325. How to Use GLP-1s Without Losing the Muscle You Need with Ashley Fillmore

Women are hearing a lot right now about eating more, building muscle, healing their metabolism, and using GLP-1s for weight loss. But so much of the conversation still skips over what actually matters for women’s bodies, especially in perimenopause and menopause. If you’ve ever tried to nourish yourself more and immediately watched the scale go up, it can feel like your body is broken. It’s not, but your metabolism may need repair before it’s ready for fat loss.

That’s why I wanted to talk with Ashley Fillmore, founder and president of Metabolic Fix. Ashley is a leading expert in sustainable weight and fat loss with over 20 years of experience helping women heal their metabolism, balance their hormones, and change their body composition without staying stuck in chronic dieting. She also brings something I always appreciate, real client data, real lived experience, and a clear-eyed take on the online muscle-building and GLP-1 claims that don’t match what actually happens in women’s bodies.

In this episode of the Truce with Food podcast, I sit down with Ashley to talk about how to use GLP-1s without losing the muscle you need, and why they can support weight loss but can’t replace metabolic repair. We get into her Repair, Rebuild, Results framework, why eating more can feel so scary when your body has adapted to under-eating, and what sustainable fat loss actually requires if you want results that last.

6:27 – Defining metabolism, what the repair phase does, and the impact of hormones on your metabolic health 

12:57 – Why you might be stuck even if you’re doing many of the right things

17:25 – How the reverse diet in the repair phase helps your metabolism safely adapt to more calories

25:28 – How long the repair phase lasts, and why Ashley’s took longer than average

32:03 – What happens during the rebuild stage, and why it’s crucial before entering fat loss

36:19 – Debunking media claims and setting realistic expectations about muscle gain

47:02 – Why lean muscle is the body’s currency for longevity, not just an aesthetic bodily upgrade

50:06 – Why GLP-1s should be a supplement, not your primary weight loss strategy

53:22 – The importance of careful GLP-1 microdosing usage and greater metabolic health knowledge among doctors

1:03:19 – Why not all weight loss is a good thing, and the problem with overfocusing on protein alone in your diet

1:06:25 – Ashley’s free tool for estimating a healthy calorie target based on your weight loss goals

Mentioned In How to Use GLP-1s Without Losing the Muscle You Need with Ashley Fillmore

Dr. Stacy Sims 

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

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Transcript

Ali Shapiro: Welcome to Truce With Food, the podcast where we stop fighting food and start addressing the deeper story of what you suspect is going on, but can't put your finger on. Because the focus on food is a waste of your precious time, resources and life. Some people aren't even aware that they're under-eating, some are from dieting, but if you have been chronically under-eating, you cannot, please do not immediately, for example, take a calculator like mine or figure out what your TDEE is today and say, you know what, I am going to start eating to my maintenance caloric intake. Chances are you will probably gain weight. Most of the time we see this. 

I'm your host, Ali Shapiro, an integrated health expert with a 19-year proven track record of client success. I'm a 33-year and counting cancer survivor and creator of the research-based Truce with Food framework that came out of my own personal experience from recovering from cancer and yo-yo dieting. Because you name it, I had tried it. I also have a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. I'm affectionately called people's last best resort and a coach's coach, as people come to me, when they've tried everything and nothing's worked long term. This show is where we quiet the noise so we can go deep to get you the results you deserve. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personal, individual or medical advice. 

Now onto the show. So one of the things I've been hearing, one of my Truce with Food for Good group programs, I've been hearing from listeners who email me is, okay, so I'm starting to understand that I need to eat more to lose weight, lose fat, change my body, body composition, but every time I do that, I gain weight. And then I've also been hearing a lot of all or nothing reactions to GLP-1s, GLP-2s and most likely the GLP-3 that will be out, later in this year, early in January. I'm probably going to do a whole other episode on GLPs, but in the interim, I wanted to talk about both of these things with someone who really understands metabolism and has really worked with women for a long time. There's not a lot of mass accumulation data on women and we have women who have been working with women for decades, okay? And I'm just a little bit tired of male podcasters who are just reciting male research and thinking that they can think that that is applicable and translates to every woman and every woman's body, especially in perimenopause and menopause. 

So, having said that, I invited Ashley Fillmore on today, who is a leading expert in sustainable weight loss and sustainable fat loss. And we'll get to the difference. I wanted to talk to her, because like me, she believes GLPs can be a supplement, but it's not the whole strategy for weight loss. And we're going to get into that. And I also wanted her to answer this question that comes up a lot, okay, so maybe I do need to eat more. I need to nourish myself more, but how do I do that and still not gain a ton of weight? So we're going to talk about that and so much more. I so enjoy this conversation, because again, Ashley really understands what she's talking about from real lived experience, but she also continuously seeks out research and we're going to talk about that, in terms of how much muscle can you really gain? Because surprise, the internet may be lying to you. But Ashley is dedicated to helping women heal their metabolism. And we're going to get into her three-part metabolic fix framework. And we spent a lot of time on this repair phase, because she said, nobody wants to start there, but it's where you need to start for results that last. 

So she helps people heal their metabolism, balance their hormones, and really achieve sustainable body composition changes. She has a degree in exercise and nutrition and is a certified personal trainer and health educator. She has 20 years of experience, real world experience. Did I mention that? She also has a podcast, “Cheers to Your Success” podcast, which I will actually be on, later this summer. And she's the founder and president of Metabolic Fix, which is a premium online coaching company that has helped thousands of women finally break free from chronic dieting. And she talks a lot about what she sees in the data with her clients in this episode. And I love that, because I love data. And I love when people can look at it through the lens of women's physiology rather than, you know, as Dr. Stacey Sims said, women are not small men. So she is deeply committed to helping women live better lives and feel strong, nourished and embrace the life of health, happiness and self-love they deserve. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation, as much as I had it. And let me know what you think. 

I am so happy to have you on, Ashley, today. I think as the internet has gotten crazier and crazier and I'm hearing some consistent themes with people who are coming into my ecosystem and my clients around metabolism, I want to get someone who actually knows what they're talking about on the show. So thank you for joining us. 

Ashley Fillmore: Yes, I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me on your show today. And I cannot wait for our conversation. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. So I kind of at the top of the… like the top of the hour, you help people with your three part framework, which is repair, rebuild and results. And we were chatting before the show, you're like, everybody wants to start with results, rather than, oh, we got to work to those results, which I think everyone listening can relate to. But I really want to start with this repair phase, because it came up in my group program a couple weeks ago, because this is the question I get from a lot of people. Oh, when I actually eat what I'm recommended to eat by people who know what they're talking about, I gain weight. And I was like, OK, well, we have to go through what you call a repair phase. And this woman was like, oh, another program I was in, or my friend is in another program, and they were talking about this, but nobody talks about it. But you're talking about it. And that's sort of why I wanted to have you on, because everyone skips over the repair phase to help with their metabolism. And so can you just start with first how you define metabolism and then what this repair phase is about? 

