#296 The Critical Importance of Strength Training and Eating More Protein with Dr Gabrielle Lyon

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee

My guest today believes that the single biggest problem with our health these days is not that we carry too much fat but that we don’t carry enough muscle. She believes that if we start to focus and prioritise our largest organ – our muscle – we can burn more fat, improve our body composition, decrease our risk of disease and increase our energy levels.

Dr Gabrielle Lyon is a family medicine and osteopathic doctor who has specialised in geriatric care. What she’s seen and learned as an end-of-life physician has led her to investigate the importance of skeletal muscle as a means for people to live longer, stronger and better lives. She now focuses her practice on what she calls Muscle-centric Medicine.

In this conversation, Gabrielle makes the case that the quality of our lives is in direct correlation to the health our muscles. Gaining muscle, she explains, won’t just help us slim down. It can change metabolism, reversing insulin resistance and other risk factors for chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. And it’s equally important for reducing sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), protecting our skeleton, improving mobility and balance, and reducing fall risk with age.

Many of us aren’t aware that we lose muscle mass from as early as our 30s - so for most of us, it’s something we need to prioritise immediately. Gabrielle explains what type of protein we should be eating and how much, we cover what exact combination of exercise Gabrielle recommends to her patients and we discuss why for women in their peri-menopausal years, muscle loss is a very real problem that needs addressing.

Gabrielle is realistic about the amount of effort her recommendations require and I find it really refreshing that she’s not trying to sugar-coat anything to make it more palatable. She’s someone who deeply cares about the health of her patients and wider society and wants to empower us all with practical knowledge that will help improve the quality of our lives.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Gabrielle – I hope you enjoy listening. Gabrielle also has her own podcast The Dr Gabrielle Lyon Show https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-gabrielle-lyon-show/id1622316426

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Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/296

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