A Midlife Journey of Health and Strength with Denise Kirtley

In this week's SuperAge podcast, we delve into Denise Kirtley's vital midlife transformation from overweight and pre-diabetic, to empowered and strong. Denise shares her journey of overcoming common misconceptions about fitness and weight loss in midlife, emphasizing the importance of a tailored approach to nutrition and exercise. She discusses how setting personal goals and dreams played a crucial role in moving beyond societal expectations. Denise also highlights the oft-overlooked impact of physical strength on mental well-being and confidence, inspiring others in similar life stages. The conversation is a testament to the power of self-care and the potential for transformation at any age.

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Key Moments
“Aesthetics was a goal of mine, but more importantly, as I had gained weight, my health declined. And what did that look like? I became pre-diabetic. I started having joint pain in my knees specifically. Unfortunately, I have 50 stairs from the ground level to my front door. I had to go up and down the stairs every day.”

“Before, I wasn't even very good about getting my blood work done regularly. Now I do it twice a year. That's a huge part of my health regimen. I take supplements based on what my blood work says. And I think you have to be intentional like this if you want to age strong and healthy and vibrant.”

“They see me muscular and in a bikini. And at 53, they say ‘that's not what someone should be doing.’ I do feel there is some of this ageism in those comments. I really do feel that. I also think we're very focused on: ‘well, you were fine before. Why did you do that?' – I wasn't fine. Right. I was pre-diabetic. I woke up exhausted. I felt like crap most days, right? My quality of life was poor. So I think we need to get beyond what we see and realize that this was a health journey.”

Connect with Denise
Rebellion Body
Contact
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

What kind of super-ager are you? Go to Agestcom slash quiz. Take the super-ager quiz and we'll send you directed, personalized information to help you super-age the best that you can. Welcome to super-age. My name is David Stewart. I am the founder of Agest and your host on the super-age show. We talk about how to live healthier, how to live longer and how to be happier and who doesn't want that? Today's show is brought to you by Divvy Haircare products specifically designed for men and women who are concerned with hair loss and scalp health. Go to DivvyOfficialcom. Slash Agest. Save 20% off your first order. Today's show is also brought to you by Timeline Nutrition with their breakthrough product, mytopure, the first clinically tested urolithin A supplement which is showing tremendous results for mitochondrial health. Go to TimelineNutritioncom. Slash Agest. Use the code AGEST at checkout and save 10% off your first order of Mytopure. This show is also brought to you by Element L-M-N-T, my favorite electrolyte mix. It's what I put in my water in the morning and it's what I put in my water at the gym. Go to drinkelementcom. Slash Agest and receive a free eight serving sample pack with any purchase.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Welcome to episode 167 of the super-age podcast. This will be dropping on January, the 17th 2024. Today we are in the very, very snowy and cold mountains of Utah. There have been something like six feet of snow have arrived in the last four days and although that's not that unusual around here, it's unusual to get all that at once. There really wasn't that much snow this year until like last week. And then boom, and now walking down the sidewalks there's like a corridor with walls of snow on either side and it's cold and it's blowing, and there was actually so much snow, especially with the high winds, there was really no skiing, it was just unsafe. They couldn't open the list, there was too much avalanche danger. So yeah, too much, too little. Nobody's happy.

Speaker 1: 2:19

This week on the show we've got Denise Kurtley, who we profiled in Agest Magazine a couple of weeks ago, and I was so impressed with her. I really wanted her on the show so you could hear her voice and hear her talk a little bit about her transformation, her physical transformation, how it changed her identity, her sense of who she was, and she now works with other women. She gave up her previous business and now all she does is work with women to help them do the same thing, and one of the things we're going to talk about is this idea of dreaming, and it was Martin Luther King's birthday this week, and I thought this would be a great theme. As we know, martin gave one of the most memorable speeches in human history. I have a Dream, an incredible speech.

Speaker 1: 3:04

It just brings me to this idea of are we allowed to have dreams? This is actually something we're going to speak more in depth with Denise, but I've given it some thought, because someone has asked me what were my dreams, not my goals. What were my dreams in six or seven areas of my life? It was really quite a process to write those down and articulate those. Writing that down required sort of fighting against this, what I can only call a parentally installed voice in my head which tells me who do you think you are voice To dream so big? How dare you? And if you dream big, well, you're just going to be disappointed because you're never going to get there and just settle down and become right size like the rest of us. It's one of the least favorite parts of myself is that little voice in there in my head that I feel like I've spent many decades pushing against, and I'm thinking, though, that I'm not particularly singular in this.

Speaker 1: 4:09

I think that for so many of us, this idea of what's the dream, like what's the thing that would really make it amazing, that it would really make it wondrous, like what is that? And to think about that, this idea that you know, when we're younger, there seems to be sort of an inverse relationship between age and dreams. Right that we're? When we're younger, we're allowed to dream big because there's all this possibility. And then as we get older, actually in a lot of ways, our capacity to manifest these dreams increases. However, the dreams themselves decrease. Like we don't really allow ourselves to dream big because maybe we got kicked around a little bit, or you know, like well, I don't deserve it now, or maybe I can't do it, or I don't know what it is. One of the missions at age is probably our primary mission has always been in these last nine years that we've been doing this is to help expand people's imagination of what is possible. So you can have a pretty good idea. That thought a lot about this.

