September 13, 2024 • 46 mins
When it comes to nutrition and what you put into your body, there is so much information out there about what not to do and what to do instead that it can be difficult to know the truth.
This week, Francesca and Louise are joined once again by NZ-based leading expert on women's health and fitness, Dr Stacy Sims, to discuss all things nutrition, hydration, food and gut microbiome.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Area and this
is season three of our New Zealand Herald podcast The
Little Things, a podcast where we talk to experts, we
find out all those little things you need to know
to improve all areas of your life and cut through
the confusion and overload of information out there. Today. We're
so grateful to be able to access this guest again
for you all listeners love during season one and now
(00:30):
we'd like to catch up with Stacy Simms again. Thank
you for getting us moving on the interval training and
ask us some of our burning questions about one of
my favorite things food. Yeah, we do love food. Stacy's
kind of been our go to expert long before we
started this podcast, although dare I say it, Louise, there
(00:51):
was a little bit of a lag with you between
theory and practice. I tell you about this stuff and
you look me go and you go, I'm just going
to keep doing exactly one of always done and I'm
just going to stick to what I do. But you've
absolutely jumped on board with the Stacey train training. You're
on the Stacey train, You're there with the resistance training.
(01:11):
I actually think you've always been very good with your nutrition,
and maybe more post cancer, I think you've been really
aware and very a lot more disciplined than I have.
Didn't stop my body starting to change on me, and
also didn't stop some of my bad habits. I kind
of said, oh, I I'm eating the rainbow. Yeah, I'll
(01:32):
do other stuff as well. Right, yeah, yeah, but that
doesn't work. It doesn't work for my postmenopausal body. And
I think I have probably taken things for granted a
little bit that if I was exercising, I could kind
of eat what I wanted to. So while I majority
of the time eat well, I was always pretty relaxed
about and all had that extra glass of wine and all,
(01:52):
I like that extra tim tam or something, you know.
So I've probably been a little bit lazy in making
sure that my diet was really as good as could
have been. And I think I'm at the point now
where I have this wonderful sort of I just had
this lovely layer of fat around my middle. I'm sort
of petting it. I'm chatting as we speak. It's kind
of like it's sort of sort of part of it,
(02:13):
but it doesn't really feel like it's part of me.
I don't know where it came from. It's like it
just attached itself to my to my middle, and I'm
sure that it wants to go something, wants to go
back to where it came from and wants to go home.
And I need to know how to get rid of it. Well,
I look, I honestly think too. It's noisy out there
when it comes to nutrition. And we've been hearing it
a lot about protein, right, And I've said before, if
(02:36):
one more person tells me that cheese, I'm going to explode.
Why is cottage cheese getting cottage cheese?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Now?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Listen? Like, the thing is, we can't avoid it. We
know we need X number of grams for protein pequilla
of weight, and we know that all haunts our everyday
life as well as the exercise we do. So that's
kind of what I wanted to talk to Stacy about
because she's the one that can unscore gramble this for me. Well,
she comes from a scientific, evidenced, sort of based background,
(03:06):
but she explains it to you and I and hopefully
our love your listeners in a way that's really easy
to get your head around. That's right, Yeah, all right,
let's do it. So it is a real trick to
have doctor Stacy Simms back on the little things with us.
If you are not familiar with her already, She's been
doing research into the areas of physiology and nutrition for
over twenty five years. She has two books out which
(03:28):
I highly recommend Raw and Next Level. She has a
wealth of experience implementing practical, science based interventions, specifically for women.
She's an athlete of researcher and author, speaker, and a mum.
Her mission is to help women better understand their bodies
and elevate them in research, sport, and ultimately in life.
(03:49):
So joining us now, doctor Stacy Sims, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Looking forward to chatting yet again to help lots of
women understand all what's going on.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
One of my notes here is that you know, you
really helped untangle strength training and interval training for me
the last time we spoke, in fact for years now
reading your books and things, so we're hoping that you
can untangle some of the nutrition stuff too. So, Stacey,
I noticed that in your books a lot of the
chapters on nutrition start with you saying that women are
(04:24):
always asking you tell me what to eat. So I'm
going to keep it really simple to kick off what
should we be eating?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
That's a really hard one because when we talk about nutrition,
it's such a cultural thing. Like if you ask someone
what they're doing or who they are, you'll hear the
i'm kido, i'm if. It's like this ingrained kind of
cultural pie to nutrition. So if I were to tell
people what to eat, most of the time, I get this,
(04:54):
ah no, that's completely against anything that I really want
to think about. But I always bring it back to
the gut microbiome, like what should you be eating things
to support your gut And the reason for that is
we know that the gut microbiome one loses a significant
amount of diversity when we start hitting perimenopause in a postmenopause,
(05:15):
and with that there's an impetus for craving simple carbohydrates,
putting on a lot of extra belly and other body fat,
losing our lean mass, having cognitive issues, having immune issues.
We can see things coming out with cardiovascular problems, like
all of a sudden, someone who hasn't had any issue
(05:36):
with cholesterol now has high low density or the quote
bad cholesterol, And then I don't understand what's going on.
I don't have a family history. What's going on and
all comes down to the gut. The other aspect about
it is the protein because we haven't had that conversation
in our like in our life. Really it's all a
(05:56):
been carbohydrate and fat. But protein is really really important
for women and we're underfed protein. Because I want people
to remember that the recommended daily intake of protein is
based on the least amount that you should be consuming
to prevent malnutrition. So for thinking about that, around fifty
(06:19):
to fifty five grams it's recommended every day for women.
That is the bare minimum. And when you start doing exercise,
you start lifting weights, you need almost twice.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That and that can feel quite overwhelming. And we are
hearing a lot of noise about protein. So if we're
going to, as I say, untangle this, what does a
plate say lunch? Right? What does a lunch plate look
like for a woman who is who is active, who
is perhaps working out that day or you know, going
(06:50):
to work out later in the day.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So if we think about the palm of your hand
is around twenty two to twenty five grams of protein.
So if you're thinking fit or chicken, tempe tofu about
the size of the palm of your hand is about that
twenty two to twenty five gram of protein mark. So
I often have women think about that, and then you're
adding nuts, seeds, grains, whatever to boosts that plate another
(07:15):
ten ish grams of protein. So we're having salad and
we're having the lean protein, or we're adding nuts and
seeds and even adnami or green peas. That all adds
up to protein. So when we're thinking about protein, people
put it in the really hard basket. Oh, I just
I have to have X amount of meat, I have
to have eggs aft to dairy. But there's so many
other like veggie sources approtein that you can add that
(07:39):
it just becomes a big, wide, colorful variety of things
that you're putting in your plate for lunch. Not only
is that helping with protein, but then again it feeds
back to helping the gut microbiome. So we're looking at
the fibrous fruit and vegs. That's really going to help
create that diversity in that gut microbiome, and we need
to be very conscious of that.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's a really good point you make, because I was
getting this, you had this protein message coming at me
now for a few years, and it felt like it
was really hard to do because I was thinking of that.
I was thinking about chicken and protein like that. And
then it was kind of I started just googling good
snacks for protein, you know, and it was amazing how
(08:21):
I could fill that out with you know, lots of
other little bits and pieces.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah. I think someone said, oh, in order to get
the amount of approach and I need to eat twelve
tens of chickpeas. Like, oh, so we're talking about you.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Have to be really clever about it. So how much
energy do we need?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
That's a good thing. When we talk about energy, we
want to look at what we call energy availability. So
I have some women come to me and say, I
don't understand. I'm putting weight on and I'm eating sixteen
hundred calories a day. That should be enough. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
we want to talk about energy availability. We have to
think about how much you need just to exist. So,
(09:06):
for if you're going to get up and you're lucky
enough to have the day off to be able to
sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day, the
average woman just to get up and go sit on
the couch and watch TV all day needs between thirteen
and eighteen hundred calories. As soon as you get up
and start adding life into that, you need even more.
So if we're talking about a woman who's training and
(09:28):
she might be average height, average weight, we're thinking, you know,
minimum of twenty one to twenty three hundred calories. So
how do we divide that up? Right? We want to
have a higher precedence of protein. We can moderate carbohydrate
depending on how active you are, if you're doing a
lot of strength training or if you're doing more aerobic
type work. So we really want to look at maybe
(09:51):
hitting thirty thirty five percent of our diet from really
good protein. Then we have another around thirty percent from
fat and as they're all really good mixed types of
fats animals or animal and plant fats, and then moderating
that carbohydrate and reaching for the colorful fruit and vege
(10:11):
and whole greens. Now that's the ideal, but we know
life comes into play, right, So I have people follow
the eighty twenty year oll. Well, twenty percent is of life.
So if you're out on holiday and you're like, yeah,
I want to have some of that, that doesn't quite
fit and go for it. Don't feel guilty about it,
because we have this rhetoric that we have to be
perfect all the time, and we feel guilty if we're
(10:34):
reaching for something that's not quite ideal. Don't fret about it.
It's a small blip in time and you can always
come back. Just don't reach for the ultra processed foods
and the sugary stuff all the time. You can have
that in that twenty percent life factor.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, I musket a matt, I do. I make it
really pretty good typhoon chickpea curry, load of protein, but
I do love it on a big beta rice. That's
all right, Maybe make it brown rice.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know what's even better than brown rice is the
jasmine and black rices. Oh, they're higher in fiber and too,
they taste better.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
If I look at my mother's generation, they all got
to middle age or you know, sort of periminipuse minipause
and went, okay, I'm going to stop eating carbs now.
