Episode Transcript
[00:00:23] Hello and welcome to episode two of the 45 left or right Podcast.
[00:00:30] Today's episode is called you, Cells are Confused. And we're going to talk about what happens as we age, how our bodies change, and then how our recovery slows down and why, and maybe what you can do about it. We'll see.
[00:00:54] So I want to start with a couple of stories from my early 20s, actually, mid-20s. Jeff and I were newly married, and we drove with our two beagles from Alabama to Colorado for Christmas to see his parents. Now, his parents live about an hour or so from, like, most of the major ski resorts outside of Denver.
[00:01:22] And so we wanted to go snowboarding. Now, Jeff and I have snowboarded all over the country. I mean, everywhere from northern New York and Vermont, West Virginia, and then Colorado, Utah, California. At the time, I wasn't quite as experienced, but I was still, like, a decent snowboarder. So I decided to show off a little bit, and I was going to go and make this sharp turn around a log.
[00:01:52] Well, I did not quite make the turn, and I ended up.
[00:01:58] Basically, my butt fell right into the log, and I broke my tailbone. And let me tell you something that will take your breath away.
[00:02:11] It's so painful. And unfortunately, we had to drive back from Colorado to Alabama, 1551 miles and 23 of driving time with my broken tailbone.
[00:02:29] At the time, Jeff had a Volkswagen Passat, which is a German car. And the Germans are great at engineering for efficiency, but not so great at engineering for comfort. It was like sitting on hard plastic seats.
[00:02:50] But once we made it home, I still had flying to do. I had several days of flights, you know, lined up. And the army, like the Germans, they do not consider comfort either. So sitting on these, like, mesh seats, they're designed to do really well in an air, you know, like in a crash, not so well on a daily basis. But, you know, I was. I guess at the time I was about 23, 24. I don't remember having to go through extensive physical therapy or anything. I just took some Tylenol, and, you know, a couple weeks later, I felt better. The second story was when we lived in northern New York. I was stationed at Fort Drum when I was in the Army. And I don't know if you all know about Fort Drum, but it is way up there. When I say upstate New York, I mean 20 miles south of the Canadian border, upstate. And throughout the winter, which goes from about October to April, the airfield, the tarmac, is just a sheet of ice. So I was going out there On a night flight.
[00:04:12] And I put my bag in the back of the helicopter, and then I had to walk around the rocket pod to get into the front seat. And when I tried to get into the front seat, I fell or I slipped on the ice and my ribs hit the rocket pod. And my instructor pilot told me all he heard was this big thud. Now, I still flew that night, but the whole time I was just in so much pain. We kind of. I think we cut the flight short.
[00:04:50] And on the way home, my instructor pilot, Trent, he said, oh, do you want to fly back actually on the controls? And I said, no, no, I don't. You take the controls. And he said, oh, man, you must really be hurting if you don't want to fly back. You are a stick pig. Which means that somebody who always wants to be on the controls. And I took that as a compliment. I was, why would I not want to be on the controls? It's fun.
[00:05:26] So in each of these injuries, like, I remember how I got hurt, but I don't remember the recovery. Even I bruised my ribs on, you know, falling on the ice. Even then. I just remember being uncomfortable for a couple of weeks. But it wasn't a long process. I didn't have time off of work. I didn't need physical therapy. You know, I started feeling better quickly.
[00:05:53] So it was this way until I hit 39 that year. I tore my ACL in my left knee doing jiu jitsu, which, you know, it's not uncommon injury in that sport. So I had to have it reconstructed. And they told me that I wasn't able to do jiu jitsu for a year, which I was sad about. But honestly, I was going to school at UC Irvine at the time, and I had to commute each way 65 miles in Southern California traffic. So I was busy. But I had to do so much physical therapy. I did physical therapy right after surgery, and then I've had to do bouts of physical therapy for years, you know, working on my range of motion, working on my strength, of course, working on, like, sports, specific things. I mean, honestly, I think I have funded my physical therapist and all of his snowboarding trips. I just saw him the other day. He's like, I'm going to Whistler. Well, of course, because I'm financing that. So I've really had to do all that, and my knee still does not feel the same. Now, I understand that a torn ACL is much different than bruised ribs and a broken tailbone as far as recovery anyway, but it's just Taken me so much work to get back, and I'm still not back to normal, and I really doubt I ever will be.
[00:07:35] So I swim and I still do Jiu Jitsu, but I've had to really alter how I do Jiu jitsu. There are certain things I'm just not going to do other things I just have to change.
