. And I think the way that she presents information is so translatable for you the listener, and I think what she has to say is probably one of the most important messages that I’ll ever have the opportunity to share on this podcast. I’m going to tell you a little more about Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. She is a Washington University fellowship trained physician in nutritional science and geriatrics and is board certified in family medicine. She completed her undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition, vitamin and mineral metabolism at the University of Illinois, and continues to be mentored over the last two decades by one of the world’s leading protein experts. Dr. Donald layman, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon works closely with the Special Operations military and as a private practice that services patients worldwide. You will not want to miss a minute of this episode with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. It is one of the greatest honors of my career to be able to bring this beam of light in this space to you. And I just want to say that this conversation around protein and animal consumption has become so hotly contested in society. And I think that this episode proves that if we can remove all of the kind of virtue signaling away from the conversation, we can really understand much more about the need for us to have adequate muscle mass and where we’ve really gone wrong and what I think diet culture has gotten so grotesquely wrong, which is that we’ve been so constantly focused on reducing fat mass when there’s been kind of, you know, fat has been so villainized when there was really a hero in the equation, which is muscle mass. We also talked about in the episode, how muscle mass is something that muscle itself is something that interacts with our body. It’s not just something that sits there, and we’ll learn a lot more from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Again it is so ridiculously amazing that she is on if we’re doing a protein episode it would be impressive Well to do it without her. I really hope you guys enjoy this episode. And I can’t wait for you to listen to it please enjoy

today is my biggest day because I’m sitting down with one of the most intelligent, loving, compassionate and incredible practitioners and people I’ve ever known. My dear friend, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, yay, you’re freaking here.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Yay, no pressure, no pressure at all.

Michelle Shapiro

There’s never pressure with you. Because everything you say is so illuminating for people that every one liner is going to change someone’s life. So actually, if you are listening to this podcast right now, watching, please take out a notepad, you’re gonna want these gems from Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. So I might call you Gabrielle during the interview, and my colleague, Dr. Lyon, we might switch through and see what we feel. But Gabrielle is a really close personal friend of mine for many reasons, and the type of friend and practitioner you want on your side. So we’re going to cover your normal, really important information. When I say normal, I mean, what you feel most passionate about what you work with strongest, which is that muscle centric medicine, I want you to be able to introduce yourself to you’ll have heard already a little bit about Gabrielle, but can you tell us about you and your path into medicine and what you believe in? And

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

well, the first thing is, you might call me, Dr. Lyon, you might call me Gabrielle, as long as you’re not calling me other four or five letter words, we are cool. I practice a kind of medicine called muscle centric medicine, it really is the concept that muscle is organ of longevity. We have this concept in the world, which you know, is true that we really do have this obesity problem. But again, is it an obesity problem? Or do we have a midlife muscle crisis? And muscle centric medicine really focuses on muscle, it’s very solution based in terms of all these things related to aging.

Michelle Shapiro

It’s so interesting, because I don’t think anyone outside of your scope and the people that you’ve taught would draw a line between muscle and longevity. Can you dig into that? Oh, yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

of course. Well, when we think about these discussions that we’re having about aging and health, in medicine, and you experience this, as a dietitian, when we go to school, we are indoctrinated in a certain way of thinking, and we believe models, and for example, perhaps one of those models is obesity is at the root cause of X, Y and Z. But potentially, if we have that model wrong, then we’re never going to get better at fixing whatever that issue is, because we are simply looking at it through a perhaps incorrect lens. Sure. And that’s really what I think that we’re dealing with now is that we don’t have this obesity epidemic, or, you know, we’re not over fat, we really are under muscled, and that’s at its core, what we really need to focus on and muscle as the organ of longevity is newer in the space of what is available to people, right. So right now we have this dichotomy of the fitness professionals, right, so we have fitness professionals, and then you know, in one camp, and then we have medicine, but the real magic is the interface between the two. And that’s actually where we can move the needle for people as it relates to health and wellness.

Michelle Shapiro

And I think that a lot of doctors like to feel different than fitness professionals. I think fitness professionals feel different than doctors totally what you’re saying is there’s actually a bridge and the bridge is muscle.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Yeah. And that’s where the magic is gonna happen in your original question is What does muscle have to do with longevity? Yeah, and I would answer and tell you, it has everything to do with longevity, we know that our survivability against nearly all cause of disease, even cancer is directly related to the quality of our skeletal muscle.

Michelle Shapiro

It’s really powerful. I definitely want to talk about what muscle is because I think that that can be really confusing for people. I need to piggyback off something else you said too, because I want you to elaborate on this. First of all, the word obesity in my world, obviously, is a word that has a lot of staying for people and a lot of heat for people. I think the way I talk about obesity is that obesity is not a diagnosis. It’s just a symptom, right? It just means this is where your body’s at right now. I think you empower people even more by saying this idea of obesity as being over fat versus under muscled. It gives tangibility for people and steps they can take as opposed to hearing this word epidemic that we can’t fix things. It feels like you’re putting the power back into your patients hands.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

That’s absolutely true. Right now, every you know, these things are very fat, focused, fat phobic. We’re talking about restricting carbohydrates. Which again, could there be value in that? Yes. Are we talking about chronic cardio, that’s, you know, the messaging around obesity has always been, here’s the problem. We have to we have to really focus on this obese tissue and that’s what needs to happen. But that is very disempowering. And you and I were talking on my podcast actually, about the Biggest Loser. The Biggest Loser studies that, you know, you don’t want to be in the cycle of trying to lose the 10 to 20 pounds over your entire life. The concept of all He’s focusing on symptomology is like always focusing on the negative?

Michelle Shapiro

Oh, totally. Yeah, you can get stuck. Right and that and that’s so true. And I think, especially because being quote unquote, over fat is something that is so stigmatized and so hard for people because they’re treated differently if they are perceived as being obese in society, I think this idea of having this pathway for people to take and also just taking like the morality out of weight so much, it’s like, just get some muscle instead, right? It feels so much more doable. And it feels so much more empowering. I think for people to it absolutely.

Muscle as an Endocrine Organ System!?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

is empowering. So by shifting the focus from fat to muscle tissue, which again, you asked me the question, what is muscle what is muscle it’s a muscle is tissue under voluntary control. It is a again, it is there’s smooth muscle, which arguably is not under voluntary control, which be the uterus, right. And of course, there is cardiac muscle, and then there’s skeletal muscle.