And that's not what we want to do. We still
need those carbs, don't we. For energy?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Absolutely, women need more carbs than men, full stop, because
our bodies fuel differently, we repair differently. We use more
carbs for our brain fuel, and we just need more
carbohydrate in general. But it's gotten such a nasty name
across the board because when we think carbohydrate, what's been
(11:42):
presented to us is more like the ultra processed stuff
for the white breads, the white potatoes, and that spits
in that twenty percent, right, more really looking carbohydrate. We
want to think about complex carbs, and these are all
your colorful fruit and veg, your sour dough breads, it's
your whole grain bread, it's your spelt, your amorth, your
(12:03):
black rices, you're you know, just all those kind of
really good foundational curbs, and we need those because not
only does it help fuel us, but again, it brings
back to that deep gut microbiome, and that's the part
that we're really really looking to affect with change.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You also mentioned fiber there, and I wanted to pick
up on that because I don't know about you, lou,
but everywhere I seem to I'm hearing a lot of
talk about fiber. Again, It's sort of like it was
sleeping for a little while there, no one really spoke
about fiber, but all of a sudden, it seems to
be really important we're discovering for that gut microbiome to
have that fiber.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I've had people say, well, can I just take a pill?
Can I just use metamucil. No, that's not what we're
after when we're talking about the deep gut bacteria, the
very bottom part of your colon where you don't have
a lot of I guess movement is the best way
to say it. We want that fiber that comes from
(12:59):
apple skins, or from Jerusalem artichokes, or from all of
your really you know, fibrous veggies, because by the time
that food breaks down, all it's left is the fibrous
stalks of those foods and that's what the bacteria feed on.
So if we want to encourage the growth of the
(13:20):
bacteria that promotes leanness, strength, cognitive awareness, we need that
deep fibery plant type stock down there so you can't
take a pill. That's why fiber keeps coming up because
people are looking at well, what does that mean? And
it's the same thing as if we're talking about probiotic.
(13:41):
We don't want to get it from a pill because
there's only like three companies that make it, and their
over growth of these few particular strains and then that
will develop the overgrowth of those strains that were not
necessarily wanting. So we want our probiotics to come from
food too. So this is all your firm stuff, even
(14:01):
sour dough bread fits in there. And we want to
think about our kfere our sauer krauts or yogurts, all
of those kinds of fermented foods, so those actually help.
It brings it back to like our grandparents who's talked
about maybe even our grandparents' parents, where you want to
be able to identify the food that you're eating and
it doesn't come from a package.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, I think people, I mean, I think people do
get a bit nervous about the fermented foods, certainly if
they're making them themselves, that they'll do something wrong. But
there are a lot of great recipes out there, even
just pickled onions really easy to make, cheap and fast.
They're not all don't have to all be sitting in
your cupboard for you know, months and months before you
(14:40):
use them, right exactly. There are also some amazing companies
making really tasty fermented goods. Is that okay to purchase
those ones as processed foods? That's a tick those ones.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Absolutely, there's some really good companies in New Zealand that
sell the granules for kerf here. So you can make
your own caf here, and we that you can make
it as a water based or juice based or a
dairy base. So then you're ending up kind of contributing
to your own manufacturing of good foods, but you're also
contributing to the growth of really small companies that are
(15:16):
after the health and wellness part in New Zealand. So yeah,
if you can support other people who are developing these products,
that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And again just emphasize you're talking about, you know, apples
and things. Let's just remind people that that's the variety
of them as well, Like don't just say, oh, that's great,
I'll have that apple today and I'll have it again
tomorrow and the next day, and you know, make sure
you're getting a wide variety. I think we talked to Tim,
didn't we speak to her about it thirty od a
week or something?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yep, exactly all the different kinds. And I mean I've
just come back from being away for over two months
in the Northern Hemisphere, and when you're faced with the
cost of living crises, and especially when you come back
to New Zealand and the costs of groceries, your face
with really having to eat seasonally. And that's a really
good way of you know, like buy the least expensive
(16:08):
fruit and veg that you can, because that gives you
a wide variety of things with the highest nutrient value
because that's the seasonal stuff. So when people are like, oh,
it's too difficult to have that wide variety, and like
just go to the supermarket or the fruit and veggie
bin place and find the cheapest fruit and veget you
can because it changes from wheat to wheat and that's
how you keep your variety.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, you just reminded me. I've got a whole cauliflower
and the fridge. I just I need to make a
sep with that before it's not good for anything else.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Or chop it up and put it in the freezer
and then put it into smoothie. Can't even taste it.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Oh wow, I haven't ever tried couliflower in a smoothie.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Ocay's gross. But it gives you the same texture as
a banana without the banana flavor and you don't even
know it's in there.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Oh. That's so cool. I'm going to do that. Okay,
put that on the list. If you're not a fan
of a lot of meat or dairy, which I'm not
particularly Yeah, still get good proteinsolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Absolutely. The one caveat is now that plant based has
become so popular. You're seeing this growth of things like
the Impossible Burger and all these like chicken substitutes. Those
are ultra processed, so we want to kind of stay
away from those. If you're not a fan of meat
and dairy, there's really good tempe tofu options. Again, you
(17:22):
can go back to the basic idea of lentils and
chickpeas and black beans, and you don't have to mix things.
That whole idea of you know, it's an incomplete protein.
You need to mix beans and rice. That's a misnomer.
If you're getting the wide variety of plant based protein sources,
you're going to hit it in a day of you're
one hundred and twenty or one hundred and fifty grams.
(17:43):
You get a lot of fiber as well because of
all the plant based sources, and you're going to hit
all those complete proteins. So you know, just thinking about
what's out there and everything that has protein and it.
People are really surprised that the basic green pea is
really high in protein. And if you're looking for protein
and iron, then go for some blue spirellina in your smoothie.
(18:04):
All of those things add up to being really beneficial
and creating a higher protein meal across.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
The day, so can I. One thing that people do
say or talk about is the balance between calories and
protein intake. And I know traditionally some people are worried
about nuts. For example, what is adequate protein and is
the same thing a palm of nuts? Is that going
to be too high in calories?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
It depends on the nut too, right, So we see
things that as my daughter says, the taste your nuts
are not as good for you, mom, like the macedamias
and the cashews. Right. But if we're going for your almonds,
your filberts, or your hazel nuts, your walnuts, all of
those contribute to you all those good fatty acids that
you need, and they're not as calorie dents as something
(18:51):
like your macadamias and your cashews. So yes, there's definitely
a way of incorporating a larger amount of seeds and
nuts you just have to be wary of which ones
are more nutrient dense or calorie dense. And then if
you toast toast them or lightly to toast them, then
you're maintaining really good nutrient density. But then they taste better.
(19:11):
They taste you know, you can use less and get
good dusturing density very quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I've never heard of blue sparrillina. Oh really no, I've
only only just the green, the sort of the traditional
green one. What's blue sparrillina?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So blue spellina, It is pretty much green sperillina, but
some of the grassy taste is gone. Okay, so they've
extracted some more of the green chlorophyll aspects that creates
that grassy kind of dirt taste and smell of green spirillina.
So you'll see unicorn smoothies that are bright blue. That's
(19:47):
all done with blue sperellina, and blue spallina is higher
in iron in protein than green sparellina.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
There we go. That's so cool and just a kevi.
I guess we're not talking about today in general. We're
not talking about to be super lean and super mean, right,
We're talking about eating for life and eating for the
things that we want to do and eating for the
person we want to be even in ten years and
twenty years and thirty years. Right, exactly was it you
that said you want to be the oldest person in
(20:16):
the gym lifting weights, not the youngest person in the
retirement home or something.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Are meme going around this week? Yeah, I'm going to
put that on the waterst And you want to eat
for what you want to do when you're one hundred
years old. So yeah, this.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Isn't about dieting, no, no, And we don't diet. We
do not diet and we try not. We do not
count calories. And I think you're right, but you also
made that point just before, Stacy. It's not actually about
our bodies and how we look. It's about how well
we sleep, It's about our cognitive clarity. It's about how
we probably feel emotionally, you know, as well as how
(20:55):
well our bodies are working.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, because I think people think about it as in
training blocks or think about it it is Oh, it
doesn't apply to me because I'm not an athlete. But
when we look at how we want to age, because women,
for the most part, outlive most men, and we are
an aging population and we want to age well. So
that's the whole rhetoric going around about longevity. So when
we're talking about taking care of the gut, microbiome or
(21:17):
in increasing protein, these are really important for aging well.
And it's not about you know, looking good in a bikini,
customer's coming. It's about, okay, we lift weights because we
see that that improves our cardiovascular health. It's also really
good for maintaining our bone, improving our muscle mass. But
we also see that it helps with our well, with
(21:40):
what we call neuroplasticity, so it keeps those motor patterns
going in the brain, which really does help s low
cognitive decline and Alzheimer's risks. So when we talk about this,
we're talking about okay, what can we do now to
make us feel good? That then feeds forward to ten,
twenty thirty years down the track.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I don't mind. I used to laugh at my kids
doing this when they got back from the gym, and
now I walk around going can you see my pup?
Can you see my pup?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
It doesn't laugh that long, but while I get pretty excited.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah you feel good about what you're doing? Yeah, really,
muscle there.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I think I think they've all got. They should all
thank you piercely to Stacy because it has I can't
take hit and it has helped my menopausal symptoms like
you wouldn't believe. Yeah, you're listening to the little things.
And our guest on the podcast today is doctor Stacy Simms.
Stacy is a Ford thinking international exercise physiologist and nutrition
(22:39):
scientists helping women understand what they need, why and when.
Will be back shortly after this break? Hydration? What do
we need on a daily basis?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Hydration is interesting because that all eight glasses eight to
ten glasses of water comes from marketing campaign in Japan.
