Transcript of Your Body Reset: How to Eat & Exercise for a Healthier and Longer Life

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I want to start our conversation today a little differently because right now I am holding a spreadsheet of dream guests. You can hear it. It's multiple pages long from July of 2023, and I'm talking way back in the early days of this show. And at the very top of Mel Robbins' list of dream guests Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Dr. Patrick is a biomedical scientist who's known for her deep research on micronutrients, exercise, and longevity. But here's what I love about her. She has this genius ability to make the science somehow so understandable and simple to apply to your life. I'm not kidding. This is why she was the number one expert that I wanted on the show. Now look, it may have taken a few years to get her here, but she finally flew across country and came to our Boston studios. And I had very, very high expectations. But let me tell you, Dr. Patrick just blew us all away. This is one of my favorite episodes that we have ever recorded. And the reason why I can say that is because Dr. Patrick took a topic that I kind of thought I knew a lot about and flipped it on its head.

Everything she shared is relevant and doable for you and every single person in your life. And today she is going to boil down extensive research into 5 core lifestyle changes that she also will make super easy to implement. And that's a tall order. And she delivers. In fact, one of them you can do in just 1 minute, and I will do it live while we tape the episode. What Dr. Patrick is here to teach you will add years to your life. It is easy to do, and it gives you exponential gains in your health. It puts you in a better mood. You're gonna love this. I cannot wait for you to hear and learn from the extraordinary Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am thrilled that you're here. It's such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. And if you're new here or someone sent you this particular episode, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today you will learn the science of living a longer and healthier life. Today's guest is someone I've wanted to sit down with for such a long time, because if you've been doing all the, quote, healthy things and you still feel off, Dr. Rhonda Patrick will explain why and exactly what to change.

Dr. Patrick is a PhD-trained biomedical scientist who has spent her entire career studying nutrition, aging, and disease prevention, with research experience spanning mitochondrial metabolism, cancer biology and neurodegeneration. She completed her PhD in biomedical science at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and her graduate research was conducted at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Dr. Patrick's work has been published in major scientific journals, and she's also the founder and host of the top podcast and online platform, Found My Fitness, where she's known for taking peer-reviewed science and translating it into practical guidance with total transparency about what we know, what we don't know, and what's just the internet hype of the moment. So please help me welcome Dr. Rhonda Patrick to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'm so excited you're here.

So excited to be here, Mel.

Thank you. I know how busy you are. I really appreciate you hopping on a plane and coming and spending time with us. Here's where I want to start, Dr. Patrick. If the person who's listening is overwhelmed, like I'm overwhelmed, by all the advice about health, and they follow your research-backed approach that you're about to teach us today, what might change about their life or their health outcomes?

I think for the person listening, it's really important to understand that they don't have to do 50 different health hacks to improve the way they feel, and ultimately the way they age. The way I like to look at health is what are the few behaviors that we can adopt that are gonna affect many different underlying biological processes in our body that will affect these things that we care about, that's gonna improve our mood, reduce inflammation, improve metabolism, ultimately You know, improve cardiovascular health, brain health, and just the way you age. And I think that if we sort of zoom out and take that approach, we realize there's just a few core behaviors that we should be doing that are really not that difficult to do and that are ultimately going to make us feel better and age better. And so. What are those behaviors? And I'm sort of gonna speak in a sort of just 10,000 feet up, you know, like big zoom out sort of picture, because I think again, they're very easy for people to do. First, top of the list, move every day. And when I say move every day, we wanna make sure we're getting some vigorous exercise.

We're gonna talk about what that means, and we're gonna challenge our muscles. Very, very important because Your body is very resilient, and if you can put a good type of stress on it, which exercise is, it's going to adapt. And when stress is thrown at you later in life or in the day or in the minute, whatever, your body's already dealt with stress. It's adapted. And so when that stress comes, you're gonna be stronger and you're gonna be able to deal with it. Mental stress. As well. By the way, challenging your muscles, doing exercise, vigorous exercise, this is challenging many systems— your lungs, your heart, your brain as well— because it's hard to do hard things. And so again, you want to be resilient, and that's what it's doing. Um, number 2, make sure you're just eating a nutritious diet that is, you know, giving you the proper nutrients that you need, and we'll talk about that. Not that hard to do. Number 3, make sure you're focusing on good sleep. You have to be able to repair recover, rejuvenate, and that's what sleep is.

Could you just tell the person who's listening, based on your expertise, why they should trust these recommendations and really just focus on this?

Yeah, I mean, because there's a lot of research that has been done by amazing scientists all over the world for decades, looking at what we can do in our diet and lifestyle to improve things like mood and metabolism and inflammation and the way we age. And so we have the evidence here. We can see what type of robust gains we're gonna get. So I just think the reality is, is that we have science and science has done amazing things for advancing human life expectancy and also helping treat and prevent disease. And so If you look at the data, it's there, you just have to look at it. And I think that's kind of my role. I look at this data and then I help explain it to people. So it really is that easy. It really, really is. And we're gonna talk about what kind of gains that you can expect. It's kind of mind-blowing, to be honest.

Well, I'm ready to have my mind blown and my life simplified and the gains made easy. So let's jump into the first category, which is moving every day. And, you know, I think we've all heard, this obsession around 10,000 steps that we should be getting every single day. Is that a useful goal? What does the research say, Dr. Patrick?

So I think that we need to replace 10,000 steps a day with 10 breathless minutes a day.

Breathless?

Breathless. And what I mean by that is 10 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise, which means you're breathless. I don't wanna throw walking out because walking is better than sitting. Right? So what, what are you comparing it to? Okay. Walking is better than being sedentary, not moving. But you know, this 10,000 steps a day originated back in the 1960s from Japan. There was a Japanese group that was trying to sell pedometers, and that's where it came from. It didn't come from science, didn't come from medical research. It came from a Japanese company wanting to sell a pedometer, and it was very catchy. Now, since the 1960s, of course, there's been a lot of research on walking and moving and not being sedentary. So there are health benefits, but let's talk about why I wanna replace 10,000 steps with 10 breathless minutes, 10 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise. And why I say breathless is because it depends on where you're coming from. If you're already exercising and very fit, breathless for you might be sprinting, might be running. If you're someone that doesn't really exercise a lot, maybe you only walk, then breathless for you might just be walking uphill, you know, going up the stairs.

So it all depends on our starting point. And that's why I like to say breathless instead of heart rate or, you know, any other definition, because I think we can all relate to if I am at the point where I can only say a few words and then I have to take a breath and then a few words and then I have to take, you know, you can't talk. You certainly can't sing. Breathless would be that where you're just a couple of words in and then you have to take a breath because you're really working hard. Um, why is that important and why do I wanna replace the 10,000 steps a day? There has been overwhelming research over the years, but even as of most recently within the last few months, a very brand new study came out. Now research is done very differently than it was 20 years ago when we were relying on people's memory and questionnaires. How, how frequent do you exercise? And they have to think back and remember. Now we can actually measure it. We have these accelerometers on people's wrists where they can measure movement and how fast they're going.

