Transcribed with AI transcriptuion services, erros may occur. Contact Mikki for clarifcation

00:03
Hey everyone, Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia. This week on the podcast, I speak to Paul Taylor. Paul is a neuroscientist, an exercise physiologist and nutritionist. He's a PhD candidate and a former British Navy officer. And we talk all about exercise and longevity. And you can tell by the long list of what Paul does is that he has a wealth of information in all things health.

00:33
and mindset related. Paul and I discussed the hallmarks of aging and how exercise impacts this at every single level. We talk about how exercise builds resiliency and how important habits are in developing that resiliency. Paul discusses our evolutionary underpinnings for physical activity and how these inform his recommendations around training and the positive health impacts of being active across a lifetime. And Paul and I talk a lot about mindset.

01:02
which is his passion area and what you can do to develop that resilient mindset. Paul is a former British Royal Navy Aircrew Officer and former research professor at the University of San Francisco. He's an exercise physiologist, nutritionist and neuroscientist who is currently completing a PhD in applied psychology where he is developing and testing resilience strategies with the Australian Defence Science Technology Group.

01:33
He's a podcast host, a published author and TV presenter through his program Body and Brain Overhaul, he was twice voted Australian Fitness Industry Presenter of the Year. Paul has a proven track record in leadership, management and dealing in high pressure situations through his former roles as an airborne anti-submarine warfare officer and a helicopter search and rescue crew member with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm.

01:58
and has undergone rigorous combat survival in resistance to interrogation training. Paul doesn't just talk about resilience, he lives it. In recent years he was successful in a professional boxing bout, became Australian karate champion and trekked deep into the Amazon jungle where he performed an Indian rite of passage involving ingesting frog poison. Oh goodness, there's a lot to Paul. And you can tell he is charismatic, he was awesome to talk to.

02:26
He has a podcast and I put a link to his podcast in the show notes along with links to his books and also how to find Paul. Now before we crack on into the episode though I would like to remind you that the best way to support Micropedia is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of the podcast in amongst literally thousands of other podcasts that are out there.

02:53
and allows more people to come across Micropedia and learn from guests that I have on the show like Paul Taylor. All right team, enjoy the conversation.

03:08
I know it totally is. And to be fair, you must meet and talk to like so many people given your varied background. So I am super looking forward to diving into all of your, I guess your research and your knowledge pool. And I sent you through a list obviously of questions. And I do wanna start with something that's been grinding my gears of late, which.

03:33
I think we came across a little bit in Acnam as well, which you were very good at rebutting some of the, not rebutting, rebutting is not the right word, but I guess just aligning people with the importance of exercise or whatever. But there are a lot of health-based platforms now that are highlighting experts in fields and the hosts seem to go a little bit off the reservation and start asking them questions that are outside their level of expertise.

04:03
Because these people are healthy experts, those people listening are looking to them for the answers. So when I hear someone who is very prominent in this space say things like, it's dangerous to do more than 150 minutes of exercise, or that exercise is not important for fat loss, we know this, like, and they speak with such authority and confidence, I just think that it gives people absolutely the wrong idea, but I don't know, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

04:32
Yes. So this idea that we shouldn't be doing more than 150 minutes of exercise is complete and utter nonsense. It's complete and utter nonsense. Well, so if you just look at the guidelines around exercise, which are evidence-based, it is 150 to 300 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes to 150

05:02
and spread over at least five sessions and into cooperating to strength training sessions. Now they are meant to be guidelines or recommendations that will give you significant health benefits, but not meant to be completely optimal. And for me, it's looking at what our genome is actually evolved for. And we have a hunter gatherers genome. So for me, the best way to find out

05:31
what we should be doing is to look at the hunter-gatherers that are still around today. The big study that I talked about at the conference, the Hadza conference, or the Hadza study, looked at these hunter-gatherers in Tanzania and East Africa and put on physical activity trackers and they put hot rate monitors on them for, I think it was four different two-week periods over the year.

06:00
so that they got an idea of how they moved both in the dry season and the wet season. And it turns out they did about double the amount of steps, had some women about double the amount of steps as women and girls in modern societies, had some men and boys, three to four times the amount of steps of men and boys in modern societies. So the women were doing over 10,000 steps a day. We know that from data from 111 nations in modern societies, it's about 5,000 on average.

06:28
and had some men and boys over 18,000 steps a day. But when we looked at their moderate to vigorous physical activity, they were doing 945 minutes a week. Oh, wow. That's significant. That is seven to 10 times the amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity as the Abbeys Australian, Kiwi, Brit are American. So what do you reckon? Because I look at these guidelines and I know that they're evidence-based.

06:57
But I still think that they are almost encouraging people to be mediocre. Whereas of course, the flip side argument to this is that if you actually give people a higher bar to reach or aim for, then they're not going to even bother because they think it's so far out of the realm of possibility for them. And I, so I understand the balance, but I don't know. Yes. Yeah. Look, and this is no doubt being taken in. So you know, they look at the guidelines and they go...

07:25
what is the real minimal viable amount? Now it's not minimal, because we know that any exercise, particularly if you're sedentary, anything that you do is gonna have health benefits, but to get real significant health benefits, they've gotta look around it and go, okay, so what do we know that actually moves the needle in a health manner for the vast majority of people?

07:53
And then, you know, what will be better? And they give them a band, right? And so there's that band, but they're not talking about what is actually optimal. And I think if they did say what is optimal, to that point, a lot of people would go, well, that's just ridiculous. I'm not even gonna try. So we know that even with those guidelines that we have, in Australia, I think the adherence to those,

08:21
basic guidelines, right? If we take the burn minimum of 150 minutes, you know, about 80% of 18 to 24 year olds actually had 150. I don't know how many hit 300 because they're just looking at the baseline stuff. But then that drops down and in my age group, it's about 70 ish percent. But then less percentage actually spread it over five times a week because people try to cram it in, right?

