12. Kayla Barnes-Lentz: Female-Specific Health Approach, Reducing Toxins from Daily Products, Aligning Routines with Menstrual Cycles, Understanding Your Genetics + More!

What if you could get the full potential of your health by tailoring it to your unique genetic blueprint? Ever wondered how personalized wellness could transform your approach to health and well-being? In this episode of Extend with Dr. Shah, we dive into this fascinating concept with biohacking expert Kayla Barnes Lentz, a pioneer in personalized female health. Kayla shares her insights on the unique challenges women face, from PCOS and autoimmune conditions to endometriosis and menstrual issues, and explains why a female-specific approach is crucial. She emphasizes that foundational health practices—nutrition, stress management, sleep, and movement—are accessible to everyone and are the building blocks of long-term well-being + her best tips on how to optimize each. Kayla is the Co-Owner of LYV The Wellness Space https://lyv-wellness.com/about/, one of the country's most innovative precision medicine and biology upgrading clinics. Kayla is also the creator and host of the Longevity Optimization Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/longevity-optimization-with-kayla-barnes-lentz/id1591130227 and co-founder of the Health Optimization Fund. We also discuss: (03:55) Optimal Health Through Free Actions (06:13) Toxic Burden from Daily Personal Care Products (08:56) Toxicity Levels in Therapeutic Treatment (12:24) Switching to Healthier, Affordable Products (19:11) TV Red Light Feature Illuminate Home (30:20) Carnivore Diet - Pros and Cons (34:30) Importance of Sleep Monitoring (49:03) Aligning Routines with Menstrual Cycles (48:26) Female-Specific Health Approach (56:20) Nutrition and Supplements for Women (01:04:43) Optimizing Nutrition With Technology (01:26:34) Exploring Health Gadgets and Free Alternatives (01:31:38) Maximizing Routine for Youthful Health Thank you to our sponsors: Timeline: https://www.timeline.com/ TruNiagen: https://www.truniagen.com/ IFit: https://www.ifit.com/ To learn more about Dr. Darshan Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ To learn more about Kayla Barnes-Lentz: Website: https://www.kaylabarnes.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaylabarnes/?hl=en

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What if you could get the full potential of your health by tailoring it to your unique genetic blueprint? Ever wonder how personalized wellness could transform your approach to health and wellbeing? In this episode of Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, we dive into this fascinating concept with biohacking expert, Kayla Barnes-Lentz, a pioneer in personalized health. Although our conversation will apply to both men and women, Kayla also shares her specific insights into the unique challenges women face, from PCOS and autoimmune conditions to endometriosis, menstrual issues, and explaining why a female-specific approach is crucial. We discuss foundational health practices, nutrition, stress management, sleep, and movement that are accessible to everyone and are the building blocks of long-term wellbeing.

• 1:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We also discuss advanced longevity services and modalities that supercharge your protocols towards optimal health. Kayla is a co-owner of Live the Wellness Space, one of the country's most innovative precision medicine and biology-upgrading clinics. Kayla is also the creator and host of the Longevity Optimization Podcast, of which I was a guest, and co-founder of the Health Optimization Fund.

• 2:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Kayla, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for coming to Extend. I really appreciate you being here.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 2:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, you know, I was really interested in having you because I see a lot of female patients and you are a subject matter expert in female longevity, biohacking, and that's kind of what you talk a lot about. I know it applies across men and women, but I feel like you have such an important message to the longevity community and specifically how to tweak that for the female audience, right?

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, longevity is a new industry, right? We're all learning and I've been an N of one subject. But what I do know is that women, you know, I was telling you before the podcast, almost every woman that I've met, and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this, here in LA is dealing with something, everything from PCOS to autoimmune conditions to endometriosis. And women do have to take a different approach to their health. I mean, I love all the amazing men that are in the space and that are really just like paving the way, right? But the protocols that work for men, of course, you know, the foundation of health is the same for both men and women, but women need to take a slightly different approach.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  We have, you know, 28 day cycle that impacts us very differently than than you men do, you know? So I'm excited to dive into what that looks like. But I mean, I'm just so excited about where we're at in terms of access to information. And not only is it a woman thing, but it's also, as you know, more than anyone, it's a very bio individual thing. So what can work for me might not necessarily work for everybody. And so it's everyone needs to be their own N of one, because that's how you're going to get the best results.

• 3:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I talk about this all the time. I'm like, people love to quote studies in randomized controlled trials, and those are great and those are needed. But what you have to understand is the randomized controlled trials are telling you kind of what happened to most of the people, right? But when you're, consider yourself an N of one, meaning you're one person, you can also fall away from what happened to most people and be on either side of that, right? You can, you can be two standard deviations away. And so what works for most people might not work for you. Right? And so it's so important to realize that.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  I mean, I know there's other, you know, even protocols like I've released all my labs publicly. And it's funny because I was going back in my social media archives and I started doing that in like 2020. So I've been releasing labs for a long time, but what I do in my protocol and what if you have the ability, and we can talk about, you know, all of the things I told you, I got a hyperbaric chamber delivered yesterday. And I realize that's not accessible for everyone, but we both know that the biggest movers of health are the things we do every day. Right? So we eat, we sleep, we breathe and we move every day. So if you can optimize that. But for me, when we're talking about bio individuality, I start with my genetics. So I start with my genetic predispositions, which I'm not necessarily hearing a ton of people talk about

• 4:55Speaker 01

  in this like longevity optimization space, because as an example, you know, I detox really well, but my husband doesn't. So I have a different, let's say, protocol for him based on the fact that he's going to need more, you know, glutathione support or more sauna. So everything is super bio individual. And you don't even have to do all the testing that we're going to discuss today because you can also just do self reporting. How do you feel? You know, how did you sleep last night? Keep a journal or a log. So it can be super complex and, you know, a little bit more pricey, or we can keep it really simple.

• 5:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's so true. I mean, I think I love the Pareto principle. 20% of the actions you can take will give you 80% of the result.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And a lot of those actions are free, right?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I absolutely agree. I'm sure, you know, the founders of True Diagnostics, but we chat a lot. And I'm like, what's moving the needle the most, you know? And some of the services like you guys offer, plasma pharesis, you know, they've seen show up and is great. But it's nutrition, it's how your stress management, it's your sleep. It's all the boring things that are really difficult. That's why having a great level of discipline is required for optimal health. It's doing the things that you don't want to do now for future health, for future vitality, energy. But all of the biggest things are free or close to free.

• 6:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And like you said, highlight the fact that those things are free and they have to be done consistently. Like they have to become a part of a habit or a routine. Absolutely.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  And you know, I'm in my early 30s, so I'm a bit younger than some of the other people that are in the industry. But the way I think of it is I'm doing, what I'm doing now is going to benefit me in my 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 100, you know? Because if you wait until we get older and we start to see either visible signs of aging or mental signs of aging. You know, we know that chronic disease and these health conditions develop over, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but like a decade, right?

• 6:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Actually, it's like 20, 30 years sometimes.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Okay, even more.

• 6:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Even more, right?

• 6:52Speaker 01

  So what you do today, and it's never too late and it's never too early to start. That's going to make such a difference in not only how you feel now, but in the future. So it's super exciting.

• 7:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so true. We're at an incredible moment. And like you mentioned, the access to information now is so fantastic. Because we're not just being fed information by, you know, the media.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And our government is giving us all the wrong information, like podcasts and books are just coming out that really break down the science for people and really get people to understand like what's going to move the needle. So with that, what do you think is the one thing that you wish everyone knew about optimizing their health and their longevity?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Well, outside of what we just spoke about, that it's the things that are the hardest that are going to move the needle. Is that if you're a woman, you do need to take a slightly different approach. And one of the most significant things I'm looking at right now is our toxic burden. I think that that's so incredibly important. And we know that women leave the home with almost double the amount of toxins that men do. And that's in the form of personal care products and makeup and hairsprays and fragrance. So one thing that if I'm speaking to the women is, you know, work on reducing your toxic burden because it can be a real game changer, you know, for your health. As obviously you know this, but we are under a toxic burden that we've never experienced before. We were not built for this. We, our ancestors were not dealing with toxins in the food, the air, the water, the shower water,

• 8:15Speaker 01

  the carpet, the clothing. I mean, you know, I'm wearing an organic clothing top right now. And I try to mostly go all organic clothes, but that's not even really something that's being spoken about, you know, these days. But toxins are just unfortunately, it's like a full-time job to avoid them. But if you You can start just making small changes. I think that's something that we are not talking about enough yet, but I think it's super important.

• 8:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so true. And I think for me, I look at toxins as one of those root causes of bad health, right?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's just like metabolic disease, mitochondrial dysfunction, toxic exposure is right up there.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And our toxic exposure leads to all forms of disease, increased rates of cardiac events, increased rates of Alzheimer's disease, increased rates of what have you, metabolic syndrome, all of it. So really detoxifying your life as much as possible should be a core routine, right?

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like added to nutrition, exercise, sleep, detoxification.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I do a test called the total toxic burden twice a year, and I think you're familiar with this test.

• 9:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I do it, I do it four times a year, actually.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Love it. I mean, and if I had a higher toxic burden, I'd probably do it more. But I have one of the lowest toxic burdens. I don't know what, you know, you guys see, but I have zero toxins in the high range, only have one toxin in the medium range, and that's almost unheard of these days. So the total toxic burden combines several tests into one. It's looking at heavy metals, molds and mycotoxins, and then environmental toxins. I can look at this test and I can immediately tell you if you're drinking out of plastic or using a lot of plastic, right? All of your habits are going to be shown, and even things that you don't know that you're exposed to, like molds in the homes, or if you're near even a toxic facility or using, you know, makeup products with some, you know, toxic ingredients. So I track these things, and so I know what I'm doing works, which is really exciting. And then on top

• 10:01Speaker 01

  of that, you know, detoxification with things like sauna as well, and sweating and exercise and all of those fun things that I'm sure we'll talk about.

• 10:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. On that, I, we do therapeutic plasma exchange, and so we check that before and after the plasma exchange.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 10:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, you know, these toxins live in your plasma. And when you get the test done, you're seeing the toxins that your kidney is able to excrete. But it's incredible how much, because it's a urine test, right? That's what you use the Vibran America one, is that right?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Vibran America.

• 10:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's a urine test. It's incredible to see the level of toxin elimination that your body needs if you're not someone like yourself. You know, the people have so. So many toxins like you're you have and I definitely want to hone in on this because I think this is a very important topic. But people have sometimes 10, 20 in the red range.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then when we do the plasma freeze, we can get them down to like medium and get rid of some of them. But it just shows you the level of toxic exposure that we have now. It's unprecedented.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  It truly is. And you know, people often think they think their tests are going to come back and have like no toxins on their test, right? Because they're doing a lot of things, but the problem is, is we just have literally unprecedented, they're everywhere, you know? My home, if I told you about it, like the amount of work that I've put in, everything from non-toxic couches to all natural fiber, everything to organic, you know? Bed 100% God certified organic. If you, if people can just start making these small tweaks. And I think optimizing your home environment is a really good place to start because you spend so much time there, right? And then you can even start in your bedroom because you should be spending seven to eight hours every night, getting high quality sleep.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  So if you start small, because I don't want people to feel overwhelmed, I think in this longevity industry that we're in, we both know it can be really expensive. But I don't want people to feel like it's not attainable because it's really important that you just start. And you start with the small things that you can really make a difference on because to me, you know, making this more accessible is so important. Because everybody deserves great health in my heart. Obviously I am a woman, so therefore I naturally focus on female health and longevity optimization. But it's also just, it makes me so sad because women just deserve to have optimal health. You know, we shouldn't have to struggle so hard to get pregnant. I mean, when we look at the fertility rates and the decline, it is just heartbreaking.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  How many people that I know personally and that I know are out there based on the stats that are struggling with that today? And I am almost trying to be a testament to what's possible in terms of how far can we push this health optimization? And yeah, really just explore the limits of how good we can feel and how doing all of these mundane and difficult behaviors actually works in the long run.

