Dr. Allan Bacon (00:00):
If you want to improve your gut health, get a proper fitness program, nutrition, stress relief, sleep well, I want the best body composition, possible, fitness, nutrition, stress relief, sleep well, I want to be more injury resistant. Fitness, nutrition, stress relief, sleep. So it gets boring because the answer to all of this is the same thing. And so people want something different because if the answer are those things that they feel like they already knew or they've already tried, then they have to face the fact that maybe they temporarily failed at it.
Michelle MacDonald (00:38):
Hi everybody. Welcome back to the show, stronger By Design. I'm your host, Michelle MacDonald, and today's guest is a medical doctor, a physique coach, and one of the most respected minds in evidence-based fitness. Dr. Allan Bacon left behind a surgical career to pursue what he calls preventative medicine through strength, and he's been transforming bodies and mindsets ever since. So the question today is why do so many smart women still fall for crash diets and cardio extremes despite knowing better? Today we get into the real science of fat loss, hypertrophy and sustainable transformation for women. Over 35, Dr. Bacon breaks down the most persistent myths, holding women back and how to approach fitness with both logic and longevity in mind. This is important, guys. If you have ever felt like the rules keep changing or like your body's not responding the way it used to, this one is going to help you cut through the noise and take back control.
(01:40):
Let's get into it. It's so encouraging to see menopause and training and nutrition around menopause. Finally, getting the spotlight it deserves for women to finally feel seen and supported in the process, but as this conversation becomes more mainstream, we need to really be careful with sweeping claims or one size fits all protocols. What works for one woman in menopause might not work for another, and the best outcomes are going to come from a personalized and evidence-based approach, one that honors both the complexity of this life stage and the individuality of every woman navigating it. Dr. Allan Bacon is somebody that I just love following on the gram. He's got a lot of hot truths that he drops regularly. He coaches both men and women. His wife Beth is also a seasoned fitness professional nutrition coach, and she herself has gone through, and correct me if I'm wrong, Alan, early menopause, which has his own caveats. So I mean, this really is as an area of opportunity, I think, to open up that conversation, to keep it nuanced, to keep it open, but also hit people with some of those hard truths. And I'd really like to spend today really busting through some of those things that you see that are a bit concerning that are probably distracting us from the conversations that we really need to be having around building muscle, reducing obesity, optimizing our health. Welcome to the show.
Dr. Allan Bacon (03:14):
Thank you so much for having me, Michelle. I think that these are great conversations to have, especially in these time periods. And right before we got on the show itself, you had mentioned my fad diet post from today. And I mean this leads into this very well because unfortunately, a lot of the things that we're going to be talking about today are relevant for both men and women. But unfortunately in today's atmosphere, we are seeing women being particularly targeted. It's almost like there's a feeding frenzy and hormones are a really big focus, and particularly women that are going through menopause. And so being able to identify what you need to be focusing on is a very, very important thing because everybody's busy, everybody has stress in their life, and the more stress that we experience, the harder it is to accomplish even simple tasks. So by cutting through some of this confusion, things are still not going to be easy, but it will be easier and you can put your energy towards what actually matters. And hopefully we can give some clarity with that today.
Michelle MacDonald (04:19):
Yeah, I think the female market when it comes to health and wellness is something like it's either a 25 or a 35 billion industry, which is very sobering. And of course the focus on hormones, while it's great to have that conversation around menopause and that it is becoming mainstream, we also have to acknowledge that we live in a capitalist society, and we're definitely going to see some people selling,
Dr. Allan Bacon (04:49):
Trying to take advantage of that in a way
Michelle MacDonald (04:50):
And taking advantage of the vulnerability and also the desire for women to optimize, well, we're going to be around for a long, long time and we want to thrive. We don't just want to be hooked up to a machine or taking lots of pills.
Dr. Allan Bacon (05:06):
Well, let me put things in perspective. In a way, women are some of the easiest demographics to take advantage of. Now, this sounds awful when I say that, but understand that it's because you guys tend to care more about your health. You tend to take care of yourselves more men are a little bit more slovenly as far as this stuff goes. And so it's not a negative that you care about yourselves, but it makes you a prime target because of it. Men are a little bit harder to take advantage of because we just have less care for ourselves. I mean, you see this all across health. You see this in medical. I mean, we talk about this in medical school. One of the things that they bring up is, Hey, women are going to be better patients. And women are typically better patients because you're more conscientious, you understand the future a little bit better.
(05:52):
You understand taking care of your health, but that's also why you are the target of these types of things. And so they're trying to turn this good aspect that you have against you. They're using it and trying to turn it into a weakness. And so I really like what I see in your podcast and in your work because you're essentially helping to protect this demographic that really wants to do the right thing and is instead being taken advantage of. Because like you said, when there's money involved, there's always going to be people that are willing to exploit that. And so it's funny when I bring this conversation up and I'm like, women are great to take advantage of, and it's like, whoa, whoa, step back. And then we talk about why. And it's because of these positive traits that are trying to be subverted into something that it's not.
