EP. 180: Lifting Heavy & Staying Fit In Your 70’s | Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

You are tuned into the Dr. Tina show with Dr. Tina Moore. For more, visit DrTina.com. On this episode of the Dr. Tina show, I have a real treat for you. I am sitting down with my friend Sandra Shinebaum. She is a wonderful woman in her 70s. She's a clinical psychologist. She runs a whole health coaching program for the Institute of Functional Medicine. But more importantly, she is the most active woman that I know.

She's smart. She's sassy. She's fit. She is super mobile. She does not take that mobility and strength for granted. And I hope that this episode is super inspiring for all of you. It was for me. This woman is literally goals. She is this tiny little powerhouse. And today we talked all about how she stays fit, how she stays active, how to make it approachable, how to keep it fun, all the different types of activities she incorporates in her day to day.

The deep sadness that she feels when she sees her age cohort out in public or when she's trying to hang out with friends and everybody has such severe health issues, especially as they get older. We talked about all of it. It was a really inspiring and fun conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. So without further ado, let's jump in.

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Sandra, Shine Bomb, thank you so much for coming on the Dr. Tina show today. I am so excited to finally have you on. This has been a long time coming and you, I truly, I think I have to say I idolize you. You are like goals for me and I cannot wait to talk to you about how, literally like, I just want to pick your brain how you're living your life and staying so fit. So welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here and to talk with you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So first off, I want you to tell everybody how old you are if you're okay with that, or at least a ballpark. And I want you to tell them just kind of an overview, like what is your background? How did you get into health and wellness? And then how did you get into fitness?

Yeah, so I'm 74 or 74 and a half. Those halves used to be something when you're younger, they don't, you're not little anymore. So 74 and I have to say honestly that I am not feeling the impact of aging.

And I see my contemporaries. This just happened. I belong to a group and we were meeting over Zoom. These are all people that I've known for many, many years at same age range and some a few years older, some a few years younger, but basically in our 70s we're turning 80. And the entire conversation was about

But things really go south, they really go downhill after seventy or everybody here is in pain. I had a knee replacement, I had a hip replacement, I have joint pain, I have chronic pain, I have all kinds of chronic conditions, they're all on meds and I had to actively work on focusing in earth and saying,

I have to tune this out. I have to have a barrier, a boundary, because once you have that negative mindset seeping in, you're done for, because that is going right down to a cellular level. So what I was doing during that whole dialogue was thinking,

Oh, I'm just going to take a breath. I'm going to celebrate that I can stand. I have good eyesight. I'm actually getting better as I get older. I just did handstands that morning. I'm strong. I'm going to see a trainer in a little while after this Zoom meeting and focusing on what I'm capable of and just celebrating this age. And I haven't to say myself, and I have one friend, and we have been friends since college, and she is

identical and we support one another to say, I love my life. She just turned 74 and she posted on social media. I love my life. And this is so key. It's really the critical factor as opposed to what I hear all the time like a mantra. It sucks to get older. This is what happens when you get old. You just, you know, you have pain, you get illness. It's typical.

Well, that's the modern way of looking at age, right? Unfortunately, and especially in this country, is that it is a decline and a disintegration of your former years. And I think in other cultures, it's a celebration and a gift. I mean, aging is, I'm just freaking lucky I'm still alive. I just saw my best friend. We've been best friends for 40 years and I just saw her last week in Texas. I went to see her and I was like, how are we not dead? We have done some crazy stupid things.

and lives really out of alignment with health for, you know, in past years, like, how are we still standing? And so I always think of age as such a gift and such an honor to be able to, like, add a checkmark each year, you know, because I shouldn't be here for as stupid as I was. But anyway, okay, so you...

Your health coach, you have a litany of, I'm sure, credentials and experience. Tell the audience about you and what to do. Yeah, so I started out like most people, most women, I should say. I went to college and what were the pathways? You could be a secretary, you could be a nurse or you could be a teacher.

If you got better grades, okay, maybe you were a teacher. So I got good grades, I got a scholarship to go to Northwestern, majored in elementary education. And I thought that was where I would be. And I had this failure experience, because most of my successes have been due to failure. So I absolutely could not control this classroom. This was 1969. It was the heyday of open education, which was a disastrous experiment. You know, they're always experimenting.

with these ideas and education that are failures. Well, this was one where it was a one just first to third grade open classroom. So all these kids were put together. They didn't have structured seating arrangements or structured learning or much discipline. And I failed. I mean, I basically got a

B or C, which meant that I would never get a job. So I remember thinking, oh, my career is over. What am I going to do? Well, I could, maybe I couldn't control a one-to-one relationship. So, whoa, I could be a learning disabilities teacher. So I got my master's in learning disabilities. And then, of course, wouldn't you know it, I ended up, my first job was managing a classroom. I was a classroom teacher for kids with severe learning disabilities and behavior disorders.

So I had to learn behavior management strategies and did that for five years. And then I ended up teaching in a training program at a university teaching people to be special education teachers. And while I was doing that,

in both those capacities, I was seeing that these kids were struggling, but also their teachers were burnt out and struggling, their parents were struggling. And so I started doing workshops and groups for them and talking about this thing called stress management. And that was like unheard of in my early 70s. What is stress management? That I was very interested in breathing techniques. And so I ended up getting a doctorate in clinical psychology and was very, very disillusioned by

the psychology of the thinking at the time which was very Freudian and but it was all based on what's wrong with you not what's right with you and i thought i was a terrible psychologist because i would hear my colleagues like oh look at that he's just a raging bipolar or

major depress and I was thinking well he's got like you know he's got a good sense of humor and creative and I was looking at strengths and thinking I'm just a terrible diagnostician and I'll never make it as a psychologist but I ended up focusing on positive psychology and found that I could help people in very few sessions by just teaching them some breathing, some relaxation techniques combined with

helping them with what was I would call their nutty thinking, their irrational thinking. And I was fortunate to train with Dr. Albert Ellis, who is one of the fathers of cognitive behavior therapy, which is the idea that your thoughts are irrational, they're doing you in, but you could change them because you're able to think and you can modify those statements so that they are more realistic.

