576: Muscle, metabolism, & mindset for women | Jamie Seeman, M.D.
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Welcome to the My Buddy Green podcast. I'm Jason Wachub, founder and co-CEO of My Buddy Green and your host.

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I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto-friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger. So I can get in more squats anywhere I can. One, two, three. Will that be cash or credit? Credit. Galaxy S25 Ultra, the AI companion that does the heavy lifting so you can do you. Get yours at Samsung.com. Compatible with select apps requires Google Gemini account results may vary based on input check responses for accuracy.

We were built to do hard things. This is the powerful message from today's guest, Dr. Jamie Seaman, who is back on the show and is redefining what it means to be strong, powerful, and feminine. I'm also excited to announce that Jamie is on our newly formed board of scientific advisors here at MindBodyGreen alongside Dr. Vonda Wright, who we recently had on the show as well.

Dr. Seaman is a board-certified OBGYN, integrative medicine fellow, and one of the first board-certified ketogenic nutrition specialists in America. She's a former collegiate athlete, a mom to three young girls, and the team doctor for the Omaha Supernovas pro volleyball team.

In today's show, Dr. Seaman shares her actionable insights on everything from improving body composition to prioritizing sleep and recovery, even with a demanding schedule, and she has a demanding schedule indeed. We'll talk about why strength training is key for women, how to make sustainable dietary changes, and the science-backed benefits of creatine, taurine, and red light therapy. This conversation is full of insights to inspire, educate, and empower you on your health journey. Let's get started. ♪

So you're a mom to three girls under the age of 13. They're active. They play sports for any parent who is in that same boat. That means a lot of driving. You're a wife. You're an OB. So you're out there delivering babies whenever they come, whether it's 3 a.m. or 3 p.m., you're there. You've got a podcast. You've got a longevity center. You've got a business. And you're a team doctor to a pro volleyball team. The list goes on. We could keep on going. So with all that said...

How do you do it all? Specifically, how do you prioritize sleep? Your circadian rhythm must be all over the place, let alone find time for exercise. Yeah. Well, I will say that I know myself well enough that I like to be busy. I thrive when deadlines are short and I'm under stress and under pressure. And my schedule is definitely not for everybody. But I think that

the reason that I'm able to do what I do because people ask me all the time how, you know, I have the same 24 hours in a day is that my health and wellness is the most important asset that I own. And if I don't eat well, sleep well, get my exercise in, do all these things, I can't be a good mom. I can't be a good wife. I can't be a good doctor, a coach, all these hats that I wear.

And so really, like in reality, I wake up just before 5 a.m. every day and my workout is the first thing that happens.

And it kind of sets the tone for the day, right? I've already been in the gym. I've pushed myself to limits that are difficult. The rest of the day seems kind of easy physically, right? After you've gone and deadlifted or done whatever you're supposed to do. The only way that would get disrupted is if a baby decides to come during that hour. And that does happen occasionally. But

Um, the sleep and circadian rhythm thing though, is not my, um, strongest skill because of my profession. But I'll say that what you have to do is, uh, you know, I'm, I could leave my career. I could say, well, this isn't good for my health. I'm just like not going to be an obstetrician. Um, so there is a, there is a, a layer of sacrifice that comes with, with my career. Um, but if I am up all like just this week, I had a night where I was at the hospital till

4 a.m. I was there all night. I came home. It was actually my scheduled off day from the gym, which just worked out beautifully. But I slept for three and a half hours.

And then I set my schedule for the day so that I could go to bed earlier, that I could start to make up some of that sleep deficit. And I think that when you eat well and you do some of these things, you create a level of resiliency for yourself where one night isn't going to throw off the whole week. But when people do these things repeatedly, they're eating a poor diet, they're not getting sleep, it's just like it's a constant.

It's a compounding effect on their health and their resiliency from stress because stress isn't a bad thing. Most people would look at my life and say, that's very stressful. And it is some days, but we were built to like do hard things. And I think if you can get some of those foundational principles just built in as non-negotiables in your life, you can accomplish a lot more than you think. I love the mindset. So yeah,

Do you have any go-tos or hacks when you know it's going to be a really late night or a really early start at 3 a.m. to kind of set yourself up for limiting the damage, so to speak? Yeah, well, I tend to have to do damage control on the backside because I just don't know, right? Like, I'm not...

planning to deliver a baby at 2 a.m. They just... That's nature calls, right? So I tend to do a lot of mitigation on the backside. But there are things I do. So for instance, I know that when I...

deliver babies in the middle of the night, my hunger levels, and we know this physiologically that it really disrupts leptin and ghrelin and some of these hunger and satiety cues, I tend to be really hungry the next day. So I'm more likely to make, you know, bad, quick decisions if I don't have, you know, a plan. So typically what I'll do is if I'm up all night, I'll try to get some protein right away before I head to clinic or whatever the first thing is of the day. And

And that really can help with the satiety factor that I'm not likely to just in an emotional way say, wow, I was up all night. I deserve to eat this or whatever. And I know it's not going to make me feel good. I've just been doing this long enough. And then I try to eat a real early dinner, like I said, and go to bed early. I try to make up for some of that sleep deficit.

