Cynthia Thurlow
Appearances
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so what you are essentially doing is you are making that progressive loss of muscle, which is sarcopenia. It exacerbates that. It magnifies it. And so if you look at all the longevity researchers versus the individuals like Dr. Don Lehman, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who were very big proponents of
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
consuming adequate protein to offset sarcopenia frailty falls etc you start to understand that ultimately you decide for yourself which path you want to take and as someone who's as both as a clinician and as a an individual watching people that are doing omad over time you know watching people track their macros talk to us in programs talk to us in one-on-one environments
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
consistently what I see happening is this progressive loss of muscle. The loss of muscle leads to not just frailty over time, but also leads to a loss of insulin sensitivity. So really understanding that our muscles are a metabolic sink and helping people understand that you're not getting enough protein into your diet. You are just going to worsen that unraveling of this loss of muscle.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I'm a very visual person, so I always like to provide comparisons. So young, healthy muscle looks like filet. We all know what that looks like. Versus a delicious ribeye, still equally delicious, but it has a lot of marbling. It has a lot of fat infiltration. That is what older muscle looks like. We want to remain looking like a filet over time.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So my concern about OMAD is, number one, if it's an occasional thing, not a big deal. You've overindulged. You came back from vacation. You just ate too much. That's very different than a sustained OMAD effort. And there are people in the health and wellness space that do OMAD in perpetuity, many of whom have lost a significant amount of weight. And I don't want to take away from that.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
On the contrary of that, male or female, if you have someone that is not metabolically healthy, someone that is maybe just getting started on their health and wellness journey, an individual who's consuming snacks and mini meals, someone that's eating a lot of ultra processed foods, maybe they're not as physically active as they would like to be.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I also don't think in many instances they're really fully understanding the long-term impact of that loss of muscle. It is significant and quite profound. And so that is always where my concern goes is, you know, are you getting enough protein? Can you get 100 grams of protein in a meal? I can't. I'm sure there are people out there that might be able to.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
In fact, I have one female friend who does, and I just call her the unicorn. But in terms of everyone else, most of us are not getting 100 grams of protein into one meal. And if you're not getting at least 100 grams of protein in a day, You're just making that whole process of muscle loss. You're just magnifying it.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I'm going to put it as a D. As a D, not an F. Not an F. I'm sure there'll be other things that will get an F, but it's always that cautionary. Like I understand the utility of it.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And what's interesting, Drew, is that I can assure you if I take any heat for this interview, it'll be about that. About OMAD. About that, without question. Without question.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah, well, I would say I would back up and say our gut microbiome has a tremendous amount to do with the health of our gut microbiome, whether or not we can or cannot lose weight. And I know this because I just wrote a book on it. So I feel like this is a uniquely perfect time to have this conversation. So number one.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
opportunistic infections whether it be a parasite h pylori candida dysbiotic organisms all of those things are opportunistic and so when someone says to me i think it's the parasite that is making me weight loss resistant and i'm like there's so many other things that happen first i think that it is a sign that there is a significant gut microbiome shift And it is not per se the parasite.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
having a compressed feeding window for an individual like that in particular can help jumpstart a lot of health benefits.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The parasite is kind of the symptom, if you will. But there's other things that are going on below the surface. So when I think about this, it just it brings me back to understanding. And I'll give you an example. So when young boys and girls are born and they're growing up up until puberty, our microbiomes are very similar.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It's only the advent of puberty that we start seeing differentiation in the microbiome. Obviously, men predominantly with testosterone, women predominantly with estrogen, but also progesterone and a little bit of testosterone. And up until we go through puberty, if someone chooses to get pregnant, they go through pregnancy. There's a shift in the microbiome. And then we get to perimenopause.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And it's these three big shifts in our lives as women in particular. And then ironically enough, we go into menopause and our gut microbiomes resemble men's. And so the reason why I'm bringing this up is when women in, you know, north of 40 perimenopause menopause suddenly have aberrancies or weird or unusual things that come up on stool testing is one example.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Most of the health benefits that we talk about in terms of intermittent fasting, improved biophysical markers, a degree of reduction in inflammation, improvement in brain health and brain cognition, reduction in specific types of cancers, having the ability to evoke this process called autophagy where we have this waste and recycling process going on. So it's always in the context of
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I'm like, it's really a reflection of what's going on at the gut microbiome, both with the differentiation with immune function, things that are changing there. It speaks to individuals that are making less hydrochloric acid. So all of us are exposed to parasites and other type of organisms on a daily basis.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
If you eat lettuce, I mean, you are exposed to things because you can only scrub the lettuce or clean the lettuce so well. But we have...
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
lines of defenses in our body that are designed to do away with these things hydrochloric acid in the stomach um you know you've got other uh you know bicarbonate other things that go on in the microbiome and and beyond that are designed to to help um you know these defenses systems that are designed to get rid of what does not belong. Now, how does a parasite come about?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
There's a couple of different things that happen. You know, it could be you're a certain life stage. You're more susceptible. You make less hydrochloric acid. You're an individual that in many instances, you have chronic stress. You're not sleeping. Your nutrition is terrible. We know 70% of us as Americans alone are eating ultra processed foods.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You're not even eating food that has much nutrient quality to it. And so do I think parasites are the reason why people are gaining weight or weight loss resistant? I think it is many other things contributing a degree of inflammation, oxidative stress. There can be so many things that are going on with that. The parasite per se, I would say is just a symptom of a bigger issue.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So that's where I would leave that. It's, it's not that the parasite is what drove it. It's that there were a lot of other dominoes that had already fallen over. And that just happened to be the one thing that someone did some testing. They figured out there was something else going on, but Many, many things contribute to that. I don't think it is solely from the parasite.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And by no means am I saying that people don't go through this.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It's usually other things that are contributing. And it's usually that is, it's like the red herring. It's like, okay, so we do stool testing. Then we pick up, oh, you have a parasite or you've got significant dysbiosis. Oh, by the way, you have H. pylori or you've got SIBO. I mean, there's many things that can create this domino effect. It's usually multifactorial.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Like why are we weight loss resistance? It's never just one thing. things.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It depends on the patient. I do still like and embrace the concept of intermittent fasting, but it's always in the context of understanding that fasting is one of many types of hormetic stressors, you know, beneficial stress in the right amount at the right time. And for some people, it's too much stress over time that can be problematic.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I mean, I think you have to take it in context. What are the patient's symptoms? What are they experiencing? What does their blood work look like? Are they dealing with underlying food sensitivities? Are they female or male? Where are they on their female journey? Are they in perimenopause or menopause? I mean, there's a lot that can impact the interpretation of testing?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Do I think there are better companies than others? Absolutely. I think that from my perspective, I have found them to be incredibly invaluable and very validating in terms of the symptoms that someone's experiencing and then working through a protocol to address exactly what we're finding.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think that in many instances, there are circumstances where we need antibiotic therapy for things that we find. As an example, I've had people who've had C. diff, which is an opportunistic infection. Sometimes we just see it in the hospital, but you can see it in the community as well. So I think for a lot of individuals, it is, it is really taking a good history.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
That's number one, like any clinician should be. And I'm sure they, the good ones do really good history because it helps tease out what direction you're going to go in. And then using testing to kind of rule out or rule out, rule in or rule out other things that you're concerned about. I think that is helpful, but you know, there's no one test that is perfect. I mean, it just doesn't exist.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I think when I start to zero in on, you know, how my thought process has changed over the past 10 years about fasting and
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Do I sometimes run tests on people that I'm convinced they have SIBO or they have significant candida or some other issue or even something more significant than that? And that's when I refer them to a specialist. But I think in many, many instances, if I'm having great concerns about, you know, do they have colorectal cancer? Could there be something quite significant going on?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I think a lot of it is the interpretation based on the clinician's experience, taking a good history, and then also working with companies where you feel like there's a degree of reliability. There's one company that will remain nameless that since the pandemic, almost every one of my patients was showing up as having H. pylori. And I called the company. I said, how is this even possible?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Because this wasn't happening pre-pandemic. And that required me to do a little bit of course correction. It was like, okay, I'm going to start working with other companies because I'm concerned that this may be an aberrancy. This may be something that It just doesn't make sense that every single person's test would be positive for H. pylori.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
it has gotten a much more nuanced and just having patients get really honest with themselves are you struggling to build muscle are you someone that's not sleeping at night and this could be male or female helping them understand you know intermittent fasting might be something you do on a couple days out of the week it might be on the days you're not lifting weights it might be something that you entertain around your cycle specific times around your cycle
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
When you look at a broad section of the population, it was like that just doesn't make sense. So I think it's it's a bit of provider preference, provider comfort, getting that good history and then deciding what does that patient specifically need? Like there's no one size fits all in my world.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing is understanding that we start in in one place. kind of realm, and we understand the influence of sex hormones are significant and profound. So it's not just immune function and why women in middle age suddenly start becoming more susceptible to parasites and other type of opportunistic infections, but it's bone health.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The gut microbiome and bone health are intricately related. Our mood is intricately related to the type of neurotransmitters we're able to create in the gut microbiome. There is literally next to nothing that is not impacted positively or negatively by the microbiome, including when we go into menopause.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Ovarian senescence is the concept that probably hasn't been talked about a lot, but it's like now that I've kind of opened that Pandora's box, helping us understand that the role of childhood adverse events can impact when we go into menopause and vis-a-vis communication between the microbiome.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
and the ovaries and you know it is utterly fascinating so expect it to come out that everything is interconnected you know traditional allopathic medicine tends to think about health care in silos you know the heart is in one bucket the brain's in another And the one thing that I've learned over the past 10 years is that everything is interconnected.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And the more that we understand about the gut microbiome, the more that I am impressed, the fact that we function day to day, but also understanding how important all this hormone signaling, polyphenol signaling from things like urolithin A, from nitric oxide, all of these signaling molecules communicating within the body, within the gut microbiome to get things to work and be optimal is incredibly humbling.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It can absolutely contribute. And the greatest concern that I have is traditional allopathic medicine has a very narrow-minded perspective on thyroid testing. And therefore, many, many women outside of a traditional allopathic world are oftentimes not properly diagnosed.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I think that it's always a nuanced conversation when it comes to fasting. So if I'm thinking about a ranking, I'd probably make it a B or C. So something in that kind of average range really depends on the individual still has merits. But if you are that type of woman that is middle aged and you are over fasting, under eating, over exercising, you're not doing yourself any benefits.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So let's back it up and talk about the fact that when I was working in traditional allopathic medicine, we probably did two blood tests to look at thyroid function, which does not encompass everything.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
you add on top of that that just like we go through menopause perimenopause we go through thyroid pause there is absolutely positively most often than not women that are navigating that perimenopause to menopause transition are experiencing some degree of underactive thyroid now The allopathic physicians would say that's bunk, that doesn't actually happen. I've seen it thousands of times.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
If you look at trends over time of lab work, looking at like where was their TSH and their free T3, free T4, et cetera, over time, what is happening is they have this loss of sex hormones. So number one, the most common thing we will see in perimenopause and menopause is this underactive thyroid, hypothyroidism, typically caused by an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto's.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
less commonly by Graves, which is where it's overactive. So I find for a lot of women, it is not just this subjective, I'm tired, I'm gaining weight, I'm constipated, my skin is dry. It is the thyroid is just not optimal. It's not optimal. It's not in a position where they even feel like they have enough energy to get out of bed.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So it can be very complicated when we start talking about not just thyroid. It's also the sex hormones piece. It can be lack of sleep. It can be chronic stress. But I find for a lot of individuals, thyroid mismanagement or thyroid under management is absolutely contributing to weight loss resistance. When I find most women.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
even if they're on a very low dose, it's compounded or even traditional things like armor thyroid and things like that, they get started on thyroid medicine and they feel like their brain works better. They feel like they can get out of bed. They may not lose weight immediately, but they will start feeling like they have the energy to go to the gym.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
They're making better food choices because they have more energy to cook. And so I would say that when it comes to thyroid, it is absolutely contributory to weight loss resistance, shifts in body composition. This is absolutely a B.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
it's not i'm not hearing from you and correct me if i'm wrong that it's probably more of the indirect things but it can play some role in some of the direct things as well is that i'm hearing that appropriately absolutely and i i always like to be fully transparent that it was probably eight years ago and my primary care provider checked my thyroid and i i was that typical perimenopausal woman i was exhausted i was tired i was weight loss resistant i couldn't sleep my skin was dry my hair was dry i mean everything
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And she pointed out, you know, your thyroid's underactive. And I was like, I don't want to take a medication for the rest of my life. And so for about three months, I fought this. And then I finally went to her one day and said, I'm absolutely exhausted. I cannot function. And within three days of starting medication, I felt like a light bulb had been turned back on in my brain.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I think it's important to share that even I was resistant because I didn't want to take a medication every day. But I happily take said medication every day because it has made such a significant difference. Now, did I go from, you know, having brain fog and not feeling great and not having energy to instantly losing weight? Absolutely not, because it's like peeling an onion.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You have to keep peeling and peeling and peeling. But I think for a lot of individuals that are listening to this that suspect they might have an underactive thyroid, everything slows down in the body. So you get constipated. Your cycles may change. You may have dry skin. You may feel like you're not mentating well, meaning you're just not feeling like you're as clear cognitively.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