Michelle Shapiro

And when I think of muscle, obviously, and many people associate muscle with like exercise and muscle building and breaking down and rebuilding and all that, you say this really powerful thing, which it’s so silly that we don’t know this, a lot of dietitians don’t even know this and don’t blame them for it muscle as an endocrine organ. Tell me about that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Muscle. Again, this goes back to the original point that we were talking about that in the health space in fitness, we think about muscle as a relates to looking at in bikini or exercise aesthetic, right or sport performance. But skeletal muscle is the largest organ system. And listen, if you’re me, maybe it makes up 40% of your body weight. If you’re my husband, who’s a former Navy SEAL, maybe makes up 90% He looks partially like, we won’t calculate we don’t have to talk about right, but just by pure weight, skeletal muscle as an organ system is going to be your biggest impact for health and wellness. Okay, so what does that mean and why contracting skeletal muscles secretes these components called Myo kinds, and Myo kinds are it’s, you know, they’re peptides, what we would think of as like a cytokine. We’ve all heard of interleukin six right? The cytokine storm also, but contraction, skeletal muscle when it secretes these Myo kinds in particular will just hone in on interleukin six, it travels throughout the body, and it interfaces with the immune system. Wow. So it helps dampen some inflammatory inflammatory responses. It helps direct nutrient utilization. So what does that mean? carbohydrates, fats, so it’s very interesting. So it’s above and beyond, it’s actually what the skeletal muscle is producing, above and beyond the actual exercise component, right? Above and beyond the ATP generating activity. And that is really incredible. You know, it secretes BDNF, things that go to the brain, right? These are components of skeletal muscle that are just not talked about,

Michelle Shapiro

not at all. And I think it’s this idea that we’ve had historically, which is that muscle is just sitting there. It’s not interacting with the rest of our bodies or anything like that. It’s not the the word system, I think is, is revolutionary for people. The fact that it’s an organ is revolutionary for people, the fact that it has hormonal implications, that it’s again, part of a larger system of your body. And, you know, even in the functional nutrition world, we’re not talking about muscle that much. I think we’re talking a lot more about our adrenals. I think we’re talking about you know, things like that. Can you tell me, is that weird? It is weird? What’s the deal with that?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

It’s the dichotomy of understanding and really thinking about muscle muscle has always been in the literature really based on the periphery. It’s just like a peripheral tissue. But it isn’t, right. Like it’s the main event, main event,

Michelle Shapiro

I know. And it’s, and if I actually think about my time to working in hospitals, or anything like that, we can reflect from a conceptual level, of course, people who are wasted, people who have lost muscle mass, even weight overall, are more likely to be at risk for, you know, a mortality risk in every single way. So, the fact that this line hasn’t been drawn is odd, obviously, is there a reason that you know, of why people aren’t talking more about muscle? I think

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

some of the fundamental challenges with medicine is medicine is very algorithmic. And the way in which we think about things is, what can we see? What is the problem that we can visually see? And for many people, it’s weight, but they don’t think about, well, you know, what is actually under the surface? And what can we do about the weight in which you know, we’re looking at so I think that it’s just perhaps lack of knowledge and really bridging the gap between the two.

Michelle Shapiro

If you had a patient who had a tremendous amount of muscle mass and then weighed a lot because they also had an excess of body fat. Would they have advantages over someone else who had a different body composition?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Great question. Now healthy muscle so the research would indicate that heavier people have more muscle mass

Michelle Shapiro

Okay, sure people will say, well in fat and muscle kind of proportionally it’s proposed, right. And

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I mean, it very totally depends on the person. But typically, the more weight you have to carry around, the more, you’re gonna stimulate your muscle make sense. But we’ve all seen a marbled steak. Just because you have muscle doesn’t mean that it’s actually healthy tissue. And muscle is very important. Above and Beyond exercise, it’s very important for glucose regulation, right? It’s a primary site for glucose disposal, which is, you know, if you’re eating some carbohydrates, it goes to your muscle, you got to get out of the bloodstream moving into muscle. Muscle is also a primary site for fatty acid oxidation. These are really critical things. But again, your question was, is someone who has more body fat and more muscle going to be healthier? Health really, when we’re thinking about outcomes is there’s so many different things. But I would argue that it perhaps would be better to mitigate weight gain and really focus on the quality of the tissue.

Michelle Shapiro

Absolutely. And in a tangible way. Yeah, if someone was, let’s say, under muscled and watch, like, I’m sure a very large portion of us are under muscled, right, what would be like a very first step someone would take for that?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Well, I want to highlight something outside of sarcopenia, the diagnosis of decreased muscle mass and function we don’t actually have a clear definition of what under-muscled looks like.

Michelle Shapiro

Oh, okay, do you have a definition for yourself?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I do. But no one’s gonna care it to appendicular lean mass index divided by height squared, no one’s gonna care about that. But if you guys want to look, you can, you can check out my book. And again, when you go into the physician’s office, you go in and you look at body fat, body fat percentage, or maybe even BMI. And this just highlights the fact that nobody dresses skeletal muscle as a health endpoint.

Michelle Shapiro

I can’t imagine, I’ve never had a conversation with a physician besides you about muscle mass. Again, it feels like it’s almost like a material that’s owned almost by the fitness community, which is like, fine. And

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

how did we miss that? I know how do they have it in the Doctor Zone? Or how has it? How have we missed this incredibly important organ system? How have we been chasing fat for the last 50 years? And wondering why people are not getting better?

Michelle Shapiro

I’m going to pitch something to you, too, if I have a client who’s dealing with autoimmune inflammatory issues, could there be a cog in the system because they have so little muscle mass that the rest of the system can’t be supported? Could this also be important for all functional medicine and nutrition is to hear

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

100% In fact, there is some data to support that rheumatory individuals with rheumatoid arthritic conditions and rheumatoid autoimmune conditions can get better with exercise.

Protein Consumption for Health and Longevity

Michelle Shapiro

So powerful. And we always think it’s because like, it’s good for you

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Because of the interface of these myokines

Michelle Shapiro

which is really, really powerful for people to hear to because I think, again, you know, we think of the 90s it’s like all about cardio and all that stuff. I think people are turning out leg warmers. It’s like, it’s I think it’s like late 80s and I I’m with you, but those workouts with the leg warmer, it’s all cardio, right? That was like it was so hot then. And it’s always been fat loss, it’s always been consumption of fat, and in the fact that it’s always been consumption of fat, and the word fat is always so enticing. What macronutrient Do you feel like people have been missing out on?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

So basically, you’re setting me up to talk about the health of skeletal muscle, and the health of skeletal muscle is really twofold. And that would be dietary protein, and muscle mass (resistance training). Now let’s think about this. You couldn’t live your entire life without ever exercising. Now, I’m not saying that’s good. But you could potentially do that. Right? You would be alive potentially. Right? You would definitely be alive. Yeah. How long? Could you go without eating?

So the reality is, while exercise is optional, for many, eating is not no good. And nutrient is not. People will also say well, Gabrielle but exercise challenges the homeostasis of the body so much more dramatically than nutrition? I would say yes. However, 23. You know, like, I don’t know, maybe 25% of the population is even meeting the basic recommendations for exercise 25% of the population. Wow, nearly 100% of the population is eating.

