Best Exercise Practices For Menopausal Women – With Debbie Potts

Dr. Mindy
let’s dive into fitness because this is a question i’ve been trying to answer for women especially fitness and keto so i’ve been on this quest this year to figure out what’s the best what eating style pre workout during our workouts post workout and what is right for women and so i’ve interviewed two men on this subject and i was like okay their answers were intriguing one of them is thomas de lauer who i love and he has a whole protocol around how he fasts and then he does weight training and then he breaks his fast with protein any you know i don’t know if you know who thomas de lauer is but he he’s got like he’s a really fat guy but he’s not a 50 year old woman and so what give us your thoughts on let’s start with fitness for women do women need to approach fitness different than men

Debbie Potts
yes i you know i’m 49 now turning 50 this year in november gratulations

thank you i you know i just always the thing that people need to embrace the change of age and not blame the aging process is a big thing but i think women need to realize that cardio isn’t really the answer and you know people aren’t going to the gym as much because of our world but typically before COVID people would spend 45 minutes an hour hour and a half on the elliptical and do the by it’s it’s a waste of time it’s just like go do some weights you know you look at i used to say when i go to the gym before we moved and look around at the body types of people lifting weights and not on the machines to look at the people on the weight strength training machines look at the people on the cardio machines and then look at the people do more functional strength training and lifting free weights and cables and stuff like that there’s an obvious difference

Dr. Mindy
right which which body type do you want

Debbie Potts
yeah it’s like okay maybe you’re not doing the right thing and i was going to this gym that i was you know worked out for years and as i know so 20 something years i was going the same place and i could see the same people’s like you’re not getting any results you look the same as you’ve had for years yeah and you have weight to lose i know i just wanted to go up to people go kate can i help you you know let’s make the most out of your workout and if you’re trying to lose fat weight let’s work on some other solutions because what you’re doing is not working isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results so i think women need to do a little less cardio and then look at a more strength training and and not being afraid of doing five 810 repetitions to muscle fatigue rather than doing 15 2030 reps of something using a light band so i think a lot of women yes did you wait but do they get are they building their muscle strength up and are they getting rid of that fear that i’m going to get big and bulky my eyes will be too big so so

Dr. Mindy
so are you saying that women should should focus more on muscle than they should on trying to speed up their metabolism through cardio

Debbie Potts
well how does cardio it doesn’t really speed up your metabolism calories right there right you burn say 400 calories or the way people work out i probably burn 200 calories an hour and then they go eat 500 calories so i think if you’re doing cardio it’s better to do you know i big trainer by heart rate and coach people endurance athletes but also just people just generally trying to stay fit and healthy and improve the aging process is doing last duration and adding some intervals in there once or twice a week so going high heart rate going low not going in the black hole we call it

Dr. Mindy
like a hit training

Debbie Potts
yeah i can’t training you can do it on the treadmill or if you don’t like running you could do elliptical or bike and just do some sprints and you know dr josh axe he’s talked about for years doing the burst training and everyone you know hiit training or tabata intervals there’s all sorts of stuff but it’s i find people don’t do them right either because if you don’t wear a heart rate monitoring you don’t know what it feels like to go really hard out and then wait kind of a rest based recovery don’t start the next interval until your heartbeats all the way back down so up all the way down up not just like start again so there’s different techniques but i think doing that a little bit more often and then doing a longer workout once a week if it’s going for a long hike or why walk and getting out in nature i like bike riding it’s a great way to see more land and different places where you live and go explore running isn’t for everyone but i find running and walking a great option like oh run for minutes and walk a minute instead of running non stop i’ll do more like 32nd sprint’s towards the end of a run and add a little bit more intervals so for women as we age you ask a few minutes ago why the house should why should women change or train differently well look at what happens when we age we lose muscle mass all this stuff gets lower so why don’t we work on improving that like dr gabrielle dion is a great you know information her website about eating more protein is alright if we lose muscle why are we eating more protein and do more strength training workout to build those muscles up so it’s like counter

Dr. Mindy
to like i think it’s like eating we’ve been taught breakfast is most important meal of the day eat all day you’ll speed up your metabolism and hop on the treadmill and you’ll lose weight like i feel like a lot of women haven’t undone that those old theories i mean we deal so much with helping people learn how to fast that i’m like okay when they like i don’t know if you know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day was a slogan that kellogg’s came up with to promote their cornflakes and here we are in 2021 like people still believing it so i think these habits are hard for people to give up because they’ve been pounded in our head over and over and over again

