598: Your guide to superfoods, cravings, & blood sugar | Amy Shah, 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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What if the secret to feeling energized, balanced, and truly well wasn't hidden in the latest fad diet or complicated biohack, but in ancient wisdom, everyday foods, and a few simple lifestyle shifts? That's exactly what today's guest, Dr. Amy Shaw, is here to unpack. Dr. Shaw is a double board certified physician, bestselling author, and a member of our scientific advisory board here at MindBodyGreen. In today's show, Dr. Shaw shares the science behind

everyday foods that can boost your mood, balance your hormones, and improve your sleep, like kiwi, citrus, and blueberries. We dive into why saffron might be nature's antidepressant, what people get wrong about celery juice, and how ancient food wisdom and plant compounds like flavanols can actually elevate our mood, brain, and health span. Today's show is packed with science, practical tips, and a grocery list. Let's get into it.

So let's start with superfoods. What are your quote-unquote must-have foods that you incorporate into your diet every single day?

Okay, every single day, there's a few things because, you know, every single day is hard. We'll say five days, five days, five days a week. Every single week, because as you know, we're busy some days. Like, for example, one of the things I was going to mention that's a superfood that people might not even know about is kiwi, kiwifruit. I used to say kiwi, but you can't say kiwi. Kiwi means like... New Zealand. Yeah, our friends in New Zealand. So the thing is, is that they've done a bunch of studies that look at

the kiwi fruits for depression, for sleep. And I know for women, like in perimenopause, for example, 40 plus, like mood and sleep are huge issues. And so for someone like me, who's in that stage, this is something I do often to help me sleep. So I'll have it like as a dessert

And it's also a mood booster. Surprisingly, you can eat the kiwi fruit with the skin on. It's actually better for you to eat it with the skin on. There's 50% more fiber. And one of the biggest things that we can be doing for our gut, as you know, is eating more fiber. So kiwi fruit,

before bed, helps with sleep. It's also great to eat just like an apple. You can wash it and eat it like an apple with the skin on. Fantastic. I'm going to try it for dessert tonight. Yeah. I have a whole thing of them. My kids, you know, there's a lot of people actually that have seasonal allergies. If you do, the skin may bother you because there's a pollen food cross reactivity syndrome. And my son has that. So he's like, if it makes your mouth itchy, it's because of the skin. So you can't eat the skin.

You mentioned kids too. It's great for kids because a lot of kids have trouble, including mine, winding down sometimes and getting ready to sleep. So it's, yeah, you can have dessert. It's Kiwi. Yeah, actually. And the other thing my kids are obsessed with right now, I'm not joking. I've been going through all the stores because sumo citrus season has just kind of ended and citrus fruit like

to oranges, for example, are also really great for mood, especially for teens who are maybe pickier or kids that are pickier with their fruit. Oranges, if you've never had a sumo citrus orange, you are missing out. So you should try that. But in general, oranges, citrus fruit are great for as mood boosters too and great for kids. So that's another one.

Blueberries are probably like my desert island fruit, you know, like if I had to pick one fruit because they actually have not only do they have flavonoids that we can talk about later, flavonols, they also boost cognition. In fact,

Kids who eat blueberries like have higher test scores. It can actually boost your cognition within an hour of eating it. So if you have a big test, you want to have blueberries before you have the test. It's literally a superfood.

How many blueberries do you have to eat? I'm signing up for that. Yeah, like a serving of blueberries. I mean, the studies for blueberries are for cognition are pretty robust. And I mean, you know, it's a dark blue fruit so that those flavanol content acts like an antioxidant also like increases circulation, especially for brain health. They've found it to be useful and even in short term use.