Michelle Shapiro

It’s interesting that you’re saying 25% Because when I think of percentage of people with chronic illness, the number that comes up for me is 60 to 70%. And I’m wondering if our little graph has you know, how

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

many people are seeing how many people are meeting the baseline recommendations for exercise, maybe it’s a little bit higher,

Michelle Shapiro

they’re low those recommendations 150 minutes per week, right

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

speak of resistance of resistance training, the percentage of people that are meeting that most people are not meeting that

Michelle Shapiro

yet forget about scientifically anecdotally we know right? People do not meet those goals, right. So this same exact thing is actually carried over to protein which again, you know, on this podcast, everything we try to say as middle as we can on things you always do. The reason is because for some reason protein has become its protein exchange. remain controversial, so much so that if you’re new to Gabrielle line, which you probably aren’t because she’s like the person of the world and of knowledge.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Do you know that I actually got asked to be on the international protein board?

Do you realize how proud I mean, okay, yes. Am I leadership 407 and Navy SEAL Future Foundation, you know, but the international protein board, this is your big moment. This is like my big shiny proteins, like my big shiny with the other queens

Michelle Shapiro

on the board. Yes. It’s an incredible accomplishment with I think you said like, amazing researchers.

oh, my gosh, especially around and, you know, and consumption of eating animal products we can definitely talk about because, again, I believe that we can talk about things scientifically and factually, without being harmful or triggering to other people by just giving actual information. And really, so it is really super contentious, especially right now protein, meat, veganism. It’s like, we know the nutrition world is split in a lot of ways. But there’s definitely split in this way. So what’s the deal? Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

we’re going to talk about the deal with this. And I want to highlight something that I think that you do really well is you highlight that when we swing one way that people always swing the other, the knee jerk. That’s exactly what’s going to happen here. I’m going to give you a few tidbits into what I think is gonna happen in the future. Number one, first of all, I have never seen the vegetarian vegan, plant based push. So I’ve been a physician since 2006. I have been mentor for the last 20 years. I have really good Botox for the last 20 years, by Dr. Donald layman, who discovered some of the concepts that I work really hard to take from bench to bedside. Right. So what happened in the research, bring that to the general public. And I have never seen the emotional reaction and the zealot disrespectful behavior ever than I’ve seen within the last handful of years. It’s unusual, right? Because for me, I realized that my message of being strong, having resilience and eating meat is offensive to some people. But we have to understand that it’s not to be offensive, it is not to be emotional, it is based on decades of experience, and also looking at the literature and understanding that there are high quality nutrient dense foods that we need. Absolute, and that it’s not, you know, eliminating a food group, right, this idea of moving towards a plant based nutrition plan isn’t bad, because we can all use more plants. Sure, of course, why does the conversation have to be divided that? Well, if you are primarily plant based, you’re not eating animal products? Why can’t you be protein forward and plant base? Right? So again, these are semantics, but semantics that I think are going to be damaging? And here’s what I’m going to, I’m gonna say, Yeah, what do you tell us? I believe that who this really affects is the younger generation growing up. Okay, so that means, what is it called Gen Gen Z? Gen Z, Gen Z, the ones that are really good on Instagram, those guys. Yeah, we’re working on it. Nikki better get that tick tock together. If my team is listening, Alexa, you are definitely supposed to be able to get on tick tock, okay. Yeah. So what’s gonna happen is we’re hearing this narrative to be come more plant based, and we are missing whole food groups. And I think that we are going to have an epidemic of osteoporosis, like we have never seen before.

Michelle Shapiro

I’m so glad you’re saying this. So in ways of chronic illness, in a general sense, you know, my parents, I have like a couple floating autoimmune conditions, you know, like we all do, like we all do. And my parents when I was younger, would be like, oh, like, why can’t you just be normal and eat that and I’m like, our bodies aren’t the same as your bodies because you did not grow up with the same food system that I grew up with, like, I think that good point, we’re gonna see you know, even the lifespan I don’t know what our generations lifespan is going to be like, it’s we don’t actually know that information yet. And I think if we continue again, eating only one type of food regardless if it’s vegan or carnivore or something like that, we are missing out on the abundant benefits of all the other foods too. And I know for myself, and for many other people, I was vegan for a long time. And I was like a good vegan really planned out my nutrients took supplements and stuff like that. So and I still Yeah, well, I was like, more of like a gag, like, I was like, I can do this for longer than other people can and like, of course, yeah, you would

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

do the same. Like if we were gonna do it. Actually, I was vegetarian for a long time,

Michelle Shapiro

because in the medical community, it was also kind of like a lot of cardiologists were pressing and I still have a lot of cardiology, we have to talk a little bit about cholesterol too, but, but I still to this day, I’m recovering from the nutrient deficiencies that I had from that time and from some of the gut damage do. I don’t think every single person who consumes a vegan diet obviously has nutrient deficiencies and gut damage, it just makes it a hell of a lot harder to get those nutrients and it’s almost like meat is like the ultimate biohack right, because it’s so new nutrient dense already even the smallest amount of it, you get your fill.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Yeah, and I’ve thought a lot about this because we go through cycles of nutrition. And there are periods of time in which an individual could be vegan or vegetarian. And I think that they can cycle through that. It’s really important to understand where an individual is in life. If a woman is perimenopause menopausal, I am not going to say, well, you’re already eating 1000 calories. So let’s make those 1000 calories, plant based calories, what I’m going to say is, when you’re eating 1000 calories, okay, we need to pick the most nutrient dense foods to fill up that minimal amount of caloric intake that you have. Absolutely. And, you know, I don’t, and haven’t seen any really successful vegan or vegetarians as they’ve gotten older. And it does exist, right. But the majority of individuals end up requiring some kind of higher quality protein. And, and what’s so interesting is, I’m sure this is triggering for a lot of people, but there’s no no emotion here about that. And so people who are listening really, the listener has to check themselves. And if they are getting amped up on this, why,

Why is there a big plant-based push right now? (HINT: It stems from WWII)

Michelle Shapiro

again, if you want to get amped up on it from an animal protection reason, and that is something if you are a person who just does not want to consume animals, there’s no conversation here. That’s it’s a moral ethical belief. We don’t argue beliefs, we argue science. That’s what we that’s what we want to do. And I think that what’s kind of happened is that people have these moral ethical beliefs. And now those are turning into systems of beliefs. And that’s what we’re seeing that if you are vegan, you are virtuous and good.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

That’s always been that way. And you know, that, tell me more. It’s always been that way. So for my book, I have a book coming out called Forever strong. I looked a lot at the history of where we came to be. Because you know, history is a funny thing. History repeats itself.

And nutritional history actually repeats itself. Do you know that in the time of war, so around World War 219 40s, there were rationing that happened? So millions of soldiers were overseas, and we were there?