Debbie Potts
well i think a lot of you know everything in health and fitness if you get your news from the tv or magazines you’re getting the wrong information they’re influenced by whoever sponsored that show and put on there or the advertisement in the magazine maybe they truly contradict themselves so different pages in magazine so let’s you listen to podcasts i don’t read blog read you don’t really get the truth so yeah i don’t know

Dr. Mindy
i absolutely agree like if there’s anything 2020 taught us is look at where your information comes from before you judge it as truth or not do you think that women need to do exercise differently according to their cycles like do you think that the week before their period they need to do things different do menopausal women need to do things different around their workouts

Debbie Potts
yes and i love this information i was just trying to put it together i did a blog i think a couple years ago we did podcasts on my show about it and training buy recycle that’s what dr stacey sims talks about in her book roar and some more information from there is really evolved from training and eating based on your menstrual cycle for women so it’s really fascinating information that when you’re more carb sensitive if you’re cycled to eat more carbs and then you know king and you know i can’t do carbs so really good time to have more longer distance endurance type of workouts two weeks before your before your cycle starts and doing more load lower carb and then when your cycle is you can have more carbs and then time it that way when you’re exercising and doing more strength training during the cycle i just find it so interesting because it’s the your low hormone phase is when your cycles on and that’s a good time to when your hormones are more like a man’s hormones and then you have your high hormone phase that you feel crazy everything things are kind of harder and you’re more tired or your moods different and that’s when your workouts especially that week before your period starts should be a little lower intensity and doing some walks and gentle stuff and not forcing yourself to do a hard workout when you don’t feel it and you feel crappy shirt so it’s really listening to your body kind of if we learn how to pay attention to your body we wouldn’t need research in a book on this just write back and honor what your body says oh that’s not gonna have to happen today’s let’s just go for a walk instead of doing that scheduled run or hard bike ride and and just try to switch it up so let’s listen to your bike i think is the biggest thing but knowing that switch it up based on your cycle

Dr. Mindy
yeah we are coming up with a like a fasting circle to help women understand when they should fast when they shouldn’t fast how they can lean into different styles of eating when they should do keto when they should do carnivore and we’ve had my reseller community we’ve got hundreds of 1000s of people that fast together every every month so we’ve been playing with these principles to match a woman cycle it is so fascinating when you get a woman finding her groove with her cycle she knows what to eat when to fast and i think the workout piece is a whole nother level of understanding that if women just could honor that week before their cycle her cycle she could prevent injuries she her performance would go up i mean it’s you could really geek out on this information

Debbie Potts
yeah that’s funny because i was just working on that last week thinking how can i put this together but Just look at your what you guys did. That’s brilliant. I mean, that’s what women should be doing is eating and training based on their cycle and went too fast. We just did this big Qian fasting challenge they did in January 11, and just how we had to really explain that women shouldn’t do it fast and women, should I be looking at things differently and just listen to the body. And and I always say less is more and more is not better. I think so much of us, when we are the ambitious, driven, high performing individual that we get stuck in that mindset that more is better. And we feel like a failure. Oh, yeah, do something to the extreme, right. Like, I’m pathetic, I’m unworthy. And we just think poorly of ourselves, because we’re not doing what everyone else is doing, or we’re not great and exact amount of what we said we do.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah, it is such a hard then, you know, mindset to unwind, isn’t it? Like, it’s, it’s, especially when you look at hormones, you’re like, Okay, so sitting on the couch today, would hormonally be better for me than going in on an hour long run. Like it just it’s, it’s a weird, it’s weird. But once you hook into it, you start to see your injuries go away, your performance goes up, you’re happier. I mean, it’s, I think it’s so important that we are all talking about this. And one thing that I’ve been thinking about and I really was excited to bounce this off for you is that as a 51 year old woman, and congratulations on almost being 50 5050s are way better than 40. Let me just tell you that, um, one thing that I’ve been thinking about is as my estrogen is going down, and if estrogen is more of a like lubricating, it helps lubricate mucosal lining, I’m sure it has a lubricating effect on joints. Do you think that some of the chronic pain issues that women have, as they move through menopause could be due to declining estrogen. And if you could take like a Dutch test and map see that your protective estrogen was low that you may shy away from some of the longer like, I love to run some of the longer activities that are more jarring on the joints?