Speaker 1: 5:14

What struck me when this person asked what's your dream? What do you really want to do? It was so hard for me to go there, to like allow myself to go there, so we're going to get with Denise and we're going to talk a little bit more about that. And I just want to say, like, for all you guys out there who are listening to this, like, if not now, when? And yeah, we deserve these bigger dreams and maybe we make them come true and maybe we don't, but the journey and the struggle is worth it. And I just want to say like, go, go, go, I do it. What's on your mind? What are your dreams? I don't know. If you want to share them with us, we'll put them on the air, on the air on the podcast David SuperHcom. You know what my email is? Hit me up. We're going to get with Denise currently, in just a moment, after a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 1: 6:01

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Speaker 1: 7:00

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Speaker 1: 7:33

Do you want to take back control of your hair and scalp health and do it with clean, science-backed ingredients? We have a special offer for those listening to the SuperAge Podcast and for the Agest audience. Go to diviofficialcom. Slash A-G-I-S. That's D-I-V-I-O-F-F-I-C-I-A-Lcom. Slash A-G-I-S-T. Or enter A-G-I-S-T at checkout and get 20% off your first order. Quick reminder stay with us after my interview with Denise Curtley, which is really pretty great for just try this. You know that little tidbit that we put in every week to help you live a little healthier, a little longer, maybe with a little more joy. That's right after my conversation with Denise Curtley. Let's give Denise a call right now. Hey Denise, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 8:19

How are you, David? It's so good to see you again.

Speaker 1: 8:21

I'm good. As you're recording this, I got an email from my HOA. I live in Park City, utah and they said the largest storm ever Ever in Park City is expected this weekend. So we're expected 48 inches of snow in two days. That's an inch an hour, oh, and 45 mile an hour winds. And they said we're sorry, but our plows aren't gonna be able to keep up with this. I just came back from Whole Foods was like that's a food cuz I might be maroon.

Speaker 2: 8:47

You're gonna be in survival mode. Well, I'm in LA. It was 40 degrees when I woke up and I thought I was like in the dead of winter, got my big coat out, so, yeah, that's a different level.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Yeah, well, la 40 degrees is survival mode. I mean, come on.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Yes, I know we're suffering for sure. Well, good luck with that. That's scary actually.

Speaker 1: 9:07

I mean, if it happens the way they are saying, if they're not gonna be low of ski resorts or like anything else, there's just gonna be like too much. So well, whatever, there's always scary times.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Good luck with.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Netflix.

Speaker 2: 9:19

Exactly, you can catch up on some good shows.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Okay, so let's introduce you to the SuperAge audience. Tell me a little bit about some of your background and your journey and where you are now okay.

Speaker 2: 9:31

So I'm a middle-aged woman, I'm 53 years old. I'll start there. I had been on a transformation journey, so I think what women do is they do two things in life. They put their needs on hold, for often, either they're raising a family or they're focused on a career. I had been focused on my career as an entrepreneur and I kind of ignored myself right For a few decades, like a lot of women do, and at age 49, the things that used to work no longer worked. It's a very common story, perry. Menopause hit. I'd gained a lot of weight over a period of about four years and in the middle of COVID I just decided that was enough. And I started on the same day Tracking macros, eating more protein and working out with weights, which I had never done before.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I want to stop you. Yes, provoked that moment when it was like this is okay to this is not okay. What happened there?

Speaker 2: 10:21

Well, I think it was a few things. One, I was home and, like a lot of people, during COVID I was coping even more with food and, frankly, alcohol. I was drinking wine almost every night For a couple months during COVID. I told myself I was European and that was fine, because that's what the Europeans do, but right a lot of all your during COVID, right, you know, yeah, and I had gained 15 pounds like within a few months.

Speaker 2: 10:49

And the biggest thing for me and I've talked about this, my aha moment was I had to take off my wedding rings because my fingers grew too large for them. And there was something that clicked in me and I was like this is just enough, I've had it. I had hit my threshold and from then on, I I saw it a way to change my life and I had actually seen. I'll share with you. I saw Joan McDonald on Instagram, right, and she started weight training at seven years old. Yes, I saw her photos and I could not get it out of my mind and I was like I want to do what she's doing right. So I sought out macros, I started lifting weights the same day and Within eight months, I had lost 50. Well, actually about nine months 55 pounds and I had increased my muscle mass.

Speaker 2: 11:34

More than anything, the most important thing was I was getting strong and I, along the way, I had fallen in love with bodybuilding and I ended up competing from the day I started, 27 months, months later, in a body, my first bodybuilding competition. So it was just. It's been a remarkable journey, and then from there I ended up leaving the company that I had formed. 22 years ago, I founded a new company aimed at helping midlife women get strong in their bodies, because I think that's critical as we age. So my company, rebellion body, was founded this year to help other women get strong too.

Speaker 1: 12:11

I want to go right at some of this. Okay, there are a couple things that people get stuck on with this. The one is the weight number, the poundage, which is something I like to stay away from. I don't really think that's the issue here, but I talked to me about the number, like that was the number that you referenced.

Speaker 2: 12:30

So talk to me a little bit about that first of all, I think we all need to be comfortable in our bodies. I felt one uncomfortable in my body because I had gained, you know, so much weight over a period of four, four years. I was like most women. I had those clothes in my closet. I wanted them to fit again right. I kept those old clothes. I personally think if you want to lose weight and that's a goal there's nothing wrong with that. We all have that choice, right? That was a goal of mine.

Speaker 2: 12:55

But more importantly, as I had gained weight, my health declined. And what did that look like? I became pre-diabetic. I Started having joint pain, in my knees specifically. Unfortunately, I have 50 stairs from the ground level to my front door. I had to go up and down the stairs every day. It had become painful. So I had gone to the doctor and he said you have arthritis in your knees and you need to lose weight to take this pressure off your joints. I had a stop About 20 stairs up right. Each time I would get so exhausted. So it wasn't just about the weight, but in order to improve my health and increase, you know, make these health markers improve.

Speaker 1: 13:37

That was one of the parts of my journey that was necessary for me and it didn't prove you mentioned you were pre-diabetic and I've got to remember I can't pull the statistic out of my head here, but it's something like 80% of Americans are in some form of metabolic disease, diabetes being one of them, and pre-diabetic We'd also be sort of categorizing that. How did your pre-diabetic state? How did that change with your transformation? How did that happen?