And so there was this huge study that was published showing that people that are moving more vigorously, it's exponential in terms of health benefits versus moderately moving. So that would be where you're not breathless, but you're not able to sing. So that's kind of like, you can kind of talk a little bit, but you're still breathy while you're doing it. Versus the light activity, which is kind of like just walking around the house, maybe. So we know that for every 1 minute of vigorous exercise, you have to do 4 minutes of moderate intensity, that would be brisk walking, for example, to get the same drop in all-cause mortality, dying from cancer, dying from respiratory diseases, dying from cardiovascular disease, right? All non-accidental causes, 4 minutes. If you're gonna do light exercise, for every 1 minute of vigorous, you have to do about 53 minutes of light walking, gentle walking around.

Wait, hold on a second. I wanna make sure I understand this because first of all, I love the idea of replacing the 10,000 steps because that might take me an hour and a half and I don't really have that kind of time to walk 5 miles, right? 'Cause it feels like this goal that's very hard to achieve if you're somebody that's working and taking care of people and you've got a very busy life, which most people do. So when you say, Dr. Patrick, okay, We really wanna look at the research and I wanna replace this idea of 10,000 steps with 10 minutes of breathless exercise, which to me, I would love to have you unpack breathless just so that as we're trying to absorb this information, we understand what you mean by that. And I've heard you talk about the talk test. What does that mean?

Right, yes. So the talk test is really, That test of, okay, I'm talking to you right now.

Yep.

Right? I'm talking to you and I'm not breathless. I'm not breathing heavy. Right? It's easy. I could even sing if I wanted to. Right? So the talk test is you can't sing, but when you're talking, you're a little bit breathy. That is, you know, talk test. That is moderate intensity exercise. The talk test means if you can talk a little bit, but you're breathy, That's moderate intensity. That would be like briskly walking. If you are doing vigorous intensity exercise, the breathless type of exercise.

Okay.

This is a little bit more like jogging, running. This is where you are. Okay, Mel. So yeah, this is a vigorous intensity because you have to take breaths. Quite a few breaths in between words. That would be vigorous intensity exercise. So that's the breathless type of exercise I'm talking about.

Got it, okay, so I'll give an example. So there's a walking loop by my house, and I would say for 3/4 of it, it's 4 miles long, love to walk it with my girlfriends. Shout out to my Wednesday walking group. 3/4 of it, I'm chatting up a storm. We are catching up, we're sharing details about our family, dogs are running wild. There is a hill where the entire hill, everybody's silent because nobody can talk because we're going up.

I'll catch up with you.

And that's the vigorous part.

That is exactly the vigorous type of exercise I'm talking about. That's the breathless moment, the breathless, breathless minute or 2 minutes or 3 minutes or 4, however long it takes you to get up that hill.

Yes. Okay, now I just wanna make sure I'm tracking because that's the breathless part, but you also talked about moderate. And so would moderate be like, this is kind of a long, hard walk, but I'm still able to talk to you and I feel myself sweating and I'm definitely exerting myself, but I can still carry on a conversation.

That's correct. That would be moderate where you can still like carry a conversation, but you're kind of like this, you know? You're just like, Like if you were on the phone, you weren't with someone, or if you were recording it and like the person listening was listening to it.

Yeah.

They could tell that you were walking, right? Got it. Like right now it's obvious we're not walking, right?

Mm-hmm.

That would be the moderate intensity.

Okay.

And the vigorous is so much more powerful. So I said for every 1 minute for all-cause mortality reduction, you have to do 53 minutes of light just walking around.

Well, that's the piece I wanted to unpack. So you're basically saying the 1 minute that I am walking up that hill and I can't actually really talk because I'm exerting effort, I'm getting a 53-minute gain in that 1 minute against the other 53 minutes I'm walking the rest of the loop?

No.

Okay.

Other 53 minutes you're walking the loop would be moderate.

Okay.

That's moderate.

Okay.

If you were just walking around your house.

Oh, I see.

That would be more light.

Okay. So this is the thing to understand. That you could clock 10,000 steps a day. It might take you an hour and a half to do it. You could be walking around your house, you could be getting out of the car and walking into the grocery store. You could be walking around the office. You are saying 1 minute walking up a hill is the equivalent to 53 minutes of just kind of walking around.

That's correct.

That's incredible.

That's incred— it's incredible. And it gets, listen, there's more, Mel. Okay. We're just talking about all-cause mortality. Okay. Let's talk about cardiovascular-related mortality. I mean, this is the number 1 cause of death in the United States, and many, developed countries. For every 1 minute of vigorous intensity exercise, you have to do about 8 minutes of the moderate intensity, and you have to do an hour and a half of the light type of just walking around the house.

All right. So tell— break that down again. So you basically just said walking up the hill breathless 1 minute is the equivalent of 8 minutes of the moderate. So you're still cooking. You're still exercising, but you're getting—

You're still with your walking group.

Yep.

You're still with your walking group, but—

You're catching your breath.

But you have to do 8 times more than you do if you're walking up the hill.

Whoa.

And if you are just walking around the office, walking around the house, doing some chores, you have to do an hour and a half for every 1 minute of that walking up the hill.

You know what's so cool about this? And also, I slightly hate you a little bit, Dr. Patrick, is one of my big excuses for not exercising is I don't have time.

Exactly. You're basically saying You do.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. And not only do you have time, it has to be something that you go, oh my gosh, I have to do this. I have to do this and I can do this. Right. Um, you know, there's other outcomes too. Cancer is another one, and this one's really mind-blowing. For every 1 minute of vigorous intensity exercise, you have to do 2.5 hours of that light type of exercise, walking around the office walking around, you know, your house.

So to, to, what does that do?

For cancer mortality reduction, dying from cancer, dying from all types of cancer.

So there is also what you're saying, Dr. Patrick, if I'm listening closely, is this isn't just the gains that you're making an hour or, or 1 minute, right? This isn't just the gains that you get by doing 1 minute of breathless walking up that hill. Versus the 53 of strolling around the house. It's also that there's something powerful about that 1 minute of walking up the hill and what it does to your immune system, I suspect, or to other aspects of your physiology and biology that have a meaningful impact long-term over things like your ability to fight cancer, your longevity, your, longer-range health outcomes.

That's exactly true. So what I'm trying to get at is intensity matters. Your body responds more robustly and adapts more robustly to the more intense exercise. The adaptations to your heart, your cardiovascular system, your lungs, your immune system, your brain, everything— the bigger the stress you're putting on it, which happens when you're doing a more intense type of exercise, the better the adaptations are. And so when life happens and you're aging, it's all a stress. Aging itself, every day we're being stressed. We can't see it when we look in the mirror, but it's happening at the cellular level. Your body has adapted to that big burst of stress that it is able to handle all the little types of stress that are happening every day so much more robustly. And so that's the point here is that. Why not just do the more intense exercise? And we can talk about, well, I've never done that. How do we get there? And there are definitely ways to do that are very easy.

Okay.

But the point is you have to understand the powerfulness of it. It's like mind-blowing. I don't know why more people aren't talking about it. It's so mind-blowing. I just think it's one of the most important things to talk about right now in health. In health, for sure.

