Episode 330: Gabrielle Lyon: The Shocking Thing That Happens When You Eat More Protein

Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

Welcome to another episode of Fitness Fridays on Habits and Hustle.

In this episode, I chat with a very good friend of mine, Dr.

Gabrielle Lyon, who is a New York Times best-selling author of her new book called Forever Strong.

And in this episode, we discuss the misinformation about nutrition and muscle building that circulates all over social media.

And of course, the importance of animal protein in a balanced diet, whether or not you should be eating carbohydrates, and the science behind building muscle and losing muscle.

Dr.

Lyon also shares her personal fitness journey and the philosophy behind her new book, Forever Strong.

This is a great episode, you guys.

It's short, it's sweet, gets to the point.

Enjoy, and I am sure you'll take something from this episode and hopefully integrate it to up-level your fitness and overall health.

Enjoy.

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Did you get into this business because were you like, did you have any food issues?

Yeah, I was obsessed with what to eat.

So at 17, I graduated high school early in three and a half years.

I moved in with my godmother, who is a PhD in nutritional sciences.

Oh, wow.

She, yeah, and she was seeing patients.

I moved in, she lived on Hawaii.

Did you grew up in Hawaii?

No, I was there for a year.

Oh, okay.

And she, I, I would love to grow up on Hawaii.

I was going to say, we're in Hawaii, not on Hawaii.

You were on top of Hawaii.

I was.

I was on top of Hawaii.

Yeah.

Anyway, but so the, I watched her change people's life with food.

So their lives changed because of food.

And I became so interested.

And then I was looking at what she was doing.

And I was really into organic and macrobiotic.

And I just become upset, I came, became obsessed with it.

And then what happened was I never felt good.

I was eating a very high carbohydrate, mostly vegetarian diet.

And I was a maniac.

My diet was too low in protein.

I was constantly craving food.

I would go through periods where I would binge eat when I was like 18, just starving.

And then I realized that everybody had their own relationship with food.

And every girl does for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously, I don't have those challenges now, but I was so confused about what to eat.

I was trying to do and I couldn't manage my hunger.

Yeah, you were like always like, always hungry.

I was training a lot.

I was hungry.

My diet was probably, gosh, it must have been 70% carbohydrates.

I was starving all the time because I couldn't regulate my blood sugar.

I would eat a high-carbohydrate meal and have to take a nap.

Really?

Yeah.

So you were active all the time.

Like as a young girl, you were always very active.

Yes.

And so then you moved in with your godmother.

You got into the nutrition thing.

You saw what she was doing.

But because back then, when we were young, like when we were younger, it wasn't last week.

Yeah, like last week.

It wasn't about protein.

It was more about eating low-fat, high-carbs.

The Food Guide Pyramid, which was a horrible social experiment and like made everybody obese.

It made a lot of so you right.

So it's funny.

I just had a podcast earlier where he talked about the study where people did low fat or low carb.

And at the end of the study, literally the numbers were nominal in difference in body composition and weight and fat loss.

Correct.

But if you were to change the protein percentage, you see changes in body composition.

The higher the protein, then you'll see favorable changes in

lean mass, which part of that is muscle.

You'll see decreased body fat.

You'll see better hunger control.

You'll see better blood sugar, better blood pressure, better triglycerides, all the things we care about health and wellness.

Well, for, yeah, and I can use myself as an example, too.

Like, if I'm not eating a lot of protein, you can see the diminishing

fat, you know, effects of it, right?

Like, not just on energy satiation, like, just food alone.

Like, I'll eat 10 times more if I'm eating too many cars.

And that's called the protein leverage hype.

Part of that is called a protein leverage hypothesis.

The lower your percentage of protein, you're driven to eat because you're looking for those amino acids.

There is a natural appetite for amino acids for a human.

Right.

Okay, let's talk.

Sorry.

So then I want to just get more of the evolution of you.

So then here you are, you're like eating the carbs, blah, blah, blah.

Feeling terrible.

And then I landed in the class of Dr.