And as a result, you are changing, and what we now know from functional medicine, even at a cellular level. And so what I did is I took all of those, the way I was practicing, I was using cognitive behavior therapy, positive psychology, which is the study of what is right with you, not what's wrong with you. Combining that with this mind-body medicine, I was doing biofeedback, I was getting all these referrals.

people with things like migraine headaches or anxiety disorders. And then people were coming to me and said, well, you should teach this to health coaches. And so then we started a program to train health coaches in collaboration with IFM Institute for Functional Medicine. And that was about 10 years ago. That's my passion and my mission and purpose. Oh, I had no idea that background. So you've watched

You've watched so much unfold over the past few decades with children. I'm sure. It's been really hard for me even. I'm 50 and I remember when there was maybe one or two special needs kids in the class.

rarely an autistic child in the class. And if they were autistic, we never labeled them as such. They were Asperger or they were, they were actually all geniuses. They just were needing a little bit different technique and strategy for learning, you know? And there was like one kid that was struggling with obesity and usually there, it was clearly like, you know, there was a glandular problem. They used to, you know, call it.

It's been so wild to watch it morph over time right in front of my eyes and to have so few people acknowledge it and then also even the parents. I mean, I remember I grew up in Southern California, so I'm guessing the parental group there was just a more fit group because they were outside more often. They were in the sun more often.

Even in Oregon, when we moved here, I was in eighth grade and just the parents back then still were in quite good shape overall. They were fairly healthy. Maybe someone's dad drank too much or smoked too much, but everybody was good body composition, pretty strong, pretty active.

It's not that way anymore at all. It's very much changed. And so you've probably been having a bird's eye view of it just with at least, I mean, not so much now, but like your background going through the last few decades. I've seen it in the, this was the late 70s. And one of the things that I did, I was coordinating clinical experiences. These were masters level students who were doing their practicum in special education.

And I would place them and then I would go out to the facilities and supervise and there. So this was in the northern suburbs of Chicago and Lake County, which is the county that goes from that suburban area all the way up to the Wisconsin border.

For kids who were diagnosed with autism, there was one classroom. I mean, there were literally under 10 kids in the entire Lake County. They had a special school that housed them and hearing impaired and

So this was, they were considered like so out of the mainstream. These were not kids with learning disabilities, which is more common. And back then we didn't really, ADD hadn't even come into being at that time. It did a few years later. I actually ran a clinic for ADD. And I did a controlled study using neurofeedback. We compared it to Ritalin and got great results. But kids with autism, this was

This was something you was rare. You did not see this, as well as obesity. You get chapped lips in the winter. I know I do, especially when I get dehydrated. But we think that's only a summertime thing. It's not. It can happen readily in the winter too, as the drier winter air, both inside and outside of our homes, can actually sneak up on us and we don't even know it. Keeping our mucous membranes moist matters. And this is where electrolytes have made a major difference for me in the winters with my chapped lips.

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Right. And even, even ADD and ADHD, I was called hyperkinetic. They just said, you know, she's hyperkinetic. Don't feed her any white foods, make sure she gets plenty of exercise, make sure she has a pet, like something to take care of, whether it be a stuffed animal or a pet, I had a pet rat, I had dogs, you know, something to take care of and make sure she gets plenty of outside time. Yeah. That, and she goes to bed on time. Like that was the, that was the treatment.

Right. And I know I wish it were that simple now, but I really, I just posted a reel yesterday talking about kids that get into trouble, you know, like really kids that get into a lot of trouble. And I knew those kids. I was always, of course I was, I was always friends with those kids. Like I was always friends with the kids were getting in trouble. I was always the AP, like super star student, super high, you know, top of class.

And I always followed the rules, because I just knew how to work the rules, if you will. I don't like following rules, but I moved a lot. So I had to learn quickly, and I learned how to work the system. But I was always friends with the troublesome kids, and they were always brilliant. They were brilliant kids. They are creative. Really interesting kids. They just hated sitting still, and sitting under all those horrific fluorescent lights.

did terrible when you fed them food dies and you fed them junk food and they did terrible when they didn't get enough activity and movement and I kid you not like I am married to that kid now. I am married to the most brilliant wonderful man who is so intelligent and he was told repeatedly that he was not smart when he was in school and he was convinced when I met him that he was not good at school and just recently I signed him up for a health coaching program actually and he's able to play the video at like two times speed

And he walks around the house and he cleans and he works on his tractor and he puts on his headphones and he's like doing something or he's playing pool. And he looked at me the other day and he said, if I could have just turned my teachers up to two times speed.

and done something physical while I was hearing it, school would have been an entirely different experience. And I'm like, I told you, you were brilliant. It's the system. Like the sit still under the fluorescent lights and eat our garbage food. But I think this, my rant is because this applies to human adults. Human adults, human children, same same. Like human adults are sitting under fluorescent lights in cubicles and wondering why shit's going sideways in their health.

same rules. That is so, so true. And I had many traits of ADD. And when I started to study ADD and had a clinic and I was diagnosed, I probably diagnosed thousands of kids and we like long batteries of tests, which I look back and think, oh, that must have been brutal to put these kids through that. But then when positive psychology came into being, which is around the mid 90s,

It was really focusing on strengths. And so everything that you can say is a deficit, like specifically with ADD, impulsive, hyperactive. You can turn that around and say, how is that going to benefit you? So impulsivity, well, you're a quick start. And entrepreneurs, I'm in a group with entrepreneurs, and how many of you had ADD? Or think, I mean, everybody, it's 100% who are raising their hand. And I was just at an event at a conference.

And I was thinking, I've always been like this. I have to have a Nile seat. I can't, if I have an assigned seat that is stuck in the middle, it's like, how am I going to get out of this? It's like hell. I must get up and down 20 times.

And I like to stand now. I'm standing as we're doing this podcast. I feel good standing and it's excruciating to sit. And I also listen to books like Unaudible. And yeah, I'm always listening at twice the speed and getting through it and doing something else at the same time.

It's a thing. I think if more adults would honor that as well. It's funny. Adults think they get out of childhood and the rules are suddenly different. And I'm like, no, you still need to go outside and wear yourself out every day. I still send my husband out on the farm. If he's getting ordinary, I'm like, you need to go outside and tinker with something. So he'll go like rebuild an engine or he has to come home dirty and worn out. And then he's super calm and happy.