Speaker 2: 14:07

I started really paying attention and being intentional about what I ate and really monitoring. I mean before, honestly, it was like there was a lot of pizza. I was a binge eater. I mean, I've been honest about this, I was an emotional and binge eater. The way I would deal with stress was I I would eat, and it Would happen late at night, and I'd go in my pantry and if there was a bag of chips or a big thing of chocolate I'd eat the entire thing, right, it wasn't like a little like it would be the whole thing and so clearly that cost it.

Speaker 2: 14:34

So when I started eating more protein, I really prioritized protein. I can't stress enough how important that is for muscle building and retention. I cleaned up my diet. I really aim to eat 80% whole natural foods. Then when I got my blood work done again you know after it was probably a year later I was in the normal range. So you know I wasn't very good about even getting my blood work done regularly. Then now I do it twice a year. That's really part of my health regimen to really monitor. I take supplements based on what my blood work says and I think you have to be intentional like this if you want to age Strong and healthy and vibrantly.

Speaker 1: 15:13

I agree 100%. I just want to circle back to this. Yes, because I think people confuse Vanity, appearance and it's nothing more vanity. I think if Vanity is going to get you healthy, bring it on.

Speaker 1: 15:24

Right, exactly, but that's fine yeah if that's the channel that's going to get you there right on. But I think there's people confuse appearance with health and One of the things about building muscle. I'm gonna diagnose you. I'm not a doctor, I'm not as like. As long as you're a diagnosis, you hear sort of two things happen You've reduced the glycemic load in the food you were eating.

Speaker 1: 15:44

Yes, that cut down the glucose and the insulin resistance. It's actually that you were experiencing your body and by building muscle. So muscles does a lot of things for us besides like helping us lift things up and be confident. It's a glucose sink. It's the biggest glucose sink in our body. So the more muscle you have, the more glucose your body can handle before you go into overload. One of the things that I found most surprisingly recently is that if you have these glucose spikes, you're gonna cause inflammation through your whole body. Very bad causes, all kinds of long-term problems. But it also seems to carbohydrate load. There's nothing. I eat a lot of carbohydrates because I need them for energy.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Yeah but they'd also it will convert to your blood lipids. So your LDL, your APOB, stuff like that's gonna go up. And one of the more interesting things is by building muscle and eating more protein. For a lot of people their lipid levels go down in a way counterintuitive, but that seems to be what happens.

Speaker 2: 16:46

Yes, and I also think eating five times a day helps to keep those, those levels, more, more level right. That that really has improved things as well. And I eat protein dose throughout the day to really help with protein synthesis and I think all those things together, combined with the weight training you know, that really makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 17:05

I can be very prescriptive with people about like Sleep and fitness and so that his food is really personal it is. I know some people that are Olympic level sort of athletes and they'll eat like once a day or twice a day. That doesn't work for me. I still sort of eat all the time. I think that it's this sort of goes into like know your body, which is what you're talking about. Like, yes, get to know what works for you and you know, different things work for different people.

Speaker 2: 17:33

I agree with that and I talk about this a lot where I feel like I didn't really learn about my body till I was 50, which is kind of weird because you're living in this body for 50 years. But you know what? I didn't really have to pay attention Because I could just go along my day right and I was relatively healthy most of my life. And then, all of a sudden, you know your hormones start to change, paramezant metapause happen, things change and what you have to do is start learning about yourself, what works for you, getting very in tune with your body and being intentional about your health.

Speaker 1: 18:06

That is required if you're going to H1 100%, and I strangely have a number of people who are either afraid to learn about how this works they're not dumb, I mean, it's not like they can't learn. They're just sort of afraid of it, and then they also don't believe they have agency in the situation. This is just some grim reality that must be accepted and they can't have any effect on it.

Speaker 2: 18:30

Yes, and that's the narrative we have to change. I would even go so far as to say, if a doctor tells me to do something now, I really don't immediately say yes, I think about it and I sit with it and I think about if that's the right choice for me, and sometimes the answer is no, because we know. I believe if we can really tune into what's going on with us, we know best right what works for us. For instance, I had a doctor say I needed to go off gluten. I was having some gut issues. So I wanted to explore that. I did. I was worse, my stomach like bloated, I was worse and I was like you know what? No, that isn't right for me. I stopped eating gluten. I felt 100 times better, right, so it's not always just about getting the healthcare. It's then doing that check and saying, yeah, but is that right for me? Because we are all unique. There is not one size fits all when it comes to health.

Speaker 1: 19:23

I think one of the biggest changes like since I was young, where our practitioners were just sort of something that they worked in, this sort of mysterious sort of Wizard of Oz behind the curtain sort of thing To now.

Speaker 1: 19:34

I feel like they're partners and they're highly informed, highly educated. They're really good ones. Yeah, we need them. We need these people, and then to sort of work back and forth and suggest something. You know, if I'm going to try something new, if I think it's I'm not quite sure what it's going to do to me I'll contact one of my docs and say, hey, I'm thinking about this, what do you think? Is this okay? And I wait till I hear back from them.

Speaker 2: 19:57

You have a good doctor. I think those are harder to find right. I think the ones that are interactive in that way. I do think it's a trend, I think it's becoming more common, but there's still too few. There's still way too few. It's not. I still hear from women all the time that even have a hard time getting their hormones tested. They don't know where to go right Because their doctor doesn't want to do it.

Speaker 1: 20:17

Oh my God, don't get me started on that.

Speaker 2: 20:19

Yeah, oh my God, oh my God Like.

Speaker 1: 20:22

OBGYNs. I mean, my wife goes through this. She has an OBGYN. She told me what the doc said to her and I said this woman's a moron. Like fire her. What is she talking about? And okay, sort of harsh words. But there's a lot of OBGYNs are just essentially there. They're fertility doctors.

