Welcome to the Commune Podcast. My name is Jeff Krasno. We are not over fat. We are under-muscled.

This is the mantra of today's Commune podcast guest, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon.

Dr. Lyon is the author of the new book, Forever Strong, a new science-based strategy for aging well.

For too long, we have adopted Machiavellian diets that focus solely on calorie restriction to lose weight.

Well, how's that working out for us?

Well, I can personally attest that these punitive diets keep you on a weight yo-yo.

Now, you might initially drop weight through calorie restriction, but chances are you're also losing valuable muscle.

Then your body metabolically adapts to your new caloric intake, and too often you fall off

the diet pony and gain back the fat without the muscle.

Dr. Lyon is the founder of muscle-centric medicine.

In our conversation, she makes the case that the key to health and longevity is not weight

management, it's muscle management.

She explains how we should not be worrying about how much we weigh and instead focus on muscle mass.

So here are some of the big ideas that we excavate.

The myriad benefits of building muscle, including muscle as a metabolic sink,

muscle as an essential amino acid reservoir, muscle as an endocrine

organ, and muscle as a confidence builder. We talk about the importance of protein, essential

amino acids and muscle protein synthesis. How much protein should we be consuming for our ideal body weight?

When should we be consuming protein and what are some of the best sources?

Then we confront the conundrum of can we lose weight while also building muscle.

And what is the proper protein consumption as a percentage of daily caloric intake?

How do we measure body composition? And we touch on the importance of rest and hydration.

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