Another thing I do is sometimes I'll wear blue light blocking glasses. Now the hospital does a pretty decent job. I can't operate in them, but I'll wear them in the hospital. But the hospital does a pretty decent job of turning down blue light at night. So the hallways like are not illuminated like they are during the day. It's like a night mode of some kind. Now the operating room, I need light to operate if I'm in there. So that's the only place that I really can't protect it. It's like, you know,

big, huge blue lights. But I do try to keep the lights down. Like even in my house, I don't, if I'm leaving the house, obviously my husband, for my husband's sake too, I don't like flip on all the lights, but I try to keep the lights low. I actually don't turn on music in my car. I keep it just like more silent when I'm driving and it's a pretty short drive.

I mean, these are just like little things you can do besides leaving your career. But I think that on the days when, I mean, it doesn't happen every night. And on the days when it doesn't, then you just, you nail it. You nail the nutrition, you get the exercise in, you know, the saunas, the ice baths, all the little, you know, things that I do to keep myself going. It's not going to look perfect every day. And sometimes you have to just learn how to adjust on

on the fly. So I want to touch on sauna and ice baths, but before we go there, I want to dial in on nutrition. On those very long days, do you try to stop eating like three to four hours before you go to bed whenever that time is? Like, how do you think about meal timing if you're like, okay, I'm going to be up for 20 hours?

or 16 hours, like, do you kind of try to space out the meals accordingly? Yeah. In my normal schedule, I would eat dinner, you know, maybe

maybe around 6 p.m., and then I don't eat. And then I go to bed somewhere between 9 and 10 p.m. So yeah, three to four hours before bedtime, not eating any food. On a night where I know I'm going to need to go to bed earlier, sometimes I'll try to move that larger, more substantial meal to the lunch hour if I have that capability. Or my husband is so fantastic, he'll let me take a 20-minute nap. We'll try to eat dinner even earlier, you know, maybe 4.35. It just depends how fast I can get home from clinic.

But I still try to maintain, you know, that distance of time. You know, I don't eat a large meal and then just lay down or eat something convenient like pizza and then just go to bed. Right. Because excuses, one of my great mentors is a Navy SEAL. And he says excuses are subtle, seductive, and believable.

And it just like, it like resonates, right? Like so loudly in your head when you're like, okay, yes, very subtle, very seductive and very believable. Because when you're busy, I mean, you can, you can come up with, with a reason to not do what you're supposed to do every time. Of course, that's a good one. I'm going to, I'm going to have to make a note of that one and start educating my children on that at a young age.

So on exercise, when you wake up, you're exercising at 5 a.m., are you putting in 30 minutes or an hour? Walk us through what does a week look like, how you structure exercise in terms of resistance, cardio, all the above.

So my exercise routine does vary based on like what my current goals are. So I've been doing some bodybuilding competitions and I actually am going to be doing one in 2025 here. And so right now I'm in a growth phase. I'm in a phase where I'm eating in an excess of calories than I normally do and really trying to build as much muscle. So I need as much strength training built into my schedule as I can. So my current schedule, I do four days of weightlifting.

I do arms on upper body on Mondays. I do lower body on Tuesdays. So think like on Mondays, we're doing bench press and shoulder press and back and biceps and triceps. On Tuesdays, I'm doing squats and lunges and deadlifts.

and step downs and all big, large muscle groups and some accessories. Wednesdays, I don't lift on Wednesdays. So take a full recovery day from lifting, but this might be a day where I do more active recovery. I'm not doing a lot of cardio right now, but I might do stair mill or I might go in my neighborhood and do sprinting. Or maybe I just decide that my body just needs sauna or ice bath or something like that.

That morning on Thursdays, I do kind of a high intensity explosive type workout. My coaches at the gym call it like push pull or we're using machines that like professional and college athletes use to really train those fast twitch muscle fibers, which is something we really lose as we age. We maintain a lot of our slow twitch, which is why we can walk, right? Grandma and grandpa can walk a distance, but...

They're not doing sprinting. They're not doing jumping. They're not doing those quick movements. And as we lose those fast-twitch muscle fibers, that's when we're more likely to trip and fall, those types of things. So I'm trying to maintain that.

And then on Fridays, it will vary. Sometimes it's like a HIIT-type circuit. Sometimes it's a HIIT-type workout that involves weights. But it's a little bit more, you know, push on the cardio and the VO2 max. And then weekends, I may get some supplemental workouts in here and there. It really is all built around my children's schedule. But it's an hour-long workout. It doesn't always take an hour. 45 to 60 minutes. And it's...

It's effective. It's on a timer. So I use a clock. We do the clock because you're not likely to get distracted or start chatting with people or pick up your phone. And that also gives you, there is benefit to even just weightlifting on a clock and on a timer and taking a very limited amount of rest time. You're actually going to get some VO2 max benefit. But before I go to the gym, I hit my creatine and electrolytes. I do work out fasted. You're going to find

People who maybe debate that you should eat some protein or women should eat 10 or 20 carbs. But I've done it this way for years. And I've actually tried it both ways. And I don't have a perceived...

increase in strength or stamina when I do that. And so at 5 a.m., I have limited time, so I'm not cooking myself a meal, but I eat when I get home from the gym. So when I get home from the gym, I'm breaking that fast. The body is ready for nutrition. I'm getting in some protein. I'm getting in some healthy fats, maybe a small amount of carbohydrates. Just depends on my nutrition goals and where I'm at with body composition. But that's it. Four days a week, show up on those days. The hardest thing usually is just

turning off the alarm, putting the clothes on and getting out the door. I mean, once you're there, right, you're there. And that's a workout. Is it safe to say that anyone would benefit from whether they're looking to add a lot of muscle for bodybuilding? It doesn't seem that seems to work out that no matter what your goals are, if you're just looking to maintain or build lean muscle mass, you're going to benefit. I mean, I've just literally not met many people that don't want to improve their body composition. So if you want to improve your body composition, you should be focusing on building muscle and

and less on losing fat because that's what most women are really just hyper-focused on is like there's this 10 pounds that they constantly want to lose. And what most women will do is they'll cut calories, they'll skip meals. It tends to come at a loss of protein in the diet.