Ashley Fillmore: Yes. Well, thank you so much for bringing up this topic. I think it's one that we need to discuss more frequently. Oftentimes when I talk about it with my clients as well, they look at me like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm here for fat loss. I'm here to transform my body. I'm not really wanting to think about repairing anything. Can you help me get results? And one of the things I always say is this is how you get results. And so here at Metabolic Fix, I help women repair, heal their metabolism, so they can sustainably reach their goal and maintain it long term. The key word is sustainable. A lot of times we see a lot of programs that's going to give you really quick results, but it's not sustainable. So you're caught in this vicious cycle of losing and gaining and bouncing back and forth. And eventually you do start to wear out, especially as you get into your 40s, 50s, perimenopause, menopause, life is shifting for you. So, the repair phase focuses on healing your metabolism. But before we dive into that, I think understanding what your metabolism is, is super helpful. Because I will say, online and wonderful podcasts like yours and mine, there's so much information. But I sense, I don't know about you, but so many of my clients are so confused, the new ones coming in. It's almost like there's too many podcasts, there's too many people posting on social Instagram and TikTok. It's like information overload. And instead of seeing women more empowered and educated, I'm seeing them freeze more. I'm seeing them not know what to do. And so I think we're hearing all these words and terms and no one knows, like, what is this? Like, I just want to feel good. I just want to look good. I just want to have good energy. And I'm here for that. Like, I think we should be able to have all of it. And I can help. I help so many women do that. And I know you do the same. With your metabolism, when it comes to sustainable results and looking at it from the perspective of body transformation, so losing fat, you know, losing subcutaneous fat, visceral fat, building lean muscle mass, sustaining lean muscle mass. It is the powerhouse that is literally controlling how your body utilizes calories. So think about it in simple terms. The food you eat are calories made up of protein, fats and carbs, right? And so everything you're consuming is going in. Your body is going to either store those calories for later use, which is what we do not want, if we're going into more of a fat loss phase or a body transformation phase, or it's going to utilize them for muscle repair. Muscle is very metabolically active tissue. It's going to need a lot of calories just to sustain the lean mass you have. Organs, breathing, basic daily functions that we do, your body's going to use those calories. And that at a base level is your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. So that is just what you need to basically live and breathe and do the basic things. Now we can also add on your exercise and your daily movement. That's also going to impact your metabolic health and how many calories you need. So again, when we're looking at your metabolism, it's how many calories your body needs to not only maintain homeostasis, looking at the BMR, but your TDEE, which is going to be your maintenance caloric intake. So your metabolism is controlling that, how your body uses those calories and where they go. Your metabolism is also impacted by your hormones. And these things are very much so intertwined. So your cortisol, your stress hormones, all of your stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline, epinephrine, that's getting triggered by activities and stressors in our life, your thyroid health is impacting your overall metabolic function, your insulin and glucose management. And then overall metabolic health, if we zoom out even more, that's when we look at chronic disease, we look at diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, things that we're really dealing with in our culture as well that's influenced by the foods we're eating, environmental factors, and the way that we treat our body through exercise and lifestyle habits. So your metabolism as a whole does a lot more than just burn energy or store it, but for the work that I do, we really focus in on that, but we also look at hormones, overall health and if there's any underlying health issues, because those factors as well are going to impact your overall metabolic health. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. I'm so glad you brought up the three levels, because when we are trying to raise kids, do careers, manage perimenopause, menopause symptoms, it can be just like, all right, I need to feel good today. And it's not either or. And when you're really supporting, what I hear you saying is when you're really really focusing on metabolism from the inside out, it's going to have this ripple effect of, you know, essentially helping your long-term health as well. And so when you want to lose fat or lose weight, you really want to play the long game, because this is not just about three months or, you know, we're recording this in the summer. It's going to go live during the summer. It's about what's going to happen next summer. And I just also just want to circle back for people. So when Ashley was saying TDEE, that is total daily energy expenditure. So what she's saying is, again, just as a recap, because sometimes we need metaphors. Your basic metabolic rate, she said, that's to keep the lights on. That's to help you breathe, all that stuff. And then whatever energy you use, when you get out of bed, correct, is the total daily energy expenditure. And I've talked a lot about walking on this podcast, how it's like saved my sleep, my mental health, but like that is something that contributes to TDEE, it's just not intense exercise. It's like, you know, I'm cleaning, I'm running up and down the stairs, I'm walking to get my mail, right? Like whatever it is, that you add that on top of that, correct for your metabolic rate. 

Ashley Fillmore: You're exactly right. And thank you for clarifying that. Because I do think that oftentimes we just think about exercise like, okay, I did this workout class, okay, I did this strength training session at home or a spin class or ran outside. But it's yard work, it's vacuuming your floors, it's walking through the stores, of course, taking intentional walks, it's swimming in your pool, if you have one, playing with your children, all of those things need to be accounted for as well. And so when we look at your metabolism as a whole, especially when we go back to the repair phase, which I'm excited to dive into, usually we see some malfunction on a base level, meaning most women are barely eating to their basal metabolic rate and many diet programs are putting them below that. And they're not eating sufficient calories to even sustain, like you said, keep the lights on, basically. So then when we add in, hey, what you should be able to eat every day. And so I want to add that in your BMR is not how much you should eat every day. That is, again, just for basic homeostasis. So organs, breathing, those basic things, like you said…

Ali Shapiro: Are kind of important to breathe.

Ashley Fillmore: … important if you want to keep living. But what you actually should be able to consume every day is the TDEE, which equals your maintenance caloric intake. But what we see with women is when they come into my program and we do our very in depth metabolic evaluation, they are not even eating close to the TDEE. Even though they're working out and doing all the things and getting 10,000 steps a day or even more for some, if they eat to their maintenance caloric intake, they instantly gain weight. And that's a big concern. And women say to me, oh my gosh, Ashley, I'm doing everything right. I can't eat more than 1,500 calories a day, 1,600 calories a day, or I gain weight, no matter what. I need to eat less to lose weight. And instead of eating less, my mind immediately goes to, why can you not eat to your maintenance caloric intake without gaining weight? That is the problem. That's the red flag. That's the big elephant in the room that everyone's walking around that we need to address, because something's going on metabolically speaking and oftentimes it goes back to dieting history. So women that have been dieting off and on for years, decades possibly, it could also be related to hormonal health. So if you're going through perimenopause and your hormones are diminishing, you may start to see that it's harder with estrogen dropping to lose body fat. If you have a thyroid dysfunction, which is more common as women start to get older, the percentage of you potentially having one can go up. And let's say it's not diagnosed, that can also impact things or maybe you already know that there's something there. There's several other things that can impact that. But we really want to address those things and figure out, okay, is it dieting history? Is it the fact that you've been literally starving yourself for years, your metabolism is down regulated? Or is it something hormonal? Or an underlying health condition that's contributing to your body's slower metabolic rate. And so that's what we do in the repair phase, because you should, every single woman listening should be able to eat to their maintenance caloric intake and not gain weight. You should be able to maintain your weight. 