Michelle MacDonald (06:40):
Yeah, I'm sure you and Beth have had some interesting conversations because with her experience with that early onset menopause and having to weave her way through the medical advice, the social media influencers and then herself being a coach, and I'm sure like me, as I've gotten older, my clients have become older. The older gals tend to trust me more. They feel confident that I understand what they're going through. And I'm sure it's quite similar for Beth. So this must really hit home, and I'm sure you've had some great conversations like, oh my God,
Dr. Allan Bacon (07:14):
This is one of the reasons that we got into doing this research so thoroughly because she started when she was about 38, 39.
Michelle MacDonald (07:21):
Wow.
Dr. Allan Bacon (07:22):
Yeah, that's early. It's not unheard of, but it's early. And so there's so much information out there. And the problem that most people have I think is separating the actual recommendations from a training and nutrition protocol standpoint and then distancing that from the experience itself because the experience itself going through menopause is certainly very chAllanging. You're facing a lot of things that you've never faced before, and so you're going to assume that you have to do a lot of things that you never did before to achieve success. And the two are a little bit distance apart. They're not completely aligned. And I think that this is where people get really confused as they think, okay, things are feel so different during this period that I really need to look for a secret or a trick or something magical. And the science is pointing towards that. There's nuance in the way that things work, but not necessarily that there is this massive secret that's being withheld from people.
Michelle MacDonald (08:23):
And that's definitely the undertone of what we're seeing, especially on social medias and some of these bigger accounts that the advice out there is really built on those partial truths or there might not even be actual or
Dr. Allan Bacon (08:37):
Complete lack truth.
Michelle MacDonald (08:38):
What was that?
Dr. Allan Bacon (08:40):
Or the complete lack of truth.
Michelle MacDonald (08:41):
Yeah.
Dr. Allan Bacon (08:43):
And so it's funny because we'll hear people taking advantage of things like, oh, there's this mechanism that happens and your estrogen levels are going to drop. Yes, that happens certainly, but then they make a leap after that. Well, because your estrogen drops, you can't do this. You can't do medium intensity steady state cardio anymore because of that. You can't do that because it'll raise your cortisol. And now because your estrogen is low, it's going to cause all these problems, even though that's never been shown in humans. But we're making leaps. And so to really understand what we're looking at here, we need to be looking at human data data In adult women, we're unfortunately getting fed data from mice and data in cell cultures and mechanistic data that doesn't take into account the way that the rest of the body works. And certainly we're going to see differences in a menopause that is maybe due to, or an estrogen deficiency that's maybe due to surgeries or something like that versus a natural transition into menopause.
(09:46):
Even early menopause. But natural transitions into menopause come with a lot of compensatory mechanisms. You don't completely stop producing estrogen. You actually start having some upregulation of some other hormones that help with some of this. And yes, there's going to be a period where the experience is daunting. I mean, vasomotor symptoms not being able to sleep very well, shifts to central adiposity gain. You actually gain more visceral fat after or during the menopause transition and afterwards compared to before, but it doesn't cause that fat gain. You have to be in the same conditions prior to menopause that would cause weight gain as post menopause. And so this is where that information is getting muddled because it's being suggested to women that you're going to gain all this body fat, that you're going to lose all this muscle when you look at the data. That does not happen if you continue to do the same things, the nutrition, the training in the same manners as you were doing before.
(10:42):
It's difficult for people because they say, well, in my experience, things changed quite a bit. And what we're not really taking into account is, I mean, if your energy levels are low and you're not sleeping and you're not tracking as diligently, there's a lot of error that comes into play and the experience feels a lot harder. But hopefully by going over some of this research, and I'm very happy to present citations for anybody that wishes to look at them, but hopefully after going over some of this research, it becomes a hopeful thing because you realize that if you put forth the effort, you're going to get paid off with results. You are not doomed. Menopause does not mean that you're broken, and this is something that you can work towards as long as you know what to do.
Michelle MacDonald (11:24):
I love that. I love that. Yeah, because first, misleading trends that really needs to die that we're seeing. And I think, again, the intention is correct, and I think I've been even guilty of saying this, and I've adjusted now, especially in light of the most recent research on hypertrophy, but
Dr. Allan Bacon (11:44):
This, I know which one you're talking about here.
Michelle MacDonald (11:45):
Yeah, okay. Just lift heavy ladies, let's unpack that because this is a problem and
Dr. Allan Bacon (11:52):
It's a big, and what it's essentially doing is it's creating barriers to women getting started or to women succeeding long-term. Because the more barriers that we create, particularly when they're not based in the research, the less likely people are to succeed. If you're not doing things that you enjoy or at least hate the least, you're not going to be successful longterm. And so we've seen a lot of claims and it's completely different depending on which influencer you're talking to. Some will say you have to do four sets of four reps. Some will say you can't lift higher reps or whatever it is, you have to lift really heavy. The problem with this messaging is that lifting heavy is a relative recommendation. I mean, what's heavy to you? Is that the same, that it's heavy to me. And so the message that goes out there when we say this is very vague and it's not necessarily consistent with the research.