• 12:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think a key is to just get started, right? And then have the routines build up over time. With detoxification, I'm, it can get overwhelming for people, right? Cause there's like a million things that need to be detoxified. But like you said, focusing on the big things first makes a big difference. I also like to put a cadence in with my patients. I'm like, let's just detoxify one thing per week, right? So this week, we're gonna worry about the air in your bedroom. Let's get an air purifier. Next week, we're gonna worry about the water you're drinking from. Let's, let's get a water filter. I think if you have the thought that you can do this over time and not have to do it all at once is also very helpful, right? To make it more accessible.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, I've like, I even have put out, you know, for free, just like my, I call it healthy home optimization checklist. And it's, it's long, it's like 20 pages, right? But it, you go one page or half a page or two items at a time. And I think, um, you know, of course, financial resources is part of it, but just do it really slow. I love the, do you like the environmental working group?

• 13:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I, I go to their website all the time.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 13:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You can look up all your products there.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. So for women, it's like, look at the Skin Deep database and just start switching out like one product. When you go to buy another one, just get a healthier version.

• 13:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know what I find too? Like people are scared that the products that are detoxified are gonna be more expensive. But a lot of times they're actually cheaper than some of the products out there.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I kind of say this, and I know that this isn't gonna be common, but I mean, I have, like in my house, we, by far, outside of, of course, rent in Los Angeles, the biggest expenses are health, right? So the food that we eat, we have zero budget for alcohol. We have zero budget for nightclubs. And, you know, I think we need to reframe what we call fun in our society. Like, people have asked me, aren't you bored? Or are you not having fun in life? Are you not enjoying life? I am so fulfilled. I love waking up feeling great, not having a hangover, not have spent 300, I don't even know how much it costs to drink alcohol, but it's a lot, right? It's like hundreds of dollars possibly.

• 14:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, in Los Angeles, yeah. I mean, going out for a night and getting even a bottle of wine is sometimes over, you know, hundreds of dollars. And I think a cocktail last time I checked was like 15, 20 dollars at some restaurants is ridiculous.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, so just, I take all of those. Resources and I put it into the one body that we have, right? Like everything else we can get more of, but we can't get more of this body. So I think just reframing, I think here in the U.S. too, because we know that our food costs are some of the lowest, right? But our medical costs are the highest and we think that everything that we need should be covered by insurance. But unfortunately, that model is just simply not for health optimization, disease prevention. You know, places like your clinic and, and other clinics are amazing resources. And that's where you're going to get the best care and really get to the root cause. So.

• 15:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And you have a clinic as well, right?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  I do, yeah.

• 15:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Where's, where's your clinic?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  It's in Ohio, actually, which is my hometown, Cleveland.

• 15:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Cleveland, Ohio? What's the name of it for people in Ohio?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  It's called LIV, L Y V. Yeah, exactly. If you're in Ohio, I mean, we really built it to be a place that you could get things that you can't get anywhere else in Ohio, right? So LA, we're really blessed here. I mean, still, like you guys are definitely, I'm very familiar with all the clinics and you guys are definitely like leading the charge, but yeah, in Ohio, if you're there, it's, you know, we have a lot of functional medicine practitioners and I've learned so much from them. We have medical doctors on staff and it's just the best feeling and I know you can relate is watching people get better.

• 16:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. You know, the problem with the medical system is it's really just for sick people, right?

• 16:16Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 16:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And the 90% of us that are not in a state of terminal illness or needing the emergency room, it's really not built to keep you healthy. Like you go there, once you have a diagnosis and then you start getting treated. By then it's been 30 years of you developing these diagnoses, right? And so I think people just need to reframe health as not something that the Western medical system gives you.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There needs to be a new system. So clinics like yours and mine, I think it's the future.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And even just people really, you know, taking control of your own health, like, don't just take, don't take a diagnosis, you know, as, as a be all, end all, right? Because we do that, like, I mean, a Hoshi, for example, you know, our providers are helping to put it into remission or, you know, really just revert, reverse it. So it's, there's so much that can be done. I'm not saying that's in every single case, of course, but there is a lot that can be done just by improving your health status. And figuring out what works best for you.

• 17:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I mean, definitely Hashimoto's a perfect example of that is usually due to an overabundance of poor lifestyle activities, right? And so the Western medical way of treating that is with drugs. And really, you can be at a lower dose of medications if you address the lifestyle factors first.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 17:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So yeah, virtually every disease too, you could think of probably.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Truly.

• 17:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I can apply to for sure.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  And I love too, just the, the concept of figuring out why, right? Like, why do you have this? And I think that is so powerful because when you start to peel back those layers, you figure out why. And it's usually obviously a multifactorial issue, but it's still for me, everyone always is like, oh, you do so much testing, right? You do, I've been doing full body MRIs for years and I've done the, the clearly soft plaque analysis and I do GRAIL and thousands of biomarkers. I know everything pretty much that there is to know. And people are like, doesn't that worry you? Because if you find something, I'm like, oh, absolutely not. Because the best time to find it is when it's early, right? Like if I start, you know, thankfully I haven't, but the second if I see my thyroid markers going up, I'm changing everything.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I'm figuring out what it is and I'm going to reverse that because I know I can. And when you know more, you know, you can do better.

• 18:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, yeah, living under this ignorance is bliss doesn't work. Because you can find these diseases developing very, very early in your biomarkers and your blood tests. And when you address them early, you can reverse them completely. If you wait till it's too late, it takes a lot to move the needle again.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And also if you catch them early, you can do a lot of just these free things, right? Like change your nutrition, upgrade your environment a little bit, really focus on sleep. I mean, I think, I don't know if this is a real quote or not, so don't quote me, but I've heard that the CEO of Netflix said that his biggest competitor was sleep.

• 19:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's terrible.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 19:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But true.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  But true, right? I mean, you cannot let Netflix steal your sleep. Like, it's absolutely not okay.

• 19:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh, that's horrible. But it has stolen my sleep sometimes. So I've taken the TV set out of the bedroom completely. So the only place to watch Netflix is in the living room. I barely watch any TV anymore now, anyway.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't even, I didn't have a television at all prior to getting married. But definitely, I will say the trade off of like getting married for the TV is well worth it. I think, you know, getting married was one of the best things, actually, that I've ever done for my health. Because as a woman, I have that like safety. And we know in all the studies that having a strong sense of community and loving others and them loving you is so helpful. So, but now we have a TV, but I did make him not make, I asked him to turn on the red feature. So now our TV is like red. And so now the whole, yeah, the whole house is red. At sunset, red lights go on and the TV is now red, so.

• 20:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I didn't know TVs have a red feature.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we have Apple TV. And if you go into like accessibility features and color tint, it's actually kind of like, I learned this from Ben Greenfield, but the red light phone trick. Have you done that?

• 20:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's like that with the TV.

• 20:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So the TV also has that feature? I had no idea. Yeah, we use red lights at our house, too. Um, at, you know, right at sunset, everything turns red. And it's actually lovely in the home with the red light. Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  So much more relaxing than bright lights and watching scary stuff before you go to bed.

• 20:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Nothing like doing a big anxiety, you know, kicking cortisol release before you try to head to bed.

• 20:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I know, right? I want to dive into some of the protocols that you use, Kayla, because I know you have quite a few protocols. And by the way, can I link to that in the show notes? The, um, your, some of your protocols and also the detox checklist for the house?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. It's all just on my website.

• 20:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's fantastic. So we'll definitely link to that. That's so helpful. But I would love to kind of hear your protocol. When someone kind of comes to the clinic for the first time, how do we start with them? And how do you kind of move them through the process? Because there's a lot to talk about. And, you know, we have our protocol that we use at our clinic, and I'd love to hear kind of what you're doing.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Well. From a general, you know, new patient at our clinic standpoint, it really could depend. Cause I always say, like everyone, for example, is so excited about biological age, right? Which I mean, I've been doing for so long, but you have to see the, what's the saying? You have to see the forest, the trees, you can't miss the rocks, right? So if someone comes in with a ton of symptoms, that's going to look a little bit different from, for them. But I'm going to talk about kind of what I've done because mine's like A to Z, everything. So things that I test on, let's say a quarterly basis are the total toxic burden. So well, first let's start at genetics, because I think genetics and please like chime in with, uh, you know, what you guys do or what you think.

• 21:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Which genetic tests do you guys use?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  I've done about six genetic tests, but we mostly do three by four now because it's very user friendly. It's super easy to read and it's not going to give you every single genetic variation. It's just going to say, hey, these are the biggest pieces to focus on. Like if you have, you know, MTHFR, if you detox poorly. So first I did my genetics and I figured out my genetic predispositions. It's funny because everything that I'm genetically predisposed to, I have none of, right? I'm genetically predisposed to being a little bit more overweight, which I am not. You know, I'm genetically predisposed to having, you know, potentially cardiovascular issues, um, which I have none. So.

• 22:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But see, that's perfect though, for you to say that, because I think people should understand that your genetics are not your destiny. And with your healthy lifestyle, you've been able to overcome these genetic predispositions.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  At literally everything. I mean, I think that they say, you know, genetics are like, what? 10% of the overall equation, 90% of that is lifestyle and environment and our epigenetics, which then, you know, turn on or off those genes. So, but regardless, I still, you know, wanted to see what my genetics said and so started there. And then after that, I think the gut is the foundation of health. So I had had, I'll talk a little bit more about that, but one of the best like gut tests. So we do the GI FX by Genova. Do you, do you guys like that one?

• 23:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's one of the ones that we use as well. Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  So I had zeros across the board with one, two with this biosis. So optimized my gut and as you can, you can probably confirm, this is like also very rare.