Debbie Potts
Yeah, that’s good. I mean, I would suggest putting that I’d like to see the Dutch and then see someone’s microbiome, because I’ve been really digging into that rabbit hole. What’s your microbiome because I did a few podcasts with Chrono microbiome labs and my lab tests we went through it and I didn’t have any Keystone key back akkermansia yet which is key for metabolism factors in my helping my fat burning metabolism and I don’t have any really detected on my labs and so looking at you know, I’m I’m having some gut issues that are causing inflammation in my body leaky gut, because a lot of athletes there’s research I need to pull up the link that leaky gut can occur from exercise endurance athletes. And so if I’m having leaky gut, I’m gonna have inflammation, my body shook my joints, but put that on top of low estrogen. Yeah, and that’s what goes back to what we talked about earlier that I think it’s more important for women to spend more time doing some kettlebells and some free weights and not being afraid of you know, playing with some heavier things or what I showed funny i thought was funny video I did we have this new big yard called the hilltop and we were I was working out with sand but we had sand we had to lay out on the ground and so I was carrying these bags up the hill and up the stairs thinking hey, I don’t need to buy any weights just go find stuff in your backyard and do your thing just go play in your yard. So I think strength training is and functional strength training, working, yoga, Pilates I do as well and putting more stability and mobility around your joints and I think hormones do impact it but I think we need to look at you know what you’re doing for exercise and movement throughout the day. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
yeah, on that topic. I saw your on your Instagram, you taking your bags of sand and I was brilliant. One of my first like experiences with just how we can use our everyday life to improve our fitness was actually with Ben. I was at a seminar where he came and taught there was about 30 of us functional Doc’s that were in a room and they were like, okay, so Ben is gonna teach you or it’s gonna lead a workout tomorrow morning. And I was like, oh, and grant Greenfeld is gonna be like, kick ass like, this is gonna be I’m really hard workout. Okay, so it was an hour long and you may already you probably already know this, but um, the first like, 15 minutes was Tai Chi. And then like the second 1520 minutes was yoga. And then like he spent like another 20 minutes doing sit down, stand up, like so we literally sat down on the the ground stood back up sat down on the ground stood back up and his and i was thinking my aaa i love that aaa brain was like this is this is lame like this is the fit and top fitness blogger why aren’t you giving us a harder workout and yet to this day that sit down stand up is my most favorite workout because he brought a really good point which is as you age if you can’t sit down and get back up what good is you know a pretty bicep muscle like you need to be able to sit down and stand back up there needs to be a functional part to fitness would you agree

Debbie Potts
well i’m laughing because i as we talked her before we started coaching for ben greenfield i’m writing workouts for people and and it’s funny because as a personal trainer just kilkeel my head since i was 50 i’ve been personal training for 30 years a lot of my clients have had for her 70s and what is the hardest exercise for them to do is the transition when i say oh we’re doing something on the floor and they get up oh my god this is the hardest thing to get down and it’s funny because that’s what they think is the hardest thing so why not have an exercise to teach you functional strength to get up off the floor or get off the toilet to go up the stairs the other thing one time i had a client that totally opened my eyes she cannot get off the floor or she can get down on the floor and she was only 70s which to me is super young because i’m used to training people that are fit and healthy and their older years and she started training with me and she had a trainer three times a week what do you guys have been doing she couldn’t get up like isn’t that men number one gold be able to get off the floor like that really old commercial help i’m you know i’m stuck i can’t get up off the floor and to me yes the hardest things people get so stiff sitting and they can’t do a lunge in place they can’t sit down or i’ve been learning how to garden and you know squat down in that primal squatting position so what ben has taught over the years just is what i’ve learned at conferences and fitness conferences is that primal squatting polachek taught me that you know working on movements pushing pulling lending twisting you know squatting these key movements that you look at ancestral health exercises as well as you know movement patterns they’re not they’re bodyweight base tuned they can make it heavier by adding weights but getting off the floor rock and roll and then coming up to standing called ninja get up is a very simple but most challenging exercise for people and as we age do you want to be able to be lying on the floor and stand back up without holding anything put your pants on without holding something you know getting out of the shower without having to fall over and be scared