Speaker 2: 20:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:41

And menopause and premenopause and how to manage hormonal transition is just. It's just not in the playbook and it's hard to find people who are. You're correct.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Yes, and you know, what we're seeing a lot of and I actually really love this is, if you go now on Instagram, there's a lot of women who are doctors, who are very outspoken about this is what happens to your body and menopause, and they're really focusing on educating women. We didn't have that exposure before, you know, and they have these huge followings because women want this information and you would think you're getting it from your doctor, but that's just not always the case. So I love to see this trend of these popular menopause doctors who are really sharing. You know, this is what you're going through and this is why and this is what you can do about it. We need more of that and I think we're only going to see more of it because women really want to learn these things.

Speaker 1: 21:28

For people out there, finding the right practitioners is really hard. I'm sort of going through this with a GP who's in my locale and asking around and I'll say I'm trying to figure out, like, how do I screen one of the screens? I sort of thought I was like, okay, send me the blood tests that you do on intake. And of course you never get to talk to the doc. You get to talk like somebody in the front and they're like well, that'll be determined by your visit. And it's like well, no, don't you just have like a standard thing Like what's the panel Right? And they're like, well, no, no, you got to. So that was my adventure today. It's hard and I think, especially with women's health, for so many reasons, it's extra hard.

Speaker 2: 22:08

I agree, and what I have found is sometimes the best person is not local to you, and so I've been taking advantage of like one of my doctors is in Florida, I'm in California, right, so I will do these telehealth appointments and they'll I'll get the blood work here done locally. So I would tell people, you know, if you can find someone that you think is great in your area. I think you can do a lot remotely. I really do.

Speaker 1: 22:30

That's a great suggestion. Let's go to. We are ages Instagram. We profiled you, yes, two weeks ago. It was great, wonderful. So if anybody hasn't read that, go to agescom and you'll see this amazing profile of Denise and her majestic red dress.

Speaker 2: 22:46

Oh, thank you, that was a moment. I had a moment in that dress.

Speaker 1: 22:50

You did good, it was good you worked it.

Speaker 2: 22:51

It was fun yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:52

We put a post up about that, yes, and we got a lot of comments. We did you want to talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 2: 22:58

Yes. So it's funny because when I first, I really did not expect it to be controversial. I really didn't but then after I started seeing some of the comments, I wasn't totally surprised because I have had some posts on my Instagram. When it goes to a wider audience, Sometimes you hit people that aren't looking for like a fitness content and you get these variety of comments. So there was a lot of comments about you looked better before. You know, because we had a before and after. You looked fine, right, they were very weight focused. There were people that said you shouldn't show women, you know, with a barbell doing squats, because that's very unapproachable for other women. And then there was a controversy about even showing a before and after. So I was.

Speaker 2: 23:45

It was very interesting for me to read those. My first thought was and I think this is true I think if I were 25 or 35, some of those comments wouldn't have happened, because I do feel like we have normalized my before body as what midlife women look like, right, it's kind of I wasn't super overweight, I was technically overweight, my BMI was overweight, but then you see me muscular and in a bikini and at 53, that's not what someone should be doing. I do feel there is some of this ageism in those comments. I really do feel that. I also think you know, we're very focused on well, you were fine before. Why did you do that? You were fine.

Speaker 2: 24:30

I wasn't fine, right, I was pre-diabetic. I woke up exhausted, I felt like crap most days. Right, my quality of life was poor. So I think we need to get beyond what you see and realize that this was a health journey. It was about getting strong. This is about living vibrantly as we age, and the person that I was before was not on that path. Right, I was on a downward spiral, if anything. So I again. Those two things really bothered me, that we're not willing to look below the surface and maybe like maybe this wasn't just about weight. Right, it's about getting strong. Let's focus on I'm obviously more muscular. But two, I think part of it was my age, and I think seeing a 53-year-old woman in a bikini is unacceptable For a percent of the population. I do, oh.

Speaker 1: 25:17

I have so much to say about this.

Speaker 2: 25:18

I know we could just talk for hours on this one right, I agree.

Speaker 1: 25:22

And I think that the weight thing is totally triggering.

Speaker 2: 25:27

And I understand why. Yes, I do too.

Speaker 1: 25:29

I would really like to move all discussion of this area away from the weight thing, because I just think it twists people up. The problems, the health problems, prediabetes, things like this. So there are people who do not really retain subcutaneous fat, which is what we normally see as fat, and instead what they do is they store their fat viscerally, genetically. Some people just don't see on the outside of their body, but it's on the inside of their body and they're essentially skinny, fat people. That visceral fat is around their organs and it's going to cause exactly the same problems as it does with somebody who carries their weight on the outside in a subcutaneous manner which is more visible to us.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Both of these things are health conditions, and the health consequences of being overweight, of having, we'll just say having visceral fat, are well documented, right? So we're talking about heart disease, we're talking about cancer, we're talking about Alzheimer's, we're talking about diabetes, not to mention feeling horrible all the time. So this is something the body positivity movement, which, on the one hand, is love yourself the way you are, and I'm 100% behind that, me too, me too, I think the only way you or Joan, or really anyone that I've spoken to who's gone through this. That's like sort of step one, like un-worsed. I'm going to do this for me.

Speaker 2: 26:58

Right, on the other hand, you have to, by the way really love yourself. To do a transformation, it comes from loving yourself.

Speaker 1: 27:04

Yes, that's right, that's right, it's not, it's. And I think that that's the first step, Saying to yourself I am worth this and I can do this. So those are sort of the two things that the one has to, you know, get in mind. But back to this body positivity thing. Quite frankly, this is BS. It makes me I know I'm going to go all kinds of hate mail because I'm saying but I'm like, oh, we're going there, oh boy, Okay, here we go.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Yeah, I'm going there. Obesity is a disease state. Let's get real about that. What's happened here is because 70% of the population is overweight, 30% is obese and a large fraction is morbidly obese. Yes, we have normalized this. We've said that. Oh well, on average, suppose, on average people smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. We'd say that's okay.

Speaker 2: 27:55

Right.