08:51
And then when it comes to strength training, there's only about 35% of your 10 to 25 year olds do two strength training sessions a week. And when you get them, I guess it's only 20%. A lot of people are like, I just don't like strength training. And I'm sort of, I'm a little bit like, I don't love showering, if I'm perfectly honest. Like, what a waste of time. Of course I shower, but you know, there are things that you do in your life that you just know you do because you're better for it. And I feel that way a little bit about, I mean, I enjoy

09:21
I enjoy training, like it's sort of built that way. So I really feel for people who aren't. Look, I think these people who aren't are probably not just doing the right stuff. There has been a historical under emphasis on strength training, historically. And you know, there's this perception that's in

09:48
still in large amounts of the public that strength training is for bodybuilders. Right. It started in the 1970s. Nobody was doing strength training other than, you know, bodybuilders and pumping iron came out, I think sometime in the 1970s, that famous movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but people associated strength training with that stuff. Right. Now cardiovascular training became very

10:13
prevalent in the seventies and eighties and lots of people were doing it and they were doing calisthenics and stuff like that. So there was a bit of the body weight stuff coming in. But really strength draining didn't come in in a significant way in terms of gyms until the eighties, late eighties and the nineties. And still there was a perception amongst lots of people that it was just, you know, it was mostly bodybuilders who went and did it.

10:41
What we're now seeing more and more are the significant amount of benefits that everybody will get from strength training, but particularly for older adults. And I say particularly as you get older, it becomes more and more important that you lift heavy shit. Yes. And heavy is relative, right? And I know we're going to go through your recommendations later on, but heavy is relative.

11:10
It is relative. But it's generally, unless you are really know what you're doing in body weight training and calisthenics and stuff like that, you've got to add some load onto there, especially as we get older because we develop this anabolic resistance. And I don't think that the general population has any idea about the impact of sarcopenia in terms of

11:40
multiple diseases that are accelerated by sarcopenia and the massive drop in quality of life that we get from this sarcopenia, which is that loss of muscle and also osteopenia, the loss of bone and strength training is a really good way to preserve your bone mass as well. Yeah. I remember when I was younger and I visited a couple of my grandparents in rest homes and my mum and we called them rest homes.

12:10
My mum worked in a rest home and we would go and we would see just the older adults in there and they were just sitting like, I hardly ever saw any of them move and they looked miserable. It was an unpleasant environment and they probably weren't as old as I thought they were. Like looking back, they probably weren't, but just like I see that decline and that puts the fear of God into me.

12:38
if I'm quite honest, like I do not want to end up like that. Those sorts of places are death chambers, death by a thousand cuts. It's death by every minute that you're sitting. Like sedentary inactivity physiology is horrendous for the body and the brain. And particularly when people get above seven, eight, nine hours of sitting a day.

13:05
there's just so much stuff that increases in terms of poor health metrics that come from that. And it's just, you know, that's a critical thing that people don't talk enough about is breaking up prolonged sitting times. And, you know, the way that we work has changed dramatically in the last 30 years and that more and more people are sitting for longer and longer. And that is massively exacerbating health problems, as well as all the other

13:35
and stress and all of this stuff. But inactivity physiology is horrible. We're not meant to sit for long periods of time. In fact, we're not meant to, if you look at the Hadza, but you also look at Asian populations, they squat. And that's very different to sitting. It's the physiology of squatting and all that. And most people in Western, in brackets, Western nations can't even squat like that.

14:04
Yeah, 100%. And I have clients who ask me, they're like, well, you know, if I go for a run in the morning, or they're a triathlete, they have like the double sessions, and they sit for the majority of the day, they're like, is that like, am I good? Can I just like call that good? What would you say to that? So what we now know is that sitting and lack of exercise are independent risk factors for all cause mortality.

14:33
And what that means is that if you sit a lot and you don't exercise, you don't have one risk factor for chronic disease, you have two independent risk factors for chronic disease. If you exercise and even you hit all those numbers, but you sit a lot, you still have a risk factor for chronic disease from that long-term sitting. And particularly when we get above 10 hours a day, it becomes very, very significant.

15:01
And we can minimize the impact of that by just breaking up our sitting throughout the day. And I encourage all the executives I work with to ideally every half an hour is get off your arse and move and just, you know, do 30 seconds. I mean, right here, if I want to turn the video, I've got club bells sitting down over there. I've got kettlebells right behind me. I've got a dip station.

15:27
right? I've got a TRX in my library room. We've got kettlebells all over the bloody house. And just to have that visual trigger to actually just move. And what it does, particularly if you're doing 30 seconds or a minute of vigorous activity, it actually changes gene expression and it burns up people's stress hormones as well. This is what a lot of people don't realize. There are so many benefits to just breaking up the...

15:55
long sitting. So I would say to those people who are very active, yes, you've got to be active, but you also have to break up sitting. I call them movement snacks. The geeky academics, no, there's research that's come out and they're called vilpas. Vigorous intensity, lifestyle, physical activity. Oh, like it. Bloody academics, just call them movement snacks. And it's just those little things about just running up the stars, right? Or just...

16:23
getting up and running for a bus or those sorts of things. Like those things, people who do them regularly have significant impacts on their longevity. We're now starting to see in some of these studies. So it is about baking in movement snacks into your day. Right. And this is the issue is that when people exercise a lot, they tend to sit a lot more when they're not exercising, right? Because they're tired from the exercise. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And it's almost...

16:53
Those people, and a lot of the people I talk to like that, they say, look, I'm actually just a bit lazy, to be honest, and understandably because they're fatigued. But as you say, that's not necessarily protecting them from other problems with their metabolism and the problems of sedentary behavior. Yeah, absolutely. And I have a little, I've got a little ritual that whenever I come home from work, I'm going

17:20
I mean, last night I didn't get home till half past 10 because I flew to Brisbane, did a presentation, flew back. I got home and I got changed into my exercise gear. Now I didn't do very much before I went to bed, but I got changed into my exercise gear. I did a few kettlebell swings and a bit with the club bells and then I went and got to bed. But I have this ritual that when I come home, I get changed into my exercise gear because most people, and it's amazing when I do corporate workshops and I say, who, who

17:50
comes home and gets changed into the pajamas. The amount of people who get changed into their pajamas is ridiculous. And I said to them, what's the priming for your brain? And the priming is sit on your arse, put your feet up. Yeah, yeah. Have a glass of wine. Turn on Netflix, right? So it's just, it's one of those little things that if people start doing it and then you'll get changed into your exercise gear and maybe do 30 squats.