People may have slowed heart rate. They may have brittle nails. There's a lot of things that can happen. Everything slows down. And so for a lot of individuals, it's getting tested to figure out what's going on.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so the types of tests that I recommend, TSH, which is thyroid secreting hormone, looking at a free T3 and a free T4, that's the actual, especially the T3 is important because that's the actual active form of the hormone. Looking at reverse T3, which sometimes the allopathic community screams about. It can be a sign if you're dealing with chronic stress, if that is high.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Looking at antibodies, super important to look at antibodies because just like I mentioned earlier, the number one reason women will develop an underactive thyroid is related to Hashimoto's. Now, I've never had a positive antibody, but I do have Hashimoto's. So I think for a lot of people, it's helping them understand, like, why do we get more susceptible to autoimmunity as we get older?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It goes back to that immune system dysregulation that happens with those sex hormone changes in middle age. And women are much more likely to develop autoimmune conditions just by virtue of our gender.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
We tend to have a more hyper responsive immune system, which is what protects the fetus when we're pregnant, but also can be problematic as we're getting older because our immune system just tends to be more easily provoked. And so when I think about thyroid function, it's helping people understand there are far more people undertreated for thyroid than should be the case.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And a lot of women suffer needlessly in middle age for this reason. And men are not immune to it. I have plenty of male family members, people that I know personally who are otherwise healthy, who just have underactive thyroid. It's almost like it's like a spark plug that has just kind of lost its ability to generate enough ATP, enough energy. And so helping people understand that
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It's not that you've done anything wrong. It's like many things. I hate to use the analogy to a car as the aging process, but just like we have to replace things in the car over time, there are things that just don't work as effectively or as efficiently over time.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah. So I think it goes back to bio-individuality. You're going to have people that will tell you, I tolerate zero fiber. I get gassy. I get bloated. I feel terrible. I don't like it. And then I have other people who thrive on higher fiber diets. So let's talk about the biggest issue is most, if not all of us, are not eating enough fiber.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And if you look at the research on the gut microbiome, fiber feeds the good bacteria in the gut. I mean, it's simply stated. If you look at the research, I think bioindividuality plays a large role in here. I know that I was full carnivore for nine months after being hospitalized. I tolerated zero fiber for a long period of time.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
When patients tell me they tolerate no fiber, I start to think about what's going on in your microbiome that is driving these intolerances or this discomfort or your symptoms. More often than not, I'm a bigger believer of the fact that some fiber is better than none. For each one of us, it might look a little bit differently. The guidelines say 25 to 30 grams a day.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I would imagine most of us are not getting even half of that. So I think that I go into this saying bioindividuality rules. If you look at the research, though, the research absolutely supports the need for fiber to feed the healthy gut microbiome and to look at
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
know these prebiotics and and probiotics and what feeds you know short chain fatty acid production and all these very important things that go on in the gut and i know far more now than i ever thought i would but with that being said this is very much a bio individual because i feel like there's enough people that don't tolerate fiber that i i try very hard to get a little bit into their diet you know whether it's with a supplement
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah, it's a great question. I think the first thing that I would actually have them do is track their macros because that gives me a sense right there of, are you able to meet your protein targets of where you should be? That's number one, because that'll allow me to see, could you get away with having a compressed feeding window or do you struggle to get in
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Or we dip our toe in the pond and we try just, you know, you have an eighth of a cup of lentils one day and maybe another day you're having, you know, a small amount of greens. And then the day after you might introduce some, you know, low glycemic berries just to be getting something into the diet.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I think more often than not, if someone is completely intolerant of fiber, it's a reflection of what's going on in their microbiome.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it's quite important. I would say I'm going to probably going to get in trouble for saying this. I'm going to put it up as a name.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it's actually important. And the irony is over time, because I've had patients try inulin and psyllium and I mean, all sorts of different, it is as individual as the patient. And we start in some instances, we're starting with an eighth of a teaspoon a day just to see, you know, what can we build them up to? It's that important to at least try it.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And I think it's an important, you know, it's a bit of experimentation. And certainly I've had patients who've had SIBO and we've had them on very low FODMAP diets. And there's all sorts of great resources online where you can see it's like a traffic light, you know, green, yellow and red from like lowest to highest FODMAP. I think for a lot of individuals that can be very, very helpful.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The other thing that's really interesting is it goes back to reflecting on The health of your microbiome has a lot to do with what you can or cannot tolerate. And I don't say that to be shaming because I think my gut microbiome has been all over the place over the last 10 years. But I think for a lot of people, as they start healing, they will find that they are more tolerant.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
50 grams of protein a day, because that is a totally separate issue. I think when it's five or 10 pounds, I find for most people, it is the discretionary fun foods. It's the alcohol on the weekends. It's the desserts. It's maybe having that extra portion of ultra processed foods that are adding to you know, the trouble with losing weight or weight loss resistance.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I mean, I do think cumulatively over time we are exposed to a lot. So our toxin bucket over time can get filled. And I think by middle age, most, if not all of us have, whether it's between environmental exposures, food exposures, personal care products exposures, which I think are not probably talked about enough.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
mercury amalgams, I don't want to get controversial, like vaccines, just everything, cumulatively over time, depending on our genetics, depending on who we are, we can be exposed to a lot. I am a fan of looking at specific testing to determine, and based on symptoms and getting that good history, determine if someone actually needs something like that.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Now, do I do testing where it is evident to me that someone has been exposed to a lot of plastics? Yes. Do I see people that are not breaking down their estrogens properly? Absolutely. Are there people that don't detox well? And by that, I mean not just detox in a box.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
They have the genetic SNPs that either it's phase one and phase two, which occur in the liver, or maybe they just recirculate their estrogen because their gut's a disaster. Do I see plenty of people like that? Absolutely. I think that if we have this one size fits all methodology that everyone needs X, that can be problematic.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I think that I would go back to say, I think this is kind of a mediocre recommendation in the context of everyone needs it and everyone needs the same, you know, everyone needs the same binder and everyone needs the same detox program and everyone needs everything. You know, you know, there's there are programs out there that have hundreds, if not thousands of people in them.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And they're servicing thousands and thousands of people all doing exactly the same exact thing. Now, with that being said, are there things that I think that can facilitate natural detoxification processes in our body that all of us can do? Absolutely. Like sauna. sauna exercise, dry brushing, lymphatic massage. I mean, you think about how do we detox optimally?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
We poop, we pee, we sweat, we breathe. I mean, that is how it's supposed to be optimally happening. But there are a lot of lifestyle things, you know, whether it's, you know, certain types of vegetables, whether it's You know, certain types of, you know, hydration. I mean, simple things, hydration, sleep, dry brushing, sauna, infrared sauna.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yes, absolutely. I mean, you talk about DIM as a molecule that you can find in specific compounds of vegetables like your crucifers. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then, you know, it's just thinking about just testing, demonstrate that you actually need X, Y, or Z. Like I have MTHFR, I have two copies. I am a terrible phase two detoxifier.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So in my body, there are certain nutrients that I need more of, but I eat plenty of those vegetables that have those things. But I also take a specific supplement to facilitate that, but it would not be the recommendation I would make to everyone, which is why I don't love these one size fits all detox in a box supplements.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So sometimes it's starting there, like the transparency piece, and I'm a data geek. So it's like, let's track your macros for a couple of days just to see what you're doing. And then we can decide if you're already getting in 120 grams of protein a day,
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think I'm trying to sway you.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think I think there's an F in there. I just haven't hit it yet. Although I do. I do. The cautionary thing is I think there are very well-meaning people out there. Yes. And that's kind of my prevailing thought process in life.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I have to believe that. But there are charlatans and the charlatans are going to convince the thousands of people out there need exactly the detox in a box. And I'm here to tell you that that's probably not the case.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I'm going to give it a D and it's context of why I'm saying this.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Intense daily cardio. Right. So I think zone two cardio, which is designed to keep your heart rate at a certain level, is very different than chronic, unrelenting, hardcore cardio, which is very different than high intensity interval training. We know that burst training is important for women in particular, but burst training is Five to 10 minutes. It is not 30 minutes.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it depends. So when I talk about the desire to intermittent fast and the health benefits that come from it, It's always with the dovetail caveat of it depends. And because intermittent fasting is not new or novel, despite what the media would like us to think, it is designed to be able to help us utilize stored fat as energy, ideally.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It is not an hour long slog where you're killing yourself on a bike or you are, you know, doing and I'm going to take a lot of heat for this CrossFit or Orange Theory Fitness five days a week with no breaks. That is not what we're talking about. And so I think that there's a place for strength training. There's a place for zone two training, which is designed to be done where you're not panting.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Having a compressed feeding window is probably not a big deal, but if you're someone struggling to get 50 or 60 a day, you're the last person that I want you to have an ultra compressed feeding window. I find for a lot of patients, it's cutting out alcohol, it's cutting out the sweets, it's cutting out processed carbs that have a huge net impact on those last 5, 10, 15 pounds.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You're able to carry on a conversation. You could be walking up hills in your neighborhood. As an example, I live in a very hilly part of my state. very different than chronic cardio. And I think my generation has been convinced. Number one, we want to be skinny and not strong.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And the other thing that I think about quite a bit is that we were the generation that was convinced that we wanted to do all these aerobic activities and That's probably not what is going to allow us to lose weight over time. Now, are there exceptions?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Probably, but I find more often than not, the amount of cortisol that you are eliciting with that chronic, unrelenting, hardcore cardio is not the cortisol that is going to be your friend. I think when we're talking about that intense cardio that we've been conditioned to believe is what's going to allow us to lose weight, we know that exercise is actually a poor way to lose weight.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It does many other benefits, but if you're purely doing hardcore cardio to lose weight, that's actually not particularly effective and that's looking at the science. So when I'm helping women understand how to restructure their exercise, it's like, I'm not telling you not to exercise, but let's exercise smarter. Put your time into strength training, do some zone two training,
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
High-intensity interval training or burst training is important, but that's not an hour-long activity. That's like 10 or 12 minutes of activity. This is where people have gotten hit and Tabata all wrong. It's not a 30-minute class. It is designed to be short durations.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Like when I work out with my trainer, which I do twice a week to torture myself, it is 12 to 15 minutes most of burst training, and it is very intense training. And then you you take two minutes off and it's like that is what you are doing.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think many women that come to or have been doing chronic, you know, they just want to run 10, 15 miles every day or they want to get on that bike for two hours. It's helping them understand that those types of activities over time will actually work against us. They will break down muscle. They will raise cortisol.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
which just fuels these, this breakdown in inflammation, gut health, muscle breakdown, you know, even Dr. Stacey Sims talks about, you know, why we have to exercise smarter as we're getting older.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And it's just helping people understand we have to find that reframe because we've been conditioned, at least my generation, skinny over strong, you know, do all the chronic cardio, because that's going to help you lose weight. And that's actually not the case.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I'm talking about strength training and zone two. Zone two is the kind of training where you are still able to carry on a conversation. It's designed to be... You know, when I think about what I do for zone two, it is usually walking hills because there's so many of them.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And then, you know, two days a week, 10 or 15 minutes of burst training or high intensity emerald training, that is very different. And I think for many individuals, that becomes... something that is sustainable as opposed to like, oh gosh, I've got to go run and mile. I've got to run for the next hour.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
No. And that's important. So I think for a lot of, I would say this is, this is actually an S.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I personally am a big walker. Like I actually like that non-exercise induced thermogenesis. So just being active throughout the day. Do I think that every person realistically is going to hit 10,000 steps every day? Probably not. I have three dogs, so it's pretty easy.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I think for a lot of individuals, like if they can just build it into they after a meal, they walk, you know, they park a little farther out at the grocery store or at the mall, if anyone still goes to malls or, you know, you're just doing some type of physical activity. Like for me, I can just walk hills up and down my street and get plenty of steps in.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think what it's encouraging people to do, like the prevailing theme is, Be physically active. This is in addition to the other types of exercise that you're doing. And I know that a friend of mine recently was talking about how she does not feel that walking is exercise.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it's important because you have to meet people where they are. For some people, getting 5,000 steps a day is a lot. So I look at it as 10,000 is great. Do I think that it's important to be, you know, for locomotion purposes, for being physically active? Absolutely. And I think for a lot of people, I go back to tracking macros.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
For a lot of people, they just don't realize how sedentary they are. Like when I started tracking how far I was walking back when I was still seeing patients in the hospital, in the office, I was shocked. I was like, oh, I'm all over the hospital. I'm getting in 10,000 steps a day. No, I wasn't, even though I was in a big hospital.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think for a lot of people building awareness of what are the things I can do, whether it's maybe you get up a little earlier in the morning to walk for 15 minutes before you go to work. Maybe you walk after lunch. Maybe you and your spouse, you know, now we're heading into spring and summer. You know, it's it's lighter later walking with your spouse or your kids or whomever your pet.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
after dinner, you know, just getting opportunities to become more physically active, I think is very important, the emphasis on activity.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so walking is something you don't need a lot of special equipment for, you don't have to do a lot of special things for, for people that are dealing with mobility issues, sometimes getting in a pool, like if your gym has a pool, you can get in the pool and just, you know, you can do water laps, going back and forth, you don't necessarily have to swim. But I think for every
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
reason i've been given by patients over the years of why they don't they're not more physically active i try to come up with alternatives and so i would say being more physically active plus or minus those 10 000 steps is a b it's important i think it's very important that's great you know on that note i saw a tweet recently from an episode that rhonda patrick did where she said okay we want physical activity for sure like we want a lot of movement throughout the day and
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah, and it's interesting because even burst training can be helpful for visceral fat. So for a lot of people, we know visceral fat is the fat accumulation around our vital organs. That burst training can be very effective at...