During World War Two, they had rationing. It was taking all meat. Not all but like the majority of meat, butter eggs and shipping it overseas to feed the soldiers. Okay, soldiers were rationed one pound of meat per soldier, for how long a week? No, for the time that they were over there, what do you mean? One pound, pound per day? Oh, per pound per day, per day, sorry, per day. This is what they were determined. So they discovered early on that in order to support soldiers

Michelle Shapiro

who needed muscle mass

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I needed a functional soul to perform, they were moving these high quality, nutrient dense foods to them. They were on at home, like home base, whatever you call it, the mainland, encouraged to grow Victory Gardens and go more vegetarian. Wow, to provide the nutrient dense foods to the soldiers. That’s

Michelle Shapiro

really powerful. And that became also I’m assuming, then, if you did, or didn’t contribute these nutrient dense things to soldiers, again, it becomes like, it becomes a morality issue, right? But

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

then Kellogg, and people, you know, these, these food companies had to figure out ways, okay, so how are we going to feed people at home, this became very carbohydrate dominant, dominated, very packaged, dominated. But what’s so interesting about that is that food was used as a sign of patriotism. Food was used as a way to be virtuous, and American, right, and American. And I think that what we’re seeing now is almost self imposed rationing. It’s a different message. So it’s a same outcome, different message, eat more plant based, go, you know, do this, and the meat should go to somebody else. Isn’t that interesting, though? So now what? So in the 1940s, you see what’s happening here, and this was about war. Okay. Now, what we’re seeing now is, it’s the same outcome wrapped in a different message. And the message is, don’t eat animal products don’t eat because it’s bad for the environment.

Red Meat Protein: Debunking Controversies and Myths

Michelle Shapiro

It is the same exact message. And I have to say, and right now, my brain is going up. While we’re in World War Two, one of my places that I live in my brain much of my life, there are really powerful studies that have showed that, you know, grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who obviously went through extreme food restriction, not self imposed, have later on self imposing food restrictions. I almost wonder if there’s not only a cultural element who says, Yeah, but maybe a genetic element that’s passed down to so this self imposed restriction as it comes to meet is a fascinating idea. Can we It, dig into that a little bit more. Yeah, tell me. So

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

you know, the quality of nutrition is a luxury, absolutely current recommendations for protein and muscle mass, really take into account a lot of things, you know, old nitrogen balance studies, which nitrogen balance is never an outcome for health, like, that’s the protein sides of the nitrogen balance. I mean, nitrogen balance is not an outcome. And then you have to take into consideration the World Health Organization, and how are we going to feed people globally, of course, and these are real concerns. The challenges is here in the US, we have an overabundance of food, we have the opportunity to eat animal products, we have the opportunity to eat red meat, lean red meats, all these things. And it’s so crazy to think that we are criticizing people for doing that we’re trying to lower our quality of our diet from a self imposed place. And that’s where I think education becomes really important and understanding that it is not this dichotomy that it really needs to be, how can we get a better plant based diet? Right, so the diet right now is already 70%, plant based, whether it’s pizza, potato, or whatever, according to n. Haynes, and hence data is already 70% plant based. So how do we change the scale of improving plant, you know, the quality of the plants, but also understanding that, you know, for right now, 30%, even though animal products are only 30% of the food that we’re eating, now, it contains the majority of our nutrients, calcium, zinc, selenium, so So when we think about what is the science say, how do we incorporate Whole Foods and high quality foods and understand that perhaps we might be being misled? For sure.

Michelle Shapiro

And we don’t even need to know who we’re being misled by, we just need to know the current actual facts which are telling us that I mean, nutrient wise, incomparable vegetables versus meat, I mean, like, the density of nutrients. I mean, right, you know, we’ve know plants are mostly water based, right? Of course, you’re gonna get some of those water soluble nutrients, but meat has, you know, protein, fat, and no carbs, but protein and fat in it, which,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

again, carnitine and serine. You know, that creatine, fat

Michelle Shapiro

soluble vitamins, that we can’t get some of the water soluble vitamins that we can’t get from plants, which again, neither of us are refuting, we’re not saying go carnivore today, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

there must be a balance again, you said something, which I think is very astute of you. I really do feel middle ground, about the way in which food can be inclusive. I mean, it’s so silly that I even have to have this conversation. And the idea that we would eliminate whole food groups, and that red meat is bad for us, especially when you’re thinking about lean red meats. Of course, I mean, I would argue that excess calorie consumption overall is bad for us, I would argue that excess body fat is bad for you, I would argue that outcomes of excess calories is an issue. So I would not say, you know, red meat is bad for you, I would not say, you know, this one food is bad for you. I think that that’s a very reductionist view. And when we have reductionist view, it just shows a level of incomplete thinking,

Michelle Shapiro

I love the word reductionist. When it comes to nutrition, it’s so true, it is incomplete thinking, because when other people are giving you morality or virtue signaling sentences, you actually lose your ability to think critically when you absorb them. If you think critically or, or apply science, I think every functional nutritionist and every functional doc comes to the same conclusion, which is that meat is super nutrient dense, and we need nutrient dense things a to make life easier, the nutrients that you find in meat, help your organs to run more efficiently. So you know, we are agenda lists, I get no no benefits of being pro anything nutritionally. And I think both of us work really hard to remove biases, and just see what actually works for people. So I would say, if you are a vegan, you just got to work like 10 times as hard and totally do it. I could do it, you just have to work really hard. So I really like efficiency for clients, too. I think this idea that we eat too much meat is just literally wrong. And a lot of this is just literally wrong. Can we talk about like just statistics, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

it’s about I think that we’ve reduced our red meat consumption anywhere between I think it’s about 40%

Michelle Shapiro

I think over the past 30 years, just about a reduction. I know it’s this this chart, I can imagine in my head, I don’t know the exact year it starts but yeah, poultry is like gone up a little bit. It’s gone down drastically,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

and heart disease, obesity have all gone up. I mean, again, cause you know, there’s correlation. You know, causation is, can you say okay, well, heart disease and obesity have gone up, but red meat consumption has gone down. But somehow red meat is to blame for cancer. It is to blame for you name. I don’t know. Just pick 15 different things in red meat.

Michelle Shapiro

Let’s talk about Ancel Keys. I’m kidding. Let’s not talk about Ancel Keys but I think we know some of the derivation of this idea that meat unsaturated fat and cholesterol

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

but let me ask you this. What happens if you have a lean piece of red meat? What where there’s like less saturated fat. I usually don’t go into the fridge and I go, you know, on my top list of food today is going to open up the fridge and eat saturated fat. Like who does that? No, you have to think about food as a food major and

Michelle Shapiro

not Nutritionism, which is when you look at one piece of one nutrients, as the understanding is I

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

mean, I’m pretty sure they’re saturated fat and chocolate too. It’s also we know meat is so satisfying

Michelle Shapiro

that when people that’s the the miracle that our clients and patients see is like they’re like, Wow, I feel so full from eating it. And it’s like, yes, because it’s like actual filling, nutrient dense food, your body actually needs those things. But so the over time, we’re consuming less red meat than we ever have before. And our rates of chronic illness are the only word I can use skyrocketing as time goes on. But we still cannot get it out of our head that cholesterol and saturated fat from meat specifically causes heart disease. Why is this so ingrained? Why can’t we shake people of this?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I think it’s a good question. It’s kind of like, things die really hard. Right? So if there is an idea of, you know, like cholesterol has been taken out of the guidelines, right? So in 2015, there was a recommendation for cholesterol, which has since been taken out like less than 200 milligrams per day or something like guidelines, yet, it doesn’t seem to have reached the masses or even a physician. No, it certainly has that means for decades before then, there has been a restriction on cholesterol.