I feed him or he feeds, you know, we refeed him and then he takes a shower and he sleeps hard. He sleeps like a champ. And I'm like living out on the farm, I realized, oh, it's the modern city system. It's this urban climate that we're all in that is really, I think, just scrambling our brains and that downstream impact on our overall well-being is just so devastating. So anyway, that's my, my side ramp. But let's talk about, let's talk about you.

You are an adamant devotee to strength training. Talk about that. How did you get into that? And what's that journey been like for you? Well, if you saw a picture of me in my 20s, you would say, this is a fat slab. It was literally I was not obese, but I was so out of shape. And at the time,

I had a major addiction to sugar. Started in college, started eating desserts. Like, oh, you can keep going back to the cafeteria and get more and more. Oh, I think I'll have another serving ice cream. And then I was always a good writer. And I was always, I was like straight A students. But writing papers, I would deliberate and it had to be perfect.

And so I remember sitting like in a dorm and I could my comfort became snacking so they had vending machines, which I never saw. Okay, I can go to the vending machine and get a bag of M&Ms. Oh, I just finished that. I'll go get a Mars bar. So pretty soon. I mean, this was a major.

addiction. And it was binge eating, which I didn't know at the time as we didn't have labels for that. But I would be able to eat like, you know, bags of cookies and ice cream. And I never purged. But I was always like, Oh, I'm, you know, disgusted. How much I ate today? So I'll just eat a bag of carrots tomorrow. And it was

There was a diet at the time that was like, I knew I could lose five pounds in a week and fit into the dress for the, you know, the party over the weekend or whatever it was. So it was totally focused on appearance, had no concept, whatever, of health.

And I don't know why. I didn't because I was always interested in nutrition. There was a, I went to school in Evanston, Illinois at Northwestern and they had a little mountain pop health food store and I would go there and I would get these cookies and, you know, but there was all junkie, you know, health food stuff. But I actually took home ec and in back in the day they actually had a home ec department. They closed it soon afterwards. So I was studying nutrition and I was interested but not applying to myself.

And then as I got into my late 20s, I started getting into the Jane Fonda style of working out. And I would go to this fitness center and they had a big room. But it was focused on for me and for, I think, despite everybody there, appearance.

you know, you wanted to be toned, you wanted to look thin, you wanted to fit, you have your genes fit well, and that was my focus. And I remember they had nautilus machines around the perimeter of this group fitness room, and some of us and myself included would go through that circuit, but it was so half-hearted. I had no idea what I was doing, and I would do like, you know, maybe one set of

You know, like curls or whatever, and that's it. I'll do some bicep curls. Okay, I'm doing some, I had no idea what strength training was. And then I got into yoga and Pilates after that. And that was where I thought this is it. And I remember yoga instructors at the time saying, well, you don't need to do anything else. You don't need to do cardio. You just do yoga. But I was also doing cardio. And I became one of those crazed people. I had a treadmill in my basement.

I remember waking up. I had two daughters. They were little at the time and I would get up while they were still asleep and I would run downstairs. I had to get my hour in. I'm the treadmill. I don't think I even drank water beforehand. I was just like, got to run, got to break a sweat. I had no idea what I was doing. Then I did get more into strengths training. I remember when I was about 60. My older daughter was

getting married and we were preparing for this big wedding and I'm the mother of the bride. You know, and I had a strapless dress, so I have to have good arms. I have to be in shape. So throughout the time when I was doing any kind of strength training, it was for the wrong reason. It was for looking good. I had no idea about sarcopenia and how much muscle you'd actually be losing as you get older.

And then when I turned 70, then I was really decided I was going to get serious. And at that point, I did embark on more heavy resistance training. And it was during the height of the pandemic. So I was very limited. I got as much home equipment as I could. And I started doing more and more pushups and doing thing. I got a piece of equipment.

hold tonal, which sits on the wall. And the reason I like it is because you can raise or lower the weight with one pound increments, because I would go to these gyms and they're meant for guys. And my whole experience with the weight room is was not an experience. This was a play was like a no go zone. This is the bodybuilders. This is for the guys. This is where this is not for me or anyone out the other woman that I knew.

So there I was doing cardio and yoga and Pilates. And now I really love heavy strength training. So I do some form of it every day. And then three days are heavier. But on those in between days, I still do something. I do push-ups every single day. I will do, and I break things up as like snacks. So every time I'm

waiting for my coffee. I do the part over method and do 30 air squats. And I had a few minutes before coming on the podcast. Well, I can do some pushups. So I did some pushups or just throughout the day, we'll do things that. And then I also integrate jumping. I do a lot of jumps and jumping rope. I travel with a jump rope. I have a power plate every day. I do my power plate.

And so then I would be remiss if I didn't say ballet. So I take a ballet class. I started going with my daughter when she was young because she was in the field. And so I was taking her and I decided to join in the class. And I take it as a little girl, never any good at all.

But I kept it up and now I take three classes a week and it is ballet jumps are wonderful, but it's for the community. It's so good for your brain. So the studies have shown it is the best as for cognitive function because you have to learn the combinations and you have to remember.

And so it's my way of meditating. I was never into those long periods of meditating. And this is meditative. You're moving to the music in a flow pattern. So that's a long way of talking about what I do for fitness.

So, fun fact about me, 30 years ago when I was an undergrad, I wrote a paper about mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell. I was apparently way ahead of my time because now the topic is all the rage. I've since come to learn that one of the best ways we can care for and even generate new mitochondria is through adding new muscle mass to our bodies. Reason, 150 that I tell you that strength training is non-negotiable. But building muscle is really challenging when your mitochondria are pooped out, and a lot of folks are walking around with pooped out mitochondria.

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Urolithine upgrades your body cellular power grid, giving your body the energy it needs to optimize muscle health. In fact, a 2022 study in Cell Reports Medicine showed that Urolithine improved muscle strength, exercise performance, and biomarkers of mitochondrial health in a randomized trial in middle-aged adults.