Well, what's a really incredible paradigm shift. Is if you take the example of how 10,000 steps a day got created by a company marketing a pedometer in Japan in 1960, and we all just like, okay, 10,000 steps a day, that sounds like a good marker. I'm sitting here thinking, given that this research has been around for a while and we know, or at least you know as a researcher and a scientist, that this has the biggest positive impact on multiple health outcomes for you long-term in terms of the breathless exercise, I started to think, as you were talking, I wonder why, why do I think I need an hour? Why do I think I need a half an hour? Why do I think it needs to take that long? And I wonder if it's because, especially as women, we've been socialized to go to an aerobics class that lasts an hour. Or to a certain class that, and there are certain exercises that it's nice to have a long yoga class, but when you're really thinking about, I've got a little bit of time and I want the maximum positive impact in terms of my health, this breathless exercise is a complete shift.

It's a game changer for people that don't have a lot of time, that wanna get health benefits, that feel overwhelmed when they have to think about getting a gym membership, getting in their car, driving to the gym, working out for an hour. It seems like a lot and they just say, I can't do it. And so then they miss out. And yes, there's of course benefits doing that. I mean, so in these studies that I'm talking about where people are wearing accelerometers, the— there are also many other studies that are very tangential where they're measuring people doing these types of what are called exercise snacks. So when I'm talking about one breathless minute, perhaps 2 breathless minutes, maybe 3. This is something called an exercise snack. I've talked about it before, but it's essentially like you can either have it structured where you're getting up and you're doing a minute of bodyweight squats, or you're doing some jumping jacks or high knees or burpees or whatever, fill in the blank you wanna do to get your heart rate up and to be able to be in that zone where you can't really talk but a few words, right?

Or it could be taking advantage of everyday life. I work on the 4th floor of an office building. I am not going to take the elevator. I'm going to walk up the stairs. I'm not only going to walk up the stairs, I'm going to walk fast up the stairs. Or I work a few blocks from my house. I'm not going to drive there. I'm going to briskly walk or perhaps even jog. Or bike, you know, so you're basically taking advantage of everyday life. I have a grandkid or I have a child. I'm gonna play tag with them for a couple of minutes. I have a new puppy. I'm gonna run around with my puppy. These moments count. They add up, they're cumulative, and we have the research to show that. This is called vigorous intermittent lifestyle activity, VILPA for short. It's these people that are taking advantage of everyday life to really get that vigorous minute or 2 or 3 in. Multiple studies have shown that if you do this, you actually get the same type of benefits as people that exercise. They've directly compared. When I say people that exercise, I mean people that are identifying as going to the gym, taking some block of time out to go and get their heart rate up.

So very different types of ways to get your heart rate up, right? One is just taking advantage of everyday life and just going for it. I'm playing tag with my grandkids, or one is taking time to go to the gym. What do we see? We see that people that do 3 minutes of it, the 3 minutes of this breathless— so it could be walking uphill for 3 minutes, it could be playing with your tag with your grandkids for 3 minutes, right? 3 minutes, 3 times a day. So we're at 9 minutes a day. This is where I get the 10 from. We're at 9 minutes a day. Those individuals have a 40% reduction in cancer-related mortality 40% reduction in all-cause mortality and a 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality. This is even in people that are not identifying as going to the gym and exercising. If you were to ask them, do you exercise? They would say no, because they don't count those moments. They don't count when they're playing tag with their kids or grandkids. They don't count when they're, you know, going fast up the stairs to get to work. But it does count.

Exercise and the way our body adapts to this exercise It doesn't matter if you go to the gym or not, right? It just matters that you're doing it. And so I think again, this is so, it's like take a breath of relief because, and when I talk to people about it, it's like, oh, thank God. Some people don't like going to the gym. I love it. I love, I love it. But not everyone does. Some people literally don't have time. They don't have time. But do you have time to do 3 minutes after breakfast, 3 minutes after lunch, 3 minutes after dinner? Yes. You have that time. You just have to take it and do it. And it, it, it's fast. It goes by very fast. I also have, for the exercise snacks, I have a, a free guide out there, How to Train Guide According to the Experts, and essentially talks about the different ways to do exercise snacks, what exercise snacks, you know, you can do, how to do them, and also a variety of other training, you know, modalities out there that can help improve your brain health, your mood, and also the way you age.

It's howtotrainguide.com if people are interested in picking that up.

Awesome. And we will link to that in all the show notes with all the resources related to this conversation. You know, Dr. Patrick, couple things. First of all, I really like the name exercise snack versus the vigorous intermittent lifestyle, whatever the last word was. Exercise snack sounds like, like I could do it. And I want to make sure as you're listening or you're watching right now that you really got the very simple instructions from Dr. Patrick based on the research that it's just 3 minutes, 3 times a day of this vigorous kind of breathless activity. And in fact, you know what I'm realizing? My husband Chris will often, like first thing in the morning, he drops and does like 11 or 20 pushups or whatever it is he's doing it. And I'll see him do it in the kitchen midday. And I, I never really kind of understood why. I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting and sexy, but I don't feel like doing that right now. But I didn't feel like it counted. I live in the old world where in my mind it doesn't count as exercise unless I'm in the exercise clothes and I am doing something for at least a half an hour and that it is a form of exercise that I tend to not like.

And what you're saying is, no, no, no, no, 3 minutes, 3 times a day, whether you're doing squats or kind of jogging up a flight of stairs, or you are going up a hill, or you're playing tag with your grandkids, anything that gets you in that state, this counts and has massive impacts on all kinds of health outcomes.

Yeah, absolutely.

For how long do I have to do this? Like, for the rest of my life is what you're gonna say, but you know. I mean, when do I feel better?

10 minutes a day.

Yeah.

So look, you will feel better after.

Okay.

You're going to feel better because you're going to get increased blood flow to your brain.

So how does forcing yourself to do something that's hard physically, challenging your muscles, doing breathless exercise vigorously, even for short bursts of time, how exactly in the brain and body does making yourself do something hard help you manage the challenges of life? You know what I mean? Like I've heard people talk about the, is it the anterior single tor— I can't even say that.

Yeah, the anterior cingulate cortex.

Yes, I don't know if that's kind of what you're referring to in terms of the research, but if you could, Dr. Patrick, just explain. When you challenge your muscles, it boosts your ability to handle the challenges of life. And the more you force yourself to do hard physical things, the easier your life starts to feel.

There's a lot of things that happen. One of 'em is activating that part of the brain as well, which seems to also play a role in protecting against neurodegenerative disease. So we have an endogenous, that just means in our body, opioid system. Okay. Opioids, we're usually thinking of, you know, maybe exogenous ones that people take to help with pain relief, right? Like morphine, for example. We make our own opioids, endorphins. Right? Endorphins are something that we make. Those are the feel-good opioids that we make in our brain. They make us feel good. You do make that with exercise, but you also make a type of opioid that makes you feel uncomfortable. It's called dynorphin. It's responsible for that uncomfortable feeling, that feeling that's like, ugh, I wanna stop. I can't do this. It's hard. Right? Dynorphin is that uncomfortable neurochemical that's being produced. And what that does is when your brain is making that and you don't give up, you keep pushing past it, it has this feedback loop in your brain where then your brain goes, oh, this is that bad— not— it's— I don't wanna call it bad. It's the dysphoric feeling. I better figure out a way to deal with that and adapt and make something good so that later when I have that uncomfortable dysphoric feeling, I don't feel so uncomfortable.

