Pod Insights Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD 82. Dr. Amy Shah: The Real Reason Women Lose Strength in Perimenopause (And How to Get It Back) About this episode Why can't you open that jar anymore? Why does getting up from a chair feel harder than it used to? In this episode of Extend, I sit down with Dr. Amy Shah to explore the strength crisis happening to women in perimenopause.
We dive into the simple tests that reveal where you're losing ground—and why most women are shocked by their results. We also share the exercise formula that actually works for perimenopausal women, honing in on the key fact that it has to be movement you enjoy, because sustainability beats intensity every time.
Dr. Amy Shah is a double board-certified physician specializing in allergy/immunology and internal medicine, and author of I'm So Effing Tired. She's a leading voice in women's health, focusing on the intersection of hormones, gut health, and metabolism.
We Also Discuss:
The Grip Strength Test That Predicts Your Longevity (Most Women Fail)
The Sit-to-Stand Test: Your Lower Body Strength Report Card
Exercise Snacks: Why 10 Squats Every Hour Beats a 30-Minute Walk
The Weighted Vest Mistake That's Wasting Your Time
Why Jumping on a Trampoline Builds Stronger Bones Than Running
Intermittent Fasting for Women: Why Daily Fasting Backfires
Thank You To Our Sponsors:
IM8: Try IM8 today with a 30-day money back guarantee. You can get 20% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://im8health.com/discount/DRSHAH.
Learn more about Dr. Shah:
Website: https://www.drshah.com/
Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/
Learn more about Dr. Amy Shah:
Website:https://amymdwellness.com/
Book: I'm So Effing Tired https://amymdwellness.com/pages/book-collection?_ab=0&key=1710523569712X: https://instagram.com/rawlsmdhttps://x.com/amyshahmd
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Dr. 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.
0:49 Dr. Darshan Shah? Dr. Amy Shah, I'm really excited to have you on this podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.
0:54 Speaker 01 Thank you so much for having me.
0:55 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, this is a conversation that we've been trying to have in this video for a while. I'm glad we made it happen. And you're here in LA for a few days, and you went to Next Health yesterday?
1:06 Speaker 01 Oh, Next Health was amazing. I mean, this is not an ad, but I'll tell you, we had an amazing time. Instead of going to a girl's spa day, it was like the amazing, like invigorating. We did hyperbaric, we did IVs, we did injections. Like, everybody was so excited, and we did all these different things. And the girls told me at the end of it, they're like, "This was so much better than going to like a spa day, a typical a girl's day." So, we had a great time. Everyone was hydrated, everyone felt good after, so it was great.
1:34 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, it's kind of like the new spa experience, is, you know, doing the wellness technologies and focusing in on your wellness for a little while. What is your exercise recommendations for women that are in their perimenopause type of time period?
1:47 Speaker 01 Number one is walking. I think that when you look at women's activity levels over the years, they tend to kind of dip in that, you know, perimenopausal range. And people said, like, the researchers are not sure whether it's because you're more fatigued, whether it's because that is time of life where most women have lots of childrens and responsibilities and job. Or is it that, you know, you just tend to move less because of age, you know, whatever it is. Everybody, but it doesn't have to be like that. So I think that people like when you're in your teens and your twenties, you're moving a lot. Um, not, I guess in America nowadays, it's not as much, but tend you tend in your lifespan,
2:29 Speaker 01 you tend to be moving a lot more in those years. And so walking is just such an easy way to just be active. Our bodies were created to be active and to be outside and to be moving. And I think that sitting for eight hours a day is like the worst thing we're doing for our health. So eight, I would say eight to 12,000 steps every single day. And you can get that indoors, outdoors combination, um, but it should be, some of it should be outdoors if possible, um, on most days. And then two to three days minimum a week of resistance training. So something where you stimulate your bone and muscles.
3:11 Speaker 01 And that could be as easy as a push, a pull, you know, and a total body day or something like that. And then there's got to be some kind of flexibility training. There's got to be a either some kind of yoga, some kind of flexibility, uh, maybe stretching, but there's got to be some other element there. The biggest thing I think with exercise that we get wrong is I think we force everyone to do certain exercises. Like we're just like, this is, uh, you know, things become trendy and that's what everyone is doing. I think exercise should be a lifelong thing that you enjoy. If you like hiking, some people don't like hiking. If you like dancing, some people don't like dancing.