Ali Shapiro: I love that you asked that question, because one of the things that's popping up in my head as you're talking is I'm thinking, especially as we lose estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, you become more sensitive to stress, your immune system, like there's all these increased health risks. And if you don't have the nutrition and you can tell me if I'm incorrect, but it's like if you aren't eating to what you need to maintain, your body is going to spend all the energy on making sure your heart can beat lungs. You're not going to get the natural detoxification. Like the stuff that your body deems is extra, when you actually need that extra the most, because of declining hormones is not going to happen. And this is where inflammation builds up. This is where insomnia starts to happen, right? Like all of these symptoms that we think are so disconnected. I know we're going to talk about GLPs later, but I was reading this article about some of the cancer hypotheses that they're having at certain, like the cancer prevention. And they're like, researchers are starting to realize that, you know, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, all of these things actually aren't one thing. They're essentially a systemic issue. And I was like, are we just figuring this out or are we just studying it? Because it's always been a systemic issue. I don't know, for the 20 years I've been doing this, it's kind of like, yeah. And so I can see how undernourishing can counterintuitively contribute to dysfunction that we think of as typically associated with overeating. But I love your question of why can't we eat that much. One of the things I tell people is like, well, you can't just, if you've been eating 13, 1400 calories, you know, here and there and then what you actually need is closer to 18 to 1900 just to maintain, right? I mean, just to like, even to lose weight, you may need 18 to 1900, right? I took your calculator and I got, for my, in order to lose weight for me, it's like I need like 1800 calories a day for weight loss. So I just want to give people an idea of how much most people should be eating. Now, I'm very active, but I know a lot of people that listen here are very active. Not everyone, but some people. So I often tell people, you can't just all of a sudden, if you need to get to 1800 to lose weight and you're at 12, 13, 14, you have to do it gradually. And then you also have to add in more movement. But I want to talk to someone who really understands metabolism inside and out. Because this is just like what I've experienced in my own life and seen with some clients, but I'm not working with the volume nor do I have the background that you do. What do you say to people when they say, but okay, if I actually eat that, I'm going to gain weight. 

Ashley Fillmore: Yeah. And they probably will gain weight. And so we have to be very strategic about how we go about increasing their calories. Very often, most women that are chronically under eating either intentionally or unintentionally. I want to also speak to all the busy women out there that's working and raising their families and doing all the things. I have women that come into my program and I promise you they have no idea that they're under eating. They truly will look at me on the first call and say, I know that I'm eating enough and that is not the problem. You can do all the work you need to do. Please do it. I'm here for your help, but I can guarantee you under-eating is not it. And then that individual client is under-eating and generally by let's say three, 500 calories away from their TDEE. And so, some people aren't even aware that they're under-eating. Some are from dieting. But if you have been chronically under-eating, you cannot, please do not immediately, for example, take a calculator like mine or figure out what your TDEE is today and say, you know what, I'm going to start eating to my maintenance caloric intake. Chances are you will probably gain weight. Most of the time we see this. So in the repair phase, if an individual is under eating and I suspect that there's some metabolic adaptation, which means the metabolism is down regulated from the chronic dieting and under eating, we're going to just assume right now everything else is healthy in the individual and they're just dieting off and on maybe chronically for years, we are going to address the under-eating. Now to do that, we cannot immediately bump their calories back up to maintenance. This is when we have to do something called a reverse diet. A reverse diet has been around for years. This is when you strategically increase your calories and allow your metabolism to adapt to that increase. And then you bump them up again, very slowly, until you get to your maintenance caloric intake. Now, I want to talk about some mistakes people are making just in case they listen to this and they're like, you know what, I'm going to do this right now. A lot of people that are doing it alone are bumping their calories up too fast. They're not strategic about where those calories are coming from. So they're just adding in whatever they want. Oh, I'm just going to go eat more peanut butter, drink an extra glass of wine, go have an extra slice of pizza, have some chips and dip or whatever it may be, but you really need to be strategic. Unfortunately, I can't tell the listener exactly where they need to be, because so many things impact where you need to be. Generally, I like to look at labs. I like to look at A1C. I like to look at insulin levels. I like to look at fasting glucose. I like to get a bigger picture of their thyroid, their T3, their T4, TSH, all of it to really understand their metabolic health. Then from there, based off of their labs, their overall dieting history, health history, body composition photos will show a lot as well. I can assess that individual and say, okay, based off of everything that you're giving me, here is where I think we need to immediately start and add calories. Now, you probably know this, it's very trendy right now, which I'm grateful protein is having the spotlight. But I've been doing this for two decades. Women have been under-eating protein well before GLPs became a thing for weight loss. I used to see it in the early 2000s, women are under-eating protein chronically. Carbohydrates are always coming in to be the top percentage of calories. Next, I would say fat, last being protein. So for a listener listening in, double check your protein right away. Oftentimes, most women aren't eating sufficient protein. But for some, they actually are. So it's looking at them and saying, OK, are we dealing with insulin resistance? Are you also going through perimenopause? What's your biofeedback? How do you feel when you eat more fat, more carbs? And we go through this questionnaire with each client. But we very strategically increase calories. So please don't just add random calories in, because all calories are not equal. Food quality matters. 300 calories of donuts and 300 calories of chicken breast are not going to metabolize the same way. Those two individuals are going to look totally different if one's eating primarily processed foods and one's eating primarily whole foods. So you want to strategically increase your calories and monitor your biofeedback. So if you're thinking about doing this on your own, make sure you know how much you're eating, you're tracking your food accurately, you truly know what your co-work intake is by confirming through food scales, which I'm not a fan of long-term tracking, but it's essential during this phase. So a reverse diet, incrementally, strategically adding more calories until you get to maintenance, is the way that you restore metabolic health, when you are in that deficit and you're trying to make that jump. You never just jump up, just like you should never cut your calories by half, if you want to lose body fat. And so you want to be very strategic with this and monitor your biofeedback, your energy, your sleep, your digestion, your cravings, your mood. Those things matter as well. 

Ali Shapiro: I love that you brought that back to measuring your biofeedback, in terms of energy, sleep, all these things, because this comes back to what you were saying earlier around when food comes in, you're either going to store it. And if you're doing 300 calories of wine or sugar, the body doesn't have as much use for that as much as protein, complex carbs or fat, which are essentially, I always kind of use the metaphor of like, if your metabolism, if you have to repair, it's almost like you're in sleep mode on the computer. It's like, okay, your body's conserving energy, it's conserving activities that it needs to do. And so if you start giving it, like you said, the right quality, you're waking up that computer and it's actually going to make use of that quality of calories, instead of just storing it as fat. Because there's not a lot of nutrition to work with, with a lot of the foods that we would like to. I mean, a lot of my clients are sober, but like the wine or the sugar or the desserts, it has to be very strategic in terms of quality of macros, not just quantity. But I love that you bring that because it's... And this is the problem, when we look at things only through weight loss or even only fat loss. It's like, no, these nutrients are doing all of these other health things that are going to support your long-term metabolic health, like muscle building, like you mentioned at the top of the hour. But we'll get that instant feedback through quality of energy, like you said, hunger, cravings. I love that you brought that up. You don't just have to rely on labs. In one of my group programs, it was like this one woman, I love her, she had this realization like, oh my God, so you're saying we should enjoy our food and we should be feeling better. And it's like, yeah, that's the goal. Health is not about deprivation. It is about feeling better and stuff. So I'm so glad that you brought that up. How long do you think the rebuild, and I know it's going to be different for everybody, but I think sometimes when we've been struggling for decades, people will say, well, it's my metabolism as if metabolism is this fixed thing and think like, oh, it's going to take years to repair. And it doesn't. The body is actually pretty adaptive. It will obviously depend on stress and where you are in the menopause transition, et cetera. Like, when you're thinking of working with someone and you're helping them bump those calories up, often say they need to, they are actually like, I love that you, you really start with awareness because most people have to start there. But if they do need to add like, you know, 500 more calories, right? Like how long do you say, hey, this repair phase is going to take, this reverse dieting? 

