148. Fitz Koehler: The Four Pillars of Fitness and the Exact Formula for Strength, Fat Loss, and Longevity

Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained in board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly, extend your health span. Most people think that fitness means working out regularly, but many are only training one-quarter of what their body actually needs to be strong, resilient, and long-lasting. In this episode of Extend, I'm joined by Fitz Kohler. She's a fitness innovator, a race announcer, podcast host, and the author of the new book You Supercharged, the exact formula for fitness, weight loss, and longevity. Fitz brings an energizing, no-nonsense approach to health that cuts through quick fixes and fads to focus on what truly works, a system built around what she calls the four pillars of fitness. We break down why strength, cardio, flexibility, and balance are all non-negotiables for real fitness, how her exact formula integrates movement, nutrition, and sleep for sustainable results and why discipline, not motivation is a key to long-term success. Fitz also shares how she applied these principles during her breast cancer journey to go from sick to strong and come back more powerful than ever. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and build a body and mindset that's truly supercharged, this conversation is for you. Hey, everyone. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to talk about something that you hear me talk a lot about, your biomarkers. I want to tell you how I'm approaching this situation right now with all of the patients that are calling me from listening to this podcast. What happens is, every day, patients are writing to me saying they feel exhausted, they can't lose weight, they're having brain fog, and they see their doctor and the doctor tells them all their blood work is normal. The problem is this doctor usually is only checking about 10 to 15 biomarkers and only tell you if you have a disease developing. Meanwhile, your body has 160 different systems that are running. Then all of these have blood tests that we can test on how effective they're working for you every single day. So if someone is not close to one of my clinics, one of my next-health clinics, then I tell them go to their local laboratory and get on Function Health. Function Health gives you access to 160 different biomarkers, the same kind of comprehensive testing that we do at all of our next-health clinics. And if you try to get this on your own through your regular doctor, it can cost you thousands of dollars. Hormones, inflammation, toxins, nutrient levels, they're all tracked over time in this one platform called Function Health. They can even help you get an MRI scan or a CT scan if you want one. So what I love most about this company is that they don't have a crazy incentive to do this. Function doesn't push supplements, they don't have pharmaceuticals they're trying to get you to take. You're just getting the data and you're getting insights from the data. And you can bring this data to a clinic like ours and we then have the information that we need to tell you how to improve your health. Membership is now only $365 a year. Literally it's just a dollar a day. And right now, if you're one of my listeners, you can get a $25 credit towards the membership. You just go to the link in the bio over to functionhealth.com slash Dr. Shaw and use the code Dr. Shaw 25 for a $25 credit towards your membership. Fitts, thank you so much for coming to California to join me for the Extend Podcast. I would have come to Norway for you, Dr. Shaw. You're amazing. Thank you. Thank you. So sweet of you. Okay, so you are an incredibly well-known fitness expert and you give advice to thousands of people on fitness and you've been living this lifestyle since you were like a teenager, basically, right? Right. But you've seen your fair share of ups and downs. Yeah, I have. And it's funny. I did start teaching fitness at 14. You taught fitness at 14. I started teaching fitness at 14. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I left Cinnabon. I was working at the mall making cinnamon buns and I was at the gym post rehab. I had a MCL tear, went to PT. Was that from sports or something? From soccer. Yeah, I was a mediocre soccer player, but I still got it. I got a real superstar injury and the physical therapist after surgery said, you need to join a gym. I lied. She said I was 15 so I could join spa lady, a little women's gym in Fort Lauderdale. And I joined and I fell in love with exercise and I started taking classes and I really enjoyed that. And I was working at Cinnabon, which is the direct opposite of teaching fitness. But yeah, my manager got mean and so I quit and I applied at the gym and they said, have you ever taught fitness before? And I said, no. And they said, well, do you think you could teach a class on Friday? It was Tuesday. And I said, well, I'll give it a go. I mean, thank goodness I'm a gamer. That's really where it all began. And I just fell in love with it. I love the act of exercising with people and then I love the outcomes. You know, even as a really young person, I started seeing not only people's bodies changes, but their minds were upgraded, their lives were transformed. They had better social circles. They had more confidence. They were getting better jobs. And my fascination, my commitment with it has just grown exponentially over the years. I'm so in love with what I do. Wow. That's amazing. And it's part of your story too. And how I met you was through Dr. Don Masellum. And then you met her at a run for cancer and you went through a cancer journey yourself. I did. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm six years remission right now. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. I did the, we call it the treatment triathlon, chemo, radiation, surgery, all the stuff. And I was beaten up. I had that moment where my mom shouted at me, you need to eat. You look like you're in the Holocaust. And I said, thanks, mom. I'm working on it. But thank God I'm a fitness expert because when I hit rock bottom and it was very, it was very hard to rock bottom. I never had a doubt that I would rebuild my body and return to not only normalcy, but excellence and athleticism. But at that point I thought about all the millions of my peers, you know, how many cancer patients hit rock bottom. They are devastated by chemo and radiation and amputations, et cetera. And they have no idea how to get back to, you know, not only normal, but even, you know, better. And once you've recovered from cancer, you tend to embrace life and want more. And so, so yeah. So I wrote the Healthy Cancer Comeback book series and I'm really committed to helping other patients go from sick to strong. Yeah. That's such an incredible mission. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. You know, I, prior to doing this podcast and doing my claring clinical practice, I did surgery and a lot of women who had breast cancer. I did the, the removal and then the reconstruction piece of this. And you're absolutely right. Like I think the mindset of post-surgery for many women, post-breast cancer surgery for many women is that this is kind of like the end of a normal life. When the reality is it can be the beginning of a whole new, a whole new lease on life, whole new attitude around fitness and health and nutrition and all of it. Yeah. It's perspective. I mean, it's no matter who you are, what you have, the second someone looks at you and says, Hey, you've got cancer or ALS or Parkinson's or whatever it is. The only thing you want at that point is health. Right? You don't care about the car and the clothes and the purse. All you think is, geez, I just want to be healthy. Right? And so I find it interesting, bless the medical professionals who are telling patients, you should exercise. You should eat right. But doing it during all of this treatment is, is trickier than it sounds. And so being able to have that firsthand experience and then of course, the fitness expertise, I was just compelled to put it together. And thankfully so many people are buying off on it that yeah, exercise and nutrition, all right, will make you more likely to hit remission, less likely to have a recurrence. And then of course, just go live larger than ever. And there are so many cancer survivors that are living really big and really joyfully, despite some of the scars they may carry. Right, absolutely. And, you know, looking back from your perspective of now going through this and writing these books, I have a friend going through breast cancer right now, just getting started on treatment. What are like two or three big pieces of advice that you can give her to make it through and things that you wish you would have known have done differently? Well, I would say control what you can. So there's always something you can control. I mean, just choosing a doctor. That's within your control. You don't just let them hand you a doctor. You research the one that works for you. And when your doctor makes treatment recommendations, know that you have the option to say yes, approve or deny. I approved everything my doctor suggested, but it was something I could control, right? The other thing is exercise. You may not be the person you were, you may not be able to do the things you could do before, but do something. Right. Even if you're having a sick in bed day and boy, did I have a lot of those. I would do bridges in bed. I would stretch in the shower. There's always something you can do to push the needle forward and, you know, balance training is very important. You know what's worse than being a sick cancer patient is being a sick cancer patient with a broken hip or a concussion because you fell and boy, do these drugs make people wobbly, right? So if you're constantly just doing whatever you can, when you can, you know, you'll regress less quickly and then you'll be able to bounce back more effectively. Yeah. That's so true. So true. That's great advice. And also I think, you know, from the nutrition perspective, make sure you keep your protein and nutrition up. You know, the chemotherapy is incredibly depleting of nutritional stores. And I see that leads to a massive amount of muscle loss as well. Yeah. And you know, you and I both know when you lose muscle while you're trying to fight cancer, it becomes harder to get into remission. Makes everything harder. Yeah. And that's interesting in the running community. So folks, if you don't know, I'm a race announcer, so I deal with some of the, I host some of the largest, most iconic running events in America, big, big events. And there are some folks out there, some running experts. I'm using the quotation marks because it drives me mad, but they'll say, do not strength train. You want to be a good marathon runner, do not strength train. Oh, and I got a real beef with that. Because I think on any given day, doing any given thing, would you rather be stronger or weaker? Right. What's, is there any, Dr. Shaw, is there any place in time where it's more beneficial to be weaker? Yeah, it makes no sense. I can't believe they're running coaches telling people don't strength train. Yeah. Some really, really well known iconic ones. And so there's a fight constantly convincing people. And of course, women are afraid they're become, they're going to look like bodybuilders. And it's just, you know, strength is the fountain of youth. I truly believe it's, it's the thing that keeps us off the floor. It keeps us, prevents us from having sprains, strains and tears. It boosts your metabolism. It builds strong bones. It's, it's everything. So, you know, I've always wondered, where does that come from? You know, whenever you ask a certain population of women in the past, and this is changing thing, God, that I don't want to strengthen because I don't want to get bulky. Where does that misconception come from? I, you know, just like the olden days. Yeah, the olden days. I'm blaming, I guess so, right. Bridgerton or something like that. But I remember my mother told my sister, she cannot take weight training class in high school because she would look like a bodybuilder. It's just this random myth. It's almost like suggesting, if you wake up tomorrow and go for a run, you will immediately become a world-class marathoner. Right. It's just so outlandish. And women, we don't tend to make enough testosterone to build large muscles. I mean, I, I do an enormous amount of strength training and I'm still pretty small girl. I watched what I put in my mouth, right? So ladies know that to build bulky muscles, not only do you have to put an exorbitant amount of effort lifting, but you have to double down on nutrition and you're packing in the protein in unreasonable ways. So you know, we watched the older generation now, these women, they, they fall, they shatter like glass. Exactly. And you got to have their hips replaced or they just die because of those broken hips. Right. So we should be telling, you know, we should be adopting the notion that we should be strength training aggressively every other day. Yes. For a million reasons. And then our daughters should be taught that strength training is vital and you're not going to look like a man. You're going to look like a much hotter woman. Yes. Right. Vanity is okay, right? Yeah. Absolutely. So I think a part of the problem is too, is like, you know, you see women with large bulky muscles, usually those women are on testosterone replacement therapy in addition to strength training. That's on purpose that they get that way. So that is not a picture of someone that just went to the gym every other day and was working out. Right. Right. Nowhere near it. Nowhere near it. Right. And to your point, like, you know, most women, almost all women that strength train would just become like a more lean version of themselves. And that's it. But the strength is the key because it's a key to a few things. Number one is the key to balance. So you don't fall, but also the key to healthy bones. So you don't break a bone if you do fall. Absolutely. Absolutely. I also like the ladies who say, well, I don't want to strength train. I just want to tone. Toning is not a thing. There is no such thing as toning. Folks, pay attention. Toning doesn't exist. Either you are getting stronger or you are not. And so when you are doing Pilates or using kettlebells or gravity, doing push-ups or lunges, it should be challenging you. Whenever you train to a point where you grunt, you go, right there. This is hard. That's where you're tearing tiny muscle fibers. And that's where your body has the ability to send in the little repair troops and rebuild. And two days later, two days later, if you have rested after this workout, your body is better. It is stronger. But toning doesn't exist. Toning is just, you know, if you're doing what you could already do before, combine that with age, you're getting worse. And so everybody should be aiming to get stronger. Yeah. Fetch, you said so many important things right there. I want to double down on a few of those things. Number one, there's no difference between toning and bulking and strength training. It's all the same thing, right? Second thing you said is that after exercising, your body requires a rest period. And that's critical. We know this now with a lot of research showing even in between sets, a three minute rest period is critical, but definitely after a workout, having a day in between, or, you know, if you want to go to the gym every day, alternating muscle groups, right? Yeah. And lastly, you also said this, and I want to rephrase this. You said you must be feeling the burn. Like you have to work out to the point where you're challenged, right? Can