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
improving the degree of visceral fat we have and we know again it's like this this little switch that goes off north of 40 we are much more prone to fat deposition there especially as women than we are in other areas where maybe it's more pesky if it's on our rear ends or on the back of our arms but that visceral fat is the stuff we want to avoid so burst training can be helpful for that as well
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think alcohol is one of the hidden reasons for why people are weight loss resistant. Because it can be very triggering to have a conversation. We use a cage questionnaire in traditional medicine to talk about habits around alcohol. And sometimes it's like poking a tiger.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Okay. So I'm going to give it a B. Because I do see merit in it. And I'll be fully transparent and tell you, I hate counting macros, but there is utility in it. And for some of my patients, they need that quantitative information to say, this is how much protein you're consuming. These are your carbohydrates. This is how much fat you're consuming.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You know you probably suspect this patient or this individual probably is drinking more than they're comfortable sharing with you. And coming from a place of no judgment, I think that alcohol is... is challenging because it is one of the few socially acceptable drugs that we can use. And I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable not choosing not to drink if that's what they choose to do.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think there are equally a lot of people that feel completely uninhibited that they can drink as much as they want. And I'm not talking about like the teenagers and young adults and college age kids that are just experimenting. I think when you look at alcohol as a toxin, It's particularly harmful to many issues or many systems in the body.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think that when we talk about alcohol, I'm by no means am I saying be a teetotaler, don't enjoy a glass of wine on your birthday or a celebration. But I think for many individuals, it's reexamining that relationship because we know that one glass of alcohol in a woman is going to raise her estrogen levels for up to eight hours after consumption. If you're on HRT, guess what?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It's going to magnify that.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Helping people understand the way that our body detoxifies it is it's detoxified as a toxin. Your body will prioritize processing the alcohol first before anything else. We know it can be toxic to our brains. It can shrink our hippocampus. We know it can increase our risk of breast cancer.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think that for anyone that's listening, that's thinking that maybe it could be contributing to one of the reasons why they're struggling to lose weight, I would say there's absolutely nothing wrong with cutting back, reducing what you're consuming. I think for some individuals, it's they want to numb themselves from actually experiencing difficult feelings.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so alcohol, just like a lot of other vices in life, is something that allows them to come home, decompress, have a couple of glasses of wine, fall asleep. Maybe their sleep isn't so great. And I can make the argument that if you're already not getting good sleep, this isn't going to help. But alcohol is good. definitely contributory to weight loss resistant without question.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And I think that if you're trying to lose weight and you're trying to figure out why you're not losing weight and maybe all the other things are dialed in, maybe look at the alcohol piece.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Because I think for a lot of people, they mindlessly go about their day, not realizing that, you know, that half an avocado or sometimes that whole avocado a day is Could be, yes, it's a healthy fat. Yes, it's a healthy monounsaturated fat. But if you're over consuming healthy fats, that can impact your weight loss resistance. So number one, I like to track macros short term.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah, I would say regular sodas with high fructose corn syrup. That is enough. That's enough.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Well, there's no therapeutic benefit. But if you're someone that really enjoys a soda and that's your vice, then I would say having a diet soda is going to be better than having the real thing. Now, we have a lot of people talking about the role of artificial sweeteners, whether it's sucralose, aspartame. People even sometimes will lump stevia, saccharin.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I don't know anyone that uses saccharin in their drinks, but that always comes up. If you look at the research, there's research to suggest in some rodent models that these artificial sweeteners can be
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
impactful on insulin sensitivity as well as impacting the gut microbiome within 28 to 30 days so that is significant but in the grand scheme of things i think that we have to think about what is realistic for our patients like i'm a realist and i want people say to me whether it's the diet soda or a protein bar or a protein shake i'm like listen i'm a realist if that is how you're going to be able to get through the day if you've been consuming eight cans of coke a day
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
for 20 years, if I can get you to stop consuming eight cans of Coke a day and get you transitioned onto something else, maybe we go from eight cans down to four cans, down to two, down to one. And then we transition you to a diet soda and you get acclimated to that taste that is infinitely better for you than that high fructose corn syrup is.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And the net impact that we know that our body effectively fructose in general is processed very differently in the body than other types of sugars. And I think soda is one of those kind of It's a really bad idea. I think in terms of impact on health, it's so profound and significant that a diet soda here and there, I'm not particularly worried about in the grand scheme of things.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Are there people out there that are absolutists? Yes. And I just think that that's not necessarily reasonable for most individuals.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So some people I'll say, let's track it for a week. A week is something everyone can do. Now, if I have someone who has eating disordered behavior, That sometimes can be triggering. And so there's other ways. I'll say, let's just track protein. Let's just track one metric. I think it is that important. Then you can also track hydration. You can track your discretionary macros.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Well, and I think it's interesting to me, you know, being in a position much like you that, you know, I've interviewed some amazing people and met and interacted with so many health and wellness experts. I sometimes think that we're shooting ourselves in our feet if we are too absolutist and too not accepting of where people are in time and space. Because that diet soda to me is not a big deal.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I have a husband who used to drink, I don't know, four or five diet Pepsis a day when I first met him. Now he doesn't drink any. Now it's kind of a every once in a while I'll laugh. I'll find some diet Pepsi in the outside refrigerator. And I'm like, I don't care. It makes them happy. But I think for a lot of people, it's like the journey that we're on.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I mean, I'm sure the way I ate 15 years ago is very different than how I eat now. And so it's like just, you know, what decisions can we make day to day that over time are going to have the largest impact? And that to me, a diet soda is not that big of a deal.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it's one of the most important things because ultimately that's what you fall back on every day. You know, you have a good day, you have a bad day. Ultimately, your mindset and the way you view the world has everything to do with decisions that you make, perspectives that you embrace or reject.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I think the only way I've gotten to where I am today is by consistently investing in my mindset and coaching and
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
We can track where you are. If you're still menstruating, we can track that too. But I find even for men, very beneficial for transparency to see, are you getting enough protein in that meal? Do you understand that you have to hit this protein threshold to be able to trigger muscle protein synthesis, which I'm sure we'll probably talk about?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
and being able to share what i learn on the podcast or books i'm reading or people i interact with because ultimately i mean ultimately that's the most important thing that's the only thing that's gotten me from you know birth until 53 years old and being a super positive opt you know optimistic individual and when i look at Colleagues of mine that are doing amazing things.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
They are constantly fine tuning. It's like fine tuning a piece of sculpture. They are constantly working on it. And it's not to suggest that I never have a bad day or bad things don't happen. I mean, they do. But I'm always looking for the reframe. You know, how can I look at this differently? Like, what's the lesson here?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And what can I take from this moving forward that's going to make me stronger, a better person, a better showing up as a better mom, better wife, better entrepreneur, better nurse practitioner? What are the things that I need to do? Because it's very easy in life to get caught up in, you know, the yuck of day to day living. It's so easy to get caught up in that.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And the people that I see that are thriving, irrespective of age right now, are the people that are constantly working on personal development. I mean, without question.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah, I mean, I think first it's it's deciding like what like I'm a reader. I think that that's reading books is what really appeals to me. And then maybe secondarily to that, listening to podcasts. So I would say Dr. Wayne Dwyer's work has just been on my mind a lot recently, largely because it's always like looking at this reframe.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think Atomic Habits is a particular book that I think there's a reason why it's on the New York Times bestselling list week after week after week. I think a great deal about, you know, having some type of, you know, connection to whether it's God or the universe. I mean, having some degree of spirituality, I think is so important.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
How you choose to practice is obviously as unique as each one of us are. I think that, you know, having close friends, we know that loneliness is as hard on our bodies as smoking. And so, you know, the research is coming out from the pandemic era, right? showing how a lot of people essentially died of loneliness is heartbreaking. And so having a support system, I think, is important.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so number one, I think tracking macros can be beneficial for the short term. In no ways do I recommend anyone be tracking macros in perpetuity. For the same reason, I think weighing yourself daily for a lot of people can be very triggering. So it's a short-term benefit, short-term effort for a long-term benefit.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It doesn't necessarily have to be a lot of people. It just has to be people that, you know, you can go to and talk to about things that you find concerning. Having a mentor, I think that's important. I would say the best coaches are being coached constantly. So, you know, throughout the last nine, 10 years, I've always had
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
some type of mentorship or some type of coaching where I've been having someone I've been paying and I've been participating and looking at it as an investment in my mindset. And depending on what I'm working on in my business might be working on messaging or something else. But I think for each one of us, it's like, just be open to the possibility that there's probably someone's work out there
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
that will appeal to you. And I think it's important to just experience different things, like whether it's Dr. Joe Dispenza, whether it's Dr. Wayne Dwyer, whether it's, you know, Mel Robbins. I'm just using these as examples. Like these are people that have kind of got larger than life personas and have different prevailing philosophies about how they see the world.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But, you know, just being open to the possibility that there's more to learn, I think is important. Having a curious mind and a curious spirit.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Any that you want to name? I mean, I think having that kind of scarcity mindset, I was talking to someone the other day and I just said, well, I think the most important thing we can do right now is just find a reframe for what you experienced. I'm not diminishing what you experienced.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I think if you can't look beyond your circumstances right now, and this is something that had happened to this individual months before, if you don't have the ability to kind of reflect and say, what is the lesson here? So that's always the way when stuff happens and it always does because that's part of life. What is the lesson that I need to learn here?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think having a scarcity mindset, and we're all guilty of this, whether it's, you know, you're going through tough financial times or, you know, someone in your family's health is going sideways, or maybe you have an argument with someone you're very close to. It's like working through those tough times and just trying to figure out like, what is the lesson? What can I learn from this? Or
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The other side of that, Drew, quite frankly, is therapy in general. I've been in therapy, some form of therapy for the last 30 years. I had a wonderful college roommate who took a look at me and said, I think you would benefit from some therapy. And so we still laugh about it.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I'm like, that is a real friend that says to you, I think you could benefit from talking to someone about the things you're struggling with. And so I think that therapy, whether that is with a traditional therapist or you are doing... you know, MDMA therapy with a licensed provider or you are, you know, going to a meditation retreat.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I just think it's really important to acknowledge the stuff that you need to work on. I always say it's again, it's like a sculpture. You're constantly fine tuning things. If I get triggered, it's like, OK, there's something there that I need to work on. And so I think therapy, if people are open to that, is also very important with the right practitioner, the right person. Very, very helpful.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And when I think about kind of high-level concepts, it's, are you having enough protein? What are you doing with your carbohydrates? And I'm not anti-carb. I think, unfortunately, because I've been someone that's been aligned with intermittent fasting for a long period of time, people assume I'm ketogenic or I'm low-carb. That is not the case.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So creatine monohydrate is the type of creatine that we're
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
of alluding to and speaking to that is the best research that is the one that the only type that i consume and i've been on the creatine bandwagon for about four years now so i was i was a scooch ahead of this big curve of people that are taking a lot of interest and what's amazing to me is that on my own even without speaking to uh the wonderful researcher i've had on the podcast multiple times darren kandow who i think is amazing um
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You know, is that on my own, I've been able to figure out that creatine is not just helpful for strength and sleep architecture, but helps with jet lag. And so for me, with all the time changes that I'm doing, like this week I'm in LA and next week I'll be in Barcelona. So like my body's gone three hours in one direction and then it's going to go nine hours in another.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so how do I, how do I deal with jet lag? One of the things I do is I increase my creatine. So it's helpful for jet lag. There's research emerging, talking about brain health as well as bone health. Really important because we know women make 70 to 80 percent less creatine. We have less storage than men. So we actually need more than men.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And from my perspective, I think it's very exciting that the research is demonstrating that at higher doses, eight to 10 milligrams to help cross that blood brain barrier is can be helpful for jet lag, for brain health, for bone health, which that to me is like emerging research, but very exciting because not every person can take HRT.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so we know that that loss of estrogen and progesterone signaling on bone can make women much more susceptible to osteopenia, and then ultimately osteoporosis. So from my perspective, something that's relatively inexpensive, well-tolerated, it's a foundational supplement. I mean, to me, it is probably the most important supplement in my supplement stack without question.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it's important to have high quality carbohydrates, looking at the types of fats you're consuming and understanding that as a differentiator, that protein and carbohydrates are four calories per gram and fat is nine. Yeah, it's nine. And so helping people understand that if you're trying to lose weight,