So we're covering a lot of fruits. So before we segue to flavonoids and flavanols, let's talk vegetables. What are your must-have vegetables? I honestly love cruciferous vegetables. As you know, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, they all kind of are in the same family. And these cruciferous vegetables, they have a special compound called cerulean.

sulforaphane. That is really an anti-cancer, antioxidant compound. And one of the tricks I have for that is either to use broccoli sprouts because they have much more sulforaphane than the traditional broccoli. Or if you're going to eat your broccoli or cauliflower Brussels sprouts, cut it and let it sit for 45 minutes before you eat it.

before you actually cook it. And that preserves the sulforaphane in the food even after you cook it. So typically when you cook your vegetables, you're losing a lot of the sulforaphane. So this is a hack to actually keep that intact. I love sulforaphane and more specifically, I love broccoli sprouts. I forget the brand, but it's one of the microgreens, broccoli sprouts. And I buy it all the time and I put it in my smoothie every day and I love it. That's

it. That's a great idea. My kids kind of snack like when I force them, like I say force because they don't necessarily pick it up on their own. They'll snack on it like it's like they're eating like a snack. I mean, it doesn't have much of a taste. It's not... No, it's like tasteless. I put it in a smoothie. I don't even taste it. Yeah.

They do that with saffron too. Are you a fan of saffron? It's a spice that has gotten a lot of attention for hormones and gut health and brain health. It's actually shown to be as effective as antidepressants in some studies. So that's another one we sometimes kind of like just take a few threads and throw it into a smoothie or you can just throw it into your mouth actually. There's been a lot of buzz on saffron as it relates to being a mood booster.

Really solid science. Yeah. Saffron has really kind of, it's like that, you know, spices to watch because I think it's coming into the... I feel like that's a new content series for you. Amy's spices to watch. Yeah. Coming soon. You know how everything gets like it's day in the sun, like celery juice and all these things. It's like saffron's kind of in that category coming up soon. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not into the celery juice, I gotta say. I don't think it's the cure-all, be-all. I think it's way overblown. Sorry, medical medium. Yes, I think there's nothing wrong with it. I think a lot of people who never have had vegetables in that amount, you know, it's a great start. There's nothing magical about it being celery and, you know, that whole thing. I think you could drink a green juice or you can have your vegetables in any way you want and get the benefits. It's just amazing.

the health impact of eating real whole foods and not ultra processed foods.

Yeah, it's, I mean, that I think that part of the flavanol conversation, I think is so interesting. So there are certain vitamins and minerals that we need to survive, as you know, like, you know, magnesium, vitamin D, there are things that we need to survive. But then there are these like plant compounds that are not essential to our survival, but actually enhance our health in many ways.

And so I think that knowing that

somehow, whoever you believe created the universe, like there are plants out there that have compounds in them that actually elevate human life. So both health span and lifespan. I think that's so fascinating that we're just finding out the signs like they don't exist inside of us. We actually have to get them from plants. And, but when we do, it can enhance our cardiovascular health and can enhance our brain health. It can enhance our mood. I mean, it's like,

So fascinating to me that there's like, you know, us humans, we actually need those things to feel good. I mean, things like tea, for example, that's been discovered thousands of years ago. This has flavanols in it. They knew back then that these flavanols,

compounds were making their life better, right? That was used for thousands of years. And same with cocoa and cacao, also thousands of years, people kind of knew that this was giving them brain and health benefits. And so they were using it. Now we're realizing what the science behind it is. So is there, can you talk, is there a difference between flavonoids and flavonols?

Yeah, flavonoids is like the parent of flavonols. So, you know, you might know of epicatechin that's like in green tea, that's a flavonol, but comes from the flavonoid family. So it's just, and we kind of use them interchangeably, but they're just a little different.

And it sounds like everything from brain health, cardiovascular health, like the benefits are great. Yeah. And I think it's to me that the fact that we've known this for thousands of years, but now we're starting to know it through science. I always like it when kind of like that ancient stuff, ancient knowledge kind of meets the modern science because that to me is like tried and true. So a lot of these hacks, right?