you talk about that a little bit more? What does that really feel like if you're in the gym? Well, it's that, so I have these four pillars of fitness. I know we're going to talk about them. In fact, I'm just going to go there now. Is that okay? Let's go there. All right. So the four pillars of fitness that folks need to focus on in order to qualify as fit are strength, cardio, respiratory fitness, flexibility, and balance. And if you're lacking any one of them, you don't qualify as fit. So if you're a marathon runner, for example, who can't do one pushup, are you fit? I don't think so. If you're a bodybuilder and you can't touch your toes, are you fit? No. If you're a yoga instructor, but you can't climb two flights of steps without sucking wind, are you fit? No. And so fitness requires balance. It requires proficiency and again, strength, cardio, flexibility, and balance. And so we're trying to get better. You know, there's activity. Activity is walking around the mall, roaming around the farmer's market, doing housework. That's being active. Exercise is deliberate. Exercise is something you do to enhance yourself. And so for strength, I look for the grunt. Anything where you get to the point where you go, ah, whether it's a lunge, you can't lift your body off the ground again, or you're doing a bicep curl. I'm not saying sacrifice form. I'm just saying you challenge yourself. That grunt came out. That means you're probably working at the appropriate level. With cardio, you should be huffing and puffing, right? You're not just walking and talking and having a big conversation. That's being active. You're burning calories, sure. But if you want to make your heart and lungs stronger, you've got to suck a little wind. You don't want to be going at a point where you can't say, this sucks. You got to be able to say, wow, I can't wait till it's over. And whatever, you know, it's, it's huffing and puffing with some ability to continue on for an extended period of time with flexibility. You know, you, you reach, twist, pull until you wince, you know, that, eh, that right there, that little squeak that comes out of your mouth and you, you'll wince your eye. That means you're making progress, becoming more flexible. And then of course, if you're doing balance training, it's the wobble. So, you know, I do yoga sometimes now begrudgingly, but I do it. And a teacher will put us in tree pose where we're standing on one foot and there's always that person in the front of the room who can stand there perfectly with her leg up above. And she's completely statuesque. Well, because she's so still, I know she's not making progress. Right. It's the weirdo in the back who's wobbling around, trying so hard to stay upright. That person is making progress because of the wobble. The wobble tells you, you're challenging yourself. And eventually if you do that motion enough, you will get better and better. And so four pillars, it's huff puff, grunt, wince, wobble, and then you become the fitter version of yourself. So cool. It's a great kind of foundational thought process that everything you do with fitness has to be done to the point where you're barely doing it or you can almost not do it anymore. And so that's where you make the true progress. It's another word for that. You know, we use in medicine, science is adaptation. Yeah. A single adaptation has to be to a level where it becomes difficult. Absolutely. And there's certainly room in the world for you to go on a leisurely bike ride. Sure. But when we're trying to achieve more, when we're trying to supercharge ourselves, age backwards, you got to put your body through the paces. And, you know, we want our lungs and hearts to be stronger. Wow. You know, we brush our teeth every freaking day. Nobody makes a stink over it. Right. You know, but if you lose all your teeth, you can still gum down some food. You'd be fine with no teeth. But when your heart and lungs give out, it's game over, right? Game over, right. Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, you mentioned that activity is separate from exercise. I think that's a really important point because, you know, there's a lot of talk sometimes of, oh, just do gardening or just, um, yeah, it's two different buckets and you need both, correct? Yeah. Yeah. And activity is great. I have dogs. I'm constantly out with the dogs. I'm not making any progress as I walk around with the dogs sniffing bushes. When I clean the house, if you think that your workout is cleaning the house false. No. No. Usually exercise requires either a sports bra or some goggles or some weird shoes or a mouthpiece, a helmet. Exercise is deliberate. You are doing this motion to get better. And so please keep being active because most of our lives are sedentary, right? Exactly. We lie down in bed, we wake up, we sit at the table and eat. We eat, sit for three meals a day. We sit in our car as we go places. We sit on the planes. We, we sit for entertainment. So just being up and moving around, you know, a thousand extra points for the folks that are purposely being active, but please don't think that that suffices for exercise. It's not. Yeah, absolutely not. So, you know, whether you're trying to get 8,000 steps in a day or your guard would have you, that's just being the opposite of sedentary. That's right. You know, humans were never really sedentary until modern times. Humans walked around. That's why, you know, we came from some little place in Africa and we traveled the whole world is because humans were meant to move. So that's a requirement, but that does not signal any longevity signals around aging and also doesn't create any progress. And you need the deliberate exercise to do so. Absolutely. And you know, it's funny, we look at not really here in America, but in other countries, they have statues for their ancient Romans and Greeks. And those folks are built like Adonis. They're ripped and they didn't have a kettlebell set, right? They were just lugging stones and chasing their dinner. And so, and eating out of the land, it's not so complicated. Right. Absolutely. So if a woman comes to you and she wants a woman or a man comes to you, but maybe you want to focus on women, they want you to help construct a workout routine and they're just getting started in this whole journey. How do you incorporate all four pillars for them? Because it seems like a lot initially. It's not. I mean, but I like what you're saying. There's probably a lot of people who think that, you know, first of all, I, I never set goals for people. So I want people to decide who they want to be. Right. It's not about me telling you what you should be. It's about you saying this, this is the better version of me. This is what I'm striving for. And then once we get there, then we can make a plan. The plan, the plan has to involve all four pillars, all four pillars. But let's say you want to be an endurance athlete. Okay. We're going to put a lot of effort into swimming and biking and running or whatever you're doing over there. And then we're going to do the strength training that not only supports your overall health, but maybe put in some extra effort on the exercises that will support that activity. You know, with runners, I have a specific strength training for runners video. It's 12 minutes long. If you do it every other day, I promise you, you will run further, faster and pain-free. There's the same type of workouts for golfers and tennis players and pickle ball and so forth. So, you know, it's, it's let's talk about what your goals are and we'll create a plan that, that, that accommodates those, those wishes. That fits that. What if it's someone that just is beginning their workout journey? Like say, you know, it's January right now when we're recording this. And I'm asking you this purposefully because I have a lot of people calling and they're like, you know, I haven't worked