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You want to get a little plug for that? Yeah. So it's the midlife pause creatine. So what's exciting about it is, you know, it's, it's, we added things to the creatine monohydrate that allows us to get better crossage across the blood brain barrier. So alpha GPC, which is a nootropic, some B vitamins, but it's exciting because I have so many people that it's really changed their lives. I have
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
All my kids take it. My husband takes it. I have my mother taking it. My mother's 79 years old and, you know, retired and she loves it. And so, you know, from my perspective, it's an easy thing that plays well with other supplements. So it's not like you take this and you can't take other things. You know, from my perspective, something that's multipurposeful is really exciting.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yes, and so people still say, if I take creatine, is my hair going to fall out? No, there's no research to that. If I take creatine, is it going to damage my kidneys? No, if you have healthy kidneys, it's not going to damage your kidneys. But helping people understand the way it works and why it's important to look for creatine
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The purest form, which is CreaPure, which is the stuff that you have to license that is processed in a way that it's less likely to cause side effects. Some people get bloating and GI upset, and that's usually from the cheap stuff.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Again, it goes back to being a realist and probably twice a week I have protein powder. So I think it's important if you tolerate whey, that is going to be, whey is going to be a complete protein, really well tolerated, but you don't want 15 or 16 ingredients. It should really be
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The whey protein may be like a clean sweetener if you tolerate stevia or monk fruit, or if you don't like it flavored, totally unflavored. But you definitely want to make sure it's a short ingredient list, preferably sourced by grass-fed cows. But if that's not doable, just keep the ingredient list short. Beef protein isolate is fine. It's just not a complete protein.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So if that's something, and I do have some of that in my house, I'll just round it out with some essential amino acids. And then the plant-based, if you find one that you like, again, short ingredient list, tolerable. Sometimes some of the products I've tried have been, it's been more of a consistency. And for me, if it's chalky or gritty, it's hard for me to get it down.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I know that there are some good brands that are out there. I'm a realist. I think it's fine if you're having one a day. But sometimes I meet women that are having two a day. And I'm like, okay, we need to figure out how to get another meal into your diet. And if you're using that last ingredient, You know, that last bolus of protein just to buffer your protein intake. I think that's fine.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And you think you can have all the fatty meat and have two sticks of butter a day and three avocados. And I have met people who insist that's what they consume. And I'm like, if that works for you, great. But for the vast majority of us, it would not. And so once you can quantitatively look at that information, it allows you to make very specific recommendations for patients.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But we ideally want to actually get the protein from real whole food sources. Again, ideally, like tomorrow I'm traveling. It might not be a day that I hit 100 grams of protein, but, you know, it might be a day I buffer it a little bit.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it's a B or a C, meaning like I'll be totally transparent. I had a protein shake yesterday because there's just no way I was going to be able to buffer out that protein. And I think that's fine. You know, sometimes you're stuck with filtered water in a shaker bottle and that's what you got. But when I'm at home, I get a little more creative.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
You know, it's interesting. When I think about what is going to drive inflammation, oxidative stress, etc., it is probably more the processed food. And as a byproduct is cooked or is consumed with seed oils, it is probably more problematic.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Again, because we know that if you're consuming processed foods, you're consuming an additional 500,000 calories a day because your body doesn't register that you are full. So do I think seed oils are less than ideal? Of course. But with that being said, I think if we aim to consume less seed oils, it means we aim to consume less processed food.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And that's where I find tracking macros helpful. Let me be very clear. I'm not suggesting you do this for the rest of your life. It is not meant to be feeling like you're tethered to your app on your phone. It is really just to help you build awareness about portion sizes and quantity of macronutrients that you're consuming. And what I like about
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think the processed food piece is the most important. If I look at the research, and certainly I know we both have had Dr. Kate Shanahan on, I've read her books, which certainly paint a really ugly, dark picture of the impact, oxidative stress on the cell, how it damages the cellular membrane. can lead to carbohydrate cravings and weight gain.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think it has more to do with the actual processed food consumption and less about the CETOs. I'm by no means saying like, you know, go out and buy that big canola oil canister because I don't have any of that in my house. But I think it's the bigger picture sometimes we forget about. It's like really the message should be eat less processed foods.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And by virtue of just eating less processed foods, you will consume less seed oils. I don't go to restaurants and I stress about seed oils. I think that I eat out so sporadically that if I eat a meal with seed oils, I'm like in the grand scheme of things. For me personally, this is not going to be a make or break situation for me.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Now, I think if all you're doing is eating out in restaurants and you're not looking at food labels, you probably are getting quite a bit of inflammatory rancid seed oils, probably more than what you should. And just a lot of extra calories. Correct. Again, that same thing, 500. This is average 500 to additional 1000 calories a day if you're eating a lot of ultra processed foods.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I think if we look at it from that perspective, it yields that we understand that, you know, Aim for less processed foods. By virtue of eating less processed foods and reading some food labels, you will become more aware. You will try to avoid maybe make some swaps. I mean, I still laugh.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think I went to visit my mother-in-law and I opened up her cabinet and it was just like, my husband's like, don't say it. Don't say it. She's 80 years old. She's not going to change anything she's doing. And I was like, I'm keeping my mouth shut. But I think that from the perspective, like know better, do better.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
it's just trying to be very conscientious about, you know, what we're consuming and swapping it out, reading the, reading the food labels piece, which you can pretty much be guaranteed that most, if not all, I mean, it's insane how much seed oils and things, I mean, it's most of the protein bars that are out there. I've got sunflower or safflower oil on them or canola.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I mean, just you're in a airport and you're starving and you're like, I don't have time to eat a meal, but I'm going to grab a protein bar. And you realize that, You're like, all right, I can eat the protein bar or I can just fast. Those are my two options right now because neither of these are super healthy.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
One particular app that I have no affiliation with is chronometer. It also gives you micronutrients. So you'll be able to see, you know, what's your magnesium or potassium chloride, all these micronutrients that do impact food cravings, satiety, et cetera.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Unfortunately, in kind of our modern day culture, many of us are no longer able to access stored fat as a fuel source because of how frequently we eat and the types of foods that we consume. So when I think about intermittent fasting and whether or not where it should tier on this list, it really depends on the individual. And I'll give you a specific example.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Well, it's interesting. You said you're a hyper absorber, right? Of cholesterol.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So I'm the same.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And what I found interesting was every time you go to these really nice restaurants and you'd have a steak and you'd have steak and frites.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And I'm like, I'm going to enjoy my French fries because they're cooked in duck fat. And then I would be sick. So sick. And I finally realized I was like, I never tolerated a lot of heavy animal based fats. That's why I gravitated towards lean meats and did so much better not having like lard and tallow and duck fat stuff.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And I was like, oh, it's because I hate it's like my body just soaks it up like a sponge. No wonder why I was so like sick to my stomach. Whereas the average person doesn't process cholesterol that way. And so it finally made sense. So when, when we finally did that Boston heart cholesterol balance test, my doc looked at me and he goes, your body knew all the way along.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Cause I never tolerated fried foods. I just, I think it's because my body just soaked up everything that was there. It just made me sick.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I would give this a solid B more as a, I think this is an important tool to have in the toolbox, but not something that I'm suggesting people do for the rest of their lives. But I think it can be very, very insightful. Yeah.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Well, my husband makes fun of me because when I travel, there's usually a few restaurants that I trust that I can order food from and I don't have to worry about overconsumption of stuff I wouldn't normally eat. Yeah. And so it becomes this running joke. Oh, is there a true food kitchen anywhere? Oh, I love true food kitchen. Yeah. Well, every, my hotel is literally around the corner.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so he was, he said, did you plan that? I said, no, I didn't even realize it, but it's like, I know I can get a clean meal and I don't have to worry about it. But yeah, I think that for those of us that, that eat out very sporadically, I mean, when I'm traveling, I it's, it's a given that I'm going to have to eat out, but At home, and we rarely eat out. Like, rarely eat out.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Well, the one thing that we started doing were masa chips.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I can tolerate because they're not greasy. It's like I can have a couple of those chips and I feel like it's being super indulgent.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And I'm like, They're handmade. And I was trying to explain to my husband, I was like, there are as many people in that organization working on their kind of, you know, hand doing all their process as in all of Frito-Lay. Oh my gosh. Because one is a massive, massive manufacturing facility and one is not.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah, and absolutely. I mean, sometimes I'll suggest to some of the patients, I'm like, just measure out a serving, like whether nuts are a big one. Nuts are so easy to overeat. It's like if it's a quarter cup is the serving of pistachios, measure it out and put the bag away. Like, don't leave the temptation out there.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
If you know that that's your kryptonite, either don't keep it in the house or just measure a portion and like put the rest of it away.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah. I mean, I'll just share transparently. I think I've done a 360. I think the more I interview experts and see the incredible results in my own patients, the more I realize like some of these patients I've been working with for four or five years. And so I know them very well. And when we get to a point where I'm like, I think it's time to add in terzepatide, which is a GLP-1.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And then all of a sudden I start seeing their fasting insulin finally going down and their glucose finally going down, their inflammation finally going down, they're sleeping better and they feel better. I think if used judiciously and used appropriately, I think they can be really powerful. I don't believe in shaming people because they choose to take a GLP-1.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Because I think that we have enough issues here in the United States that we don't need to add to it by, you know, whether it's someone in social media pointing out a celebrity and saying, oh, they have Ozempic face. I'm like, even if they use Ozempic, why is that our business? I just have seen incredible improvement in biophysical markers, inflammatory markers.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
especially in people in many instances who've been dealing with weight loss resistance for quite a bit of time. Now I can share, and I've been given permission to disclose, my husband last year, we were starting to see some trends in the wrong direction. And so I had spoken to his functional med doc and I said, you know, maybe interject a conversation about a GLP-1.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And the one thing that my husband said was, He was never overweight, but what was interesting was he said it quieted all the food noise. Like on a Friday or Saturday night when he'd have a glass of alcohol and he might have some chips, he said, I had no desire to have a glass of alcohol or even have any chips. And he said, one day out of the week, he might have a drink.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But he was saying to me, it was almost like someone came in and just erased all these cravings that I used to have on Friday and Saturday nights because I was home and we were just socializing.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so I think for a lot of people, the more I understand about these drugs, and especially the second generation GLP-1s where they've got both the GLP-1 and the GIP, so they've got a different mechanism of action. We know we have GLP-1 receptors in the brain, but for a lot of people, they're really struggling with food noise. I think this is going to revolutionize what we're doing.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think that initially when they came out, when we were hearing a lot of reports of people developing an ileus or people developing irretractable vomiting or I think there still are practitioners out there that go too fast, too high, too quickly, and you have patients that aren't able to tolerate the drugs.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I have interviewed some experts who feel like they're lifelong drugs, and I think that conversation needs to be had with patients if that is indeed the case of, you know, they'll need to be on the drug lifelong to keep things balanced. But in my circumstance, most of the people that I have worked with, it's been a short term thing to kind of get on top of worsening metabolic health.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But what I think is really interesting is. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we're seeing them being utilized with adults. I'm not talking about it for any other population, but how they're being used with adults, which I think is encouraging.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think that I was part of an event last fall and there was a whole I wasn't part of this conversation, but there were a bunch of experts on stage with varying backgrounds and it got very contentious. And so I kept saying, I think we're missing we're missing the boat on ultimately what are we trying to do? We're trying to help people.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And if we're trying to help people, and we know this drug can be beneficial to improve metabolic health, if it's only 7% to 8% of us are metabolically healthy, really, we need to do something differently. I mean, there's a lot of things that go into this conversation, but I'm not opposed to GLP-1s, but I think they have to be dosed judiciously with fully informed consent.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think those two pieces, along with getting some type of a contract that says you will lift weights and you will eat enough protein because those two things must go hand in hand because with changes in body composition, it is more often than not, not just fat loss. There's also muscle loss that occurs.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And as we've talked about how important muscle is for longevity, metabolic health, it's important that we not lose that too.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah. And I think it's also it's one of those things like my husband and I laugh about this because he's a former college athlete. He thinks he doesn't ever have to track anything. And I said, I actually want you to track for an entire week. So I know exactly how much protein you're consuming.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
To his credit, he was getting plenty of protein, but he was surprised about the carbohydrates, how much carbohydrate he was consuming. And he was finding that when he looked at the data over time, he's like, when do I eat the most of my carbs? Friday and Saturday night. And so it was like, okay, are you not eating enough food on Friday? Or are you just allowing yourself to indulge?