There's no truth to it. So when we think about hydration,
we think about eating water. Refruits and veg Coffee contributes,
tea contributes, plain water contributes. It's more about having small
(23:15):
SIPs of fluid throughout the day rather than big gulps
of water. So people were walking around with the leader
water bottles are actually effectively dehydrating themselves when they're trying
to consume so much fluid because it becomes too much
and the receptors in your body are like, whoa, this
is way too much water, so you end up peeing
out more than you absorb. So when we're talking about hydration,
(23:37):
it's just being aware that you want to have water
throughout the day. You want to have water, refruit and
veg and if you're having tea and coffee that also contributes.
As we start to get which I hope happens a
hot summer here in New Zealand, the changing of the
seasons is when people start to feel the effects of
(23:57):
dehydration because their body is trying to adapt to the
heat and in that we are sweating more, we might
be breathing a little bit harder to becoming a little
bit more dehydrated throughout the day. So just be aware that, yes,
you might need to consume a little bit more, put
some salt on your water, refruit and vege because you
need some sodium to help absorb that fluid. But it's
(24:18):
not about buying special sports drinks or electro like tablets
or anything like that. Again, that's all sports marketing. It's
a what am I doing throughout the day that's going
to contribute to water intake.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, I need to save all my money for my
variety of foods that I want to eat, not adding
things in that I don't need I think Franschhisco, We're
going to admit to our terrible habit, which one we
meet each other, do our interval training a couple of
times a week Stacey, and we don't eat anything beforehand,
and then look, there's you know, I was saying to
(24:52):
Lou the other day, it's a psychological thing. So when
we meet at six in the morning and we do
our health sprints at mountain and we do it interval
training and things at my age, I don't want to
have I have about half a glass of water, but
I've got this thing in my head that if I eat,
I'm gonna need to pooh halfway up, or if I drink,
I'm going to need to stop and go to the loop.
(25:13):
And I just want to feel really comfortable for our
hour run. And then so all wake up and sayings, look, okay,
we've got to get those fifteen grams in in the morning,
but I don't want to have to get up even
earlier to do it. I'm kind of sweet. Oh, I
know none of this is sounding good days now.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
It's a reality. There are so many of us that
get up at the break of dawn to go do
training and it's not like you want to get up
an hour earlier to have some food and make sure
all the systems are ago. So if you are someone
who's going to go for a run, you have a
tendency like I can't have caffeine before a run, then
you know, because of things. Then it's not about having
approachein coffee. But they have new products like protein water,
(25:53):
so you could add some protein water mix to your
water and you're getting that boost a protein and it's
just like drinking water. So there's things like that you
can do. We're having a couple of tablespoons of yogurt
before you go, just trying to find something that works
that isn't so I guess filling in one regard or
(26:14):
fearful in another.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You kind of threw me under the basket bit there
because I do have a banana. You do have banana.
I have a banana. At least I have a banana
before I go because loss commenting on the banana skins.
Will we notice if we do this, and we will
do this when we do this, will we notice it
during our workout or will our bodies just thank us
for it later?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, we're looking at doing intervals. We always want to
think what's happening in the back end, right, because that's
where we get the greatest stress and the greatest adaptation.
So if you think about you might do five or
six intervals, the first three you're like, yeah, I feel
pretty good, and then four and five come you're like,
I don't know if I could do one more. I
see your faces. You know what I mean, if you're
eating something, I'm going to vomit. Stage yeah, yeah, goes back.
(26:58):
Two to three intervals aren't going to feel as hard,
So you're going to get more out of your training
session than trying to struggle through those last few that
aren't very good quality.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Okay, now I will do exactly. Yes, we know we're
going to do it because everything we've been very good
at following everything else, he said, Stacy, And it's working
a treat. And I'm apologize I shared a bit much there,
but I'm sure there's a lot of women out there
who have ideas in their head about the way they
exercise the best. And it is quite hard sometimes too,
and it might have a yeah, yeah, yeah. Fasting and
(27:34):
intermittent fasting obviously very trendy at the moment. Or time
restricted eating. Is that something the middle aged women should
be looking at or doing.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
There's a big carveats around this. If you are someone
who doesn't exercise and you sit on the couch and
you're completely sedentary, there is a time and a place
for quote inter minute fasting where we are looking at
time restricted for the most part, where we eat within
a half an hour waking up to drop our cortisol,
(28:04):
and our time window is you know, until about four
or five in the afternoon, we have dinner, and then
we don't have anything after dinner, because that does help.
We see it in population research for men and women
who break a fast by eight am and they're eating
window last till about four that they have a really
really fantastic health outcomes. That's without exercise. When we're looking
(28:26):
at women who are highly stressed and exercising. Because of
the nature of our lives right now, it is a
really really bad idea to hold a fast and try
to hold that through exercise and or delay food intake
after exercise because it's occurred in your quote fasting window.
So we're talking about internet fasting, we're holding a fast
(28:49):
till noon or you know, we're having alternate day fast
that doesn't do anything for health outcomes. If you exercise
because exercise, and it's so he is a fasted state,
you're creating all of the autophagy and telemere link changes.
You're creating a calorie restriction response within the body when
(29:10):
you are exercising. That's part of the adaptive responses. If
you layer fasting onto that, it's too much of a
stress and it comes back to having indocrine dysfunction. Even
if you are late Perry postman apostle and you don't
have ovarian function going, you still have your thyroy to
think about, and you have other indocrine like your corisol poles,
(29:31):
slutinizing hormone poles. All of those things still come into play.
And if you are trying to hold a fast and
exercise fasted, then you're creating undue stress that disrupts that rhythm.
We see women who exercise who fuel for what they're
doing for their training. So for you guys, if you're
getting up and training from six to seven, having something before,
(29:55):
then having breakfast afterwards, and then go on with your
day and have protein at regular interval, and then you
have dinner and you stop eating after dinner right, and
you don't have anything else. The buzzword is time restricted
eating because you're looking at what you're doing, but in reality,
you're working with your circadian rhythm and chronobiology, because all
of our cells have a rhythm, a circadian rhythm, and
(30:18):
this is what's responsible for all of our wake sleep cycles.
Our hormone pulses the way that our body responds to
cellular repair. So if we're not consuming food in those
intervals where a body needs it, we create a complete dysfunction.
So that a long version of if you exercise, do
not fast.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
I think the key there is, and I've heard you
talking about it a lot, is adaptation, right, and that
happens when you do the right things, like the natural
things you eat before, what you work out, you eat afterwards,
you eat regularly someone and so on. It's it's it's
not I mean, it is rocket science. You're obviously an
incredibly intelligent woman who you're in a physiologist. But the
(31:02):
way what I love about the way you deliver that
information is for us to kind of unsigence put it
in Lai terms and go just eat something, make it
something good, and exercise and make it something heavy.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Our body that are built to run on really good fuels.
So if you're thinking about what to eat, I laugh
that you can now. I mean you go and you
order things like poweried by the color of the drink,
so you're pretty sure that that's not good for you. Right.
So if you're looking at oh, I want those fruit
and vegs, and I want that protein, and you can
identify it, then your body's going to assimilate it. So
(31:38):
you want a fuel for the activity. The worst is
if you're working with someone who's intermitted fasting and they're
not breaking their fast till noon and they're really angry
while you're trying to get work done because they're not
very fun to be around.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So now you see before about men and fasting, Well,
my husband did that. He did the five two God
he was miserable on those two days. He lost a
lot of weight, but he was miserable. I remember that
time for divorce. Yeah, I say, what about we all
have different jobs. Some of us are quite sedentry, some
of us are quite active. Does this have any impact
(32:10):
on what we should eat and how much?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's not so much about the eating, Like if we
look at both of them hand in hand, again, if
you're looking at that eighty twenty rule and you're eighty
percent of the time spot on. If you have a
very sedentary job, we know that getting up and standing
or going for a walk around the office every hour
that contributes significantly to overall health outcomes, rather than if
(32:35):
you sit down in a chair and you don't stand
up for eight hours. So there is a bit of
play with the sedentary jobs versus the more active jobs.
But you can break up that sedentary aspect to make
it work for you. So you know you're standing, and
maybe you're like, I'm standing up right now at our desk,
and I can stand on one leg, and then that's
(32:55):
breaking up sudden sedentariness. I can stand on the other leg.
I can do half a sit, I can do half
a stand. So it's all of those things that you
do that's a little bit of movement that really keeps
the body active, that really does help break the problem
of our sitting society.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I feel like standing up. I feel like we should
be standing. Look, I think something else that women really
notice when they hit middle age, and it's something which
has kind of crept up on me out of the
blue and surprised me a little bit. Is our bodies
kind of want to turn into a circle. So what
are some of the key kind of takeaways to understand
maybe about what we eat in our hormones.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, so I'll give a brief physiological reason and rationale
for what's happening, so then you can understand why we
want to do the things that we do. So we
look at estrogen. Estrogen is our women's testosterone. It's responsible
for our muscle growth, repair, strength, power, so also a
powerful anti inflammatory agent. When we start to lose estrogen
(33:56):
with perimenopause into postmenopause, we lose that powerful anti inflammatory
agent within ourselves. So then what happens is we end
up with more circulating fat, and it's called estified fat,
and the liver reads that as something that needs to
be stored, but not in the muscle because it's not
the right form to be stored in the muscle to
(34:16):
be used as fuel. So that's how we end up
with that deep belly fat, that deep the cereal fat,
because the liver is saying, hey, we need to take
these fatty particles and store them as the cereal fat.