• 23:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So rare.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  So rare. So I then later, more recently, um, I had a breast transplant, actually I had implants. And we can talk about that if you want, but I didn't have breast implant illness. I didn't have any symptoms. I just got them out because A, I didn't want to develop any. And B, I wanted to breastfeed my children that I want to have soon naturally. And then I had antibiotics and that's been a fun experiment to see what happens, right? Because it did take a toll on my gut, no doubt, because I have the before and then I have the right after. So now I'm on another gut protocol, but optimizing the gut, right? And it's so, it's so complex to optimize gut health properly. You know, there's been so many brands that are probiotics that have sent me requests to do brand deals. And I've turned on every one of them because I can't in good conscience recommend a one size fits all probiotic.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  You know, as you see, if you do something like the GI FX, it not only is, you know, what good bacterias do you need, what bad bacterias you need to reduce? But then it's also, do you have parasites? Do you have pathogens? Do you have viruses? And through a lot of my interviews on my podcast, talking to, you know, medical doctors about this, these viruses and pathogens can also lead to autoimmune conditions. So you want to, of course eradicate them. So everybody's will look a little bit different. But I would say getting a gut test and working on that, whether it's reducing the bad bacterias. Because ideally, what do we want to do? We want to reduce the bad bacterias, get rid of any viruses or pathogens or parasites. And then we want to balance the dysbiosis, right? Bring up the good guys, bring down the bad guys.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  And then you want to seal the gut with and, you know, ensure that you have great, no intestinal permeability or, you know, leaky gut as we know. So that's, that's like the gut health. But I have seen so many times, you know, it bothers me so much when women are marketed these skin creams, right? Like, skin cream's amazing for, you know, keeping supple skin or anti-aging. That's amazing. But the acne thing really bothers me because this is a signal. This is a warning sign that something's going wrong, right? So we have found, and it's not always this, but if you balance the gut, so many things improve. Right. Your mood, because we know that our gut has neurons and the gut and the brain directly communicate. It improves. Brain fog can lift. Obviously GI symptoms like.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Things we've normalized, right? People think that like bloating all the time and not going to the bathroom enough or going too much, these are all not normal symptoms. So when you optimize the gut, that will help. And a lot of times, two people's skin improves.

• 25:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, gut health is so important and should be more foundational. And you know, it's never been foundational in Western medicine. You never talk about gut health at all. The most you talk about gut health is just when you're treating a disease and using colonoscopy to see if you have a colon cancer. But other than that, there's nothing really spoken about about your microbiome. Now it's getting more, I think it's being taught more now in medical schools, but still, there's still a lot of science that needs to be done as well for on gut health, I think. But you're absolutely right. Maintaining good gut health is first and foremost, and it can lead to clearing up of a lot of symptoms. I'm just curious as to, you know, that kind of brings up the nutrition topic, right? And I would love to hear your thoughts on optimal nutrition.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  I think we've made nutrition so incredibly complicated for no reason.

• 26:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  It's like vegan versus carnivore versus this, and it's just wild. And at the end of the day, I just focus on eating whole foods. So, single ingredient foods, I eat zero packaged foods because we know we definitely, I think the ultra-processed foods are now like 70% of Americans diet. And we obviously have processed foods, which are just like the combining of foods, not as bad, a lot of things can be processed. But we get into the ultra-processed foods with these fillers and preservatives and all of these different additives, I completely stay away from that. So, I just eat single ingredient foods. For me, I do, I eat red meat a couple of times a week. I eat a lot of wild-caught seafood, so I love things like scallops and wild-caught salmon. And it's just very simple. I avoid all added and refined sugars completely.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  It's just a very natural diet. And whatever that looks like, I eat a lot of organic dark leafy greens. It's just balanced. I have a little bit of a, what I would call like a smart carb in like the form of a vegetable with a lot of protein. I think protein for women is incredibly underrated. I mean, I think, you know, the, what I would recommend or what I do for protein is, you know, like 0.8 grams to one. I am trying to still put on more muscle and let's definitely talk about that. That because women and muscle is like an interesting conversation. But I think hitting your minimum required protein intake, let's just, let's just call it a hundred grams a day or something. But you can do one pound and you know, one gram of protein if you want to figure it out that way or point eight to one pound per body weight.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  And I think lots of organic leafy greens that gets you fiber and it gets you a bunch of antioxidants. And then just great, high quality protein sources for me. I actually try to avoid pesticides as much as possible. Sure. So, you know, glyphosate is a known carcinogen, I believe, and even labeled as such in California, which is great. And so I try to avoid that, those types of just sprays as much as possible. So I do organic or farmer's market. It's great because we have amazing grocery stores here, like really healthy ones that I love. But I actually love even more than that, going to the farmer's market because the nutrient content of foods is higher when it's freshly picked. Right. So the longer it's away from the vine, then the, the more reduction in the nutrients.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  So every piece of food that I put into my mouth, I think about how is this benefiting me or is it a detriment to my health? So we know that food is so much more than just calories, it's information. And as cliche it is, but like when your mom said, you are what you eat, you truly are. Do you want to be a bag of Doritos or do you want, or do you want to be, you know, grass fed steak and blueberries? Or wild caught salmon? I mean, I think if I'm looking for optimal performance, longevity, health span, extension, I'm doing the grass fed steak or the wild caught salmon and the blueberries. So, I mean, to wrap it up, I think, yeah, super high quality protein, hitting all of your requirements for that. And you're also going to be so much more full. If you're having a protein forward diet, you're just naturally not going to be as hungry.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  You're not going to want to snack. And if you get a high quality sleep the night before, because we know even one night of poor sleep can increase the hunger hormone ghrelin. So I get a good night's sleep and then I eat a lot of protein and organic greens. And I love bone broth, that's really great for gut health. Love a good smoothie with a bunch of really low sugar smoothies, but a bunch of like powders and creatine in there, which I think is great for women. But that's pretty much. My nutritional philosophy. I mean, what do you think about?

• 29:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think that's exactly right. You hit the nail on the head when you said we've totally overcomplicated nutrition and it's also become very religious.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, and I think the religious fanatic belief that there's one diet that works for everybody is it's just crazy and you gotta find what's gonna work for you, right? I think there's, you mentioned the carnivore diet. I feel like that's could be great for some people and for some people it could not be. It's a great intervention sometimes if you're having gut issues and you need to, you know, basically do a massive elimination diet, but it's not very sustainable for everybody, right? Um, it's, it's just one of those things that are helpful to know about, but also try to do the most sustainable thing for you. And if the carnivore diet is sustainable for you, fine, you know, you can continue down that path. And the same exact thought process for me goes with like veganism, right? It's, it's also hard to get the right amount of protein that you want to get. And obviously,

• 30:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  like if you have ethical and moral concerns about eating meat, then obviously you're gonna stick to veganism or vegetarianism. But other than that, I feel like not overcomplicating it and starting with protein, adding your fiber and vegetables in, and then making your carbohydrates kind of like an afterthought and your sugar an afterthought is the best way to go. This is the most I can simplify it and that's gonna help most people. That's where we start. And then we use testing as well to just kind of see what, what is our gut doing? What are the micronutrients doing, et cetera?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that. And to begin it from a woman's perspective for a moment, you know, we have these different phases. So we have our follicular phase, our ovulation, our luteal phase. So I want to first start by saying, do not focus on eating for your cycle if you're not just mastering the basics of eating a really high quality diet, right? Because adding in layers of like, you know, I eat a little bit more red meat during, you know, the menstruation because that makes sense, right? We're losing blood and then so I'm eating a little bit more red meat in the luteal phase. I have a little bit more carbohydrates. So that's great, but, and I have, you know, a couple of posts and stuff on that, but I wouldn't start there. I would definitely start with mastering the basics. And I'll talk to you a little bit about the carnivore

• 31:58Speaker 01

  diet. And I know that it's very popular right now and I've done every diet, you know, I started. I studied nutrition when I was in college. I learned about Mark Hyman back, you know, 15 years ago. So I was reading Dave Asprey's books back then. That's how I got interested in all this stuff. You know, I wanted, I started to change my diet and I'm like, whoa, this is, I feel so much better. But I've done veganism, raw vegan, I've tried everything. And I did carnivore for a while, too. And look, I felt amazing. Hair looked great. Everything was great. My body composition was incredible, but you can't fly blind here. So what did I do? I started to look at my labs and my labs were telling me a different story. So my, you know, advanced cardiovascular markers, things like ApoB, TMAO. Of course, we have LDL, HDL, triglycerides.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  My ratio was actually great. ApoB, but ApoB and TMAO and some of these other cardiovascular markers started to go in the wrong direction. And I'm not, when you talk about it being a religion, right? The problem with that, and I've never been like that because I don't want to be this like in a dogmatic situation where I can't change my mind because my brand's built on that. Because I tried it and felt great, but my labs were going in the wrong direction. And if I want to really have great longevity and health span, these are things we have to pay attention to. So if you're going to do an extreme diet, like either of these diets we've talked about, either veganism or carnivore, then you really should be looking at your labs to make sure that you're not running yourself into a hole.

• 33:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. It's that whole N of one thing, right? You have to see, how is this particular intervention affecting you? And track it over time.

• 33:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 34:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The other things I worry about with a carnivore diet is the lack of fiber and lack of intestinal motility for a long period of time. We know that low fiber intake leads to more colon cancer as well. And there's also some nutrient deficiencies that can happen as well that you have to monitor for. And I worry about the same things with the vegan diet, right? There's not enough protein intake sometimes. It's hard to get, you know, the right amount of protein sometimes. And also, you're missing out on some essential amino acids too. So you got to monitor that as well. So for most people, like, there's that bell shaped curve and you're gonna land somewhere in the middle, right? And so I think it's important to recognize that and go with, go with your biomarkers as well, for sure. Let me ask you a little bit on the sleep topic as well. I know you're a

• 34:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  big fan of monitoring sleep because I read your article in Aura that came up on my app.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  I know.

• 35:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I was like, I've been interviewing her tomorrow. That's amazing.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  I love, and you know, it's so funny because I've opened the Aura app tens of thousands of times in my life. I've had one for like six years. And I knew that they were doing a feature on me, but it was so fun to open up and see myself in that.

• 35:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, literally, you must have got a million texts that day from all over the world.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yes, I did. I got a lot of screenshots of that app. Because all of our friends, you know, are wearing an Aura ring, so.

• 35:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So just on tracking in general, tell me your thoughts around it. And then let's dive into sleep a little bit as well. Just in big picture, what, what do you recommend most people consider for tracking on a day to day basis?

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I have a, quite a few small things that are very, you know, affordable that I track at home. So of course, I'm looking at my body composition, not even so much weight, right? I mean, yes, I know my weight, but I'm looking at my muscle mass, my bone density or bone weight, water mass, and overall body composition, because I, I want to have more muscle, of course, because we know that as we age, it gets harder to put on muscle. So I'm looking at body composition, you know, on a daily basis. I look at grip strength at home. We know that grip strength is an indicator of longevity. I'm at about 99 pounds, which is like in the 99th percentile for my age and gender.

• 36:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How often do you measure that? You have a dynamo at home?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  I do, yeah. I do that once a week. So on a daily basis, I do the Aura ring sleep tracking. So that's really easy. And if I'm wearing a continuous glucose monitor. Of course, I track that on a daily basis. And then on a weekly basis, I do the grip strength. I do lung health. So I have a spirometer at home where I'm just testing the strength and health of my lungs. And then I have a blood pressure cup. So I also do my blood pressure once a week. So that's just, you know, a few. And you can get these things on Amazon for like between $30. The scale is a little bit more like 100 or 200, depending on which one you get. But those are things to measure at home. And then we can get into like what labs, I kind of mentioned the gut test and the toxin testing. But I do a lot of stuff on a quarterly basis and on an annual basis. So.