And so what happens is your brain starts to make more of these receptors. Receptors are things that neurochemicals and neurotransmitters and things like that bind to, to have an effect. So they make more of the receptors that bind endorphins. They're called mu opioid receptors, and they become more sensitive to endorphins. This happens only when you're getting that uncomfortable dynorphin flooding your brain. And so what happens is then later on when anything happens that's a little bit pleasant, you're gonna feel it better and for a longer period of time. And so that just makes everything easier when you have that sensitive, that sensitization to these endorphins, which we are making all throughout the day. Little things like, yo, seeing your friend smile, like all these little things they're making, you make endorphins and it's just a matter of how powerful are you gonna feel that endorphin. And so the uncomfortableness of the dynorphin is what is doing that. But you have to engage in the hard, uncomfortable thing that makes you feel that dysphoric feeling.

That makes so much sense. So if you force yourself to do— and we're just talking about moving your body— to do some form of exercise, even just for a minute, even for 3 minutes, even for 10 minutes, that what's happening because you're experiencing all of that discomfort is it paves the way for you to now really magnify all of the beautiful and wonderful and comfortable things that follow it, 'cause you got the discomfort out of the way.

Isn't it amazing?

It's awesome. It's actually amazing because I think we've all had an experience, and as you're listening or you're watching right now, think about something that you pushed yourself to do physically, whether it was a 5K or it was, some trail that you hiked that was harder than you thought, but you got to the top, or maybe you climbed a ridiculous amount of stairs and you get to the top and you surprise yourself and you're out of breath. It is true that when you look up, the view is spectacular. The rest of the day is downhill, so to speak, because you got the hard thing out of the way.

You got the hard thing out of the way and your body adapted to that hard thing and said, hey, I'm going to make the good things feel even better. Because I gotta negate some of that hard stuff that I know I'm gonna face again.

In the old world, Mel Robbins would've gone straight to the refrigerator and grabbed a snack to make me feel comfortable. Based on hearing all of this research, I suspect that if I were to do an exercise snack instead, and I were to do a minute to 3 minutes of air squats, or go just walk up the hill by my house, or climb some stairs, or high knees, or whatever, and I'm breathless in the kitchen, that would have a massive benefit on how I feel right after and my ability to handle the stress of whatever I'm in in that moment. Is that right?

Absolutely right. Massive, massive benefit. Exercise snack is exactly what you should do in those types of moments. Until you do it, you don't realize how powerful it is because you hear 1 minute, 3 minutes, no way. But when you do it, you actually then realize, It's so powerful. She's right. The exercise snack.

You know, Dr. Patrick, I'm just sitting here reflecting on everything you've shared so far. I'm so grateful that you're here. Thank you for flying across country. Thank you for sharing this with us. I have so many more questions, but I want to take a quick pause because I'm sure you have people in your life that you're thinking about. And go ahead and share this link with them while you take a moment and listen to a few words from our amazing sponsors. And don't go anywhere. Dr. Patrick has so much more to teach you and to share with you and unpack for you. And we are just getting started. So stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are here with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, and she's teaching you about the 5 supplements that she believes every person should be taking. We're digging into the research, we are going through them one to one. So let's keep going. Dr. Patrick, my next question is this. You know, one topic that I hear a lot of people talking about is visceral fat, and I'm not even sure I understand exactly what it is.

And is that like when you see a guy that's relatively skinny and then they look like they're kind of pregnant or what? What? And I don't mean to be offensive to anybody, but I don't really understand what visceral fat is.

Visceral fat is the kind of fat that you, you cannot pinch. So the fat that you can pinch is subcutaneous fat. That's the fat that's stored as energy. It's energy storage. Visceral fat is, yes, it is usually around the midsection, this belly fat, but it's the deep, deep, belly fat. It's actually surrounding organs like the liver, the kidneys. It's surrounding the organs. And unlike the subcutaneous fat, this fat is not just stored energy. It's like an endocrine organ. Endocrine organs like make hormones. It's making hormones. It's making inflammatory molecules causing inflammation. That are wreaking havoc on your body. It is something that not necessarily— someone that looks maybe lean, they might actually have visceral fat. So waist circumference is, is an indirect way of measuring it. So for a woman, if you have a waist circumference of 35 inches or higher, that's a pretty good indicator that you have a high amount of visceral fat. For men, it would be about 40 inches or higher, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the waist circumference because some people are lean and they don't eat good diets. We can talk about the main drivers of it.

They can increase their visceral fat. Why is it something to care about is, is also a really important question, I think, because, you know, most people when they think about fat, they're thinking about, well, I don't, you know, my looks. I don't look good, right? But they're thinking about their long-term health. You know, obesity and being overweight is obviously a major driver of, you know, increasing many different diseases— type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, for example, right? But visceral fat is— it doubles mortality. So people with a high amount of visceral fat die, you know, sooner. So you're talking about double risk mortality. It also increases cancer incidence. So people that are making these inflammatory cytokines. Inflammation drives cancer. And so people that have visceral fat have like a 44% higher risk of having cancer. It's insulin resistance. It's causing insulin resistance, you know, metabolic dysfunction. But I think what people relate to more is the effects that are happening on a day-to-day basis. So because visceral fat is causing inflammation, it's activating your immune system. Each day, right? You don't want your immune system to be activated each day. You want it to be activated when you're exposed to a pathogen.

That's what the immune system is there for, right? It's there to fight off foreign invaders, whether that's a virus or a bacterial invader, or whether it's a, a cancer cell, right? This is what your immune system's meant to do and be activated for. When you have this chronic inflammatory signal that's being produced by your own body, inside your own body, it's activating your immune system, which is extremely energetically demanding. It is taking energy. I mean, when you're sick, you're sleepy, you're tired, you're fatigued, you have no energy. Well, that's happening to some degree when someone has this chronic inflammatory signal from visceral fat. It is gonna make you feel fatigued because the energy's literally being sucked away to your immune system because that's what it needs to activate. The immune system is a lot of energy. So you're going to feel chronic fatigue. The other thing it's going to make people feel is they're going to have these energy crashes followed by cravings. And the reason for that is because visceral fat is metabolically active. It is breaking down fatty acids. And these fatty acids, because the location of it right around your liver, it's going straight to the liver.

And essentially it's the liver's prioritizing that fuel. Rather than the fuel you eat. Perhaps you eat a meal, you're going to have your blood sugar, your blood glucose is going to go up. Usually you'll make insulin in a response to that, and the glucose will then go into your muscle or go into adipose tissue. What happens when you have visceral fat is that whole process is completely dysregulated because you're constantly making fatty acids. Those fatty acids stop the body from making insulin. So after you eat a meal, The glucose stays around, your body freaks out and goes, I better make more insulin. So it overcompensates, makes a lot of insulin. Then all the glucose goes out of your bloodstream, goes into adipose tissue or muscle, whatever. And all of a sudden your blood glucose drops and you are crashing. Your energy goes down. Then your brain is sensing that and going, oh my gosh, I need energy. What's the quickest way I can have energy? And you start to get these cravings. For the quickest type of fuel, typically processed junk food. So this is kind of the vicious cycle of visceral fat causing fatigue, causing energy crashes, causing cravings, and then insulin resistance sort of in the making, and eventually type 2 diabetes.

Okay. The thing I wanna unpack is how you described it. So I personally found it extremely helpful to understand that there are two different types. One is the kind we can pinch, And the other is this visceral fat, which, as you were describing it, is something that is surrounding your organs. It sounded like an invasive species that is coating certain organs and then starting to expand out, and in doing so creates almost like its own little toxic ecosystem around your organs. And I personally, maybe somebody's explained it to me like that, I've never visually imagined it like that. And the second that you described it that way, and that it, you know, is the kind of thing that's like a, it's like dense, like it, you're not gonna fix this with a crunch at the gym. I immediately thought, my God, if I have that sort of, you know, invasive species encasing my organs, how the hell do I get rid of this? Because I don't want that happening underneath the surface and robbing me of years of my life, robbing me of energy, disrupting my metabolic systems. What does the research say, Dr. Patrick, about the specific thing you should do if this is you or somebody that you love?

Well, the good news is, is that it is easy to get rid of it.

It is? It is.

It is actually the first kind of fat you lose if you're on any type of weight loss program. The way that you lose visceral fat is kind of entangled in with how you can gain it easily as well. And I think they're both important to understand.

Mm-hmm.

Because you can gain it very easily, quite quickly if you are eating a lot of calories. So there's studies showing that men, healthy young college men, you know, they're eating 1,200 more calories a day for 5 days, they will gain excess visceral fat without even gaining weight. So there you get on a scale, really not much weight gain at all, but you are gaining visceral fat. And that's important to point out because I think sometimes people think, oh, if I'm not gaining weight, if I'm weighing myself every morning, then I'm fine. Not necessarily the case. So if you're eating excess calories, particularly in the form of processed foods, things that don't have a lot of fiber, you're eating refined sugars, Really easy to gain visceral fat. Good news is also easy to lose. The ways that you can lose visceral fat, for one, would be caloric deficit, any sort of weight loss program. In fact, it's one of the first types of fat that you lose. High-intensity interval training, vigorous types of exercise, that is one of the most robust ways to help lose visceral fat. Again, you will lose it without even seeing that reflected on a scale.

So just know that if you are doing your 10 breathless minutes, perhaps you're doing 30 minutes a day, you're adding in some moderate intensity, you're adding in some walking, brisk walking, in addition to the 10 breathless minutes, the 10 vigorous minutes that you're doing, that is really— has been shown to help lose visceral fat, even if you don't see that reflected on the scale. Very important to keep in mind. Sleep is extremely important, and that is because Being in a chronically stressed state can cause your body to react and start to accumulate visceral fat. There's studies showing that 2 weeks of sleep deprivation, so from, for an individual going from 9 hours of sleep per night to 4 hours for 2 weeks, they'll gain about 11% of visceral fat just in 2 weeks.

Wow.

So big, big time making sure you're prioritizing your sleep and not being chronically sleep deprived. Very important. Also stress, you know, a lot of that psychological stress, being able to deal with that stress better. And again, that comes down to the exercise. It's gonna help your, your reaction, your cortisol response to the psychological stress is gonna be buffered by that exercise that you're doing. So that's the key. Those are the main things that are really helping you lose fat and the drivers of it. So making sure you're not sleep deprived, making sure you're dealing with your stress are important. But any sort of weight loss and then doing the vigorous exercise is the most important type of exercise. Resistance training is important. You don't lose as much visceral fat, but it does overall help your metabolic health, which will help you prevent you from gaining as much visceral fat, if that makes sense. So engaging in resistance training is a very important part of your exercise program. You wanna make sure you're maintaining muscle mass. Those bodyweight squats are a way to do that, but you can also do them vigorously and get the best of both worlds, I would say.

Dr. Patrick, hold that thought. I have a follow-up question, but I need to hit the pause button because we have amazing sponsors that I want to give a chance to share a few words with you. Don't go anywhere. Dr. Patrick has so much more to teach you when we return, so stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are getting to learn from the extraordinary Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Dr. Patrick, let's just jump right back in where we were. I have a quick question, though. If somebody is listening to you and they're saying, oh my God, I've been doing everything, I've been going to the gym, I've been watching what I eat, I've been drinking my water, I've been trying to sleep, and nothing is changing. Dr. Patrick, what is the first thing you would have them audit? About their lifestyle?

I think for someone that really thinks they're doing all the right things, mm-hmm. First of all, I would ask, are you getting 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep? Not being in bed for 7.5 to 9 hours. I mean sleep, right? I would ask, are you getting bright light exposure within 30 minutes of waking up for at least 15 to 30 minutes? Because that is what is resetting your biological clock, your circadian clock. So every organ in our body has a clock and everything is running on a clock. Our metabolism, our neurotransmitter synthesis, like making neurochemicals, our immune function, everything, hormone production, right? And so you wanna reset that clock every morning. And the bright light exposure is the reset. It's the master regulator in your brain. It's called the suprachiasmatic nucleus region. Light is what is resetting it so that your brain and your body know, start, this is the reset, start of the clock. It's gonna start making the hormones at the right time. So that bright light is gonna make something called cortisol. We've all heard of it, we're all scared of it. We shouldn't be. It's very important. It's a hormone that you want to be making first thing in the morning, and you wanna make a lot of it because it's regulating 20% of your human genome.

A lot of important things that it's, it's regulating. What you don't want is that slow drip cortisol where it's not getting the big amplitude peak. It's just little peak, a little drip, drip, drip throughout the day. It's making that stress response and it's dysregulating all those 20% of genes, right? So that happens first thing in the morning because cortisol actually wakes you up, gives you energy. You want that. So the bright light is really important because they also help you Your body will know when to go to sleep. It'll start to make melatonin. That's that sleepy hormone at the right time. Your core body temperature will dip at the right time during sleep so that you can stay asleep. All these little things you don't think, but your heart rate will be going down, right? All those little things, that's all controlled by your circadian clock. And if you don't reset it, it's not gonna be working properly, right? So bright light exposure, are you waking up at the same time every morning? Very much like bright light exposure. That's also a reset for your clock. Your body anticipates when it's supposed to wake up.

When you start to get these erratic wake-up times, let's say you're socializing, you're out late, and you're doing it constantly, your brain can't figure out when it's supposed to wake up. And so all these hormones and all these things that are important and on a clock don't happen. So it really affects your sleep. Then I would ask, are you eating within 3 hours of going to bed? Because that also really affects your sleep. You don't want to be digesting food. When you're sleeping. So if you're eating an hour before you go to bed, it takes about 5 hours to digest your food. When you're digesting food, you're activating what's called the sympathetic nervous system. That's the fight or flight response. It's when your heart rate's going up, it's signaling to your body, time to be awake, time to be awake. So you might be sleeping, but you're fighting. Your body's going, no, no, I'm digesting. I'm, I'm supposed to be awake. And so your sleep isn't gonna be good. You're gonna have more awakenings. It's also been shown in studies, you're not gonna have that robust cardiovascular reset. Your blood pressure won't dip as low.

It'll dip a little bit, but it won't have that big amplitude dip, and that's very important again for preventing— in fact, there's studies showing that if you don't have that cardiovascular dip as robustly, you're 20% more likely to get cardiovascular disease earlier in life. So very important. And then alcohol consumption would be the thing I would also ask. Are you drinking alcohol too close to bed? Because A lot of people have this misconception because alcohol can help you fall asleep faster. That's why people like to drink alcohol at night. It disrupts your REM sleep. So you're gonna have, and it also causes more awakenings in the night. So that would be the first thing I would ask. I know that was a lot, but it's important because I don't think that many people are realizing perhaps their sleep isn't optimized. And there are a few core behaviors that you can sort of tweak that will really affect your sleep. And that would be a place to start because if you're not, getting— if you're chronically sleep deprived, like I mentioned, you're going to be getting visceral fat. You're gaining visceral fat and you're going, why am I still gaining it when I'm, you know, doing some exercise?