Dr. Mindy
yep these are important definitely important pieces do you think that we have to fight for muscle as we age

Debbie Potts
well that’s why i didn’t go into nutrition i think we need to eat more protein and not be afraid like dr gabrielle lian is one gram of protein per body weight so if you’re 130 pounds she wants you to be eating 130 pounds a day and i think you know people go low carb and going into keto that they don’t do enough protein i’m seeing a lot more blogs and information on that and as carnivore kind of grip keeps growing maybe people are more aware of that and that they need to eat more protein and especially women as we’re going through these years of pre and post menopause that we need to do more strength training build those muscles up and eat more protein and not be scared of it

Dr. Mindy
yeah i saw a really cool study showing that protein cycling eating 20 to 30 grams every have you seen this every two to three hours what is the best way to stimulate mtor so when you’re fasting i know you know this but you but for our audience use you stimulate a toffee g often but when you’re eating you can stimulate mtor and one of the ways to stimulate mtor efficiently to grow muscle is to have his protein like you’re commenting and dr gabrielle alliance comments but if you do it in every two hours you actually have a more efficient way of stimulating mtor and then i thought to myself what if you combine that with a day of weight training like what if you go in and out so what if you did like keto one day and maybe you did more of your nature hike like you were talking about and then the next day you do carnivore and you decide to get over like close to 140 grams of protein but you do it in this protein cycling and you do weight training and then maybe the next day you do it Head training with keto, again, do you think going in and out of those different states with those different exercises would would encourage your muscles to grow more efficiently and serve us better?

Debbie Potts
So that’s such a great point. I think people should put that in perspective of everything, right? I mean, we talk about harm. He says hormetic stressors are on and off, I talk all the time about the Goldilocks effect, not too much, not too little, that write them out. And I think almost everything we need to cycle on off because I just think I did Iron Man’s for years, it did 15 Iron Man’s in 12 years that I didn’t lose any weight from Iron Man, I didn’t really change. My body was so used to it. So it’s muscle confusion in the athletic world. To me, training clients is like mix it up. Like for someone for our Ben Greenfield program for a whole year, and every month I did it differently. Like, you know, do it, switch it up, don’t do this, people get stuck doing the same thing all the time. So I think that’s what their workouts with their food, I’m a big fan of, you know what you’re just saying going high protein than going low, going higher carbs on the weekends and go low, fast during the week. And then don’t worry about on the weekends. I think it’s all about sustainability and switching it up. You can do carnivore for a month, and then just add it back in. And so yeah, I think it’s boring too. You know, I

Unknown Speaker
think that was just

Dr. Mindy
fun. And, and once you find the groove with it, it’s freedom. Because somebody can come up to you and be like, the carnivore diet is amazing. And you can be like, Okay, let me try it, then somebody else can come up to you and be like, you should really go vegan. And then you could be like, Okay, well, let me try that. Okay, then somebody else comes to you says you should go keto, like all of these things have incredible benefit. And to women, where our hormones are flow ebbing and flowing. We get to use all of them. Yeah.

Debbie Potts
I know that’s a true thing. Your hormones are always changing every month. So why would you eat the same every month? Why would you exercise the same every month? You know? Why not? Try I love the saying of trying to thrive every day rather than survive the day just live for the weekend. And just you should feel your best every day. And my goal is to live my best life my second half of my life and be looking my best when I turned 50 not you know thinking Oh, I wish I was 40 I want to look like amazing when I’m 50 and look better than I did at 14 I think it’s people settle for the blaming age and they settle like oh, that’s my new normal. That’s how it is, you know, I’m not going to change and I’m getting older hormones are out of whack and they just don’t try mixing it up and doing different things.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. Do you think vegetarians are at a amino acid disadvantage?