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yes, but it appears to be more the rarity. I think it has more to do with if you are taking the drugs and you're not changing the lifestyle pieces, when you come off the drug, the weight is going to come back on because you haven't changed whether you're types of foods that you're eating or focusing on stress management or getting enough sleep or weight training.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I mean, those things that we know are so critically important. I think that for some people, depending on how much weight they had to lose, I think for those that lost a tremendous amount of weight, it's probably more of a tenuous stepping off point. It may be like a very slow taper down, you know, they may slowly taper up and then slowly taper down and see how they do and monitor.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
What I find interesting is just socially, I know several healthcare professionals who take micro doses, so sub therapeutic doses of GLP ones, and some of them have lost so much weight, they're like, I'm never going to stop because I'm just not I'm just not willing to run the risk of gaining the weight back. So I think it's a twofold issue.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I think if someone is able to successfully come off and keep the weight off, they are very likely making significant lifestyle changes either before they come off or around that same time. I think if you go back to the same habits, you will very likely put weight back on.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Now, I'm not familiar enough with the research to know how quickly that would occur, but we do know yo-yo dieting is something that can be hugely problematic. Now, obviously with GLP-1, most people are not losing 10 pounds in a week, but I do think for a lot of people who've had a lifetime of yo-yo dieting, I think their metabolism in many ways is already
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
dysregulated or damaged to a degree that they're probably more susceptible to that.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
It just builds that awareness so that you can get back on track if you need to. It's not designed to be punitive. And I think that's sometimes the common misconception is that tracking is designed to be punitive. And I'm like, oh, no, we're just data mining. We are just information gathering. And I think that that allows us to make better decisions overall.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
to be able to improve their metabolic health.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I would say A, if not S. I think it is that impactful. So number one, before women were living to be into their 80s and life expectancy 100 years ago was like in our late 40s. A lot of people have made the conversation, well, if we were meant to live this long, then we don't need more hormones. But what many people don't realize, and this applies to men as well, is just not nearly as dramatic.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Men go through andropause. Women go into menopause. But for women, it is a catastrophic decline in hormones. You know, you go from what hearkens the beginning of perimenopause and the beginning of ovarian senescence is this loss of progesterone. And you get a relative estrogen dominance, which explains a lot of the symptoms that women experience in perimenopause.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And so we initially have low progesterone. At the end of perimenopause, we also have low estrogen. Depending on the individual, about 25% of us still make a good amount of testosterone in menopause. I'm not one of them. But for me, being on hormone replacement therapy personally has been life-changing. In most of my patients, life-changing in terms of sleep.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
libido, energy, cognition, bone health, heart health. There's just so many benefits if dosed properly. And that is the caveat is that we still have clinicians that are in many instances fearful to prescribe hormones, aka oral contraceptives are not hormone replacement therapy. Number one, for anyone who thinks like we have women that will write into the podcast, I'm like, I'm so excited for you.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And then I'm like, no, that's not it. Yeah. So oral contraceptives or combined oral contraceptives are not HRT. But helping women understand that, you know, the differentiator in sleep quality is unbelievable. When we do intake forms, I know who's on HRT. They are the people that are sleeping better, have more energy, have more vitality. Their hair is still vibrant.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And I think all of us have opportunities where we have things we need to clean up. I'm going through that myself right now. I'm like, OK, time to get back on the saddle.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
They feel like their skin is glowing. They just feel so much better. And it allows them to show up, you know, uniquely in their personal and professional lives. So from my perspective, having a conversation, every woman and frankly, every male deserves to have a conversation with their partner. hormone proficient provider about what is needed and necessary.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And for women, that could be, it could be progesterone, estrogen. It could be testosterone. It could include thyroid replacement. If that's what you need, it could include things like pregnenolone, which is important for memory and DHEA, depending on what you yourself need. And then in addition to that, just helping people navigate their choices.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But understand that you do have choices and there are providers that are out there that can help you navigate what choices and options are available. They run the gamut from stuff that's covered by insurance, as well as compounded options. And obviously the compounded options are more expensive. I always transparently share that I have an estrogen patch, which is $5 a month.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And then I take compounded progesterone, which is I think $90 for three months. And then I take testosterone, which is about $100 for three months. So relatively inexpensive. And no, you do not have to spend $150 a month on an estrogen patch. There are some online companies that will remain nameless that charge an arm and a leg for their products, which I think is, I'm all for people making money.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
But I think that for a lot of individuals, they need stuff that's more affordable. But I think HRT is a total game changer. And every woman and man, for that matter, deserves to have a conversation with a a hormone savvy provider that can start things low and slow. You know, a lot of the concerns that women express to me is I know if it's not dosed properly, I'm going to gain weight.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
That's a huge concern and a huge fear. And I, I, I feel that in my bones because I know how frustrating that would be. But if it's dosed slowly and appropriately, you know, starting with some progesterone and adding in some estrogen, then eventually if needed, adding in testosterone and
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
If done at the proper doses, people should not be gaining 5, 10, 15, 20 pounds like I hear across social media that occur on occasion. But HRT, absolutely a game changer.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Well, I think that's an important question. There's also an important caveat. We know, if we look at research, that as a woman's estradiol, which is the predominant form of estrogen, is lowering in late perimenopause into menopause, and as our FSH, which is follicular stimulating hormone, is going up, In our bodies, if we are not getting enough protein, so it goes back to the protein.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
So this is physiologically what is happening. If we don't eat enough protein, that change in those two hormones will drive us to continue eating. So when women say to me and they we look again, one week's look at their what they're taking in in terms of macronutrients. And they say to me at 7, 8 o'clock at night, the pantry is calling to me. It's just calling to me.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I just go in there and I start eating. It's because they haven't eaten enough food throughout the day. So that protein piece becomes even more important. So I'll just dovetail that. This protein leverage hypothesis is very important. You don't get enough protein, your body will seek out calories from fat and carbohydrates and other ways.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Number two, I think that there's many things that contribute to weight loss resistance.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
being in a low estrogen or low testosterone state can exacerbate that it is usually never just the change in sex hormones usually multiple things it's probably your stress isn't being managed we know stress think about it like the primary thing that happens with cortisol is your blood sugar goes up your blood sugar goes up your insulin goes up so helping people understand that not getting good sleep not managing your stress the loss of muscle um
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
your macronutrients being a disaster, all these things, and then add in all the other nuances about gut health, toxin exposure. I mean, all these things can contribute to weight loss resistance. It is never just one thing, but I think once we get your hormones properly balanced and by balanced hormones, You know, we can define what that is. Sometimes that can be elusive. That includes thyroid.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
That includes making sure your adrenals are supported. I know we didn't touch on this, but adrenal pause is a real thing that happens. So if you're not managing your stress, your cortisol is going to be a disaster. And so I remind women that doing something quantifiably every day to support stress management is important.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
you will be on the road to losing weight but it may not be you get put on the patch you get start some estrogen you start testosterone it happens automatically rarely does that happen but you'll be heading in the right direction as those hormones are better balanced that's great love that the thing about you cynthia that i always so appreciate is you are
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
I would say number one, it's understand that each one of us are our own individuals. So what may work for five patients may not work for 10 others. So when I'm talking to someone, it's taking that history to really get to know them, to figure out what is their motivation for getting healthier. That's number one.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And then number two, figuring out what are the lowest lying fruit that we can work on first that are going to yield results. Improvements in how they feel so that I can get them more motivated to take further action. Because like I stated, everyone is their own individual. And I think weight loss resistance is just a sign of a larger problem. It's an imbalance that we have to figure out.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
The more often than not is related to sleep and stress and loss of muscle and hormones, multiple hormones. And then add in the other things that make us who we are as individuals, whether it's long-term stress, whether it's trauma from our childhood. I mean, these things really do become problematic toxins we're exposed to in our personal care products, environment, and food.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
All these things can ultimately impact how well we do or do not lose weight.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Absolutely.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Thank you for having me. Always an honor.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
many women that are in my practice and programs that are clients within our business are individuals that are super type a they exercise really hard they don't sleep enough they don't eat enough food they're probably have a very compressed feeding window and those are typically the patients that i will actually suggest to them especially because they come to me they're tired they're weight loss resistant they're trying to figure out why things aren't working for them
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Yeah. So OMAD means one meal a day. And I think that, again, it also gets kind of lumped in with the intermittent fasting community, that that is, you know, a strategy, one of many strategies that you can utilize. I think my greatest concerns about OMAD, and I've been very open about this from the very beginning, is it's the concept of food intake over time.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
Now, if you go on vacation and you come home, you're like, I just totally, you know, enjoyed myself, indulged in everything. I'm coming back home and I'm going to get back on track and I'm going to have a day of one meal a day so that I can kind of reset myself and move forward.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
That is very different than most individuals that are doing OMAD and they're barely getting close to their protein threshold for the day. So my concern over time is that, yes, a lot of people want to do OMAD because they want to lose weight. They're like, this will be effective. I'm not going to be hungry for a second meal. I don't need a second meal.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
More often than not, I will ask them to do a gentler form of intermittent fasting. I would have them do something called digestive rest, which is 12 hours of when you have a feeding window of 12 hours and 12 hours of not eating.
Dhru Purohit Show
How to Get Fit for Summer: Ranking the Best and Worst Health Trends of 2025 including Fasting, Creatine and Detox Diets with Cynthia Thurlow
And then helping them understand is that over time, if you start tracking those macros, at least with my female patients, that what I start to see is someone who's eating 50, 60 grams of of protein per day. And over time, what are the things that happen after the age of 40? This progressive loss of muscle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so I was like, this is terrifying. I have to commit something to memory and not only do that and execute it, but TEDx, you know, over the past 10, 15 years. some of the most impactful, and it runs a gamut, like very impactful talks to complete garbage, depending on who the organizer is, the quality of the speakers, et cetera.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so I think that there is, or there was in the past, certainly there are some very big names that have been attracted. Brene Brown, I think she has one of the most viewed TED Talks out there. There are lots of famous mathematicians, scientists,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
thought leaders, and I sometimes hate that word too, researchers, clinicians, regular people that just have incredible stories and they share it in a way that makes it interesting and within a certain soundbite. Like some TED Talks are shorter, some are longer. My first one was really long. My second one was only 12 minutes.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And if you think that doesn't sound like a lot of time, it's not a lot of time to explain anything, to be honest with you. So- The way that TEDx organizations work, they're licensed through different venues, and they have some commonality in terms of rules around TEDx talks. One thing that I can assure you is I was told that it doesn't matter where you do your TED talk.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I have some friends that were like, I have to do it in LA. I have to do it in New York. I did one in Toronto and I did one in Greenville, South Carolina. And South Carolina's home, that's where I was born. And so for me, it was coming home. But I think for a lot of people,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
The main concept of a TED Talk is that you have an idea worth sharing and you articulate it without notes, without a teleprompter. You get up there and you have committed this to memory. Some of us do a better job than others. At the time that I did both my talks, I had nervous energy, so I'd move around a lot. I'd tell people, just know that I've gotten a lot of teaching and training since then.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I'm not a mover when I'm speaking, at least not very much. But for many people, it can be impactful. It can be a way of conveying that you know how to speak publicly and in a way that's persuasively. In other venues, sometimes people are talking about cutting edge information and sometimes they get censored.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So I think that it is progressive to a point, but in some ways, TEDx is not as progressive as some other areas in the health and wellness space or in the world. And so you have to kind of take it with a grain of salt. But I do think it's still a really amazing opportunity thing to have done, a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I think for a lot of people, it's just one of those things that they use in their tool belt to demonstrate that they can actually be a powerful public speaker.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah, well, I would say that it definitely opened up doors. I know that my first book proposal, first book deal was predicated on the fact that I had this viral talk and had a sizable social media following. So I think it gave me some clout.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But ultimately, I still had to prove myself. So if anyone is thinking that it's just the talk that opened the door, it's like it was a vehicle to more opportunities. And with those opportunities, I looked at it as more opportunities lead to more opportunities.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I think in many instances, and certainly in the health and wellness space, a lot of it's who you know, like that opens up doors, introductions to getting on bigger podcasts, as an example, or, you know, bigger press. Megyn Kelly, I think, was directly related to that talk.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I do think that that played a role because she didn't ask, usually Dr. Jason Fong, who many of us think of as, you know, the modern day father of intermittent fasting. He's usually the one that I see interviewed as people will go out to. But I do think the talk certainly played a role in Megan reaching out. And that was done completely organically.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
People also asked me, how did you get on Megan Kelly? I was like, honest to God, her producer. I actually have the voicemail saved in my phone to this day because it reminds me when I'm having conversations. days where I'm kind of, which all of this have, you have a day where you're doubting yourself or you're like, I'm not sure if this is the right decision.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I kept that to remind myself that sometimes life is very serendipitous. And so that was one of those very serendipitous, really cool opportunities to do. And at the time we were living in a rental and I think I had a stack of boxes behind me sitting on a stool somewhere in this house. But yeah, that was a pretty cool, that was definitely up there with cool opportunities that
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I would say if you get the opportunity to speak on Megyn Kelly's show, it's definitely it was definitely an incredible experience.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Great question. So I actually co-hosted my podcast at the beginning. So a friend of mine who's a clinical psychologist, Dr. Kelly, she and I decided to do a podcast together beginning in September of 2018. And in about a year's time, she felt like it wasn't in alignment with what she wanted to be doing in her business.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I said to my husband, because it was just at the beginning of prior to the pandemic. So we're talking about, you know, 14, 15 plus months later, trying to make decisions. Did I want to continue with the podcast or did I want to stop it? Because if I was going to do it solo and what I found out for myself personally was I really liked solo hosting. Yeah.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And this is my person. I like to do things my way, not in a selfish way. I'm very collaborative, but I like to do things my way. And so when I was the only one that was interviewing the people, I had to show up differently. I had to prepare differently. And I look at that as like the greatest gift because what then happened was the pandemic. And then people were really listening to podcasts.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So I feel like some of what got everyday wellness really going was the pandemic was this incredible blessing. It allowed me, I reached out to everybody I could think of. And 99.9% of the time people said yes, because people were home. A lot more time. And so I think that's initially how it started.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Now, at the very beginning, the reason why it was called Everyday Wellness was it was a kind of a compilation of Kelly's business name and my own. And I never changed the name because I felt like it was very inclusive of a lot of different topics. So yes, the lens of my podcast is always through perimenopause and menopause. So I try to make topics relevant to my community, but I go broad.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Like I have... scientists on, I have researchers on, I have thought leaders on, I have clinicians on, but it's always with that lens. And so I'm very conscientious about listening. What are my people interested in listening to? Who do they want me to speak to? Who do they want me to connect to?