18:20
and then go and interact with your kids and your family and stuff like that. Cause it just eats it for, I find it's a real good circuit breaker. And it's a, okay, the working day is over. I'm just going to do something to, to fire up my metabolism and my mood and prime my brain a little bit. And then I'll go in and, and, and have my evening. And is that outside of your actual structured exercise session as well, Paul? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

18:49
For sure. I will get changed into my exercise gear. Sometimes I've come home at half past 11 and I'll put my exercise gear on. I'll go and fill up my water and then I'll go on again in the bed and take my exercise gear off. It's just a ritual. So for me, for me, it's like if you break it, you've just created a little gap, right? So I'll give you an example of why I do this. And people might go, this guy's bonkers. But when I first started

19:18
which was about seven years ago. I said to myself, right, I'm going to do them four times a week because I started doing them in winter and it was pretty horrible. And I said, I'm going to do it four times a week. And then I'd find I'd be in the shower on a Monday morning and I'd be thinking about the cold shower and this little voice would go, you don't have to do it today. It's Monday. You only need to do four days a week. And I find you give yourself that little chink and that little naggy voice in your mind.

19:47
will just take over. Right. So that's why I like the idea of having certain rituals. And if we think of behavior, it's not habit, it's a ritual, which means you do it ritualistic. Yeah. I love that. And like, so that there in itself, that's awesome. The little, having little primers around your room, I have a dumbbell just sitting over there. It's actually used as a doorstop, but it could be put to other use. But...

20:13
But for that reason, right? Is that visual cue? These are things that people wouldn't even know to think about actually. Now, absolutely. We are much more likely to eat the first thing that we see when we open the fridge or the larder, right? So put the shit at the back. Actually, don't have it in the house is the best thing. But what we know is that when you put healthy food right at the front, you're more likely to eat it. Right? So it's these just little tips.

20:43
that people can do to kind of hack their own behavior. One other health expert said, he was an obesity gene specialist, and he said, exercise does not help fat loss. It doesn't help people lose weight. And I have my own thoughts, because I know why he's saying it because of what literature says, but I don't agree with that in, I don't agree with that in practice actually. And I'd love to hear what you think.

21:13
exercise is not an effective way to lose weight in and of itself. Right. But that's very different to maintaining good body composition. Right. And look, the reason why we see that with that exercise is not a good strategy, particularly in and of itself for weight loss, is that when people exercise, they tend to become a bit hungrier and they become tired. So they sit more.

21:42
right? So, but it is a critical component of any health and fitness regime, and especially one that involves weight loss. Because if you're just dieting and not using your muscle, the vast majority of the amount of weight that you're going to use is lose is going to be muscle. And that's not the stuff that you get back. And what we see with people is they go on a diet. And if they're not exercising,

22:12
they will lose water first, then they'll lose muscle, then they'll lose fat. And then when they realize their diet is unsustainable, they go back to their normal diet, they put the water on very quickly, then they put the fat on and they don't put the muscle on. So they end up coming back to the same weight, roughly, because of that set point theory. But they come back to the same weight and they have the same diet, roughly same amount of calories. Now they're going to put on weight. Because...

22:41
muscle is actually an energy burning furnace. And if you end up with the same weight, but with less muscle mass, your metabolic rate is lower. So you go back on the diet, you're going to put on a couple of kilos or more than that. And then you go on a diet again, and then the whole thing exacerbates. Right. So that's why muscle, sorry, exercise is absolutely critical. And in any weight

23:11
help or cause significant weight loss across big studies? No, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that you can just leave it out of a program because that's just ridiculous. Yeah. And that's sort of like, because I am absolutely in agreement with what you've just said. Like I understand why he said it. And I felt like it just could have been worded in a way that still made people understand that it was important in that fat loss journey. I mean,

23:40
One thing, I mean, you're a neuroscientist. I mean, the mental resiliency you build when you're able to achieve something in that exercise space, it's just so transferable to then building confidence that you can nail your diet. You know, like they're all, it can be such a great anchor behavior. Absolutely. I mean, we look at, you look at the Dunedin study over in New Zealand, and what they find, to their surprise, was...

24:07
the single biggest predictor of success in life is self-control. And what we know is that exercise builds self-control, it builds self-efficacy. There's a very, very strong interchange between self-efficacy and self-control. And when you exercise regularly, you grow volume in your right frontal lobe, which is the area of self-control and willpower in the brain. So it is hugely, hugely important.

24:34
neurotransmitters that are released with exercise. It's crazy. Everybody's sort of endorphins, but you also, when you exercise, you release serotonin, you release dopamine, you release noradrenaline. These are not only neurotransmitters, but they're neuromodulators. You also release endocannabinoids, which are feel-good chemicals. So I said to people, when you exercise, there is a neuro symphony going on in your brain of feel-good chemicals that not only make you feel

25:04
good, but improve your overall brain function. And this is critical. And I unashamedly now say this to people, that there is so much evidence in this area that if you do not do regular physical activity, at least some of which is vigorous, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that your body and brain are optimal. No chance. Just none.

25:32
Our species is so dependent on physical activity for normal functioning. That's the words of Frank, Professor Frank Booth, a legendary exercise physiologist. The human genome hasn't changed in over 45,000 years. We still have a hunter gatherers genome. And you know, when people understand myokines and what myokines actually do in the body,

26:00
they really start to become blown away and start to realise that that statement that I just said is actually grounded in fact. And can you, Paul, for the listener, remind us what myokines are and how they're involved in the processes you've just described? Yeah. So what we know is that myokines, whenever I did my masters in exercise science 30 years ago, we heard about myokines, we were taught about myokines.