And then they're doing a bunch of cardio. So it's a very easy way to lose muscle by doing that. And so what happens is they might notice a 10 pound shift on the scale, but probably 50% of that is lean tissue. And they've, you know, kind of further hurt their metabolism. And so they're going to be chasing after that 10 pounds for the rest of their life.

Whereas if we can really shift our focus as women to saying, okay, I'm going to dedicate the next six months of my life to seeing how strong I can get. Because getting strong involves eating protein, eating amino acids, getting the right nutrients in your diet and doing consistent resistance training with progressive overload, the body composition improves.

always improves. And especially in an untrained person who's never done that before, they're going to see massive changes. If you spent six months just dedicating yourself to getting strong in somebody who's trained and has been training for a long time, it gets harder and harder and harder. I mean, you know, you're working for every pound of lean tissue to put on, but you can still you can still lose fat, you can improve your body composition. I mean,

Look at a bodybuilder. It's like there's a science to it. It works every single time if you just titrate energy and exercise. And in terms of eating more protein, that's one thing. Do you think most women have gotten the memo in 24 and now in 25 that, okay,

maybe my goal to lose weight was misguided. I really need to do a body recomp. I need to eat more. I need to have protein. I have to take creatine. I got to get in the gym. I don't need to lose weight. I need to lose fat. And I actually may gain weight, but have less body fat. And so sometimes people hear weight loss

gram per pound of body weight, that's a lot of protein. And I agree it's a lot, but you know, maybe it isn't. What are your thoughts on what works for you? How do you get all your protein throughout the day? So as a kid growing up, I wasn't a huge meat eater. I was

I was basically... Yes, I know. I ate meat. It wasn't that I didn't eat meat. But as a kid, I just like... We didn't have a lot of family meals. We ate out a lot. And so I really was like...

I was a processed food kid and I was, I loved carbs. I loved processed foods. Like what kid doesn't? Like who did it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, but it was like, it was the eighties where it was convenience. And so these food manufacturers, right, what are they doing? They're selling my mom hamburger helper and rice-a-roni and, and all of these things. And then, you know, does mom have the hamburger and the chicken on hand or I'm just making it when I get home? I ate a ton of pasta growing up. One thing I'll just add, and please keep going, that

Processed food. I'm 50, so I remember the 80s and processed food at McDonald's. It wasn't as bad as it is today. It wasn't good, but it was bad. It wasn't good. Bray butter, margarine, canola oil, snack wells.

I mean, that was my childhood. I mean, my mom didn't know any better. And so anyways, yeah. So when I became an adult, you're like on a low budget when you're first married and you have giant med school loans, right? I ate a lot more chicken and white meat and things like that. But these days, we buy a cow every

every year. We actually get a half cow twice a year, so a whole cow our family eats, but it's in the freezer. So we have tons of beef around. And what my husband and I do is I tell the butcher, because we can have the cow processed however we want, that I want a lot of ground beef, just like ground beef and steaks. I think the roasts were hard for me, just defrosting them, the amount of time it took to cook them. So we turn a lot of the roasts into ground beef. And on Sundays, my husband and I may cook up

anywhere from four, six, eight pounds of ground beef. And I tend to just like have that in the fridge because it's so easy to just, you know, take a bowl of ground beef and throw some peppers on it or olives or salsa, or the kids will use a low carb tortilla and make a taco or it's just so versatile. How do you get a cow? Everyone's, if they're listening, they're like, okay, that sounds great. How do I, how do I, how do I go about getting a cow? I don't see that at Costco these days. Yeah.

Yeah. So I live in Nebraska, so there's tons of ranchers around here, but I wanted to know where my cow was coming from. So we get a cow from a gal named Michaela. It's D&D beef. It's a family. Her dad, she's like a third generation rancher. I've been to the farm. I've seen the land. I see the grass that the cows eat. I know how she takes care of her cows.

I know where it goes to the butcher. I know the butcher. And so I think the closer you can get to your food from start to finish, you have an appreciation, first of all, for the food. And you have a little bit more reassurance in your

what's been done to your food along the way. And when it comes to meat, I mean, that's a big deal for me. I do sometimes supplement with steaks or Costco or whatever along the way, but we buy a cow a year. And to give you a little bit of perspective of how much

beef our family eats. When my girls were little and Ben and I weren't as healthy in our diets, we ate like a quarter beef a year. Then we went to a half beef and then the girls got older and we're eating larger portions. And so now our family eats a whole cow a year. But it's just having that on hand makes it so much easier. And it actually is cheaper per pound to get your beef that way. You just have to have a deep freeze that's big enough to store it. And

and the cows are different sizes every year. So how much beef we get is dependent on, you know, how much grass the cow ate and how much sun it got and how big it got. But we do eat, we eat a ton of eggs. So we eat foods that are protein dense. And when you do that, it's easier to get 30 to 50 grams of protein in a meal. I'll do, I do supplement occasionally, but I don't eat bars. I'll use whey protein to fill the gaps.