And biohacks, you know, that are so popular that we really have zero history and zero research on. I feel very nervous about those because it's not only is it not used in history or, you know, we don't know anything about it from ancient or Eastern cultures or other cultures. We actually...

you know, don't have any research either. And so I personally like to stay where there is science and especially where there's science and there's kind of this either history or Eastern medicine crossover, because I think there's a lot of knowledge there that we haven't yet

tapped on. And so where it crosses is like for something like this, like eating plant compounds that contain something like flavanols. That's where I think we should stay for the most part. The things that we know, like you love to walk, right? Like I feel like walking is

I am sure I can say with confidence because both from history, from blue zones, from research, from personal experience, like I feel good about it. When we talk about some of these very like cutting edge new things, I don't feel as confident because we don't really have all of that kind of 360 information. 100% agree. Don't major in the minors. Major in the majors and exercise and solid nutrition and

and lean on the tried and true before you

try out the exotic and potentially too cutting edge. Yes. That's how I think that's the thing. Like most people are... I had someone talk to me at a party once recently, and they were talking about how they don't believe in, you know, a lot of modern medicine. I was fine with that. You know, that's great. They do a lot of natural things. And she's talking about all these cutting edge things that she's doing and trying. And then she's like...

But the thing that's really hard for me is quitting the smoking. And I was like, wait, what? I was like, you're traveling, doing these exotic, expensive interventions. And the thing that you have not tackled yet, and I know it's very difficult, but I just told her, I'm like, I think that's number one. Before you do anything else, you have to get off. And like,

It was very surprising to me that she didn't really understand that that was on top of the hierarchy. 100%. I see that all the time, unfortunately. It's like, I'm doing NAD drips, but am I actually exercising? No. Am I doing resistance training or walking? No. But I'm doing NAD and the celery juice cleanse, but I'm not really exercising or getting protein. No.

Gotta get the basics. I mean, this is probably controversial, but that's what I see with the GLP-1s all the time. With people who are on GLP-1s that I talk to, often...

people think of it almost like as a swap out for the work that they had to do before, like the exercise and the diet. And I think that that way of thinking is really dangerous because then you are losing weight, but you're losing all this muscle mass and you're not going to get the benefits that you want from that. And you're not going to look better. You're not going to feel better. You're just going to be less powerful.

weight. You know what I mean? It is not a substitute. It is a great tool to assist people in their journey to manage their weight when a lot of things have failed them. But it's almost more imperative to do the resistance training and eat the protein and do the walking, etc. Otherwise, you're going to have the opposite problem of sarcopenia.

I think the tide is hopefully turning as people get more and more knowledge about it. But I think for a long time I was talking to people, patients, people online, followers, readers, who would say, you know, I...

don't really work out that much. I'm not able, I'm not hungry to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. I'm not getting my protein. And it really was concerning. And I think there's a little more awareness now. So hopefully it's going to move the other way. I think the initial tide was like, you know, get on this as fast as you can. And it was kind of a magic miracle weight loss medication. Now I think people are understanding the true downsides and the upsides of something like that.

Yes. And I want to come back to that, but I also want to spend one more minute on flavanols because cocoa, chocolate, these are things that a lot of people like.

And that there are... So can you talk about chocolate, how frequently you consume it, cocoa, any favorites? Because I think this is... I always love to give people nuggets of information of something they're actually going to enjoy. Well, I think a few years ago, I thought chocolate was a health food. And I was surprised to learn that it's not really a health food. Like even the cocoa flavanols that are in chocolate are often really...

really mostly reduced or destroyed in the processing of like our typical chocolate bar, even our healthy chocolate bars. So you have to use concentrated cocoa extracts to actually get the flavanol content that you need. Like this, there's, Coco Via makes a concentrated extract

cocoa extract that's called Coco Pro. And that is the most concentrated, most effective kind of source of flavanols that you'll get in the market. It's also consistent. So you get the same number of flavanols every time you have it. I think that's surprising to people because most people think, oh, they may have heard of flavanols. Maybe they're not. Maybe they've heard, yeah, you know, chocolate is healthy, but they didn't realize that the cocoa extract

is the flavanols and the cocoa are often destroyed when you make it into something super delicious like a chocolate.

And so using something like a concentrated cocoa extract. So for you, you sound like you have a smoothie. This would be like an amazing thing to put in your smoothie, like the Cocoa Pro. You can just add it and it has a consistent source of high flavanol content. And it's delicious. It's cocoa. No, it is. I'm a big fan of Cocoa View. And I think most people are unaware. So I thank you for pointing that out. Yeah.