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No, no, no, that makes so much sense. So let's go back to that for a minute. Community is so huge and especially since the pandemic and this idea of like musical flow, I love, I love, because I love dancing. I just tell so many people when they're like, I don't know where to start. I'm like, just start dancing. Just have a dance party every day. Just dance like, dance your ass off to your favorite song and dancing.

Pull up music that you loved when you were 17, 18 when life was good. It does such good things for your brain. And then the idea, like you said, combinations are so challenging. And I'm so terrible. I got kicked out of ballet when I was a kid. I was a gymnast. And they were like, you're not coordinated enough. Go to ballet. I went to ballet. They were like, you're not coordinated enough. Get out of here. But it's so true that putting dance combinations together is very challenging.

Yeah, so that's gonna be great for your brain. Oh, it's so good. I also take tap dancing. Oh, amazing. And tap is music with your feet, but that for sure, rhythmic tap, where you have to remember these combinations. I mean, it's also so good for your feet too.

But ballet is great. It was just hearing on a podcast about calf raises and how that's we should all be doing calf raises. And so I will just, you know, do that. I'll just stand on. That's a classic in ballet where you're just, you know, going out and you're just strengthening your calves or can you balance and it's wonderful and seeing tiny incremental changes. So I've been working on pirouettes for like 30 years and could never do them. Now at 74, I can finally do one.

that's halfway decent. I'm still not great, but it is possible to chain. And that's the message that I really want to convey. And that is I have been tracking my muscles, my skeletal muscle mass, and it has increased, which they say that's impossible. You can't do that in your 70s. You're just going to lose.

And I can see the difference. And I never had a butt before. I mean, I was just so skinny. I could, I mean, I was just disgusting how skinny I was. And I can, I've got, I actually had to go up a size like so. Nice.

I always tell people, we're trying to build bones at an ass. That's the goal. At the end of the day, these little baby weights in the gym are not it. We're trying to build our bones or we're trying to build our ass because if you build a butt and you build your legs, you basically build a really awesome glucose sink.

And all metabolic dysfunction starts in the lower legs and are in the lower body and the big muscles of the legs and the butt. So we need when women say, I don't know what happened. My butt just disappeared. I'm like, Oh, that's insulin resistance. That's metabolic dysfunction coming for you. We don't want that. Yeah.

So, go back to the soleus. So, that soleus muscle, when you do those calf raises, that the studies are showing that that muscle, just activating that muscle several times a day, is that's in your lower leg, and it's really important for blood sugar regulation. Yeah. I heard a statistic that a young man, like you know, trying to be able to do 40, so you do, you know, stand on one leg, and you do, you write up and down 40 times.

So I was able to do like 60. Like, you know, that's from ballet. It's from being able to, you know, because you're always practicing that to, to, you know, you're standing in these positions where you are.

Elevating and then you are balancing at the same time, but it's these subtle cues that you give and like Can make all the difference like how can I balance? Well, I can pull up more I'll just straighten my leg more and that allows you to elevate more and balance more and you are working your calf muscle more So it's just these little tweaks and I love learning about that and so you know that there are positions that I've been doing and

in a wrong way and all of a sudden you get this one little cue and wow, that's it. So it's that being curious and open to like new experiences, but I do want to share something that happened the other day. So I go to a fitness center that is close to where I live.

It actually happens to be on the campus of a big hospital here in Chicago area, which is great that they have, but because it is so it's a freestanding gym, a private gym, but because it's if it's proximity to this big mega hospital complex.

They have a lot of classes for people who have issues like Parkinson's. So I was working with a trainer, which I love because he spots me. And we were going up to, on the leg press, 480. This was going to be my new record, pushing 480 pounds. Oh my gosh. And the group fitness room is right nearby. The door opened and all of these individuals who are Parkinson's

started coming out and to their credit they were in this share movement class but they were all you know either my age range or maybe younger and I just said this like prayer of gratitude like thank good like I am so grateful that I have these strong legs to be able to put like I am I will do everything in my power in some things I can't control to avoid

being in that state of decline. And it was just so motivating to see that, you know, yes, you can do something no matter where you're at, you can start. It is never too late. And to the kind of these individuals, they were in the fitness class and they have like pool therapy for them as well. So they're going and they're getting movement. But I don't want to wait

Until that decline, you know, to start to move. Oh, amen. It's. I mean, I feel like I'm just chasing after.

I'm just chasing after it. Like, I don't know how to put it. I just, I feel like I'm chasing something which is maintaining my nervous system at the end of the day. My grandfather died a terrible, miserable death of MS and it was awful to watch. I mean, this awesome, strong, smart, talented man just declined, declined, declined. And all I ever saw of him, because by the time I was born, it was already full throttle. He was just always in a chair.

And drinking soda and eating ultra-processed carbs. And it just kept declining and declining and declining. And I've watched several family members kind of go similar routes. And so for me, I remember being very young and being like, oh, no.

Like soda is bad. Artificial sweeteners are bad. Sitting on your ass all day is really bad. You know, like it's just, I saw it firsthand just over and over and over again with people I loved. And I, so I feel like I'm constantly, and maybe it's the ADD, but I'm constantly in this like, gotta keep going. I'm running away from it, I guess. You know, we're running, I don't know what I'm doing, but I feel like I'm chasing,

Not my youth. I'm just chasing vigor and vitality always because I don't. God forbid. I do not. I just can't imagine ever being in that state where I don't know. I did see something really interesting the other day that is applicable though just to mention was.

There are ways to sort of test to see if you're headed towards dementia. And one of them is simply just being able to stand on one leg for 30 seconds. If you cannot stand one-legged for 30 seconds, your risk for dementia is significantly increased. I mean, it's as simple as that. You know, grip strength is another huge one. And people can't even, I know women that are younger than me who I'll say, hey, let's just do a dead hang from a bar and they can't even hold on. And they're like, oh, I can't hold on. I'm like, well, you're going to be zombie bait then.

You're like, if you can't hold on, what are you going to do? That you leave it up to that. That puts everyone else in a position to have to grab you and pull you up.

To me, it just comes down to being self-sufficient in society. So true. So I have become obsessed with pull-ups because what I didn't say is that I was the worst person in my gym class. I never identified as strong as an athlete. I was flabby. I was this kid. I'm even kindergarten. I remember I had like a big belly. I wasn't fat, but I mean, that was not me. We grew. I had an apartment. We grew up and I was in an apartment. We didn't have a backyard. I'd never learned to ride a bike.