out in six months, maybe a year since my last January news resolutions. Like what do I do to get back into the gym that I only have, you know, two or three days a week that could spend an hour on this? What, where do I start when I'm just getting started again? So we start where you are. Okay. Wherever you are is where you are. You can't be that other person next week or now. So, you know, think about activities that you already know how to do that you enjoy. I think those are really important, you know, so if you really like swimming, start there, go swimming. If you like cycling, that's your choice. Unless we have some serious issues, walking works for folks. And then you start to lean into the other thing. Okay. If it said I should do balance training, how do I do that? Okay. Well, let's stand on your one foot while you're brushing your teeth. Let's stand on one foot while you're checking out at the, at the grocery store. Anytime you check out, you should be on one foot. That's balance training one-on-one for stretching. All right. You spend a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes at night, or you use resources. Right. The internet is overflowing with fitness folks saying, here's how, you know, my YouTube channel is packed with hundreds, hundreds of free videos where I say, here's how to work your back and here's how to work shoulders and so forth. So get a book, the book, sir. You know, there's a lot of opportunity there. So we, nobody can claim ignorance on fitness anymore. There's, there's a whole bunch of fitness pros out there. Absolutely. Teaching. You just got to want to. So start where you are, start doing something you already know how to do that. You enjoy. And then your goal is to get 1% better every day. Yeah. We're not trying to get 10 or 20% is 1% better today. What can you do with nutrition, with sleep, with exercise, with hydration to get 1% better. And then you do the same thing tomorrow. If you do that, I promise you a month from now, you're going to wake up and say, hot damn, I feel a lot better at six months from now. You may not recognize yourself. And so, um, small goals and then learning, I think learning how to do more will help, help push you along. Yeah. So start small and then work up, do something consistently. I think you said, you know, every day do something. Yes. Yeah. And, um, also then building upon itself, right? So 1% improvement every single day is a really good way to get started. I think so. And then if you're doing something you think is fun, you're so much more likely to stick with it. I mean, gosh, I think about men have this secret society where you can just show up on any basketball court anywhere. And then the guys are like, yeah, come play and they throw you the ball and you run around and you play ball together. Right. And so women, we've got different things we like, but it should be fun. And if you start with the fun, you know, maybe you have to incorporate some things that you don't enjoy so much. Maybe you don't love strength training. I don't care. Do it anyways. Yeah. Do it anyways, but also do the things that are fun for you. So you'll look forward to your workouts. Got it. Got it. And then say, um, someone does a woman does want to get stronger. Yeah. How do you focus in on that strength training routine? Say you mentioned every other day, right? Cause you need that rest signal in between. So what do the exercises actually look like? Well, the same they are for men. Um, and I know we're going to talk about the book, but there's over 300 photos in the new book on how to, and it's broken down. Here's how to work your chest. And I only included exercises you could do with gravity, dumbbells or bands. You know, there's a whole bunch of other great equipment you could use, but let's, let's simplify it. Right. And so you're going to work all your major muscle groups, your chest, your back, your shoulders, your biceps, your triceps, your quads, your glutes. We're going to work them all, not just our abs, right? Not just the front side of our body. A lot of people go to the vanity muscle. I'm going to do biceps and abs and my butt, right? Everyone wants to have a big, juicy butt now, right? But we're going to work all the muscles evenly and, uh, we're going to do it every other day. And, and the strength training, it's funny. Like with cardio, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of rules other than huff and puff, you know, huff and puff, but with strength training, there's certainly are some rules, you know, you should be working all the muscles and then you should work opposing muscles. So if you're going to work your chest, you should work your back, bicep, tricep. That's because if one side of the muscle is weaker, it's more likely to be injured, sprained, strains and tears. And so we want some equilibrium throughout our body. And yeah, I mean, just, you start somewhere, you go do one exercise for each body part, do a few reps here, do a few sets, and then build on as you get comfortable with that. Yeah. And the key is that you want to feel the grunt. Got a grunt with strength training. Yeah. And I tell you what, you know, I have the master's degree, but I also think I have a master's degree in the most simple, stupid science on earth. Exercise and squared science, like move your body. There are some rules, but really. Not a lot of rules. Just get out and do something. You'll be better off than if you're doing nothing. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I always think about too, like, you know, when people come in to see us in January, there's this big problem with motivation. Right. And so, and then also the motivation lasting past like the second or third week of January. So how do you talk about motivation with people? Yeah, motivation is a lot of fun and good for you if you have it. But who cares if you're motivated? Do it anyways. That's what we call discipline. You know, motivation will get you to the start line. Discipline will get you to the finish line. And so you can't be a person that's constantly relying on a Hawaii vacation or a class reunion or whatever's got going on. Your health needs to be a priority and you need to be a priority. I mean, it's interesting how many people say, well, I can't exercise. I have kids and I think, dude, the kids are the incentive. They're not the excuse. You made these humans. You are responsible for taking care of yourself so you could stick around and nurture them and love them and support them as long as possible. We don't make humans and then say, sorry, I'm out. I ate garbage and didn't exercise. Right. So motivation. Lovely. If you have it good for you, but it's discipline. You make a plan, you stick to it, no matter what. Right. Right. And I like what you said also, like, you know, it needs to be almost automatic. Like health should become a habit and should require motivation. Right. The motivation is that you're going to stay alive. And so it's just create a habit around it, which is, does it, once you have a habit in place, you don't need to be motivated. It just happens automatically. Yeah. And it's that there is no get out or jail free card on your workouts. The same thing is brushing your teeth. Imagine if you want a week without brushing your teeth. Right. Exactly. Teeth are cool. Yeah. But the scope of our lives are not really that important, right? But it's your heart and your lungs. We take so much more care of them than we do our bodies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I get it folks. I, I talk a big game because I live this, but I have been overweight. I have had an eating disorder. I was sick. I've had a whole bunch of very human things. Sometimes people look at me and they say, you don't understand. And I say, buddy, you have no idea how much I understand. And that's why I'm willing to lean in and tell you the freaking truth because I