And so I want to come back to you because we started going down the GLP-1 path, which I think is interesting because I think there are two main themes that a lot of people struggle with. Myself sometimes at three o'clock when I'm hangry. Cravings. How do we deal with cravings? Cravings. So hunger and cravings are two different things. I think that's something that I...

want people to realize. I think once I realized that my life changed because cravings are often from the dopamine pathway, which we may equate it with like social media, how you close social media and you want to open it again. It's like this urge. Um, and that's what cravings are. It's like this urge. And same thing with if you drink, um, alcohol and people are trying to get off the alcohol or, um, anything that, uh,

video games, dopamine, when it releases, it's almost like this craving of you would get in your car right now, drive across town and do that thing. So get that bag of chips, get that ice cream, get that cigarette, get that bottle of alcohol. Cravings are extremely strong and they go through the dopamine pathway, which is a pathway that

It's almost like when you satisfy a craving, it's almost joy, but mixed with almost discomfort. It's like you're, you know, when you have a bad craving and you have something, it's like, thank God you're satisfying the craving, but you kind of feel bad about it.

And then when you stop, you – and then when you don't have it, you'll get it again. For example, I'll give you an example. If there's something in your house right now that you absolutely love to eat, think of –

a thing of brownies or an ice cream or like a package good and you can't stop thinking about it, it kind of interrupts your thoughts when you're doing some work. It may be so bad that like you run out and you were like, oh my God, I got to go and get it today. That is a sign of a craving.

And so that's something that's different than hunger, which is a cyclical pattern that our body creates that just reminds you to eat for nourishment. And so if you can recognize the difference, that is half the battle. So sometimes...

when I have something I really love in the house, um, especially when it's at home and I'm at home, I will constantly be thinking about it. And in the middle of the afternoon, it's often the best time or late at night. That's typically a time where people want to go for those things. Um, if you can identify that dopamine pathway, then you can modify it. If, if,

If it's a true hunger, then often you can use the raw vegetable test. Like, would you eat a bowl of vegetables right now? Or are you just craving something for the feeling that it gives you, the dopamine burst that it gives you? Interesting. I love that one. It's practical.

Yeah. Like, I mean, you could think of any kind of health food in your mind, like a salad right now. Would you have a salad? Would you have an omelet right now? Or are you just craving that cookie because it gives you that dopamine hit? And it's okay to have dopamine hits. Like everybody's allowed to have desserts here and there, but really identifying that so that if it is getting out of control, you can identify that as not necessarily your body kind of needing that. It's your dopamine system kind of meeting that reward level.

over and over. And maybe going for a sunny walk, playing with your pets or your children can give you a little bit of that dopamine that you're looking for. Also, something that works for me sometimes in the middle of the afternoon is I ask, am I dehydrated?

Like, do I just need to drink more water? Yes. Also hot liquids. For some reason in this research, hot liquids tend to, that's why a lot of people, for me, I used to be like not a big tea drinker in the afternoon. But now I realize that that hot liquid often can give you a little bit of that

craving brush that you need in the middle of the afternoon when you're trying to figure out is it like really hungry hunger or is it cravings and you know again it's also soothing for people I think in our culture we use food as often as a reward for a hard day and so you have to kind of

untrained. I work with a lot of people who are like, you know, part of it's not a medical issue. Sometimes it's just like learned behaviors that we've like our parents used to like, you know, give us rewards as cupcakes. And and now like every time we do something good, we want a cupcake.

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100%. As a parent, we do that. We find ourselves doing that. And also personally, I love coffee. So I'm drinking, it's 2.30 here in the East Coast, I'm drinking my black coffee. I love that. Black, you're brave to drink coffee in the afternoon because I think for me, if I drink any caffeine, it has to be kind of before noon. So this is like my last chance on the

Pacific's time to get my caffeine in? Either it's because I'm probably due to my size or tolerance. Like I can go pretty late. I won't go past four o'clock generally. Usually I don't go past three. That's kind of like my cutoff, but I sleep fine and my HRV and RHR are great. Like it just, I just, my body can do it.