3:52 Speaker 01 So it's like, there's no wrong way to move and the most important thing is to find the baseline movement that you love the most. For most people, default is like walking, nature walks, right? Some form of that. And then you can add on these other things, but forcing people to exercise for the sake of exercise and the fact, and you hate every second of it. Like that should not be the norm.
4:16 Dr. Darshan Shah? Right, right, right. No, that's such a valid point. It's. If you are getting forced to exercise and you're hating it, then the chances of that being sustainable are almost zero.
4:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, like I always know if I hate a workout class by the amount of times I check my watch or phone. Because if I'm like so bored or so annoyed that I'm like constantly checking when it's going to end or how much has passed, that's clearly a sign that like that's not something that's going to be the base of my training.
4:44 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah.
4:45 Speaker 01 Now, like, it took me a long time to do resistance training and to find the type of resistance training that I liked. Because going into a gym and lifting weights was just like so foreign to me. But then over time, I found the one, like I said, like, try all the different ways and then start to see like, which one is it that you're starting to enjoy, like look forward to? That is the type of exercise that's right for you.
5:09 Dr. Darshan Shah? No, that's a really good point. You know, one thing that we do here is we test all of our patients' grip strength.
5:16 Speaker 01 Yes.
5:17 Dr. Darshan Shah? Because it's a good proxy of upper body strength.
5:19 Speaker 01 Yes.
5:20 Dr. Darshan Shah? And many women are actually really deficient in strength, I find. You know, especially in the perimenopausal, postmenopausal time period. And I feel that, you know, this is, number one, is a stark realization for many women. Number two, grip strength is very connected to longevity and overall health outcomes as well, right?
5:41 Speaker 01 Hundred percent.
5:41 Dr. Darshan Shah? And so I just, I just feel that I see a lot of women and men, but mainly women, that have low strength, like 25th percentile.
5:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:50 Dr. Darshan Shah? Do you see that as well?
5:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I always talk, so, you know, women should be able to hang from a bar for up to 90 seconds.
5:59 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah.
5:59 Speaker 01 And I think that is a really hard thing for many women, especially in perimenopause. So working up to that, so, you know, hanging for 20, 30 seconds, hanging then for 40, 50 seconds.
6:10 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah.
6:10 Speaker 01 Most women, probably around the minute mark is the limit. Some people are really amazing and you're pushing yourself. But I think that doing kind of exercises to help with that. So I notice for me is that when I'm concentrating on improving grip strength. It improves. So like, holding heavy weights and doing like farmer's carries, you know, hanging from a bar and really strengthening that part of your body. Because like you said, when you're 90 and 100, you're going to be losing your grip strength. But if you already started with some, then by the time you're 90, 100, you will be able to open those jars. You'll be able to, you know, get yourself off of a chair.
6:52 Dr. Darshan Shah? Right.
6:52 Speaker 01 And you really need all of that.
6:54 Dr. Darshan Shah? That reminds me of the video you posted of you getting your mom up and down off of a chair.
6:57 Speaker 01 Yes. The sit to stand test, right? That is a great proxy.
7:02 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yes.
7:03 Speaker 01 And I find that people, you know, I've done the floor sit to stand test, where you sit on the floor and get up. And then there's the chair sit to stand test, which is actually a well-studied test.
7:15 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yep.
7:15 Speaker 01 And you see how many sits to stands you can get in 30 seconds.
7:18 Dr. Darshan Shah? Right.
7:19 Speaker 01 It's a really great marker for like lower body strength, flexibility, balance, and that really translates for the rest of your life.
7:26 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, absolutely. I have a guide that I put on my website at drshah.com that is a collection of like 10 of these tests to test your upper body strength, core strength, lower body strength, your mobility, like upper body mobility, lower body mobility. And all of these tests that you mentioned are on this guide. And we do these tests on our patients and it's so surprising. We also test balance with the one-legged stand test.
7:52 Speaker 01 Yeah. Okay, so it's one-legged stand, it's sit to stand.