• 36:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, that's perfect. I think the combination of tracking certain metrics at home, combined with the laboratory work is definitely the way to go. And it's so funny because I have those same three items, a blood pressure cuff, a spirometer. I have it like on the table and I just do them all at the same time.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'll do them every couple of weeks because I'm tracking the trend, right? It's all about knowing which way you're trending.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 37:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that way you can pick stuff up early. On the sleep aspect now, let's focus in on that. What are your, what have you done that's most impacted your sleep?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, I have about a 95 sleep score on Aura. And for the record, as far as I know, Aura does not let you get 100. So whoop, I've kind of heard it's a bit different over there, whoop users.

• 37:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Brian Johnson must be using a whoop because he has 100 sleep score, he says.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, he does use a whoop and I haven't used a whoop. So I won't speak too much on what their criteria is, but I don't know a single person that's ever got 100 sleep score. Activity score, I get 100 all the time, but sleep, no go. So yeah, I think for my personal sleep routine, it's really extensive, but it really comes down to a few big things. Wind down routine. So as you and I were talking about the red lights, really just getting rid of all that blue light works, but there's just so much blue light on a daily basis. And that reduces our melatonin production, which is what makes us more sleepy. So I think actually starting in the morning, right? So viewing morning sunlight, that's been incredibly popularized now, but getting the sun into the eyes. Because our ancestors, they would wake with the sun and fall asleep with the sun. So the sun actually, based on what wavelengths that it's mostly emitting,

• 38:25Speaker 01

  can help our bodies understand what time it is. So in the morning, you know, we still have, I think about 50% red and infrared light, which I don't think a lot of. People know that, but you can get, I mean, of course you can buy red light panels, which I have, but you can also get red and infrared light from the sun. So in the morning, getting up and getting between 10 and 30 minutes of sunlight in the eyes is going to tell your brain it's morning. Wake up. It'll not only give you a little bit of energy, but it'll help you later in the day. Just speaking on sunlight, I also watch the evening sunset, because again, it's anchoring that circadian rhythm. Our home, we actually picked it because one, it gets a lot of sun exposure, but two, I can see the sunset. So viewing the sunset is also helpful. And then the red lights at night. So if you don't want to go out and buy all red lights, you can either just buy, you know, really cheap ones online and just as soon as sunset

• 39:10Speaker 01

  happens, turn on the red lights, do the red light phone trick and potentially put it on your TV as well. But that's going to be a protocol that is really going to help you with your sleep. I don't watch anything anxiety inducing, more relaxation, some breath work before bed. We know that eating timing is so important. So I actually stop eating at 5:30, but at least three to four hours prior to bed, because if you're digesting a big meal, you're not going to get into those really deep restorative stages of sleep as much as you would otherwise. So timing of when you eat, super helpful. And then your temperature. So I mean, I keep my room at about 65 degrees. We know that while we sleep, our temperature drops down naturally. But also if you're being disturbed by a super hot room, you're going to have sleep disturbances

• 39:54Speaker 01

  and wake up. So keep my room cool. I think EMF management at night, I try to make my room and specifically my bed as low EMF toxin, everything as possible. So I can really regenerate. So we have timers, they're just cheap off Amazon that you can have the wifi switch off completely. I have an EMF blocking Faraday cage around my bed. I've had it for like four years, but people think it's a canopy or, but it's basically woven with silver. So it further blocks EMFs. So I'm literally sleeping in.

• 40:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Where can you get that from?

• 40:25Speaker 01

  I got mine from Safe Living Technologies.

• 40:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay. And what do those cost approximately?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  They're kind of expensive. I think it's a couple thousand dollars. But you know, I know that you can get cheaper ones out there. So just like look up, you know, EMF Faraday cage, because I know that there's cheaper options on the market. But that website's actually great too, because there's even things like EMF blocking paint these days that you could, you know, coat your room in. So it blocks out, you know, living in LA, even though our wifi is off, it doesn't mean that the neighbor that's like 20 feet away, their wifi is still on. So that's where the EMF blocking cage comes in.

• 40:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So when you're, sorry to ask you more questions on this, I'm so, I'm so curious. When you're in your bed and you have this Faraday cage on and you turn on your phone, you pick up no wifi signals?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  There's no signals. I have an EMF meter and also it also significantly drops it down. There's like no, there's no pickup of any EMFs inside. So there's the canopy, but then there's also a blanket that kind of attaches. So you have, we have something under the bed that is EMF blocking. So it kind of, what's the best word? It's like fully blocking. So it's connecting so the EMFs can't get up from under.

• 41:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Fascinating. Yeah, because I have an EMF meter at home and just walking around the bedroom, like I picked up so many things that even when they're turned off, they're emitting EMF. And so you have to actually unplug them from the wall.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so that's, that's really interesting that the Faraday cage like fully blocks it. That would be a really great way to prevent EMFs, of course. And what are some of the negative effects of EMF?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's so controversial still, right? I mean, because everyone's saying that it's non-ionizing, you know, like Bluetooth headphones, like AirPods for example. But I mean, it's actually a light spectrum, which is so interesting. And based on what I've had conversations about, again, I can't cite like specific studies about this, but we, we're not built to be experiencing EMFs. I mean, I've talked to some amazing cancer doctors and it's one of the first things that they recommend reducing, right? I mean, even on the phone, you know, warnings itself, it says, don't put the phone on your ear, on your head. So, and why is that? Because it's emitting these EMFs and they're not natural to us. We see that the effects are not great. And it's interesting because you know, I, I'm such a nerd. I have like wired headphones.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  And when you talk about Bluetooth headphones, So many people say, you know, it's weird. I get headaches and I have migraines every time I wear them. But I mean, are you familiar with any like solid research these days on EMFs?

• 42:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think there's more, the Environmental Working Group actually has a whole site on EMF research. Yeah, so they're constantly updating it. And I'm getting more and more convinced that EMF is definitely something that we need to be avoiding. And I think it's hard, right? Like, we're in this EMF society now. There's Wi-Fi everywhere. But doing exactly what you said, which is why I'm so interested in the Faraday cage, is where do you spend the most time? It's in the bedroom at night, sleeping. You're there for eight hours, hopefully, every single night. That's one third of your day that can be like fully, you know what I mean? That can be fully, you could be EMF free, right? And so that's so powerful.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So we have the EMF cage, and we'll have to stay in communication because I feel like we need some really solid research on EMFs. Because otherwise, everyone thinks like, oh, it's not a big deal because there's no specific study saying this is what it's doing to your health. But all the experts, and I mean, I know just by limiting EMFs, I feel much better.

• 43:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, being in the Western medicine world, you know, like you said, oncologists immediately recommend to go EMF free, you know, as much as possible. So there's something there for sure. And like you said, phones definitely have a warning label on them that say, do not hold near your ear. Which is so weird because they are a phone, and you see people walking around with them next to their ear all the time.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 44:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then the Bluetooth headphones didn't really solve that problem either.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  No, I mean, to me, it's just almost like common sense also, like something communicating through your brain all day cannot be a good thing.

• 44:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's true.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  So for me, yeah. So we have the EMF blocking cage. I have a GOT certified organic mattress. We know that VOCs, you know, emitting these compounds essentially into the air and into your sleeping environment can also not only be harmful, but be disruptive to sleep. So there's a lot of different brands out there for organic mattresses, but I do like GOT certification. And so I have that. Then I have a grounding pad on my bed. So I'm getting grounded throughout the night, which I love. And it's an interesting process. You actually plug it into the wall to be grounded. Have you ever used any of these?

• 44:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, I have one too.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, do you have one on your bed or just in the house?

• 44:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I have one in the house and I do, I can. Kind of use it as a stretching mat at night before I go to bed. But I think under the bed would probably be even better, eight hours of grounding.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. So we have the grounding mat and then we have, you know, 100% God certified sheets. So the super low tox environment, completely black in there. So we have blackout shades. If you can't do that, just do, you know, an eye mask. I got a weighted eye mask that's been really nice.

• 45:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's interesting.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  I was very surprised. I swear it's really improved my sleep. I've been using it for about the last week.

• 45:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I have a weighted blanket I use in the winter.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that also, you see a measurable difference in deep sleep with a weighted blanket for me.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I love that. Again, it's a, well, so for me, I don't love weighted blanket because I feel a little bit trapped for some reason. I sleep, my husband, it was so funny when he first told me sleep, like I sleep almost like, you know, I'm in like, but it's good sleeping posture. So I'm not, I don't move around or anything at night. I've really just like trained myself. And so the wind down routine, the early stopping of eating, the temperature, yeah, reducing EMFs in whatever way that could be unplugging it. It could be, of course, not only even having your phone on airplane mode, but in another room, go back to like an old school alarm clock. But you most certainly want to have the most restorative sleep possible and you want to feel, feel great when you wake up, right?

• 46:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely, absolutely. Was there a time when you weren't sleeping so great and you did specific actions that you were tracking through Aura? That helped you get sleep better? Or have you always just been a great sleeper?

• 46:12Speaker 01

  I've always been a pretty good sleeper. The other thing is too, is actually tiring yourself during the day, right? Like, so I work out, you know, five days a week. So I'm being super productive and I'm tiring myself out. I think a lot of people deal with ruminating thoughts too. So just maybe keeping a notebook next to you and just jotting down those thoughts. So you're not thinking about them or doing a breath work or a meditation. So I've always had good sleep. So my husband, we do some supplement protocols for him, some like glycine, some apigenin, some L-theanine. We have the chewable GABA. I interviewed a couple of pharmacists and they said that the chewable form is the best. So I create these little like sleep stack tins for him. And so he just has them ready to go.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  So that really has helped his sleep quality and then consistency, you know, I mean, that's like so important. So I go to bed every night at eight. And I wake up naturally between four thirty and five thirty every single day. And so I love that, but you, if you're going to bed at a varied hours, you're never going to get a good sleep schedule and your circadian clock is just going to be totally thrown off. So that's the other big one is consistency.

• 47:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and I found that in the past, when I was watching TV before bed, my sleep time was completely inconsistent. So there would be many sleepless nights or I would have insomnia some nights. And just like you said, having a bedtime that you stick to every single night, even on the weekends, is so important. You can wake up later on the weekends if you want, but getting to bed on the same time is incredibly important.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and once you do it for a week or so, you're just like, I'm naturally tired at eight thirty. I'm getting like, you know, I'm getting sleepy and that's because it's so consistent. Like there's no variation and I know that might sound difficult, but I mean, for me, it just feels the best.

• 47:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. Let's move on to talking about your exercise routine. You say you go to the gym five days a week.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, some sort of activity five days a week, yeah.

• 48:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, and you're female, so I'm sure you're doing some female focused kind of training, right? Or, and you mentioned a couple of times that there's some things that females need to consider with their training routines and also their supplementation protocol. So I'd love for you to kind of talk about your protocol and what, what do you do specifically that's different maybe from what a male would do to, to really optimize for being female?