Ashley Fillmore: Yeah, most people can get through it within three to six months. And the reason the duration varies is because so many women are also struggling with disordered eating habits. And so for them, they can't just bump their calories up. They are scared. They are afraid of gaining weight. They are afraid of eating more. Simply eating one or 200 extra calories per day makes them feel very uncomfortable, physically uncomfortable. For them, it has to be a slower process, because if there's a lot of emotions and so much of your self-worth is tied into being the one that always ate the least amount, or being the one that skipped breakfast and looking at that as a badge of honor, or feeling proud of yourself, or you have these rules around food and now suddenly you're eating carbs at night, or you're having carbs at every single meal, or you're seeing your portions increase for many women, mentally, it is very challenging. And so for them, this isn't just like, okay, I need to eat more fuel, understand the science, I'm going to do it, you know, bam, here I am. For that individual, it's more like three months. But for the individual that has a longer dieting history, we're talking about years of misinformation, years of rules that are disordered. I mean, maybe they're not full on anorexic or bulimia, but I used to be this way. I had very disordered eating habits. You know, I was very, very unhealthy. And at the age of 20, in my early 20s, I had a hormone profile of a perimenopausal woman and had to truly rebuild my hormones to even be able to conceive. I know what it feels like. It took me a year to reverse diet, because that's how unhealthy my relationship was with food and that's how much work I had to do. It would literally take me a couple of months to adapt to eating 300 more calories, because I was starving myself. I was eating 1,100 calories a day, so going to 2,000, 2,100, that was a lot for me to increase. And I wanted to go about it in a way that was really going to support my body. So for me, I'm like, hey, I want sustainable results. So I'm willing to spend this time, of course, it looks like I need to do this work anyways. So for me, you know, it was even longer. But I'd say on average, when we look at the metabolic fix clients, three to six months, 

Ali Shapiro: And I, yeah, and I love that you meet people where they are, because that is ultimately like the best medicine, right? You have to meet yourself where you are. And I also love that you brought that up about like, I wanted to conceive. And again, if you're in perimenopause or menopause, conception is probably not on the mind. And though this is like fertility is one kind of vital sign. So is being able to sleep through the night. So is like, you want to have good memory. Like all of this stuff that, we're playing the long game here. And I think three to six months is nothing, compared to hopefully this will be the last time you have to do this. Because I always tell clients, really the goal, if you want to change body composition or weight losses, the goal is to be able to eat as much as possible in a deficit. I say the same thing. 

Ashley Fillmore: Yeah, it's the same exact thing. And it's, oh, don't you get big eyes? I do. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? 

Ali Shapiro: Your body needs all of that to repair. I mean, especially like and all of us know this, like who are over 40, 45, like it takes longer to recover if you, if you like pull your back. I mean, you couldn't, my husband woke up the other day and he was like, my back hurt. And I'm like, what happened? He's like, I just woke up, you know? It's like, okay, it takes longer. And like, if you're under-nourishing yourself, it's going to take even longer. So I love that. To me, three to six months with how fast time goes is like nothing, especially to change on the deeper level, the relationship with yourself, that you're actually giving yourself what you actually need. 

Ashley Fillmore: Right. And through these three to six months, you're learning so much about your body. You're learning how to eat. You're learning what to eat. You know how to build your plate. You're in tune with your biofeedback, which many of us turn that all the way off, when we're dieting. I can speak for myself. When I was dieting, I turned it all the way off. I mean, I ignored all of my biofeedback. My periods became irregular. I wasn't sleeping through the night. I didn't have a libido. I was very moody. I wasn't recovering well from workouts. I felt like I needed naps. I was just totally burning my candle at both ends. I had severe food cravings. I drank coffee all day long, because it was curbing my appetite and chewing sugar-free gum nonstop. I mean, that was kind of my way to cope with the extreme caloric restriction was caffeine and sugar-free gum. And, you know, like it was not a great place to be in. And so it took a long time for me to be able to heal all of that and get in a much better place. But there were a lot of disordered eating habits there. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. But I'm thinking as you're describing your patterns and how long you were struggling with that, it's like three to six months is nothing compared to what we've all put our bodies through. I mean, I, you know, I've spent 18 years dieting in that way, when I was younger and it's like three to six months, the body's like... 

Ashley Fillmore: It's nothing…

Ali Shapiro: It’s nothing…

Ashley Fillmore: … like nothing to learn all these things and heal your metabolism and learn how to eat and work through all of that stuff. I mean, maybe you hopefully don't have all the things I just mentioned and went through, you know, to work through those things and to be able to figure out what's really been stalling your results. You're improving your metabolic flexibility, which is amazing, because eventually, you want to get to rebuild phase, you want to get to the results phase, you want to be in a place, where you can lose fat eating 1800 calories a day, 1900 calories a day, you want to be able to eat plenty of food, go on a vacation, live your best life and not gain five or 10 pounds. You have that freedom, that is metabolic flexibility and you're not going to get there from starving yourself. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, not at all. All right, so then let's go through to rebuild. So what happens in rebuild? 