want better for you. And at some point you got to want better for yourself. And maybe you might not take those steps unless someone of authority pokes you in the chest and says, you're screwing it up and you're not going to be around here for a very long time if you don't get your act together. And so, yeah, discipline. You just have to do it. And I promise with every, you can have every single thing I own. If you exercise regularly and you start eating nutritiously and sleeping well and drinking water, if your life doesn't get better, you can have it all. All the Fitzkohler stuff is yours. I promise. It's a guarantee. It is. I mean, there's no way around it. You're going to feel better when you're getting those, getting those pieces in place. Yeah. So you wrote this book. Yeah. You supercharged. So what does that mean? Supercharged? Yeah. So supercharged is the much better version of yourself. And so it could have been just called supercharged, but it's about you being supercharged and the exact formula for fitness, weight loss and longevity. And so, you know, we start by saying, I'm not going to tell you what you should accomplish, who you should be. You start there and let's make you better. Wherever you are right now, let's go all the way. Let's have you more energetic. You feel your best. You look your best. Your body performs as it best at its best. And it's interesting how many people are, you know, I'm 40, I'm old. This thing nails on the chalkboard to me. Right. So choose, make a choice. Either you could be the 40 year old complaining about how old you are or the 92 year old bragging about how youthful you feel. You've got choices. Let's make good ones. That's what this book is about. And it covers everything. It's nutrition and hydration and exercise. And one of my favorite chapters is aging like a badass. And then there's the flawless ish. So I don't believe in perfection. I promote very much perfect is boring. So nobody's ever asked to be perfect. But the flawless ish chapter actually includes a lot of the things that you offer in your next health wellness facility. Right. It's getting massage and taking care of your skin and going above and beyond to nurture your body and your mind. And of course it covers mental health too, because we have a lot of choices. There's, there's certainly rooms for intervention, medical intervention and pharmaceuticals and so forth. But we could also choose perspective. We could choose to be bright-siders. We could choose behaviors that Ella, that boost adrenaline and serotonin, all the endorphins, right? So we talk about mental health in the book and there's the note. Why your excuses are lame chapter. That might be my favorite. I like that. Yeah. It's something for everybody. If you are a grown up, who wants to look better, feel better, perform better. You supercharged has got something for you. I love it. I love this chapter. Your excuses are lame. Why your excuses are lame? Tell me about that. What are some of the lame excuses you've heard? And why are they lame? Well, you know, it starts with that. I'm a parent, which drives me mad. Yes. I have a job. Well, good for you. Good for you. You've got a job. You should have a job and you should take care of your health. You know, I point to some of the most powerful men on the planet have been American presidents. And so we had Bill Clinton, we had Barack Obama, we had George Bush. They exercise regularly while kind of managing the world and family. So if they can do it, y'all can do it too. So yeah, the excuses chapter. I, my husband eats more than I do. That's because he's a bigger person. He requires more fuel. If you eat like he does, I assure you, you will be the same size as your husband. So make those choices. Right. Absolutely. I want to hear your perspective around weight loss and nutrition as well. What are your thoughts around someone that comes to you that says, I need to lose 20 pounds, 30 pounds. Yeah. So I think most people know they're fighting weight. You know, we don't need to look at a chart to figure out what our weight needs to be. I think if you do want some guidance, perhaps you do speak with your physician, but most people know, you know, they're like, what should I weigh? That's not for me to decide you, you know, where you felt best or what you think. And we can aim towards that. So when I was overweight as a teenager and trying to figure out how to lose it, I mean, there just wasn't as much information, but I was in grad school and I kind of felt like I was maxing out on fitness content. Like I wanted to learn more, but I couldn't find any more to learn. So I started reading medical journals, physical therapy journals, and I came across one statistic that said virtually humans burn approximately 10 calories ish per pound of body weight per day. So it's between eight on the low side, 12 on the higher side, if you're, you know, very active, but it's about 10. And I thought, it can't be that simple. I re-read it again. I was like, is that possible? And so folks, if you're not doing the math, basically that says if you weigh 150 pounds on average, you're burning 1500 calories per day. If you would like to stay at that size, continue consuming 1500 calories a day. If you would like to get larger, you consume more than 1500 calories. If you would like to be smaller, you can, you should consume less. And you can actually pretty much fine tune this. If you would like to weigh 132 pounds, 1,320 calories. That's your daily max, your budget. And if you choose your budget and you stick with it, eventually your body has no choice but to shrink, shrink down to that size. Now, if you just stick with the budget and you eat garbage food, yeah, you can lose weight, but it's, it's not going to be fun. And you're going to crash and have headaches and feel awful. If you take your caloric budget, whatever that is, and you fill it up with 80 to 90% of your intake, being highly nutritious, the fruits and the veggies and the whole grains and the lean protein sources, you have a little wiggle room, I believe, and 10 to 20% can be whatever you want it to be. You know, for me, I have milk chocolate every day. Feel damn good about it too. You know, so you don't have to be perfect. Um, but it's that caloric budget really dictates your, your size. And then if you add exercise, well, you lose weight a little faster or you gain muscle a little faster. So it's got to be a combination of your budget, eating the right amount of the right food for the specific size you would like to be. You can control your size. Folks, if you think, I can't lose weight, trust me, if I put you in a canoe and sent you out to sea with nothing but a jug of water, you would lose weight. So if you feel like I can't, you're lying to yourself. If you're believing Oprah Winfrey, who tells you that you're obese just because of your genes, that's a lie too. If we send any obese person out on a canoe in the ocean with no food, they will lose weight. And so yeah, I mean, it's not rocket science at all. It's just kind of learning to be reasonable. Have a goal, set your caloric budget there. Some people say, I don't like to count. Well, okay, do you like being overweight? You know, we got to count money. We have to budget a lot of things in our world. And so you're basically budgeting your intake. I think if you spread it out throughout your day, you'll have enough fuel, enough energy to keep you satisfied. I do not like diets. I don't like keto. I don't like intermittent fasting. I don't like any of the extreme measures. I think temporary measures leading to temporary results and nobody wants to deal with keto crotch. So, you know, I'll do it the good old-fashioned way. Yeah. You know, I think also, you know, the focus on eating real nutritious food is very helpful because when you have a diet of, you know, 1500 calories of fiber-rich vegetables, whole grains, good protein