[00:07:49] What really bums me out is I can't really do any sports that require pivoting or sharp cuts, which is a lot of what my son likes to play. So I have to alter that or I just can't. I can't play soccer with him, I can't play football with him, and I. That really ticks me off.
[00:08:08] So in 2019, I had like, another minor inner. It's sort of minor injury in the left knee, and I think it was just, you know, it's easier to re aggravate it after you have something like an acl. And I had just like a basic scope of my knee, and it was like starting from square one again. More physical therapy, more strengthening. You know, it's just. I think this is going to be with me for the rest of my life. And then a month ago, I tweaked my other knee skiing, so it's doing better, but it's still not ever gonna be the same. Now, my husband Jeff, fortunately doesn't have. Hasn't had any major injuries, and I'm like, knocking on all the wood around me now. And I will say, I kind of. I've always thought, oh, well, was it just me? I'm overweight. You know, my body's run down from the army.
[00:09:16] I do tend to do more extreme exercise than he does. He will not step foot in my jiu jitsu academy. But we were in the car the other day coming home from. He signed up for the gym, so. Yay. And we started talking about how long it can take to recover these days. He is a runner, and he pulled his calf a few months ago, and it, you know, it took over a month, I would say, for it to come back for him so that he could run again. He had to stretch it, he had to strengthen it. You know, he had to do a lot for it to come back. And then back in 2019, he wrenched his back. First time he's ever had trouble with his back. He had to see the chiropractor do a lot of strengthening. He stretches every single day for that back. And honestly, I'm really impressed because I'm not that dedicated, and I should be.
[00:10:18] And, you know, we're 45 years old. We've been married for almost 22 years. And I can tell you we have a very well stocked medicine cabinet of, like, Naproxen and Advil and Tylenol. We have lidocaine patches, knee braces, Ace bandages, and half of our freezer is pretty much taken up by very various ice packs.
[00:10:44] Do you know what was in our freezers in our 20s?
[00:10:50] Food.
[00:11:09] Hi, welcome back to the 45 left or right podcast. I'm going to continue our discussion here about how our body changes as we age and then how we recover. And I'm going to start with a couple of articles.
[00:11:28] You know, they're a tiny bit technical, but I think you'll enjoy them.
[00:11:33] So the first one is from a Medline article from the Medline Encyclopedia, which is a solid source, and the title is Aging Changes Body Shape. So I'm going to start with a little quote here. Your body's shape changes naturally as you age. You cannot avoid some of these changes. Lovely. But your lifestyle choices may slow or speed the process. So, feeling a little shamed here. The audacity that we, of course, can control, you know, this aging process. So here are some things that happen according to this article.
[00:12:17] We lose bone density, lean muscle. Our organs lose some of their cells, and then you lose water in your body.
[00:12:28] Now, I think a lot of us can attest that at age 30, that's when things start going downhill. And science supports that more body fat starts at age 30. Now, that's about the time that I got out of the army, and I definitely noticed some fat gain. And honestly, I blamed myself. I thought, oh, gosh, you're just getting lazy after the army. No, it's nature. So another thing that happens is fat tissue accrues around the stomach and internal organs. Now, it also says that the layer of fat under your skin decreases. Now, my belly fat and my turkey waddle, which I call that flabby saggy, where your triceps are the underarm, they beg to differ. All right? There's no amount of tricep kickbacks that will improve the skin that waddles under the arms. It drives me crazy. I've tried. I've really tried.
[00:13:47] So another thing that happens is we shrink. We lose nearly half an inch every 10 years after 30. So if I live to be 90, which I'm not sure I want, but let's go for that. All right, let me do some math here. So I am 5 foot 5, even though for some reason I always tell doctors I'm five. Six, maybe to get a better BMI reading, which is crap, but we'll get to that in a later podcast. Okay, so at age 45, that is 65 inches. But I'm gonna start at 40 just to make it easy math, because I don't do math. All right, 40 to 90 is five decades. Five times 0.5 is 2.2 inches. 65 minus 2.5 is 62.5. So 62.5 divided by 12 equals 5 foot 2 by the time I'm 90. However, I also slouch. I have poor posture, so I will probably be five foot one. And then there is also a history of osteoporosis in my family. So let's call it an even five feet at age 90. Wow.
[00:15:30] All right, so the same article has a little more shaming. I'm going to warn you. Okay, here's a quote. Less leg muscles and stiffer joints can make moving around harder. Excess body fat and changes in body shape can affect your balance. These body changes can make falls more likely.
[00:15:56] Okay, so I can't move around as well because my legs are weak and stiff.