Ashley Fillmore: Yeah, I love that phase. So that is a lot easier for every single client, because they've already done the work, they've repaired their metabolism. So they're eating at their maintenance caloric intake and I will keep them in the rebuild phase, to establish that true maintenance. I'm not a big fan of saying, Okay, you hit your caloric, your maintenance caloric intake, now, tomorrow you need to start fat loss. I have not seen that be the most successful way to help clients not only reach their goals, but maintain longer term. With my programs, we collect data and we look at clients' progress three years down the road, one year down the road, five years down the road. What I like to do is measure how many of these women are maintaining and what are the strategies that they're doing to maintain. None of the women that are maintaining their results five plus years down the road, were at maintenance and then instantly started dieting hardcore. So there's this period where we want to establish and let your body settle in maintenance. Now this is safety. Remember, your body has to feel safe to lose fat. Your body has to feel safe. And if it doesn't, you're not going to lose fat. So this is why you can be eating healthy and a balanced diet and in a healthy caloric deficit, but you're not sleeping well and you're stressed to the max and you're not losing weight. Your body's still not safe. There's so many other things that's impacting your body's ability to lose fat and safety is key. And so you want to make sure that you are one, giving your body what it needs to feel safe. So in the rebuild phase, you're at maintenance, you're eating at maintenance every single day consistently, we're dialing in to make sure that your meals are well balanced and built, which we do that in the repair phase too. But finally, when you're at maintenance, you're eating more than you probably ever have. And for a lot of women, that's a new thing. They're like, wow, I'm not used to having a whole cup of rice at dinner, or a whole sweet potato without guilt, or having berries with my yogurt, or whatever it may be. And so we're really making sure that their meals are dialed in, they feel good, they're eating at time frequencies that work with their busy lives, their workouts are dialed in. So even in the repair phase, we're also working on building lean muscle mass, through periodized strength training. I'm also a certified personal trainer. I worked in person over a decade and then moved my company online. Now I'm all virtual, but I do all the programming and I ensure that all of my clients are having proper training, so progressive overload. We're focusing in on strength training and the goal is to sustain and build lean muscle. That's happening from day one, but in the rebuild phase, we're doubling down. During the rebuild phase, you should be able to eat at maintenance comfortably. It should be autopilot, meaning you feel good eating enough. It's not challenging anymore. You feel good there. You should be building muscle. Your workouts should be dialed in and should be a part of your routine. You understand the science behind what you're doing and you're all in. That is what the rebuild phase is. And then we also are working on any mindset, all or nothing thinking, emotional, maybe you're still struggling with emotional eating in the evenings. Maybe we still need to work on your environment, because your partner, or spouse isn't supportive, or your family's not supportive, or you're super social all the time. So we're working through all of those kinks, because the results phase is where everyone wants to start, but no one's truly ready for. That's when we're going into a fat loss deficit. That's when we are going to really double down on fat loss, body composition changes. And so we want to make sure that everything else is in a great place. So you can have a very successful transformation in the results phase. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. I love that you're mentioning and I think most of the people listening here, I've like heard about, you know, I love that you said sustain too, because it's very, I think when you're, if you're doing fat loss, or weight loss and with weight loss, you're always going to lose some muscle. And that's just kind of part, and we'll get into that why GLPs, it's why they should be the supplement, not the strategy. We both say that, which I love. And what is realistic in terms of, muscle gain, because I know that as we get older, right, like just for listeners as a, just to give my own personal experience, when I essentially went through menopause and postpartum at the same time and I, a year after postpartum having a great pregnancy, all this stuff, I got on the scale. I had plantar fleshitis. I didn't know I was in menopause, but 30 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight. And I was like, what the hell? Nothing has changed. In fact, it was during COVID all I've done. I've never walked so much in my life. There was nothing to do. And I don't emotionally eat or anything anymore. Long story short, over about two years, I lost about 20 pounds. And I gained like one and a half pounds of muscle. I started lifting and I started exercising. And I was like, oh my god, you go online. And again, this was before the menopause gold rush. This was when I was just kind of figuring things out myself. But I mean, I read Dr. Stacey Sims book and went to a gym that knew what they were doing. But I was like, felt so bad about that. And then people were like, oh my God, to actually gain a pound and a half while losing 20 pounds. But also now I've kind of stayed the same. I mean, my weight has stayed the same, but like I have not put on a lot more muscle, even though, I mean, last summer I took a break. I was still doing orange theory and biking, but like I'm just maintaining. And I just feel like maintaining is also winning, if you're not, like sometimes maintaining is winning. And so I just and this comes up in my groups of sometimes people as they're cleaning up their diets and they, they may lose weight, they may not and they're only maintaining their muscle. And they feel like that's not great, when I'm like, you actually have to put a lot of effort into gaining muscle, like in terms of dialing in your food a lot, but also people can't put on, especially once you're through menopause, you can't put on 10 pounds of muscle a year. But I feel like nobody wants to say that. And then people who are actually doing really well and doing what they need to be, feel like they're failing, when they're actually succeeding. Yeah, I said a lot and threw a lot at you. But… 

Ashley Fillmore: Okay, no, I'm here for all of it. And I love everything you said. And if I could like jump up and down and stay in the screen right now, I would so do that. But I love that you're talking about this, because I am so obsessed with muscle building and sustaining muscle. I have been on my own journey for many two decades now. And I went from very skinny, very thin, very unhealthy to almost 20 pounds heavier with a lot of muscle on my frame. But I want to also mention that it's been 20 years of exercising and I would say, 15, 12 to 15 years of really dialed in progressive overload, strength training three, four days a week, super consistently. So, you know, I want to say that it's taken many, many, many, many years. And I'm not even saying that I've built almost 20 pounds of muscle, because I don't think I have built that much muscle. To your point and I want to, I want to say this, too and I totally agree. Online, there is this huge, huge, just misconception that you can start lifting weights today and in 12 weeks you're going to have glutes like JLo and you're going to look like an Olympic sprint athlete with muscles and abs and you know the best glutes in the world and that's just not the reality. Period. For many women that is not the reality. If you are perimenopause, or postmenopausal, or even over the age of 30 and maintaining your muscle you are winning. 

Ali Shapiro: Thank you. 

Ashley Fillmore: You are winning, because research shows you should be losing muscle. Not sustaining, not gaining, losing unless you were proactively eating sufficient protein, eating sufficient calories, which I really want to hit on, strength training consistently. Now research will say, a minimum of two times per week, but I will say from the research that I do within my program with a couple thousand women's data collected, it's more like three to four times per week consistently, to build muscle. And so that's how much it's taking to see that transformation. Now, if you are over the age of 30 and you're sustaining, again, you're winning and you're doing great. If you're building muscle and let's say you're strength training, you're eating sufficient calories, you're getting. And out of those sufficient calories, you're hitting your protein goal every day. If you're building a couple pounds of muscle a year, you're doing amazing. So in my programs, I'll see one of my clients came to me, she does DEXTA scans. So we're looking at real good data. She said to me, I only added on, it was like 2.8 pounds of muscle this year and my mouth hit the floor. I thought, what? That is amazing. And she's like, but I see these women online that gain five pounds of muscle or 10 pounds of muscle in a six-week program, or a 12-week program. I call BS. Show me the data. Show me the data. Show me the data and I will come on my own podcast even, Cheers to your success and I will apologize. But I haven't read any data that shows that level of massive transformation without some form of steroids. And I'm saying that and I don't know any woman that I know at least, or have worked with, that's even remotely interested in that. Most of the women I work with don't… are even hesitant about basic HRT to help support their hormones. And so if you are gaining a couple, one, two, three pounds of muscle in a year. That's amazing. I've even looked at research studies that have said that a woman gaining a half a pound of muscle in a 12 week to a 16 week period, is above average and amazing. And that's data, research published data. And sadly, there's not enough research on women. And there's a lot of misinformation and just confusion out there, because there's still not enough research. Yes, there's amazing, amazing people that I know you just mentioned, Dr. Sims, right? Stacey Sims, Gabrielle Lyon, there's huge women that are leading this with leading our culture and women and helping us understand that we need to strength train and we need to eat sufficient calories and protein and all of the benefits we're going to get, but there's still not enough research done to truly know. But it is going to take sufficient calories, sufficient protein and sufficient stimulus from training on a very consistent and religious basis to build muscle mass. Now the thing that a lot of women don't understand is if your goal is to truly add muscle, so if you're in fat loss and maintaining, or even building a little, you're above average. To build muscle mass, you have to be in a surplus. I don't know if your listeners know that, but generally three to 500 calories above your maintenance caloric intake to start. So for me, that's close to 3,000 calories a day. I love food, but I don't know if I could actually eat 3,000 calories on a normal day if it's all healthy food. And so I want to say you need to be in a surplus. If you come to me and say, my weight's at a healthy weight and I really want to build muscle and I want to put on a couple pounds of lean muscle mass this year, I'm going to put you in a caloric surplus to do that. 

Ali Shapiro: I'm so glad you said, this is why I wanted to have you. I… your Instagram, I was like, she's real. Like she's actually going by on data, like surprise.