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll start with that and then I'll talk about what I'm doing. Cause I have a couple of different goals, right? I have like adding a muscle mass goal, I have a general fitness goal, I have VO2 max goals, and then I have my low level movement goal. So in terms of what to do specifically for a woman, so we know in our luteal phase, which is the second half of our cycle, the energy can be reduced, right? We can feel a little bit more sluggish, it's right before we start menstruation. So for me, I usually program lighter workouts in, in the second half. I feel much better in the follicular phase, you know, right after menstruation and even around ovulation. So a lot of times I'm doing my most high intensity and like hitting new PRs during that time, which is a lot of fun and it's not the same for everyone, right? Like also women have a lot of variation in their cycle or can have a lot.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  A lot of variation in their cycle. And so it's important just to, again, look at your own data. So I do integration with natural cycles with my OurRing. And that's what I'm currently using for pregnancy prevention until next month when I switch and wanna be, you know, in the conception phase. But if you integrate an OurRing with something like natural cycles, it's gonna show you what phase you're in. So it'll say, okay, you're in your follicular phase, you're in your ovulation phase, or you're getting ready to ovulate, or you just ovulated. Then it'll tell you that you're in your luteal phase. So it's really important, I think, for women to also document how they're feeling because some women, it's not always one size fits all. As a general rule of thumb, we can say probably around, you know, right after menstruation, you're gonna be pretty strong. Right around ovulation, you're gonna be your strongest.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  And then the luteal phase, you'll be strong until the late luteal, and then you'll probably wanna take it a little bit easier, maybe walking, maybe lower, lower intensity exercises. But again, it's, everyone is so unique. So that's what I would do for females. Also, things like cold plunging, I completely lay off the second half of my cycle because I want my progesterone to rise. I don't want to add, you know, additional stressors. We know that they're hermetic stressors, which are great because they can increase our capacity for stress over time. But I don't want to put too much stress on my body with laying exercise and sauna and cold therapy and all these things as a woman. Whereas you as a man, you know, your levels are pretty stable on a 24-hour clock.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  But women just have a lot of other considerations. So that is recommendations for exercise from a female standpoint. But what I do, so of course I wanna look at what are the potential things that could kill me, right? So cardiovascular disease, falling and, you know, getting an injury because I don't have enough muscle mass. So I program my workouts around that. So I do carol bike. Have you ever heard of a carol bike?

• 50:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, but tell everyone, tell the audience.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a carol bike is an AI-powered fitness bike. It looks kinda like a Peloton, but it actually increases resistance based on your own personal best. So I'm doing three carol bike workouts a week, and I'm doing the re-hit highest intensity for VO2 max improvement. So some sort of high-intensity cardiovascular workout, I would say, depending on the duration of it. You know, one to three times per week is really important because we want to keep our cardiovascular health and our VO2 max high. We know that it's another longevity linked contributor. So I'm doing that. I do strength training about three to four days a week and it just depends on if I'm doing more full body stuff. But I do, when I strength train, I put my all into it. I hate

• 51:41Speaker 01

  wasting time. So I go in and my workouts are only about 45 minutes, but I am going like full throttle, like literally to failure. So I think that's really important because I'm getting the max benefit in the shortest amount of time. So I'm doing that three to four days a week.

• 51:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And how many reps and sets are you doing and how many different exercises?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  So it depends on what the day is. I'm doing really just like a upper lower split right now. So I'm only usually doing about four different exercises and I'm doing, depending on the exercise, anywhere from five to 12. And it just really depends. Lower body, I'm doing a slightly lower amount of exercises. Upper body, I'm doing slightly more. And again, everybody's goals are different. You know, for me, I have a different goal than, you know, potentially another woman. So it really, again, is varied, but I do very slow, very focused, my muscle connection. I just want to get the most out of it and really strain the muscle as much as I can for hypertrophy or growth in the long run. And then low level movement stuff, I just am in love

• 52:39Speaker 01

  with. I live up in the hills, great for just walking, amazing views, but lots of like, let's call it that zone two cardio, right? Because I'm in the hills, so it's hard. And I'm hitting about 15,000 steps every day.

• 52:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Amazing.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  So I plan for some of that. So all my calls, I do on a walking treadmill inside. I take a long walk in the morning while I get the morning sunlight. And then me and my husband get to connect and we do about a 15 minute walk at night all through the hills. So I'm getting about, yeah, anywhere 15,000 plus steps. So lots of low level movement mixed with some high intensity stuff and cardiovascular training and the strength training. And I think, I think we're getting past this now, but I think a lot of women have not pushed themselves in training necessarily as much as they could or should because they're worried about becoming bulky. But I mean, just we'll say this, I know tons of women that work Out incredibly hard, even harder than me. None of them are bulky. They're all toned, as we want to call it.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  And you do that by adding muscle and adding strength and adding power. And not only is it going to work from a physique standpoint, but when we get older and we have to pick things up and put things into an overhead bin, that's what we're training for, you know, we're training for life. And a lot of these movements, especially like compound exercises, like, you know, deadlifts and squats are really great because women lose bone density at a pretty significant rate, especially around menopause, right? And we need strong bones. So by really loading the spine with squats and deadlifts, I mean, I always keep those in my protocol because I want to have great bone density as I age.

• 54:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. Yeah, the stimulus for bones to stay strong. A lot of people used to think you have to drink milk to keep your bones strong. It's not that. You have to do strength training. That's what's going to keep your bones strong.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so getting your head wrapped around that is very important. And on your strength training protocol, just to get into a few more like specifics on it, are you supplementing with your protein, creatine as well?

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So I take five grams of creatine every day. I usually put it in my smoothie or in a water. And I'm always hitting my protein. So a minimum, I'm getting a hundred grams of protein a day.

• 54:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Are you timing it before, after workouts? How are you doing that?

• 54:46Speaker 01

  So I think for me, and again, every woman's different, but because, you know, women can be a little bit more susceptible to stressors, I like to have a little bit of protein before my workout. So I'm not compounding stressor on stressor on stressor. So, you know, I think that's really beneficial. Of course, you can also do it right after your workout if you prefer to be fasted. But I like to have a little bit of protein in the morning. I have about 20 or so grams of protein in the morning before my workout. And then I actually have my morning. So my eating window is pretty early. So then I have my morning breakfast after my workout. So I'm getting a little protein before and after. And then I have also an early dinner. I eat twice a day and then a small snack.

• 55:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it, got it. Wow, lots of great information there. And I think, you know, this protocol would also work for men as well. But I do like kind of how you change your protocol based on what the cycle that you're in. And I think that's an important fact to touch on because you do want to protect against. Stress you do want to protect against overtraining. Specifically, you're saying the luteal phase of your of your cycle, right?

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 55:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then do you recommend that all women take creatine?

• 55:49Speaker 01

  You know, of course, to each their own, but I think it's an amazing supplement. I mean, I would love your opinion, but it's not only great for our muscles. And I think it's really been, you know, programmed or thought of as like the bodybuilding supplement, but it's also great for our brain. So I think it's it's a good supplement. I think you shared a post the other day, actually, and my videographer sent it to me. And I think you said there were three foundational supplements. It's vitamin D and fish oil and magnesium. Is that what you said? It's that's exactly what I would say, you know, and but I would also say creatine should be up there, too.

• 56:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. It's like you can't just do those are three that I think everyone needs. But there's actually like four or five that I think are super foundational.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then there's a few others that we and we could let's talk about supplements a little bit. Because now's a good time to talk about that as we're talking. I have about six to eight supplements I consider foundational. And I would love to compare lists. So tell me, tell me your list.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Well, honestly, the three are yours, you know, so a great, high quality fish oil, super important. We know it's anti inflammatory. The omega threes magnesium, I think it's what 80% of Americans are deficient in magnesium. I like a full spectrum magnesium, so it has multiple different forms.

• 56:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Bio optimizers?

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly. Love them. So I mean, because if you're deficient in one form, you're going to be deficient in most forms. And unfortunately, the quality of our soil has just decreased so much. That's a whole different conversation. But that's why I try to do direct from the farmers or regenerative farming. So I can get more nutrients and minerals from my food. And then we talked about vitamin D. I mean, I love my vitamin D is 86.5. And it stays there. It does not dip below like ever 75. And I think that's also an issue because what the standard range is you can be 30 or 25. This is not acceptable.

• 57:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, I mean, the standard range is basically when you're in disease state of vitamin D, pretty much. You have to be my my goal is 50 to 80, but I'm fine with people being 80 up to 100.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely don't want to go above a hundred, but I mean, seventy-five to eighty-five is usually where I find myself and I feel great. And we know that vitamin D is so beneficial for so many things.

• 57:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Especially taking in the D3K2.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 57:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Form to protect against calcifications.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, to really drive it into the bones where it should go.

• 57:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  So, super important.

• 57:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So, beyond those three, what are you taking?

• 58:01Speaker 01

  So, very, again, unique. So, I'm currently doing a gut, gut protocol. So, I'm doing some gut supplements, some things that I like for, you know, I think for everybody. I love metopir. Do you like urolithin A for mitochondrial health?

• 58:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  So, I think that's one that a lot of people could benefit from. We know, you know, mitochondria creates our energy. So, better mitochondria. That's also why I do red light therapy. And I do, I would say probably a lot of your guys' therapies are also working on mitochondria, right?

• 58:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Because that's so important. So, I think urolithin A is a great one. I do some shots of olive oil, high-quality olive oil. It's not necessarily a supplement, but I love that.

• 58:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. So, you just take a shot?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, just a shot.

• 58:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Once a day, twice a day?

• 58:39Speaker 01

  I do it once a day. I use a lot of olive oil in cooking, too. So, I cook all of our meals at home. There's only two places I even eat in Olive Valley.

• 58:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Where are they?

• 58:47Speaker 01

  And Erawan.

• 58:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  And this restaurant in Beverly Hills called Mathew.

• 58:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, okay.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  So, grass-fed, grass-finished wagyu. Yeah. So, they have amazing bone brothels.

• 58:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  But I'm very picky. If you have any other recommendations, my husband would love to expand our restaurant possibilities.

• 59:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I go down to Sweet Greens a lot.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 59:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because all their vegetables and their produce that they get are locally sourced. And so, you know, it's kind of like eating a salad at the farmer's market, you know?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And organic fish, organic meats, it's, it's very clean. That's what I love about it. And the portion size is good, too. Yep.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So, going back to supplements, I'm currently taking a prenatal, which I've been on, and my husband's actually been on the men's version for over a year. I use Weenatal, if you're familiar.

• 59:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  So, they have methylated B vitamins, which, you know, anyone with any MTHFR genetic mutations definitely should consider methylated.

• 59:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Which is like twenty percent of people I'm finding have MTHFR.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, methylated B vitamins, really, really great. So, all my B vitamins look very good, too. And it has a variety of other. I think it has, I can't think of all the ingredients in it, but has a variety of other fertility promoting ingredients in good quantities and it's a really high quality supplement. So I'm taking that and I'm also taking Stem Regen right now. Are you familiar with this?

• 1:00:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What is that one?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  It's a plant based, and this is again for me because I had the ex plant not too long ago. It's a plant based like stem cell provoker essentially. It's probably not the right terminology, but it's supposed to help you just release more stem cells. It's really interesting. I heard about it from Dave Asprey, actually.