(12:43):
And what I really liked that you pointed out here is that there was a recent systemic review, and these were the points that I was pushing prior to this review coming out because having a knowledge of the breadth of evidence, you can kind of see these trends and then it becomes solidified when you get these systemic reviews and meta-analysis, which was nice to see that what we've been saying this entire time has been true. But if you look at men and women of all age groups that are put on the same weight training protocols, they gain muscle and strength at the same rates. Now it's a relative rate, not an absolute rate. And this is where people get confused. So if a man starts out with more strength and more lean muscle mass, they probably have an absolute ceiling that's much higher. But if you're put on the same types of training, if men are going to gain 3%, women are going to gain 3%.
(13:29):
It doesn't matter of lean muscle mass, doesn't matter if they are pre post menopause perimenopause. It seems to work out as long as we adjust for age. It is not gender dependent, it's not hormone status dependent. It seems to be age dependent. And certainly there's anabolic resistance as we age. And unfortunately some of this anabolic resistance comes into play in the middle of the menopause transition for most women. And so they're like, well, if somebody says, oh, you're going to lose all this muscle mass during this transition, a lot of women are like, you know what? That's in line with my experience. It's in line with the experience of men too. They just don't realize that because that nobody's thinking, okay, men's hormones are changing this dramatically, and that could be the cause. So when we look at this information, I mean anything between four and much higher rep ranges seem to produce the same muscle growth and strength progress as long as volume load is equated and as long as sets are taken close to failure. And I think that this is the really important thing that we need to talk about when we talk about lifting heavy. That doesn't mean that you need to lift four reps. You could lift eight, you could lift 12, you could lift 15, and it's going to give the same results from a lean muscle building perspective.
(14:44):
And this is the same for men, regardless of what rep range you choose, when you are completing that working set, you must be in proximity to failure. And that is the lifting heavy lifting heavy is probably the wrong term. It should be lifting intensely because if you're choosing those pink dumbbells, and this is the example that those influencers always like to point out, they're like, you can't use the pink dumbbells. Well, the problem with using the pink dumbbells isn't that you're using a pink dumbbell. It's that by the end of those 15 reps or whatever that you were doing before to get toned, you weren't really close to failure. You were essentially phoning that set in. And so when we look at the research and we talk about the general rules to follow that are irrespective of a menstrual cycle or irrespective of where you are in menopause, it seems that proximity to failure is a very important thing when you're first starting out.
(15:39):
You can be anywhere from zero reps away from failure, which means you are at failure or maybe five reps short of failure, and you're probably still going to gain muscle really well. As you become more experienced with training, you're going to have to get closer to failure to get the same types of stimulus to cause your body to adapt. Your body is a master at adaptation. And proximity to failure is one of the signs that this is really happening because in the beginning, you are having those new be gains that you hear about all the time. You will essentially grow off of next to nothing. And so a lot of times what ends up happening with people is they will see progress in the beginning and they'll say, oh, that's what the level of effort that it takes to get to progress feels like. And maybe if you're working at 3, 4, 5 reps away from failure, you're feeling pretty good by the end of the sets.
(16:35):
Now, as you become more experienced to continue to progress or to continue to get out of that intermediate stage, you're going to need to get closer to failure. And now all of a sudden that discomfort kicks in and discomfort's not necessarily a bad thing, no pain, no gain is probably a bad saying because if you're getting acute sharp stabbing pain, you should stay away from it. But that deep down soreness, having to fight through those reps is something that many people never really learned to do, men included. And I think that women, particularly women my age and older, have had a situation where they are probably starting out lifting for many of them for the first time because it just wasn't a massive thing. It wasn't as popular in the seventies, eighties, nineties like it is today. Now this is a great shift to see, and I think that things like CrossFit are largely responsible for this positive shift.
(17:25):
People start to see what really athletic women look like and the shift in beauty standards changes. And so we have this idea of, okay, well I like that athletic look now and I really want to live a healthier life and I want to have this body style. Whereas in the nineties, everybody was kind of looking for that. Kate Moss, I'm just going to diet until I can't stand up type body. Now the shift has changed to athletic, and that's wonderful. It's one of the best things ever to happen to health. The problem is we are still dealing with that eighties and nineties mentality because women my age and older, it has been drilled into them that the way to get to health is to just not eat. You need to be eating a salad and that's it. And so weight training was one of those things that had largely been underplayed as far as the benefits go for people, particularly women.