Ashley Fillmore: And I mean it like, so, so women that are so afraid of, oh, I'm going to build all this muscle. And, or even I'm afraid of lifting heavy. Or if you see a woman post and say, oh, I built five pounds of muscle in six weeks, please either ask for the actual data to see that and verify it, or keep scrolling, because it's not real. It's not real. I've not seen it in my career and I've helped thousands of women. I used to work in person 40 to 50 hours every single week for 12 years, before I started my own company. This is the only career I've ever had. I've never done anything else, but help women over the age of 35. That's it. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, I love that you bring that up because I think personal experience, I mean, we downplay, I don't want to get into our medical system and the patriarchal setup of that whole thing. That's a whole other and capitalism and all that stuff. But you have, I mean, you having 20 years of real experience, I mean, that's probably more data than the NIH has on women. I mean, maybe not. I'm being a little facetious, but that is a significant amount of data to work with real people and see what, what really works. You know and also I'm just thinking about this and I want to switch over to GLP ones, but also, you also need to see like, you know, if you're someone like me who was like, I've been relatively active my whole life, right? I'm not going to have the newbie gains that someone who's never been to a gym is going to experience, right? Like, so you also have to understand where are you in your journey, compared to when someone, if someone's just starting or you know, whatnot, you just, you have to, there's so much context that gets lost in these little squares of posts. 

Ashley Fillmore: And Ali, I want to mention something and thank you so much for bringing this up. Now, there is research that does support if you are a beginner, you will actually adapt and respond faster than an intermediate to advanced trainee. And so I do want to say that actually there is data to support, if you are a beginner, you will actually see better gains, meaning muscle building faster than someone that's intermediate to advanced, because the stimulus threshold is so much lower. For example, for me to get that amount of stimulus I need to truly create that breakdown and rebuild catabolism and breaking down muscle and then repairing it and rebuilding it to come back stronger, is going to look a lot different than a beginner. So actually, if you are a beginner, you are the newbie gains, that is a real thing. If you are new to strength training, you're going to make so much progress. It is like heaven, if you are new, compared to someone like myself. I would consider myself to be a more advanced trainee at this point. What used to be a stimulus for me, at the beginning, is like a warm-up at this point in my journey, because my body has adapted and it has responded to that stress by building more muscle and increasing my capacity and ability to sustain that level of strength, or push out that much power. I have to be, of course, very periodized but push my body in different ways to ensure that I'm still working to maintain, or if I'm going through a building phase, working to build. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. No, I love that you brought that up. So this brings up, because with your repair and rebuild, what you're doing is essentially getting people to preserve their muscle, gain muscle. And I'm kind of toying with this metaphor of your muscle mass, because of what it does for, yes, your weight, yes, your metabolism weight, but also your health, it's kind of like having this retirement nest egg, right, that keeps accumulating for your health, makes you feel more satisfied from your food, it helps you sleep better. Like what Ashley was talking about, in terms of like insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance, like I'm someone who I've eaten pretty healthy for like 20 years consistently, since I've had my own truce with food. And yet, even here in menopause, I've realized my own insomnia at this point, it's driven by hypoglycemia overnight. I have great… I wore a continuous glucose monitor for two weeks a couple of months ago and it was like, oh, it's dropping overnight. And this is actually the main menopause symptom I've had. And so I'm just sharing that, because I do, quote unquote, do everything right. I have a job I love. I have healthy relationships. I lift, I run, I walk. You know, I eat, I get all my fiber, all that stuff. And I think it might be from the chemo, but I'm just sharing that, because this is why muscle is so important. It gives you kind of this cumulative buffer compounding interest of like a retirement nest egg. So I can't, I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have that, essentially is like what I'm saying. And so that is really important. And then this ties into the GLP conversation that I want to have, because you and I are both, what I love, nuanced about these. A lot of people are like, you're going to lose everything, don't do it. Other people are like, it's amazing. It's a miracle drug. And it's like, OK, the answer is always it depends in the middle. But you say and I say to my clients, the GLP, I think, can be a great supplement, but not the strategy. Can you tell us what happens, when we use them as the strategy, not the supplement to that retirement nest egg of muscle and metabolic health? I feel like I was like confusing with the question and I went from… 

Ashley Fillmore: No, you actually explained it so well. I love your analogy, because you're right. It starts with your muscle mass. And I think that you really led us to this point in a really great way, because your muscle mass is your currency for longevity. And the more you have, the better metabolic health you're going to have. Your muscle is a sponge for glucose. So if you're perimenopause, menopausal and you're dealing with insulin resistance, maybe that A1C is creeping up, maybe your fasting glucose is creeping up. Maybe you're wearing your glucose monitor and your body's not responding well to even healthy carbohydrates anymore. Those are all signs of some insulin resistance going on. Your muscle mass is going to help support your insulin sensitivity by utilizing that glucose more efficiently. That's key. Your muscle mass is going to support your joints, your bones, all of it. So there's so many benefits to you having muscle mass. It's going to use up those calories we're consuming versus storing them. There's so many benefits to your muscle mass. Now, with a GLP-1 though, if you are, let's just say, using it as your primary strategy to lose weight, you're not focusing on proper nutrition, you don't care if your calories are 300 or 500. Or even if you just eat once a day, you're not strength training, you're sedentary. And again, like, I want to also just say, I understand not everybody has the luxury of having the freedom to walk and work out whenever they want to, or even the resources to eat super expensive organic foods all the time. But you do have to be smart about using this drug. And if you're listening to this podcast, I know that you care deeply about your health. And you want to be aware if there is something that you're doing either, you know, and probably not even intentionally that's negatively impacting, for example, your muscle mass and your long term metabolic health. And so if you are going about it this way, I don't know the actual data, as far as research on this, but I will say from all of the wonderful experts I've had on my podcast, some of the data and continuing ed courses I'm taking right now on GLPs, I will say that the percentage of muscle mass you lose is significant. And some of what I'm reading is even saying, again, if you're not strength training, if you're eating, starving yourself, essentially, if you're not exercising at all, you can lose 40, 50% or more of your muscle mass, which is catastrophic, if you think about that. So I have some women in my program and this was more so even a year ago, that came in. I'm thinking of three women specifically. Of course, I would never share names, but they used a GLP-1 and lost a massive amount of weight. I'd say the lowest was 35 pounds and I think one of the women all the way almost up to 50. When she got her Dexta scan done, she was devastated with how much muscle she lost. She had no strength. When she started working out, five pounds felt like bricks that she was lifting. Air squats were challenging for her. She did not like the way that her body looked, because she lost so much weight so fast. She had a lot of loose skin. To go through surgery to get that corrected is thousands of dollars. She was really at a low level and she had no support to know what to do. Because it was like, okay, great. I lost the weight, but I have less muscle. I can barely work out. I still don't know how to eat correctly for my goals. Strength training, where do I start? What do I do? I only have 30 minutes or 40 minutes, one, two times a week. So, of course, coming into my program, we're going to educate you on how to eat, how to train, how to live, meeting you where you are, depending on where you are in your journey, if you're done with it, if you're microdosing or what you're doing. But it can be catastrophic. So if you're not doing those things, you're actually going to increase the percentage of muscle mass that you lose. And this is something I do know. And as you mentioned, Ali, you said earlier on, when you lose weight, you are going to lose some muscle too. That's a fact. But the amount you lose, you can control by your caloric intake, your protein intake, sufficient strength training and recovery, because the breaking down through strength training is important, but you have to recover well to actually sustain the muscle as well. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, and I think what you're saying here is like, if you do a GLP-1 and you do and I wanna talk to you about microdosing and what does a supplement actually look like? And I'll share some of what I've seen with my clients who are on them, but it's almost like take the GLP out of it. If you're going at the doses that they recommend and again, one thing that these have taught me though is everyone does have a different satiety point, but if you're essentially going on a crash diet, because now you're not eating enough, it's going to do what crash diets have always done. It's not the drug, it's what crash dieting does. And then it's given what Ashley shared about how hard it is to put muscle back on, especially if you're, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, if you are obese or overweight, you have a lot of muscle from carrying around so much extra weight. So it's like you're actually pretty in shape, in terms of muscle mass and you don't want to lose that. But using GLPs at the rate that people are using them, in terms of the dosing and the rate, this isn't about if they help you lose weight or not, it's the rate that is really dangerous, because then what Ashley said at the beginning, she's about sustaining your weight loss. So what do you do if you deplete that nest egg, that retirement nest egg? You have no more compounding interest. You took it all out on a crypto bet that didn't turn out. And now you're starting at so much less and it's an uphill climb to keep the weight off. And so I think I'm so glad that you brought that up about the research and the studies. And then I think the more nuanced conversation is like, well, what about what I'm reading and what's coming out in more and more studies is how... It's almost like weight loss is like the side news of all these anymore. And it's like the heart disease that it's helping with, the cancer. And again, in the article I just read last night, they're like, we have to be cautious. We suspected this about metformin and it didn't pan out, all this stuff. But anecdotally, from the people I know, who are using these on lower doses, micro doses, they seem like a really wonderful supplement to help you keep your, because of that insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance, stress, all that stuff, like, hey, if this helps you cut your calories, if you're eating enough, you're still eating enough, you're still eating that 17, 18, 1900 calories you need, but it's helping you shave off like 250, 500 a week once, if you are in that rebuild results phase, it seems like it's having a lot of… and the autoimmune effects that they're studying. So what do you have to say to all that? 