So that's why we see the minopot Right, how do
we counter that, that's the big question. So we look
at what kinds of things we can do that can
promote better responses from the liver to not take that
(34:41):
estified fat, but make that into a fatty acid that's
usable for our muscle. This is where the exercise components
come in. That high intensity work. The resistance training really
good because if we're doing resistance training, we're increasing the
quality of the lean mass as well as the quantity,
so that helps with that estified fat uptake. And then
(35:02):
we want to look at at a more anti inflammatory diet.
So again that comes down to the fruit and veg, right,
So we're eating lots of fruit and veg and fiber.
That all helps with that anti inflammatory response because if
we're eating more of that, we're getting that better gut microbiome,
which then feeds forward to more anti inflammatory responses, better
anti oxidative responses from the food that you're eating, and
(35:25):
all of those signal to reduce that estrofied fat, which
means we don't have as much of that the cereal
fat that's going on, which helps with total body camp.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, it's interesting you bring up inflammation as well, because
I don't know why. I'm just having one of these years. Stacy.
You sort of talked at the very beginning of the podcast,
you kind of talked about all the things that can
happen to middle aged women that we're trying to protect
and things, and I felt like I just ticked every box.
I'm having one of those years where everything's just kind
of coming at me and the latest thing is going
to get it sorted out. But swollen knees, I've got
(35:56):
some inflamma and no injury, no particular reason, just it's
just this thing, which is another thing which has just
popped up, just very frustrating and annoying. So I've sort of,
you know, can we really make a difference to inflammation
in our body through what we eat?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Absolutely? Okay, because we're we live in a very pharmaceutical
driven society, right, we see ozimpac in the States. It's crazy, right, Like,
I don't know, we could do an entire podcast on that.
We should. But when we look at exercise and nutrition,
(36:31):
those are the first powerful agents of change. Like we
think about external stress, that's exercise, and our body adapts
to an external stress. We're designed to do that from
environmental stresses. This is why we're seeing saunas and cold
plunges coming into play. Right, we talk about exercise in
(36:51):
that regard, and then we talk about nutrition. We have
to think that mother nature is super smart. It's developed
a lot of things that allow articular vitamins and minerals
to work well within the whole food that you're eating.
So if you're looking at taking a vitamin C tablet
versus eating a whole orange, that vitamin C tablet, you're
(37:12):
gonna end up peeing out that vitamin C and it's
not going to do anything for you. But if you're
eating that orange, it has fiber in it, it has
vitamin C, has other vitamins and minerals in there that
help that vitamin C work. So we're talking about how
do we change our diet to invoke change on our bodies.
We have to bring it back down to as close
(37:33):
to other nature as we can. And I know that
sounds very like I will admit I'm from San Francisco,
so this has been part of my vocab for ever
since I was little. It sounds very farmed a table right,
like very greeny.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, it makes an awful lot of sense. And the
irony of this was that it was before my net
sated swelling, was when I kind of was looking at
my diet again having a little rethink. We've done a
fantastic podcast with doctor Tim Speakter and and I was
doing exactly all these things you're talking about, and I
was really kind of starting to invoke it inflammatory sort
of an anti inflammatory diet. Then I got inflammatory. Anyway,
(38:10):
that's enough about my issues. Well know, so just to
pick up then you just to went VI them and see.
And we definitely want to cover the supplement thing. We
don't really want to talk about what we don't need
to take because you've also talked about probiotics. I kind
of want to I want to zero went on those
ones if we were going to take anything, And I
know what you're going to say, but I do want
(38:33):
to talk about creatine.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
So creatine and then the other big ones are are
mega three fatty acids and vitamin D three. We see
that vitamin D three has so many applications for all
of our systems in our body. But for the fact
that we live down in New Zealand, we don't get
the sun that we need, especially in the winter and
in the summer. We've all been told slip slop slab right,
(38:57):
so we don't get enough vitamin D through the sun
full step. We see that vitamin D status is also
associated with things like iron deficiency or low ferretin, depression, anxiety,
and a lot of times we'll go to a physician
and they'll say, oh, you need to be put on
these SSRIs and stuff, when actually we should look at
our vitamin D and try to boost the amount of
(39:18):
vitamin D that's in there. A Mega three fatty acids
really really important for women in pery and postman pause
because it enhances the cellular integrity, that anti inflammatory response
in the way that the cell walls are to help
promote better cellular integrity. And Mega three fatty acids super
super important. And then when we talk about creatine, we're
(39:40):
not talking about the body building aspect of bulking up
and using creatine for muscle performance. We see that our
liver produces about three grams per day, but as we
get older, we lose our stores, and by the nature
being women, we have about seventy percent of the stores
that men do. And why is that important? Because all
of the fast energetics in our body use creatine, so
(40:03):
we think about brain, gut, heart, all of the things
that a lot of women are like, Oh, you know,
I have gut problems, I have some dysfunction in my
muscle and my muscle performance, I have a neuropathy, or
I'm having issues with cognition and mood. All of these
things can be attenuated by using just three grams of
(40:24):
creatine monohydrated day. So that's a half a teaspoon that
you can stir into your coffee in the morning. And
people who don't want to take supplements, you are facing
eating twenty chicken breasts in a day to get that
same amount of creatine. So it's the most studied supplement.
There's a website called Creatine for Health that talks about
(40:45):
how important it is for women's health, even during pregnancy.
Because it is so important.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I'm up for that. That's my problem. And is protein powder,
white powder or something a good way to get a
little bit of extra if you throw that into a
smoothie or something.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, absolutely, it is a supplement, right, and so we
don't want to rely on it to be our only
source approtein, which sometimes happens when people get obsessive about protein.
But you want to find a really good clean source, right,
And so you're looking at WAY isolate or P protein isolate.
(41:21):
Both of those are really similar in amino acid composition, calorie,
that kind of stuff. And so those are the two
that I recommend. Soy not so much. We hear about
soy and soy protein, but it takes twice as much
soy protein to get the same amino acid profile as
way or P protein isolate.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
So, and back to the omega three are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Sorry?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is that are we talking about fish O oal sort?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah? And D three? Can you eat enough for D
three or nine.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
In today's world? Most likely you can get vitamin D
fortified milk. You can think about mushrooms and yeah, those
are the two biggest ways to get good vitamin D three.
But a supplement of one thousand to two thousand international
units a day is pretty much the go to for
(42:09):
most people when they're like just trying to boost their
vitamin D to the middle range of normal.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Cool. Well, that's great advice, Stacey. Once again, thank you
so much for your time for explaining everything to us
so that it makes sense. It gives us good reason
to follow your advice. It's just it's really as fantastic.
Thank you so much. Your information is a second to none.
Really really appreciate it often.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
So the next time we talk, you guys are going
to tell me about your interval session.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
We are, We definitely are, and we've still got loads
more questions, so we'll definitely talk again. Fantastic, we are
works and progress, Stacy, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Often so I just have to figure out what need
you to mount and check on you.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
It could be fun. Thank you so much, Stacy. I
just love doctor Stacy Simms. I mean I've been raving
about her for years. Like I had to get her
book sent from overseas. When I first discovered her, I
had a running coach who put me on to her
and I got that book. I got her book raw,
(43:13):
and I've just she's just kind of opened my mind
and blowd my mind ever since I started, you know,
reading and listening to her. Yeah, she's she's amazing. She
fills my social feed have a parasocial relationship with the woman,
and I just love her practical, non judgmental approach to
these things. And I hope that listeners will have taken
(43:36):
from it. What we have is that you do need
an excise physiologist to be researching this thing, and we
do need someone doing it for women, and that's the
gap she's filling. So I do listen to everything she says,
and I do as I'm told, because we do most
of the time. To me, most of the time she did,
she did look a little disappointed with us. What I
(43:56):
want people to take from the podcast today is to
stop having to think or worry about what you're going
to eat, so that you actually just know. You know,
we've always said we don't want people worried about calories
and things like that, but we just want to make
it really simple for you, And she has I don't
think you necessarily need to go out and spend a
(44:16):
lot of money or necessarily need to go and get
those supplements. But actually when you do your shop, you
just think about that. You think about, Okay, these are
the same vegies I kind of buy every week because
everybody likes them. You just change it out for another one, exactly.
You know, it shouldn't It shouldn't be something that puts
a lot of pressure or time on you, or costs
a lot. It's just about making really simple decisions on
(44:36):
a daily basis and then not thinking about it anymore,
just knowing you're doing good for your body, put that
energy into something else. Having those things at hand, right,
so I always have. Now we've got a jar of
nuts and seeds, and I've noticed I used to be
the only one using them, and now everybody has come
over everything, rack them over everything. That's right. The other thing, too,
is about the supplements. Just try one thing. I'm going
(44:56):
to try the credit team and I'm going to see,
you know what different sets for me. I take Vitamindi
once a month anyway, that was a post cancer thing.
But yeah, you don't, like you say, you don't have
to rush out and buy everything or do everything she says,
but just maybe if you can afford to try one thing.