• 1:00:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  So I'm taking that and then all of my nutrients that I take personally are all custom for me based on a Nutri eval. So I do, you know, obviously you know the Nutri eval. So it's a blood and urine sample and it actually shows me what I need personally. So I'm doing a little bit of vitamin C right now. I've recently increased my omegas, which of course are super important. And I'm also taking a little bit of zinc. So that's my, you know, my personal protocol. And then I have a lot of other stuff that's like longevity stuff, right? So we have like spermidine in there and we have, I have an entire section of NAD. It's like a whole shelf. So NMN and NR and all these different options. So I do that. And trying to think what else I'm taking at this exact moment. I think like give or

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  take, that's about it. But what do you, what else are your other foundational?

• 1:01:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think you've hit on all of them, actually. I take a true nitrogen supplement for NR on a daily basis. I find, you know, very few supplements that I actually feel a difference. And I feel like Urolithin and NR are definitely two of the ones that I definitely increase my energy level, get better workouts at the gym. Creatine, super important. I actually take eight grams of creatine. There's some research on creatine at eight grams, reducing your risk of Alzheimer's disease. So yeah, even for women too. So if you can pump it up a little bit more past five, I feel that that might be beneficial. Though some people can't do it because they get a little upset stomach, but you can slowly ease upwards on the creatine as well. And that's pretty much my stack as well.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 1:01:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And then for multivitamins, I don't really take a multivitamin because I do the Nutri eval test and I don't, I'm pretty good. But you know, after I travel or after I've been working out really hard for a long period of time, sometimes I do feel I'm probably nutrient deficient. And so at those moments, I'll take like a greens powder or something just to supplement that as well, or get an IV.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, both great options. I've been taking NovoS too.

• 1:02:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, NovoS is great.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  So in NovoS, you know, it has some really great like longevity lithium actually is one of the ingredients in there and that's been shown, you know, to help with biological age. So I take a lot, but I don't want it to be like overwhelming because for me I have like what I say, I have my core and then I have my things I'm working on stack, which is like the gut health and some other recent tests. And then I have the longevity supplementation.

• 1:02:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So that's exactly how I think about it too. And whenever I interview a patient, you know, one of the things we talk about before we talk about any supplements is I try to assess where they are on the bell shaped curve of what their supplement tolerance is. And what I mean by that is, is this someone that's like, I don't want to take supplements at all, like don't even recommend a supplement. And then I know I have an uphill battle just to convince them to do vitamin D three K two because their vitamin D levels low, right? But then you also have people that are like, I'm a biohacker. I want to be on every single supplement that might even have a miniscule benefit. Then I have to walk them back a little bit, you know, because number one, they'll get supplement fatigue. Number two, there's a lot of supplement to supplement interactions as well that you have to worry about. So I think having like that middle ground and then having options of additional

• 1:03:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  longevity supplements is a really good way of thinking about it.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Definitely. And I'm cycling and changing out my supplements all the time. So I'm doing more testing. I'm seeing when I'm deficient in that. And I like this option. And for people, it's not a perfect science, but chronometer, if you can't afford the testing and you can't, you know, really dial in your supplement routine, you can plug in everything you're eating and turn on the the micronutrients. So you'll get your macros like proteins, fats, carbs, but you also get your micronutrient, take things like vitamins and minerals. So if you really want to do that on a lower budget, you can plug it into chronometer and it'll give you at least an idea.

• 1:03:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that's an app on your phone? And you know, I've noticed too, a lot of apps now are utilizing AI. So you can take a picture of your food. I mean, it's incredible. And it's actually, I've tested a couple of them. They're not too far off. I mean, so directionally, you know where you're at for the day.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  I think Levels just rolled out something like that.

• 1:04:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They did. Yeah, Levels also added that in.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  I need to try that for sure.

• 1:04:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 1:04:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 1:05:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, speaking of levels and continuous glucose meters, I'm a huge fan. I don't necessarily think you have to wear one forever, but I do think, you know, everyone should wear one for at least two to three months to understand what their personal biology's relationship is to food, right? And individual foods. You discover so many things, right?

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I started wearing a glucose monitor back in the day when you had to like get a prescription. It was like on your health record that you, you know, needed a Dexcom, which is hilarious. And it was like a thousand dollars a month. That's how long I've been doing these. And um, levels is great. You know, it's a very easy to use, easy to understand. But everyone, again, is bio-individual and you- Can eat a sweet potato and I can eat a sweet potato and it can have two completely different impacts. And I think it is very important for people to see what is their blood sugar when they wake up. I mean, you know, that could just by decreasing that if it's getting, you know, up in the hundreds or 110, that's a problem. So you can then take action on it. So again, it's like more information, the better because you can take better action on those issues.

• 1:06:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. And more information, the better. And the more information you have more frequently, the better. Like I think getting your blood test done once a year, no one should do that. Everyone needs to really think about that things change directionally on even a daily basis. So at least quarterly, I believe blood test should be like, you said you did quarterly as well, right? Should be part of the routine. You know, if you do the full panel every quarter, but at least the basics you should get every quarter, right?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Totally. I'm gonna do something really interesting. So when I get pregnant, and I don't think this has been done yet, but I'm gonna do testing every two weeks. And I'm gonna really like, I feel like we need to know what's going on inside of a woman from all of these. I'm gonna look at NAD levels. I'm gonna look at biological age. I'm gonna look at, you know, 150 different blood biomarkers. And I'm not gonna do that for every pregnancy, but I'm the first one. That's what I'm intending on doing.

• 1:07:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's gonna be incredible data. I can't wait to see that.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  I know, I'll have to send it to you.

• 1:07:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, I would love to see it because I, I wonder what it, I wonder what like even your methylation test will do, you know? And speaking of pregnancy, you know, I've talked to a few women that are trying to get pregnant. I'm like, you need to go get your methylation age done and get your true age test done because this is when you want to make sure that you're optimal, right? You want to be at your lowest biological age before you, before you're getting pregnant because, and your husband too, because you're gonna pass along the methylation patterns of your partner and your DNA as well to your infant. So this is when both of you want to be the most healthy.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and my husband and your microbiome, right?

• 1:08:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And your microbiome.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  The mother's microbiome. So, you know, my husband and I did all this very comprehensive fertility testing. And as I mentioned, I'm thirty-three. And all of the doctors, I went to Cedars and I did like everything from ultrasound to all of, of course, AMH and LH and FSH and every lab marker. And then I also went to a more natural fertility doctor. Both of them were blown away at my fertility status. I mean, it's like, it's like, you know, early mid twenties level of fertility. And again, we gotta try to get pregnant and see how it goes. But, I mean, it's a testament to everything I've been doing. And then I had my husband do the same thing. He also is like, you know, top one percent of motility and the size and the shape and all of these different factors because of the lifestyle.

• 1:09:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  It's the toxic burden that's low. It's the gut health that's good. It's, you know, the, um, just working out, eating right, sunlight, movement, good sleep. And it's really sad where we're at with fertility these days. And I mean, what, what do you think it is? Do you, I do think it's the toxic burden. I think it's, you know, a lot of these just factors that are being put on women, women that we don't really know are happening.

• 1:09:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Well, and it's a male and female problem.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:09:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The sperm motility and sperm number has gone down in the last decade. I think it was like something like fifty percent. It's ridiculous. And I think it is exactly what you mentioned is the overall lifestyle. It's a combination of toxic exposure, nutrition, sleep, movement, stress. Like, all those things affect fertility. We know this. And, uh, and there's a lot of research to back this up as well. So when you improve the lifestyle factors, just like everything else in our biology, your fertility gets better, right? And so you really need to look at that holistically. A lot of people go to a fertility doctor and like, the first thing they get is just a bunch of medications that they're put on, right? And there's little discussion about lifestyle interventions. But I feel like ninety percent of the intervention should be the lifestyle.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, absolutely. And it's not easy. You know, I feel like I've been prepping to be a mom for the last decade, right? So I've been doing this stuff for so long. We opened the clinic four years ago and I was doing all this stuff even well before that. So I've been living like this for like- Over a decade and I feel so blessed because I started so young.

• 1:10:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  And I was just obsessed with it, but it's again, never too late to start making changes. And if you want to have a baby, you know, you have to prep. I would say probably like for a year, you don't have to do this, but ideally if you can start a year prior to wanting to conceive, work on your microbiome, work on, you know, methylation and your biological age and have your partner do the same. It's definitely, you know, 50 50 there and both need to be really optimal. I helped my husband, actually, when we met and started dating, he was on a very small dose of testosterone, but we knew we wanted a baby. So I was like, hey, will you please get off this testosterone? He did it no problem and his testosterone went down. He was at like seven 16, went down to about five 50, just natural decline after getting off testosterone.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  And I put him through this really vigorous detox, lifestyle change, sleep. He's doing cold exposure, doing, you know, hard workouts in his testosterone is now nine 16 naturally.

• 1:11:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredible.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 1:11:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, that is awesome.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  It's amazing. He's so excited and as am I and you know, but it's just, it's really a testament. Fortune magazine recently did an article on my husband and I and like our house and the fact that I asked him for labs before we went on our first date, he sent me all of his labs. I sent him a gut test, a genetic test, a total tox burden, like an entire panel from LabCorp. He did them all. This was all before.

• 1:11:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Before your first date? Oh my God, that's amazing. And he was like cool with this.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  He loved it. I mean, look, I knew when we had our first date in a hyperbaric chamber, he was either going to be in or out real fast because it's just something you either love or you're not interested in.

• 1:12:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love it.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  But yeah, doing health together is so much fun.

• 1:12:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It really is. I totally agree with that. And surrounding yourself with people that want to go on this journey with you because you learn so much from each other.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you help each other out with your individual health journeys as well. So I always tell my clients and my patients that, you know, one of the first things we need to do is get you in the mindset of health. And so I want to talk to you about that as well, because I feel like the mindset needs to be first before you do any particular interventions. And part of that mindset is surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals. Another one is having a growth mindset, knowing that things can change and also becoming an expert at forming habits. Right? I think a lot of us don't know how to form good habits and there's actual science behind this. And so that's kind of the conversation I have around mindset of health. And I would love to hear your conversations you have around this because maybe I can add a few other tips.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  I love that. So when I started posting on Instagram, actually, my page is, I would say, 75% like what I'm doing, health optimization, longevity, but a decent part of it is these like text posts about mindset because there you can't really have one without the other. You have to believe that you deserve all of these things or else you're, I always say, you can't outperform your level of self-esteem, right? And so if you don't believe that you deserve good health, what are you going to put in all this work and all these different therapies to be able to get it? Of course not. So I agree with mindset completely. It's a very difficult one, right? You know, so for me, I always tell people that they should write down their purpose. So why are you doing all these things? If you don't know your why, you're never gonna, there's plenty of days I don't want to go to the

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  gym, you know, but I go because I know my purpose. So I want to, you know, be a great leader in my business. I want to show up for my family. I want to show up for my husband. I want to have energy. I want to live a long time so that I can be there for my children and grandchildren. So write down your purpose and all the reasons that you want to be improving your health. I think that's super, super key. And then when it comes to habits, it's habit stacking. You know, we know that the science says it doesn't work if you go and change everything. Works for like a week and then it completely just falls off. So start something small and attach it to something else you're already doing. So let's say you make coffee every single day, which most people do. Well, do a breath work session while you're making that coffee. It's these really small, very manageable things. Two minutes of meditation

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  you can do. 25 minutes of meditation you probably can't do. So just start with these really small pieces and then add on. And also, I always say one win leads to many wins, right? So if you can have one win in the beginning of the day, and that could be a workout, that's going to change the trajectory of your entire day. You're like, oh, I worked out. I feel great because your mood's elevated, your dopamine is higher, your serotonin is increased, your blood flow is is much stronger. So you're gonna be like, you know what, I am gonna eat healthy today because I already did this one thing that I won. So mindset most certainly cannot be removed from this equation. I think really digging deep, knowing that you're worth it and then writing down and having that available as to why you're doing it is really, really critical. I would love to hear what you would say about it.