And when they came to the physical fitness test, which they've abandoned, I hope they bring that back, but- Let's bring it back. I'm on a quest to bring it back. Yeah, doing things like the broad jump, the 50-yard dash. I was the slowest person. I was the one who could, who jumped the least in high school. He had to be in those rings. I could not. I had no strength. And so now I am determined. So I started with the assisted pull-ups and I can see that I'm getting better. So I can't do a full unassisted pull-up, but I need less weight.

to get up there and dead hangs I'm practicing and farmers carry I've also become obsessed with those yes you know just trying can I I put on my favorite song and can I carry these for a minute so you know I'm up to 30 pounds I know it has to be half your body weight that's I think maybe be a tortilla set anyway so I'm

That's my goal to get up there. But doing it every day like these farmers care and the other thing is throughout the day. So going shopping and I'll bring my own bags and so I have them load them very.

heavy and not have too many. And so they start to put it in the cart so I can get out to my car and I said, no, I'm going to carry it. Are you sure they're really heavy? No, I need to carry it. So I figured, okay, that's my practice to carry and things like I was with my husband and we were at a store and there was a big, big box of

Pellegrino, which I love. And so they was on sale. And OK, let me get that. No, I'm going to do it. I'm going to get it. I'm going to put it in the car. I'm going to carry it and put it in the car. And he kept saying, can I help you with that? No. I mean, those little things throughout the day, because I'm just determined, same thing with opening the Pellegrino. And I'm going to do it myself. I don't need help.

Oh, it's my I literally just got into it with my husband because he keeps trying to do everything for me. And I'm like, babe, this is super nice of you, but I existed for 46 years on this planet without any help. I'm fine. And the he was hoisting up my little suitcase. And I was like.

If I don't do this every day, I'm going to get osteoporotic and frail. Is that what you want? Or do you want your hot wife? Because you don't get to have your hot wife if I'm not picking the heavy shit up and putting it down. Like any opportunity I get to pick the thing up and put it down safely is I'm going to take it, right? And it's exactly the same thing. If I can take the stairs, if I can pick up those grocery bags and haul them out and same with me and I'm

I'm, you know, decades behind you and they're still like, are you sure? It's pretty, it's pretty heavy. And I'm like, I'm small, but I'm mighty. Like I'm, I'm good. This is why I'm good is because I carry my own groceries. Exactly. And I also think the negative mindset, because my husband will say things like, um, oh, be careful. Don't hurt. You're going to hurt yourself. Don't hurt yourself. Like, no, I don't want that. Like don't say that. Shut up. This is not, um, this, I don't want that kind of mindset.

that is the nocebo, that is so not going to think I'm going to hurt myself. I'm going to think I'm doing this and I've got the right position. And that's what I love about integrating different fitness activities because everything that I've learned from Pilates, from ballet, from yoga, from balancing contributes if I'm going to do a deadlift. So knowing how to strengthen your core before you go, knowing where to position your back, having the right kind of imagery, it all

comes together. And so I think that's why you can't just specialize in one. You need all of them. Such a good point. Yeah, that's a very good point. If you get stuck in one lane and I've done that, I've been guilty of it. You get stuck in one modality and the other ones definitely pay the price. And to me, at the end of the day, I just think, can I harness my tension throughout my body appropriately?

and get the angles down so that I don't hurt myself. And I, that was what started the bickering the other day with the husband was because he said, don't hurt yourself. And I was like, if I don't pick these things up all the time, I'm going to hurt myself. Like there is going to be a day when I hurt myself. So let me have the suitcase. Let me have the bag of groceries. Let me do the thing. Let me same thing with the Pellegrino. Like let me carry it in because

It's the little tiny day to days that allow you to train your body and your central nervous system to be able to do it appropriately when it comes to the heavier lift. So when you do have to pick something up heavier, whether it's in the gym or in real life, you're not going to hurt yourself because it's not a foreign concept to your body.

Absolutely. And I run into this all the time. So even in one of my ballet classes for people over 50 and then I said, well, we're not going to do any jumps. Don't worry. We're not going to jump. I want to jump. This is really good. And as I've talked with people in the

they just say, no, well, you know, I have osteoporosis or I've joint issues or I've pain and my doctor told me I shouldn't be jumping and well, just start slow. And, you know, you can gradually work up to it. But it's that mindset. Like, I can't do it or I'm going to get hurt. I'm going to get injured. And it's the same way they're not in the sun because I'll get skin cancer or I'm supposed to not be in the sun. And I always say, no, I don't use sunscreen. I don't use sunglasses.

You know, I'll use a little bit on my face, but that's it. And so it's this fear that I think sets people back. And I had that, because I do handstands every day. That's my favorite. If I had to choose one thing, I love doing handstands and I've done them every morning.

And I am just thinking, well, I'm just gonna keep doing this. And I'm actually can see getting better at it. It's in my 70s. I'm better at them now than I was when I was, I couldn't do it in my 40s. Many of the things in flexibility I couldn't do, but practicing them. And that's the key. So I have to pray if I don't, I do splits every day. If I don't keep doing it, then I'll lose it. So, you know, that was, and I had,

I broke about a year ago I did something really stupid I was going down to the floor with no hands and, and it was on a wood floor so I broke my fifth metatarsal and I have to be in this boot for you know eight weeks and I'm going to be sarcopenic and I'm going to lose everything so I.

focused on what can I do in a boot? And I googled training, resistance training, and with tons of things. So, okay, I'm gonna have the best upper body. I can do all of these bench presses. I can do pull downs. I can do all this stuff. I was even doing like pistol squats with one leg, practicing balance and core work. And so luckily, when I measured, I didn't lose muscle mass. But that fear, like, oh, I'm gonna forget how to do handstands. I'll never be able to do them again. And of course, got right back, the body knows.

and it becomes habit. The body knows you're right and it's, you just nailed it on the head. It's just doing it all the time and not letting too long of a period go in between so that you lose it, right? You gotta just keep moving. And I think a lot of kids though, I meet a lot of women or I hear from my followers very often, they, especially in your generation, I actually have a lot of women who follow me. That's why I really wanted to have you on is because I got a lot of great women and they're

60s, 70s, 80s who follow me. And I so often they say, am I too old? Is it too late? And then the big thing is they were never physical in the first place because they grew up in a generation where that was never part of their experience. And maybe they had PE and granted they probably are way more athletic than they realized because their PE was way better than today's PE. But they do not identify at all as somebody who's active or even mobile. And what would you say to those women?