Speaker 1: 27:56

No, we would not. That's what's going on here. I think that there's a lot of issues here. There's the food supply, there's the sort of advertising, there's like a lot of stuff that goes into this and it is not people's fault and I really want to emphasize that. I agree with you. There's been an enormous amount of pressures on this, like, as you said, the emotional pressure oh I just going to eat something or the societal pressure of it's just like on and on and on. That does not make it right. I feel rather strongly about this. I know I spent a year in a hospital with an autoimmune thing. You do not want this and that's the trajectory Hospital beds, tubes, bad stuff, nasty and so I think that's the answer. This is not where you want to go. Julie, who we've had on the program, has said you get to pick your heart.

Speaker 2: 28:53

And that's really hard.

Speaker 1: 28:53

No, I agree, so I'm going to shut up.

Speaker 2: 28:58

That's the end of my soapbox. No, I get that and I think right, it's a problem we have in this country. Other countries aren't like this right To this extent, so I don't know what the solution is. But again, I think it goes back to we all have to be intentional about our health.

Speaker 2: 29:11

And it is about health. You have one life and you want to be able to live it fully. That's right. That's right. That's my whole thing. I want to be like 90 and being able to climb up my stairs and it not be a problem and like really get all the juice out of life, and you can't do that if you're not healthy.

Speaker 1: 29:31

I just want to tell people like all you guys out there who are listening to this and thinking like, oh my God, this guy is like a moralist asshole. No, well, maybe a moralist asshole, but you care, I just I care. I want you guys to have the best possible life you can. Yes, this is, of course. Everybody likes to look good. You want to look in the mirror and be like, oh yeah, I look great. That's just part of this. It's a very small part of it.

Speaker 2: 29:58

It is a very small part healthy.

Speaker 1: 30:02

I want you to feel great about yourselves. I don't want you going in for dialysis or some kind of stuff. Like you don't want that. And this is hard, like what we're talking about here, being intentional, understanding our bodies. You know we're these practitioners. It requires work. It's hard, oh, which brings me to the question I want to ask you because a lot of times I have a lot of fun, so they know what they know I have fun. But I want to ask you, like you know, what you're talking about here is a fairly you have to be. You've got to sleep, you've got to. You know there's like a lot of food you don't eat. You've got to, like, go to the gym, but it's not all. Like you know, hair, shirt, sort of stuff, right, like this allows you to have fun, exactly.

Speaker 2: 30:47

Exactly no, and to do it fully right, you can travel. I feel I have. You know what it is. This is the most important thing. I have energy and I didn't before, and that honestly changes everything. I would wake up in the morning tired, like after sleeping. You know, I just opened my eyes and I'd be tired before, and now I wake up and I'm ready to go and you know what I'm excited about my life and my future, because when you go through a transformation and you have to be disciplined, right?

Speaker 2: 31:17

If you're gonna not give up on yourself, you're gonna show up for yourself every day. You got to create these habits and you're disciplined. You're also working on your mindset while you're doing this, and I had you know I have goals and dreams for my future now that are very compelling, that I would never have been bold enough to dream before. Right, I mean, I am excited about my life and I have energy to execute these things. That is the gold that comes from transformation. It's not about me standing there in a bikini and feeling like, okay, whatever, this is what makes it worth it, this mindset, this attitude, this excitement for what's to come, because if you're in your 50s, or even your 60s or 70s, you might have decades left. We're not just gonna sit in a corner right Like we want to have. We want to live this life. That's what it's about.

Speaker 1: 32:10

I think that's so beautiful, what you've done through your Instagram and the work that you've done, and really for anyone who does something like this, you've expanded your own personal imagination of what's possible.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Yes.

Speaker 1: 32:22

But you've let other people know, and this is the whole reason ageist exists is because we just we say like this is now on the menu, you can do this.

Speaker 2: 32:32

Yes, yes, you don't have to do it.

Speaker 1: 32:34

You can do whatever you want to do. I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but if you want to, you can do this. And yes, everyone who's listening out there, who thinks you're invisible, I got news for you You're not no. People see you wherever you go and if you follow your dreams, if you do things like what Denise did, people see that, and if you don't, people also see that. Anytime you leave the house, you're sending out a message. You are not invisible and the work that you do on yourself is contagious. It sends a ripple through everyone. You guys count. You really count. That's another reason why this is important.

Speaker 2: 33:18

Agree, every person makes a difference in this world, every single one. Right? People tell me I inspire them, which I, to me, is one of my biggest life sonars. Right, I get emotional about that, but I'm not special. It's just because I showed up for myself and I was consistent and people saw that I could do it and they started to believe they could do that too. We all have that power. There is nothing special about what I've done. I wasn't like any sort of an athlete, right, I'm just a normal woman. Like we can all do that. And if you set the example and more people believe, man, you can really make a dent in this narrative that like we have no living left to do in midlife, that it's all about decline. Like we can really change what this looks like and that's the impact I want my life to have.

Speaker 1: 34:05

Going back to something you said earlier, which I agree with, that a lot of the sort of pushback you're getting is because of your age. This idea that and I think it's multi-fold here that either a woman cannot or, worse, could not, Should not, absolutely should not.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Yeah, that's the thing which is a whole other sort of like.

Speaker 1: 34:26

I don't know, you know, if that's the patriarchy or some kind of Calvinist BS or I don't know what that's about, but that's definitely a vibe out there.

Speaker 2: 34:37

Oh, it is, it is, and it's not just me. You see any other woman in midlife who's wearing a short dress. Or even Joan gets this. You know her little athletic outfit she looks amazing in. I know she loves to be fashionable dress cute. I see that she gets this backlash. You know when did we decide that at a certain age you had to fit this mold and if you didn't, it just was totally unacceptable. You know, like why can't we wear what we feel good in? Who cares? But you know what the beauty is about. Midlife is, and I'm sure you've experienced this too. When I had 50, I stopped caring. You just don't care anymore, right? What people think? Oh, I still care.