• 1:15:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love you. I love it that 25% of your posts are around mindset. I mean, it is that important.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:15:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In your overall health journey, mindset always comes into play, right? And so I'm totally on board with that. And yeah, I mean, I think beyond learning how to form habits with some of the tools you mentioned, I'm a big believer in becoming the CEO of your own health and taking personal responsibility for your own health. Even though I'm here for you as a physician, checking your biomarkers, you need to understand what at least 10 of them mean and why they're important. And you need to follow them yourself, even if it's like low tech, writing it down in a, in a grid book or a spreadsheet. Like you need to have some personal responsibility for tracking your health, the same way you do your balancing your checkbook, for example, right?

• 1:15:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so I really try to get people to take some personal responsibility, but I empower them to do that as well. And on personal responsibility too, I say, you need to educate yourself on health. And so, you know, I listen to probably two to four podcast episodes a day because I'm constantly self educating, you know? And I feel like almost everyone needs to pick at least one health podcast that they're listening to even once a week, right?

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so, it's so beneficial. Like this particular conversation you and I are having, there's so much information in this. Someone's going to pick up at least one thing, probably 30 things that they can do, right? And I feel like you learn so much and this is unfiltered information. This is not information that's given to you by, you know, the government or the, the media that's been filtered through like a lot of money being donated to them by big food companies, right? Or big pharma. And so getting good information is also very important too. So those are kind of the things that we work through with our clients and combined with the things like what you talked about, thinking that you deserve it, knowing that you deserve it, having growth mindset, I think are super important.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you know, you can write the most incredible plan for one of your patients, but that doesn't mean that they're going to do it. So progress is still going to be 0%, even if you did your job, if you're not going to stick to it and have consistency. I mean, with all this stuff, it's all consistency.

• 1:17:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  Always like what supplements are you taking and what IV therapies? Look, I mean, I've probably done enough NED for a small village. Right, but it doesn't matter because that's not where you need to go right now. You have to focus on the hard things. You have to focus on the basics. Go to bed earlier tonight. Go to bed 30 minutes earlier. If you're listening to this podcast and do that for the next week and get yourself with a good spot with your sleep. And it will change everything and focus on the, I love supplements. Look, we, we love all this stuff. My house is like a clinic, basically. I have like a, a mini, you know, next health in my house, basically. And that's great, but that is not where you need to start because though, even those things are a lot easier. It's much easier to lay down in a hyperbaric chamber, right? For an hour, but that's not what's going to really make the largest impact in the long term for my health.

• 1:17:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. You gotta do the big rocks first and then you can fill in the pebbles with, with other things. So let's talk about your house a little bit more. You have a lot of cool stuff at your house. What is your kind of biohacking center in your house look like?

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so much fun stuff. We have a sauna, of course. So I think like sauna is required these days for just overall health.

• 1:18:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's a necessity. It has to be a part of almost everyone's routine and there's saunas everywhere now. Like you can find them in your gym, in your local health facilities. And there's also businesses that just have sauna. And I think it's a necessity too, because of the severe amount of toxins that we live under, right? And our mitochondrial health is suffering. And so sauna is going to help you in multiple ways. So sorry to interrupt you, but I get on a soapbox about sauna.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I love it. We, I mean, I love the dialogue.

• 1:18:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Do you have an infrared sauna or a?

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  I actually have a combination sauna. So I have a heavenly heat sauna and I've loved this brand for a long time because they don't use any of the wood glue. So there's no VOCs being emitted, but it's, it has infrared and traditional in one sauna. I'm literally obsessed with it.

• 1:18:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That is amazing.

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  It's so nice because we know that a lot of studies on sauna are from the more Finnish traditional saunas. But we also know infrared is great. So I have a sauna in the house.

• 1:19:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And just real quick on the infrared sauna, does it do near and far infrared lights?

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. And the newest model, this is a game changer, but they're actually figured out a way to put red light panels because we know the infrared. Heat is different from inside the actual sauna. It's it's very difficult. I was talking with the owner, but because they get you hot if you put it all the way in there. But anyways, it'll have actual red red light panels inside. So then my routine can be a little bit shorter.

• 1:19:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And how hot does it get?

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  So it can go up to about 200 if I'm doing the traditional sauna. And it has the rocks and all of that. But then the infrared only goes up to, I think about 150.

• 1:19:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And can you do them both at the same time?

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  You can. Wow. It's, I love it. So sauna is a huge one. I do that at least five days a week for about 25 minutes per session.

• 1:19:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, so you're you do it five days a week, 25 minutes. Are you doing it right before bed?

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  I actually do it right after my workout now.

• 1:20:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  So there's a lot of, you know, research showing that it can extend the benefits of exercise doing it right after. So that's when I'm doing it nowadays. And I can, if we want, we can walk through my morning routine, but it comes right after that. So I love sauna. I have a cold plunge, which I love that as well. So I mentioned, I don't do cold plunge in the second half of my cycle anymore. But I do cold plunge, I would either do it in the morning before my workout, because we know it can give you better endurance. And you also don't necessarily want to do it right after your workout because it can minimize gains. But I do mine midday. So I'm working from home and I love it midday because it's like a midday energy burst, you know? So I love doing cold plunge, you know, and I do it about 55 degrees Fahrenheit and I do that for three to five minutes.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  During my, what I call midday routine. I have a morning routine, midday routine, evening routine. So the sauna, the cold plunge, I just got a hard gel hyperbaric chamber. It's 2.0 ATA. I'm so excited.

• 1:20:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's amazing.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I will probably be doing a loading dose of hyperbaric. So I'm going to do 40 sessions. Love your input here too, if you have any other recommendations. 40 sessions, one hour sessions, five days a week. To get 40 sessions in and then I'll do maintenance of like probably two to three sessions a week.

• 1:21:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  What do you think about that?

• 1:21:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think that's a good protocol. Yeah, definitely. I do think that doing a loading amount of sessions is a good idea. So I'm glad he told you to do that as well. So that's fantastic. What's the atmospheres of this hyperbaric chamber?

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  So I know it's 2.0.

• 1:21:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, good.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  So it's pretty good. I just got, it's literally still in a box. Box outside and it is being installed tomorrow morning. So that's my newest.

• 1:21:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How exciting.

• 1:21:35Speaker 01

  I'm so excited. Yeah. And then I'm going to do this little like Ofora water trick with drinking me up water. So we were talking about this before, but I drink Ofora water. It's like oxygenated. So forty parts million. I'm going to do the Ofora water in the cold plunge. This is going to sound so much right now, but do the Ofora water in the cold plunge soak in that, get the transdermal absorption of the oxygen and then go in the hyperbaric chamber and then just really press it in. So, so excited.

• 1:21:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Amazing.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that's Ofora water.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Ofora water. Yeah. So it's a, it's, they classified as medical grade water, which is amazing because it is so pure and then restructured and then the hyperoxygenated. So I'm going to do that. I also have a Nano V. Do you, do you know about Nano V?

• 1:22:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, we have a Nano V as well.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Oh, amazing. So great for reducing oxidative stress, can help, help with protein folding. It's like one of my favorites because it's so easy to do. So I have it on my desk in my office and I just do Nano V like all day. I mean, I don't think you can really overdose on it. So just keeping my nasal cannula while I'm doing my working and love that. So that's another, this is a clinical device. So, you know, if you're here in LA, you can come to Next Health and use it. We have one at Liv also, but they're a little pricey. So not necessarily a home, home device. I have a PEMF machine. So I have, um, this is also a clinical grade device and there's at home units, things like companies like Higher Dose have a at home PEMF, but this one, you really feel it. Like this is pretty, have you used a like PEMF from like Pulse or anything?

• 1:22:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I have a Higher Dose one at home, but um, yeah, I haven't.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  You gotta come use it because this is.

• 1:23:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You actually feel it?

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  Super, oh, ma- major. It's amazing. So we also have PEMF in the clinic and we've had people come in and this is just anecdotal data, but you know, with either a torn, let's say peck or an old injury and the PEMF, they feel it concentrated and isolated in that area. One time we had someone come in with a concussion and I've never had anyone ever say that they felt it in their brain, except this one patient and they had just had a concussion. So it can, you know, help with inflammation. I talk, I think about PEMF like grounding and steroids.

• 1:23:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  So, um, you're getting all those benefits of grounding. Again, you can just do grounding and it's free. So in grounding, making contact with the earth, lots of different benefits. I've seen some great even research on. Like diabetic non-healing wounds and healing with grounding. So we have PEMF. So I sit on that for at least thirty minutes a day. It's part of my morning routine. So I wake up. It's still dark, so I sit on PEMF until the sun comes up and I do my morning reading and get all of those, you know, healing frequencies. And then what else do we have? We have, I have an ozone machine at home.

• 1:24:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, you do?

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I can do ozone water. I can do rectal ozone. That's, that's an interesting one.

• 1:24:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  I can do limb bagging if I needed it. But yeah, I have an ozone generator at home that I really love. I have a V light. So that's intranasal red light.

• 1:24:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  So helping with the mitochondria in the brain.

• 1:24:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  I have, of course, six red light panels or something like that. So do the front and back red light therapy. I'm doing that three times a week for about twenty minutes per session. I have Medo red light.

• 1:24:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  But yeah, I do the front and back, really like full body coverage. And I'm doing it three times a week and then about twenty minutes per session.

• 1:24:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  I also have at the house, compression therapy with balancer. So this one is just like a rental because it's very much so clinical grade. Have you used a balancer pro before?

• 1:24:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, I haven't, no.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Um, it's amazing. It's like, it's called the big, big squeeze. So it goes all the way up with the jacket and it feels just amazing. You could do like a normatec or, you know, a different version if you wanted. But yeah, we have that at the house right now. It's unbelievable. Like just great for lymphatic drainage. But for lymphatic drainage, you could do like rebounding, could do dry brushing. There's a lot of things that are very low cost that is like mimicking this. I mean, this is my personal life. It's my professional life. It's my whole life. So having all this stuff is a bit rare, but of course, very high quality air filtration in like every single room. And I think that's, that's about it. We have the EMF blocking cage, a lot of smaller devices, like actually I have a WAVI too.

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  So that's like basically EEG for your brain, um, which is interesting. So I pop that on from time to time. Um, I have smaller devices like vagal nerve simulator, stuff like that. But yeah, it's a little, little baby clinic over there.