Michelle Shapiro

Exactly which I mean, cholesterol is essential building blocks for like most of the hormones in your body. It’s like related to like so many integral part of your immune system endocrine system, like we essentially need it. Also like the cells of your brain or like wrapped in fat like we need it. I just want to hammer it in that there are some things that we’re certain on in ways of nutrition now because the nutrition world feels so confusing and like I don’t know what’s right. We’re good.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Eggs are okay to eat, your body generates its own cholesterol, individuals that

Michelle Shapiro

75% of the cholesterol comes endogenously our own body creates it

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

There you go. And there is a setpoint for that people have typically have a genetic setpoint we are not talking about people that have familial hypercholesterolemia for hypercholesterolemia, where perhaps a Keto or high fat diet isn’t going to be good, or a high saturated fat diet is not going to get for those people. But the majority of people, the most important thing is to eat in a calorie controlled manner is to not overeat.

Michelle Shapiro

Sure, and I think an easy way to accomplish that, again, because calories aren’t my game as much as their your game, which is like totally fine, is eating more nutrient dense and filling foods will naturally allow you to eat in a way that’s more conducive for weight loss, if you want it to be it doesn’t even have to be so straight up that you’re calorie counting and Gabrielle’s world that totally might be for me, it’s just you’re eating foods that you’re actually full and then you don’t reach for the hyper palatable foods that are really created to make you overeat. I mean, these little like food, like manufacturers actually like attach electrodes people’s brain and find out the exact reward response that you’ll have from eating a certain food. Meat is not one of those things, we get extreme satisfaction from consuming it. But there’s no one. I mean, we can say there’s engineering and ways of antibiotics and growth hormones, all those things, but it’s the food that we have historically eaten that has kept us alive. As a species. I want us to be, you know, a little less harsh on

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

especially there any other foods that get as bad of a rap as is red meat. I’m just curious.

Michelle Shapiro

I can’t even imagine one. And I wish it was like vegetable oil. There’s I mean, you know,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

is there just one whole food that gets nearly as bad of a rap? No, I really don’t think so. And that weird?

Michelle Shapiro

Yeah, it’s it’s also just salt. Like you said it just so intense, that it makes it impossible to disseminate information for people. And I’m just, I’m just saying, because this is our world that we’re talking in. I’m good on the cholesterol HeartMath like we’re good. I’m good on the red meat.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

And then people will say, well, but it’s a known carcinogen. Well, if they go back and they look at the Ark study and the IRB, the IRB study the IR committee, you have to look at what kind of evidence are using and low quality epidemiology evidence is is terrible evidence, we need to see evidence, randomized controlled trials that would indicate X, Y and Z. Sure, we cannot make blanket statements based on low quality epidemiology data. Because the unintended consequences of that are devastating for people.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon’s “Origin Story” – Why Advocate for Protein and Muscle Mass?

Michelle Shapiro

I think they’ve been devastating for people. I don’t think people really understand this about you and I, the fact that 70% of or close to 70%. Now let’s say hardcore 60% of people are sick with some sort of chronic illness that’s a lifestyle disease and preventable. Like it makes me ill on a daily basis. This is you have an approach that I feel and know scientifically is correct and proven. I have approaches they line up in most ways. But how like urgent does it feel for you to get this information out? Knowing that we know like, we know you

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

think I would love to talk about something other than protein and muscle mass and standpoint, right? It’s literally been how many years this is years later, and people are finally starting to understand the portance of it. But I have been relentless in talking about it. Here’s why. I’m gonna tell you why. I did my fellowship at Wash U in St. Louis and geriatrics and Nutritional Sciences. And by the way, as a health care provider, I was absolutely not prepared for what I had experienced, took me a long time to get over it. When you see people at the end of their life and people with serious dementia, and you see what it does, not to the person alone, but you see what it does to the family. And you see, individuals that can’t remember their children, I, you know, I have two little children, I can’t imagine that, that, you know, you’re sitting with people at the end of their life. And you and I did it for two years. And you’re taking care of people in nursing homes, and just seeing kind of the end result. And then at the same time, I was doing obesity medicine research, and I was looking at the interface between cognition and body weight and metabolic function. And I became really attached to one of the participants, and her name is Betsy, and she is a mother of three. And as she was like, in our 50s, and I imaged her brain and her brain looked like an Alzheimer’s brain and early Alzheimer’s, how old was she at the time he was in her 50s 50s? So I knew and obviously, I didn’t know for sure, but I knew that in a span of 10 years, what that trajectory is going to look like, absolutely. And she was young to have this kind of brain disease that I was looking at. And this wasn’t genetic, this was metabolic. This was metabolic and vascular. And I am a solution oriented person. So I’m like, What the fuck are we missing? Why is it that I’m, you know, every Sunday, I have to go to the nursing home, and I’m, you know, this person fell, and this person can’t, you know, you know, can’t remember my name, and what are we missing. And then I’m looking at this brain image of this woman that didn’t deserve it, that I felt that I failed her. And I felt that the medical community had failed her because she was chasing those last 10 to 20 pounds her entire life, yo yo dieting, being destructive to her metabolism, feeling like she had failed. But I realized that we failed.

Michelle Shapiro

And she had done all the things right, she did what she was asked to do, right. And it

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

wasn’t that they were all over fat. It was that the unifying thread of what I was looking at wasn’t about fat tissue. It was about muscle. And that’s why we were failing people.

Michelle Shapiro

So I had this aha moment where I realized screaming about AdSense and I would be the same way except me.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

And here’s why is that I see all this stuff online. And I see these people fighting. And it’s such nonsense, because at the end of life when you’re dealing with the geriatric population, and I’m not talking about people that are dealing with them, okay, well, you know, you’re helping this patient walk across the, the, you know, maybe, you know, you’re helping them walk across the hallway for an hour a day, I’m talking about the physician provider, who is sitting there with the family, dealing with this, you know, this little individual who is completely a shell of themselves, okay, it really changes your perspective of if you have the capability to help you better do it. Absolutely. And so powerful. And so I realized that it was, it’s about the people in the middle, it’s the bout right now, which is why I’m so vocal on social media and why I’m so vocal. I am not fighting for the people that are fighting amongst themselves. You just want to do paleo, fine. You want to do keto? I don’t care what you guys are all arguing. Are you really arguing because you care about the end result? No, you’re arguing because you want to be an influence, or you want to do XY and Z, not arguing because you’ve been at the bedside of these dying patients

I have more times than I would ever like to remember. It took me years to get over what I saw. Absolutely. And so, you know, right now you’ve got, you know, the 20 and 30 year olds fighting about, well, I’m going to be plant based, and I’m going to be this. And what they don’t understand is the information then trickles down to their parents. So let’s say I had Betsy and Betsy is listening to this narrative about how she choke from tick tock, which is like, true, whatever, that she should now you know, decrease HER protein intake and go plant base. Any chance I had to help her now drastically diminished. Yep. Doesn’t mean she couldn’t do it.