Yeah, you know, it's a genetic thing to your genetic predisposition, the enzymes that you have to process. Unfortunately, I don't have that. And also, like I mentioned earlier,

you know, the 40 plus, like the perimenopause group, like there's like 70% of women have sleep disturbances and issues with sleep. It's like, I'm doing everything I can at this point to like not keep myself awake at night. Colleen's the same thing. She won't do caffeine later than like 10 a.m. Yeah, she's really into sleep and figuring out her sleep. Yeah, she's working on it for sure. I think that's a...

very common theme that I see when I see women, especially women in their late 30s, 40s or 50s that don't struggle with sleep. I'm like, you are the lucky few. It's literally like that. It's like the majority of people do struggle. So I get it. I won't have caffeine. And things like even alcohol, things like that really mess up my sleep. So I'm always very careful about

Oh, 100% alcohol messes up everything for me and Colleen. Does it mess up your HRV? Oh, yeah. But I rarely drink anymore. And if I do... That's amazing. I feel like the whole generation of people, I mean, we grew up, right, in a culture of drinking, at least I did, and...

Yeah. So it's very strange that so many of us have kind of like gone away from that. I wonder if the young generation, I mean, I know they are going away from alcohol, but it's really interesting to see how alcohol is like kind of like fading away. Well, I think for me, I'm wearing a whoop. I'm wearing an aura ring.

You wear both. I do. I like comparing the data. But I love, whoop's my favorite in that. I love it working out and tracking heart rate zones as I try to like get to zone five and maintain, like, I love it. I'm excited for the new one. Yeah, I'm going to get the new one. I'm getting the new one. Yeah. Yeah. It looks incredible. But if you are passionate about, you know, maximizing your health span and performance,

Like the numbers don't lie. And I think it's okay too. Like I think I've, it's a little bit of a mindset shift where if I'm going to like have a late dinner or have a glass of wine or a margarita, I'm just going to say like the numbers aren't going to be good tomorrow. Like I know it. Not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to just be okay with that. Yeah. And my hack is earlier in the day. I also realized that

Sometimes I'll say to myself, like I went on a birthday, a 50th birthday trip and it was amazing. It was in Turks and Caicos and they, I said to myself that I was going to have some alcohol because it was a fun trip away with friends and I got there and I was like, you know what? I

what? I don't really need it. Like I've, I think I gave myself permission to be like, it's okay for, you know, it's not, it's just a couple of days here. Um, but I felt like I could have fun. I wasn't like missing out. Yeah. Like I feel the way, I think the last time I drank was like five or six months ago. That's amazing. Do you do take like, what's your go-to drink when you go out then? I like a good glass of wine. So, or a good glass of champagne or maybe a margarita.

but if I do it, it's probably going to be earlier in the day. And it's like, it's gotta be great. Like I've never put it this way. I'm not, I'm never going to have a bad drink. Someone's not going to hand me a Coors Light and I'm going to say like, I'm got, you know, I'm going to have this or like a cheap glass of wine. It's just not going to happen. Like it's good. If it's going to happen, it's, it needs to be exceptional. And I have to feel like I want it. It's complimenting the meal or whatever the environment is. It's got to be a great experience, but like, I just don't feel the,

I just don't feel the need to. Not that I ever felt the need to. But yeah, I do think there's a huge shift here for sure. It's so funny because this whole flavanol conversation that we're having, the wine flavanols was the reason why everyone thought the red wine was so good for you was the flavanol conversation.