26:26
We were taught they are signaling molecules, right? So a myokine is a form of cytokine. Cytokine is a word for messenger or signaling molecules in the body. A myokine is just one that's produced from muscle. Some people call them exokines, right? Now, what we knew back then is that they help the muscle to take glucose and fat and provide fuel for contraction and then help to remodel the muscle.

26:55
We now know that myokines, they have autocrine, paracrine, and endocrine effects. So they have an impact within the cell, then they have impacts within neighboring cells, but then they get out into the bloodstream and have impacts on other cells and organs. And that's an endocrine, it's like a hormone. And there's a whole host of myokines.

27:20
There's one interleukin-6, interleukin-10, there's BDNF, there's more, we actually now identified more than 600 myokines, but we only know what about 60 of them do. And the stuff that we know they do is they get into your circulation, they have a positive impact on your immune system, they have a positive impact on your stress response system. They also have a positive impact throughout your gastrointestinal system.

27:48
help your pancreas to secrete insulin, your liver to dispose of blood glucose, to help to remodel your bone and your muscle and your blood vessels throughout your life. And they get into the brain and trigger the release of BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor, which helps you to grow new brain cells and protect the brain cells that you have against damage and help with connections. And VEGF is released in the brain. It helps to grow the vascular network in your brain.

28:17
together they prevent Alzheimer's disease, dementia. And we know from a pretty landmark paper by Peterson and Salton, who are two legendary exercise physiologists, that exercise can prevent and or treat 26 of the most common chronic diseases that we suffer from. And a lot of that, the vast majority of that is because of the impact of myocaines. Yeah, that's crazy. And all of those...

28:45
conditions that all the conditions that you mentioned plus in that paper are things that people, if they're thinking about their health, the other things that they want to avoid yet this still doesn't for whatever reason, motivate them enough to begin an exercise regime is such a terrible word, but you know, to identify someone who exercises to change their identity into someone who exercises.

29:14
identity. I mean, we sit with our kids once a year and go over tailor values. What does it mean to be a tailor? And part of that is being fit and healthy and actually getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. And when you start to have that as core values and talk to yourself about that all the time, then it becomes a lot easier to do those things.

29:44
And that for me is the key is to think about just, and this is why I'm so passionate about educating people because when they understand the impact of exercise on their physiology and also what happens when you don't exercise, that you are destroying your ecosystem. This is the thing. You have an ecosystem of cells. Everybody has this ecosystem of cells.

30:12
And it's like the ecosystem of the planet. And we all know what happens when you treat the ecosystem of the planet badly, right? And the fact that whenever you notice the effects, Jesus, is it too late to do anything about it? And that's kind of like our ecosystem, is that you don't get disease overnight. It takes 10, 20, 30, 40 years to develop these diseases, but it's a slow destruction of your ecosystem.

30:40
because of the inputs and the stimulation. So somebody can be exercising and eating good food and sleeping well and they're nourishing their ecosystem. They're supporting their cells. And this is what I say to people, look, if you wanna eat shit food, if you're an adult, crack on, if you're a kid, that's different. So I'm all for consenting adults to say, I'm happy to smoke or eat shit food.

31:07
But when they kill their kids, I've got an issue with that. Anyway, that's a sidebar conversation. But if you're happy, for me, if you understand the risks, right? So, you know, if I have a conversation with a smoker and they go, I get the risks, I'm happy to smoke. Fine. But if somebody is in a second or third world country, whether it's all being promoted and they don't understand the risks and then you talk to them about it, maybe they'll change, maybe their behavior, it's hard with smoking, but it certainly will change their intentions. Yeah. So.

31:36
That's why for me, education is a critical part of this and just helping people to understand this is your ecosystem, right? This is your body, your brain, your organs, and the stuff that you do on a daily basis, how much you move your body, what you put into it, what the quality of your recovery is, all of these things on a daily basis are influencing your ecosystem either positively or negatively. So just make informed choices. And then if somebody goes,

32:06
I'm cool with that. I want to live fast, die young, knock yourself out. Right. But it's just understanding the implications. And then I think understanding not just lifespan, but health span. Because there's a big difference. And I'm not sure that that in New Zealand, I think it's pretty similar. But here in Australia, we tend to have nine or 10 years of unhealthy life at the end of our life.

32:36
Yeah, it's not dissimilar here. I don't think it's pretty similar. Yeah. And do you know the UK, it was my friend and colleague Denise Fernes showed data in the UK, UK women, 22 years of ill health. Yeah. Unbelievable. Men 16 years. So shorter, but still, because I heard her say that, then I went and brought up the article that she was discussing and I just couldn't.

33:04
Believe it. Like it's who wants to live like that? And I agree with you, Paul, with regards to the knowledge and making informed decisions, because I think exercise has long been pigeoned as either for the athlete or for people who need to lose weight. Whereas if you don't fall into that category, then it's not been something that's important because I'm lean, I'm slim, I don't need to lose weight. It, you know, it's not for me. And I think this is where it is so important to have these conversations. So people.

33:34
how exercise touches every cell in the body. Look, the thing on that, you are better off metabolically being a fat fitty than a thin unfit person. That's how powerful exercise is. Now you're obviously much better to be lean and fit, but I actually think from a public health perspective, we need to change the narrative away from weight to

34:05
Right. And, and there's a lot of stuff that's, that's out there about, you know, you can't be body shaming people and we need to have, um, I can't remember what, what the, what, what the, the, the, the phrase is, but, um, you know, uh, loving all body types and stuff like that. And, and I actually wrote an article on it and I said, I get that. And we shouldn't be fat shaming. We shouldn't be shaming people, but they need to be educated about.

34:34
the health risks that come, especially if they're not fit. If they're overweight, that's one thing. If you're overweight and fit, you're almost balancing it out compared to somebody who's not that fit. But if you're overweight and unfit, you're destroying your ecosystem. Do not expect to eat shit food, not exercise, and have a good ecosystem.