Debbie Potts
So funny I didn’t eat red meat until 2019 I stopped in high school and barely made meat and I had I went to Quito con or before that was paleo effects and then I spoke on Jimmy Moore’s low carb cruise with Dr. Berry and and Maria Emmerich and all these are all just eating meat like I don’t eat and then I go to you know, Austin Texas for failla back as a keto con all the same people I was hanging out with and my body finally was like I haven’t eaten red meat since I was 12 or 13 years old. I’m going to eat it and I gradually try it and I don’t eat a lot of different meats I haven’t gotten there and I don’t eat organ meat that I know I should but I just can’t do it but I can eat steak and and I’ve introduced that my dad but point is I was so low if you look at all the benefits same Why should eat liver but I can’t get over that but everything I’m deficient in is what’s found a red meat so being vegetarian I think I was that way for years and I think I ate a lot of more processed food back then and I was trying to get protein from other sources but it’s just same and you know I do him he knows I I like Qian has aminos that are powder and that was my water now those before and after workout is great. And I bought some creatine powder to add in there and I had all this l carnitine. And all this stuff in that case I would just eat me.

Unknown Speaker
Yep, so yeah,

Debbie Potts
I’m still not eating the sweet breads and all the liver.

Dr. Mindy
Meaning either I’ve tried. I’ve interviewed Dr. Paul Saladino on my podcast couple of times I’ve talked to Ken and I you know I I so can appreciate what they’re saying about carnivores and all the organs and yet I can’t get myself to do it. The last go around I decided though I might be able to last time I talked to Paul actually two weeks ago and he was talking about heart and I thought okay, I might be able to eat heart so I looked it up on our local like, crowd cow website where we get our meat from and us wellness meats has a lot of i’m have heart and i’m like okay i have my 18 year old sons that is become quite a chef and i’m like would you would you eat heart like if i brought it home would you cook it and we all agreed we would eat it but we haven’t tried it yet so i’ll keep you posted

Debbie Potts
well there’s recipes i know my friend brad kearns was trying something and they were someone else who was it oh who’s the author of the immunity not many code but

Dr. Mindy
immunity fix

Debbie Potts
me fix yeah he was blogged about a month ago and he’s like if you just mix it up into your food and i go you don’t want to stay out because he was trying to get me to have to make some comment like i’ve just started eating red meat i’m not going to eat in the heart mushed up and something right oh god that’s a big leap it’s only been a couple years so yeah and that’s what i think carnivores great if you’re eating the origami and you don’t get bored of not eating other foods other things tastes good to you and that’s a good opportunity to cycle things in and out but i was actually a lot of my microbiome is low because i wasn’t eating origami i was trying to eat more protein the past year but i not eating the vegetables and i was deficient in so many different things that i get from the fiber from vegetables because i’m not eating the small intestines of the animal the fiber in the probiotics so yeah that’s why i think you always have to test to not guess and figure out what works for your body and what is your body doing what’s going on inside under the hood

Dr. Mindy
yeah a grade a grade and i haven’t again thank god people are making the supplements for the oregon meats because you know my adventurous spirit can only go so far there what what do you think for pre and post workout so we’ve in our clinic we’ve have a biohacking center here in silicon valley we’ve worked with a lot of spartan racers and we’ve worked on their nutrition trying to understand what’s best pre workout post workout and you know we used to believe carbs carb loading was the thing you did before a big race and now we got a lot of people proving keto is great before a big race do you tell us your thoughts on pre and post recovery for workouts

Debbie Potts
well i think it is depends on the workout you’re doing are you fat adapted already so you’re metabolically flexible i’m used to do more endurance events and i can just have coffee and some you know a little bit of heavy cream in there and name some collagen and be okay and then have some water with electrolytes and i’ve been doing the key on amino acids as i said don’t do that if i’m going a longer workout i would do i’ve been doing best but which is peter defty represents as best as i could part of be and has different things in it but somehow helps me get my fat burning oxidase datian levels higher post workout i would you know i like to wait until i’m hungry to eat but i would take some aminos afterwards i’d like to have bone broth and trying to do more real food so i really like bone broth for people get those amino acids glycine and or just you know i i make a drink is like athletic greens or shake in the summertime is doing that a lot more after longer workouts but i am always experimenting because i’m always curious if i do fasted workouts which i’ve done so long and if i go lift weights i just do it faster because they’ll go in the morning and then i’d have some amino acids or protein afterwards but i think that you have to experiment if you’re going a little higher intensity those people doing more of a crossfit or higher workout maybe they need a little something with some fat and carbs in it now it was listed as podcasts this gal i forget her name she’s in maui she’s like the world record 400 meter championship she’s set to 40 something and she’s talking about how she’ll have piece of steak before she does the track workout because of carnitine in it and it helped buffer lactic acid so i was like oh that makes sense but i don’t digest meat very well so typically i’d have problems that she can digest it fine and so i think again n equals one depends on the workout depends on the duration the intensity are you fat adapted are you metabolically flexible what heart rate are you going to be exercising up and you know can you perform better if you eat a little something i was felt like you know go back to thinking you’re superwoman your superhero if you can do this workout without eating we just think oh so great well what if you actually performed better what if you’re actually causing more stress in your body if you are doing too much of a fasted workout so that’s what i’m most curious like am i doing more harm or am i benefiting myself by not anything And I think we get too much coffee to some people. I know I did this in the past having way too much coffee in that bulletproof coffee where he added MCT oil and heavy cream put the blender butter, I would do that way too much.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And then it kills your it kills your appetite. So then you don’t feel like eating. So, today bass freeze point like awesome. It does help you fast longer. But is the goal always to fast longer? And I think that’s such an important question to ask because I and I agree i’m i’m curious about that too. I like to workout in a fasted state. It feels weird to eat and then go work out. But it’s that what you know, 51? Is that what my hormones want? I haven’t. I haven’t always answered that for myself. So what I think is women, we should ask these questions.