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And then I think the other thing, and I'm sure you're the same way, is that we say no more often than we say yes, because we get 10, 15 pitches every day. Yeah. More often than not, I say no. I have to really intrinsically be super interested in what that person's focus is or niche is. So when it comes down to it, I trust my gut. I trust my intuition enormously.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I'm a manifesting generator, if you're at all familiar with human design theory. Yep. And so when I trust my gut, things work out the way that they're supposed to, just like continuing the podcast, not shifting the name, at least not at that time. And then just intrinsically allowing our conversations to go in any direction that they might go in.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Like I always say, I've done all my research, but if we talk about one-tenth of this or 90% of this, that's okay. I can always bring you back. And that's always the... The invitation is always open. Like, I'd love for you to come back. Let's continue the conversation, especially if it's a if it's a good conversation. So I think that's that's how I would say that the podcast has evolved.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And then the really cool thing is that with the pandemic that kind of got things rolling, then all of a sudden I had sponsorship and then. I have in certain times throughout the year, we just were full with podcast sponsors. We can't even we put people on a wait list. We have been able to increase our prices.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
We've been able to demonstrate why working with us is so mutually beneficial for sponsors and then also getting very specific about which sponsors we work with. So I tell everyone like. They're vetted even more strictly than the podcast guests are, because I think it's very important.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I feel very protective of my community, as I'm sure you do for yours as well, which is why I don't like there are people that will just throw money at us. And I'll say very politely, like, thank you. I appreciate that. But I don't think this is in alignment with. my business and not something I could speak to in a way that would be authentic. And I think my listeners would pick up on that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And as I said before, I'm very protective and very transparent. Like if I think something works, I am happy to talk about it. If I don't think something works, it's going to be hard for me to sell it. And for that to be a mutual symbiotic relationship where it's a win-win on both sides.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah. So first and foremost, I'm an adrenaline junkie. I trained in inner city Baltimore. I was an ER nurse and later became a nurse practitioner and kind of settled nicely into cardiology. I love everything about acutely sick patients and kind of the intellectual rigor of medicine. And, you know, I did most of the same things many of us do.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It's a great product.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I love that.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
No, and I think you have to live with yourself ultimately. I just wrote a blog post about a company that I have had an ongoing relationship with for several years. And they took a little bit of heat last year because of an ingredient problem. that had not been, initially was not fully disclosed. And then they explained themselves and then there was this huge fallout.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And we took a period of time to kind of think about, did we want to move forward with this relationship in the future? And I wrote a blog post about it and just said, this is where my head is. Like I finally got my book manuscript in and I have the bandwidth to actually write a blog post and shared it with my team and then explain myself and said, this is why I will continue using this product
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
and my family uses this product, and I feel like this is fine. There were issues with transparency, but they're working to rectify that. And I was like, as a small business owner, there might come a time and a place where I might mess something up, or there might be an error, or there might be something that was unintentionally not shown, or...
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so it invites opportunities as a small business owner, as a podcast host to try to be as transparent as possible. And that's kind of like what this blog post tried to explain was that, you know, this is how I feel about this. This is why we're continuing this partnership. And why? And I think people can respect that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Now, there are other people that may decide they no longer want to purchase from that manufacturer. And that's totally fine. I'm like, listen, whatever you choose to do is the right decision for you. This is the decision that my family and I made as a whole. And this is our explanation as to why. And here's other options. Here's other things you can do.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
If you want to avoid this ingredient, then here are these couple of things that you can try. You can make electrolytes at home. You can do this and this and this. And so I think that...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
This is, again, one of those situations when you are in a position where you have a podcast or you're speaking on a platform of just sharing with your community, like just being honest, like I'll give you another probably a better example. I'm known for intermittent fasting. Well, last year was like 2019 and 2024 were kind of like the same year, but in different ways.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so a really hard year, my dad passed away amongst other family members. It's okay. I always say like my dad is one of my greatest teachers, but one of the reasons why my father fell and hit his head and ultimately ended up dying was because he became very frail. And so the reason why I'm sharing this in this context is important.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I got through graduate school, I got married, I had children. And I had a child have a child that developed life threatening food allergies. And as a traditional allopathic trained provider, we learn little to nothing about nutrition. And this little guy who's now six feet tall and plays college lacrosse. You know, at the time, the allergist said to me, carry an EpiPen and pray.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It just reaffirmed for me, like, what's the lesson here that I need to take to change what I'm doing in my personal life to ensure that I am not sarcopenic, frail and falling in my late 70s. And so I kept saying to my dad, thank you for this opportunity to change what I'm doing right now. And so I mean, literally, like two weeks later, I was like, okay, I've been lifting for years, but
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Now I'm working with a trainer to push myself a little harder. It's like sometimes you need that accountability. But the reason why I'm sharing this is I think for a lot of people, we're constantly invited to have these opportunities, these insights in our lives to show up a little bit differently.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so I think that you take those lessons, like the lesson with my dad, like what was my dad not doing that he should have been doing? But muscle loss and frailty are, you know, in the forefront of my mind right now as I'm kind of navigating middle age and thinking about what are the things that my husband and I need to be doing to ensure that we don't end up there ourselves.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So, you know, whether it's 2019, 2024, there's always incredible lessons that, you know, we can find the reframe and kind of move forward and in the process become stronger, more resilient, all the things that ultimately make us a better human being.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah, I mean, I would say number one is hormones influence everything.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So sometimes my patients want to be more physically active and they want to lift. But as an example, like testosterone is your get off the couch. It's an executive function hormone. It is not just about libido. And sometimes I'll say to patients, I bet your testosterone is in the toilet because you'll tell me like I get dressed for the gym and then I sit on the couch and I lack motivation. Right.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So some of it is helping them understand some of their behaviors are reinforced by hormones that are suboptimal. Right. So that's number one. So it was like, let's get a baseline. And not every provider in perimenopause and menopause likes to draw hormones, but I like to have a baseline assessment of where someone is. So that's number one.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Number two, as you already astutely mentioned, women fear getting big. It is physiologically impossible for you to get Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1986 big unless you are taking anabolic steroids. It is not going to happen. Helping women understand that As we hit about 40, we start having this progressive decline in muscle mass. Our peak bone and muscle mass for women is when we are much younger.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Honest to God, that's what she told me to do. Here, I'm looking at my little two-year-old, and I was devastated because I didn't realize, first and foremost, that... Having been an ER nurse, having worked in hospitals, I know what happens when people ingest foods they're allergic to. They can die. That's serious.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So as an example, you hit 40 and you start losing muscle mass. Now, at first, it's kind of insidious. You don't notice it. But you get to 45 and you're like, huh, I'm not doing anything differently. And suddenly, the scale is starting to go up and I'm starting to lose my weight. And I don't like how I have a little jiggle here and a little jiggle there.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Now, I'm using words that they use because I think of jiggle as like jello. But they'll use that word. And I understand what they're saying. But they'll notice the body composition changes. They know something is changing in their bodies. And so I always use the analogy of because I'm all about analogies. I love filet. My husband likes ribeye steak. If we're going out, I will get the ribeye.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
He will get the ribeye. I will get the filet. Young muscle looks like filet. It's all meat. It's all meat. Versus ribeye has lots of marbling. It's delicious, but it's a fattier cut of meat. That is what starts happening is we start losing muscle fibers and gaining more adipocytes and more fat adipose tissue in that muscle. That's right. Now, this is weight related. This is hormone mediated.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It doesn't have to be that way. But as we get older, we have to be more deliberate with our protein intake. We have to be more deliberate with ensuring we are lifting properly. And that is not using five or two and a half pound dumbbells. That is actually lifting heavy weight. And if you are new to lifting, please work with a trainer that knows how to train women of a certain age.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
That generally isn't the wonderful 20-year-old eager beaver guy at the gym. It's probably... And when I say older, 35 plus year old trainer who is going to know how to properly guide you. Yes, properly guide you. But like when I as an example, when I work with my trainer, it is we hit lift heavy for a short duration. So it's four to six reps.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And it's so that the last rep you are putting the weight down. So I think there's also this misnomer that women think if they just do Pilates, they just do yoga, they don't have to still strength train. So I remind women, I don't care if you lift one day a week, two days a week, three days a week as a starting point, you need to make it part of yourself.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
You have to prioritize it and you need to commit yourself to doing it week after week after week, because those choices in your forties impact the way you age in your fifties, your sixties, your seventies and beyond. And the really cool thing is we have muscle memory. Yeah, that's right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
If you took a break from lifting because of life happening, which I get, I can tell you in 2019 when I lost 15 pounds and looked skeletal, I was not lifting for a long time because I just didn't have the stamina to do it. When I got back to lifting, my muscles had memory.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So I remember when I was working with my trainer, my trainer was like, okay, we have to go a little slower because you've been off for a couple months, but your muscles have memory. They know what to do as you kind of re-stimulate them. So you have to strength train. You have to eat enough protein.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And at the time, kind of the food landscape was not like it is now, that there was not as much awareness around food allergies 20 years ago. Jack, it will be 20 in August. And it really shifted my perspective about nutrition. Yeah. What was it about our food supply that was contributing to this increasing escalating rates of food allergies? That was number one.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I would say the other thing that's so common is that as women are navigating perimenopause, they become less stress resilient.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So what worked for you in your 20s and 30s, aka when I was an ER nurse in inner city Baltimore, where it was like a train wreck came through the door every minute and I wasn't sleeping and I was working nights and doing all sorts of crazy schedules around everything that was going on. That wouldn't bear well for me in my 40s and 50s. So we become less stress resilient.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And if you're not managing your stress, that will contribute to weight loss resistance. That will contribute to worsening insomnia. That will contribute to blood sugar dysregulation. That will contribute to making it harder for you to build muscle. Because if your cortisol is up, you become catabolic, which means you break down your muscle. And so this ties into why I think...
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
intermittent fasting can be an important strategy. But if you're trying to actively build muscle, it can be like you're working in opposition. Like the fasting piece can make it hard to build muscle if you're not eating enough food. So I think that was my original intent. What I was talking about 2019 was that I went from fasting to not fasting back to fasting, then not doing as much fasting.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But I think helping women understand that if you truly want to build muscle, not only do you need to Get rid of the old school scale, but you need to look at bioimpedance measurements or bod pod, but really looking at your fat free mass versus your muscle mass and stop being fixated on a number.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I think it's much more important for me to say to my patient, you were at 27% body fat and now you're at 22%. That is what is important. Did the scale go anywhere? No. But now you have more muscle mass and you've lost fat mass. And so I think that that is a switch because those of us that grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, it was all about being skinny. It was all about counting calories.