Speaker 2: 35:15

I absolutely care. I'm like I'm gonna wear when I'm gonna wear and if you don't like it, that's okay with me. I'm okay with that, right. But it is a thing. And why I want to highlight this is I want to change this narrative. I think it all goes back to this narrative about decline, decline, decline, decline. That's what we're supposed to do is decline, and if you're not declining and you're wearing things, you're not supposed to have muscle and all this stuff. It's a problem. It shouldn't be. I want it to be like. Midlife can look amazing, you know it can look like anything you wanted to look like. My saying is my my followers know this. I always say we get to choose. We get to choose how we age and I choose to age strong and you know what? I work damn hard and if I'm gonna wear a short dress sometimes, I'm gonna wear short dress. You know that's okay.

Speaker 1: 36:05

One of the other things that I've heard is that, oh, she's just trying to like, look like she's 20. She wants to meet that age again.

Speaker 2: 36:14

Yes.

Speaker 1: 36:15

What's up with that?

Speaker 2: 36:17

I have no idea. I think, again, it's about that's acceptable, right? I get that I'm narcissistic, right, that I'm putting myself out there in bikinis or that I want attention. Frankly, I hadn't comment today on that post that said I look like a porno model, I'm wearing a bikini, right. And I commented back. I don't actually know what that looks like, so I have to take your word for that. But you know it's like it is triggering and I think it's again. It's just about. You know you get to midlife and it's supposed to look a certain way and if it doesn't, it's just not acceptable. It's just not acceptable.

Speaker 1: 36:57

Again, I'm gonna get some hate mail for what I'm gonna say here.

Speaker 2: 36:59

I get hate mail, it's alright, that's okay, you know what I think and I'm gonna. I'll tell you this real quick. I actually like when I get these comments, because what I have realized in social media if you walk the middle ground and you're just not saying anything controversial, you're not inspiring anybody. If you want to inspire someone and be on one end of the spectrum, the opposite end of the spectrum is you're offending. And I know when I'm offending people I get these comments. That's a good post, because now I'm inspiring others and I'm willing to offend in order to inspire. That, to me, is a good trade-off.

Speaker 1: 37:32

I just want to make the distinction here between acceptance and shaming. Yes, right, shaming, no go. I don't care what you're up to with that. That's not acceptable. You're not shaming people for their gender, for their weight, okay, religious beliefs, for any of that, you know. Stop that crap. That's different than what we're talking about here. I just want to be Clear about that.

Speaker 2: 37:57

I agree with absolutely a hundred percent. We have to love each other and ourselves. Right it, just it, it's. Yeah, I think as a society we're so caught up in the physical and the appearance that we just miss what's important a lot. I think that's the overreaching thing and Again, I think what we're both saying and what's most important is that if you want to live a long, vibrant life, you've got to be healthy and strong.

Speaker 1: 38:24

So let's let's go to one of the sort of misconceptions. Here Is then and we get this a lot it's if you're a woman and you lift weight, especially lift heavy weight. Yes you're gonna turn into Arnold. Um yes, by the way, arnold only looked like Arnold because he was on massive doses of antibiotics. Arnold doesn't look like Arnold.

Speaker 2: 38:46

No, exactly, he doesn't look like he used to right now. And and all those weight lifters of the you know 80s and 90s they were all on who knows what. But no, that's absolutely true. There's this thing about bulking, and I get this all the time from women I don't bulk up, I don't want to bulk up, I don't want to get bulky. And someone said once that's like saying you want, don't want to drive a car, because you're gonna become Michael Schumacher right Like it doesn't happen.

Speaker 2: 39:10

Right, like you know, you don't want to swim because you don't want to become Michael Phelps. You have to be for, you know, a decade or more. That's your entire existence, right? You are so dedicated at this. Believe me, like the average person, that's never gonna happen. And what I can tell you is what I have learned, and I still have women that I coach They'll say I don't want to work my legs because I get bulky really easily.

Speaker 2: 39:34

A lot of times that's because it's not just the muscles are growing real fast, like you're not. You know genetically, so you know, different than everybody else, that your muscles are all of a sudden growing at this exceptional rate. It's that a lot of times it's about losing the body fat so you reveal the muscle, right. A lot of times it's like you weren't the size, maybe, that you wanted to be in the beginning, and then you start to lift weight and you start to see a little bit of definition and it's it's about to see that muscle. You get lean. It's not that you're growing these enormous muscles Eventually. Initially it's not. Yeah, it's not a thing. It's not a thing. It's not gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 40:09

I'm five eleven and a half. I weigh a hundred and sixty eight pounds. Well, I'm ski racing, so I don't lift weight like I used to, but start April I will again. So you know. I'm in the gym five days a week. I eat a lot of protein. There is no reality on earth.

Speaker 2: 40:26

I'm gonna be in the NFL like I'm, just that my genetics aren't gonna allow that no, and I've been, you know, building five days a week for three and a half years To gain. Now you get new big gains. New big gains are an amazing thing. You can build a lot of muscle your first year, but after that, yeah, it's very hard and you build just a little bit every year and you work very hard for that. So, believe me, yeah, don't worry about getting bulky, it's not happening.

Speaker 1: 40:52

This is wonderful. I'm so glad you came on the show. A lot of feedback on this.

Speaker 2: 40:58

We're just talking what's in our heart.

Speaker 1: 41:01

It's, you know, a few years ago we interviewed dr Connie Mariano. For ages he was the director of White House Medical under three presidents. First, filipino rear, admiral, wonderful woman, and she's now has a medical practice in Arizona. And we were talking about you know so the stuff we're talking about, and about you know getting people healthy. And she said the favorite way to get women into the gym is if their daughters are getting married and they want to buff out their arms.

Speaker 2: 41:31

I love that.

Speaker 1: 41:31

Like she's, like we use the vanity to get them in there and once they start going, we just keep them going.