Michelle Shapiro

Especially she thought she’d be a bad person if she did it, right. This is why

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

you know, you have all these like people arguing in the middle. I don’t care about them.

Who we have to address is we have to be able to have clear conversations, transparent conversations, to protect the people in the middle. I don’t care you guys can fight amongst yourself. For the other people that are looking to do better and are so confused,

Michelle Shapiro

if you are one of the people who actually wants to change your health, this is the direction to be in. Because we’re not going to sugarcoat it to help someone, we’re only going to actually help someone. First of all, I can’t thank you enough for sharing that story. And I’ve actually known about Betsy from from you before, too, because it really moved you on a personal I mean, like, imagine. So I actually worked in nursing homes for the reason I am a functional dietitian is because I worked in nursing homes to two to three years. Yeah, I mean, so my last stop, I’m never ever going to do this and can never do this, again, was I was giving. So part of the protocol for dietitians in nursing homes is that if there is noted weight loss, and especially dementia patient, I had a very advanced dementia patients as well. If there was noted weight loss in them, you have to show that you’re doing and providing an intervention because obviously like weight loss, you know, 10% time six months need to write an intervention and placement prove that you’re doing something. What are the interventions,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

ice cream, and shore ice cream and shore? Which is fine, listen, at that point, I can appreciate me knowing

Michelle Shapiro

that any of those foods could influence them. Even quality of life for a day was enough to make me ill. I mean, like the same way you’re feeling like it’s, I don’t like being principled as a person. I like just to do the right thing and not be principled, but for me, I’m like, we know, we know, okay, we know what’s causing disease. Now, we know that hyper palatable, highly processed foods, you know, Omega six fats, high sugar is driving a lot of these issues. And in that, meaning we’re not getting the protein in our diet today. So the two sides of the same coin, right? Right. Knowing that and being a normal, empathetic person, people can understand why we are screaming about this stuff all the time. And why

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

is it as soon as everyone gets it, I’m talking about something else I’m gonna talk about like, but we need everyone who’s

Michelle Shapiro

waiting for us to get it. And Ken is waiting for us to hear it to get it because I can’t like both you and I are like super similar personality types to, which is that we want to leave that person for people and be able to support people. I cannot express enough how much what Gabrielle you are saying is factual? And how much it is not an interpretation. I mean, these things are facts, we are good. And if we know that and we sit on it, that makes us shit. People like you can’t sit on it. You can’t favor totally how people feel over this information. I know you are the number one person to do that. I mean,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I do I feel as if you have a capacity to provide something, you have a responsibility to do it.

Michelle Shapiro

Absolutely. And you exhaust that responsibility. Because again, you are out here saying this message and you’re like, I’d love to talk about other stuff. But it’s too bad. You’re good at talking about this thing. Okay.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

But it’s just important, right? And especially now as it gets louder, and there’s this whole cancel culture, right people? I mean, it’s impressive.

Michelle Shapiro

Well, we can’t cancel science, by the way, because it’s,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

it’s totally possible, right? It’s totally possible. And again, you know, we’re just talking about prioritizing dietary protein. Do you have to be plant based or animal based? No, why would you even define it that way? How about we are eating high quality animal based products? And people say, Well, you know, you can get all the protein you need from plants. Okay, try to do that for an 85 year old demented patient. Good luck. Let me know how that

Michelle Shapiro

cool, by the way, have more cravings for sweet stuff, lower tolerance for salty foods and things. It’s just not.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Yeah, I believe that the negative outweighs the positive, up so that when we think about the totality of food, we have to think about it in that way can’t just be this, this one thing, red meat, the saturated fat, it’s not one thing. It’s not,

Michelle Shapiro

it’s a trend. And the trend has led us into this place where again, if I have a client who I know for a fact a certain food is going to cause a potential issue for them. And I do not support them in either making a change or providing an education for them. Again, I’m taking it as a personal responsibility. What people don’t understand is when you’ve sat with someone in those moments, and you frickin know I can’t explain to you guys, Gabrielle knows this is it’s not we’re good. Again, I have to say like, people want to debate back and forth. We’re not interested in debating back and forth, because we actually are sitting with people are sitting with people for five years watching their health improve or decline, we’re gonna be we’re gonna be the people they call so we’re actually completely feeling responsible for those things, too.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

And, you know, another part of my mission is, again, my longtime mentor, Dr. Donna layman is really to take the science and bring it to the public. Take that information that individuals have spent decades doing. Again, the Dr. John Layman is one of my I mean, he’s my best friend, and he’s also my mentor. And he’s older. I know, he’s not listening to this podcast, if you are, I’m sorry, Don, but you know, and I want to be able to take that legacy and offer to people so that they can learn and so it doesn’t take 17 more years for to get to the general population.

Michelle Shapiro

I want to know what you would say your legacy will be as a person like what would you love? What mark would you children If I know they’re so cute Nigel just like you and they’re so fun. My children,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

you know, I could have thought about, you know, a million different things about what kind of legacy and how I would love to change the narrative and create this muscle centric medicine, which I’m doing. Yes. But ultimately to play a role in creating to great humans. That’s my legacy. And you’re really good at that might be a small POB. Like, wow, you know, real underachiever. But,

Michelle Shapiro

no, it’s a reality entire world. Wow.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if it’s hard to say, I think it’s probably hard to do it right. But to actually instill from a such a young age, information to a mind that’s growing, to be strong and courageous. That’s what I want. That’s what I want for my children to be able to stand up for what they know is right, and to be a worthy member, contributing member to society, and to be their own best friend,

Michelle Shapiro

then they can be challenged best friend, because they’re so cute. They literally tried to kill each other. They were they were sweet to each other. Like, did you just co having your face lie to stab your sister with a needle,

Dr. Gabrielle’s History with Veganism – Why Animal Protein is So Important

Michelle Shapiro

I need to tell you that the way that you’re also living your legacy is besides, I think, again, you have a lot of professional legacy that you will leave behind in many, many years. You’re not going anywhere. But I literally sit in your house with your children, and like they’re eating gelatin marshmallows. I mean, you are in ways of nutrition stuff, I just have to say you really walk the walk as a person you talk, but you really walk to and I just really commend you for that too. And it’s very, very sweet when we get to eat little gelatin marshmallows together. Yeah, that’s really nice. So that’s really powerful. So in a funny way, I always say you have become this like really controversial figure for reasons that I can’t explain only because I think the the things you’re talking about, which shouldn’t be controversial happened to be controversial. But I want to talk more about just like your own experience with nutrition. I want to talk about your own. Like, you know, we get a lot of Dr. Gabrielle Lyon that is boring. I feel so bad for you know, I could literally watch you all day, you’re the most entertaining and like amazing and gorgeous person on earth. But I think that we get this side of you that is this fierce? That’s pretty much all of you. But I want to I want to know also what your feelings and experience has been like with nutrition and like how you’ve navigated this landscape on a personal and you know,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