And when she was talking about a diet which is
really good for our microbiome, she was pretty much explaining
(45:18):
what we spoke to Dr Tim Spector about. That was
in season one. We spoke to Tim Spector and he's
got a book called Food for Life, and he you know,
if you want a few more tips and ideas as
to how to broaden out your diet, go and have
a listen to that episode as well. Look, if you
missed season one, go and listen to Stacy, and go
(45:39):
and listen to Tim, and both of those will be
really helpful for you as well. Totally, and as we know,
there's no end of recipes out there online, so no
need for us to sort of eat the same old
thing every day. Thanks for joining us on our new
Zealand heraord podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you
share this podcast with the women in your life so
we all know what to eat and when and we
(46:00):
can stop wasting time and energy thinking about it and
just do it. You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and for more on
this and other topics, into zidherld dot co dot mzed
and we'll catch you next time on The Little Things
Hi, I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Area and this
is season three of our New Zealand Herald podcast The
Little Things, a podcast where we talk to experts, we
find out all those little things you need to know
to improve all areas of your life and cut through
the confusion and overload of information out there. Today. We're
so grateful to be able to access this guest again
for you all listeners love during season one and now
(00:30):
we'd like to catch up with Stacy Simms again. Thank
you for getting us moving on the interval training and
ask us some of our burning questions about one of
my favorite things food. Yeah, we do love food. Stacy's
kind of been our go to expert long before we
started this podcast, although dare I say it, Louise, there
(00:51):
was a little bit of a lag with you between
theory and practice. I tell you about this stuff and
you look me go and you go, I'm just going
to keep doing exactly one of always done and I'm
just going to stick to what I do. But you've
absolutely jumped on board with the Stacey train training. You're
on the Stacey train, You're there with the resistance training.
(01:11):
I actually think you've always been very good with your nutrition,
and maybe more post cancer, I think you've been really
aware and very a lot more disciplined than I have.
Didn't stop my body starting to change on me, and
also didn't stop some of my bad habits. I kind
of said, oh, I I'm eating the rainbow. Yeah, I'll
(01:32):
do other stuff as well. Right, yeah, yeah, but that
doesn't work. It doesn't work for my postmenopausal body. And
I think I have probably taken things for granted a
little bit that if I was exercising, I could kind
of eat what I wanted to. So while I majority
of the time eat well, I was always pretty relaxed
about and all had that extra glass of wine and all,
(01:52):
I like that extra tim tam or something, you know.
So I've probably been a little bit lazy in making
sure that my diet was really as good as could
have been. And I think I'm at the point now
where I have this wonderful sort of I just had
this lovely layer of fat around my middle. I'm sort
of petting it. I'm chatting as we speak. It's kind
of like it's sort of sort of part of it,
(02:13):
but it doesn't really feel like it's part of me.
I don't know where it came from. It's like it
just attached itself to my to my middle, and I'm
sure that it wants to go something, wants to go
back to where it came from and wants to go home.
And I need to know how to get rid of it. Well,
I look, I honestly think too. It's noisy out there
when it comes to nutrition. And we've been hearing it
a lot about protein, right, And I've said before, if
(02:36):
one more person tells me that cheese, I'm going to explode.
Why is cottage cheese getting cottage cheese?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Now?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Listen? Like, the thing is, we can't avoid it. We
know we need X number of grams for protein pequilla
of weight, and we know that all haunts our everyday
life as well as the exercise we do. So that's
kind of what I wanted to talk to Stacy about
because she's the one that can unscore gramble this for me. Well,
she comes from a scientific, evidenced, sort of based background,
(03:06):
but she explains it to you and I and hopefully
our love your listeners in a way that's really easy
to get your head around. That's right, Yeah, all right,
let's do it. So it is a real trick to
have doctor Stacy Simms back on the little things with us.
If you are not familiar with her already, She's been
doing research into the areas of physiology and nutrition for
over twenty five years. She has two books out which
(03:28):
I highly recommend Raw and Next Level. She has a
wealth of experience implementing practical, science based interventions, specifically for women.
She's an athlete of researcher and author, speaker, and a mum.
Her mission is to help women better understand their bodies
and elevate them in research, sport, and ultimately in life.
(03:49):
So joining us now, doctor Stacy Sims, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Looking forward to chatting yet again to help lots of
women understand all what's going on.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
One of my notes here is that you know, you
really helped untangle strength training and interval training for me
the last time we spoke, in fact for years now
reading your books and things, so we're hoping that you
can untangle some of the nutrition stuff too. So, Stacey,
I noticed that in your books a lot of the
chapters on nutrition start with you saying that women are
(04:24):
always asking you tell me what to eat. So I'm
going to keep it really simple to kick off what
should we be eating?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
That's a really hard one because when we talk about nutrition,
it's such a cultural thing. Like if you ask someone
what they're doing or who they are, you'll hear the
i'm kido, i'm if. It's like this ingrained kind of
cultural pie to nutrition. So if I were to tell
people what to eat, most of the time, I get this,
(04:54):
ah no, that's completely against anything that I really want
to think about. But I always bring it back to
the gut microbiome, like what should you be eating things
to support your gut And the reason for that is
we know that the gut microbiome one loses a significant
amount of diversity when we start hitting perimenopause in a postmenopause,
(05:15):
and with that there's an impetus for craving simple carbohydrates,
putting on a lot of extra belly and other body fat,
losing our lean mass, having cognitive issues, having immune issues.
We can see things coming out with cardiovascular problems, like
all of a sudden, someone who hasn't had any issue
(05:36):
with cholesterol now has high low density or the quote
bad cholesterol, And then I don't understand what's going on.
I don't have a family history. What's going on and
all comes down to the gut. The other aspect about
it is the protein because we haven't had that conversation
in our like in our life. Really it's all a
(05:56):
been carbohydrate and fat. But protein is really really important
for women and we're underfed protein. Because I want people
to remember that the recommended daily intake of protein is
based on the least amount that you should be consuming
to prevent malnutrition. So for thinking about that, around fifty
(06:19):
to fifty five grams it's recommended every day for women.
That is the bare minimum. And when you start doing exercise,
you start lifting weights, you need almost twice.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That and that can feel quite overwhelming. And we are
hearing a lot of noise about protein. So if we're
going to, as I say, untangle this, what does a
plate say lunch? Right? What does a lunch plate look
like for a woman who is who is active, who
is perhaps working out that day or you know, going
(06:50):
to work out later in the day.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So if we think about the palm of your hand
is around twenty two to twenty five grams of protein.
So if you're thinking fit or chicken, tempe tofu about
the size of the palm of your hand is about that
twenty two to twenty five gram of protein mark. So
I often have women think about that, and then you're
adding nuts, seeds, grains, whatever to boosts that plate another
(07:15):
ten ish grams of protein. So we're having salad and
we're having the lean protein, or we're adding nuts and
seeds and even adnami or green peas. That all adds
up to protein. So when we're thinking about protein, people
put it in the really hard basket. Oh, I just
I have to have X amount of meat, I have
to have eggs aft to dairy. But there's so many
other like veggie sources approtein that you can add that
(07:39):
it just becomes a big, wide, colorful variety of things
that you're putting in your plate for lunch. Not only
is that helping with protein, but then again it feeds
back to helping the gut microbiome. So we're looking at
the fibrous fruit and vegs. That's really going to help
create that diversity in that gut microbiome, and we need
to be very conscious of that.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's a really good point you make, because I was
getting this, you had this protein message coming at me
now for a few years, and it felt like it
was really hard to do because I was thinking of that.
I was thinking about chicken and protein like that. And
then it was kind of I started just googling good
snacks for protein, you know, and it was amazing how
(08:21):
I could fill that out with you know, lots of
other little bits and pieces.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah. I think someone said, oh, in order to get
the amount of approach and I need to eat twelve
tens of chickpeas. Like, oh, so we're talking about you.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Have to be really clever about it. So how much
energy do we need?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
That's a good thing. When we talk about energy, we
want to look at what we call energy availability. So
I have some women come to me and say, I
don't understand. I'm putting weight on and I'm eating sixteen
hundred calories a day. That should be enough. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
we want to talk about energy availability. We have to
think about how much you need just to exist. So,
(09:06):
for if you're going to get up and you're lucky
enough to have the day off to be able to
sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day, the
average woman just to get up and go sit on
the couch and watch TV all day needs between thirteen
and eighteen hundred calories. As soon as you get up
and start adding life into that, you need even more.
So if we're talking about a woman who's training and
(09:28):
she might be average height, average weight, we're thinking, you know,
minimum of twenty one to twenty three hundred calories. So
how do we divide that up? Right? We want to
have a higher precedence of protein. We can moderate carbohydrate
depending on how active you are, if you're doing a
lot of strength training or if you're doing more aerobic
type work. So we really want to look at maybe
(09:51):
hitting thirty thirty five percent of our diet from really
good protein. Then we have another around thirty percent from
fat and as they're all really good mixed types of
fats animals or animal and plant fats, and then moderating
that carbohydrate and reaching for the colorful fruit and vege
(10:11):
and whole greens. Now that's the ideal, but we know
life comes into play, right, So I have people follow
the eighty twenty year oll. Well, twenty percent is of life.
So if you're out on holiday and you're like, yeah,
I want to have some of that, that doesn't quite
fit and go for it. Don't feel guilty about it,
because we have this rhetoric that we have to be
perfect all the time, and we feel guilty if we're
(10:34):
reaching for something that's not quite ideal. Don't fret about it.
It's a small blip in time and you can always
come back. Just don't reach for the ultra processed foods
and the sugary stuff all the time. You can have
that in that twenty percent life factor.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, I musket a matt, I do. I make it
really pretty good typhoon chickpea curry, load of protein, but
I do love it on a big beta rice. That's
all right, Maybe make it brown rice.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know what's even better than brown rice is the
jasmine and black rices. Oh, they're higher in fiber and too,
they taste better.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
If I look at my mother's generation, they all got
to middle age or you know, sort of periminipuse minipause
and went, okay, I'm going to stop eating carbs now.