versus 1500 calories of, you know, ultra processed garbage, the 1500 calories of ultra processed garbage is going to make you want to eat more because you will be hungry because it's not nutrient dense. And the engineer, the food to be hyper palatable, keep you hungry as well. And so you're going to eat more. You're not going to stick to 1500 calories. It's going to end up becoming more. And so focusing on good foods rather than having to count can also be like a good step in the right direction. Yeah. I think the counting part matters because some people just have no idea. Yeah. That's true. You know, they're like, I'm overweight. I don't understand. I eat healthy foods. Oh, yeah. Oh, you just haven't too much. Just having too much. And the arbitrary 1200 calories a day, that only makes sense if you're me. You know, John Cena gets put on the 1200 calories a day. He, he like tosses humans over, you know, he, he would be so angry, right? And of course, on the back of these nutrition labels, it might tell you on a 2000 calorie a day diet. If I ate 2000 calories a day, I would be 200 pounds, even though I exercise a lot. So, you know, the calories in versus calories out thing. I think it's very essential for your weight, for your size. When it comes to the quality of your health and your capabilities and your feel goods, nutrition can be beat. Yeah. People, you know what those numbers are. Yeah. And they also, you know, like one of the cheapest, like easiest things that you can buy is like a little food scale. Right. And then you start learning how many grams of whatever is a realistic portion for you when you start doing a little bit of math. I can't tell you how many of the folks that I guide have reached out and said, oh my God, I thought I was eating one bowl of cereal. But then I measured it and I was having three servings of zero just because I had a big bowl. Like, well, this is my bowl. Clearly it's one serving. And then the weight starts falling off. You know, folks, don't drink your calories. Don't drink. There's no satiety in that. You know, when you, when you emulsify even fruits and vegetables, they lose their fiber and they're not filling. So you could have a gallon of apple juice and not feel satisfied. One juicy apple could really make you feel stuffed because of all the fiber in there. And so, you know, there's some nuances to eating wisely, right? Right. Absolutely. And so I think everyone is to find out what works for them, but they need to be armed. It's a little bit of knowledge first. And so all these things that you talk about is really just people educating themselves finally about, you know, their own bodies, what their caloric requirements are, what are the right foods to achieve them? Yeah. And always don't fall for the game mix. I mean, if somebody is there telling you, buy this thing out of the trunk of my car or go to the nutrition store and buy this product with the word weight loss on it. I mean, if I sold you an apple and then put the word weight loss and said, it's a weight loss apple, you would know that I was scamming you, right? So any of these products that have the word weight loss on them, scammers, if you have money to throw away, just throw it to me. I'll catch it and do something good with it. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And it's so true. The weight loss products is just makes zero sense. You talk about this thing in your book called the exact formula. What is that? So that is that calculation, that it's your goal weight with the zero on the end. That's your caloric budget, the exact formula for weight losses right there. Hmm. You make it super simple for people. Well, it is super simple. And, you know, people are like, oh, it's simple. It's that's, I mean, once I learned the formula, I went from, I mean, I lost 45 pounds and I've kept it off for life. And then 45 pounds. Wow. So I was a much bigger girl. Yeah. So much bigger girl. And I was just kind of aimless. And then again, I read this, this statistic and I was like, that can't, it just can't be that simple. And it is, you know, now we have apps and things and folks, I definitely encourage you use an app or write it down and do it every freaking day for a very long time. Even now I'm, I've been in this body for 20 something years that I love. I still go through, I know that already I've had like 450 calories today. And I'll keep going based off of that information. But yeah, the formula works every time. Yeah. I think one thing to be cognizant of though, too, is when you're counting calories, you also want to simultaneously be building muscle. Right. Because if you're just counting calories, and I see this a lot now with people on GLP ones, that they lose muscle mass and the weight on the scale is actually deceptive because in fact, most of it could be muscle loss versus fat loss. And so I think there's a, you have to create that signal through going to the gym and feeling the burn to make sure you're building muscle, not losing muscle. Like, well, you're exactly right. So it's quality of food, right? It's, it's getting enough protein and enough healthy fats, enough carbohydrates and stuff are carb carbohydrates are not the enemy. They're not the enemy. They give you energy, their fuel. I'm a potato lover. I'm super Irish. I think my body composition is about 67% potato at this point. So, you know, none of the healthy foods are bad for you. So if you're eating wisely, then you drop the weight and you're better for it. You're not just a baggy, you know, a loose bag of skin for strength training. Yeah, you do need protein, but you don't eat excessive amounts. Like our body can only use so much. Um, so you should be putting, you know, your nutrients to good use, right? And what else, what else are we missing? I feel like, I don't know. Like the Omega fats, getting good, high quality fats. Absolutely. It can be really great for energy, reducing inflammation as well. Yeah. And also like, I like to add in fermented foods like yogurt and kimchi and things to just really be beneficial for your gut as well. So folks need to go back and listen to the, your episode with Dr. Dawn Musailam, because she is just, I mean, she dishes out some of the most fantastic, exciting nutrition knowledge ever, right? She's like, if you have Kiwi, then you'll live for, for 400 years or whatever. I mean, she's so good with all of that stuff. But yeah, nutrition is a powerful force for health and energy. And it keeps your digestive system working. Right. I mean, people don't realize that the ultra processed foods is maybe why they're constipated and so forth. And you just, you start eating the good things. There's, it's, it's almost magic. I hate to use the word magic when it comes to fitness, because it really requires thought and discipline and effort. Yes. But if you're doing those things, the results can be pretty magical, right? Yeah. I was like, we talked a little bit about recovery. How would you put like recovery and sleep being a form of recovery into this whole formula? Yeah, it's, it's paramount. Sleep is the thing. So I always tell it's like, watch what you put in your mouth, move your body and sleep. So tired people don't make good decisions. You know, tired people skip their workouts. They're very lazy with nutrition. They're cranky as heck. Nobody wants to be around a tired person. It's amazing how many people show up to the office or doing whatever and they wear it as a badge of honor. I know I got barely any sleepless. Dude, that's a red flag. That's horrible. Yeah. You're not going to make a choice. That's what the rest of the day. No, don't be my Uber driver. If you didn't sleep, don't teach my kids. Don't be my doctor. Don't do my accountant. I want you well rested. And so, you know, creating a quality sleep environment that's cozy and you're not too hot, not too cold. Maybe you need a TV on, maybe you need it