(18:17):
And it's great to see that this shift has happened and now we're really pushing the benefits of strength and all these things. But the nuance within this and needs to be be elucidated because when people say, Hey, you have to do four sets of four reps, it's the only way to really make this happen and lift heavy. Yes, you're going to need to be lifting heavier than what you were before, but that doesn't mean that you're bound into these certain set and rep ranges. Maybe you like lifting 10 or 12 reps, and if that's the case, that's perfectly fine. You're going to gain progress, you're going to gain strength, you're going to gain lean muscle mass, you're going to gain injury resistance just fine at those levels. And the research in women shows this that that's going to be perfectly fine. Oh, let me do this interval training because somehow it's going to burn more muscle than a typical weight training session. And the difference between the two is between 15 and 30 calories
Michelle MacDonald (19:12):
Burn more fat
Dr. Allan Bacon (19:14):
And burning fat and losing fat are completely different things. And so this is another thing that people don't really understand. And so what you use as an energy substrate to fuel yourself is dependent on the exercise mode that you choose and your body adjusts something called the Randall Effect. And so if you burn more fat during your workout, you burn less fat for the rest of the day. And this is why typically we see when you equate calories between diets, even throughout menopause and equate calories and protein throughout diets, we see the same effects for body composition, health, weight loss, all of these different types of things. So there's another piece of information that you can use
Michelle MacDonald (19:57):
To, we keep adding layers for sure. I'm going to pull us back to this. Just lift heavy ladies again, and for the people listening, and correct me if I'm wrong, Alan, but we want to remember number one, that both men and women are trying to build muscle trying to be fit on that backdrop of aging. And I know you didn't mention it here, but I want to underline for the listeners that both men and women go through an acceleration in the aging process around their mid forties,
Dr. Allan Bacon (20:32):
44. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (20:32):
And this coincides for women, a lot of women with the menopause transition as well as bingo, several other things. So we want to take that into account number one and just acknowledge that that is happening. It can kind of confuse our understandings of what's causing what. Secondly, there just isn't that scientific evidence supporting that there's a specific rep range that we need to be in in order to build muscle or that men and women need to train differently. I think what's important that the take home for women is that you want to follow an intelligently blocked together training program. Doesn't have to be fancy at all with the focus on really lifting with true intensity and taking your sets close to failure. And you didn't talk much about progressive overload, but I'm sure that's a big part of the protocols that you're going to say are necessary, right? Over time somehow improving your form, your range of motion, the weights you're lifting, your work capacity and all that
Dr. Allan Bacon (21:38):
Stuff, it does no benefit but autoregulation based on how you feel that day. Yes, during your menstrual cycle or during menopause, there are going to be days, maybe even two, three days in a row where you feel like, crap, okay, go in and get done what you can get done and then move on with your life and really hit it hard when you start to feel a little bit better.
Michelle MacDonald (21:57):
I'm going to tease, that's
Dr. Allan Bacon (21:58):
The focus, have
Michelle MacDonald (21:58):
Things out too, because again, I can see how people can listen and they might take things too far. And again, it's all about nuance. And those gals that are more on the, not even a beginner, but just in the earlier parts of their journey, that could be one or two years, even three years. I see some people that I work with that are still learning how to train, let's call it purposefully or intentionally keeping a training log and really understanding what a couple of reps from failure feels like. What we're not saying or I don't think is what you're saying is that if you're not feeling great, don't go to the gym and push hard, but pay attention if you need to pull back because things aren't going well, your strength's not there, your warmup sets aren't happening, things are feeling heavy, then respect that versus I've got a lot in my head, I'm not feeling good, but you get the blood flowing, you get in, you get the first set in and you're like, wow, I feel great. And you pr, which I know a lot of gals, including myself, have had that experience where like, oh God, I'm so glad I had that
Dr. Allan Bacon (23:02):
Workout. And really understanding your body. This is the point where understanding yourself, your emotions, your body, how you're feeling comes into play. If you don't really understand how to do this, getting a coach and getting a second opinion is probably a really smart thing, particularly if you're a beginner. There are a lot of benefits to having a coach. It's going to make your progress a lot easier and a lot faster. But to your point, just feeling a little bit down and getting in and then feeling a little bit more motivated once you get rolling does happen quite a bit. But be conscious of what's happening, why you're feeling the way that you're feeling, and then just be honest with yourself. If you're feeling a little bit down just because you had a crappy day, you can probably get over it and suck it up. There's this room for like, Hey, it's time to suck it up and make it happen. Versus you need to give yourself a little bit of grace, missing a massive amount of sleep, give yourself a little bit of grace.