But you really should be trying to get the vast majority of your protein as a whole food because that whole food matrix contains more than protein. It contains collagen. It contains other nutrients, that connective tissue. All of those things are very important. And so you don't want to be just trying to nail your protein goals by, you know, drinking

whey protein shakes all day. It's very rapidly digested, so it doesn't give the satiety that eating four to six ounces of steak or beef would give you. But even if you tried to eat half of what we recommend, you'd be doing pretty darn good because most women, what they do is they eat these very tiny amounts of protein throughout the day. You know, they might get

10 or 15 grams with breakfast and then they're eating a protein bar that's got 12 grams and then they're getting another 10 or 15 grams at lunch and you know throughout the day they might get you know 60 grams of protein but for

For our muscles, for stimulating muscle protein synthesis, you need a large bolus of protein. You need that large, you know, 30 grams of protein all at once, not just like little bits throughout the day. No, you need that leucine. You got to get that two and a half grams of leucine, which for those who are vegetarian or vegan, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's pretty darn hard because the amount of beans you have to consume, it's a lot versus...

You know, you're talking like two cans of sardines, a can of Tudor, like four ounces of ground beef. You know, I hear you on the on the way. So like, I love our whey protein, but I have it once a day, maybe twice. Like, I think you run into dangerous territory where north of 50% of your calories are coming from protein.

supplement whey. Whey is great, but once you can't just have whey protein like four times a day, you can't get to 200 grams or 150 grams with more than half of it coming from real food. Well, and you have to remember, I mean, the cleanest, most amazing protein powder is still great. It's still a processed food. Okay, it's not Doritos, but it's still a processed food. So the more you can eat that

that food in the way that it came in nature, the better off you're going to be doing. So my litmus test is always, did it have a mom or did it grow in the ground? And if it didn't, like, try not to make those things really like routine staples in your day. And so also, can we talk about creatine? Yeah, I'm a huge fan. You know, back when I was younger, when I played college softball at Nebraska, the football players were taking creatine and

And the men were taking creatine. They weren't recommending it to us on the softball team. And so my experience with creatine as an athlete growing up was that it was like for men and it was to get really big and jacked. And so when I left being a college athlete,

I had, it could be its own podcast, and I alluded to this in my TED Talk, a little bit of a body image issue with having muscles. And I was like, I'm going to go to med school and I'm going to get rid of my muscles and just be a smart doctor.

And, um, but I started adding creatine back into my life, um, several years ago when I started to not only look at the data on lean tissue retention, so strength and, and building of lean mass, but also for brain health. And as perimenopause and menopause have become a thing, I'm seeing more and more women taking creatine, which I think is fantastic. Women need creatine just like men do. And, um,

The amount of creatine in the studies that is necessary for benefit, you can't really eat that much meat. You cannot get that amount. So this is one area where supplementation is a good strategy. You just need plain creatine monohydrate. I've been taking creatine. I actually used to take it with a taurine tab. And now MindBodyGreen has it together. Wow, we've created that. I didn't know that. But you took it.

Yeah. I don't think you knew this story, but I literally in my little supplement bucket had these Taurine tablets. And so I was like putting the powder in, taking the... So it's like that's my habit stacking, right? If I just put it all in this cute little carousel in my...

And that's where I stand, do all my little supplements and then run out the door to the gym. But now it's all in one, which is fantastic. So we created this for you. I did not realize that. But you didn't know. Yeah. So let's talk about taurine. I think everyone knows why the magical combination of creatine and taurine. I was just dabbling in lots of different research in general.

just, we know about taurine for like heart health and lots of different, it's an amino acid. I mean, so you get these things in your diet, but the combination of certain things can be powerful. And most of it for me is just like an end of one experiment. Like, okay, I'm going to try this for like 30, 60 days, kind of see what results I'm getting, see how I feel. And I had done it long enough. I was like, okay, I'm feeling good with this. I like this combination. But

Things can, you know, work well and then they work even better together. So one of the reasons that creatine helps you build lean mass is it helps with energy production of the cell. So production of ATP or cellular energy, which means that you can get a bigger, better workout when you're using creatine.

And then what it also does is it pulls water into the cells, so it helps with cellular swelling. And part of that inflammation response within the muscle helps with growth and hypertrophy of the muscle, which is why sometimes people can perceive some weight gain when they start creatine because of the water retention that it can cause.

but it's not making you fat, I promise. It's just creatine. And there's a saturation point with creatine. So you only need three to five grams a day. More isn't better. Once you reach that saturation point, you're just wasting supplement. But I like the combination of creatine and taurine together. And you don't need anything else fancy in there. It can be very basic. That's all you need. And it's a tasteless white powder, which I think is great because it

has given me the ability to mix it with electrolytes. And now you guys just keep one-upping me with my habit stacking and making my life easier. But

That's my, that is my basic thing out the door in the morning is my electrolytes, my creatine and taurine. This episode is sponsored by Waterloo sparkling water. Research shows sparkling water is just as hydrating as regular water and no sparkling water tastes better than Waterloo. Waterloo crafts every flavor in-house with non-GMO verified natural flavors for refreshing, authentic, full flavor sparkling waters. Take Cherry Limeade.

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That's not the only way Waterloo hits it out of the park. The brand adds just the right amount of carbonation to purified water to keep every sip refreshingly crisp. It's a full flavor experience from Waterloo Sparkling Water, one of my favorites. And you can find out more at drinkwaterloo.com. Again, that's drinkwaterloo.com. So have you tried the new creatine and electrolytes yet? I just got it. I just got it. I'll get back to you on which flavor I like more, but...