yeah, you know, when you were on my podcast, you were talking about how dietitians move into the dietetic space because they’ve had a bad relationship with food. And I graduated high school early and I moved in with my godmother, and her name is Liz Lipsky. She’s a real OG in the space but also also older, getting, but not really an OG in the functional medicine space. And I moved in with her I graduate high school really moved in with her work for room and board. And it was at 17 that I really became interested in nutrition, and not for any body composition reasons. I was just so fascinated, sure. After that, I realized that nutrition was the thing I was going to do. And I went to undergraduate. And during that time, I actually spent a little bit of time at NAU, I don’t know if you know, I never really talked about this very, very short period time. And this is Northern Arizona University up in the mountains. And I was so into, you know, I came from Hawaii, so I had been living in Hawaii and it’s really hipster vibey you know, the universe’s are doing weird. Like, it’s just so amazing, right? And he’s super natural, right? Totally, when you’re 17 is just like my chakra is wrong, like whatever, which is so funny to even even hear you say this. It’s wild. It’s super, super hippie dippie. I was just really above and beyond. And I went to Northern Arizona, and I really wanted to connect with the earth. I can’t believe I’m saying this. So if you are a listener,

Michelle Shapiro

you’re a part of you. You’re like tatted you kind of you got that. That’s not something

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I get to talk about. I love it. And I went to Northern Arizona and I was really interested in being macrobiotic and being more vegan. I got ready to leave. I got very sick. Tell me what. I was exhausted. I started having like my teeth, were having issues. I was having bleeding gums, my hair was falling out. It was just not good. I had no energy. I just couldn’t maintain my iron stores anything couldn’t my thyroid was a mess. And I really didn’t want to eat animal products. I was really against eating animal products. You know, I was suddenly like why totally is now in Arizona. And I really tried. I was reading these cookbooks. And I was like obsessed with it. And I couldn’t maintain my hunger. I was very high carb again. I was macrobiotic. I was training a lot and I just was like obsessively thinking about food. I was really under eat and I was eating

Michelle Shapiro

sort of experiment like the when you started like even if you weren’t eating enough, your brain was still like constantly obsessed with food.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I was like, I would get on my bike with my backpack and I would ride to the health food store and I would I would be so hungry. I would get I don’t know almonds or whatever. And then I was hungry an hour later. When I was going to another store to get whatever, can you imagine I had no time to do anything else other than try to cook, try to make some of these macrobiotic meals, which, if you’re macrobiotic, good for you. I’m impressed because I couldn’t do it. And I just started becoming more and more obsessed. Because I was so hungry. You’re freaking hungry. Yeah. But I didn’t realize that I likely wasn’t consuming enough protein. And I became unhealthily. Like obsessed with food. And I started developing binge type behaviors, you know, I never threw up, I would have never been characterized as you know, the milk or anything, I would have ever been characterized as having an eating disorder, but I could not regulate, I was obsessed, I would go through periods where I would binge on food. And that

Michelle Shapiro

I can’t even believe Yeah, it’s so unusual that it’s so powerful. It’s so nice. And

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

because I was thinking about how I was feeling guilt, like I didn’t have the I probably wasn’t emotionally intelligent enough to be thinking about any of those other things. But I was literally starving. Wow, I need

Michelle Shapiro

to hold you for a second. Because first of all, thank you for sharing that with us. It is something that you probably have not shared before and not. So I need to thank you for your vulnerability. There’s something so meaty, meaty, and what you just said, we always think of eating disorders as starting in the brain. But for you, it started in the body, and then it led to what happened in the brain. So we always think we need to do if you went to 100 therapists, they wouldn’t have been able to help you at that time, because your body was starving. So it wouldn’t have mattered, the thoughts you had around food would not have been eliminated now releasing the restriction and including meat actually would have helped, which is another tool that eating disorder therapists use. But the idea again, that, you know, people can have weird eating behaviors because they have a parasite. Like there’s physical things that can happen. Yeah, exactly. Maybe actually, from all the raw food you’re eating, by the way, you probably didn’t have parents. I

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

mean, I’m sure I did. But it was manifesting in a way where I mean, I remember the first time I chicken I like cried, I felt so bad.

Michelle Shapiro

You felt so guilty about it. So guilty. Also, how would you feel a little better,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

so much better? Exactly, I started to feel so much better. I also

Michelle Shapiro

rarely talk about my experience coming off of veganism to I was definitely afraid I was deathly afraid to eat meat, I thought it wasn’t gonna be digested. People like it’s gonna sit in your stomach for weeks and all this stuff. Yeah. And I actually started with fish. And I felt immediately completely different. It’s really tangible how you feel it was for me. So you had you just always have had this relationship with protein and muscle mass. It’s, it’s so then

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

manifest. So so then I didn’t even put two and two together again, like maybe my emotions. My emotional intelligence was probably the IQ of an ant or whatever, at that time. And then I found myself in Dr. Donald laymans. Lab. And again, this is a world class protein expert, top of the top, the best. And this connection with protein and body composition really began to evolve. Wow, yeah.

Michelle Shapiro

So it’s funny because your story is even in this story, which is what some people would expect to happen with like, food like, Okay, you have a restriction. And then you have you know, ruminant thoughts about the, you know, ruminating thoughts about that. For you. The story still does come back to protein, though. Protein and muscle mass for you is a big part of our story and your destiny.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Yeah, I think that yeah, it’s kind of weird, but I do believe that that’s true.

Michelle Shapiro

I know. It’s not a funny thing. Yeah. Like protein and muscle mass is kind of your thing. I feel like the livers my thing, proteins, kind of your thing. It’s like a running theme of your life. But you know, I also when I think of protein, I think of like, dense and like fire and like grounding, and you are all those things. It’s, there’s something like spiritual going on with you too. And that Well, I mean, I

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

think it is very interesting that I happen to have landed in a world leading protein experts lab. He’s had many graduates to the international protein

Michelle Shapiro

board, just like this is a big deal. This is it. This is the whole podcast is about is this freakin board. in it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

It was just there was a lot of serendipity. Because I could have been, I mean, he’s had hundreds of students. But I was obsessed with the information I was, you know, I would get to class early. I was very interested in training. I was sitting in front row got straight A’s. I mean, that was Barry. And every office or Gabrielle about it. Yeah, it was like really low key chill. Exactly. You

Michelle Shapiro

know, her she’s just like in Hawaii. Like,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I was like, what I had 97 on this, this is terrible. But for you,

Michelle Shapiro

it also was not only a passion because you’re like, Ooh, there’s something good here. But also because for you, you were like, I know, like I know how this felt for me and what it meant to me. That’s, you know, we’re probably not

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

it’s not even like no unconscious. No, I was just I, you were fascinated when you are in the presence of a master you know it? Absolutely. And I sat in this guy’s class and he is a master. And when a master speaks, unless you are a complete idiot, you owe them all your attention and you soak, listen, and this guy the way he was holding a scientific integrity, the way in which he was asking questions, he was a genius. And I was so I had a natural aptitude towards Chemistry and sciences, I just am built that way that I was so fascinated not just in the science, but the way in which he approached thinking. And that’s how I feel about you, by the way.