Well, one of the reasons. So I think we've realized like, yes, it has great flavanols, but there's other things. I didn't realize, but like things like apples have flavanols and, you know, green tea has flavanols. And like we talked about, cocoa has flavanols. So there's other ways to get your flavanols that's probably going to give you better benefits than inside of like alcohol. Yes. So something else I think people struggle with is,

knowing when they're full. You're having a meal, you're enjoying it, it tastes amazing. Now I got to stop. Ah, that's such a hard one because, you know, that whole Japanese is a Japanese saying that says like eat till you're 80% full is so true. It is such a good way to do it. And I think one of the other ways to kind of tricks that I use is

I always go for a little bit of a walk after a meal. And I think when you anticipate that you're not going to be able to just like lie on the couch with your like

pants unbuttoned. Like if you're like, I'm going to be going on a walk after this, it kind of helps you regulate a little bit. And I think that's how it was in thousands of years ago, like, or even hundreds of years ago. Like most people didn't just eat this huge dinner and then just like watch TV for three or four hours before bed. It was like they either met up with friends or they walked around the neighborhood or they, I remember going to India as a kid and it was still kind of like

old school culture where you would eat dinner and then you would go for a walk and you would

either like go to the park and meet with friends or you go to the town center. And I thought when I went to Costa Rica recently, I saw the same thing happening there. And I'm like, it's just weird to be sitting for so many hours after you eat. So having a little bit of activity after you eat, so maybe it's just like a 15, 20 minute walk that can be really useful in kind of regulating how, how much you eat, something that makes you feel good enough that you could go for a walk.

Yes. I'm like, I love walking after. I love like a quick 10 minute walk. You don't want it to be too intense depending on what time of week and you have trouble like kind of bringing yourself down.

But I do that all the time. Yeah, I don't like to do intense exercise late at night or after dinner. But I do like to do some movement. Are you someone who walks a lot? Are you a walker? I'm guessing you get a lot of steps. I love walking. And if I don't get my 10,000 steps, I am grumpy. I don't feel good. It's just like I must get them. Ideally, a little more than that.

Yeah, I need it. I know I used to say 15 and then I would feel stressed like if I didn't. And so I give myself the same thing. I'm like, it's eight to 12,000 and then I can be anywhere. Because sometimes if you go for a yoga class and a weight training session, you don't need to get, you know, 15,000 steps that day. You like, I just think that that's. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree in something I learned.

buy into also, as I wear a whoop, is they calculate strain. It's like, what is this? Like, if you're doing something really hard and you're getting your heart rate up and you're working on your lung capacity, like you don't necessarily need

But ideally, you get everything. Yeah, I think steps are like one, like we said, one of the fundamental things that it's not only proven by science, but like has thousands of years of history. And then you look at like the blue zones, you look at ancient medicine, Eastern medicine. I mean, everybody kind of agrees on that. And especially if it's a sunny walk, like a nature walk. I think that helps.

that's been life changing for me. I think, you know, during many years of my training, med school and residency and fellowship, I wasn't getting a ton of sunlight or outdoor workout or workout in at all. And I think it really affected me in so many different ways. And I didn't realize like part of this reason was because I wasn't

doing the basic things that humans need to thrive. Like you need to move, you need to move in nature, you need to see sun. Those are things that can make you feel alive and like also creative, help your gut health, help your inflammation, your mood, all of that stuff, hormones.

So to build on that, two things you talked about at our Revitalize event in Miami, which was last month, that got a lot of attention. A lot of people were excited about Japanese walking and then also your 15 bodyweight squats. So can you talk about both? Everyone was talking about this at our event. Yeah.

I'm not going to make you do squats or the sit to stand test that you did at the event. But Japanese interval walking is such a cool thing because I think all of us love to walk, but it's often not clear to us how to walk in a way that's actually going to give us cardiovascular benefits or heightened brain inflammation benefits. So one of the things that they looked at

in Japan, it's called Japanese interval walking because the research came out of Japan where you do three minutes of a casual walk, like the way you would walk normally and three minutes of a fast walk. So I describe it as like when you see the crosswalk, um, saying walk and you're trying to rush cause it's only two, two or three seconds left, like that rushed walk. Um, you do that for three minutes and you alternate, um, well,

For full 25, 30 minutes. And that has much more of an impact on your cardiovascular health and your brain health and your inflammation than just walking the same pace for 30 minutes. I love it. And then can you talk about these body weight sways every hour?