Yes, I love the idea of habit stacking and putting things together. It's just, it really streamlines it. And so I agree. I try to habit stack everything, especially with kids. I just can't. You just forget. You just forget me. I would like to know all of your secrets for your children's habit stacking because mine, mine haven't gotten on the train yet. Yeah.

Mike, you have one, you're an OB. So like you're, I'm not going to pretend and you're a mom and being an OB and a mom is a lot more demanding than just being a dad and an entrepreneur. And you have three kids. We just have two and your oldest is 13, right? Yep. 13, 11 and nine, all girls. We're seven and five and two girls. So like,

We're just start like they're both active. They play sports, but like we're not yet on the like we're driving everywhere at all these tournaments train, which I'm sure you are on. It's coming. It's coming for you. Yes. My God bless my mother and my husband. I mean, I do a lot of driving, but they are certified Uber drivers at this point. Yes. So something else you mentioned earlier, I want to come back on ice bath sauna. Let's talk about your routine.

why you like both modalities and who could benefit. So I built out this space in my house for an ice bath and a sauna. And it has really turned into almost this space

like, Zen spiritual ritual kind of place. I love this room so much. I wish I would have built it when we built our house. But it's a place for me to kind of unplug from the world. So it's like, you know, my own little spa in a sense. The equipment is not cheap. So what I used to do is there used to be a sauna at the gym I went to. So I used to use the sauna at the gym, but we left the big box place and went to a smaller place, lost my access to the sauna.

And then I used to ice bath on my porch in a, like a horse trough. And in the winter it worked because I could go out, I could leave it filled with water and I could go out and break the ice and get in there. Um, but it was cold and there was like no way to regulate the temperature. And this water was like probably colder than you should be cold punching in. Yeah.

And my children got in there, so you should probably call CPS. But I now have this amazing space where I can sauna and ice bath at my leisure. So the important thing to know about sauna and ice bath is that sauna, the timing of sauna around workouts, it's great to sauna after a workout. You don't want to cold plunge after a resistance training session because it can blunt the

muscle protein synthesis. So you want that swelling in the muscle. You want that actually inflammation response. And so you don't want to get into an ice bath for several hours after resistance training session. So how I've kind of built my life is if I have time in the morning, I don't have to be in the operating room or whatnot. I'll come home and get in the sauna after my lifting sessions. I will occasionally sauna maybe on an evening or something like that.

or on a Wednesday morning or on a weekend when my days aren't a scheduled lifting day. And I generally turn it up the hottest it goes, which is about 160 degrees. I actually am putting in a steam sauna that will get hotter than that. And the difference between a dry sauna and a steam sauna is because of the steam effect, it doesn't allow you to sweat and perspire so you can increase your core body temperature a little bit higher.

Now, more is not always better. Keep that in mind. You still get great benefits doing a sauna at like 150 to 160 degrees. I'll stay in there for 30 to 45 minutes.

The protocols, you know, where is the magic? Like how long do you really need to be in there? I think once you're like dripping with sweat and you feel kind of hot, I almost get this like physiologic panic. And I'm a little bit claustrophobic. So that's part of it too, is once I get hot and sweaty and I'm in this small box, I like have to get out. My husband can like see it in my face when I'm in the sauna. But I think that's kind of the point where you're like, okay, now I'm getting heat shock proteins. I'm getting this cortisol response. I'm getting...

adrenaline, and it is basically a hormetic stress. So you are on purpose stressing out the body so that it upregulates your immune system. It's giving you cardiovascular benefit. It's dilating your blood vessels because it's trying to dissipate this heat.

you're getting better at being hot. I think one thing as humans in an industrialized world that we've, we, we used to live in environments like in extreme environments, we used to be able to live and hold in hot places. And now we have houses that have air conditioning units and heaters, and we have nice fluffy coats that we wear. We were so attuned to a world of comfort that

that I think that there's a lot to be gained with sauna and ice baths just getting uncomfortable. And it does, it creates a resiliency in the body when you put yourself in those situations. And then the ice bath, I actually tend to do that in the evenings because my lifting sessions are in the morning. So if it's a morning I'm not lifting, I might do an ice bath session. And I will tell you, when I do that in the morning, like get out of bed, run down there in the ice bath, it is like...

The most incredible five-hour energy drink you have ever had?

ever. I am jazzed. You think you need a cup of coffee? It feels like drinking 10 cups of coffee. I am so awake, so alert. Energy is on fire. Now, it doesn't last all day long, but man, I am just ready to go. So if you feel like you have something you want to be woke up for, get in the ice bath. And you can do it in a cold shower. You still get some of that effect, but my ice bath, I can regulate the temperature down to the degree. And most people go too cold

So I want to say my ice bath right now is like around 45 to 50 degrees, maybe. I've started to like tinker with that, you know, like when you first start, you should have it be a little bit warmer. And then as you acclimate, you can start, you know, titrating that temperature down. I only do...

I started at like two to three minutes. I've worked myself up to like now I do five to six minute sessions and I only do that about three times per week. So more isn't better. So yeah. You started diminishing returns. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to overstress the system. You want to like apply the stress and then recover. What about something I've seen you talk about on social red light? How do you integrate red light therapy?

into your routine? So red light is photo biomodulation. So we actually can get red light from the sun. So right when the sun is coming up at sunrise and right when the sun is going down at sunrise, when it gets to that kind of sunset sunrise angle,

It actually blocks a lot of the UV rays because of the angle it is with the atmosphere, you know, and the earth. I'm not, I'm a gynecologist. Okay, this is my description. And so there's a lot more red, near red and infrared that comes through. So that's why watching the sunrise and the sunset is really important. You can get a lot of natural red light therapy from doing that.