And that's not what we want to do. We still
need those carbs, don't we. For energy?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Absolutely, women need more carbs than men, full stop, because
our bodies fuel differently, we repair differently. We use more
carbs for our brain fuel, and we just need more
carbohydrate in general. But it's gotten such a nasty name
across the board because when we think carbohydrate, what's been
(11:42):
presented to us is more like the ultra processed stuff
for the white breads, the white potatoes, and that spits
in that twenty percent, right, more really looking carbohydrate. We
want to think about complex carbs, and these are all
your colorful fruit and veg, your sour dough breads, it's
your whole grain bread, it's your spelt, your amorth, your
(12:03):
black rices, you're you know, just all those kind of
really good foundational curbs, and we need those because not
only does it help fuel us, but again, it brings
back to that deep gut microbiome, and that's the part
that we're really really looking to affect with change.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
You also mentioned fiber there, and I wanted to pick
up on that because I don't know about you, lou,
but everywhere I seem to I'm hearing a lot of
talk about fiber. Again, It's sort of like it was
sleeping for a little while there, no one really spoke
about fiber, but all of a sudden, it seems to
be really important we're discovering for that gut microbiome to
have that fiber.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I've had people say, well, can I just take a pill?
Can I just use metamucil. No, that's not what we're
after when we're talking about the deep gut bacteria, the
very bottom part of your colon where you don't have
a lot of I guess movement is the best way
to say it. We want that fiber that comes from
(12:59):
apple skins, or from Jerusalem artichokes, or from all of
your really you know, fibrous veggies, because by the time
that food breaks down, all it's left is the fibrous
stalks of those foods and that's what the bacteria feed on.
So if we want to encourage the growth of the
(13:20):
bacteria that promotes leanness, strength, cognitive awareness, we need that
deep fibery plant type stock down there so you can't
take a pill. That's why fiber keeps coming up because
people are looking at well, what does that mean? And
it's the same thing as if we're talking about probiotic.
(13:41):
We don't want to get it from a pill because
there's only like three companies that make it, and their
over growth of these few particular strains and then that
will develop the overgrowth of those strains that were not
necessarily wanting. So we want our probiotics to come from
food too. So this is all your firm stuff, even
(14:01):
sour dough bread fits in there. And we want to
think about our kfere our sauer krauts or yogurts, all
of those kinds of fermented foods, so those actually help.
It brings it back to like our grandparents who's talked
about maybe even our grandparents' parents, where you want to
be able to identify the food that you're eating and
it doesn't come from a package.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, I think people, I mean, I think people do
get a bit nervous about the fermented foods, certainly if
they're making them themselves, that they'll do something wrong. But
there are a lot of great recipes out there, even
just pickled onions really easy to make, cheap and fast.
They're not all don't have to all be sitting in
your cupboard for you know, months and months before you
(14:40):
use them, right exactly. There are also some amazing companies
making really tasty fermented goods. Is that okay to purchase
those ones as processed foods? That's a tick those ones.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Absolutely, there's some really good companies in New Zealand that
sell the granules for kerf here. So you can make
your own caf here, and we that you can make
it as a water based or juice based or a
dairy base. So then you're ending up kind of contributing
to your own manufacturing of good foods, but you're also
contributing to the growth of really small companies that are
(15:16):
after the health and wellness part in New Zealand. So yeah,
if you can support other people who are developing these products,
that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And again just emphasize you're talking about, you know, apples
and things. Let's just remind people that that's the variety
of them as well, Like don't just say, oh, that's great,
I'll have that apple today and I'll have it again
tomorrow and the next day, and you know, make sure
you're getting a wide variety. I think we talked to Tim,
didn't we speak to her about it thirty od a
week or something?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yep, exactly all the different kinds. And I mean I've
just come back from being away for over two months
in the Northern Hemisphere, and when you're faced with the
cost of living crises, and especially when you come back
to New Zealand and the costs of groceries, your face
with really having to eat seasonally. And that's a really
good way of you know, like buy the least expensive
(16:08):
fruit and veg that you can, because that gives you
a wide variety of things with the highest nutrient value
because that's the seasonal stuff. So when people are like, oh,
it's too difficult to have that wide variety, and like
just go to the supermarket or the fruit and veggie
bin place and find the cheapest fruit and veget you
can because it changes from wheat to wheat and that's
how you keep your variety.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, you just reminded me. I've got a whole cauliflower
and the fridge. I just I need to make a
sep with that before it's not good for anything else.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Or chop it up and put it in the freezer
and then put it into smoothie. Can't even taste it.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Oh wow, I haven't ever tried couliflower in a smoothie.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Ocay's gross. But it gives you the same texture as
a banana without the banana flavor and you don't even
know it's in there.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Oh. That's so cool. I'm going to do that. Okay,
put that on the list. If you're not a fan
of a lot of meat or dairy, which I'm not
particularly Yeah, still get good proteinsolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Absolutely. The one caveat is now that plant based has
become so popular. You're seeing this growth of things like
the Impossible Burger and all these like chicken substitutes. Those
are ultra processed, so we want to kind of stay
away from those. If you're not a fan of meat
and dairy, there's really good tempe tofu options. Again, you
(17:22):
can go back to the basic idea of lentils and
chickpeas and black beans, and you don't have to mix things.
That whole idea of you know, it's an incomplete protein.
You need to mix beans and rice. That's a misnomer.
If you're getting the wide variety of plant based protein sources,
you're going to hit it in a day of you're
one hundred and twenty or one hundred and fifty grams.
(17:43):
You get a lot of fiber as well because of
all the plant based sources, and you're going to hit
all those complete proteins. So you know, just thinking about
what's out there and everything that has protein and it.
People are really surprised that the basic green pea is
really high in protein. And if you're looking for protein
and iron, then go for some blue spirellina in your smoothie.
(18:04):
All of those things add up to being really beneficial
and creating a higher protein meal across.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
The day, so can I. One thing that people do
say or talk about is the balance between calories and
protein intake. And I know traditionally some people are worried
about nuts. For example, what is adequate protein and is
the same thing a palm of nuts? Is that going
to be too high in calories?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
It depends on the nut too, right, So we see
things that as my daughter says, the taste your nuts
are not as good for you, mom, like the macedamias
and the cashews. Right. But if we're going for your almonds,
your filberts, or your hazel nuts, your walnuts, all of
those contribute to you all those good fatty acids that
you need, and they're not as calorie dents as something
(18:51):
like your macadamias and your cashews. So yes, there's definitely
a way of incorporating a larger amount of seeds and
nuts you just have to be wary of which ones
are more nutrient dense or calorie dense. And then if
you toast toast them or lightly to toast them, then
you're maintaining really good nutrient density. But then they taste better.
(19:11):
They taste you know, you can use less and get
good dusturing density very quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I've never heard of blue sparrillina. Oh really no, I've
only only just the green, the sort of the traditional
green one. What's blue sparrillina?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So blue spellina, It is pretty much green sperillina, but
some of the grassy taste is gone. Okay, so they've
extracted some more of the green chlorophyll aspects that creates
that grassy kind of dirt taste and smell of green spirillina.
So you'll see unicorn smoothies that are bright blue. That's
(19:47):
all done with blue sperellina, and blue spallina is higher
in iron in protein than green sparellina.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
There we go. That's so cool and just a kevi.
I guess we're not talking about today in general. We're
not talking about to be super lean and super mean, right,
We're talking about eating for life and eating for the
things that we want to do and eating for the
person we want to be even in ten years and
twenty years and thirty years. Right, exactly was it you
that said you want to be the oldest person in
(20:16):
the gym lifting weights, not the youngest person in the
retirement home or something.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Are meme going around this week? Yeah, I'm going to
put that on the waterst And you want to eat
for what you want to do when you're one hundred
years old. So yeah, this.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Isn't about dieting, no, no, And we don't diet. We
do not diet and we try not. We do not
count calories. And I think you're right, but you also
made that point just before, Stacy. It's not actually about
our bodies and how we look. It's about how well
we sleep, It's about our cognitive clarity. It's about how
we probably feel emotionally, you know, as well as how
(20:55):
well our bodies are working.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, because I think people think about it as in
training blocks or think about it it is Oh, it
doesn't apply to me because I'm not an athlete. But
when we look at how we want to age, because women,
for the most part, outlive most men, and we are
an aging population and we want to age well. So
that's the whole rhetoric going around about longevity. So when
we're talking about taking care of the gut, microbiome or
(21:17):
in increasing protein, these are really important for aging well.
And it's not about you know, looking good in a bikini,
customer's coming. It's about, okay, we lift weights because we
see that that improves our cardiovascular health. It's also really
good for maintaining our bone, improving our muscle mass. But
we also see that it helps with our well, with
(21:40):
what we call neuroplasticity, so it keeps those motor patterns
going in the brain, which really does help s low
cognitive decline and Alzheimer's risks. So when we talk about this,
we're talking about okay, what can we do now to
make us feel good? That then feeds forward to ten,
twenty thirty years down the track.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I don't mind. I used to laugh at my kids
doing this when they got back from the gym, and
now I walk around going can you see my pup?
Can you see my pup?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
It doesn't laugh that long, but while I get pretty excited.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah you feel good about what you're doing? Yeah, really,
muscle there.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I think I think they've all got. They should all
thank you piercely to Stacy because it has I can't
take hit and it has helped my menopausal symptoms like
you wouldn't believe. Yeah, you're listening to the little things.
And our guest on the podcast today is doctor Stacy Simms.
Stacy is a Ford thinking international exercise physiologist and nutrition
(22:39):
scientists helping women understand what they need, why and when.
Will be back shortly after this break? Hydration? What do
we need on a daily basis?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Hydration is interesting because that all eight glasses eight to
ten glasses of water comes from marketing campaign in Japan.