So I don't know about you, Jason, but I know there's days where I can't get my steps and it makes me crazy because it's like a travel day or it's a day of Zooms or meetings online one after the other. And so there's just no way I'm going to get my steps. I'm not going to be able to go for a walk. So there's a great study that came out that shows that 10 bodyweight squats every 45 minutes throughout the day

is actually better for you than a single 30 minute walk at the end of the day for your blood sugar. So what that means is when you're in between meetings, so say we turn this off or even on it, we say, okay, we're going to do 10 body weight squats. Super simple. It takes a couple seconds and it's just using your body weight. You do kind of go down halfway 90 degrees with your knees. You're basically getting a workout, a workout,

cardiovascular and a blood sugar drying workout. So at the end of the day, if you do one walk, 30 minutes, that can help with blood sugar management. But doing these squats in between each meeting, for example, throughout the workday actually has a bigger impact on

on blood sugar management. So your insulin resistance goes down, your blood sugar levels are more stable when you're doing the squats every hour. So if you can't go for a walk, if you can't get yourself, if you're in a travel day, if you're in a meeting day, do the 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes throughout the workday, and that will have a bigger impact on your blood sugar than even that single 30-minute walk at the end of the day. You're also building leg strength.

So it's great if you don't have time to get to the gym, just do this. Something.

Yeah. Did you know about that leg strength study? So like they took twins and, um, they measured their leg strength and their brain health, like after 25 years or something. And it was like the twins with, uh, the, the twin with the highest lower body leg strength had better brain health, um, over time than, um, it's like directly correlated with, um,

So it's not only just great for blood sugar and building muscle, but it's actually good for your brain too. Well, mobility, durability as you age, everything. You don't want to be the, you don't want to,

lose your independence as you get older because you have trouble walking up the stairs. If you're at an airport and you got to take the stairs, the escalator or elevator doesn't work. You don't want to be that person. No one ever wants to lose independence. It's very hard for people like me. I was a runner. I always loved to run. And actually, it's so funny. I was yesterday,

it was six o'clock yesterday morning and I woke up and there was two class options at my gym that I loved. It was strength or sweat. And,

And strength is, it was a lower body day where you were going to have to do heavy, heavy weights. And the other class was sweat where you do like cardio, little bursts. And all my old self was like, you got to do sweat, get a sweat on, get your calorie burn, because that's what I've learned. And that's what I've thought was a good workout. But my new self was like, no, no.

You actually need to work on your lower body strength because just like you said, when you're 90, 100, 110 years old, like you want to be able to get up out of a chair. You want to be able to walk up steps. You want to be able to be healthy. And it's just like not what I default to, but I've learned that that's what I need to do. So I did it and now I'm like super sore. Yeah.

So we touched on sleep and I think, look, most people want to have better sleep. Even people who don't struggle with their sleep. If you ask them, like, would you like to improve your sleep? They would say, yeah, sure. So can you talk about your go-tos in terms of your sleep routine? Yeah.

I, like I said, I'm kind of obsessed with sleep because I feel like there's so many benefits to sleep. And I know that I'm my best self when I get at least adequate sleep enough, I would say,

For me, it's kind of embarrassing because people don't think that this is normal. But like, I think it's more on the edge of eight to nine hours for a lot of women. Whereas most, like many men can do six to eight hours or many women can too. But there's, I think women, especially in times of hormonal shifts, like

postpartum, like pre-period, like perimenopause and menopause, in terms of hormonal shifts, they can require more sleep. And it's crazy because the studies don't really show that. Because if you put a woman in a sleep lab and you actually measure how much sleep she needs, it's not much more than a man. It's maybe 11 minutes or so. But in the real world,

with hormonal shifts, with night awakenings, with cortisol levels, it seems like it's a lot more. So my go-to for sleep is one, no caffeine or alcohol if possible after noon and no alcohol in general except for a couple of times a week if needed. That's number one. Number two is this is kind of the biggest one.