7:55 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yep.
7:55 Speaker 01 It's a hang.
7:57 Dr. Darshan Shah? No, we don't do a hang. We actually get a grip strength.
7:59 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah, grip strength, okay.
8:00 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, because I feel like that's a little bit easier for people to do. We're also doing like shoulder mobility, how far back you can reach as well.
8:08 Speaker 01 Okay, yeah.
8:08 Dr. Darshan Shah? Then we do, yeah, sit to stand is another one of them. And yeah, so we get these like 10 markers on people. And it's surprising to a lot of people where they're deficient. But then we do it every year. What I've been finding, doing it every year, is people are super excited when something improves, but they're also surprised when something really slips.
8:27 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:28 Dr. Darshan Shah? And it's really interesting to see women in perimenopause, men after the age of 50, they start slipping.
8:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:34 Dr. Darshan Shah? I'm like looking in the mirror as I'm talking to you. Because I I slipped on a couple of markers too.
8:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:39 Dr. Darshan Shah? And one of those a number of pushups you can do.
8:41 Speaker 01 Okay.
8:42 Dr. Darshan Shah? Squats in a minute.
8:43 Speaker 01 Was it like twelve pushups for a woman, I think?
8:45 Dr. Darshan Shah? No, it's more than that. Yeah.
8:47 Speaker 01 Is it? I I thought it was like twelve at a time and then you have you can take a break or something.
8:52 Dr. Darshan Shah? I'll have to check. I don't I don't remember, but I have to check that. But yeah, so it's in there and I don't think anyone really does these tests on themselves, right? And it's so important to understand where you stand on a scale of your general population, like your peers, if you're a woman or a man in your age group.
9:09 Speaker 01 That's the thing, you know, I think most of us are not really noticing the subtle signs of loss, of muscle loss and balance and and it kind of over time, if you think about it, it's declining.
9:22 Dr. Darshan Shah? Mm hmm.
9:23 Speaker 01 So what you have right now is going to be like, you're gonna have a fraction of that when you're in your eighties and nineties. So if you think about it that way, that's a lot more motivation to really keep up your muscle mass, your strength, your flexibility, your balance. Um, you know, so that you can kind of have that through the years.
9:41 Dr. Darshan Shah? Exactly. What I tell people is that you have to save up, you know, you have to save up muscle mass, you have to save up balance, save up flexibility. Because you are gonna lose it as time goes on. It's just a natural course of life, right?
9:51 Speaker 01 But that's why I love mixing up workouts. That's why I'm like, you can't just walk.
9:57 Dr. Darshan Shah? No.
9:57 Speaker 01 You know, like you have to do some resistance training, you have to do some flexibility training, like there's not, um, you can't just do like for a while. I was just doing this type of power, finiassa yoga because I was really stressed and I couldn't.
10:13 Dr. Darshan Shah? Core power?
10:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, it's a it's a local studio in Scottsdale. That's similar to core power, but a lot of arm balances, a lot of pushups. And I thought that was enough, you know, and I was not doing any cardio at all besides that. And what I realized is that it was giving me something, but it wasn't it wasn't checking all the boxes, the three sixty that you need. I wasn't walking enough. I wasn't active enough. I was never doing a sprint. Like, I now force myself to do a sprint once a week at least. And that is not something that I would is getting if I was just doing the power yoga.
10:50 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, that was such a, such a good point. Yeah. I think doing some assessments on yourself also helps you understand like where you're deficient and you need to mix it up for sure.
10:59 Speaker 01 Where do you, um, just out of curiosity, where, what are you working on? Like, what did you see that you were becoming more?
11:05 Dr. Darshan Shah? Flexibility, yeah, my flexibility. I was losing it for sure. And, um, that's concerning because I love traveling and, you know, when you lose flexibility, you can't do all the movements you need, that you want to do when you're traveling, right? And you have to be very flexible, um, to, for example, put your carry on bag up, up above you in the, in the airplane, all of that, right?
11:28 Speaker 01 I mean, I think that's one of the biggest, um, strength checks for myself too is like, am I able to take my, you know, carry on bag and put it up without someone saying like, hey, do you need help? You know, like, I think that is a good check. And I think for me also, something simple that people can do is like, just do like a one minute sprint, a few, like you can do like a 30 second sprint, eight times, you know, that crazy eights.