Ashley Fillmore: I'm just like, no, I agree. I'm saying, so, you know, here's some of the things I have to say. I totally agree with what you're saying. So first and foremost, if you are considering a GLP-1 to use more aggressively just for weight loss or even microdosing to improve your insulin sensitivity, maybe you're struggling with insulin resistance, maybe you know that you're already a diabetic and you're one step away from insulin shots. I've seen this, you have fatty liver. I'm seeing so many things behind the scenes with clients, autoimmune conditions, all of that and you want to use this drug, it can be a very powerful drug for non weight loss related reasons as well. Please make sure you are consulting with a medical doctor. I am not a medical doctor, you do see people with my qualifications, being a personal trainer, functional nutritionist saying, oh, you can come under me and get a GLP. I am not trained, you see stuff like this, use this link to go through my whatever it is, so I can get a kickback. I'm not here for that. I want to make sure whatever you're going through, whoever you're  using, make sure you have a medical doctor in your corner, because your health history, your dosage, everything is really important. And, you know, having the… just buying it through a website and you never talk to a person that's kind of scary. And I have read a lot of articles, where that is actually happening. And you know, you don't know the pharmacy, it's getting compounded, there's all kinds of things that can happen. So please make sure that you are working with a legit company that knows what they're doing and you have support and you are talking to your doctor and everybody's on board. So that's number one. Number two is like you said, I am seeing a lot of benefits behind the scenes with clients that are micro dosing this drug. But again, it is a supplement and not the key strategy. They are hiring me, maybe for the listener, it's having a coach, a nutritionist, a program or someone that they're meeting with occasionally to check in with. But having that professional help is key, because you still need to make sure you know how to eat, for your hormones and your goals. You still need to make sure you are strength training and you have a great program in place to do that. If you are still struggling with stress eating, whatever it may be, you want to make sure you're still dealing with that. Although I would say the GLPs are helping reduce that in many clients, but you want to make sure that you're addressing the elephant in the room and you're not walking around it, because starvation and just using that as your primary tool to lose weight, through just chronically under-eating, that is still going to lead you to very poor metabolic health. And when you lose that much muscle, it is going to be incredibly difficult for you to ever rebuild it, especially if you're in your 30s, 40s and beyond. So I think using it very wisely. Now, I will say as clients within my program, this is all the data that they're submitting and we're seeing, the higher the dose, sometimes the harder it is for them to eat enough. So they have to be very aware of this and to even eat 1700 calories can be a challenge. We're getting more strategic about how to work in those calories as well, because sometimes eating that big salad that you used to have is now setting in your stomach longer and you are feeling like, ooh, I can eat again in four hours. I still feel like that's setting with me. So we've got to change up what you're eating. You may have to saute your vegetables and have them broken down a little bit better for you. You may have to eat smaller meals. You may have to start having a smoothie or a shake every day, or turning to more easy digestible proteins and foods that make it easier for your body to digest and process faster compared to a huge salad with, you know, quinoa, beans and five ounces of chicken. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. That's really smart. Yeah. Because the goal is still to be able to eat as much as possible. Especially if we're talking long term. And I love what you said about... I also read a study, I think Consumer Reports did a lab test on testing from these these influencers who are getting kickbacks for affiliates and like, I think they call them gray market peptides. And it's like 60% of them did not contain what they said they did. Not just GLP, but also like, I don't know what other people are taking. I know there's some for sleep, because I was pretty desperate for sleep. I've heard, but it wasn't, it wasn't a GLP, it was, oh, Bromine or... I'm forgetting the name. I don't know. But I love what you said. The thing that I'll just put again, a little bit of an asterisk, because yeah, I don't prescribe, like not my wheelhouse. However, sometimes I'm a sounding board for clients. And one of my clients came to me wanting... Was asking my opinion. And I gave like, look, I think we still need to do everything we want to work on. And then this could be like a nice strat... Assist or whatever. So she went to her doctor, who was her PCP. I was like, you got to go to your PCP, talk to them. And this was two years ago. So this was before the conversation had changed. And her doctor was like, okay, sure, you qualify, right? And so I said to my client, I said, I think the key here, though, is, from what I'm learning and understanding, you have to talk to your doctor about this. But like, if it's working at first, she was on, I think Trazepatide, is that the... And it was helping her in all these ways with like carpal tunnel. I mean, it was just like amazing. And she was still able to eat what she needed to eat and all that stuff. And it was almost time to go up in dose and her doctor was like, okay. And I was like, but this dose is working for you. What do you think about this? And we talked it out and I said, but go talk to your doctor about it. And essentially the doctor did not understand metabolic health. And this is, I think, the problem that a lot of people, right, I… Someone was saying, oh, is Dr. Aviva wrong? She's like, Western medicine, the health care institute has a trust issue and the wellness industry has an evidence issue, right? So essentially, we've lost trust in medicine, because they don't study women. They aren't listening to us. So then, of course, you go to the wellness world, which is like, I see you. I hear you. Everybody else is bad. We're good. It's like staying in that all or nothing mindset. But you're kind of saying some crazy shit. Like you don't have a lot of evidence for a lot of this stuff. And that's part of why I wanted to have you on. Like you are in that moderate middle, but I think people find doctors. So long story short is like, she kind of had to educate her doctor on metabolic health and like stayed on the 2.5 and is still getting results. And then like her husband who had been on it originally, he was like, he did it the traditional way. And he's like, I wish I would have done it the way that you're doing it. And then her doctor was like open-minded and was like, oh my God, I'm going to learn about this for the rest of your patients. But my client had to kind of be the first person through our talking about it and like understanding metabolic health. But I think that's a problem though. A lot of doctors don't understand, so it's hard. 