off. Um, naps. I'm a professional napper. Oh my gosh. Some people are like, I would never nap. And I think, dude, you are missing the point, right? It's like plugging in your phone in the middle of the day. Nothing's more satisfying than seeing that battery recharge, right? It's a good analogy. Oh, so good. So I actually, in my backyard, I have a swing and a pergola. I bring my dogs out there. I can fall asleep for 20 minutes and wake up like, can I, like a, like a crack head. I wake up and I'm completely. I do the same thing. So I love that, you know, that, that 3pm or that 2 30pm nap for 20 minutes. Oh my gosh. And you just like, what happened? That's right. Right. That's right. How tragic is it that so many people are too good for naps? Yeah. I know. If you can put it in, it can be magical. Yeah. Especially if you're one of these, like I'm an early riser. And so I wake up at 5am every day. And so by two, two 30, my battery's running on really low. And you're right. It's like plugging in your phone and charging it. Yeah. And it's not that heavy sleep and you can set alarm. You can say, I'm going to do just a 20 minute nap, but set the alarm and then you wake up and it just feels good. You start functioning better. That's, that's really the thing is functionality. You know, if you're not sleeping, you function poorly. And again, you're mean. However, if you do get great sleep, you wake up with a pep in your step. You're a lot nicer. You're more likely to hit the workouts. You're more likely to make good choices with food. And then if you've worked out aggressively and eaten wisely, you're so much more likely to sleep well. You know, so it's the cycle of awesome. If you're willing to put in the effort up front. And so some of these behaviors may be different for some of our listeners right now. You know, that they may be annoyed by my pushiness that they need to do balance training or whatever, but I assure you, if you start doing it, eventually you'll feel bad if you don't do the things we're telling you to do. Yeah, absolutely. So balance and strength, cardiovascular fitness and also flexibility. Yeah. And this can be done in every other J gym workout combined with some daily activities as well. Yeah. So again, the strength training has rules to it. You know, if you're working a particular muscle, just let's say glutes, you should wait 48 hours. Cardio you can do every day stretching. You can do every day. You can do multiple times a day. You can do a real stretch class or yoga class or go do karate. That's really good for flexibility. But for me, I also build in these little things, these rituals. So when I let my dogs out in the backyard, I open the door and I drop down. I stretch my hips. I have this series of incredible hip stretches that just make everything feel better, including my low back. You know, the great majority of American adults living with back pain. It's huge. Yeah. And most of it isn't because they were in a terrible skiing accident. It's because they are tight or they are weak. And so the tightness. They're sitting all day. But yeah, you can repair that. You don't have to feel bad. You can stretch on the regular. And so the hip stretches happen for me when I let the dogs out. You know, when I walk to my kid's bathroom, I do the door stretch. It opens me up, stretches my, my packs. And then I stand up a little straighter. I think, I think great posture is very sexy, very powerful. So it's meaningful to me and I work hard to achieve that. And I'm drawn to people, you know, if folks, if you stand up straight, you are so much more likely to get the job, get the client, make the sale, meet the love of your life. And so, yeah, there's a lot of respect for someone who comes in and their body is working at a high level. Yeah, I agree. The back stretch you just talked about right now for achieving good posture. Could you mention that one more time? Yeah. So it's both hands on the door, not on the door frame, elbows down, just walk through it and open up, just open up your chest. The other great choice you can make for great posture is rose and reverse flies. You know, making sure those back muscles are strong so they can hold you up, right? But yeah, strength training, stretching. It's all very sexy folks, really. Absolutely. And so, you know, I wonder, one of the big things that I like to do is give people something they can track over time. So are there measurements people can track so they can see if they're becoming supercharged? Absolutely. Absolutely. So it starts with their goal setting, right? So let's say there's a weight goal. You track that. And then, you know, how some people just are so afraid of the scale or they load the scale. Folks, the scale does not love you. It does not hate you. It's just a tool of measurement, much like a thermometer or a barometer or a tape measure. It's just going to tell you the truth when your pants, when your stretchy pants won't. And so use the scale once a week, not every day, not before breakfast and after lunch, you will drive yourself mad and there's absolutely no benefit to that. If you were trying to lose weight, we're looking for a downward trend. If you're trying to gain weight, we're looking for an upward trend, but once a week is just fine. If you're trying to measure your strength, yeah, jot those things down. Today I can do five push-ups. Hopefully a month from now you can do 15 push-ups or more. And so, yeah, get a pen, get a paper, a piece of, can you imagine if people use pen and paper? I'm still a weirdo who does that, but the notes section of your cell phone, you know, if you document your intake, you know, how much water you drink. It was very funny with the 64 ounces of water. Well, for who? Me and John Cena should be having the same amount of water. You know, you and a cancer patient, no, it's all very different. And so you should have water. I would say get a Yeti or a jug and keep drinking it, but I don't believe in the specific ounces that everyone should have 64 ounces. What do you say, Doc? I think that number is way larger than most people actually need on a day-to-day basis. I do think and I do know as we age, our thirst doesn't really catch up with the amount of water we really need. So you do need to drink more than what your thirst tells you. OK. And it should be water, too. I mean, you know, I think a lot of people relieve their thirst with, you know, like cans of Diet Coke or other like sugar sweetened beverages. But your body needs water in its purest form. And hopefully, you know, water that's been filtered or through a reverse osmosis doesn't have any toxins in it. So I think it's like you said, it's individual based on your overall muscle mass and your total weight. And you just kind of find the right number for you. I think when you stress out about 64 ounces of water, you end up not doing anything because you just give up. So I think it's, you know, just being mindful that like two or three large glasses with every meal should take care of most people. I agree. I agree. And if you're active, you need more. And if you live at a high elevation, you need more. If it's a super hot day. Yes. You need more, but I mean, that's water. It's, it's not so complicated. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's definitely measurable opportunities within fitness, but it again, it starts with who do you want to be? And, you know, in chapter one of this book, I tell folks get naked, get naked, strip it down, stare at yourself in the mirror. You know, because it's, I think vanity is looked down upon people. Like you shouldn't be judgy. No, I think you should definitely judge your own health and your own body because that's how we make progress, right? We can make clear decisions. So strip it down, write down five things you love about your body. I love, I love my strong arms. I love my sparkly eyes, whatever it is, five things you love about your body. And then write down five things you would like to improve, you know, it may not even be an aesthetic improvement. It may be, you know, my dang back is tight, right? Or my, my right arm feels weaker than my left, whatever it is, but start there. You know, always start with the pride, the things you love. We don't want this to become a bad experience. And then you are, get real with yourself and, and make five, five specific goals, even five specific goals, but you also have to account for the four pillars. Yeah. Absolutely. And the formula if you want to lose weight and then quality nutrition, because it matters and every single ounce of your body will perform better from your brain, to your organs, to your skin. Everything is better when there's high nutrition. Yeah. I love it. I fully simplify this. It's not that hard. Yeah. Few simple rules that you got to follow. Yeah. And things will move in the right direction. Yeah. And so the other caveat right there is all the people say, well, but I'm doing menopause. Okay. Well, you still need the four pillars of fitness and water and sleep and quality nutrition and your body, even during menopause can improve. Right. You can fend off osteoporosis, osteopenia in a large way with nutrition and sleep and exercise. You know, there are testosterone boosting activities men can do through healthy habits, you know, not everything has to come in pill form. And so yeah, whoever you are, whatever you're going through, you know, when I was coming back from cancer, when I was enduring cancer care, I still had to focus on those four pillars and quality nutrition and water. And it's no different from me now. I mean, I'm different, but the steps are the same. Yeah. It's the same steps for every human. Yeah. No matter what. Yeah. And the four pillars are important because I do think a lot of people either, you know, think that regular motion is exercise or they don't get any value out of the exercise. Like, you know, I see a lot of patients that go to the gym three days a week and they're just not making any progress. Right. It's very simple to figure out why they're not making any progress. So not doing the things that you're talking about. What were they again? Huff-puff. Yeah. Grunt, Winswable. Yeah, exactly. I think that adaptation signal is critical to make progress every single time you work out. You know, I think so. And, you know, when I started teaching fitness many years ago, it was really important that you check your heart rate. I mean, that's not the most complicated thing in the world, but it's also not the most simple, stupid. And I feel like I've streamlined, streamlined fitness over the decades, right? And that's what the book is there, just to simplify everything. And I get so cranky about all the vultures in the fitness industry, all the people selling lies and gimmicks and you're just trying to get in your wallet. You know, they're not looking out for your best interests. And all these people think you have to do all this hokey stuff. You don't have to do hokey things. You know, we think about those ancient Romans that were lugging cinder blocks, chasing their food, eating off the land, drinking water from the stream. I mean, I mean, they died younger because they were being eaten by the lions. They were chasing, right? They get an infection and they live in a bite. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you combine these quality habits with modern medicine. We should be able to live really long and really well. And, you know, as you know, it's, it's no fun to live really long unless you're living really well. And so those golden, golden years are made because you are putting in the effort today. You put in the effort today. So all of your tomorrows are brighter and more comfortable and more fun. I love that. Absolutely. This is such great advice for people that want to read your book. Where can they get it from? Well, thank you for asking. So you supercharged the exact formula for fitness, weight loss and longevity. It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, all the places. However, if folks come to me, so I'm at fitsness.com. It's my first name, fitsness, F-I-T-Z-N-E-S-S.com. I autograph every single book that leaves my office. And then they all get the little fitsy sticker, which is. Yeah, the theme running through the book is put a little fitsy on your shoulder. Let me go with you, you know, so you don't have to do this alone. Let me be with you if you have a little fitsy sticker on the back of your phone. Perhaps if you're ordering dinner somewhere and you see my face, you might be convinced to order something healthier than not or less alcohol or work harder at the gym. So I give out presents and I package them all with the most beautiful, fun packaging. So so, yeah, the book is available in all places. But if you come to me, I make it a little more fun and add some love. Fantastic. And then also people can find you on social media and YouTube too, right? Yes, sir. I am at fitsness everywhere. So Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, all the places. And and here's the deal. If folks are listening and they would like to follow, great. I promise quality content in return. In fact, I just recorded some from your center here, your next health care in West Hollywood. Yeah, some really fun stuff. Awesome. But what I'd rather is they reach out and say, hey, I heard you on the Extend podcast because it's so much more interesting for me to have friends than followers. So don't be shy, folks. Say hi and we can be besties. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for joining me for the incredible advice and introducing your book to my entire audience. And we look forward to having you again back on when you write your next book. Thanks, Dr. Shah. Thank you. That was a really fun conversation with Fitz. Here's my top five takeaways. Number one, most people are only training 25 percent of their body. Truthfulness requires four pillars, strength, cardio, flexibility and balance. Most people only focus on one or two, usually cardio and lightweight. While ignoring the others, missing even one pillar increases injury, limits progress and reduces long term resilience. Number two, active is not the same as fit. Walking, cleaning or casual movement is important. But it doesn't replace exercise. Being active should be a baseline, not the goal. To get fit, the body must be challenged, lifting until you grunt, cardio until you huff and puff, stretching until you wince and balance work that causes you to wobble. Those signals mean that your body is adapting. Number three, strength training won't make you bulky, but will make you powerful. The idea of toning muscles is a myth. Muscles only change by getting stronger, which requires progressively challenging loads, building muscle improves metabolism, protects bones, supports hormone health and makes aging and recovery from illness dramatically easier. Number four, discipline beats motivation every single time. Motivation might get you started, but discipline is what's going to carry you through. Health has to become a non-negotiable priority, not something you wait to feel inspired about. The people who succeed aren't more motivated. They are consistent. Number five, fitness is a lifeline during and after adversity. During your breast cancer journey, fits focus on what you could control. Movement, mindset and consistency, even small amounts of movements help preserve muscle, speed recovery and rebuild confidence. Physical fitness isn't just about aesthetics. It's a powerful tool for mental resilience, healing and reclaiming your life. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your health care provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today. Especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and is always important to seek their guidance.