I would say that you set an intention and anything is possible and you can surpass yourself. First of all, you start small. You start with where you're at and start with simple things like standing on one leg and have a support. Learn how to do a squat.

and then start with one. Learn how to do those wall squats. Start with pushups. So in this ballet class for people over 50, I mean, we'll do pushups against the bar, like you did against the wall. I was doing those when I broke my foot last year. And it is mindset. It is saying that I can do this and you picture yourself as more capable. And so you start with the places that you're strong. Maybe you think you have strong arms. Okay, so just start there and then see

Okay, how can you find, first of all, I think the key is finding something you love. So like dance or and then asking and working with a coach, like do you want to work with people who with a group or are you more of an introvert and you like to just do your own thing in your garage or your basement. So, but you can have there are wonderful trainers.

who at the gym that I go to because it is on the campus of a big hospital, they get a lot of, and there are, I see these old guys in their 90s who are in the weight room. And that's another thing we can talk about. There are no women in the weight room, but there are a lot of these older guys and it's a social thing for them. So for the women though, I do see them coming in and there's some trainers who are geared to working with this population.

And they're they're very cautious that they start them out on really low weights but learning the form first is something that they can do, but join a dance class joint do something that will be with other people at least it's movement and then see you I think.

Strength training is critical as you say it is non-negotiable, say that too. And so work with a trainer if you can't afford a trainer. Maybe there's a group of you. There's a group in this fitness center that I belong to. And I see them. They're so cute. They walk around with their clipboards.

and they've had a trainer and then she writes a program and they come in like there's four of them so it's more affordable they divide the cost of the trainer and they're doing it as a group is social and they're laughing and they're having fun and uh you know they're doing the machines and then if you really get into it you know you can graduate and when i started with a trainer a few months ago because i'd worked on an office trainers over the years.

And I always felt like I knew what to do. And I was paying money for like, I don't need somebody to say, you know, do 12, three, you know, so you've had some bicep curls. And now we're going to do triceps. Well, I know how to do those things. I don't need to drink. I said, I want to work on deadlifts. I want to work on chest press. I want to work on. I want to use the hex squat machine. I want to use the big machines, those hammer strength, you know, the ones, these intimidating scary where you got the

bar on your back. I can't do that by myself. I'll kill myself. I don't want to make you with it. I need a spotter and I want you as my trainer to be the spotter and I want to do a few sets. Heavy push me heavy because that's another thing they look at me and they'll give me these light weights initially. A trainer is great especially for spotting if you are going to go into those

weight room areas. I think that's important. But I think just getting started and it is possible. You know, as I said, I've seen gains in skeletal mass and you can change. I think of bodies remarkably resilient and capable of change and picture that in my ballet class there is a woman who is in her 90s.

And she comes all the time to class. She does everything. She does work in the center of the room as well. In my, I take another class, one of the tap dancing classes, I don't take this one, but she's, her name is Lorraine, and she's a tap teacher. And she is in her 90s, and she teaches from her walker. She's in a walker, but she's still there teaching, so anything's possible.

I love it. And the studies show that you can gain muscle mass. No matter what age you are, it's still possible. It just might take time. It might be a little bit more of a challenge or I shouldn't say challenge. I hate that word. It's just more strategic. Yeah. You just have to get more strategic and make sure you're feeding yourself well and, you know, sleeping yourself well and prioritizing what matters. That is the other thing that I think we haven't talked about yet, but really what we're feeding ourselves. So I was a

vegan for many years. It was the worst possible. If I look back in my life and say, what are some of the things I did that I regret? It was that period, which is when my kids were young and I raised them vegans, which was a disastrous thing to do to them. And I spent a period of time maybe a few months as a raw vegan. That was the absolute worst, so nutrient deprived. But I thought, oh, I have no energy. I'll just put more kale in my smoothie.

I've been there. That's a disaster. And then started learning about protein. And thanks to our mutual colleague, Dr. Gabriel Lyon, I was like, you've got to eat, I was into intermittent fasting and not eating till, to look at the size of you, you've got to have protein. You've got to start, you know, you have to have breakfast with produce. So now I have like huge amounts of protein. And this is also something I've done a lot of work. I've taught a lot of courses in eating psychology.

There are real gender differences in approaches to eating and food choices, and red meat is one of them. So I tell this all the time. Like if you plan a, my life planned bridal showers, for example, or lunches, been to tons of lunches, you would never get served a steak, for example, in those kinds of events. But if guys go for a lunch,

They're going to have meat in a steakhouse. And if you look at the decor of those restaurants, for example, it's very male. Whereas for women, this happened actually recently. We were out with another couple.

The other woman wanted a salmon and I just it was pretty late. I don't like eating it late So I was gonna get meat, but it was too late. So I got salmon and my husband said, oh, maybe the two of you should share it And it's like no, I didn't say anything, but no, I knew that for a teen I'm not gonna share it and but when I see many couples

doing or many women that I go out with who are my age bracket, they will share. And often it's a, you know, it's a cost thing and I get that and food is ridiculously expensive. But they also don't eat it. They will eat half of it and they'll take it home, which is exactly what happened. So I ate my whole piece. In fact, I could have had more of that piece of salmon we were served. The other woman ate half of it and took it home. She probably got two ounces.

Oh, no. Yeah, I know. It's you're so right. This is such a good point. No one talks about this. You make such a good point. I'm old enough to know what you're talking about. And it's you're so right. It's so interesting how

Culturally, we've just been programmed to be dainty and petite and take less. And I watched my mom do this. Moms make sure everyone's fed before they're fed. So it's just sort of ingrained. And then the whole eat less, move more concept, which is so outdated. And yes, it's a piece of it. I don't just regard it completely.