[00:16:05] But I'm supposed to exercise, so I can't get fat, or so I don't get fat. But I'm still going to gain body fat as I age because of all this, I will fall more. Awesome. So I already, you know, due to just my time in the army, and then I have quite an active lifestyle. I have osteoarthritis in both of my knees.
[00:16:37] The doctor said something about bone on bone.
[00:16:42] Now, in the past, I've heard people talk about their knees being bone on bone, and I just cringed, and I thought, oh, my gosh, how are you walking? But I moved on. It didn't affect me, you know, but now it does. All right, so really, it is these sorts of insults that constantly bombard you as you are aging. And I don't know what happens in middle age, but this comes at you, it seems, so quickly.
[00:17:22] Or maybe you just become more aware about your aging and definitely, I think, more reflective as you're aging and just at that point in your life.
[00:17:38] That is at least what I have experienced. And in talking to Jeff, he's experienced as well.
[00:17:46] Now, here's something interesting.
[00:17:50] The changes in body weight actually vary for men and women. So men gain weight until they're 55 years old, and then they start losing weight.
[00:18:04] Oh, this is because there's a drop in their testosterone. So this is a little cruel on them. You're going to lose fat Possibly look better, but you have less sex drive. That's pretty cruel.
[00:18:21] Now women gain weight until 65, 10 years longer than men.
[00:18:32] I mean, I don't know. And who needs Ozembic women? And when you just need to turn 65, just hold off.
[00:18:42] So as is with most articles this way, it ends with no helpful advice. It says, have a healthy diet. Okay. Duh. Exercise.
[00:19:00] Okay, we'll try avoid smoking and alcohol. Yeah, we've heard that our whole lives. Right?
[00:19:08] So it really sounds like a doctor wrote this article, lose weight and exercise.
[00:19:16] But I'm not going to tell you how to do it. I'm not going to tell you how to lose weight. I'm probably going to give you poor advice for how to exercise. And every time they tell me that, I think I just say, do you think that I haven't tried all of that? Just, it drives me crazy.
[00:19:55] All right, welcome back to the 45 left to right podcast. I've got our final section here about recovery and how we can recover or how our recovery changes as we age. So let me get to it here. All right, so this article is from the nih and it is entitled An Old Problem, Aging and Skeletal Muscle Strain Injury. And this is from actually the Journal of Sports Rehabilitation.
[00:20:32] Thank you for putting old into the title journal. This must have been written by a youngster. So this study is really good, but it has a lot of fancy words in it like co committent and decrements.
[00:20:50] So I'm going to summarize it a bit.
[00:20:54] So basically it says talking about as we age, we lose muscle and strength and that leads to us getting injured more frequently. And it's also why professional athletes, like professional football players, cannot play indefinitely.
[00:21:12] So this can be changed. We are not doomed. All right, here is a long and complicated quote from this study. Muscle quality is defined as the proportion of muscle strength that is static or dynamic relative to muscle mass and has been used to demonstrate and differentiate the Overall functional status, I.e. performance and physiology of muscle in vivo.
[00:21:50] Note that suggestions are that the preservation of lean muscle mass would likely contribute to the greatest effects on maintenance of performance with aging and likely would affect overall quality of life and independence, which is what we're all looking for.
[00:22:10] So it's basically saying that you need to increase your muscle mass. And that is also a very long and complicated paragraph to say lift weights. If you lift weights, you get stronger. If you get stronger, you'll have a better quality of life. Now, gyms are very intimidating, especially if you go in and you're new and you've never lifted before. I totally understand that.
[00:22:45] But what I recommend is to get a trainer, at least initially, to show you kind of how to do things and then maybe create a program for yourself. Plus, I mean, you look super cool when you're there with a trainer. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, they're. They're hardcore. They got a trainer. And it doesn't have to be forever just to kind of get started now. As you can tell, I'm a big proponent of lifting weights. I basically lifted the weights in the army, you know, when I was deployed to Iraq, that was kind of all that you could do in your free time. So I really got started doing it there. But then when I left the army due to some injuries, I didn't really lift. I've kind of lifted off and on since then.
[00:23:35] About a year ago, I started lifting three days a week. I found a really good program by lean bodies consulting, and they kind of specialize in especially women, but not exclusively in middle age. It's called the look like you train program. I love it. Now you can find whatever program you want. YouTube is beautiful for that, but I've really, really liked them. I like it because it's very specific in this is how many sets. And, you know, this set needs to be at this intensity. It's got a pacing to lift. I've never done that before. So it'll say, you know, lift maybe up at a one count, don't pause at the top. Lower at a three count, don't pause at the bottom. It's wonderful. It took me a few months to notice any change, but I am much stronger now. And here are my measures.