• 1:25:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's, that's amazing. And like you said, this is your life. So not everyone needs to do all this stuff.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  Not at all, yeah.

• 1:25:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You're, you're testing this before you introduce it to patients. I kind of, you know, and I get sent stuff by companies all the time. I don't have time to use all of it that I get sent. And so I just want people to know out there that you don't need all of this. But this stuff is out there and once you get your big rocks in place, right? Get your nutrition, your sleep, your exercise, all that to a point where you feel like you've made major progress. You're in a good path.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Then it's good to start like looking into some of these things one at a time and adding them to your lifestyle. And like you said, there's a free version of all of this.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  Literally, yeah.

• 1:26:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You don't have a cold plunge, you can just take a cold shower, actually.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Cold showers actually may be even harder, you know, in terms of like pain because it's moving all over. And at least when you get in the cold tub, it, you know, stabilizes. But um, yeah, I agree. I mean, red light, you could just get it from the sun. The PEMF, you just do grounding. It's so many free ways to get a lot of the same benefits.

• 1:26:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, exactly. You mentioned your morning routine. I would love to hear your morning routine. You mentioned a few parts of it, but go for it.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Cause a morning routine, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but a morning routine for me has been a cornerstone of changing my entire health around. Like it all happened during my morning routine. And so for me, it was so critical. I read this book by Hal Elrond called Miracle Morning.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And, um, you know, a lot of that is like mental work, visualization, things like that. But it started with that, then I just kept building on it, habit stacking.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that's what really got me healthy from being in a state of really bad health. So I love hearing people's morning routines. So go for it.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  I love that. Well, I always say too, you know, set the day before, set your mind before the day sets it for you, right? So if I do all of these amazing things to not only help my mental state, but also like my physical state, how much more powerful am I going to go into the day, you know? You're running a business, I'm running business, like we have to be primed and ready physically and mentally. So obviously my morning starts the night before with a very high quality sleep and going to bed early. So um, I wake up naturally, yeah, around somewhere around five, five thirty, somewhere around there, sometimes a bit earlier. It's too early for the sun to be out. So I do have um, like a lux lamp that sometimes I use. But these days I've just been waking up, go right to PEMF and grab a glass of water with some.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Minerals or element in there because PEMF actually likes the minerals too because it even helps you know increase the benefits. Sit on PEMF and I actually read the Bible. I read the Bible and pray, but that could be anything. That could be meditation. It could be breathwork, anything you want to do. It could be a gratitude journal. I mean, I always say we can't be grateful and hateful at the same time. So, setting that type of mood in the morning is so critical. So, do my PEMF or you could do grounding. As soon as the sun comes up, which is about a half an hour after I wake up, I go out and I get morning sunlight right into the eyes. So, I take a walk, um, about a 20, 30 minute walk. I'm getting sunshine. I'm seeing nature and I'm moving my body and then I go to the gym. So, from time to time I work out at home, but I'm actually working

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  out at Hyman. Have you been there?

• 1:28:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's a, it's a great gym. It's not a lot of people, which is what I love. I don't know if they'll love that, but I go get my workout in.

• 1:28:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's big too. It's like a huge gym.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  It's massive. Yeah. So, I always go to like the third floor, you know, it's like kaleidoscope looking uh, equipment up there.

• 1:29:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's really cool.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  It's so cool. So, then I go to the gym. My workout's about, you know, 45 minutes or so. I come home, I do sauna right away and then I do um, get out. I do my uh, red light right after that, take a shower and then it's usually, it's usually about two hours since I woke up by them. I have, sorry, and I also eat like a small shake before I go to the gym.

• 1:29:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  And then I go to the gym and then come home, do my red light and then I take my shower and then I eat my breakfast and take my morning supplements. I do my measurements. So, I look at things like blood pressure and weight and you know, all the lung measurements we talked about and the grip strength. And then I really just start my, start my day. So, it's quite a bit though in the morning and then my midday routine is like Nanovy, the walking, cold plunge. So, I hit those three things throughout the day and then at night I have um, my walking routine with my husband, my wind down routine. So, it's kind of like a, a multi thing throughout the day. That's when I'm going to put my hyperbaric chamber sessions is in the evening. Um, but yeah, that's pretty much my morning routine.

• 1:30:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's awesome. How long does that routine take you?

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Um, about two hours.

• 1:30:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But I think it's so powerful, like you've put so much into that two hours.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That you've done more than a lot of people do in a week in two hours, right? And so I think it's incredibly powerful how being in that two hour routine and repeating it over and over and over again. Like your biological age is what now?

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  It's actually 12 years younger.

• 1:30:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, 12 years younger.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, I'm excited to see what happens with pace and all of that. Like as I get into pregnancy and all these different testing. But um, yeah, the last one I did, it's about 12 years younger, which is, which is great. And I mean, I feel that too. You know, the thing about biological age that I, I love, it's an exciting tool, but I'm sure you would agree. Some of our, um, you know, clients at the center, they only want to focus on that. It's like, well, hold on a second because you need to add on muscle mass right now. You need to work on your bone density. You need to fix your gut health. And sometimes the things that you would do to improve, let's say muscle mass, you know? Let's say you're increasing your calories and you have to add on muscle. That's actually going to negatively affect your biological age. So it's like what, you use the term rocks. That's exactly what I say. You've got to move the biggest rocks first, right?

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  So it's, it's a never ending and always evolving, you know, morning routine and just overall daily protocol. But that's what I'm doing now that's like working best and I feel amazing. And the other thing I would say is like, we could work more hours, but it's like, what are you getting out of those hours? So when I do a morning routine like that, I'm just bursting with energy. I'm super happy, very motivated. And so then I can be so much more efficient in the work that I'm doing versus just waking up right away. And then immediately looking at my phone, checking notifications, putting out fires.

• 1:31:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, absolutely. You know, I've did a couple of like experiments about not doing my morning routine and those days definitely don't go as well.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's, it adds so much to your day to have some sort of ritual at the beginning of the day. That's not looking at your phone the first thing, right?

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, it's just, it's, and look, we both probably have days that we have to look at our phone early. And this is life and we have to be flexible. But for the most part, it'll be a game changer. Just do three small things. I think if you do a gratitude practice in the morning, get some morning sunlight and drink some high quality water with electrolytes and do some sort of movement, it can be so simple. Body weight, some pushups, just get the blood flowing. I mean, that's so much better than just rolling out of bed and going to hit the computer at work.

• 1:32:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, absolutely. And I think when you start with small, your natural psychology will just tell you that you want to do a little bit more, right? You're not just gonna do one pushup. You'll probably do five, you know?

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But as long as you can get that first one in, at least you have the opportunity to do more. It's when you don't get the first one and you don't show up, that the rest of it doesn't happen.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I couldn't agree more. And I think with health in general, it's kind of that snowball effect, right? Like, you do something, you feel better, and then you want to do more. So it's really just like getting started. And I always say too, like, there's some days where I'm just like, I don't want to go to the gym, right? But then I think about, what would my life look like if I only did the things I wanted to do?

• 1:33:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  My life would be a disaster. I would not be where I'm at. I would not have the husband or the family, any of the things that I, I wanted in life. I wouldn't have them if I only did what I wanted to do, because as humans, we're wired to do the least and reap the biggest benefit, right? Or the best reward. So of course, it seems better to sit on the couch and eat chips. And like, walking to the fridge from the couch is not a workout. That's not an exercise. You have to go do things and push your body and be grateful that we even can. That's such a blessing. When I go to the gym, I just think about how excited I am that I get to do this, right? I get to move my body. I get to push my body. I'm in great shape and I'm getting in better shape every day. So I think attitude and mindset is a big part.

• 1:33:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Big part of this. Wow. So much great information. Thank you for sharing so much with us.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:33:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I would love to hear more about like, what you're doing next with your clinics, with just everything that you're doing. You're, you're in such a great path at such a young age. I'm so, it's so inspiring, you know?

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 1:34:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think for young people too, to have someone like yourself, you know, you're, you're young, you haven't had children yet, but you've still led a very clean and lifestyle that has got you to this point of just incredible health, right? And I think that's so inspiring for young people to kind of look up to you and say, if I want to be kind of at this state of health in my 30s, I need to start young at 20s, right?

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:34:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I feel like, you know, when I was in my twenties, the last thing I thought about was my health, you know, and I just went to the gym to get muscles so girls will look at me. And that's it. That was my health. So, yeah, I mean, it's so great that you're doing all of this and putting the message out there.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:34:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So what's next?

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  A lot of fun stuff. You know, I'm excited to continue to build like my platforms. So I did my first ever long form YouTube video the other day. It took, it was just in my morning routine.

• 1:34:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Congrats.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  And it took from nine thirty to three thirty PM. It was way longer than I even had any idea. But leaning into that, you know, I'm talking with a couple of different publishers potentially. I actually wrote a book. It's been done, but I'm just figuring out how and what way I want to put that out. So that's exciting.

• 1:35:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Can you tell us the title?

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  It's gonna be so basic, but I think just female longevity.

• 1:35:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. I love it.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  I love simple things, like just simple, straight to the point. Who knows? Maybe they'll say you need to come up with something more witty, but and maybe I'll do that. But um, yeah, it's all gonna be on female health, optimization, the protocol, because we've talked about so much today, but we've only covered like two of the tests that I've taken. So there's so many other ones.

• 1:35:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  Talk about all that why and what women should do in different decades of life too, because I'm in my thirties, but what that looks like in your forties or fifties or beyond is different. So yeah, book and clinic is, I mean, doing great. We are, um, you know, building out our executive team, which is exciting. I've been, you know, co-owner, but also have been serving as the CEO, which I'm going to be, um, you know, moving out of that role probably because I want to have babies very soon. And it requires, as you know, a lot of work and I've spent a lot of hours working. So yeah, just looking to continue to grow and we're going to open one in Columbus, Ohio, which is close to Cleveland and just continue that and putting great information out to the world that I hope can help women and just further the conversation around longevity.

• 1:36:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love it. I love everything you're doing. Where can people find you?

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  Kayla Barnes dot com, K A Y L A B A R N E S dot com. I recently got married and legally, my last name is Kayla, Kayla Lentz is my name, but I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do with that on social media now. So yeah, Kayla Barnes dot com. And also, I have a podcast that you have to come on. So I mostly interview medical doctors and PhDs. We're talking about discourse around longevity. A lot of female longevity. I've interviewed many amazing doctors on like menopause and perimenopause and just female health in general. So that's also a place, definitely, if you're a woman and you want to learn more about female health, you can check it out. It's Longevity Optimization with Kayla Barnes Lentz. Kayla Barnes Lentz.

• 1:36:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. And then what about your Instagram handle?

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Just Kayla Barnes, K A Y L A B A R N E S.

• 1:36:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, you're gonna have to do something about the new name.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  I don't know what to do. It's so difficult.

• 1:37:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, maybe you can add it as like the N part of it. So the beginning stays the same?

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  I put it. So it's at Kayla Barnes as a handle. And then I put Kayla Lentz in the title. But also, someone has Kayla Lentz Instagram handle. If you're listening to this, we will acquire it from you.

• 1:37:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Love it. Love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:37:22Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:37:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What a great conversation. Thank you.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:37:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.