And it's important that your eyes, in the back of your eye, the retina picks up these light rays, sends signals to your brain, and it actually talks to your master clock, your circadian rhythm clock, which sets the cascade of hormone production, menstrual cycles, hunger, metabolism, all of these things. So I think people don't realize how much light is actually like a nutrient for our bodies.

Now, these days you can get red light panels and red lights in saunas and there's like red light everywhere. From the reading that I've done, I was like, okay, this is interesting with red light. So in 2018, I think is when I started doing some red light sessions in my house. I got a panel, it's in my closet because I could be naked in there. The reason I actually bought the panel initially was because after my kids were born, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and I found, I came across some study for thyroid health that red light helped

thyroid. And then of course, you know, just as a woman, the anti-aging benefits to skin and collagen production. So I got this panel so that I could red light my face and my thyroid. And then around the same time, Ben Greenfield puts out this article about testosterone in men. So here my husband is, I hope he listens to this podcast, but he's in there using my red light, putting his testicles in front of this red light.

And so I said, well, if you're going to do this, if Ben Greenfield is going to proclaim that red light increases testosterone, then let's do an experiment. Why don't you come get your blood drawn? And so we checked his levels. And I think like in a 30 day, I think it was a 30 day span. It's been a while now. He increases testosterone like 200 points by putting testosterone.

Wow. Yeah. Now that is a completely N of one experiment. I'm not going to tell people that that is like, so what was, what was his testosterone boosting red light protocol? How many minutes per day was he doing? There was a timer on our, I think it's 20. I think he was doing 20 minutes and like a couple mornings a week, maybe like four. Cause I think he was doing it before he showered essentially. So maybe like 20 minutes, four to five times a week.

And basically, the scrotal skin is thin enough that the red light waves penetrate the skin. And basically, the mitochondria and the testicles basically increases cellular energy. And so they're making more energy and they're making more testosterone. Well, it's also just on that. Sorry to interrupt. So many people have also done a similar end of one with ice baths and testosterone. Yeah.

There's something there with cellular. I look at red light. I look at testosterone. I don't know what the conclusion is. What's your take? Yeah, there's definitely... Well, there's definitely a growth hormone increase. And same with sauna, too. But with the ice baths, I think we need to study it. I think we need to... Enough people have ice baths now. I think we need... And there's some small studies. Now...

why would we need to increase our testosterone? I mean, low testosterone, low T is an issue for men and for women. But people's testosterone is low typically because they have extra body fat. They have unhealthy muscle tissue. They drink alcohol. They eat a lot of processed foods. They don't get sunlight, which sets that circadian rhythm, and they're not getting enough sleep. So the question is like,

is your testosterone normal? Like, do you need it to be higher? You know, but it is interesting to, to see, you know, um, some of these, I'll call them more anecdotal, you know, evidence, but that's where science starts, right? People think that they have an hypothesis about something and then they see another effect. And then we, you know, then we study it and we get good evidence that that's, that that's a good thing. But, um,

Yeah. So anyway, he was red lighting his testicles, but I've been using red light since 2018 and I didn't use it on my scalp until in 2021. I got COVID and then salmonella poisoning, which nearly killed me, had a fever of 105.6 and then got COVID a second time and my hair started falling out. So then I started using red light on my scalp.

But I think there's lots of different applications to red light. It's a tool in the toolbox. Nothing, you know, alone is magical. I think where red light really excels is, um,

It's definitely like anti-inflammatory. So a lot of like professional athletes are using red light on the joints for recovery, repair of injuries. It will heal a wound. So if you are listening right now and you've had like you have a surgery coming up and you especially for women, right? If you have to like a abdominal surgery with like an incision, if you red light a surgical incision, it heals faster. It will help wounds heal. So, you know, if grandma or grandpa has like a non-healing wound or something like that, you can try some red light therapy on it. The thing is, it's very safe.

It's not a tanning bed. So it's not UV light. It's not going to burn you. A ton of people ask me about if you're supposed to wear eye protection.

The eyes do benefit from red light, but at the power and intensity that some of these panels are, it depends if you're using near red or infrared light. You're always safe to wear them. You don't want to look into the light. So like when I do my red light sessions, I'm typically like, you know, my face is turned so I don't look at the light. But your eyes do benefit from some red light, like watching the sunset and the sunrise. Which one do you use? Which brand? I'm curious.

Uh, so I've owned, I've owned three different brands when I first, um, my first one was a juve and this was like one of the original juve lights. And then of course, like they come out with the next one. And so then when like the newer fancier ones were coming out, then I was kind of like, okay, now I'm looking. And then I owned, um, a red light rising box, um,

I feel like we bought a light bulb one time and I can't remember the brand on that one. And then I currently have some cozy lights, K-O-Z-E. But there's been so many more companies that have come, which is cool because I think as there's more competition in the space, people, the lights get better and the technology gets better and the features get better. Our neighbor has like four panels on like a movable thing, like a full body red light, which is like so cool. But you have to have the space and the things aren't cheap.

There's some places in our town that have red light beds too, which is awesome. You can get just like a membership and go do your red light that way. So let's pause on that. You live in Nebraska. That's awesome. And I think my take is... Go Big Red. Yeah, well, I'm like, we could talk about Nebraska volleyball for quite a while, but...