11:52 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yep.
11:52 Speaker 01 And I'll do that every once in a while. And like, you can kind of assess how you're doing because your heart rate, your level of fatigue really will change as you start to get fitter or lose it a little bit.
12:04 Dr. Darshan Shah? And another test on that guide is the Cooper's test, which is a test of your VO2 max. How fast can you run a mile?
12:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
12:11 Dr. Darshan Shah? And I think that's another thing that, that, um, I'm always working on. And I feel like that you can lose too, once you de-emphasize cardio a little bit too, right?
12:19 Speaker 01 Yes, that's the thing. I mean, I, I think, you know, the VO2 max testing is, I think, very, very important for people. But I think it's hard because most people don't have access to the true VO2 max testing. I think we talked about this because you have a way to test it at Next Health, right?
12:36 Dr. Darshan Shah? We do now, yes, uh huh. But we use a mask and we put people on a little treadmill now. But it's hard for people because it's like, you know, it's intimidating to have to like work out till you can't do it anymore. So that's why I like the Cooper's test because, is basically you run a mile, you see how fast you can run it. And, um, that's your score and it gives, associates with VO2 max.
12:57 Speaker 01 And there's like grading, um, depending on your, but do you feel, I don't think Cooper's test, uh, in my, from my understanding, because you're not fatiguing yourself to the max with Cooper's test. So you, you're, you really should be running a mile. After you've done a bunch of other workout, maybe at the end of your workout would be a perfect time to do that. Because you want to be a little, you want to kind of push them to the point they're fatigued, but you don't necessarily get that.
13:27 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think it's just a different way of approximating VO2 max, I think. And so I don't know if they have people fatigue until the very end, but it is a way of approximating it. I'll have to look more into that for sure.
13:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, I think the thing I think about VO2 max is like, you know, have you ever hiked Machu Picchu?
13:46 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yes.
13:47 Speaker 01 So you've done that?
13:48 Dr. Darshan Shah? We talked about this. You and I have talked about Machu Picchu.
13:50 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right.
13:51 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah.
13:51 Speaker 01 And so you stayed overnight? Yeah, so like, you know, there's, it's kind of like that feeling of like, are you able to still hike up that hill? You know, even after you've done it, you know, for a couple of days? That I think is a really great test for people like, or hiking Camelback in Scottsdale. You know, great test.
14:13 Dr. Darshan Shah? Another favorite hike of mine.
14:14 Speaker 01 That's another like test. If you have something that's really challenging for you, do that every once in a while to kind of keep yourself going.
14:21 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah.
16:19 Dr. Darshan Shah? They tell you I was just in Scottsdale and I hiked Camelback.
16:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was the day I saw you.
16:23 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, oh, that's right, that's right.
16:24 Speaker 01 You had to hike that morning.
16:26 Dr. Darshan Shah? That morning, yeah. They tell you about the woman I met that was...
16:28 Speaker 01 No.
16:28 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, so there's this 80-plus-year-old woman that hikes, been hiking Camelback every single day for 40-plus years. Yeah, and she's, everyone knows her on the hike and they give her high fives and she doesn't go all the way up anymore. Now she goes like a partway, but she's still doing it.
16:44 Speaker 01 That's amazing.
16:45 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, she's incredible.
16:46 Speaker 01 It's so funny, my daughter is 15 now.
16:49 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yep.
16:50 Speaker 01 But she sees a picture of herself when she was like four or five, hiking Camelback, and she always says like, "Camelback, whatever, I did that when I was like four." I was like, "That is a hard hike. It is pretty impossible to do as a kid."
17:03 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah.
17:04 Speaker 01 But it's funny, because like, I think about it, I'm like, "Oh yeah, we like hike that up really easily. It's a good proxy. You want to do that again to see if you can do it at the same time."
17:14 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, yeah, it's an incredible hike. One of the things around hiking too that I try to do every single weekend is I go for a ruck, which I have a rucksack. And what I've read is that that can really help you preserve mobility, balance, even strength. Until your old age, because it kind of combines all of those into one form of exercise.
17:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, rucking is so great. I think the weighted vest is kind of a similar concept. But the problem with the weighted vest, I think what women get wrong is that they wear the weighted vest just to do everyday activities, like walk, like a very, very mild walk, or like walk around the house. And what I realized, looking at the data, is that you actually need to be doing something. And that will add the load to it. So a hike, or a squat, or a push-up, or it'll add load to it. You can't just expect benefits from wearing it around and just like strolling in the neighborhood.
18:11 Dr. Darshan Shah? Ah, that makes sense. Yeah, so you actually want to be like wearing it during a workout.
18:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, or like you can do lunges, or you can do squats, or I think this whole weighted vest trend is like making people think that they can just wear a weighted vest and go walk around the neighborhood, and that counts, and that's going to increase their bone density, but that's not what the research says.
18:30 Dr. Darshan Shah? Ah, I see. Yeah, speaking of bone density, what are some ways that women can increase their bone density?
18:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:35 Dr. Darshan Shah? Or men? Hi, Dr. Shaw here. All the stuff that we've done about women applies to men too.
18:39 Speaker 01 Um, jumping, I love the data on jumping. We actually have a trampoline in our backyard because we installed it when the kids were really little, and anytime I can get out there just for a few jumps, or jumping rope, or doing a class that requires you to do a little bit of jumping is a great, like putting a little bit of load on that, and then anything that stimulates your muscles, stimulates your bone. It's like pulling, when you flex your like muscle and you're like holding a weight, it's pulling on that bone and stimulating those osteoblasts, which can be harder as you get into older age. And so you want to do things that really are load-bearing, weight-bearing exercises. So weight training, jump training, and then weighted vests, great way to kind of,
19:24 Speaker 01 if you're at home and you don't want to go to the gym, that is a great way for you to get a home workout. It's like put on a weighted vest or a rucksack, and then do a few lunges, squats, and that can be a really easy way to do that.
19:38 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, I heard you say on a podcast once. That doing squats every hour is even more beneficial than even going for a thirty minute walk later.
19:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, so this is something I actually use all the time because I have been, like we said, our schedules have been crazy, I've been traveling. So if you're sitting for prolonged periods of time, there is metabolic changes that happen, muscular changes that happen. And what they found is that a lot of people wait till the end of their eight hour day to go for a workout, maybe an hour workout, maybe you're going for a walk. And they found that actually interrupting your day, even with these mini exercise snacks, is better for you, better for blood sugar and metabolic control.
20:23 Speaker 01 Than waiting till the end of that eight hour day. And I think we knew it to be intuitively true, but how many of us, including myself, have a long day of meetings? Or, you know, you're on a plane all day and then you're just like, well, I'll just, you know, try to go to the gym at the end of the day. Or I'll try to go for a walk at the end of the day. So this forces you to have those mini exercises. So it's just ten body weight squats every about forty five minutes or so.
20:50 Dr. Darshan Shah? Amazing.
20:50 Speaker 01 Something you could do in the bathroom, something you can do in your office. I've had people say that they've challenged their office mates to do it, you know, throughout the workday. It's a really nice way. I, it's not supposed to be instead of, it's supposed to be in addition to.
21:05 Dr. Darshan Shah? Right.
21:05 Speaker 01 Or on days where you're gonna do nothing, this is a great added benefit. And it's even better than like a thirty minute walk at the end of the day.
21:15 Dr. Darshan Shah? Wow. Yeah, I think you need a little bit of all of it, right? Like breaking up your sedentary day, going for a walk, going for a workout three, four times a week. I think finding that perfect combo is.
21:26 Speaker 01 Well, and like even intermittent fasting, for example, what I said that seems to shock people is like, you don't have to fast every day. You don't have to have the same amount of hours every day. Like, it's not like there's this checkbox that you have to fit into this, you know. Intermittent fasting lifestyle. So do sauna sometimes, do intermittent fasting sometimes. Like there, there is some benefit in doing these things regularly, but it doesn't have to be every day.