And, you know, you're battling. It's like the battle, like it's tug of war, essentially.

Well, first, Dr. Patrick, I want to thank you because when I asked you that question of what would be the lifestyle audit that you would focus on if somebody feels like they're doing all the right things, but nothing is changing about their health or their body composition, I thought you were gonna say, look at what you're eating. And so the fact that you said you need to do an audit of your sleep was both surprising to me, and it was also very helpful to have you walk through those 5 questions that you need to ask yourself, because those questions around how much sleep are you getting, and are you getting bright light in the morning, are you waking up at the same time every morning, When are you eating in terms of how close are you eating to your bedtime? And then finally, are you drinking at night? Those 5 questions give you almost like a treasure hunt, the answers to the things you need to change in order to get a better night's sleep. So now, Dr. Patrick, I wanna shift gears and go into the category of nutrition. And you have a daily smoothie recipe that makes it simple and easy for us to get a lot of the things that we need every single day in one smoothie.

Let's do it.

All right, let's step out of the studio and head into the kitchen here in Boston. So, Dr. Patrick, you are about to teach us how you make the smoothie that you have every day. And for those of you that are listening, I'm just gonna tell you, I see kale, I see blueberry, I see avocado, I see protein, and I see something I can't pronounce.

Okay. It's a beta glucan powder made from barley. Before we get into the smoothie I make every day, I kind of wanna give a little bit of reason why I like to do a smoothie every day.

Okay.

And it really comes down to realizing that what we do in our lifestyle and our diet really is impactful on the way we age and our life expectancy. A lot of people think genetics are the most important thing, and when it comes down to it, really 80% of how long we live and how well we live has to do with our lifestyle.

Hold on, 80%.

80%, about 80%. Yeah, I would say about 20 to 25% is genetics. But what I'm gonna tell you is this study that actually came out of Harvard here in Boston. And it was really, I mean, it was a few years ago, but it was really a compelling study because what it did was looked at people's diet and lifestyle and their life expectancy and found that if people followed just like 5 different lifestyle factors, it could increase their life expectancy between 12 and 14 years. So women on average that were not doing all 5 of these lifestyle factors, which is a big part of it, is what we're going to be looking at here. They lived on average about 79 years. If they did include all 5 of the lifestyle factors, they lived to the age of about— they added 14 years, so they lived to about 93.

What? 14 years?

14 years. If they started at age 50, 5 different healthy lifestyle factors and included all 5, they lived to age 93. So it was a 14-year increase in life expectancy. For men that started at age 50, it was a 12-year increase life expectancy.

Oh my gosh.

So they were living on average 74.5, 75.5 years, and they went up to about 86 years.

And just what are quickly those 5 lifestyle?

Yes. The 5 are adopting a healthy lifestyle pattern, which we're gonna talk about.

Okay.

Not smoking, doing 3.5 hours of moderate or vigorous intensity per week. We talked a lot about the vigorous intensity exercise, 10 minutes a day, that would be 70 minutes a week. And so you're basically gonna add on to that by doing some of the more moderate intensity exercise.

Okay. Okay.

So that was number 3. Number 4 is not consuming excess alcohol. So women were consuming fewer than 1 drink per day, and men consumed about 1 drink per day or fewer.

Okay.

And then the last one is maintaining a healthy BMI. Those were the 5 lifestyle factors that could add between 12 to 14 years to your life expectancy. And on top of that, those individuals were free from diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, right? So you're living healthy years, which is what you want.

Yes.

The nutrition part is a big component of this. So those individuals were eating— they were in the top 40% of the— what's called the alternative healthy eating pattern. And what that includes is, first and foremost, you have to have 4 to 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. So those vegetables, what's a serving is the question. A serving was either a cup of leafy greens. So you have to have 4 to 5 of that. And so you can see here, this is a measuring cup. This is a cup for those people.

Yeah.

That person that's packing. And she's packing just, Packing it, yeah, packing it up.

Regular old kale, nothing fancy about it, right into the 1-cup metal measuring cup.

Kale, and remember, you gotta get 5 of these per day, and this is why this is efficient. We've been talking about efficient. We've been talking about what can we do that's easy, that's gonna give us the biggest bang for our buck. I find it's easiest for me to get 5 servings of vegetables if I can at least, you know, get a smoothie in. So here's the kale, that's 1 cup. I'm gonna add another cup here.

So you're getting 2 servings in.

I'm getting 2 servings. I'm probably gonna get around 3 servings of kale into that smoothie.

3 cups of kale.

So 3 cups of kale. There we go. And that is, and then I can substitute the rest with my salad. Kale is really high in lutein. Lutein is that thing that's gonna prevent your eyes from macular degeneration. It also seems to protect the brain. It improves cognitive processing, cognitive speed, fluid intelligence. That's the kind of intelligence that you've accumulated throughout a lifetime and then can still incorporate when you're older. That's what we want, right? So kale has a lot of that. It also has magnesium, it has calcium, it has vitamin K. It's got a lot of these micronutrients that we need to get from our diet. The next thing I like to add is blueberries. And blueberries are part of that serving size of fruit and vegetables. And again, it's about a half a cup as a serving. So if you want 5 servings of that, you're gonna get about 2.5 cups of the blueberries. I also like blueberries because they're high in polyphenols, a specific type of polyphenol called anthocyanins.

Hmm.

And those have been shown in randomized placebo-controlled studies. That's very important because placebo effect is real, as we've talked about. But the blueberries have been shown 1 cup a day to improve cognition. That's important, right?

Yes.

We all wanna improve cognition. It's been shown in young adults, it's been shown in older adults. It's been shown in adults with mild cognitive decline. So everyone has every reason to try to take at least 1 cup of blueberries a day. So I'm gonna put 1 cup.

Yep. And we use frozen, which I also like. They're frozen. Yes. 'Cause they're cheaper than buying 'em fresh.

And I do have, I do like to usually use organic.

Uh-huh.

'Cause I don't want a lot of pesticides, but I do, I like frozen also because it keeps the smoothie cold and it just gives it a better, like you don't want your smoothie really warm. So I had 2 cups.

2 cups of blueberries.

I'm actually gonna do 2 and a half cups.

Wow, okay.

2 and a half cups of blueberries. And then one thing I do not add to my smoothie is a banana.

Now why don't you like bananas?

I mean, you pour bananas.

I love bananas.

I love bananas. They're high in potassium. They're good to refuel. I love to do 'em before a run. Gives me enough fuel without cramping, right? But, uh-oh, I used to put them in my smoothies.

Dr. Patrick, what happens when you put a banana in a smoothie?

What happens is there's a, there's something in the banana called polyphenol oxidase.

That doesn't sound good.

Doesn't sound good. Polyphenols are what I just said are beneficial.

Yes.

Oxidase, polyphenol oxidase, is essentially an enzyme that's breaking down the polyphenols. And there have now been studies that have come out showing If you add bananas to blueberries, you're not getting as many polyphenols. In fact, it's quite a bit lower.