(23:51):
Your coworker yelled at you. Maybe it's time to suck it up. And so you can make that call for yourself. But okay, so based off of the breadth of evidence that we currently have, if people are using fear as a seller or they're trying to suggest that they have this inside track on knowledge run, if they're suggesting things like, Hey, I've been saying this the entire time and you've got this issue because of this and you got to buy my supplements to help fix that, and then all of these different things can be big red flags. The thing with fitness, nutrition, health in general is that people generally know what they should be doing. I mean, even asking yourself, what would a healthy person do in my situation will probably cut 99% of the question out of the situation itself. And so if things sound too good to be true or something that you've never heard of or a seriously new take, it's probably manipulation, unfortunately.
(24:56):
And the people that do this, they live off of the idea that for some reason that men and women are massively different as if we're not both human. And so in this particular demographic, anybody that's trying to say, Hey, everything is massively different from a programming standpoint, that's a red flag to begin with because that's never been shown. In fact, the complete opposite has been shown. I mean, just like you talked about with the systemic review, looking at training, showing the exact same results, nutrition shows the exact same results between men and women, regardless of menopause status or anything like that. If it seems like they're pushing a secret or really contrarian to what you typically hear, that's probably a sign to be skeptical because being contrarian can sound interesting and unique, and that's why these people get footholds in social media because when you say something different, people start to pay attention.
(25:53):
Like, am I missing something? But you usually say something different when you don't really understand what all of the experts are saying or when you're trying to manipulate it. So it's very rare that there's a person that says something completely different that actually has a legitimate point to that saying something different, because if it was valid, every other professional would be saying it at the same time. And so when we get these singular accounts or two or three accounts that have 2 million followers, and then you're just like, okay, well, they're saying something completely different than literally every researcher, we should probably take a step back and maybe unfortunate farm around some answers.
Michelle MacDonald (26:33):
It's unfortunate because we've got some really strident voices out there in social media that they're definitely, like I said in the beginning, they're doing some great in terms of getting these discussions out there, especially for people that don't have easy access to these conversations, whether it's in their community or whatnot. But on the other hand, there's quite a bit of, I'm going to call it the crusader complex and tied up with that is selling things and really lacking nuance. And so we're ending up in a situation now where we're seeing a lot of Bs, to be frank, mixed in with the good stuff. And it's unfortunate, especially when people are PhDs, when they are, they're doctors or whatnot, they see a lot of great things, but then they also say things that aren't so great, and if we could just keep them separate, we would be in a different place. We could all be played in the same box together.
Dr. Allan Bacon (27:37):
We're seeing this a lot from PhDs and doctors right now, which is really unfortunate. They seem to be leading this pseudoscientific Menno predator charge, and it's very, very weird. And so people feel like there's credibility because of credentials and unfortunately
Michelle MacDonald (27:53):
The transfer authority
Dr. Allan Bacon (27:55):
And one example, and just to point out for women that are listening to this, so you can get an idea of some of the manipulation tactics that are used. One, make sure that when they're giving you information, it is in adult human females, please. I mean, that shouldn't need to be said, but a lot of the studies that they're giving are in rodents. Women are not large mice, and I don't know why that needs to be said.
Michelle MacDonald (28:17):
That's a slogan, Dr. Allan Bacon Women are Not Large
Dr. Allan Bacon (28:22):
Mice. M you should put that up as the title of this podcast. So women are Not Large Mice, first off, which is an amazing thing that this needs to be said. And I don't blame people for looking at this. What I'm saying is please look at the research that they're
Michelle MacDonald (28:34):
Presenting it. You see that people are doctors or experts or PhDs, right?
Dr. Allan Bacon (28:38):
Yes.
Michelle MacDonald (28:38):
And some of what they say is true, and it
Dr. Allan Bacon (28:41):
Sounds right, just like you said. I love that you brought up this study. I was going to bring it up. The one that talks about when you turn 44, there's two big leaps in aging, cellularly 44, and then I believe it was 60, but it's irrelevant of gender.
Michelle MacDonald (28:55):
Irrelevant,
Dr. Allan Bacon (28:55):
But it's in the middle of menopause.
Michelle MacDonald (28:57):
Yes. Bingo.
Dr. Allan Bacon (28:57):
And so when these influencers look at you and they're like, you feel like shit, don't you? And you're like, yeah. They're like, you feel a lot older than you did before, don't you? And you're like, yeah. And so it aligns with the experience, but they're manipulating you. And so an example of one of the studies that one of these women uses is she'll say, Hey, resting metabolic rate, your metabolism is completely shot because of menopause,
Michelle MacDonald (29:20):
Which is just not true.
Dr. Allan Bacon (29:21):
Well, no, PON are 2021 looked at this, and they looked at massive sampling of men and women going through menopause inclusive, and they found no drop in resting metabolic rate until the age of 60.
Michelle MacDonald (29:31):
And even then it wasn't that much.