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Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It was all about avoiding fat because fat was bad, especially saturated fat. And so I think there's a whole generation of women that have to relearn a lot of terminology, methodology, and looking at, instead of being skinny or thin, thinking about being strong. So those are like, I would say those are like kind of the things I repeat the most to patients and clients with tremendous frequency.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Like I have a woman right now, very educated, very smart, has several kids, husband has a high power job. I cannot get it I cannot convey enough to her how much her lack of sleep and stress is really wrecking her body composition. And so I finally said to her, OK, we need to only weigh ourselves once a week. Now, I know you probably have other guests will say weigh yourself every day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But for women that are starting to kind of spiral with getting preoccupied with I put this weight on it, put this weight on it, and that's all they're hearing in their head. And one day they're two pounds up and one day they're two pounds down. And depending on what that metric is and whether it's up or down, their whole day is predicated on whether or not they're good or bad. Yeah, I know.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And it is so destructive and so bothersome. And for me, I think if I do no greater thing is helping women understand like body composition weighs more heavily, literally and figuratively. Body composition is far more important than the number on the scale. Like I sometimes will say the scale is a liar. It is like, let's be honest.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It doesn't tell you unless you're at, you have a special scale and they're definitely bioimpedance scales that are out there, but it doesn't tell you how much fat mass do you have? How much muscle mass do you have? Because those are the two things that are far more important than body
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I read a book called The Unhealthy Truth by Robin O'Brien, which I recommend almost on a daily basis as being a book that changed my life. It made me so angry to understand, you know, food lobbying and
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
the magic number of 120 pounds, which I don't know why that number is the magic number, but that's the number every woman aspires to be. That's right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
A lot of the food legislation that went on and what could be some of the reasons why we're seeing greater amounts of food allergies, especially in children, and only 30% of kids will have their food allergies. So I suddenly became very interested in nutrition, and that started to shift me a bit. I thought initially, like, maybe I'm going to go to graduate.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Well, I think it's been part of the nutritional dogma for 60 plus years. So it's hard for people to understand. I mean, I feel like my parents' generation, like my mom is in her late 70s and it has taken years to talk to her about healthy fats and how important they are because we had been conditioned to believe.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And in fact, I looked at, I mean, a long time ago, probably five years ago, I came across handouts that I was required to give my patients in cardiology that were encouraging avoid butter and Avocado. I mean, because they had been standardized by the cardiology practice I worked for. Bromelain brown. I mean, all those vegetable oil spreads.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I mean, that was what we taught patients because we had this diet heart hypothesis, which we know now was a direct influence by a gentleman called Ansel Keys, who unfortunately had a huge impact on not just... The diet hard hypothesis, but impacted the medical community, patients, the processed food industry, et cetera. But getting back to your original question, carbohydrates.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Maybe I'm going to go back to school and I'm going to get a PhD. And so I took one class. I honestly took one class in one semester. I de-enrolled from the program I was in and went home and said, no, I don't want to do a PhD. Because all of the people that were there, as lovely as they were, as smart as they were, they were interested in writing policy. And I was like, I'm a clinician.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
This is my gestalt about carbohydrates. If you are metabolically healthy. Unprocessed carbohydrates are not a bad idea. This comes from someone who was paleo then carb cycling for a long time. I eat more carbohydrates now at 53 than I have probably in the last 10 years. Because I figured out when I start lifting heavy and I'm working out that intensely, what does my body need?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It actually needs protein and carbohydrates. And that is what works for me. So when I am working with a patient or a client, and we have a sense of what her metabolic health is, means she's insulin sensitive, she's at a healthy weight, she's exercising, she's sleeping, she's managing her stress, that person can tolerate more carbohydrate.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And again, when I say carbohydrates, I'm talking about fruit, vegetables, sweet potatoes, root vegetables, things like that. lentils if you tolerate those kinds of things. Then someone who is obese, not insulin sensitive, probably pre-diabetic. Maybe this is someone who's got fatty liver. Maybe this is an individual who has a history of polycystic ovarian syndrome.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Maybe this is someone who has borderline high blood pressure. that person needs to restrict their carbohydrate intake. And by that, I mean, stop drinking soda, stop eating sugary foods. You know, you can probably get away with, I always say it's a three to one ratio, three vegetables to one piece of fruit. So if they'll say like, I really need that piece of fruit.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I'm like, okay, but here's the deal. You have your broccoli, your asparagus, your Brussels sprouts, then you get to have your piece of fruit. And by that, I mean low glycemic berries. I'm not talking about the tropical fruits unless you like. I love just green bananas, which makes me weird. They're great for resistant starch.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But like my whole family makes fun of me because I'm the person we go to the grocery store. I'm like, I want the greenest banana I can see and I will eat it because it's not sweet. So carbohydrates are dependent on insulin sensitivity. That is my feeling. There's also a role of bioindividuality.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I have some patients who just do really well with more carbohydrate and they'll tell me when their sleep is impacted, it's too low carbohydrate. So I think when we're talking hard, fast numbers, we're always talking about total carbohydrate. We're not talking about net. Net is a byproduct of the processed food industry and it's a cheat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And yes, that includes at least dark chocolate, which I have in my house and I have on occasion, we'll consume that in lieu of like higher quality dark chocolate.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But when we're talking about hard and fast numbers, I think if the average American is consuming 200 to 300 grams of carbohydrates a day, a reasonable amount of carbohydrates for someone who is insulin sensitive might be 150, it might be 100. It depends on like, where are you in your cycle? How physically active are you that day?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I want to be able to direct patient care. That's what's most important. And then so I kind of sat on what was the next thing to do. I'm still very young. And then I read another book called Eat the Oaks and Eat the Oaks kind of shifted everything. I reached out to the woman who wrote the book, Liz Wolf, and I said, where did you get your nutrition training from?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
If you are not metabolically healthy, like that other kind of avatar I spoke about, that may be someone who needs to be under 100, maybe under 75 grams. Unfortunately, we have conditioned our entire society that they need copious amounts of processed carbohydrates, bread, pasta.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I'm trying to think about some of the other like most of the protein bars that are out there, cookies, crackers, like they all have a place like don't get me wrong. Do I occasionally have a siete almond flour tortilla? Yes. And I savor every bit and I love it, but I don't eat those every day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so women in particular, as they are navigating perimenopause and menopause, they are losing insulin sensitivity. They have changes in sex hormones. Suddenly they are finding that what they used to eat is no longer working for them. So we always go back to the same thing. Are you insulin sensitive? If the answer is yes, more discretionary carbohydrate.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
The answer is no, less discretionary carbohydrate. Now, the most important macronutrient in my world is protein. Right. And we know that as we are navigating the aging process, there's the protein leverage hypothesis. And in particular for women, understanding that as your estrogen levels are lower and lower and lower. So we're talking tail end of perimenopause and menopause.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And just remember, average age of menopause here in the United States is 51. Women spend 30 plus percent of their lifetime in menopause. So this is important. You need more menopause.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, meaning my teenagers who are super lean and athletic can sneeze at a piece of protein and probably get by with 10 or 15 grams that will stimulate muscle protein synthesis. I would actually advocate you need way more like. The minimum is 30, but ideally it'd be at least 50 grams.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So when I am helping women understand, not only is this more protein-centric diet going to help you with satiety, blood sugar regulation, sleep, hormones, et cetera, you're suddenly going to be able to push that plate away and be like, I'm done. I'm full. I feel great. So no less than 100 grams of protein a day as a woman.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Ideally, people like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon will talk about things like one gram per pound of ideal body weight. A lot of my patients can't get to that much. So we work towards 100 grams and then we try to tailor it from there. I'm about 120 pounds. Most days I'm at 100 grams. Some days I can push to 120, but that is a lot. That is a lot of protein for me. So more protein.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
We know that animal-based sources are going to be superior in terms of amino acid profile. But I do think some of the plant-based varieties, like if I get kava, Because Friday night, we don't cook in our house. And sometimes that means I eat leftovers. And sometimes I might have kava if one of my teenagers wants that for dinner. I will usually do a combination of beef with
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
some lentils because it gives you some plant-based protein. And there are benefits to the gut microbiome of consuming some of these fiber-rich foods. So that's number one. And then the other thing to think about is when we talk about fats, it's helping people understand that fats are not intrinsically bad. It's the quality of the fats that are certainly important.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And when I'm thinking about fats, there's plant-based fats and then there are animal-based fats. I am someone personally that does better with plant-based fats. usually you don't hear me say plant-based anything is what I lean towards, but what makes my body feel good is avocado, olive oil, nuts, and seeds don't do well with fatty meat. I just don't.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so she told me in the next day I signed up for the certification in nutrition and that lit me up and that really shifted everything for me. I was still going to work and writing prescriptions and admitting patients and dealing with sick people. But my mindset was starting to shift in terms of what I wanted my focus to be.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So when I talked about my husband having the ribeye, it's because if I ate that steak, I would really not feel good. And my, I have a healthy gallbladder is just the way that my body is made. And so I'm also a hyper absorber. So I am someone that when I eat a lot of fat, my body absorbs all of it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So it's one of the things that can drive some lipid abnormalities, which you kind of alluded to earlier. So lard, tallow, duck fat, all good sources. And if someone tolerates those, it's great. But what I find is a common mistake whether someone's trying to lean into a ketogenic diet or someone is trying to eat more healthy fats, fat is much more calorically dense than protein or carbs.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And that's an important thing to understand. It's not that I want everyone measuring every bit of food because that may not be sustainable and may make you feel crazy. Like for me personally, if I had to weigh every bit of food I put in my body, it would make me feel...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
neurotic and crazy just me personally i have other clients and patients who love doing that and i'm like knock yourself out but we're talking about fats if you have fat in your protein like let's say you have a duck or you're having that ribeye or you have a piece of salmon you already have healthy fats in the protein it does not then mean that you have three avocados with your dinner
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I've met people who will tell me crazy things like, oh, I had three avocados today. And I was like, well, this might be why you're not losing weight. It's a lot. Versus if you have like a leaner like filet or cod, or you have a piece of chicken breast, which tends to be leaner protein, you can add a bit of healthy fats. Now, for me personally, I'm a big fan of olive oil.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I will sometimes put that on my protein just to kind of like buffer up the protein.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
the healthy fat content but in terms of fat portions that is where i will generally say hey just be cognizant if like i love salted pistachios oh my god it's like one of my favorite things in the world or salted macadamia nuts i will measure out a quarter cup and put it in a bowl and i put the rest away because it's so easy to overeat these delicious fats same thing with avocado like
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
When I'm making homemade guac or I'm just putting avocado on a burger, I'm like, OK, I'm not using a whole avocado for me personally. I have to be more conscientious about like fat portions. So I think that's that's the way that I would explain carbs. And then the other piece with carbohydrates that I didn't really touch on is fiber. Fiber is really important for satiety.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It's, again, also very important for that gut microbiome because it feeds the beneficial bacteria. Now, I was full carnivore for about nine months after my hospitalization because I The IV antibiotics and antifungals like just destroyed my gut. I had diarrhea for nine months just to give you some perspective.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And the power of nutrition was so clear that if I could get my patients to change the way they ate. That could be very transformative. And then the other piece was like most middle-aged women, you know, I was in my early forties and I was dealing with weight loss resistance. I was never someone that had struggled with weight loss resistance and everything.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And carnivore was the only thing that allowed me to start getting back to having solid stool. Why is this relevant? Because I have many friends in the carnivore community who believe that if you are not full carnivore, somehow they've convinced themselves that they do not need any fiber in their diet. And I would actually argue that we're designed to be omnivores.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I think we are truly designed to be omnivores. And I think when you exclude an entire class of, you know, whether it's plant matter, I think ultimately based on the research and certainly after finishing this, writing this book, the research certainly suggests that there's a lot of benefits for butyrate production, which is a short chain fatty acid.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
How do people understand what these plant based molecules or signaling molecules like urolithin A? Other polyphenols, nitric oxide, how important these signaling molecules are for optimizing gut function. And so I would actually argue like fiber should be part of that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I like to get my fiber from food, but there are obviously people that maybe they're struggling to get enough vegetables into their diet. There's certainly some supplements that can be helpful and beneficial for that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Um, one thing I, not to interrupt you. One thing I do want to mention that I noticed for myself is when I was in my early feast, my intrinsic hunger changed enormously. Now, whether or not that was a byproduct of changes in muscle mass changes in estrogen, I'm not sure, but I remember that that was such an enormous shift.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Cause I would jokingly say like when I was younger, I could eat just like my kids could. Like I never, I never had a I could eat anything and I ate healthy. So let me be clear, I wasn't eating like McDonald's five days a week. It was more like I was hungry all the time and felt like I was always chasing that hunger. And then there was this little blip in my life where I was like, oh, that changed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I was telling my patients count calories, exercise more, eat less. None of those things were working. And then I stumbled upon Jason Fung's work. And obviously he's a physician, he's a nephrologist. And I was like, well, heck, if he's talking about this and he's talking about the science behind it, then it's clearly something I should consider. And so I started intermittent fasting.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so I have not been able to find research to suggest, but I certainly spoke to a lot of experts that talk about, yes, that does start to change with the aging process as people will become less intrinsically hungry. So I think we have to remind ourselves like this is one of the reasons why fasting is one of many strategies, but it's not ever a reason to under eat habitually and chronically.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So I think that's one of the things that women will say to me, well, I can't possibly eat 50 grams of protein in a meal. I'm like, okay, aim for 30. and then slowly increase it. Because I like you like fish to me is not nearly as heavy in my stomach as eating a steak.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Like for me, I get to, you know, eight ounces of steak for me, I am full, but like my teenagers could eat 1215 plus ounces of steak, and you know, they'll be hungry two hours later. So I think like, at least like reminding people that you do get these changes and hunger patterns as you're getting older. But to me, it's really that much more important to make sure like I'm
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
very conscientious about making sure I get enough protein like that is a very conscious effort. Now, sometimes when I travel, and I'm sure this probably happens with you, I generally don't eat while I'm traveling.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so sometimes on those days, I have to kind of buffer what I'm what I've done to make sure that I've, you know, I'm not going through a day where I'm just totally catabolic and just breaking down muscle trying to buffer the lack of intake that I've had over the course of the day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yes. I would agree with that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And it's interesting because I will sometimes say, you know, sometimes my biggest meal of the day is lunch. And today's a good example. That was not the case. It'll be after our interview. Like that will be my big meal for the day. But it's also like for me personally, I do so much better eating a larger, I hate to use the word bolus, but a larger amount of food midday
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Now I'll fast forward to probably a year later. And by then I was becoming increasingly disillusioned being in traditional allopathic medicine. And maybe I had a very small subsect of patients that were interested in changing the way they ate and were interested in eating less often. And so I took a tremendous leap of faith.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
than I do if I eat it at dinner time. And so it's kind of become like, that was one of the blessings of COVID was the realization, my body wants to eat their a larger meal earlier, and it wants me to close my feeding window earlier than I had been. And that was surprising, because I think especially for people, if they're listening, if they have kids, it's like you're