Donald Lehman, who my book, Forever Strong, is dedicated to, by the way.

Oh, really?

Fully dedicated to him.

It's been a mentor for 20 years.

And I started realizing that everybody had their own relationship with food their own influence their own idea of how to do it and i started to understand he's a world-leading expert in protein metabolism and then protein was really this key macronutrient to make everything else fall into place i changed my nutritional strategy i no longer obsessed about food really so once you started to eat more protein it took away the obsession yes because i wasn't hungry anymore i wasn't dropping my blood sugar what was your food plan your eating plan what did you do a lot of egg whites, a lot of chicken, a lot of broccoli, a lot of berries, just very whole foods.

And how old are you at this point when you were doing this?

18, 19.

And that's been your diet ever since, basically?

How have you kind of changed it?

Red meat, now a lot more red meat.

I'm surprised you said egg whites because that all the nutrients, like all the nutrients are in the eye.

What do you know?

So you're going back to that.

Okay, what do I know?

Yeah, okay.

So then as you got together, I was also drinking Crystal Light.

Yeah, I was like, oh my god oh dude crystal is that is that company still around first of all that's so funny you just said that i just saw crystal light at the store and i was like at ralph's and i'm like oh my god that company's still around like i haven't i haven't heard of it or i was doing crystal light on egg whites making a pineapple flavor i mean gosh i only who knows we all did that did you do the snack wells too and all that stuff back in a while yeah back then i mean that was like the popular thing back when right and so then like as you got more knowledgeable and all more information you kind of tweaked and changed it yeah and it's been an evolution.

When you added red meat, though, more into your diet, what is the difference?

Because I'm not a big red meat person.

Do you see a difference in just eating red meat versus eating like poultry or eggs?

Like if you eliminate the red meat piece.

Well, so I think what you're asking is what would be the benefit of red meat.

And again, by the way, my nutritional strategies are, I'm not extreme.

I believe that you should prioritize protein and just very simply 0.7 grams to one gram per pound ideal body weight.

I'm 1

maybe 10 pounds.

I'm maybe 108.

It's fine.

She's like 100, maybe minus 20.

No, no, no.

She's 80 pounds.

I'm telling you.

And I will have 120 grams of protein a day.

Will that source come from lean red meats?

Yes.

A portion of that will come from lean red meats.

A portion of that will come from eggs.

The red meat, you know, has a lot of like that redness is iron.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's really important for women, especially.

Many women are iron deficient.

Many children become iron deficient.

And these are nutrients that are really critical for women and children.

So could you get iron, some iron in chicken?

And maybe I think like there's one fish that has, I want to say, is it sardines or oysters or something?

Sardines is becoming one of the healthiest fit, like things to eat.

Not even fish.

So you don't have to eat red meat if you don't want to.

But I do think that there are some benefits to red meat that you don't potentially get in other sources of foods.

But again, the human diet, by the way, can do miraculous things on various diets.

Well, yes, but what are you a believer in?

Like, there's so many now, there's so many trends of diets.

The intermittent fasting diet, the keto,

what's your opinion of all of those diets?

Do you believe in intermittent fasting?

Do you believe in ketogenic?

Do you believe in paleo?

What is your idea?

Here's what I think.

I think understanding from a hierarchy how many calories you're eating is really important.

I think at the the baseline of that pyramid needs to be protein.

I think personally, I recommend animal-based proteins because they're nutrient-dense, they can be low in calories if you choose wisely, and

it's what humans evolve to eat.

Period, end of story.

It's also a luxury, by the way.

There are many countries that are like, you guys are vegan and vegetarian on purpose.

It's a luxury and it really is important for growth and development.

After you have prioritized protein from animal sources, fiber-rich foods are great.

And I think foods that have high polyphenols, whether they are berries, dark leafy vegetables, I'm not against vegetables, things that have a lot of phytonutrients in them, and also herbs and spices, things like cilantro, jalapeno, things that have potentially been used for a very long time.

I do think that whether you are choosing carbohydrates or fats really just depends on your total calorie load.

And the majority of fats should come from omega-3 fatty acids.

And that's it.

And choose lower fat foods.

It's not complicated.

No, most people have, like, I'm talking for a friend.

Are you asking for a friend?

I'm asking for a friend.

Are you asking for a friend?

It's more the pro, it's more the portion control than anything.

I think that volume, like visually, helps my friend.

Her friend, also known as Jennifer Cohen.

Yes.

I know her.

She's great.

I find that with anything, though, like you eat too much of it, you'll gain weight, right?

That's right.

I mean, this is not, that's not rocket science.

But as we get older, like, and you talk about this, I think it was this was your TED talk, about the muscle crisis, right?

Like, we are deficient in muscle, which helps us live longer.

Yeah, and stronger and stronger.

Capable.

Everything gets better.

Can you talk about that?

Because women are so afraid of building muscle, which is like critical to aging well.

Yeah.

It is the pinnacle of health and wellness.

I feel like we've gotten this whole obesity epidemic wrong.

We have a midlife muscle crisis.

I love that.

Rather than an obesity epidemic, obesity is one symptom of unhealthy skeletal muscle.

And this can begin decades before you actually gain weight.

And when you are seeing excess fat, you don't just have it on your body, you have it in your skeletal muscle.

Skeletal muscle is really important for a number of reasons.

It is the primary site for glucose or carbohydrate disposal.

We know that.

The more muscle we have, the bigger our places to move carbohydrates.

We're all worried about type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance.

What are you going to, what lever are you going to pull?

You're going to pull skeletal muscle.

Skeletal muscle is your site of fatty acid oxidation.

People worry about triglycerides and fatty acids.

Skeletal muscle utilizes these things.

It's also the largest endocrine organ in the body.

It is.

It is.

It's an endocrine organ.

It secretes myokines, which are hormones or peptide-like structures that travel throughout the body, that influence our brain, that modulate our immune system, that affect bone.

Contracting skeletal muscle is an endocrine organ, and that's the largest organ in the body by, makes up 40% of our body.

And so when does it really become a problem?

Here is where the literature says it becomes a problem.

Okay.

40s to maybe 50s.

Here's where I think it becomes a problem, easily by 30.

If you are not exercising, then you are going to see decreases in skeletal muscle easily in your 30s.

And in fact, fact, when you talk about unhealthy skeletal muscle and you talk about, quote, healthy sedentary people, there's evidence to support that 18-year-olds that are not exercising while lean have skeletal muscle insulin resistance.

That they're 18.

Yeah.

At 18.

These are issues that are beginning decades before.

So what's the solve to this?

For kids to start eating more animal protein.

Train when you are young.

Train.

When you are young.

But isn't that dangerous?

No.

In fact, no.

And again, I just wrote this, the whole book on this.

And also, I have two very little children.

Yeah.

Me too.

I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old.

That's very little.

That's really little.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Kind of.

They have little weights and they are very active because you are born to be.

They have little weights.

They do.

Are you joking?

No.

What do you think we do at five in the morning?

I don't believe you.

I will send you a picture.

Yes.

My little one is on the treadmill.

We're doing rubber bands just for fun.

Your four-year-old on a treadmill.

Yeah, for fun.

I don't believe you.

Oh, yeah.

She She like has a blast because she sees us doing that.

Okay, by the way, listen, I'm all for that.

Look who you're talking to.

I put my 10-year-old on the treadmill with me and we do all sorts of fitness things.

100%.

But two, I was, I thought you were joking when you said you're two and four.

They're not lifting weights at two years old.

Yeah.

So I, my,

they come to the gym with us and my two-year-old picked up a 10-pound med ball.

I mean, I'm married to a Navy SEAL.

So like, I know,

I mean, so wait.

The genetics are insane.

That's why I want to make sure people, if they're watching this and not listening, and we are not.

And by the way, we are.

And by the way, we were working out and he picked up and moved a 10-pound mud ball.

He is two.

That's insane.