35:01
And then the net effect of that over time is being overweight and unfit. And just understand that if that is the case, that you are setting yourself up for many, many years of ill health down the track. And look, if somebody goes, yeah, I'm cool with that, knock yourself out. And it's funny because you mentioned the case of people like, I just want to live fast, die young. Problem is they don't actually die that young.

35:29
And so that's when they spend those multiple years in poor health. I found it interesting at the conference actually, which I really enjoyed, but I just, I, it just struck me that in the room, the ACNM conference, which is, you know, brilliant information, there are these doctors who are really wanting to upskill and help the patients who are learning from experts in the field. There was such a focus on longevity as it relates to caloric restriction and fasting and reducing end-to-end.

36:00
You did a talk on exercise and you came late in the piece, which was an amazing talk as well. I thought, thank goodness. But there seems to be this disconnect with people in the longevity field between the importance of protecting muscle mass and bone as we age through both exercise and appropriate protein load. Where does this disconnect come from? What are your thoughts? Yeah. So, look, the disconnect.

36:28
comes because of mTOR's opposing roles, right? So we have mTOR, Nameli and Togit of Rabba Madison, and we got mTOR one and mTOR two, and they do different things, but they also act differently in muscle and outside of muscle. So mTOR is very, very important for building muscle. And in terms of mTOR building and preserving our muscle, which is absolutely,

36:57
critical for both lifespan and health span. You need to have enough muscle. And the signals for mTOR in muscle are amino acid availability and exercise. Now mTOR outside of muscle is nutrient sensing. So high insulin would turn on mTOR. So the way that I tend to look at these things and the way I do it, and we need to do much more research in this area.

37:26
You can't sow the baby out with the bathwater, right? And just go mTOR drives growth and therefore drives cancer cells. So I'm just going to starve myself. I'm just going to do lots of fasting. And that comes from studies on animals that show that you restrict an animal's calories by 30 to 50%. And pretty much they all live longer, right? And...

37:52
Then there was studies on monkeys, and I can't remember which one was which, but there was a study on these monkeys that with calorie restrictions lived longer. And everybody was talking about, well, hey, there's primates, that's good evidence we should be restricting our calories to enhance our longevity. And then another monkey study came out and said it had no impact on their longevity. And then, and I need to find this study, there was a bunch of human beings who were in this

38:20
was it called the biosphere? Yes, there was. Yep. And they, and I need to go and dig it out actually, because they massively restricted their calories, but I think about 30%. Right. And they had some markers of organ regeneration and stuff like that. But when they looked at them, they lost a shitload of muscle. Their libido was very, very low. And their mood was shit house. They looked miserable.

38:47
I remember seeing pictures here. And they were miserable. Yeah. And they were friggin' miserable. So you may, maybe, maybe you might live a little bit longer. We actually do not know the answer to that question. And that primate study actually, and put it in question. The only thing I would say here is we are not mice. Yes. Right? We are very different. Our physiology is different. And it drives me to distraction whenever there's a study, particularly on nutrition, about mice.

39:15
and they expand it to humans. I'm like, Jesus Christ, it makes me want to just strangle people. But anyway, so we are not mice, and we are not exactly like primates either. So this is the thing that those bunch of people in the biosphere are saying, you may live longer, we don't know, but you will certainly be miserable. That's what we know.

39:42
you'll be weak, you'll have no sex drive and you'll be miserable. Now, am I saying you need to be in a hyperfed state all the time? Absolutely not. Right. But we need to have that balance between maintaining our muscle and then not having mTOR switched on all of the time. Because when it's switched on all of the time, yes, it can grow cancer cells and do negative things. So for me, that's about eating three meals a day and not snacking. Right?

40:12
That is one of the best ways to do it. And then having a play with intermittent fasting, having a play with maybe the thing that I'm now landing towards, because I was doing some intermittent fasting, but I was doing Dexascans and I was losing too much muscle. And I went, you know what? My optimal going into my, in my fifties now, I want to preserve as much muscle as I possibly can because...

40:38
from your sixties, you will start to lose it no matter what you're actually doing. Right. So for me, that was a priority. Whereas if somebody is really metabolically unhealthy, the metabolic benefits of intermittent fasting will probably outweigh a little bit of muscle loss now, but some people lose muscle quicker than others when they're doing intermittent fasting. So I have now come to once a year I'm going to do a five day fast, right? Because

41:06
that is really good for autophagy. And we know, so for instance, I will go out for a run with my dogs in the morning and I'll do it in a fasted state because we know that that will encourage autophagy within the muscle cell. So autophagy just for your listeners is just the cleaning up of cellular junk. So you can have that happen within the cell and then when you're in a more prolonged fast, your body goes through an overall spring clean.

41:35
And it actually kills off autoimmune and senescent cells. Senescent cells for your listeners are like zombie cells that are malfunctioned. They're supposed to have died and they haven't died. And they're kind of in a zombie-like state. They're much more likely to become cancerous and infect other cells as well with inflammation. So we want those cleaned up. And so my recommendations for myself, because I'm not a doctor, but my recommendations for me are to once a year, do a five day fast.

42:05
but for the rest of the year, ensuring that I am getting enough protein and exercise stimulation around mTOR. And I think you can do that by having a significant amount of protein in your three meals a day. And if you want to build muscle, maybe you need to add a fourth bit of protein in the evening. But it's all about where the individual is at and what is the bigger priority. Yeah. Now I completely agree. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. And I love...

42:34
the conversation around muscle has moved to it being, you know, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon talks about it as the organ of longevity. She talks about it being healthy muscle as well. So it's not just about building that muscle. It's about having that healthy muscle. And so for people who are metabolically, who do carry a lot of excess body fat, they may also carry a lot of muscle, but it's not necessarily healthy muscle. So for them to, as you suggested, like,

43:01
they could potentially benefit more from that intermittent fasting window as they're just clearing, if I say clearing out the junk, much as you described, they're like, you know, becoming healthier and building strength and actually just building their metabolic machinery. Absolutely. And I think that's a really good time as the metabolic machinery, because we know, you know, muscle is the biggest sink for glucose.