Dr. Allan Bacon (29:35):
It's 0.07% every year after the age of 60. But this woman uses a, and it was hilarious when I looked into this. I was like, I got to see if any of the things that she's saying is relevant and none of them are. So she uses a study and the title of the study is, it's something along the lines of menopause causes a drop in resting metabolic rate. It's literally the title of the study. And then I don't know if she got beyond the title because if you read the study, the study had like 20 women, so it's a super small sample size as opposed to ponza, which was thousands. It looked like 20 women going through menopause. And in the absolute values it says, well, yeah, I mean women who were going through menopause had a slightly lower resting metabolic rate at night compared to women that weren't going through menopause. Literally the next sentence, but it was so low, it didn't reach statistical significance. And there were no changes in body mass index. There were no changes in body fat. There were no change. So literal, there was literally no outcome that was negative because of this. But she took the title of the study and ran with it as if it was proof that it lowered resting metabolic rate. And I guarantee you, one 99% of people aren't even looking at the citations. They're just looking to see if a citation is there unless
Michelle MacDonald (30:48):
They're oddballs like us.
Dr. Allan Bacon (30:50):
And then the ones that do look at it will see the title of the study and they'll be like, oh, she was right.
Michelle MacDonald (30:56):
She was right. Exactly.
Dr. Allan Bacon (30:57):
It's like, no, read the study in the methodology. You see that it makes no difference. And in fact, the study title should not be what it says just because a study has title title, right. It's clickbait,
Michelle MacDonald (31:09):
Scientific clickbait.
Dr. Allan Bacon (31:11):
Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Yes, you're going to gain more central fat, more visceral fat before, but it's not like all of a sudden you
Michelle MacDonald (31:19):
Become doing if you're in a surplus,
Dr. Allan Bacon (31:21):
If you're in a surplus, yes. Only if you're in a surplus, not just out of nowhere. We can't forget that
Michelle MacDonald (31:25):
Because it's a big piece of the picture. You're not just going to start gaining fat. That's the road that you're on. You're in that surplus and you're not managing your body
Dr. Allan Bacon (31:35):
Composition. But that plays to the experience too, right? Because all of a sudden, oh, well before menopause, I didn't have the gut that I have now. Well, yeah, it was going to your butt and your thighs and now all of
Michelle MacDonald (31:47):
A's still not, I'm sure you've seen this, right, Alan, and this is where it comes into the individuality. I've got clients that are in their fifties and they gained body fat because we work with gals that do competitions, and so they're doing builds and they still don't gain a lot of weight, body fat at the belly, and they still gain it at the hips and thighs. So it's again, like these blanket statements that lack nuance. They just don't pan out in real life with people like yourself and myself that work with real living, breathing humans.
Dr. Allan Bacon (32:23):
No, but that's because the people that work with us are maintaining proper nutrition and training, and that's one of the really interesting things. If you look at the research, there's the SWAN study that came out and the SWAN study talks about it looked at thousands and thousands of women. It's one of the best studies that we've ever seen. It's a great study across the
(32:39):
Perimenopause transition. Now, unfortunately, this study is being manipulated to scare you too, because if I wanted to scare you, I would say over the menopause transition, the 3.5 to four years that they study for the menopause transition and then the multiple years before and after, what we found in the 3.5 to four years of the transition, if you adjust out age related changes, so get out the changes of the same thing that would happen to men and women. The amount of body fat gain in this group was only 3.5 pounds. The amount of muscle loss in this group was less than half a pound, but the way that the influences are putting this is they're saying you're going to double your fat gain and you're going to double your muscle loss. Yes, that is double, but it's next to nothing, but it's double because you weren't going to really gain that much anyways based off of just age.
(33:28):
Now, what they're also not pointing out is the SWAN study was a study that was largely done on general population. These are women that are not training and eating, so women that don't exercise aren't watching what they eat, and they're only gaining three pounds over the entire transition, only losing half a pound of muscle. Does this seem like something that we should be losing our minds over? This is not to belittle the situation. What this is to say is you have a lot of hope because all you need to do is say, Hey, if I put my effort towards following what my coach says, what Michelle says, what all of these professionals are saying out there, and I put in that effort to make it happen, it's going to pay off. And what we see is that women that actually continue weight training like they were before or should have been doing before, if they continue eating a healthy diet, all of these changes, they just don't happen. You don't fall into these issues, and that's what you're talking about. And you probably have a different perspective than what the general population has because you work with women that make it happen. And so you are not seeing this massive rise in body fat. You're not seeing this massive loss in lean muscle. And it's because these are motivated people that are making it happen and know what they're going to do during this period is going to pay off.