Speaker 2: 41:38

Yes, yes and I think actually a lot of transformations start that way, right, you think I just I want to look better. And then you get into it and pretty quickly you realize it's not really about that. You start to feel better, right, you see these changes. You start to feel strong and I will tell you I didn't understand what feeling and my strong in my body felt like Until I started lifting weights and then it became addicting. I was like I felt like I could do anything. Right, I can carry my groceries up the 50 stairs with no problem. That was unthinkable before. I can go on a plane and know I can put that luggage in the overhead bin. That is not a problem for me. You start to feel really capable and that is an amazing feeling. That's addicting.

Speaker 1: 42:21

I hurt my arm surfing and I couldn't like my left arm sort of didn't work for about a year and I felt, yes, I had terrible like tendonitis issues and wow, um, you know, repetitive motion from the surfing. Surfing is really not surfing. Surfing is just like endless swimming, essentially.

Speaker 2: 42:39

People think it's like all about riding this way, it's a lot of just bad like.

Speaker 1: 42:44

So you know, one of the things I noticed when my arm was hurt was how vulnerable I felt.

Speaker 1: 42:49

Yes, I felt really vulnerable out in the world and I noticed this vulnerability made me more fearful of not just physical things but Everything like, yes, new ideas, new people. I just didn't. I didn't have the sort of Elasticity to say like, oh okay, that's all right, let's, let's think about that. Or oh yeah, you're cool, all right. And then, once my arm got better and I felt not, not Vulnerable. So this sort of idea of strong Body or feeling, having the sense that you feel strong within yourself, it goes across A lot of different other areas besides just being on pick stuff up. It's your ability to deal with with new things, things that would be threatening or fearful to you. You're able to say just like oh Okay, what's that like, what do you like? Like, tell me about yourself. Rather than just like, oh, my god, I'm really scared to stay away from me 100%.

Speaker 2: 43:50

I think that as you get strong, it builds confidence right in your mind. You really feel more capable in your body and therefore you feel more capable in life and, like I always say, you know, it's like you climb one mountain, like I got to what that's when I did my first Competition. Or you just like before that, when I was getting strong and I felt strong in my body, I felt like I'd climb this mountain and I was like what's next? And then you start to see there's another mountain in the distance that you didn't even have A concept of before, because it builds upon itself. The more that you show that to yourself, that you can do, the more you believe that you can do and your dreams actually become bigger as you're building this confidence.

Speaker 2: 44:30

It really, again, it's the, the biggest rewards. Yes, it's great to feel strong in my body, it's amazing, but the biggest rewards are these mindset rewards, these dreams that you have. And I'll say I wanted to mention this before and I'll say this really quickly I find a resistance of women when I encourage my clients to have dreams, not just goals but dreams. We just did a whole talk on this and I'll ask my clients to dream and like share those with me, and they're very resistant to dream. I think we get used to not dreaming and I think at some point in midlife we tell ourselves we can't and so.

Speaker 2: 45:07

I really challenge them to do that right, because I think that's very important. It's hard for people. I'm just realizing it is, but why can't? We have dreams, like we need to have things that are longer term, big things that drive us forward, creative things, right that we can get really excited about, and I think that is another really key component to aging. You know well, to be excited about your future, I think, is just really critical.

Speaker 1: 45:35

There's a graph that I read recently. One of my favorite books is called philosophy for polar explorers and it's it's a brilliant little book about this really articulate guy who walked to the north pole with his buddy and then walked alone to the south pole and he climbed Everest. But that's not really what it's about. It's about Having a dream and going forward and doing it, and he has this graph. On the one axis, it's capacity to carry things out and on the bottom axis it's the dream. The two lines cross in the middle, meaning that as we get older, we have much more capacity to carry these things out, but our imagination of our you know, our dream becomes less. And he says in there it's easier to take the person out of the dream than to take the dream out of the person, and so we, we naturally remove ourselves from these dreams.

Speaker 1: 46:27

Right, it's kind of scary. It's like do I really want to say that? Do I want to claim that? I mean yes, who am I just to say I want whatever? I have no right to say that. Well, yes, you do, it's your dream. Is that my dream? It's your dream, own it. It's fine. Like, like, go big, what do you want?

Speaker 2: 46:46

No, exactly I mean. I also think I mean this not to be more of it, but you know we're all going to be dead one day, like no one's gonna care about what you did right like just let your life, because who cares?

Speaker 2: 46:57

no one's gonna remember at one point if you did it or not. Just do it. Do all those, don't leave anything on the table. Do all the things. That's in your heart's desire, at least try. You know, and they ask people right when they're on their deathbeds. You know what their biggest regrets are, and it's the, the risks they didn't take right, the things they didn't do that they wanted to. It's sad, let's not do that.

Speaker 1: 47:18

If you're somebody out there who's thinking about like this fitness transformation thing, then probably really good for me. I think I'll probably live longer, I'll live happier, it's good for my family. But then maybe some people around you are saying, oh, I'm listening. Wait, I don't know nothing on that or anything that way.

Speaker 2: 47:35

Oh yeah, you don't want the pizza.

Speaker 1: 47:36

Why don't you want the pizza? Your dreams are yours, not theirs, and you know. Be careful about who you listen to, about when you want to go, because it's about you and, like you said, you get one spin of the bottle here. That's it. Yes, how you gonna do it for you.

Speaker 2: 47:57

Exactly, and I think you might disagree, but I personally think even for women it's harder, because, especially as mom I'm not a mom, but I know a lot of moms right go through this where they are used to giving Everything for their children, yeah, and they stopped thinking about what they want for themselves, like that's just disappeared. And then when you start to challenge them in midlife and their kids are out of the house, to like, okay, what do you want? Like they don't know. I go through this with my clients and like.

Speaker 2: 48:24

I'm like we got to come up with some things that are just for you, right, like that's important. You're still here, you've got decades left. You got to come up with some stuff just for you at your time. I say it's our time now, right, like it's. There's a beautiful thing about aging when now we really can Just focus on ourselves, right, and it's not selfish, but like really just chase the things that are important to us. You know our careers, you know if we're retiring or our kids are out of out of the house.