43:29
and helps preserve your insulin sensitivity throughout your life, as well as helping you to do the things of daily function. And there's so many people that I work with with corporates who are busting their ass and future focused about having a really good retirement. And the amount of them that get to retirement age and they've completely screwed their body. So their metabolic machinery has been destroyed in an effort.

43:58
to be able to enjoy their life when they get to that point that they've destroyed themselves. And for me, it's just crazy. Yeah. You know what, Paul, people will look at you and go, it's all right for you, mate, because you obviously grew up active and it was always something that you did. And how do you understand what it's like to even start exercise? What would you say to those people? Look, I... So I have two brothers who are obese. And a mother who has had...

44:27
diabetes. And so I didn't grow up in a health, I grew up in Northern Ireland. It's known as the sick old man of Europe, right? And both Northern Ireland and Scotland vie for that title as the most unhealthy countries in Europe, right? So I certainly didn't grow up in an environment that encouraged that. I think I just got into sport. I think that was probably, I was into soccer and I quite enjoyed it.

44:57
And then, you know, I was always out riding around on my bike and then I went to university and I did soccer and I just developed a bit of discipline around it. I mean, this is the big word that people don't talk about in terms of health, it's discipline. Right? And it, but it is about, for me, it's about then the values that I have and also around

45:24
that whole self-concept side of things. And then obviously I joined the military and that helps to build a bit of discipline in it. But, and, and, you know, I've had plenty of injuries. I mean, right now I, I hurt my ACL, my PCL, my meniscus, but I'm still exercising because you just have got to find workarounds. And, and then I have lots of people say to me, well, you know, it's time. You know, I don't have enough time to exercise. I'm pretty busy. I travel.

45:54
way more than the vast majority of people. And I'm doing a PhD as well as this. I've got a lot of fingers and a lot of pies, but it's choice, right? If we looked at my TV consumption compared to other people, it would be very, very different, right? So I say to people, if you don't have time, look at your phone, to see how much time you spend on your phone, right? And do you own a television, right? And so most people, the vast majority,

46:22
it's ultimately a choice thing. Now that then comes down to motivation and people go, well, I don't have the motivation. And this, I talk a lot about motivation. We've got an arse about face on motivation that people are waiting for the motivation fairy to come along and give them a big dollop of motivation and they'll sort them out. What we know, motivation follows action.

46:47
When your brain knows you're in forward motion towards a goal, that's when it releases dopamine, which is the chemical of motivation. So it's just about getting started and doing stuff, setting goals, creating a plan, getting a ritual board, which I'm a massive fan of. I've got a ritual board right here, right on my office to tick stuff off because that gives your brain feedback.

47:14
that what you're doing is making a difference. And I always say to people, you know, get goals around your exercise. Don't just go out for a walk. If you're doing 15 minutes, see how far you can walk in that 15 minutes, right? And then see if you can, you know, if you're really unfit, use lampposts between the first two lampposts, walk normally, then walk fast, then walk normally, then walk fast, right? And then eventually you start to shuffle between those lampposts.

47:44
And then when, because when people start to see that they're making progress, that is the thing that builds self-efficacy, the belief that what I'm doing is making a difference. And that's when they stick to stuff, right? So that's like going into the gym, not just lifting weights, but knowing how much you're lifting and what you're, I don't like using one rep max, what your five rep maxes or 10 rep max. I think they're much safer.

48:13
And seeing that over time, jeez, I'm getting stronger. Because that's what gives us the motivation to continue this self-efficacy, that belief that what I'm doing is making a difference. And I said, people forget about the weight, the weight will come if you're doing the right things, right? Let's just focus on getting your ecosystem healthy. I think I might have went off track on that. No, no, no, that's exactly what I was hoping that you would say, because you're right. Like people.

48:41
don't understand how good it can feel when you are active. And it is actually like, the only way to know it is to do it because the evidence will build confidence. 100%. And then focusing on how you feel afterwards. Right? Yeah. You don't hear people say, Oh, I so wish I didn't exercise. No, I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you break a leg, like then you're like, yeah, unless, unless you injure yourself. Yeah. But, but, you know, the incidence of that is way, way less than sh.

49:11
shitty hangovers or feeling friggin' horrible after overeating stuff. So it's really, it's focusing on how it makes you feel is better. And you know, you get me, almost any human being on the planet, they will feel and function better from regular exercise than from not exercising. I can tell you that right now. Yeah, 100%. And look, you gave really great guidelines around recommendations for obviously steps

49:40
and strength based work and more higher intensity based work, which is pretty specific. Is there an outline Paul that people can go to to help them build something, even if it's just from nothing? Yeah. So for me, what gets measured gets managed. So first of all, you've got to know

50:07
how much you're actually moving. You've got to know what your baseline is. Right. So that's why I say to people, invest in some form of physical activity tracker. Right. And people go, Oh, well, they're expensive. They're a couple of hundred bucks. Spend a couple of nights off the piss and off shit food and save that money and put it towards one of those, because you're investing in your health. Right. So, so, so what gets measured gets managed. And so if we talk about steps, right, it's, it's whatever your baseline is. And let's go from somebody who's super sedentary.

50:37
maybe doing two or 3000 steps a day is try to add a thousand steps a day on for a couple of weeks and then maybe add another thousand steps a day on. If you just, if we're starting from that really low base, but then we want to move into exercise. And if you're already a little bit active, then we got to go into exercise. A really good place to start.

51:02
is what's known as zone two training. Now this is heart rate based training and look, different people have different numbers for the zones, but it's kind of mostly accepted zone two is 60 to 70% of your max heart rate. Some people say 60 to 75. Zone two is actually just below what's called lactate threshold where you're accumulating lactate. So the easiest way for people to understand is when my breathing, my ventilation starts to become significant.

51:30
That's when you know you're up at the upper end of zone two, because you're having to start breathing heavier, right? So it's the form of exercise where you could hold a conversation, but you can't really sing a song, right? So that moderate intensity exercise, and you can do it anything. It can be, again, depending on fitness level, it can be walking, running, biking, rowing, star climber, any of those things. And it's try to do that.