You know, I think, look, the knock on health and wellness is it's a coastal thing. It's expensive. I don't have the time. But in terms of it's a coastal thing, I don't think that's true anymore. I think it's crossed over in like the last year or two. Anecdotally, I've heard people in the middle of the country who you wouldn't peg for being at all interested in what we do, talking about seed oils and glucose and, you

So what's your take? You actually live in, you live in Nebraska. You tell me what's going on. We don't, we don't drive covered wagons. But, well, I think honestly, my, I think podcasts like this, I think social media, I think the dissemination of information.

has grown these ideas in different places and different spaces. But certainly I will say, I mean, what I do as an OB-GYN in Nebraska is not the norm, you know, in my community. Like most...

doctors don't think the way I do about a lot of things, but I think people are getting interested. I think the patients are getting interested. I think they're hearing, I mean, I'm telling you right now, never in my wildest dreams did I think in 2024, 2025, that patients would be coming into my office saying, I listened to this podcast or I found this study on this, or I, I mean, they're reading people's books. They're listening, they're, they're consuming this information and the patients are getting smarter and more interested in, in,

health prevention. And I think there's a pushback against, you know, medicine right now. And it's not a bad thing. And it's not a good thing. I think there's there's a lot of sides to the conversation. But but no, Nebraska, I mean, we we have four seasons. So unfortunately, it's really cold outside right now. So we don't get to get sunlight like you guys do in Florida all year long.

We have to wear winter coats and cover ourselves up. But I will tell you, if you want free cryotherapy, I have done some sessions. Go make some snow angels outside. No, but we have, you know, it's a low cost of living. So like a lot of great companies have come here. And it's we built a space here called Upgrade Performance Institute, which was kind of cutting edge. It's

a gym concept. We do some IV therapy and peptides. And when we first built the space, I was like a squirrel. I'm like, we need red light. We need cryo. We need sauna. We need all these things. But they're very expensive. They're very expensive. So we had to start small. But I love just seeing how interested people are in these different ideas and concepts and preventing illness. I mean,

It's like a conversation that we have to have like soon. And I'm excited because I think that we're starting to have a political conversation about it. And it'll be really interesting what the next four years brings. I agree. And so you mentioned earlier professional athletes. You're the team doctor, professional volleyball team right now. Let's talk about these are female athletes. They're professional volleyball players like these aren't exactly small women.

They're very tall. They're very strong. Talk about how are they different than us, than mere mortals in terms of

what they come to you for, how they're optimizing, what can we learn from them? Yeah. Well, shout out to the Omaha Supernovas. That is my team. And we won the championship last year in the inaugural season of the Professional Volleyball Federation, the PVF. So I'm excited that the season will be underway in January. But these girls are, right, they're physical specimens. They've been doing this for a long time. They've been weight training. They've

they've been through different places. So I think the most interesting part, you know, working with the team is they've all come from like different colleges. Some of them have played professionally and it's been interesting to almost like learn from them. Like what have people, you know, told you to do? And I think there's been good things and, and some, you know, not so good things, but, but, um, it is so fun to watch them. I mean, they're just like, they're so talented. Well,

you know what we've done with the girls, they, we have a strength and conditioning coach. So they're, you know, when they're here, I think they call it in market. I'm learning all these volleyball terms. You guys, I was a college softball player. Yeah. I'm like, I can tell you anything you want to know about health and wellness, but, but anyway, so when they're here, they're lifting, we have a team nutritionist. She's helping not only with like

meals and what they're eating, but also a supplementation. So things like creatine, you can bet our girls are taking creatine and electrolytes. And then they're doing lots of recovery modalities because they train really hard and they play a lot of games. They have a lot of practices. So they're doing electrical simulation. They don't have

in the facility where they train ice bath and sauna and things like that. But we've actually partnered with some brands in our town to allow the girls access to those types of things like hyperbaric chambers and, and just like all the best stuff for them. Um, because they train at a level that is above like what you and I train, you know, it's not like you're just standard, uh,

45 minute gym sessions like when you watch them sometimes especially if they're dealing with like a nagging injury or something like that they're on jump counts and swing counts so we limit like how much they're actually doing in a in a practice session because they work they can wear their bodies out you know so

So quickly and you want longevity, right? You like you want to be able to play the sport for a long time. And so you have to really prioritize recovery just as much as you, you know, prioritize training. But it's it's so fun. And I love being a part of it because I have three daughters. And, you know, we've never had people that they could look up to in this space, right? Like,

This is actually a great story. So I went to my oldest daughter back when she was in fifth grade. She's graduating from elementary school. Okay. She's going to middle school. And they asked the kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they take their picture and they put it in a PowerPoint and it says like, I'm going to be a whatever. And they show this PowerPoint at the graduation.

And there were so many little boys in this PowerPoint that were like, I'm going to be an NBA player. I'm going to play in the major league baseball. You know, so many of them wanted to be parathletes. And then there was one cute little boy who wanted to be an MLB umpire. And I was like, that's so awesome. Yeah.

Probably more realistic. You get to the girls, right? And the girls want to be interior designers and flight attendants and doctors and nurses and teachers. So many of them want to be teachers. And we just don't, right? Our little girls aren't like, I want to be a professional volleyball player one day. And so I think it's so cool now that women's basketball, women's volleyball are getting their time back.

you know, on TV now. So little girls can watch us. I love my daughters don't play volleyball, but they love these girls. They love sitting courtside and watching them play. It's so cool what our bodies can do. Weightlifting and sports are not for boys. You know, women have muscles and there is really solid data that if your little girls exercise and lift weights and play sports, it not only helps their physical health, it helps their mental health.