So the banana is killing the benefit of the blueberries. See, this is why I need you, because I am sitting here making smoothies thinking I like the texture of the banana in it. It gives a little heft, creams it out a little bit, but then I'm putting in my blueberries and I just blew it because the banana canceled the blueberries.

It's true. I also used to add it to my blueberries for that exact reason, plus the taste. If you go to any smoothie place, you'll see they always add bananas to any blueberry smoothie.

Yes, of course.

But that's where the avocado comes in.

Oh.

Because now you're gonna get the creamy texture that you want, which is what I also want.

Yes.

And on top of that, there have been studies showing that the fat, so this monounsaturated fat in this avocado, it actually increases the bioavailability of the lutein and another carotenoid called zeaxanthin. Called zeaxanthin in the kale by fourfold.

Okay, well, hold on, let me just make sure I'm tracking with this. So if I sub the avocado for the banana, right, then the fact that the avocado, which is a good healthy fat source, is gonna dance around and mix it up with the kale, that fat source superpowers the benefit of the kale?

It does.

That's cool.

It makes it where you're— so the Getting rid of the banana makes it where you're getting all the polyphenols from the blueberries, and then adding the avocado gives you the creaminess, and it helps you superpower and get those carotenoids that are in the kale that are so beneficial for our eyes and brains, and making it fourfold more likely to be absorbed. So you're getting a lot more, and there are studies showing this, adding an avocado. Carrots have carotenoids in them, so you can get the beta-carotene is probably the most well-known carotenoid. You get fourfold more beta-carotene. So you could even add a carrot in here if you want. In fact, I often like to add carrots. As well. So I'm gonna just use my fingers and put that.

Wow, that was a good measure.

I usually do about half of an avocado.

Okay, half an avocado.

And you can save the other half for the next day.

And then you know what I do? I put this little top that's empty on top of the other one and then it doesn't like turn brown.

Right. You can add a little lemon juice as well. That'll prevent it from oxidizing.

Little tint.

All right, so this is really the core of the smoothie here. Now these are the optionals here. I like to add some protein powder, particularly on days when I'm really busy. I'm not getting, I know I'm skipping a meal because I'm not getting all the protein that I need for the day, which is about 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram body weight per day. And so I'll add sometimes a little bit of whey protein powder as well. You don't have to do that if you're getting your protein. This is again, an optional add.

I think it's very hard to get the amount of protein we're supposed to get. So I'm always adding it in.

It is, especially if you work out a lot like I do. So I'm gonna go ahead and add add the protein powder. I do like, I'm not, I have no affiliation with Momentous currently right now, but I do like their protein powder because it doesn't have any fillers that affect my gut. And so I'm just scooping down to get their scooper because their scooper is the actual serving size. There it is. It's so funny, they're always hidden down there. Okay, so I'm gonna take 1 scoop of protein powder. Which for this one—

23 grams.

—has 23 grams. So here in it goes. If you're sharing it, you can do 2 scoops. So I think I'll do like a scoop and a half.

Does that mean you're sharing it with me? I hope it does.

Oops. Show that. Okay. And then an optional add. This is actually a type of prebiotic fiber. You've probably heard of that. It's like—

Prebiotic fiber, you've heard of probiotics. I've heard of fibers and I've heard of probiotics.

Okay. Probiotics are the beneficial bacteria. Yeah. If you take those, it helps. Prebiotics are the type of fiber, soluble fiber, fermentable fiber that feed the bacteria in your gut. Okay. So that's why it's called a prebiotic. Got it. Okay. Feeding it. So it's a type of prebiotic, it's beta-glucan, and it's isolated from barley in this case. The reason why I have now added this to my, I would say, regimen, soon-to-be smoothie regimen, is because this has been shown in studies, one, to lower LDL cholesterol, which is a type of cholesterol that can build up in your arteries and play a role in cardiovascular disease. But what really piqued my attention was the fact that there's studies showing that beta-glucans can decrease the amount of forever chemicals, the PFAS, forever chemicals that last, usually last in your body anywhere between 2 to 5 years. They're associated with cancer. It's really terrible. And we're being exposed to them all the time, even on our fruits and vegetables. They're in the soil. You know, it's something that even kids are being exposed to. So now I'm— something that I've been giving to my whole family.

Okay. How much do I need?

So usually I do 1 gram and 1 gram, it says here, is 3 tablespoons. So I'm gonna grab that tablespoon out. Okay. 1, 2, 3.

Plus it counts toward fiber, which is great.

Yes. Okay. Now the study that showed it reduced forever chemicals, it was 3 grams a day. So you have to do, you have to do the 3 tablespoons 3 times a day to get— Wow. To get that. Yeah. Okay. That's a lot. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Or you can add, perhaps you can add more and get it in one serving, but we're gonna start with the 3. 3 grams.

Okay.

Then add a little bit of water just to mix it up a little bit. And as I'm standing here over the blender, Mel, I just want to point out one thing, in that this blender is made of plastic. Okay. And there, there is a little bit of a concern that plastic blenders can shed microplastics more readily because of the friction with everything that's in there. So you should have a glass one if you can have glass. There's also some metal ones that you can buy as well.

But you hear that, everybody? We got to get a glass blender around here. Okay. Thank you for giving us the pass, Dr. Patrick. Here she is about to hit the blend. Everybody cover your ears.

Here we go.

Oh, that's really purple. Yeah, I like the polyphenols.

I just want to see what the consistency looks like. Yeah, I think we're good. Excellent.

Well, I got 2 wine glasses since we're not drinking alcohol. We might as well.

It's polyphenol hour. Yes, there we go. Yeah, and the polyphenols, I feel them immediately. It's been shown to increase blood flow to the brain in older adults.

What exactly do you feel?

I— it improves my mood and gives me energy. So I like, I do take this midday. Just do a little glass.

I'm actually kind of excited to try this. Well, everything always tastes better when somebody else makes it. I mean, that's true.

So polyphenol hour. Cheers. Cheers to your health, Dr.

Patrick. Let's try her new smoothie recipe. Here we go. That tastes like health. It's not sweet enough for me. It's not bad. It's not supposed to be sweet though, right?

It's not. You can add the extra— I would add more blueberries, I think, to make it sweeter. And of course, you can never get enough blueberries.

You definitely taste the kale, and it has the same consistency as if we had put a banana in. It does. It's creamy. Yeah, and I love the purple.

And actually, the prebiotic Fiber didn't really mess with the consistency, to be honest.

Well, I don't know, 'cause you're the one that makes this all the time, so I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

It really didn't, no.

Okay, now if I'm putting that much fiber in my smoothie, do I need to drink more water? Is that gonna back me up?

No, this is not the kind of fiber that you have to worry about that. This is prebiotic fiber. That's a little bit different. Mm-hmm.

'Cause I know if you were doing like psyllium husk or some of the other stuff, you gotta really make sure you're hydrating.

Right. It's bringing, you gotta make sure you get more water in you, right?

Amazing. We're gonna go back in the studio and talk about what else we could be eating in the bucket of nutrition. And here's to your health. One of the other things that I noticed, Dr. Patrick, about the smoothie is that it had 5 ingredients. And you were talking about those 5, like, healthy lifestyle index factors that really have a massive impact on the quality of your life and your health. The smoothie was terrific, and again, you promised easy ways to apply the advice every single day. What are other foods we should focus on eating?