There's no truth to it. So when we think about hydration,
we think about eating water. Refruits and veg Coffee contributes,
tea contributes, plain water contributes. It's more about having small
(23:15):
SIPs of fluid throughout the day rather than big gulps
of water. So people were walking around with the leader
water bottles are actually effectively dehydrating themselves when they're trying
to consume so much fluid because it becomes too much
and the receptors in your body are like, whoa, this
is way too much water, so you end up peeing
out more than you absorb. So when we're talking about hydration,
(23:37):
it's just being aware that you want to have water
throughout the day. You want to have water, refruit and
veg and if you're having tea and coffee that also contributes.
As we start to get which I hope happens a
hot summer here in New Zealand, the changing of the
seasons is when people start to feel the effects of
(23:57):
dehydration because their body is trying to adapt to the
heat and in that we are sweating more, we might
be breathing a little bit harder to becoming a little
bit more dehydrated throughout the day. So just be aware that, yes,
you might need to consume a little bit more, put
some salt on your water, refruit and vege because you
need some sodium to help absorb that fluid. But it's
(24:18):
not about buying special sports drinks or electro like tablets
or anything like that. Again, that's all sports marketing. It's
a what am I doing throughout the day that's going
to contribute to water intake.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, I need to save all my money for my
variety of foods that I want to eat, not adding
things in that I don't need I think Franschhisco, We're
going to admit to our terrible habit, which one we
meet each other, do our interval training a couple of
times a week Stacey, and we don't eat anything beforehand,
and then look, there's you know, I was saying to
(24:52):
Lou the other day, it's a psychological thing. So when
we meet at six in the morning and we do
our health sprints at mountain and we do it interval
training and things at my age, I don't want to
have I have about half a glass of water, but
I've got this thing in my head that if I eat,
I'm gonna need to pooh halfway up, or if I drink,
I'm going to need to stop and go to the loop.
(25:13):
And I just want to feel really comfortable for our
hour run. And then so all wake up and sayings, look, okay,
we've got to get those fifteen grams in in the morning,
but I don't want to have to get up even
earlier to do it. I'm kind of sweet. Oh, I
know none of this is sounding good days now.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
It's a reality. There are so many of us that
get up at the break of dawn to go do
training and it's not like you want to get up
an hour earlier to have some food and make sure
all the systems are ago. So if you are someone
who's going to go for a run, you have a
tendency like I can't have caffeine before a run, then
you know, because of things. Then it's not about having
approachein coffee. But they have new products like protein water,
(25:53):
so you could add some protein water mix to your
water and you're getting that boost a protein and it's
just like drinking water. So there's things like that you
can do. We're having a couple of tablespoons of yogurt
before you go, just trying to find something that works
that isn't so I guess filling in one regard or
(26:14):
fearful in another.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You kind of threw me under the basket bit there
because I do have a banana. You do have banana.
I have a banana. At least I have a banana
before I go because loss commenting on the banana skins.
Will we notice if we do this, and we will
do this when we do this, will we notice it
during our workout or will our bodies just thank us
for it later?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, we're looking at doing intervals. We always want to
think what's happening in the back end, right, because that's
where we get the greatest stress and the greatest adaptation.
So if you think about you might do five or
six intervals, the first three you're like, yeah, I feel
pretty good, and then four and five come you're like,
I don't know if I could do one more. I
see your faces. You know what I mean, if you're
eating something, I'm going to vomit. Stage yeah, yeah, goes back.
(26:58):
Two to three intervals aren't going to feel as hard,
So you're going to get more out of your training
session than trying to struggle through those last few that
aren't very good quality.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Okay, now I will do exactly. Yes, we know we're
going to do it because everything we've been very good
at following everything else, he said, Stacy, And it's working
a treat. And I'm apologize I shared a bit much there,
but I'm sure there's a lot of women out there
who have ideas in their head about the way they
exercise the best. And it is quite hard sometimes too,
and it might have a yeah, yeah, yeah. Fasting and
(27:34):
intermittent fasting obviously very trendy at the moment. Or time
restricted eating. Is that something the middle aged women should
be looking at or doing.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
There's a big carveats around this. If you are someone
who doesn't exercise and you sit on the couch and
you're completely sedentary, there is a time and a place
for quote inter minute fasting where we are looking at
time restricted for the most part, where we eat within
a half an hour waking up to drop our cortisol,
(28:04):
and our time window is you know, until about four
or five in the afternoon, we have dinner, and then
we don't have anything after dinner, because that does help.
We see it in population research for men and women
who break a fast by eight am and they're eating
window last till about four that they have a really
really fantastic health outcomes. That's without exercise. When we're looking
(28:26):
at women who are highly stressed and exercising. Because of
the nature of our lives right now, it is a
really really bad idea to hold a fast and try
to hold that through exercise and or delay food intake
after exercise because it's occurred in your quote fasting window.
So we're talking about internet fasting, we're holding a fast
(28:49):
till noon or you know, we're having alternate day fast
that doesn't do anything for health outcomes. If you exercise
because exercise, and it's so he is a fasted state,
you're creating all of the autophagy and telemere link changes.
You're creating a calorie restriction response within the body when
(29:10):
you are exercising. That's part of the adaptive responses. If
you layer fasting onto that, it's too much of a
stress and it comes back to having indocrine dysfunction. Even
if you are late Perry postman apostle and you don't
have ovarian function going, you still have your thyroy to
think about, and you have other indocrine like your corisol poles,
(29:31):
slutinizing hormone poles. All of those things still come into play.
And if you are trying to hold a fast and
exercise fasted, then you're creating undue stress that disrupts that rhythm.
We see women who exercise who fuel for what they're
doing for their training. So for you guys, if you're
getting up and training from six to seven, having something before,
(29:55):
then having breakfast afterwards, and then go on with your
day and have protein at regular interval, and then you
have dinner and you stop eating after dinner right, and
you don't have anything else. The buzzword is time restricted
eating because you're looking at what you're doing, but in reality,
you're working with your circadian rhythm and chronobiology, because all
of our cells have a rhythm, a circadian rhythm, and
(30:18):
this is what's responsible for all of our wake sleep cycles.
Our hormone pulses the way that our body responds to
cellular repair. So if we're not consuming food in those
intervals where a body needs it, we create a complete dysfunction.
So that a long version of if you exercise, do
not fast.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
I think the key there is, and I've heard you
talking about it a lot, is adaptation, right, and that
happens when you do the right things, like the natural
things you eat before, what you work out, you eat afterwards,
you eat regularly someone and so on. It's it's it's
not I mean, it is rocket science. You're obviously an
incredibly intelligent woman who you're in a physiologist. But the
(31:02):
way what I love about the way you deliver that
information is for us to kind of unsigence put it
in Lai terms and go just eat something, make it
something good, and exercise and make it something heavy.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Our body that are built to run on really good fuels.
So if you're thinking about what to eat, I laugh
that you can now. I mean you go and you
order things like poweried by the color of the drink,
so you're pretty sure that that's not good for you. Right.
So if you're looking at oh, I want those fruit
and vegs, and I want that protein, and you can
identify it, then your body's going to assimilate it. So
(31:38):
you want a fuel for the activity. The worst is
if you're working with someone who's intermitted fasting and they're
not breaking their fast till noon and they're really angry
while you're trying to get work done because they're not
very fun to be around.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So now you see before about men and fasting, Well,
my husband did that. He did the five two God
he was miserable on those two days. He lost a
lot of weight, but he was miserable. I remember that
time for divorce. Yeah, I say, what about we all
have different jobs. Some of us are quite sedentry, some
of us are quite active. Does this have any impact
(32:10):
on what we should eat and how much?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's not so much about the eating, Like if we
look at both of them hand in hand, again, if
you're looking at that eighty twenty rule and you're eighty
percent of the time spot on. If you have a
very sedentary job, we know that getting up and standing
or going for a walk around the office every hour
that contributes significantly to overall health outcomes, rather than if
(32:35):
you sit down in a chair and you don't stand
up for eight hours. So there is a bit of
play with the sedentary jobs versus the more active jobs.
But you can break up that sedentary aspect to make
it work for you. So you know you're standing, and
maybe you're like, I'm standing up right now at our desk,
and I can stand on one leg, and then that's
(32:55):
breaking up sudden sedentariness. I can stand on the other leg.
I can do half a sit, I can do half
a stand. So it's all of those things that you
do that's a little bit of movement that really keeps
the body active, that really does help break the problem
of our sitting society.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I feel like standing up. I feel like we should
be standing. Look, I think something else that women really
notice when they hit middle age, and it's something which
has kind of crept up on me out of the
blue and surprised me a little bit. Is our bodies
kind of want to turn into a circle. So what
are some of the key kind of takeaways to understand
maybe about what we eat in our hormones.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, so I'll give a brief physiological reason and rationale
for what's happening, so then you can understand why we
want to do the things that we do. So we
look at estrogen. Estrogen is our women's testosterone. It's responsible
for our muscle growth, repair, strength, power, so also a
powerful anti inflammatory agent. When we start to lose estrogen
(33:56):
with perimenopause into postmenopause, we lose that powerful anti inflammatory
agent within ourselves. So then what happens is we end
up with more circulating fat, and it's called estified fat,
and the liver reads that as something that needs to
be stored, but not in the muscle because it's not
the right form to be stored in the muscle to
(34:16):
be used as fuel. So that's how we end up
with that deep belly fat, that deep the cereal fat,
because the liver is saying, hey, we need to take
these fatty particles and store them as the cereal fat.