Debbie Potts
What type of workouts are you doing fasted that you feel like, you’re curious if you need something to eat?

Dr. Mindy
Well, I do all my workouts in the morning, primarily because I like to follow my cortisol pattern. So knowing that my cortisol is going to spike a couple hours after I get up. That’s when I go. It’s also more convenient for me. I’m not very disciplined if I work out at the end of the day, it’s just the way I am. So I do a combination of I love to run, but I’ve decided that I run for my mental health that I’ve like retrained myself, like if I need to find thinking about something or I need some dopamine or good old fashioned endorphin rush, I’ll go for a half hour run. I also I just introduced a carol bike. Do you know what a carol bike is like an E bike? If I can, it’s like an AI bike where it like does hit training. So it measures your how hard you’re cycling and it keeps adapting it. And but it’s it goes up and down. Yeah, I learned about it from Dave Asprey. And Ben actually talks about it too. I’ve heard him talk about it. So I’ll throw that in a couple of days a week, I’ll do some tr x, and then I’ll do some yoga. But Yoga is the longest thing I do. Like that’s the longest workout Sunday mornings, hour and a half everything else are short, little bursts. And part of it is because as I moved through menopause, I just noticed that I was getting injured more. And I had to adapt my workouts differently. And as I adapted differently, I noticed a different level of fitness. The other thing I’ve worked on, I’m curious if you do this is the whoop band. We’ve used the whoop band to like look at what our HRV is that day and say, Hey, I didn’t really recover that well last night. Maybe I should do a lighter workout. Have you have you thought Have you used that

Debbie Potts
technique at all. But when I first had my adrenal fatigue airboats when it’s not technically supposed to call it that, but I did sweepy Rhonda Collier, who’s up near you, she helped me I did a kind of a beta test program for them. And I did it every day for 30 days with their sweet beat life app. And I measured my heart rate variability, which, you know, I appreciate those devices, because it is more work to put a monitor when you’re just in bed, to put our chest drop, and, you know, measure HRV for five minutes. So I’m not consistent. I’d like to get you know, whoop or, or rain or something like that. But I am a big believer in that I’d have clients, if you have some type of devices to train, by your readiness score, and really know if your body’s rested and repaired. And I know even I have a Garmin watch and you know, it will tell me recovery on there as well from based on the workout. And if I was racing for an Iron Man or half marathon or whatever, I would be more, you know, looking at it a little bit more to make sure I’m not overtraining and putting myself into a hole. But I think it is important part to know, as you’re aging, we need definitely a big topic to go into his recovery repair, like a paradigm shift.