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
doing carpool and you're like trying to get your kid in the bath or trying to get them to shower if they're older and get them fed and get their homework done. And so it's like you start getting in this habit of like not thinking about yourself until like eight or nine o'clock at night.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And for me, oftentimes I would just eat something small and go to bed because I was too tired to make a big meal. So I think for a lot of people, it's inviting the opportunity to change things up if you feel like or perceive that maybe your current, I don't know, schedule is not working for you and your lifestyle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah. So creatine monohydrate, and I very transparently tell everyone creatine monohydrate and mitopure or urolithin A are foundational supplements for men and women. My husband and I both take them. My kids all take creatine. Trying to get them to take more than just the creatine every day is a bit of a challenge because they're teenagers.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But when I think about creatine, it's one of the most well-researched supplements or ergogenic aids that's on the market. It is a very high safety and efficacy profile. The other thing to think about is that when you're looking at creatine monohydrate, quality is important. So when people complain to me, women in particular will say, well, it makes me feel bloated. I gained weight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I'm like, well, we're using CreaPure, which is the purest formulation of creatine monohydrate, which is much less likely because of the way that it's actually water extracted as opposed to acid extracted. That might be the case. But if you understand mechanistically how it works, so the word monohydrate, it's hydrating the muscles.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It's almost nine years ago, I left traditional allopathic medicine to start kind of my own practice, if you will. And at that time, NPs were not autonomous in my state. So I really just talked about lifestyle and I could legally do that. I could talk about lifestyle measures and my practice kind of exploded. There were so many women
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So if you look at the research, women actually need more creatine than men just by virtue of the way that our bodies work. We have less muscle mass depending on where we are in our menstrual cycles. Well, actually, I'd make the argument that all menopausal, perimenopausal women should be taking creatine for strength, but also for bone benefits, brain benefits, jet lag if you travel like I do.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And when I think about some of the common other concerns other than like weight gain or bloating, Quality of creatine is important. That's always number one. Number two, if you have healthy kidney function, it is not going to, and you're using the recommended dosage, which could anywhere from three to five grams a day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I would make the argument that if you are vegetarian and vegan, you need five grams Most women seem to need five. If you're eating a ton of meat, like you eat quite a bit of a protein intake, you may physiologically need just three grams because your muscles may be well stocked with creatine reserves.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But oftentimes when I'm talking to people, it's helping them understand it is a multifunctional product that works. hits many different areas. So bone mass, we peak in bone mass by the age of 30 as women, that same hormonal imbalance of estrogen relative to progesterone actually speeds up bone breakdown as opposed to bone remodeling as we navigate late perimenopause and menopause.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So there's research that's suggesting that even Creatine monohydrate can be beneficial for bone mass benefits from help with mood disorders. Again, I'm not a clinical psychologist. So I always say, you know, have a conversation with your mental health professional. But if you understand mechanistically how creatine works, it's helping with ATP production.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So it's helping with energy regulation inside our cells. And so that is why this is a multi-purpose ergogenic aid and one that I think most people benefit from. Now, other than concerns about kidney function, I hear things like, Is it safe to take regularly? Yes. There's no evidence to suggest that it is problematic.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
There's no evidence to suggest it induces either hepatic or renal function issues. Now, if you do have baseline chronic kidney disease, it might not be the supplement for you. It's worth talking to your nephrologist or your specialist. But I think for most other people, they really do benefit. They feel like they're stronger. They feel like they sleep better.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
We know it helps the sleep architecture. To me, it is truly multifaceted. The other thing to note is that if you want somebody to cross the blood brain barrier, and I know with your supplement background, you know this, that you need higher doses. So when we talk about higher doses to cross the blood brain barrier, like when I'm taking creatine to help with jet lag, I am taking 10 grams a day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
because that helps to cross that blood-brain barrier. You need a higher dose of creatine to be beneficial for that. But it is easily one of my favorite supplements, and it is a supplement that has very few contraindications, very few concerns that I have.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But the most common concerns expressed to me are, I gain weight or I'm bloated, and my first question is, what quality of creatine are you consuming? Because unless it identifies either on the website or the package or the product that it's CreaPure, You might be getting the cheap stuff that is made in China that is acid extracted.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
In middle age that felt like their needs were not being met, that they were not being heard, that the traditional allopathic model, although it has some benefits, we're not meeting their needs. And so that is like kind of where I ended up. And that's where I've humbly been the last nine years. And I feel like this is the work I was meant to do. This is what lights me up.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And if you understand anything about the processing, quality is important, just like the quality of pharmaceutical agents are important. So you want to work with companies that have very stringent standards for how they extract their products and bring their products to market.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah, I mean, I've been using, gosh, for probably three years. So I really do fervently believe that it has helped with energy, helped with VO2 max, helped with recovery. Like I said, I've had a new trainer over the past eight months, and she kicks my butt twice a week. And being able to recover and not be as sore, you get those muscle tears.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I get to impact more people and. One thing that many people are surprised to hear, I'm an introvert. So the thought of a talk that I did as a means to challenge myself, having the kind of impact that it does is very, very humbling. And I think for a lot of individuals, it's the realization that we have to do hard things, like we have to be outside our comfort zone.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
It'd be very uncomfortable between irritation of the fascia and just overall inflammation. I think topically, what I find really interesting is, you know, urolithin A helps with epidermal thickness, which, you know, I think a lot of people are now looking at hormonal modalities. We know, you know, estrogen can be beneficial for both collagen and elastin upregulation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But I think it's really interesting to see not just oral absorption of estrogen.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
urolithin a but also application to the skin i think there we're just starting to see the tip of the iceberg of how it can be used clinically yeah i think for a lot of individuals again it goes back to like simplifying our supplement regimen and that's why to me i mean with the exception of when my dad was sick um you know i took adrenal glandulars and things like that but
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
To me, it is a consistent aspect of I don't miss it. I mean, meaning I don't miss taking it every day. I take it every single day. And if I don't take it, I do feel a difference. The other thing is, you know, in this fasting space, you know, a lot of people get focused on autophagy, mitophagy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I'm like, listen, there's so many other ways to evoke upregulation of disease, disordered organelles like the mitochondria. I would much rather take a supplement so that I don't encourage myself to fast for three days, which will lead to muscle loss, which is so precious at this stage of life.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
This is where I think it can really be very helpful to ensure that we are supporting our health and our longevity in ways that... Yeah, that makes sense. There's solid science behind it. It's not some guru out there spouting nonsense that they don't really understand the science. I certainly have interviewed the CMO of Timeline several times.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
The other thing is urolithin A is a signaling molecule and you can't get enough for nutrition. That is... Always the question I get from people, whether it's about creatine and steak or about urolithin A and pomegranates. I'm like, do you know how many pomegranates you would have to consume to get enough urolithin A? So I'm all about a food-centric focused lifestyle measures.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
If I can't get enough for my food, because let's be honest, I'm not going to peel eight pomegranates a day or six or whatever it is. And 20 to 30% of us don't have the optimal microbiome to actually produce urolithin A. That's the other piece. And I think it's probably even higher than that. I think 20 to 30% sounds conservative. I bet you it's probably 40 to 50%.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so I think that for those reasons, it makes sense because you can't do enough with diet alone. Diet is very important. And I do not want to discount that. But I think it's equally important to say these are measures that I think can be beneficial. I can simplify your supplement regimen because let's be honest.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I have, I had patients that were this way, but sometimes I'll meet people and they're taking 50 supplements and I'm like, what's working? Like, if you know your vitamin D level's low, it makes sense. If you know that, you know, your gut microbiome's not optimized and you need that urolithin A, great. If you know that your magnesium levels need to be supplemented, that's different.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But sometimes patients will write out 50 supplements that they're taking. And I'm like, wait a minute, we need to like make this curated, smaller, be strategic. Just because someone on the radio said you needed this doesn't mean you necessarily need that. And so I think we just have to be thoughtful in our approach to supplementation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so the last nine years has really been... creating a platform, advocating for women in middle age, and having them to be educated, inspired, and empowered to be their best selves and to not get caught up in fear mongering. And gosh, there's plenty of nonsense that's out there. There's a lot of trickery. And I was just saying to my, I have an internal audit going on in my business.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah, someone said it's expensive urine. And I do, let me be very clear. I think strategically, like one of my kids had a NutriVal done, which is a test that's done through Genova that looks at, you know, where are fatty acids lacking, where are your vitamins lacking? And now he takes probably...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
six supplements a day, but it's kind of buffering back up some fatty acids, omega-3s, things that, you know, as a kid who doesn't like to eat flaxseed or chia seeds or fish, kind of challenging to get his omega-3 to omega-6 ratio optimized. And so I think if there's a true deficiency, then I think that's fine.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But I think for so many people, they're just taking whatever, like they don't even realize that they're spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month. And to me, there has to be some good research and there has to be some indicators of, how things can be efficacious to make sense.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
You're welcome.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Yeah, I would say start with my website. So www.cynthiatherlo.com. I'm active on Instagram. I have a free Facebook group that's called the midlife pause black slash my name. It is true. It is men and women in this group. It is a very, very healthy drama free zone. I would say everyday wellness is a really good sense. My podcast is a really good way to get to know me as an individual.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And obviously, you know, really bringing the best and the brightest minds in the health and wellness space together. to my community three times a week. We now publish on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, which is really cool that we're in a position to be able to do that. And if you follow me on X, just be forewarned, I can be a little snarky.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Absolutely. Absolutely.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And I was saying to this person that I've hired, Everyone has to decide for themselves within their business, what focus do they want? What's their messaging? Who are they serving? And I said, depending on the individual, it might be appropriate for a 25-year-old to be in a bikini and be on social media. And that's totally fine.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
But the stage of life that I'm in, I feel like the way that I show up is very authentically. So today I'm sitting here in yoga pants and a sweatshirt because that is my real life. But I think for a lot of people, it's like remaining attuned to serving the individuals that you speak to.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And so I very humbly and very gratefully sit back and look at the past nine years and say, without question, with the exception of being married for 23 years to my husband and having two beautiful, healthy boys. The other thing that I'm most proud of is the work that I've done over the last nine years to help elevate awareness around the challenges that women deal with north of 35.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Because prior to that, there was very little to no emphasis. And I think a lot of many women, I think my mother's generation, probably our mother's generation has really suffered at the expense of, in many instances, poor information and fear.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I think it's a couple of things. I had done a talk in 2018, a TED Talk, and that was on the sexy topic of perimenopause. And I laughed because to this day, when people say, what was your first talk on perimenopause? And unless you're a female, most people go, oh, okay. Mm-hmm. And so then I was I was offered the opportunity to do a second talk in December of 2018.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And you can't do two talks about the same topic. So I had to come up with a different pitch. And so I looked at my husband and I said, What do I know a lot about? And he said, intermittent fasting. And I was like, Okay, so I'm going to talk about intermittent fasting. And this
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Wonderful organizer in Greenville, South Carolina said, you know, we've had this very stringent process of who we've selected to speak and we want you to speak and we want you to talk about intermittent fasting and women. And I was like, OK, great. So I planned for this March 2019, not realizing the intermittent fasting would be the most Googled dietary diet. strategy for all of that year.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So that definitely helped. I didn't realize that was going to be the case. And then just prior to that talk, I had a little bit of a healthcare hiccup. And this is relevant because there's nothing worse than being a healthcare provider and realizing you're really sick. And so I had a 13 day hospitalization where I had a ruptured appendix and a slew of complications.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And about five days into this hospitalization where I was just vomiting and sick and losing weight, I was very, very ill. And I remember saying, if I get out of this hospital, there's two things I want to do. Number one, I want to get home to my kids.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Number two, I want to do this talk because it was part of what was intellectually allowing me to process like you're in this little cocoon state, you're sick, but you're going to get out. And so 27 days after I left the hospital, I did that talk and I did the talk to show my kids I was OK because my kids were sick. Understandably, they were younger at that time. They were tweens.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
They were really young, like 11 and 9. And there I am lying in a hospital bed for almost two weeks. And so I got on the stage. I did my talk. I stepped off the stage. I was like, phew, this is great. We're going to have a relaxing summer. But the sole intention of doing that talk was to show my kids I was okay. And I think sometimes when you have incredibly pure intent...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
You know, I had people say to me all the time, what did you do to make your talk go viral? I didn't. I mean, that can't be the way that you go into doing something like that because you're not doing it with pure intent. And so, you know, in many instances, I think sometimes, you know, the universe takes and the universe gives.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And, you know, whether you're spiritual or religious, I believe and embrace that fervently. And so through this near-death experience came this incredible opportunity to show up differently in the world And that changed everything.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Like that talk going viral changed everything about my business, gave me a voice, validated to my husband that I wasn't crazy, that I left a well-paying job to kind of become an entrepreneur. And so I sit back and again, I talk about gratitude a lot, but I'm grateful for that appendix. In fact, I think it's always part of my acknowledgements in my book.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So great to connect with you, Dylan.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
I talk about how my ruptured appendix kind of changed everything for me. And so, yeah, I think it was timing about the topic. It was becoming something that was on the radar. This is now six years ago. I think for a lot of individuals, it then became something that people were searching for. And when they were searching for intermittent fasting, my talk kept coming up. But I had like...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
the first day I had almost 90,000 views. And I remember saying to my husband, I was like, something's different.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
And then it was like a million views and it was 2 million views and it was 3 million. And then it just kept spiraling from there. And I was like, wow, this is pretty incredible. And in pretty, pretty impactful. I mean, isn't that ultimately why if you're a public speaker, you want to be impactful. You want to, uh, be a change agent. And, um,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
That validated for me that I was not crazy, that on April 1st, 2016, I left traditional allopathic medicine. And that was a hard decision to make, but it validated it was definitely the right one.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
Absolutely. Hey, I just submitted my second book manuscript. So I feel like a thousand pound gorillas off my shoulders. And so it's like my team is even excited for me because I feel like I can get back to connecting with people like yourself and being able to share really good information that helps women and men lead their very best lives.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #15 Featuring Cynthia Thurlow! THE ULTIMATE WELLNESS GUIDE! The role of muscle in aging and health, hormonal influences on physical activity, intermittent fasting, misconceptions on muscle gain for women, the importance of protein and more!
So it's a platform of sharing ideas worth sharing. It's kind of like their tagline, like ideas worth sharing. And as an introvert in 2018, I decided to do this because it seemed scary, but scary, but also safe. And so I did it as a challenge because I was like, OK, I'm not a memorizer. I never could have been an actor or an actress like that's just not the way my brain works.