Yeah, so some of the other foods that are important, first and foremost, getting omega-3 fatty acids. Some people don't like fish, which is why the supplementation of omega-3 is great. But if you wanna take the healthy, Alternative Healthy Eating Index has 2 servings per week of 4 ounces of fatty fish like salmon or mackerel, right? Okay. So that would be 2 servings per week, 4 ounces each. And then you wanna make sure you're getting enough whole grains. And these whole grains in this, you know, healthy eating index come from oats, barley, quinoa, brown rice, farro, those types of whole grains. Women need to take in about 70 grams per day. And men need to take in about 90 grams per day. Hmm. And just to give you a little background here, 98% of the population's not getting enough fiber every day, and that plays a very important role in our colon health and our overall health, LDL cholesterol as well. And then red meat, processed meat, these are also foods that are on the list. How much should you be eating? It seems like the sweet spot for red meat is about 12 to 18 ounces per week.

Not going over that. And then almost no processed meats, like less than 1 serving per week. So really cutting out the lunch meats and the processed meats, the hot dogs, the bacon. That stuff is processed meats, and that also has been associated with colon cancer. The other thing on this healthy eating index is sodium intake. So you wanna make sure that you're not really going above— usually it was like 2,300 milligrams per day, ideally 1,500 milligrams a day. And I do think sodium intake is really also just a proxy for our ultra-processed foods. You wanna really be minimizing that. A lot of those have a lot of high sodium. If you're getting foods that are, if you're eating out at a restaurant, you might have a lot of sodium in that as well. So that's also important. And then also making sure that we're not eating and drinking sugar-sweetened beverages. So that's zero of those. This is all part of that. Study where we're trying to really, like, be at the top 40% of that healthy, you know, eating index. And so you want to make sure you have zero sugar-sweetened beverages per day, including juice.

So if you're going to eat fruit, it has to be with the whole fruit and the fiber. That changes the way your body is processing and absorbing glucose. Very important. And then the ultra-processed foods are pretty much, I'd say, less than 1 to 2 servings a week. So really, really low on eating the junk food. Dr.

Patrick, you mentioned omega-3s, and I know that there are 5 supplements that, based on the research, you recommend that everyone takes. What are those 5 supplements that should be on our list, and how much should you be taking?

So omega-3s are really at the top of the list, mostly because most people don't wanna eat 2 servings of fish per week either. And it seems as though to get from a low omega-3 index to a high omega-3 index, It takes about 2 grams a day, so that's a pretty good starting point for omega-3 supplementation. The second would be a multivitamin, and depending on what the serving size is, I take 1 a day because that's my serving size. Some multivitamins are 3 capsules, so you want to take 1 of those, and that's filling a lot of nutritional gaps. And then you want to take a vitamin D. Vitamin D is very important because it is converted into hormone. 70% of us are not getting enough of it. Usually a good spot for vitamin D is 4,000 IUs a day. So the fourth supplement would be magnesium. We did get some magnesium from those kale leaves that we had in this smoothie. Magnesium is a very, very important cofactor for 300 different processes in the body. I personally like to take 250 milligrams a day. That's 2 capsules of my 125, and that seems to help me when I take it at night with sleep as well.

Plus, I'm getting to that goal of about 300. For me, it's more like 350 milligrams a day, cuz I do sweat and you lose magnesium through sweat. So that would be the fourth supplement. And then lastly, creatine is something I think a lot of people can benefit because one, it does, if you're working out and exercising, which you should be after this episode, you know that exercise snacks are achievable, attainable, and that you should be doing 'em every day. Like you brush your teeth, that'll help you with those exercise snacks. It'll make them easier. You'll be able to do them more. You'll recover quicker. Really? Yes, yes, they will.

Like, if I take creatine powder in the morning, how much am I taking? You're taking 10 grams.

I would do— I do 5 and 5, so I do 5 before my workout and then I do 5 after my workout. Okay. The reason the creatine is going to help you with that workout, by the way, it's going to take about 4 weeks before your muscles saturate. So for 4 weeks of getting at least 5 grams a day, your muscles will be saturated. So if you're starting off fresh, Give yourself about a month. Okay.

So it's not like magic juice. It's not like magic juice. I'm not gonna take this and all of a sudden those air squats are a breeze.

It'll take 4 weeks before it builds up in your muscle. And once you get to that buildup point, that saturation point, then the 5 days is just keeping it there, keeping it there, right? So what you'll notice is that your air squats will be easier because you can replenish ATP, which you're using as you're doing them quicker. Huh.

So, and then what's the other benefit though?

So the 5 grams after is to benefit the brain because we now know from research that it takes about 10 grams per day for it to get into the brain. 5 grams is greedily taken up by muscle. Once you get past that to 10 grams, it gets into the brain. And there's research showing that there's benefits in the brain, particularly if your brain is stressed, like sleep deprivation, you know, you know, any sort of neurodegenerative disease, or I like to extrapolate and say just the chronic stresses of daily life.

So you're taking 10 grams of creatine every morning?

Yes, I take 10 grams every morning. I split it up into 5-gram doses. Sometimes I do 10 if I don't have time, but I do 10 grams every day. That's my baseline. When I'm traveling sleep deprived, I go up to 20 to 25 grams depending on how sleep deprived I am, 'cause studies show that helps with sleep deprivation.

If you had to boil everything down, I would love to have you speak directly to the person who's here listening or watching right now. And out of everything that you talked about, all the research that you shared, the simplified recommendations based on this exquisite research, if the person listening or watching takes just one action out of all of this, what do you think the most important thing to do today is?

10 minutes of breathless exercise, the 10 minutes of vigorous exercise, exercise snacks. Hmm. That would be the most important thing. And Dr.

Patrick, what are your parting words?

My parting words are, you can do this. You can do this. And you should do it. And then once you do it, you're gonna realize how much you can do it and you're gonna wanna do it because you're gonna feel amazing. I love you.

I need that on repeat as the alarm every morning. You should do this, you can do this, and you're gonna feel better when you do this. Thank you for giving us the simple things to do and for also explaining why it matters and how it is gonna make us feel better. Feel better.

You're amazing, Dr. Patrick. Thanks so much, Mel. I really had a great time. Looking forward to the next one.

Me too. We're gonna be talking supplements. And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for making the time to listen to something that's not only going to improve your health and make you feel better, it'll add years to your life and life to those years. Thank you for being generous with this episode and sharing it with everybody in your life that you care about, because everybody deserves the gift that is Dr. Patrick. And in case nobody else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And I know you can, because if you follow everything, the simple recommendations that Dr. Patrick just laid out to us, your life will get better. So go do it. I'll see you in the very next episode. I'm gonna welcome you in the moment you hit play.

So, so excited to be here today.

I am thrilled that you're here in our new studio.

Oh, it's beautiful. Come on in. Soft lighting. I love this view. Okay.

Studying nutrition, aging, and disease prevention with research experience spanning— with research experience spanning mitochondrial blblbl. And her graduate research was conducted at St. Jude's Kil— St. Jude's Children's— blblbl. St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Let me say it right. Dr. Patrick's work has pub— Dr. Patrick's work has been published. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language, you know, what the lawyers write, and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

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