And they actually do better in school. There's better academic performance. So there is a whole host of reasons to let your little girls try whatever sport they want to try. But the whole social stigma that girls, you know, should just be cheerleaders and dancers and things like that, I think is, um, it's gone and it's, it's fun. It's fun to see, you know, these opportunities for our daughters. I wish I was wearing my everyone watches women's sports t-shirt right now. Uh,

No, it's incredible. Again, when I grew up, you didn't have 20,000 people attending a women's college athletic event, let alone north of, what was it, 92,000 in Nebraska for volleyball, setting a world record? Yeah, we filled a football stadium for a volleyball scrimmage. Yeah.

You know, north of 50,000 watching women's soccer, like the list goes on. It's just absolutely incredible for girls to have role models in all of these sports. And some of them are moms. Like the girls on our team last year, a handful of them had kids. One of them was like breastfeeding. I'm like, this is so amazing. Like these women have...

No limits in what they can do. And the world is supporting them. And it's like so fun to watch. It's incredible. And again, whether you're the girl grows up to, you know, to play competitively in college or not, it doesn't matter. It's so good for girls' self-esteem, their confidence and ultimately their mental health. Oh, it's like my dad. So my dad was a football player in...

He played at Nebraska in the national championship and he actually played professionally for a short amount of time. But I'll never forget when I was a little girl, he gave this interview and he said, sports are a microcosm of life. And I had to go, we didn't have Google back then, but I had to go home and look up microcosm. But,

It's so true. Like when you have to, you know, learn to be a teammate and learn to be coached and learn to take criticism and experience the feeling of winning a championship. And then the next day experience the feeling of, of losing by one point in overtime. And it was your fault and you missed the shot. I mean, there's just like life lesson after life lesson after life lesson that can be learned in sports. And it's like, it's,

I mean, there's just nothing better. And no matter how long, you know, if you only play the game for a short amount of time or a long amount of time, it's just, there's so many lessons for our kids to be learned. And, and, uh, my girls are, I was like, I don't care what you do. You have to do something. So it's been fun to watch them kind of come into their own and decide what they like and, and what some, you know, where some of their natural talent is or isn't. And, uh, it's fun. It's fun as a parent. I've, I've,

It's nerve wracking sitting in the stands, but it's really cool to watch them do what they do. I'm with you. So I have to ask, did your dad play for Tom Osborne? He did. He actually played for Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne.

He was in the years where there was a transition. And so it's really fun to hear him tell stories about Bob Devaney and Tom. And Tom's still alive and he's doing well. I hope Nebraska football can get back to the glory days sometime.

So was he, what years did he play? There were the glory days. I remember when I was a little kid, the early 80s. He was there in the 70-71 National Championship and played with Johnny Rogers, you know, the game of the century versus Oklahoma. And it's interesting now to hear his perspective on the sport, you know, with all this transfer portal and NIL. And, you know, it was just like...

Two totally different worlds. Even back when I played, I mean, you couldn't get a free Subway sandwich. You'd be, you know, kicked out by the NCAA. So it's crazy now. Yeah, it is. That's a whole other... I have lots of thoughts on that. So in closing, what is... You know, look, I think a lot of people...

They listen to the show. They're like, okay, I'm motivated. But then push comes to shove here. What's your motivation on your busiest day when it's just like, oh man, like I just can't do it. Like what, what let's, let's leave our audience with some, some motivation. So if you, if you saw what I saw as a doctor, I mean, there are things worse than death and living with the,

preventable chronic diseases. Like I just get to see it every single day that it's this constant reminder that I don't like, I don't ever want to live that way. But I think when it comes to like, where's the motivation to do the things you're supposed to do, right? It all comes down to the language in your brain and the way that you talk to yourself. And my brand is called Dr. Fit and Fabulous, which I always think sounds like real cheesy. But for me, it's just this

It's like your motto. It's like, what's your motto? You know, like if you want to be a fit mom or a fit dad or whatever it is, like what do those people do, right? They wake up at 5 a.m. and they go to the gym and they work out and they have...

no reason to not do that. And so the more you just make these things part of your routine, it's easy to get motivated for like 30, 60, 90 days. We've all done it where we've done something, we were doing great and then we stopped and we just went back to our old ways. You just have to start to make these things non-negotiable and show up for yourself. I call it pay yourself first. And

The more you do that, confidence is built through action. The more you just do it, even when you don't want to do it, that builds the most incredible amount of confidence in yourself. And it's worthwhile. I mean, I think people just really, really, really go through their days and nobody values their health until they don't have it, right? Until the doctor's like, oh, you have stage three cancer, or you have a blockage in four of your coronary arteries. All of a sudden, it's

very important to you.

But like, you have to understand that most of these things, like this was like a 10, 15, 20 year journey. And so for me, it's just like thinking about what I want my life to be like when I'm turning 40 and maybe I'm already 40 when this podcast comes out. But you know, I'm thinking, what do I want my life to be like at 50? What do I want my life to be like at 60 and 70 and 80? And like, you are writing your own story. Like you are in charge of this and you have...

Like no one else to blame but yourself for where you're at right now and all the decisions you make in your life. So if you're listening right now, pick one thing to commit to and honor your word. You know, if it's like, okay, fine, I'm going to work out four days a week, like put it on the schedule. It's a meeting with yourself and like quit finding subtle, seductive things.

unbelievable excuses to not do what you know will be really good for you in the end. Very sage advice. We'll close there. Jamie, thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Thank you, Jason.