So that's why we see the minopot Right, how do
we counter that, that's the big question. So we look
at what kinds of things we can do that can
promote better responses from the liver to not take that
(34:41):
estified fat, but make that into a fatty acid that's
usable for our muscle. This is where the exercise components
come in. That high intensity work. The resistance training really
good because if we're doing resistance training, we're increasing the
quality of the lean mass as well as the quantity,
so that helps with that estified fat uptake. And then
(35:02):
we want to look at at a more anti inflammatory diet.
So again that comes down to the fruit and veg, right,
So we're eating lots of fruit and veg and fiber.
That all helps with that anti inflammatory response because if
we're eating more of that, we're getting that better gut microbiome,
which then feeds forward to more anti inflammatory responses, better
anti oxidative responses from the food that you're eating, and
(35:25):
all of those signal to reduce that estrofied fat, which
means we don't have as much of that the cereal
fat that's going on, which helps with total body camp.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, it's interesting you bring up inflammation as well, because
I don't know why. I'm just having one of these years. Stacy.
You sort of talked at the very beginning of the podcast,
you kind of talked about all the things that can
happen to middle aged women that we're trying to protect
and things, and I felt like I just ticked every box.
I'm having one of those years where everything's just kind
of coming at me and the latest thing is going
to get it sorted out. But swollen knees, I've got
(35:56):
some inflamma and no injury, no particular reason, just it's
just this thing, which is another thing which has just
popped up, just very frustrating and annoying. So I've sort of,
you know, can we really make a difference to inflammation
in our body through what we eat?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Absolutely? Okay, because we're we live in a very pharmaceutical
driven society, right, we see ozimpac in the States. It's crazy, right, Like,
I don't know, we could do an entire podcast on that.
We should. But when we look at exercise and nutrition,
(36:31):
those are the first powerful agents of change. Like we
think about external stress, that's exercise, and our body adapts
to an external stress. We're designed to do that from
environmental stresses. This is why we're seeing saunas and cold
plunges coming into play. Right, we talk about exercise in
(36:51):
that regard, and then we talk about nutrition. We have
to think that mother nature is super smart. It's developed
a lot of things that allow articular vitamins and minerals
to work well within the whole food that you're eating.
So if you're looking at taking a vitamin C tablet
versus eating a whole orange, that vitamin C tablet, you're
(37:12):
gonna end up peeing out that vitamin C and it's
not going to do anything for you. But if you're
eating that orange, it has fiber in it, it has
vitamin C, has other vitamins and minerals in there that
help that vitamin C work. So we're talking about how
do we change our diet to invoke change on our bodies.
We have to bring it back down to as close
(37:33):
to other nature as we can. And I know that
sounds very like I will admit I'm from San Francisco,
so this has been part of my vocab for ever
since I was little. It sounds very farmed a table right,
like very greeny.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, it makes an awful lot of sense. And the
irony of this was that it was before my net
sated swelling, was when I kind of was looking at
my diet again having a little rethink. We've done a
fantastic podcast with doctor Tim Speakter and and I was
doing exactly all these things you're talking about, and I
was really kind of starting to invoke it inflammatory sort
of an anti inflammatory diet. Then I got inflammatory. Anyway,
(38:10):
that's enough about my issues. Well know, so just to
pick up then you just to went VI them and see.
And we definitely want to cover the supplement thing. We
don't really want to talk about what we don't need
to take because you've also talked about probiotics. I kind
of want to I want to zero went on those
ones if we were going to take anything, And I
know what you're going to say, but I do want
(38:33):
to talk about creatine.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
So creatine and then the other big ones are are
mega three fatty acids and vitamin D three. We see
that vitamin D three has so many applications for all
of our systems in our body. But for the fact
that we live down in New Zealand, we don't get
the sun that we need, especially in the winter and
in the summer. We've all been told slip slop slab right,
(38:57):
so we don't get enough vitamin D through the sun
full step. We see that vitamin D status is also
associated with things like iron deficiency or low ferretin, depression, anxiety,
and a lot of times we'll go to a physician
and they'll say, oh, you need to be put on
these SSRIs and stuff, when actually we should look at
our vitamin D and try to boost the amount of
(39:18):
vitamin D that's in there. A Mega three fatty acids
really really important for women in pery and postman pause
because it enhances the cellular integrity, that anti inflammatory response
in the way that the cell walls are to help
promote better cellular integrity. And Mega three fatty acids super
super important. And then when we talk about creatine, we're
(39:40):
not talking about the body building aspect of bulking up
and using creatine for muscle performance. We see that our
liver produces about three grams per day, but as we
get older, we lose our stores, and by the nature
being women, we have about seventy percent of the stores
that men do. And why is that important? Because all
of the fast energetics in our body use creatine, so
(40:03):
we think about brain, gut, heart, all of the things
that a lot of women are like, Oh, you know,
I have gut problems, I have some dysfunction in my
muscle and my muscle performance, I have a neuropathy, or
I'm having issues with cognition and mood. All of these
things can be attenuated by using just three grams of
(40:24):
creatine monohydrated day. So that's a half a teaspoon that
you can stir into your coffee in the morning. And
people who don't want to take supplements, you are facing
eating twenty chicken breasts in a day to get that
same amount of creatine. So it's the most studied supplement.
There's a website called Creatine for Health that talks about
(40:45):
how important it is for women's health, even during pregnancy.
Because it is so important.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I'm up for that. That's my problem. And is protein powder,
white powder or something a good way to get a
little bit of extra if you throw that into a
smoothie or something.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, absolutely, it is a supplement, right, and so we
don't want to rely on it to be our only
source approtein, which sometimes happens when people get obsessive about protein.
But you want to find a really good clean source, right,
And so you're looking at WAY isolate or P protein isolate.
(41:21):
Both of those are really similar in amino acid composition, calorie,
that kind of stuff. And so those are the two
that I recommend. Soy not so much. We hear about
soy and soy protein, but it takes twice as much
soy protein to get the same amino acid profile as
way or P protein isolate.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
So, and back to the omega three are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Sorry?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is that are we talking about fish O oal sort?
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah? And D three? Can you eat enough for D
three or nine.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
In today's world? Most likely you can get vitamin D
fortified milk. You can think about mushrooms and yeah, those
are the two biggest ways to get good vitamin D three.
But a supplement of one thousand to two thousand international
units a day is pretty much the go to for
(42:09):
most people when they're like just trying to boost their
vitamin D to the middle range of normal.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Cool. Well, that's great advice, Stacey. Once again, thank you
so much for your time for explaining everything to us
so that it makes sense. It gives us good reason
to follow your advice. It's just it's really as fantastic.
Thank you so much. Your information is a second to none.
Really really appreciate it often.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
So the next time we talk, you guys are going
to tell me about your interval session.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
We are, We definitely are, and we've still got loads
more questions, so we'll definitely talk again. Fantastic, we are
works and progress, Stacy, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Often so I just have to figure out what need
you to mount and check on you.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
It could be fun. Thank you so much, Stacy. I
just love doctor Stacy Simms. I mean I've been raving
about her for years. Like I had to get her
book sent from overseas. When I first discovered her, I
had a running coach who put me on to her
and I got that book. I got her book raw,
(43:13):
and I've just she's just kind of opened my mind
and blowd my mind ever since I started, you know,
reading and listening to her. Yeah, she's she's amazing. She
fills my social feed have a parasocial relationship with the woman,
and I just love her practical, non judgmental approach to
these things. And I hope that listeners will have taken
(43:36):
from it. What we have is that you do need
an excise physiologist to be researching this thing, and we
do need someone doing it for women, and that's the
gap she's filling. So I do listen to everything she says,
and I do as I'm told, because we do most
of the time. To me, most of the time she did,
she did look a little disappointed with us. What I
(43:56):
want people to take from the podcast today is to
stop having to think or worry about what you're going
to eat, so that you actually just know. You know,
we've always said we don't want people worried about calories
and things like that, but we just want to make
it really simple for you, And she has I don't
think you necessarily need to go out and spend a
(44:16):
lot of money or necessarily need to go and get
those supplements. But actually when you do your shop, you
just think about that. You think about, Okay, these are
the same vegies I kind of buy every week because
everybody likes them. You just change it out for another one, exactly.
You know, it shouldn't It shouldn't be something that puts
a lot of pressure or time on you, or costs
a lot. It's just about making really simple decisions on
(44:36):
a daily basis and then not thinking about it anymore,
just knowing you're doing good for your body, put that
energy into something else. Having those things at hand, right,
so I always have. Now we've got a jar of
nuts and seeds, and I've noticed I used to be
the only one using them, and now everybody has come
over everything, rack them over everything. That's right. The other thing, too,
is about the supplements. Just try one thing. I'm going
(44:56):
to try the credit team and I'm going to see,
you know what different sets for me. I take Vitamindi
once a month anyway, that was a post cancer thing.
But yeah, you don't, like you say, you don't have
to rush out and buy everything or do everything she says,
but just maybe if you can afford to try one thing.
And when she was talking about a diet which is
really good for our microbiome, she was pretty much explaining
(45:18):
what we spoke to Dr Tim Spector about. That was
in season one. We spoke to Tim Spector and he's
got a book called Food for Life, and he you know,
if you want a few more tips and ideas as
to how to broaden out your diet, go and have
a listen to that episode as well. Look, if you
missed season one, go and listen to Stacy, and go
(45:39):
and listen to Tim, and both of those will be
really helpful for you as well. Totally, and as we know,
there's no end of recipes out there online, so no
need for us to sort of eat the same old
thing every day. Thanks for joining us on our new
Zealand heraord podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you
share this podcast with the women in your life so
we all know what to eat and when and we
(46:00):
can stop wasting time and energy thinking about it and
just do it. You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and for more on
this and other topics, into zidherld dot co dot mzed
and we'll catch you next time on The Little Things
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