Dr. Mindy
You know, those of us that have been working out for so long it’s so so counter it’s it’s against the an intuition that we’ve had about working out for so long. I was blessed a couple months ago to be on a panel that Dr. Zack Bush, do you know who exactly wishes? Yes. Love the man. Yeah, so he brought about five of us on to talk about how to eat around your cycle was was sort of the general and his thing was really plant based because that’s a big part of what he loves. Anyways, on there was a fitness trainer for Tom Brady. And he when we got to this concept that women should eat differently before his sight, their cycle. I asked the trainer, I was like, do you train and he trains a lot of professional female athletes. And I said do you train women differently the week before their cycle? And he’s like, Oh, yeah, I absolutely. And I was like, Oh my god, how why did why do you have? Why aren’t we talking about this? I know that you know, Dr. Sims has and other people. But that is such a key piece and recovery fits into that, I think is that it’s it possible I can tell you with my whip band, I don’t recover as well, the week before my cycle. Whereas with with and so then if I honor that and do yoga and walk, I find that my HRV actually improves. But it’s so it’s just Bizarro because we do not work with our health in the cyclical ways. We Oh, tell me, is it keto? Is it Spartan training? Is it marathon running? Like what is it and we just do it over and over again.

Debbie Potts
I know. And it’s so hard because I find, I think I would be coaching a lot more athletes because they struggle with all this and they should be aware of performance, longevity. But most struggle with just unexplained weight gain, fatigue, digestion issues, but like we’re all the athletes there, they’re just so you know, they’re just not open to realizing that you could do better you can do less and get more results, you can train by what your cycle is, and figure out changing you and your exercise and mix it up two weeks a month and go by that way. Instead, people just have a training schedule. That’s, you know, build, build, build, cut back down, build, build, build, it has nothing to do with their cycle. And that’s what I love what Dr. Sims started to bring out what you’re doing. What my friend Erin Carson, she does strength training for professional athletes out of Boulder and she created EC fit and they have a program she’s working with Now Dr. Stacy sands creating a program for women strength training, love it. So it is it is lifting weights, you know, not being afraid of that and stop doing all the cardio equipment. That’s kind of a waste of time and spend more time doing that. I think yoga and pilates stability, mobility drills, and doing some strength training.

Dr. Mindy
Well, this was a huge delight I appreciate this is like, like I said, this is like a conversation I’ve been like so thirsty to have about fitness. And women, we in our resetter community, we’ve been watching women fast and do it wrong and end up with really challenges to their hormones. And we’ve been teaching women how to fast for their home hormones. And once I understood that, I was like, well, can’t we apply everything to it. And so I’ve been searching for a woman to talk about cycling your workouts to your cycle. And I think as women we need to stand up and shout these messages out there. Because we have a lot of and no offense to our male gurus. But we have a lot of male gurus out there in the the health influencer world that have great information. But until you live in a woman’s body, and you go through the hormonal cycles that we all go through, it’s hard to understand how drastically different many of these things have to be when as a woman and how you really women need to do no one more than more than men do,

Debbie Potts
don’t you think? For sure, yeah, that’s I think putting it all together and working on the like, I call it the holistic method but working on the whole person is so key. And really, you know, testing and not guessing and then working on your nutrition, your exercise, your movement, your sleep and your stress and gut health, digestion, hydration and my favorite is happiness, you know, are Yes. On on gratitude, playing and laughing being silly. I think that just makes everything else better. This is a parent is getting some sleep. So key part

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, you know, oxytocin is at the top of the hormonal hierarchy. So when you get lots of oxytocin, you balanced cortisol. And when you balanced cortisol, you balance insulin, and then when insulin is in check your sex hormones have a chance. So I love that. I love that. Okay, I’ve got five questions for you. These are my fun questions now that we’ve gotten past assignments and all that all the applicable stuff now, this is the fun part. And I I promise these will go quick. I know I’ve taken a lot of your time. So okay, you have a pretty amazing podcast, and how many episodes you’ve done like hundreds, right?

Debbie Potts
Well, we started actually realized 10 years ago, it was fit out fast. We talked about eating fat before everyone else did we metabolic efficiency, so it was changed to the low carb athlete over here. So there’s 400 and I think I just was watching the rest for the month but 400 something for 10 amazing.

Dr. Mindy
Okay, who was your most memorable person that you interviewed? Oh, and you can put it in last year if you can’t if you’ve been doing it for 10 years, but what

Debbie Potts
many good Once you know what’s I just interviewed? Dr. Ben bickman was pretty amazing. He was last year. But Dr. Zack Bush, I mean, there’s so many good ones. Just interviewing so great minds. Yeah, they’re just amazing. Listen to and Dr. Ken Berry, we just did it one last week. And he just makes things so simple. It is fun to talk to you. But he’s just, you know, just make it simple. Don’t which is Dr. Eric Westman is interviewed. I’m not answering your question. But Dr. Wiseman is really fun to because he and Amy Berger just wrote this new book and carb confusion. And he’s really fast, fun to talk to. And that’s why the low carb Cruise is so fun, because you get to hang out with all these people get to be friends. Oh, yeah. Just with each other for a whole week and you’re sitting around all day.

Dr. Mindy
Oh, I love it. I know I miss conferences. I’d like a style to go back to the best part about those kinds of conferences is like learning and then just sitting in with great minds and getting to know people. I don’t know, that’s okay. It’s hard to pick one. Who are you dying to have on your podcasts that you just love to have like a really great conversation with? Well, actually,

Debbie Potts
you I haven’t we haven’t. I really want to do I love the topic of hormones, and training and feeling based on your hormone cycle. I think just getting into that with you. It’d be awesome to talk about the program you’re working on with this. Kelsey house. And I just we did thing on fasting and for women. And I think that’s just such a huge topic fasting, what to eat low carb, high carb carnivore and just match that with exercise and put that all together and program is amazing. So it’s great to have you on.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, thank you. And we’ll talk I just putting the finishing touches on my fourth book, and it’s going to be a fasting book for women. I just put a book out on menopause. And what I did the five steps I did to manage my my menopause symptoms that I’m sort of still in the middle of every time I clean up my diet, I seem to prolong the end of menopause. But we’ve created something called the fast teen circle, which is really cool where women can look at Okay, I’m day 10. I should probably do this kind of fast. I should eat this way. And my team and I have we spent so much time analyzing this over the last couple months. And it’s pretty neat. We’re pretty excited to reveal it. So we can chat about that on your on your podcast

Unknown Speaker
to what

Dr. Mindy
what mentor Do you think do you feel like had the greatest impact on your own personal health?

Debbie Potts
Ah, on my health? Well, it would be probably time Durkin is my fitness mentor who leads our fitness mastermind but he’s just always about purpose, passion, inspire and just define what moves your soul and what led me to going down this path when I had my issue of the party bus was at that retreat, and I just lives not too far from me now. And I said, you know, this all started at that retreat and talking about, you know, following what you’re defining what your purpose is, what your legacy is. And it’s nothing to do with my health, but just realizing this is this story, share your story. This is how you impact others because they can relate to you. And that’s kind of led me drawn down to be a practitioner, because my people that are like me that go oh my gosh, that’s happened to me, no one can help me, I’ve been struggling, I can’t get results. You know, I just I don’t, I know what it’s like to be on that side and struggling for 810 years trying to figure out what the heck is going on. I just want to get my body back and feel like my vibrant self and not struggle. And I just feel like so many people are wasting years trying to get help. So Todd is the one that kind of just always instilled in me for years being in our mastermind group for 10 years that, you know, follow your define your purpose and follow your passion and your mission. And you know, what your gravestone is going to be? Who’s gonna be your summit? You know, what’s gonna be your gravestone and what’s going to be written up your obituary?

Dr. Mindy
Okay, last question. If you had one message to the world that you could get into everybody’s brain, what would that message be?

Debbie Potts
Think this past year what I’ve been trying to get that get the message out is to take ownership of your own health, take care, love yourself enough to make those choices health is a choice. And everything we do is up to us. There isn’t a magic pill or magic shot that’s going to make you healthy from inside out and thrive every day. It’s the choices we make and most of them are free and it’s our choice if we want to take that direction and really be the best version of yourself.

Dr. Mindy
I could not agree anymore. Well, this was super delightful. So Debbie, thank you so much for taking your time on a windy day and your new environment. And I This was Yeah, you answered so many questions for me and of course left my brain thinking about even more. And just thank you for the great work you’re doing in the world. How do people find you if they if they want to work with you or find your information? What’s the best place to locate you?

Debbie Potts
My website is Debbie Potts. dotnet and on Instagram, the low carb athlete and Facebook the low carb athlete and the podcast.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, you’re gonna fall. Well, thank you and I hope you don’t get blown away.

Debbie Potts
upstairs to work in my glass house and the hilltop to work out but I don’t know if I can even get up there right now blow away.

Dr. Mindy
It’s great, though. A little cold weather variation. We need to have it in California because there’s too many sunny days. We have to find something to break it up a little bit.

Unknown Speaker
Here off to deal with it.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, thank you so much. hate you.