It's such a toxic culture and women are just ending up with osteoporosis because of it.

Yeah. Yeah. And their brains are shrinking. They're getting dementia and osteoporosis. Yeah. And I don't realize it. And yeah, I've seen this so much. We're out to eat with our contemporaries. And they'll order a salad with maybe some chicken, a little few strips of chicken, and then they'll eat half of it and take the rest home. Oh, they'll split it with their partner and barely eat anything.

And the less we eat the, something really important to mention here, the less meat we eat, the less acid our stomach secretes. And so for folks listening who, I hear this a lot from my followers, meat makes my stomach hurt. I used to be there. I was a vegetarian for 10 years. I completely destroyed my health. I went from like 14 to age 14 to 24 as a vegetarian. Can you imagine like those critical years, I just just

My cartilage in my joints is so thin because of it, like critical growth years of my hormones in my musculoskeletal system. And I'm over here like living off of mac and cheese, but not even a vegetarian, just mac and cheese a tarian. And I think that we don't realize what we've, what we're doing to ourselves at these critical

points in our lives. And then at the end of the day, women, so many women would come into my clinic and they were in so much pain. That was what I specialized in. They were in so much pain. When I had this dear old doctor, he's probably not around anymore. He was such a great cool old guy. And he told me many decades ago, just make, just get all your female patients to beef up their protein.

I mean, he told me this decades ago, get all your patients to beef up their protein intake and their pain will go down. And then you'll have a better clinical picture of what you need to address with your needle because I did it regenerative injection therapies. And I cannot tell you how many skinny older women would come in with.

Devastating body-wide pain and terribly minuscule muscle mass. And then tell me, oh, my stomach hurts when I eat meat. And I'm like, it's because you're not eating meat. So your bodies, as we age our stomach lining atrophies, we lose the ability to secrete intrinsic factor. So we don't absorb our B12 as well. So they lead them to dementia. And we also don't secrete the stomach acid like we used to.

And we end up not being able to process food. And then the dentition declines because the osteoporosis makes the mandible get start to erode and the teeth start falling out. And so these poor older folks, especially women, especially as they outlive their husbands and they're alone. So now they're just cooking for one. So they start living off of canned mushy food.

And they just, it's so horrific the decline that happens. They're vaginal tissue atrophies and they're stomach lining atrophies and it's all just a hot mess and I want to put more protein in them. And so I'll start them even with just protein powder. Like let's just get something in you that we can absorb.

and start working our way back because the stomach will respond. It will come back online to some degree, and maybe we need to add some digestive enzymes and some HCl to meals, but like, we got to get them back because it's such a precipitous decline. And I do all of that. I have whey protein smoothies. I'll all put extra collagen, extra whey protein and creatine and also amino acids, not essential

I mean, I just go to the gym and I've got, you know, I just load up with them and just all, all day long. And it is, it is really critical. And I just see so many people who are doing, in fact, the discussion I was having with friends about chronic pain. They were talking about a center here nearby.

where they go to get these injections. It's like the cortisone, they're just pumping their body with these pain injections and thinking that is the only thing to do because they can barely walk.

Yeah, and I see the scooters in, you know, you go into the big box stores and they are increasing. Every time I go in, they've got more of them available. And that is my motivator. Let me just look at those and I just, like, that I am going to do everything in my power.

to be able to stand off, to still jump, to run, to, you know, to skip. I will go around the house sometimes skipping. I do, like, from ballet, there's jetes, where it's this power, like a leap. And I will just go as if I got a hallway here. I will not walk in. I will skip. I will hop on one foot like I'm doing hopscotch, or I will do these jetes, like, to just, like, move throughout the day and interspersed as the,

But just that power movement, I think, that's the other thing we forget about. We don't jump. We don't do things that are bursting into... Luckily, I'm still able to do some sprints. That's the other thing I do. I walk every day, count steps, and that, I feel, is not negotiable as well, getting that movement in.

That's where I listen to podcasts and just any opportunity that I can stand like now instead of sitting and every time I'm standing, can I walk? So I have a treadmill desk and it's hard to do like Zoom meetings on it. I know Ben Griefhill does it. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how he does it. He's so balanced.

But I do it for writing projects. I'm putting together like PowerPoints. And I will just turn on some music and I'll stand on my treadmill desk and get that kind of work done and feel like I am moving. And it actually helps with creativity when I'm moving.

Absolutely. I think that all people should actually have their therapy lessons walking. I think that all therapy should be walking, like walking sessions. When I was a psychologist, I was a health psychologist, and I saw a lot of people with panic attacks, because I used to get terrible panic attacks, which of course was tied into the thousand grams of sugar I was eating and didn't even realize it, and not were exercising. Black movement, yeah.

The, and I would say specialize in, and I had a lot of people with panic. And I would just say, let's get out and walk. And we would, would walk up a whole session. And it was great. It's a great way to process your emotions. And I think, I think that anytime I start to get heated with my husband, I wish that he would just listen to me and like go for a few laps around the house because I think that we would resolve the issue a lot better if we were in movement.

Things are much better when you're a movement. There's data to show this that trauma does not make its way up to the verbal centers of our brain so that we can even process it for months. And so, you know, somebody dies or something terrible happens and you're trying to figure out how to sort it out and process it. Movement is the answer. Music and movement and art, but really movement will

help your body actually process it from the brainstem and the lizard centers of our brain up into the places where it's going to end up eventually instead of it really getting trapped and taking over our amygdala and limbic system if we could just move through it. And there's studies showing that if you go through a terrible breakup,

you won't hardwire the trauma in so hard if you're a regular exerciser. Like this is all, I mean thankfully science is catching up with what you and I know and have known for a while but, well you know that brings up a point though, you said something, I don't know if people caught it, listening, you started strength training, you said during the pandemic and lockdowns, is that right?