Michelle MacDonald (34:47):
Again, the gals that are listening to this podcast and we're likely preaching to the choir, but as a woman, and I'm sure your wife Beth experienced, you have those moments when you're feeling vulnerable and you feel like, I hope I'm not missing out on something and should I wait for the signs to catch up or should I just go for it? These are the kinds of thoughts that you'll have when you're having those rough days and you're seeing, and I see some gals that I said to my husband yesterday, I mean, this gal is going to look youthful because she's got the genetics for it, whether she's taking something or not, and you'll have a lot of other girls taking stuff, and they don't look like that. They don't move like that. And it's like a logical fallacy, right? You're making a causal assumption, but it's just not substantiated in truth. And marketers prey on that. That's how marketing's always been like, here's this beautiful person. They're using this thing by this thing, and you'll also be like this person when it's genetics for the large part. And maybe some lifestyle factors too that have influence that. Yeah, so I
Dr. Allan Bacon (35:58):
Mean, I think that that's a thing that a lot of women don't realize. There are a lot of women in their forties and older that are taking performance enhancing and enhancing drugs,
Michelle MacDonald (36:06):
And then selling a program
Dr. Allan Bacon (36:08):
And selling you supplements that are not those drugs. And it is one of those things that men know that the men are doing it, but it's kind of a newish thing in the women's sector and low dose var is all of a sudden, if you're looking at a woman that has really hard musculature and you're trying to compare yourself to her, there could be physique enhancing drugs in plan. I'm not saying that that's always the case, but I'm saying that in social media, particularly when there is this much money involved, it is a common thing
Michelle MacDonald (36:40):
And it is a lot of money, and we're seeing people capitalize it. Again, I was on Instagram the other day and I saw somebody who's sort of in my ecosystem, and she was coming back from this conference, and again, I called it a year ago. At first it was just, I'm taking HRT, I said, guaranteed. She'll start selling peptides, serums, all of that stuff. And sure enough, she's pushing all of that stuff and you can see the affiliate links and it can be an eight figure business for a good influencer. And again, she's beautiful. She's a beautiful woman. And so you want to believe it. You want to believe like, okay, I'm going to take all these peptides and do all this stuff and I'm going to look just like that. That's what I'm missing. And she's cutting edge,
Dr. Allan Bacon (37:25):
Right? Yeah. So when you were talking about how do you know who to trust, if somebody's selling peptides, that's a big red
Michelle MacDonald (37:31):
Flag run. My god,
Dr. Allan Bacon (37:33):
It's a big red. Peptides are the biggest red flag.
Michelle MacDonald (37:38):
That's probably going to surprise some listeners here. They probably have some favorite influencers they're following.
Dr. Allan Bacon (37:43):
Let's ignore that for a second. Ask the people that are pushing this on you. Can you show me the long-term safety data? It doesn't exist. This is one of the reasons that it's not on the market, and so well, maybe pharma doesn't want you to have it, but they are also the natural health and supplement industry is like a 65 or 70 billion industry. And so you're trying to pretend like there's no monetary stake for them to pretend that pharma doesn't want you to have this, and they can't produce the safety data like you said. So who is crazy here? The people that are illegally selling this, would you trust your local drug dealer to have your best interest at heart? That's what we're doing. Valuing sleep.
Michelle MacDonald (38:26):
Undervaluing recovery. Yeah, sleep. Really managing your stress, having hard conversations with people, including yourself about your boundaries. The basics.
Dr. Allan Bacon (38:38):
Yeah, I mean the basics are what people don't want to focus on because it's not sexy. They want to focus on ice bathing and special cycle sinking protocols, and the special supplements becauses new, and it's interesting, but the answer to literally everything in health, fitness, nutrition is, I mean, if you want to improve your gut health, you get a proper fitness program, nutrition, stress relief, sleep. Well, I want the best body composition, possible fitness, nutrition, stress relief, sleep. Well, I want to be more injury resistant. Fitness. Nutrition, so it gets boring because the answer to all of this is the same thing. And so people want something different because if the answer are those things that they feel like they already knew or they've already tried, then they have to face the fact that maybe they temporarily failed at it. And accepting that is a very adult thing. It takes a lot of emotional maturity. Just because you failed at something doesn't mean that you can't learn from it doesn't mean that you can't come back and be successful later. And it actually is a necessary starting point to be able to do that because if you admit, okay, I am at least partially responsible for where I am, that gives you the ability to take control and make changes, that's where the ownership happens. To
Michelle MacDonald (39:57):
Overcome that,
Dr. Allan Bacon (39:57):
Yes, you have to have ownership, and people don't want to have ownership because facing that is a very, I mean, it takes a lot of fortitude, mental and emotional fortitude to face your own failings, but a temporary failing is a learning experience. It's not a permanent failing. As long as you don't give up, you have not permanently failed. So look at it as a learning experience, and as long as you do that, you can continue to get better and better and better over time and finally be successful by filling that basket. If you're trying to fill a basket, you want to fill it with the big rocks, fitness, nutrition, training, sleep, reduce your anxiety and stress, all of these things make huge, huge differences. The supplement that you take is not going to make a huge difference. That's trying to fill a basket with
Michelle MacDonald (40:41):
Pebbles except creatine a little bit.