Ashley Fillmore: It is. I have doctors in my program that are hiring me to help them understand their own metabolic health and what's wrong and how doing beach body and other diets and, you know, 21 day fixes and all of that, you know, point systems, years ago has like created such unhealthy metabolic flexibility and health for them and how do we correct that now? And yes, I'm seeing that too. And very similar to you, I'm a sounding board. And I say to some clients, I'm like, you know, I'm looking at your assessments, I'm looking at all your data, you're micro dosing it, but you're losing let's say two, three pounds a week, that's really aggressive weight loss. Looking at the percentage of weight you need to lose, this is more aggressive than I think you should be seeing right now. Reach out to your doctor. At what point are you going to stop it? Maybe you need to take even less. I mean, and again, maybe the doctors get annoyed with me, because I'm in the background of my client saying, hey, I think you should schedule a call, think you need to slow it down, think, you know, you should be close to done. I'm not sure how far or how long you are going to continue dosing at this level, but you're going to keep losing weight. And, you know, all weight loss is not good. And so we can just continue to scream that from the rooftop, like, just because you lost 20 pounds, it doesn't mean you lost 20 pounds of subcutaneous fat, which is the fat that we can grab, that hangs over our pants or makes us feel uncomfortable in our clothes. And it doesn't mean that we lost visceral fat, which for women going through perimenopause or menopause, that's the fat that's going to be more inflammatory and hormone driven around our organs. And so you could be losing muscle. And still sustaining a higher percentage of subcutaneous fat. So maybe you lose a bunch of weight, but you look in the mirror and you're like, oh, I don't like the way I look. I don't look like I lift weights. I don't look like I have muscle. My body doesn't feel strong and healthy still. And so all weight loss isn't good. We have to be smart. So I do the same thing you do. Are you eating enough? Make sure you are. Let's get creative. If you're going to use this drug as a supplement, then you want to make sure that you are being proactive about sufficient calories. I want to say this, if that's okay, because there's so much push right now on protein, that I see women coming into my programs eating 100 grams of protein, but having 30 grams of fat and having, let's just say 80 grams of carbohydrates a day. They're like, oh, but I'm hitting my 100 gram of protein goal, or I'm eating my protein, but their calories are so low overall that they're in such a huge deficit that I'm still constantly yelling from the rooftops, you are going to lose muscle. If the calories are not sufficient, Gabrielle Lyon just did a post on this and I re-shared it, because I swear I felt like it was the words that I said all the time. If your calories are not sufficient, even if you are eating protein at every meal, you will still lose muscle mass. If you're living off 800 calories a day and you're eating 20, 30 grams of protein at every meal and pretty much all you're eating is protein and no other food groups, your body needs the calories. Yes, we need to hit a certain protein goal, for sure. That is a very important part of this puzzle. But you have to get sufficient calories. And there's minimums all of us need to be hitting to ensure that we're not going to be losing more muscle long term. 

Ali Shapiro: Yes. Well, I think that's a good segment into telling people about your calorie calculator. Cause it was like, I think people will be shocked at, you know, I did it to prepare for this. And it was like, yeah, it was like, again, 1800 calories. And again, and I love that you bring in like the nuance and working with someone because, you know, for me and my sleep and my hypoglycemia, I can't really like cut more than maybe like 250 a day. I know that about myself just, because of the overnight issues. But I'm okay going slow, because I know the slower it goes off, the more likely it is to stay off. But I would love for you to tell people where they can find more about you, but also just start to figure out what is your sufficient number. I think most people's jaws are going to drop. 

Ashley Fillmore: Yeah. I'm huge on, please, you know, if you have the resources, it can be life changing to work with someone that's a professional in this field that can truly customize everything for you and give you that professional guidance. So if you can allocate some of your resources to do that, I'm a huge fan of that, because again, three, six, 12 months, you can truly change your whole entire life and have a real plan built for you for the rest of your life. So it can be a total game changer. I do talk to women every day that just aren't in the position to do that. So actually a couple years ago, we created my weight loss calculator, which we worked so hard on this, behind the scenes. And I know you're a business owner as well, Ali, so you get it. Some of these things we put out, it's like, if you only knew how much effort and time went into this, like everything…

Ali Shapiro: Everything…

Ashley Fillmore: … and we tweaked it and we went back to it, because it is a free calculator. And so of course, I'm not customizing your macros for you and all of that. But it's a great start to get you within a healthy caloric deficit for your weight loss goals. Now, some of you may be shocked, because when you put in all of your information, you may be thinking, I'm eating way less than this and not losing weight. Red flag, red flag. So this episode, going back to the beginning, listening to it again, understanding your metabolism, checking out my podcast Cheers to your Success, or my website metabolicfix.com to really start understanding like what you need to do to heal your metabolism is key. But it is such a great free resource, because I am hoping, my number one goal is to give women a free start, so they can see and truly understand how much they need to eat to lose fat. So to lose body fat, actually eating enough is essential. And I know that sounds so backwards, but you don't want to starve yourself. You don't want to damage your metabolism in the process. So sufficient calories, yes, in a deficit is needed, but it doesn't need to be as big as we may assume. So the free calculator is a great resource. I know you have the link. It's also on my website as well. 

Ali Shapiro: And it'll be in the show notes as well. Well, is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to share or any final thoughts before? This has been so helpful. I think it's going to be hard for people to get their heads around at first. But then once you just trust the process, it's so relieving. Like, I'm supposed to eat more. You can have so much more energy and feel strong, which is what we need right now. 

Ashley Fillmore: And all I want to say is please keep an open mind. If you are listening to this and you're not happy with where you are, or if you've just been ignoring your body's check engine light for a very long time, because you're still functioning, maybe not at 100%, but enough to get through your daily life, please listen to this with an open mind. Because I do think, you know, I love the work that you do. You're a breath of fresh air. I love your transparency and honesty. I'm the same way. But I do think that there's not enough of this in our space. So oftentimes, when we have this level of transparency in a conversation, it can hit really hard if you're listening in. But please have an open mind, because you're probably listening to this for a reason, following your amazing podcast for a reason, your loyal listeners. And, you know, I always say like, if you're not happy with where you are, something has to change, doing the same old thing over and over is going to yield you the same results, which is sad, because you don't want to be in this spot 3, 6, 12 months later. So, you know, step into this one action step at a time, you don't have to do this all at once. And this has just been such an amazing conversation. So thank you for having me. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Thank you, Ashley. And thanks for being in the trenches. Those are the people that I want to talk to anymore. 

Ashley Fillmore: Yes. This has been so great. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our talk. 

Ali Shapiro: Thank you, Ashley.