So this is not like you, this is not that long ago. Yeah. So I was always doing strength training, but I was doing it for the wrong reasons. And I wasn't doing it full out, you know, and I was doing like, you know, just the, doing a 12, 12 reps, three sets. Okay. I'm done. And I wasn't doing enough of it to make a difference. And I do it once a week or I would, you know, do sometimes I would do like one set and I would just go around and do the machines or, you know, I,

It was I wasn't seeing gains I hadn't seen increases in muscle mass It wasn't until I got serious when I was 70 and that was I started with push-ups and I was gonna I'm gonna do a good push-up to the floor and see I'm gonna start with one and how many can I get and So and just did that repeatedly there was one day during luck I think I did 300 push-ups that day. Oh, I know and then I do you know But I do have a yoga routine that has some strengths training involved in it as well and

side planks and I've always done things for balance and for flexibility and just trying to put the whole thing together. I love it. We need to get a fitness program out of you one of these days. I think the world needs it. Can I ask you one question before we close up?

The pushback I get often from people, they ask me, when they see my workouts, if I post it online, what weight are you using there? And what's heavy? What does heavy mean? And I'm like, heavy for you is not the same as heavy for me is not the same heavy as for Sandra is not the same as heavy for my husband. What does that mean to you? And how would you explain it to people? Because it varies, right? It's individualized.

Yeah, for me, I go, I want to be able to do one rub and not be able to do it, to do it to failure, where this is so heavy, I cannot do it anymore. And so what I have learned is to do that less is more.

because I used to automatically do 12. And then, OK, I got to 12. OK, now I'll go on to the next exercise. Now I do four or five. But four, five sets of four, and they're so heavy. And then at the last part of it, let's say it's a chest press. And I will say, OK, what can I do? Or I'm like, I can't do anymore. So for example,

on the chest press at the gym where it's got the big bar. And I don't do that by myself. And that's one of the, I mean, you really want to know, you want to be prudent. And if so, unless you are really confident with the equipment, you can get injured. So you have a spotter, a trainer, somebody who knows what they're doing. So I've got, and that was a big thing. Like he is there and he said, Sandy, I'm not going to, you know, I said, I'm not going to, I'm not going to let this weight crush you. Yeah, we're not going to come down on your chest.

I've got you, I'm spotting you, you're safe. That was all I needed. And a little cue like tighten your butt, pulling your abs, press down on your heels as you're lying on this bench. Okay, so then I got up, I was able to do 70 pounds, which for me, okay, that's good. And then I can maybe do two sets of 70 pounds and go up to three. On the deadlift, I've gotten up to 120. It's odd that I don't do the bar. I do the hex bar.

Because I think that's where you're standing inside. And then, so I want to be able to do one at the heaviest weight. So I keep telling him, I want to go more because that's what he'll tend to like. You want to stay at this weight? No, let's try the next weight up. Same thing with this leg press and I'm on the one where you put on the plates.

And you're kind of lying, so am I prone? So I'm up to 480. And I said, OK, next time, we're going to go for 500. I want to set a record. And this gym doesn't allow filming. And I said, you damn better film me. I don't care about their filming policy. It's on AI way, 88 pounds. If I'm 88 pounds, it's 74 years old. And I can push 500 pounds. I have to film this. But it's this curiosity that's key.

With this, I wonder if I can lift melody. So, you know, if I'm doing a like a hammer curl. Okay, I know I can do 10, 12 pal. Okay, what would happen if I went to 15? Okay, you know, well, I can do, you know, one or two. So it's keeping.

to push yourself. And that's where I see as critical in everything, in whatever you're doing, to push yourself to say, yes, I can imagine myself doing this. What do I need to get there? Maybe not today, but I will eventually reach it. Like, I want to be able to do a full pull-up. I never get there, but that's my goal. And I accept successive approximations to that goal. Like, yes, I got a millimeter higher in getting there today.

I love this attitude. I love it. So heavy for you is what is most challenging for you. And that is not the same as everybody else's. And then you keep curiosity going. So it's because it's addictive, right? When you do it, you're like, oh, I nailed that. What can I do next safely? And then just I really love what you just said was approximations of success, like just the baby, baby steps.

And women are not challenging of the ones, and I admire them. At least they're in the weight room area. People seem to love the hip abductor, where you put in your opening and closing your legs, and they sit on there. And so I was waiting to use that machine. I was not with my trainer. I just do those fun exercises.

It was so I got on the equipment right after she left. So she's sitting there and she says her lives are going in and out. She's on her phone and she's like texting and so she's like not even paying attention to what she's doing. She's not breathing. She might as well just be at home, you know, doing texting.

And so I got on there and it was she had like 20 pounds. This is like, and this was a much younger woman. She looked in shape, but like, but why are you wasting your time? And I like put like a 150 pounds more on it. Like because I was just like, I want to work out with you, Sandra.

We'd have so much fun. Come out to Portland. I have a gym in my house. We can film all day. I love it. This is so important. I'm so grateful to have you on the show because I don't think that women really understand what it is that we're trying to lay down.

feel like i say it all day and it's easy for me to say because people see me and they're like oh you're an oh you know i'm in decent shape i'm not in the same phenomenal i used to be a much better shape but like oh it's easy for you to say and it's like it's easy for all of us to say we just get up off our ass and prioritize it you know like whatever age we are we have to find the workarounds you've hit on so many important topics they work around your injuries

Train around them, hire someone to help you where you can, figure out a way to make it accessible. If you can't hire someone for one-on-one, consider a group coaching program. Make sure you're consistently challenging yourself, move in a variety of ways, and keep it interesting and stay curious, because that's it at the end of the day. That's how we stay as beautiful and don't age, right? That's your secret.

Yes, well, I love it. Where can people find you? Where can they find you and follow you? Yeah, well, Instagram, it's Dr. Sandy, D-R-S-A-N-D-I. That's my personal page. Or it is a functional med coach. And our website is functionalmedicinecoaching.org. We need millions more health coaches. So if you are in retirement and you're thinking, what am I going to do? This gives you meaning and purpose. If you want to work with a coach, if you want to hire a coach, if you're

professional in health care and they can go to my website or you can just reach out to me on Instagram. I love to talk to people. I love it. Well, we'll make sure all the links are in the show notes so people can find you because you're such a wealth of knowledge and I'm so grateful that you came on. I just love you and thank you for coming on the show today. Thank you. This was great. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to The Dr. Tina Show. This is a wellness-loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme Song is by John the Guilt. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can email the podcast at podcastatdoctortina.com. That's D-R-T-Y-N-A. And if you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

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