51:58
Again, you might need to build up, you might need to start with 20 minute sessions, but then you want to be aiming towards to get basic health benefits. You want to be going two of those zone two sessions for at least 30 minutes a week. And that's an exercise intensity that you could maintain for that. And then we need to add in, so I'm talking cardiovascular first and then we'll get to strength, right? Then we need to add in some stuff.

52:28
of physical fitness. You need to move the needle on your what's called VO2 max, the maximum oxygen uptake. That is the gold standard measure of your cardio respiratory fitness. And it is such a predictor of longevity. It's not true. There is no single measure of anything that you can give me that is a better predictor of longevity than VO2 max.

52:58
trust my Garmin with that? Garmin's pretty damn good. Yeah, nice one. Most of these things do a reasonable job, right? So if you have a Garmin, if you have an Apple Watch, if you have a Fitbit, a Garmin, a Wook band, any of those things, an Auraring will give you a reasonable approximation of your VO2 Max. Look, a really good thing you can do is you can go and do a 12-minute run. But it's got to be flat.

53:28
go on a treadmill and you run as much distance as you possibly can for 12 minutes. Then you can go to your website. I'll send you the link and you put in your age, your sex, the distance you ran and that will give you a very good estimation of your VO2 max. Is that like Cooper's test? It's Cooper's test. It's Cooper 12 minute run test. It's brilliant because otherwise the best way to do it is go to an exercise physiology lab and get it tested.

53:57
And it's horrible, you know, they do a graded exercise test and, and eventually you'll get there and that'll give you, or you can do a beep test, right? We all remember the beep test, right? And actually that's a really good field measure of somebody's VO2 max. So again, I'm a big fan of measure that shit. Now that will take longer to move the needle on, but let me give you just from a longevity perspective, it's a massive study in JAMA, Journal of Applied

54:26
think it was 2022, might be 2019. I mix up my research papers in my head, but it was 122,000 adults. They'd all done treadmill testing and they all had their VO2 max done. They were getting their hearts licked at. They were between the age of 50 and 65. Then they followed them up for 15 years and a bunch of them died and a bunch of them didn't. Then they did what we call a hazard ratio, comparing the risk of death.

54:52
versus those. So those in the lowest category of fitness, the lowest 25%, basically had double the death rate of somebody who was below average in terms of fitness. But if we flip that the other way, if you are really unfit and you can just get from low to below average, you will reduce your risk of dying by about 50%. Oh, wow. Now in that same study,

55:21
people who were the lowest category of fitness versus people elite fitness at a 404% increased risk of dying in the next 15 years. Geez, that's crazy. It is bonkers. And this is why I say this is the biggest thing you need to move the needle on. And if you're in the lowest category, if you follow what I'm saying for three months, I guarantee you, you'll get up into below average.

55:52
number of ways to do it. The one that I really like and it's easy to remember is the Norwegian four by four protocol, where it's basically you do four minutes of pretty full on exercise, like the fastest pace that you can go for four minutes. And again, that can be any piece of equipment, but at the end of those four minutes, you want to be toast. And when we talk heart rate zones,

56:19
you want to be in that 90 to 95% of your maximum heart rate, right? If you know your max heart rate, that's that, that's, you can work that out. Right. But that, so you do that for four minutes, then you recover active recovery for three minutes and you do it four times. Now it's hard. It is really hard. But they did this study and a number of different studies,

56:48
in their 50s and doing this protocol and using the VO2 max as well. And they reduced their hardy by about 20 years, right? And in a year of training, right? So like that is incredible. And the impact on your longevity is huge. So for me, then the basic benefits come from 30 minutes of zone two, I do want to build that up to twice a week.

57:16
one of those Norwegian protocols, plenty of getting up your arse and having just little movement snacks throughout the day and ensuring you're at least seven and a half thousand steps. Yeah. Nice one. And then strength training. Two strength training, full body circuits a week. 20 to 30 minutes of strength training, just doing a circuit, moving from one machine to the other.

57:44
I'm a big fan of people starting off on machines because it teaches the movement patterns and just go upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body, so as you don't get local muscular fatigue. But if you do that, there is five sessions a week, which is the recommended guidelines. We're doing both our cardiovascular and our strength and you will get really, really, really significant health benefits if you don't move that much. Then if we want

58:13
optimal stuff. I recommend that you do your zone two and probably more than 30 minutes, three times a week. You do the Norwegian four by four either once or twice a week or you can substitute the second one where you do 60 seconds of all out work. And that's like full intensity, 60 seconds recovery. And you repeat that six to 10 times. Again, that's hard.

58:42
These things are hard, but dying of heart disease and, and, and living 20 years of ill health is harder. So choose your heart. That's what I say to people. So you're doing your two, don't choose a Norwegian, either two Norwegians or one Norwegian and one of those 60 on 60 off. Your movement snacks and at least 10,000 steps a day. And then three to five strength training sessions a week.

59:12
And that kind of looks like my week. Yeah. But then we get into nuance stuff, right? Because the way I do strength training, some of my stuff, I'll go for 30 seconds hard and have a 10 second break, which is moved to the next exercise. I do 30 seconds and I do seven different exercises in four circuits. So I'm doing 28 sets. It's less than 20 minutes.

59:41
But when you look at my heart rate, it looks like a VO2 max session. Oh, amazing. Is this something set up by the gym or you've set this up yourself? I've got my own gym downstairs. So I just set that up myself. So doing that high intensity circuit based training can get your heart rate really high. So we actually don't need to massively separate strength and cardio. Right now, if you're doing, if you're really wanting to build strength and

01:00:10
optimized for strength, then you want to be doing three to six repetitions and then resting for a couple of minutes before you go back and do that. But I like to superset. So you might do chest and back, push and pull, right? So that you're just reducing the amount of time that you're doing. But for the vast majority of people, just doing circuit-based strength training full body, three times a week is really what you need for.