[00:24:42] Devin plays baseball and he has this giant bag, and it's full of two baseball bats, two helmets, catcher's equipment, two gloves, and his catcher's glove is. Glove is really heavy, and I can just heft that thing into the back of my car, really without any trouble. I also have a new sports watching chair for all of the games and the practices that I get to go to. And it is a rocker, and it is also pretty heavy right into the back of my car.
[00:25:19] Another example is over Christmas, we all went with one of Devin's friends and his mom to this creek kind of out in the desert. And the boys were just messing around rough housing, and I decided to join in, and they decided it was time for piggyback rides. So they jumped on my back. Each of them weighed about 70 pounds, but I was able to run with them on my back. Spin them around and then chuck them onto the ground. And they loved it. And I did fine. And I don't even think I was really that sore the next day. So that was a really good measure because I'm enjoying my life a lot more. All right, so I'll get off my soapbox for now. So why does it take us longer to recover from injuries, from a hard workout, from a long day at work, from a long commute? I mean, it really takes it out of you, right? All right, so this next study is by the physio company, which I believe is a physical therapy place in the uk so they know what they're talking about. So this study that they're quoting was published in Nature magazine. And basically there are two theories that are in this article. The first is that your cellular pathway, which is the JAK and stat cells J, A K and then S, T A T receives more signals for cells to multiply the more cells there are, and then the path gets overloaded and then the cells don't divide as effectively. That's kind of interesting. The second theory, and I've heard about this one, and you all might have to, it talks about inflammation. More inflammation leads to swelling and that leads to slower healing. Now you need inflammation to heal. Like if you sprain your ankle, it's going to swell, it's going to be inflamed, so that's necessary. But there can be too much inflammation. So these cells are not efficient enough. Some cells do too much and some cells do too little. Kind of like if you've ever been in a group project, there's one or two people that do all the work, and then the rest of them were a bunch of slackers.
[00:28:07] Guess which group I was in. I'm not a slacker, but it's. The cells are just not doing enough what they're supposed to do, and they're not working well.
[00:28:20] So all of this, okay, great.
[00:28:24] What do we do about it? What do we do to recover quicker and to make aging easier?
[00:28:35] I'm gonna be honest with you.
[00:28:37] I got nothing. Because so many articles promise to have the answer, to have the miracle cure.
[00:28:48] I read one article from the New York Times with the most laborious advice that I've ever seen. And here we go. Ready? All right. Eat fruits and vegetables. Uh huh. Duh. No sugar, no fun.
[00:29:09] No alcohol. If you're a drinker, no fun. No tobacco. Yeah, we know. No processed or packaged foods. She obviously does not have children, because who hasn't made their kid some Kraft Mac and Cheese and eaten it alongside them. It's just not, not realistic. Okay, here's this one's great. Make homemade cereals. Your kids like cereals, right? But you don't want to give them sugary cereals. So just, you know, in your spare time, make homemade cereals. Okay?
[00:29:54] Eat nuts. All right. Drink water. Yeah, that's, you know, that's good. All right, so she did make a recommendation recommendation on exercise. But she recommended hiit training, the high intensity. Which actually according to recent, more recent studies is a no no at middle age because it increases inflammation in your body.
[00:30:22] So you gotta go with less intensity.
[00:30:26] Meditate.
[00:30:28] All right, but like, who has time for that? Practice mindfulness. I don't know what that means.
[00:30:35] Sleep.
[00:30:37] If somebody could tell me what to do to sleep, please. I haven't slept in 20 years and it gets harder to sleep as you get older. So great advice.
[00:30:53] Not realistic. Proper skincare. Okay. Take care of your eyes. Okay. Go to the dentist. Are you writing all of this down? These are the magical, magical cures for middle age.
[00:31:11] I just hate advice for these kinds of things. It is too confusing, is often smug or dismissive and not realistic.
[00:31:27] The experts list off a bunch of things like as if it were easy. When you're balancing a family and kids activities and your emotional health, your careers, your relationships, your friends.
[00:31:46] It is not easy. And I am still trying to figure it out. And I will probably be figuring it out for the rest of my life.
[00:31:57] So here's my advice for you.
[00:32:00] Quit reading these BS articles. There is no new information.
[00:32:06] There is no miracle cure. So just live and enjoy and soak up all that you can.
[00:32:21] Now, I do not have a great sign off yet, but I appreciate you listening to the 45 left or right podcast. I do apologize for probably some sound discrepancies in this episode, but I am trying to get the best sound quality. So you're my experiment today. But anyway, I again appreciate you listening. Bye for now.