Dr. Allan Bacon (40:44):
Well, no, creatine is great, and I'm a big
Michelle MacDonald (40:46):
Fan. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
Dr. Allan Bacon (40:47):
It's potentially going to get worse too with artificial intelligence
Michelle MacDonald (40:50):
Coming, oh my God, don't get me
Dr. Allan Bacon (40:52):
Started coming out. That's going to be able to manipulate videos and photos,
Michelle MacDonald (40:55):
All that its going for. Adults are going to have to have no phone. Same thing with kids. Now. Kids, you can't have your phone at schools because it's led all this anxiety. It's going to be the same for adults at some point in time. Yeah. Again, I mean a, I'm going to have you back on, I intended to ask three questions, but we only got to one. We only got to one. We went double over time.
Dr. Allan Bacon (41:18):
I knew when you brought up the questions, I was like, man, she's really shooting for the stars on this one, thinking that she's going to cover all of these questions because well, so here's the thing. There is so much nuance, there's so much out there about every one of these topics that it really takes a deep dive to be able to identify what's going on, to give you that nuance, to be able to understand, oh, maybe this is a situation where people have been trying to manipulate me and now moving forward, I can be a little bit more critical, and I want people to be critical of Michelle. I want people to be critical of Alan. I want people to be critical of that influencer that you saw on Oprah. I want people to be critical of everybody because I feel like if I don't invite people to be critical of us, it's disingenuous. And so I want anybody that has a question about this type of stuff. I don't want to address individual influencers, but I will address individual topics. So if you've got a topic that you want to address, I mean certainly in the comments of wherever this is posted, post that up. Send Michelle a message, send me a message
Michelle MacDonald (42:25):
And we'll take it out.
Dr. Allan Bacon (42:26):
But especially in a public forum, if you post it in the comments, that's probably better for everybody because I'm sure that if you ask the question, other people have that question. But I chAllange you. I chAllange you. If you have an emotional investment in one of these claims, chAllange yourself.
Michelle MacDonald (42:42):
And a lot of us will, a lot of us will a lot of emotional
Dr. Allan Bacon (42:45):
Investment. They will block them. They will try to prevent that idea from coming out. But if a person is genuine, you will see with a lot of these people, particularly a lot of the people that you mentioned, they'll be able to explain their side and they'll be able to explain the other side and why it might not necessarily be showing what they're claiming that it's showing. And an example of that would be that study where we talked about the resting metabolic rate, and there's a study out there that says that it drops in women during menopause, and then it's like, okay, well, let's explain this. It's not statistically significant, and it makes no difference because it's so small, it doesn't change anything. And it was only in a very, very small sub. It was like 20 women. And so is there actually a drop in resting metabolic rate, or was it that we just had such a small sample that even one outlier could have thrown it off? And so this is where we fall into this, so have these conversations be objective and be open to changing your mind because there's not a single person out there that gets everything right. And by continually trying to learn, you'll get better and better and better and improve your own life and those around you.
Michelle MacDonald (43:50):
Alan, we're going to have to wrap things up here. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting on here and sharing your perspective. Again, somebody who's been in the industry for such a long time and been witness to your own wife, going through an early transition, what you bring to the table is so valuable. And I think just continually encouraging people to pull those big levers, to think critically, to understand the breadth of nuance in a lot of these A subjects. And just to bring it back to the basics, women are not large mice, and there's a lot more similarities between women and men than there are between women and rodents, and we just got to remember that and stay abreast with the science and stay abreast with the nuance. Thank you for coming on the show.
Dr. Allan Bacon (44:44):
Well, thank you for having me all, Michelle. And like I said before, if anybody's got any questions, certainly let us know and we're happy to help.
Michelle MacDonald (44:58):
Another great episode grounded in Science, please share this post, a link on your socials, drop it in your group chat, share it with a friend in your life who's tired, as tired as you of fitness fads and influencer confusion. Stronger by Design is now in the top 1% of podcasts. Can't believe it. It's because you are helping us change the conversation around what's possible for women in midlife. In this episode, Dr. Allan Bacon reminded us that number one, training intensity still matters. Doesn't matter if you're man or woman, but please, autoregulation matters even more. Just be sure that in learning to listen to your body, you're developing a skill. You're not using it as a cop out, right? Women can do hard things too. There's no magic diet for menopause. Let's just stop that. Your metabolism isn't broken. You've just been sold the wrong map, okay? And three credentials don't equal credibility, and you're going to hear this on my podcast over and over again. I'm bringing on vetted experts here and that we all agree on the same thing. Be careful if the advice you're hearing on socials lacks nuance or quality evidence, you got to start asking better questions. You're going to have to advocate for yourself. Listeners, above all, remember, you are the authority of your body. Our job is to keep asking the hard questions and to never outsource our thinking. Okay, we'll see you next time on Stronger By Design.