Is that two to three hours before bed, I really don't do work like on the computer or take any crazy phone calls or check email, all of that stuff. Because I think that that's something that I try. I mean, I don't mimic old times by shutting down at 5 or 6 p.m., but I really do try to do it like at least one to two hours before bed. I don't have any food one to two hours before bed. I think fasting before...

bed, doing kind of a circadian style fast is really, really beneficial for sleep, sleep quality. And then I make sure to make my room super cold and dark. And I wear an eye mask and earplugs because I travel a lot. And so I can't control the external environment and no ambient light because ambient light

has been shown to disturb sleep and also your hormones like insulin when you're sleeping. So people who sleep with the ambient light actually can have disrupted metabolic balance just from that.

I also know we share a love for magnesium and tart cherry. Oh, yes. So I always, I never forget my magnesium glycinate. And I never forget, like, I feel like I forget all my supplements, almost all, like, you know, I'm always like, oh, shoot, I forgot my omega-3. I like omega-3s. But I definitely don't forget my magnesium. I like tart cherry also as an option, a delicious option.

before bed. I think I do, sometimes I'll do low dose melatonin. Sometimes I'll do chamomile, either a tea or a supplement.

L-theanine is a nice one before bed. Valerian root, once in a blue moon. I try to mix it up because I feel like you don't want to be taking, at least for me, I don't want to be dependent on any one thing. But the magnesium, I never forget. I think that is something that has been a game changer for me. So I don't forget that one. Yeah, I love, I don't have a problem sleeping, but I noticed there's a difference in quality if I don't take the magnesium with tart cherry. And I just love the tart cherry. It's like that combo for me is magic.

My deep and REM are so much better.

Have you checked it on your oral or WIP? Oh, yeah. I've done all the experiments. Yeah. There's always a difference. Yeah. What are you excited about? There's so much in the space happening right now. What's interesting to you? Well, one thing I wanted to go back to, I really am excited about flavanols, first of all. I think the COSMOS study, I don't know if you have heard of that COSMOS study. It was like a...

like a 22,000 person study looking at flavanols. They had a few different arms, but it was a Harvard study and they followed, I think it was like 20,000 people. And they looked at several outcomes after the kind of like conclusion of the study. And they found that, you know, having flavanols can be extremely helpful in cardiovascular health.

And it can be extremely helpful in brain health. And I think that it was like the cocoa extract that they use. That is what is used in the Coco Via products, the Coco Pro. So I think that is something that's really exciting. I think there's new research showing that

Flavanols can be used in many different ways in foods. And I think our push for real food away from ultra processed food is finally like kind

kind of coming to a head and people are going to be searching for more options for things that are, you know, high in flavonoid content, like what is the green tea I should be using? What is the cocoa extract I should be using? What are the foods I should be eating? I think we're getting to the point where people are really going to be changing their nutrition to optimize their bodies. And so

The other thing I'm really excited about and that my new book that I'm coming out with is going to be about is like nutrition for hormones, especially the hormone transitions that I've been alluding to, like postpartum, the perimenopause, the menopause. I think there's really no guidance for women, especially around what are...

I don't want to necessarily tell people to follow a particular diet, right? Like everybody, you can do keto, you can do plant-based, you can do carnivore, you can do, but what are the basic things that women should know as they move through these hormonal changes? I feel like not enough women know that. Like,

I think that's where I talk about that 30-33 that I'm excited about. It's 30 grams of protein in your first meal, 30 grams of fiber throughout the day, and three probiotic foods every single day. That's like something that in particular women will benefit from. But someone like you, that might be 50 grams of protein in your first meal. You might be doing 50-30-30 or 50-50-50.

a five or something like that. But I think it's a good kind of framework because then within that, you can eat what you want. You know, like you don't have to follow a particular diet. Fantastic. When is the book coming out?

It is February, so I have a little bit of time. Okay, we'll have you back for February. We will have you back to talk about the book. I think nutrition is so fascinating to me because for so long and in my med school career, I think everybody kind of ignored it. And now we're finally getting to the point where it's becoming like a top line issue, both nationally, internationally, and on a personal health level. So that's exciting to me.

Well, I'm so excited for the book and we will have you back. I will get it booked. Amy, thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Thank you.