Michelle Shapiro

So you carry that legacy to through your work. It’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

been a 20 year relationship. Absolutely. With

Michelle Shapiro

you. And this incredible, brilliant genius Don Lemon and with yourself in protein and muscle mass we’re learning about, by the way,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

yeah, no, can’t get kisses from that. And it’s carried me through. And you know, part of the reason I do feel so passionate is because I do feel like I have an obligation to take this fine scientist and everything that he’s taught me over 20 years, being their best

Michelle Shapiro

friend relationship, oh, my gosh, of my life, marriages, children every like every four

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

years, I can’t believe I’m in this fellowship, this residency is terrible. What am I doing? Weird roommate, like, totally, all those things. Right? Exactly. Yeah, I think that what is often missing is people don’t have those kinds of mentors anymore. Because they’re distracted, they’re on their phone or doing whatever they’re,

Michelle Shapiro

they’re doing people also get. So this is a really, really cool thing about you. Let me just tell you, what’s cool about you, is that a lot of times people and I see this a lot in the nutrition world, in the medical world, they get so into their thing, that they actually don’t look at the research outside of it. And I don’t feel that way about you at all, you are a true blue functional medicine doctor on top of everything else, you have muscle centric medicine, of course, but you’re not ignoring other conditions that people have, which I do see, which is that a lot of the more specialized we become a nutrition and medicine. The last we can look at the big picture, the way you do things so beautifully as you look at medicine as a part of the whole picture, not I mean muscle as a part of the whole picture. And as opposed to just looking at muscle as what it does. It’s like how does muscle influence every single other part of our lives. And this

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

is where I think it’s really important to be a well trained physician, and practicing with incredible things go in your scope of practice. So I did two years of Psychiatry at the University of Louisville. And then I did three years of family medicine at Northshore li j and then I did two years of a clinical fellowship. That was research and patient care. That is a lot

Michelle Shapiro

of experience. And then 20 years of patient experience also, you know, all together

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Listen, I don’t recommend that pathway for anybody. Exactly. You literally need to just go out and throw punch yourself immediately before you do that, or consider that. But yeah, it’s a lot of practical experience, which allows me to think critically and be a really good doctor, at least if you

Michelle Shapiro

are an exceptional critical thinker. Amongst other things, you’re bold and brave and fearless and brilliant, but you’re an exceptional critical thinker. So I want to just say one more time. Gabrielle people are listening to this. Can you tell me two things that you know for a fact after your extensive experience after helping 1000s and 1000s of people? What do you know for a fact about nutrition two things

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

doesn’t have to be about nutrition can it be about all Oh I love it go ahead train hard to exhaustion would you say if you think that you have it easy for yourself train hard in your youth train hard get into the ability and mindset to push yourself it’s physical and mental training. Mental follows the physical the physical and follows the mental train hard protect that body armor build it, you are never going to regret being as fit as you possibly can. And to me that is lifting heavy things sure are fine if you can’t lift heavy things, you know, lift not as heavy things but lifted to Sosa perceived failure. Okay, train. The second thing is prioritize your dietary protein. Just do it.

Michelle Shapiro

It’s important. It’s it’s true. Your it’s your first meal and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

your last meal of the day are your most important as you think about prioritizing verbs do you want to give a I know you have a number you use for one gram per pound ideal body weight is my recommendation ideal

Michelle Shapiro

body weight meaning again, if you’re occupying a larger body, the weight that you would be in an ideal scenario, we’ll call it Yeah. Which you might not know. But

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

like so if I’m 110 pounds, I recommend 110 grams of protein.

How to Work with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Michelle Shapiro

I know a lot of people listening are like that’s a lot of protein, but totally achievable. And actually your Instagram has a wealth of information on how to get protein. By the time this airs. We might be starting the 28 day protein challenge as well. So I think people can jump in at this point and if not, I’m sure you’re gonna run it again. But really amazing recipes, the importance of protein and muscle mass, everything like that. Where can people keep learning from you? Yeah, my website

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, I’m obviously very active on Instagram. I have my own podcast it’s shockingly called the Dr. Gabrielle Lyon show which is so embarrassing but the reason I named it that is so people could find it. YouTube all the things I have a great team we have Colleen Colleen Johnson is amazingly capable pa Brian Stepanek. NCO is my lead physician, former military just have a great team Peter Roth incredible team Lexia Kylie, like the whole crew. Yes. And so if people want to work with you one on one, they can go to your website and there’s different pathways they can do that

Michelle Shapiro

they can also work with the other doctor. Yeah. And

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

in order to work with me, you have to know someone and it needs your referral. So So if you know someone or you can apply, I don’t know me now this is the problem. There you go. So you can apply. It’s an actual every virtual best practice. My other team members are amazing. I’ve trained them up. They’re incredible

Michelle Shapiro

and they’re practicing muscle centric medicine was the same principles. They of course have their own certifications licenses, everything they need,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

of course to practice so everything is top notch.

Michelle Shapiro

If I’m a practitioner, and I want to learn from you, can you tell me about how I might do

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

that. So I will be launching a practitioner program, also application only, so they’re gonna have to get through, they’re gonna have to be interviewed.

Michelle Shapiro

Okay, you guys, I’ll be your referral for this too. But I can’t guarantee you’ll get through. So that will be amazing. And then Instagrams an easy way. And it’s Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

we have some like training programs, they can go to my website a challenge. I’m launching a meal plan with daily dose. Oh, yes, forever strong meal plan. I’ll send it to you. Actually,

Michelle Shapiro

I have to tell you, the protein portions if you like, people are worried about not getting a lot from meal delivery service in your specific one. It’s like, amazingly gargantuan like that you like trash, the owner of daily dose, like Trisha really gives it to the Gabriele plan. So if it’s something again, where you’re like, I just don’t want to meal prep. I don’t I don’t know what the quality is high. Yeah. Your plan specifically. And that’s amazing. Yeah.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

I’m so glad that I got to sit down and talk with you and you’re on my show. And I know that you will be able to come back on mine. And

Michelle Shapiro

Gabrielle Don’t thank me. First of all, okay. You are a frickin Rockstar, who every single day of your life puts yourself on the line to help other people. It is the honor of my life to have you on my show. I really really mean that I cannot thank you enough. And I know that my clients listeners will get so much from you every word out of your mouth is a goldmine. Please follow her on Instagram, especially the swear words. Exactly. You know, I liked when you said the four letter thing, please follow Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on Instagram, please just be in her orbit. She is just the most useful resource that we have. And again, you always sell it straight and I just love you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Thank you so much for that me too. Thanks.

Michelle Shapiro

Thank you so much for tuning in to the quiet the diet podcast. If you found any of this information relevant Are you related to it? Please feel free to share the podcast it would mean the world to us. Also remember to subscribe so you don’t miss any episodes. And you can follow us on Instagram at quiet the diet pod. We’ll put the link in the show notes after each episode. Thank you again for listening and I can’t wait to see you in the next episode.

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