Speaker 1: 48:53

It's our time now and I just want to speak about kids and parents. Even when the kids are out of the house, they're still watching you, yes, and if you do something like you know, you're like okay, um, it's time for me to like really care for myself and to care of myself. What kind of message is that sending to your kids? Pretty positive one, saying like this is possible, this can be done. Look at mom. Mom is kick ass like.

Speaker 2: 49:22

That sounds like a pretty good role model a hundred percent and you know it's kind of cool. I see a lot of young men now I don't know if you've seen this to go to the gyms with their moms, and I hear a lot of these stories. I just love that.

Speaker 1: 49:34

Interesting. Yes, I love that idea though.

Speaker 2: 49:36

Yeah, I have a lot of Clients and I've talked to a lot of women that their sons will go show them how to use the equipment and then they work out together. Yeah, I just love it, and I see a lot more younger people in the gym, like teenagers. I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 49:47

I Just, I love what you're doing. Denise, I want you to take a moment here, do a little self promo. What do you do and how can people contact you?

Speaker 2: 49:56

Yeah, so I started my company last year, because I guess we're 2024 already. So the end of last year Rebellion body, so wwwrebellionbodycom. I Intentionally named my company rebellion body, because we are rebelling against this narrative right of midlife. Yeah, I said, we are the rebels, and that also.

Speaker 2: 50:14

My Instagram is 50 fitness journey FIFTY, 50 fitness journey and what I do is Transformation. I'm a transformation coach. I have a team of coaches and we get women on a macro nutrition plan. We make sure they eat protein. Most women under eat, the vast majority of women dramatically under eat protein. So we teach them what that looks like and we get them on a workout program. You know from beginners if you've never lifted a weight in your life, you know, come to us and we'll help you. But my goal is and I my number one goal for my company is to have impact and to change this, this narrative around aging, and to educate women that if you want to live a full, vibrant life as you age, you need to get strong. It takes building muscle and getting strong it really does, and I want women to age Fearlessly and that's what we're, that's our goal, that's what we're aiming to do. I.

Speaker 1: 51:12

Want all you guys out there, many women who are listening to this, to become the best versions of yourselves today, the way you define it not the way I define it or Denise designs it, but the way you define it. And remember, we're talking about you today, not you 20, 30 years ago. Let's not compare that. Who you bring to the table today, let's see what we can do about that.

Speaker 2: 51:36

I love that.

Speaker 1: 51:37

Denise, it is such a pleasure. We'll put links in the show notes for people to contact you. You are one of the the great joys of my year. It's been just wonderful getting to know you really.

Speaker 2: 51:50

I hope to see you again. I really enjoy our conversations.

Speaker 1: 51:53

Absolutely Take care now.

Speaker 2: 51:55

Thanks, David.

Speaker 1: 51:56

That was wonderful. You know, denise is one of these Amazing finds that we have the opportunity to come across here at a just and the super age podcast. I love discovering people like this, I love becoming friendly with them and I love learning from them, boy, this idea that we can do things. We can do hard things and let's dream right, let's dream big, we're gonna get with. Just try this. After a quick word from our sponsor.

Speaker 1: 52:21

One supplement that I take every day Is my topure from timeline nutrition. It contains yourlithin A. There's a tremendous amount of science out there about yourlithin A and it's all very positive. Yourlithin A helps us with something called mytophagy, which is cleaning out our older, not so functional mitochondria and at 65 I've built up some dysfunctional mitochondria cleans those out, replaces them with new, better functioning mitochondria. What it does is it helps us with all the energy production in our bodies our brains, our immune systems, our muscles. All of those Include mitochondria. They are the energy powerhouse and we want to have the best mitochondria we can. This is why I take Myto peer every day, why members of my scientific board take it, why their families take it. It's a great product. If you go to timeline nutrition Dot com slash a. Just use the code a just at checkout and you'll save 10% on your first purchase this week on. Just try this. We're gonna do something around the fourth of the five Super aging big rocks.

Speaker 1: 53:27

And just to review what those are, they are sleep, nutrition, activity, stress management and Connection. Let's talk about stress management. We all know that stress is not good for us. It is corrosive, it leads to long-term negative health consequences and also to unpleasantness in our day-to-day lives. So there's some really simple, easy ways to deal with this.

Speaker 1: 53:51

One of my favorite are simple breathing exercises. My favorite one is called box breathing. It's also called yogic breathing, it can be called tactical breathing, it's all the same thing. This is how it goes you inhale for five beats, you go one, two, three, four, five and you hold for five one, two, three, four, five. You exhale slowly for five one, two, three, four, five and then you hold again for five and you repeat that. Try and do that for maybe you know Not even long, like three or four minutes before you go to bed, and I did the count really fast you want to do it a little slower, like one beat per second. Now what's that gonna do? It will immediately lower your blood pressure. It will also immediately increase your heart rate variability both really good, and you're probably gonna sleep a lot better. So that's a zero cost, easy thing to do before you go to bed Simple, doesn't take long, to help you manage your stress. That's this week. I'm just try this.

Speaker 1: 54:55

This is the part of the show where I ask you to do us a favor. If you could, please pass this podcast on to someone that you like, who you think could enjoy it. If you have a moment, it just takes a second. Please leave us a rating up to five stars. We love five stars and if you can leave us a comment. If you want to reach out to me directly, david at super age comm, I answer all of my email directly and personally Next week. Oh, we got a good one. We got a treat. We've got Carl Flager, and Carl is a Verified genius. Used to work for Google, one of the originators of the AI program there, and it's now an investor and an authority on what the newest innovations are in longevity Biotech. It took a while to get in touch with Carl. You're gonna love this. He's really an amazing guy, super smart, very nice. That's next week on the super age podcast. Until then, everybody, hey, have an awesome week and dream some big dreams. We'll see you then. Take care now you.