01:00:39
good health and longevity benefits. Now, if you are an athlete or something like that, or you're training for a particular sport, that's different, different gravy. Yeah. And you know, Paul, I feel like things, you know, things could, can be so as simple, not easy, but as simple as what you laid out. But then people like to add layers of complexities. And of course, gender, sex is one of those ones. And I get that question all the time.

01:01:09
these particular reasons. And I'm just really interested to know how you respond to that question. Yeah, look, females, a lot of it is dictated by whether you are, you know, what stage of life that you're in. Because if you're peri and postmenopausal, some of these things change. And it actually becomes more important that you're doing strength

01:01:38
because that drop off in estrogen is really, really bad for females. And once they go post menopausals and they have that drop in estrogen, their risks of cardiovascular disease start to catch up with men. Right? So post menopause and even in perimenopause, you have to lift more heavy shit. Right? And, and, and probably more of the

01:02:06
real true high intensity interval training and less of the long duration stuff. Right. So there, there are definitely nuances. Right. And I said, when you're younger, you got to build mass because you need to have it in your locker. So, so, and we build mass and muscle. It's mostly a volume game, whereas strength is mostly an intensity game about lifting really heavy shit. Yeah.

01:02:35
Yeah. And again, like you're speaking to someone who isn't necessarily training for a sport, they're just looking to like, how do I optimize my health as I age? And, is it fair to say that how you've outlined what you would do in a week, obviously thinking about the intensity and the heaviness of the weights, but that would actually suit someone who is in that peri phase, like, because you're lifting three to five days a week, you're keeping that intensity.

01:03:05
high and you've got some low level stuff, which is always so good for nervous system as well, which is another. Yeah, absolutely. And they've got a, it's really intensity when they're, we're peri and postmenopause, it's intensely in terms of muscle contraction, so strength, but it's also that real high VO2 max stuff and maybe less of the zone two and certainly not the kind of.

01:03:32
zone three ish stuff, you know, where they go to spin classes and stuff like that. Like a lot of that. But that can increase cortisol as well. Yeah. Right. So it's the most enjoyable zone though. So I know. If somebody's going to me, but this is what I'll do and I won't do the other stuff and go, right, cool. Let's do that. Can we sneak in some real high intensity strength stuff? Right. Because I tell you what,

01:04:01
When people start to do strength stuff and they're doing the big lifts, the squats, the dead lifts and those sorts of things, and they're starting to see their numbers go up, they will love it. They absolutely love it. And there's nothing like coming out of a true nervous system workout, right? Where you're doing those...

01:04:26
big compound movements, the heavy lifts with a bit of rest in between, like you come out and your nervous system is just out. And that's what we need, especially as we get older. And people think, people actually go, oh no, I can't do that. I'm getting older. And then they go to a doctor and they say, you need to act your age. And, you know, we need to just do a deregister doctors who say that shit.

01:04:55
because the vast majority of people aren't actually doing enough to even meet the guidelines that doing anything is always going to be better than nothing. Correct. Correct. So this is the thing. This is where, you know, the purest in me goes, okay, well, that I've got to take a back seat there and just say to people, let's just get you moving. And then let's move you towards what's optimal over time. Because what happens is when people

01:05:25
have adopted an exercise program for three to six months, they will start to voluntarily up their intensity. You know, if they have the right encouragement and stuff like that, they will up their intensity. They'll start to enjoy it a lot more. They'll start to enjoy the feeling of the pump and the burn. They just need to hang in there for three to six months and have the appropriate encouragement. Yeah. I love it, Paul. So actually not that long either. Three to six months, is it? Like not when you're as old as we are.

01:05:53
time just flies. And I tell you, I've had lots of people who've either done talks for mine or read my book and have sent me emails and gone, my life has been completely and utterly transformed. And I'm like, that is the coolest shit. That 100% is. And I am so thrilled that you took the time to chat to me this afternoon, because just your little pearls of wisdom, like that people don't hear from...

01:06:20
either pure academics or pure practitioners. You're such a good blend of both and you make it really real for the average person because you work with those people on a day-to-day basis. I mean, you work with all spectrums of people, I imagine. Well, I call myself a pracademic, so there we go. Oh, nice one. I like it. So, I mean, Paul, I've come across several of your talks and listened to them on YouTube, which is fantastic. You've got a great website where people can pick up your book,

01:06:49
That's the one. Yeah. Amazing. Where is the best place for people to actually connect if they, if they wish? Look, either on the, on the website or look, if people just want to hear more, my podcast would definitely be the one, the Paul Taylor podcast. So I, I do, I do three a week. Well, I see my wife's doing one of them. We normally do a Mojo Monday, where we talk about things, but just because I'm knee deep in my PhD, she's doing the Monday one.

01:07:20
I do what's called a wisdom Wednesday where I talk about a piece of research and then on a Saturday I interview an expert and sort of pick them apart. Anything to do with performance, well-being, all of that stuff. Oh amazing Paul. Well we'll put links to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much, this has been awesome and I know that people obviously get a lot from it. Absolute pleasure, keep doing your thing.

01:07:59
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed that conversation with Paul. I really enjoyed chatting to him and I love listening to him present. And I don't doubt that after this, you'll be searching out more on him. And he is all over the internet actually, so he is not hard to find. Definitely check out his podcast. Next week on Wikipedia though, I speak to Dr. Andreas Einfeld about satiety per calorie and Harvard, a new way to look at food.

01:08:27
I have previously spoken to Tim Naiman on the topic, this was last year so it's really great to get an update and Andreas' perspective. Until then though, why not sign up to my unlocking metabolic mastery webinar that is taking place next week on Wednesday, I'm doing it twice to catch as many people as possible in the lead up to Mondays Matter, and I am talking you through evidence based strategies for fat loss as we're kicking on into the new season.

01:08:55
You can do that over at my website, mikkiwilliden.com. Hit me up on Instagram, Twitter, and threads @mikkiwilliden, or head to Facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition and you can find me there as well. All right, team, you have the best week. Speak soon, bye.