21:53 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, that's such great advice. And especially for women, right? Because I'm, some of the studies are on intermittent fasting for women that do it every single day for long periods of time. They actually have cortisol dysregulation and some of them actually end up having weight gain because of the stress hormone increasing.
22:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's like anything. So when, first of all, with intermittent fasting, this is the biggest thing I tell people is like, make sure you don't make the biggest mistake that people make, which is fasting too late in the day. What you want to do is you want to fast early in the evening, eat an early dinner so that you have a nice break between your last meal and bed. And that way, that intermittent fast is just natural and following circadian rhythms. And so we are meant not to have humongous meals at midnight. We are meant to eat dinner, you know, two to three hours before bed. And so when we do that, and it's simple as just moving up your dinnertime a little bit and not having too many snacks,
22:56 Speaker 01 like maybe cutting yourself off two to three hours before bed. And then sleeping through the night and then not having your breakfast first thing when you roll out of bed. Even if you wait an hour or two, you got a nice, long intermittent fast. And so I think the biggest mistake is like, people think that it's like you're supposed to fast all day long and then eat this humongous dinner. And then your cortisol is high, your metabolic, that metabolic load is too high late in the day. And so you're kind of shortchanging the benefits.
23:27 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah, you know, the early dinner advice is so critical. And what we do at our family now is our dinnertime is 5:30 PM.
23:36 Speaker 01 Love it.
23:37 Dr. Darshan Shah? Once you get used to that, it becomes like kind of a habit. So even when you're traveling or you're going out, you're like, oh, it's 5:30. I gotta get some dinner in.
23:44 Speaker 01 Yes.
23:45 Dr. Darshan Shah? That gives you so much space in the evening, you know, to, to um, separate the food from the sleep time because food is so disruptive to your sleep when it's too close to bedtime.
23:56 Speaker 01 And it's very hard because I think culturally, um, we tend now with Uber Eats and, you know, all night TV dinners, you can basically eat a huge meal at any time of the day.
24:08 Dr. Darshan Shah? For sure.
24:09 Speaker 01 And that's not necessarily good.
24:11 Dr. Darshan Shah? I think the most popular dinnertime reservation is 8:00 PM still.
24:15 Speaker 01 Yes.
24:15 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah. And it's just so close to bedtime that it's, that's what's creating a lot of these circadian rhythm problems.
24:22 Speaker 01 Or like, for example, if you are doing a social thing, like for me, I always think of, you know, you're trying to balance the social life with eating early and going to bed early. So if I am eating a late dinner, then I'm planning on staying up a little bit later. I still have that little bit break. So if you're eating dinner at eight, but it's a Friday night and you're not going to sleep till midnight, then that could be okay because the benefits of having social connection kind of outweigh the benefits. But you really just want that little bit of break before bed. That's going to be a big benefit.
24:56 Dr. Darshan Shah? Yeah. My kind of protocol that's working really well for me is if I have a social obligation with a late dinner, then I'll skip breakfast the next morning.
25:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:05 Dr. Darshan Shah? And then if I have a normal dinner at 5:30, I'll eat breakfast.
25:08 Speaker 01 Yeah. No. And I always notice when people say that they don't eat breakfast, it's fine if you don't want to eat breakfast right away. But you'll notice as you start to move your dinnertime up, that you kind of are hungry in the morning. Like sometimes, and that's why I say it doesn't have to be every day. Sometimes if I have an early dinner, I'll wake up and I'm like starving and I'll eat before my workout, which is like unheard of for me. But I let myself do that because there's no rules. Like, like, oh, you have to eat before, you can't eat before. Like, you can do what actually feels right for you at that moment. And I think that, at least for, at least the perimenopausal advice specifically, is you really have to listen to your body because those rhythms are kind
25:51 Speaker 01 of telling you something. And if it's like that week before your period and you feel fatigued and you need to eat first thing in the morning, go for it.
25:58 Dr. Darshan Shah? Go for it. Right. Absolutely. Yeah.
26:02 Dr. Darshan Shah? Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked 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.
Previous 81. Dr. Zain Kassam: How Your Gut Bacteria Control Your Brain, Weight, and Longevity Next 83. Dr. Joel Kahn: Why Most Cardiologists Are Missing the Real Causes of Heart Disease Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated