You don’t need a perfect diet, extreme workouts, or the latest biohack to improve your health span; you need sustainable habits you can maintain.

In this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, Steven Sashen speaks with Dr. Jennifer Timmons, MD, Longevity Physician and the Founder and Medical Director of Timmons Wellness, who explains how movement, nutrition, emotional health, and sleep form the foundation for maintaining health and vitality as we age. She shares practical approaches to building strength, incorporating movement throughout the day, improving sleep quality, eating primarily whole foods, and using small, consistent changes to create meaningful long-term improvements. Jennifer also discusses how daily habits can influence epigenetics, why it’s never too late to begin improving fitness, and how simple movement and strength tests can provide insight into functional health.

Key Takeaways:
→ Small improvements across different areas of health can compound over time when practiced consistently.
→ Nutrition can be individualized, but prioritizing whole foods, adequate protein, and fiber provides a solid foundation.
→ Daily movement doesn’t have to happen in one long workout; you can spread it across shorter periods throughout the day.
→ Progressive overload can help people build strength by gradually increasing repetitions or weight.
→ Making exercise easier to start by removing barriers, starting with a manageable amount, and building consistency can help establish a lasting movement habit.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons, MD, is a Longevity Physician and the Founder and Medical Director of Timmons Wellness, a concierge medical practice providing hyper-personalized healthcare. With over 10 years of experience practicing traditional primary care at UCLA Health, along with advanced training in Functional and Integrative Medicine, Precision Medicine, and Longevity Medicine, Dr. Timmons is committed to helping people enjoy longer, healthier lives through a customized care model. Her expertise includes hormone optimization, metabolic and cardiovascular health, proactive disease prevention, weight management, and more, blending proven strategies with innovative technologies. As Founder and Medical Director of Timmons Wellness, she helps people move beyond basic wellness toward longevity medicine and build sustainable habits that increase not just the years of their lives, but their number of healthy years.

Connect With Dr. Timmons:
Website: https://timmonswellnessmd.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifertimmonsmd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifertimmonsmd/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jennifertimmonsmd

Connect with Steven:
Xero Shoes: https://xeroshoes.com/
X: https://x.com/XeroShoes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xeroshoes/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen
Do you want to know how long you’re going to live? I mean, do you want to take a test and find out when you’re going to die? Do you even want to know? That’s a really fun question. If someone could tell you like the day, would you care? We’re not going to get that exact, but we are going to talk about longevity and what you can do to have a sense of, you know, how much time you got between now and then and what to do about that. On today’s episode of the Movement Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Starting with those things at the end of your legs that we like to call your feet. And we sometimes, well, not sometimes, we usually break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the flat out lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run, walk, hike, play, do yoga, crossfit, high rocks, whatever it is you like to do and to do that effectively and enjoyably and efficiently. Wait, did I say enjoyably? Trick question. You probably know that because if you’re not having a good time, you’re not going to keep doing it. So I always say enjoyably. So find something you enjoy and maybe that means finding another person to do it with. I would highly recommend that. Anyway, I’m Stephen Sashin, co founder, chief barefoot officer here at Xero Shoes and this is called the Movement Movement because we are talking about making a movement. This will involve you do more about that in a second. About natural movement, letting your body do what it’s built to do without getting in the way with things that are unnecessary or often harmful. So how do you participate? There’s no special thing to do. There’s no secret handshake. We don’t do a dance every morning at 7 o’ clock before you go to work. Although that would be really entertaining if we did. It’s easy, just leave a review, give us a thumbs up, you know, like us on whatever you can like us, give us a five star thing. And wherever you do five star things, hit the bell icon on YouTube or you just go to www.jointhemovementmovement. because that’s where you’ll find all the previous episodes. And there are a lot, all the ways you can find us on social media. If you don’t like how you find the po, found the podcast to begin with. Other places you can find the podcast and then it’s look, I don’t need to explain it even more if you want to Be part of the tribe. Just subscribe and let’s have some fun. Okay, Jennifer, do me a favor. Tell people who you are and what you’re doing here and then we’ll do that fun part that I just mentioned.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
All right, great. Yeah. So I’m Dr. Jennifer Timmons. I’m a board, board certified family physician who’s sort of tailored my practice and changed my area of focus to longevity and preventative medicine and now study and work with patients to do things to extend your health span, which is the number of healthy, strong and vibrant years and hopefully lifespan as well, which is the number of years you live. But we know for sure all of the tactics we talk about are going to affect your health span. So I love to work with patients on that to make them feel great now and continue to feel great as they age.

Steven Sashen
If I were you and if I were on video, I don’t know how many people are listening on video, but, but only because I did comedy for a living, I would say. And just so you know, I’m an example of everything that I teach. I’m 94 years old.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yes, exactly. How did you know? I didn’t think they told you my age.

Steven Sashen
No, they, they, they gave me your birth certificate and I had to look it up because I was shocked. So, so, you know, some of these things are somewhat basic. What’s the latest thing you’ve been paying attention to? Maybe that’s been coming up on this whole idea? I mean, you know, the pitch that I made is about how long are you going to live? And it’s actually funny. I took one of those tests online recently and I find it fascinating because I’m one of these people who, I’m going to say it the other way around. I think there’s nothing greater than knowing when you’re going to die. And I say that as someone who has had, you know, a life threatening thing or have dealt with a lot of people who’ve had that. And I, I mean, I’m well known among my friends for saying things. When I hear someone say I have stage 4 cancer of looking around conspiratorially and then leaning in and whispering to them. It’s pretty amazing, right? And then they look around and conspiratorially and go, oh, my God. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me because I’m only doing what I want with who I want for as long as I want. I’m making no excuses for anything in my life. You know, I’ve done things with My kids, so they’re prepared. And this has been amazing. It’s an unusual position to take, but I’m not, you know, I’m not looking to have that happen immediately. Although for a while we thought I could. But so, you know, playing both ends of the spectrum, how to put that off as long as possible and how to make that moment if. If you do have that opportunity as precious as possible.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, I think that’s really important. And I think if all of us could learn to, you know, use this moment we have and be in the present and not. And take advantage of the health we have now, of the life we have now, without having to have a, you know, critical health diagnosis in order to have that aha, light bulb go off, that would be amazing.

Steven Sashen
I don’t know. I don’t know if you. I really think you can’t fake it. Like, when it hits you in the face, you know, you react how you react. And often there’s a. It’s not like. I mean, for me, I’m weird. So that sort of like, oh, my, you know, people asked my wife when I was going through this thing, you know, how she was doing, and she would say, I’m on a roller coaster, but I can’t stay down very long because he is just so happy all the time. And so I’m just weird that way. But literally, there isn’t anyone I’ve met who hasn’t gone through that, who’s gotten to that point of just like, let’s really make the most of, you know, whatever’s left. And in part, you just give me a weird flashback. When I was in high school, I remember someone doing a fundraiser for public broadcasting, and it was a lecture. And he says, you know, the problem is that humans, we think we’re immortal. And everyone’s like, what? He goes, well, there have been 120 billion of us who’ve ever lived. They’ve all died, except for the seven or however many, seven and a half, eight billion that are alive right now. But we all act when one of us dies. Surprised. Like, how is this news to you? So, all right, but anyway, back to you for the win. So what’s catching your attention lately for how to deal with healthspan lifespan?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Well, I think there’s always, you know, the new. The new exciting little things you read about. But, you know, and I do like to keep up with all the new technologies, but I also like to always bring it back to the boring basics. So people, you know, say, well, what, you know, what’s the number one thing I can do. What’s the best thing I can do? And you know, should I, what, what about all this biohacking? And although those things are fun and exciting, really in order to maintain our lifespan and health span, we got to bring it back to make sure you have the base of your pyramid solid, which I call the, you know, the pyramid being movement, nutrition, your social, emotional health and getting your sleep dialed in. And if you can do all of those things, you know, then you can add on these sort of fun biohacks.

Steven Sashen
But would you be okay with three out of four of those?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, I mean I, so I think, you know, I like to say take your meds. So we have, I like the acronym meds which is, you know, like I just said, movement, exercise, diet, sleep. And people always say, well, what’s the most important one? You know, And I, I, it’s hard to say three out of four. And I guess I wouldn’t be okay with three out of four. I feel like if you, you, you don’t have to be perfect at every single one. But I think you do have to pay attention to all four of the categories.

Steven Sashen
I definitely want to talk about the movement one, but I want to, I want to dive into the base of the pyramid a little more. And the reason that I made that half joking comment is that, so movement is something that I’m pretty good at. What was it? What’s that? What was it? E. I can’t think so.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Well, you’d think it would be. Well so in my little schema, the M is movement. E is emotional, emotional sort of social connections.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, I know it’s easy to think that you would be exercise.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yes.

Steven Sashen
So movement, emotional health. All right, I’m going to suggest that I’m okay on the emotional health side

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
and that kind of encompasses, you know, social connections that encompass it, you know, paying attention to your stress and encompasses finding a purpose, you know, mindfulness, a lot of, a lot of things that we don’t think of as part of, of, you know, sort of our physical health actually do have one of the most, you know, are the most impactful for your long term health is I,

Steven Sashen
I happily have no purpose otherwise that would be too stressful. So because I’d have to put it up against some sort of yardstick. So let’s see under the D, the diet part that I don’t, I’m not really concerned about that one. It has annoyed me that at 64 and change the five pounds of body fat that I would love to Lose just to have a better strength to weight ratio. Boy, that is really much more difficult than it was when I was 30 years younger. The sleep one is, the one that I’m. Where I was kind of going with all of these is, you know, there’s, there’s got to have be some sort of. What’s the word I’m thinking, like error bars. Like what’s the bandwidth in which, you know, okay, is, you know, where we are, there’s not going to be perfect. So like for me, sleep. The thing that. And we’ll leave this one alone. This is just my personal thing is I technically sleep enough to I don’t wake up rested. And that hasn’t happened in a long time. Yeah, and it could be. I mean, I asked my sister a little while ago when mom was my age, how much sleep did she get? My sister said, what are you talking about? She never slept. So, you know, I wonder about genetic components for some of these and I wonder about, you know, again, where that range is for how much you can affect and etc. Etc.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Well, I do think with sleep it’s for sure not just quantity, it’s quality. And waking up unrested can be due to many different things. It can actually be to. Due to habits you’re doing during the day that then affect you at night. So you kind of don’t put those two and two together. And it can be due to what’s happening to your body at night. So like sleep apnea, for example, is a very common cause of, you know, that’s easy to kind of diagnose and rule out, but a lot of people have that leads to poor quality sleep and then leads you to waking up feeling unrested. And there’s lots of other causes and it could be something like a diagnosis like sleep apnea or just something you’re doing like a late meal or, you know, scrolling and thinking and getting all revved up right before you go to sleep. And you’re not getting into the deep sleep phases or, you know, lots of different reasons, but quantity and quality is definitely important.

Steven Sashen
Yeah. And I’m not trying to use this for personal diagnosis. I’m kind of bringing it up just in general because it’s easy to think that these things have to be done in, in whatever someone interprets as perfect manner.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
No. Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen
That’s just not the way these things tend to work.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, I think that any, with all of these different categories, any incremental improvement is going to have sort of compounded huge improvements over time. If you can kind of be consistent with that small improvement in that small change. So if you, you know, make a small. You know, sometimes people hear this, and they think, oh, my God, I’m so far off in every category. I’m never. You know, it’s. You just feel so hopeless about that. But just making a small change in any of the categories or each of the categories does make a big impact if you can stick with that little health, you know, improvement over time.

Steven Sashen
I want to get to. I want to get to movement, not surprisingly, but I want to take the world’s fastest detour. And I’m saying fast because this is the kind of. This is a detour that could go on forever and go very deep and very wide and very crazy, because I know that whenever this comes up, like on our Facebook page, it makes people insane. And that’s d. That’s the diet part, Right. My favorite thing and only. Well, favorite’s a weird way to put it, but my favorite thing is when we have someone who comes on, who has done any kind of extreme, even. That’s not a good word anywhere. They’ve really committed to a particular diet.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And they’ve had tremendous results. So the one I’m thinking of is one of our ultra marathoners who became. Well, he became a vegan, lost a lot of weight, and became an ultramarathoner, and he’s a vegan ultramarathoner. And when he talks about that, people want to just. I mean, they want to destroy him and tell him that it’s all that he can’t do it.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
That’s not gonna work.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, exactly. It’s like, I run five ultramarathons a year. My blood markers are. You know, it’s like he. There’s nothing he can say to shut them up. And then somebody comes on. It’s like, well, I’m just eating nothing but, you know, but butter and steak, and it’s. So how do you. What do you say to anyone for the. When they say, well, all right. What’s the one thing I need to do about my diet? What in God’s name could you possibly say for that?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Well, I think you make a very good point that everybody. Everybody is different. And so what works for one person might not work for. Well, for another person. So, number one thing is to learn to listen to your body and learn to listen when it whispers so it doesn’t have to scream. And learn to do some experimenting on your own and sort of figure out what’s best for you, because there’s lots of different options within the healthy range. So that’s kind of rule number one and rule number two, and this kind of applies to everyone and applies to the two cases you mentioned, is primarily eat whole foods. So like a whole foods diet that’s gonna, if you’re doing that, you’re gonna be cutting out, you know, a lot of the ultra processed foods which are gonna. Cause, you know, that’s not gonna be good for anyone. Like there’s no, no body there that, that’s gonna be the beneficial diet for. So eating a whole foods diet. And like the two examples you said, whether that’s whole foods, all vegan and plants, or whether that’s the carnivore diet, sometimes those can work. Generally a more balanced approach is better eating a whole foods diet. So primarily making your meals from foods you recognize, single ingredient, you know, whole foods. And that’s kind of the basis for, I would say the, you know, the, the basis. And then in order to maintain muscle mass as we age, pretty much most experts and studies agree that we need to have enough protein to maintain muscle mass. So again, where you get that protein source from, there’s different ways to get from vegetarian and vegan and meat proteins. But getting enough protein in your whole foods diet and getting enough fiber, there’s tons of studies that show that getting enough fiber is important for preventing heart disease, for preventing colon cancer, for being full and preventing weight gain, for your microbiome health, which helps with hormone signaling. So again, if you’re eating whole foods, you’re generally probably getting more fiber and enough fiber, but kind of paying attention to those foods that you’re eating. Like you’re paying attention to making sure they have protein, making sure they’re high fiber foods. And I think if you kind of follow those sort of leading principles, you can tailor it to your individual need.

Steven Sashen
Wider target than people think. Of course, the second argument you can get or the, the second argument you can inspire is when you make some comment about how much protein you should be having, that one makes people’s heads explode.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
It does.

Steven Sashen
I actually, I actually met someone who’s in the protein product business the other week and I said to him, I have a feeling that we’re going to be reaching peak protein soon. Everything has protein in it now. I mean, yes, I was in Sprouts and they were selling protein coffee and Starbucks. I mean, it’s just getting ludicrous.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, protein candies, protein chips, protein popcorn.

Steven Sashen
Right. And so he says, I don’t know, we’re already at peak Pop Peak protein. I said, so what’s next? He goes, fiber.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Peak fiber. I was going to say fiber’s next.

Steven Sashen
Fiber’s next. It’s going to be everything having, you know, more fiber. It’s like, here’s a block of wood and a. And a plane. Just shave off what you need and you’re going to be fine. And by the way, of course, just to be clear, when we say Whole Foods diet, that doesn’t mean you’re buying everything at Whole Foods.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Exactly.

Steven Sashen
Yes. Where I have a down payment on a head of lettuce. So that’s a whole other story. So. Okay. So, yeah, and. And the thing that’s interesting for me about diet is the. The paying attention to how you feel when and after you eat something. What’s so difficult, I would contend, is that we all kind of think of ourselves as being. Remembering a different age that we were where you could pretty much eat anything, it was okay. And if you needed to lose weight, you just didn’t have that extra pizza. Not slice of pizza, entire pizza.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And, you know, and bodies change. I remember my parents, when I was a kid, making some comment about how they could no longer tolerate spicy food. And I thought, what is wrong with you? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And now I’m at a point where I can barely tolerate this food that I used to eat without any problem whatsoever. So that thing of how, for whatever reason, these things change, it’s just really difficult for us to get in line with reality, it seems.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, I think that’s true. I think it’s, again, to the point of, like, learning to just accept who. Who you are now and to listen to your body and do the things that, you know, works for it at the different phases in your life. But, yeah, it is. It is hard for us all to accept, too, that we’re changing and our bodies change in ways that we don’t always, like, as we get older.

Steven Sashen
No. Not a fan. I have to tell you a weird version of listening to one’s body, which is a phrase that I joke about. I go, I know what your body wants you to hear. French fries, ice cream, chocolate cake would be good. But I have a thing that happens to me literally once every 12 to 16 months, where if I don’t get a donut, my head will explode. It’s like all I can think of. And literally the only time I go get one, sometimes two, is then it’s like when I find myself just going, I’ve got to have One, then I go have one or one and a half to two, and then I’m done for another year and a half. It’s a. It’s a really weird phenomenon.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
I’m with you. That if I have to have a treat, a donut is my go to as well.

Steven Sashen
Wait, what’s your favorite kind of.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
I just am a plain glazed or

Steven Sashen
the old fashioned glazed, nothing fancy, straight up Krispy Kreme. And if you haven’t put a Krispy Kreme in the microwave for seven seconds, that is the closest thing you can get to crack without having to suffer the effects of crack. Just pure, pure evil. Okay, so let’s talk about movement. So what are your. I mean, again, we can start with the basics or we can start with kind of the latest thing that’s catching your attention on the movement side. And I’ll wait till you adjust your camera again. There we go.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
There we go. Sorry. Hey, not an issue.

Steven Sashen
Not a problem. So let’s talk. What are you thinking about? Movement. And there’s a lot of people who. Well, let’s talk about the basics because a lot of people want to skip over that and they want to go to something way beyond before they’re ready to do that. Has been my experience. So take it from there.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, so I think with movement, you know, it depends on sort of the guidelines and the goals. It depends on who you’re talking to and where they’re starting. So like you mentioned, and some people just want to jump to, you know, jump to the skip the basics. But I think even, you know, something that’s universally applicable at all different levels is, you know, to move your body every day. So what that means, you know, it depends on where you’re starting. But incorporating movement into your life, I think is so important. So moving your. Finding things that you enjoy that get you moving. And to not think that you have to do it all at once. Like it has to be an hour of the hardest workout you’ve ever done in the gym. You know, the movement can be broken up throughout the day. And if you’re someone who has a desk job, get up and move your body for five minutes at the end of each hour. And that is going to be beneficial in a similar way to taking a half an hour, an hour walk at the end of the day. So not thinking of it so rigidly that you have to do it a certain way. So kind of moving your body every day. And, you know, the other two principles are getting your heart rate going up, you know, all the Way up, if you can, up into the high intense zones is very beneficial. And getting it just up, you know, in the zone too. Getting it, getting your heart rate in all the different zones and then, you know, doing lifting heavy things. So if we continue to lift heavy things now, weight train, we’re going to, you know, continue to be able to do that when we’re older. And I think people say, like, how do you start? Or what’s the principle? I think using a principle of progressive overload. So wherever you’re starting at working to build your strength so that you can build the reps or build the weight and eventually lift more and more to help maintain your muscle mass as you age. As we lose 3 to 8% of your muscle mass every year after the age of 35, we have to actually build muscle just to maintain our muscles.

Steven Sashen
You know, I want to dive into some pieces of that. I know for some people, you know, it. That all sounds like a lot of different things to do and it’s, it becomes, you know, sort of chore, like, which obviously we’re trying to avoid that. So if there is something that you enjoy, that’s fine. Unless it’s pickleball and then you should be, you should be hung. That is just not okay.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
What about tennis?

Steven Sashen
Tennis? Totally fine with tennis.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Okay.

Steven Sashen
Mini tennis. Jumbo ping pong man. I just cannot figure it out. Actually, I can figure it out. It’s. It’s easy to be mildly competent and so that’s satisfying.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And then it’s also easy for some people to get way intense about it, which really get another hobby. So. And I’m totally fine hearing from all you pickleball people telling me that I’m completely wrong. I’ve never. Well, that’s a whole other story. So. But the, the simplicity part, or trying to make it so it’s not a chore or doing something so that, you know, you can remind yourself, like you said, just. Even for me, I remember when I thought about this, like, get up an hour every hour and just walk around for five minutes. I get really embroiled and enthralled by something I’m doing and I don’t even know it’s three hours later, so that’s not a thing. Doing that becomes problematic for the way my brain works. But, you know, happily, five years ago or four and a half years ago, got a dog and I wake up before my wife does, so I’ve got an hour with the dog every morning. And then usually one of us, or both of us are going to do the same in the afternoon. So there’s that part and my dog. Amazingly, I’ve learned that if I let my dog run as fast as he wants to on the leash, then he will pull me faster than I can normally run on my own. It’s very entertaining to do overspeed work with my dog. So.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
So the dog thinks of a big dog.

Steven Sashen
No, no, no. He’s, he’s long and low.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Okay.

Steven Sashen
Looks kind of like. People think that he’s either like part corgi or dachshund or something. He, everything that he is is not what he looks like, but he’s just like wall to wall muscle and can run ridiculously fast. Yeah, he’s like, he doesn’t. He comes up to about the middle of my shin and my wife was trying to take him somewhere for, you know, doing like doggy daycare or when we were on vacation and they had a fenced in yard with a six foot fence. And so he’s running around with the other dog and they’re having a great time. And then my wife sees the dog running like full speed towards one of the walls and then notices that right at the end there’s like a little box maybe a foot high and he uses the box to bounce off of that and jump over a six foot fence. Wow, this dog is like a foot off the ground.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Okay, well that’s, that’s most athletic short dog ever.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, he really is. He’s, he’s a total brute. So, you know, but, but literally we got the dog. One of the reasons was my wife started working from home more and she said I gotta get out of my chair. And so, you know, we got this, we hit the dog lottery and got a, you know, great dog. So there’s that part. And I can do, you know, intermittent running during that because he wants to sprint and I’ll just go do 50 or 100 meters with him a couple times. And so I get both of those. So that’s easy one for me.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
But when it comes to lifting, so it’s an easy one for me as well because I know that I’m lazy. And what that means is I built out a decent home gym because if I have to go somewhere, it’s never going to happen. I mean, yeah, I had a free membership to one of the most exclusive health clubs you can get a membership to. They gave it to me and I never went because it was, it’s five minutes away.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Five whole minutes.

Steven Sashen
Five minutes, even with traffic. And it’s like, it’s just not going to happen. So that’s another thing. I mean, if we think about the finding what works for you, food wise finding, you know, being very clear about what you’re willing or able to do.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Movement side I think is really overlooked. And, and of course health clubs take advantage of that. They know on January 2nd you’re going to think, no, I’ll drive out. Yeah, you’re not. So talk about, you know, how someone can really start from nowhere and what, what you would recommend if they’re afraid to do this or embarrassed to go to a gym or you know, whatever else would come up that could stop someone from exploring, doing some sort of resistance, something in a way that is not, you know, like, I don’t know, I want to say non confrontational.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s important to remember, you know, I think that like you said, you just take away the barriers that are going to cause you to not do it. So, you know, and just, just start. I would say just start with something and you know, not let your brain talk you out of like, I’m not going to be good enough or I’m not going to, you know, have all the equipment or I’m not going to know exactly how to do it or I’m going to be too sore. Like just, just commit to like starting with, for five minutes, be like, okay, I’m going to do a five minute one series workout and once you get started, and maybe that’s all you do that first time, but once you get started, you see that like, oh, okay, I did that. And it, you know, it’s going to start becoming part of your identity. I’m someone who moves my body. I’m someone who can lift weights. And so that’s my main thing is just start with something that’s small enough and manageable that you can do. And maybe it’s having weights at home like you said.

Steven Sashen
Oh, I’m, I’m going to dumb it down. I just thought of if I was going to, if I was going to start from scratch for someone who was like embarrassed to do it all. I’ve got my, I just thought of my, my two exercise workout and my three exercise workout. Ready? Okay. Exercise number one would either be just doing bodyweight squats.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
You know, just, just until you like, you can’t do them.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yep.

Steven Sashen
Which I don’t care how many it is. Or a wall sit where you put your back against the wall and feed out, you know, about a foot or so and sit down like on an imaginary chair and do that for as long as you can. It’ll be like 10 or 20 seconds. And then FYI, you can build up really fast. It’s going to be, you will, you will be embarrassed. Even if there’s no one around, you will be embarrassed just thinking about yourself the first time you try it. I haven’t, I used to do these a lot and I hadn’t done them in a while. And so when I tried again like 30, like literally recently, 30 seconds felt like a lot. And now I can do two, two and a half minutes without a problem. And it only took a couple weeks. I mean, that’s one that builds up and gives you confidence. So wall squats or squats. In fact, I like wall squats better just for the confidence part. And then the other one would be push ups. And if you have to do them on your knees, I don’t care. So you know, just whatever you can do there. And if you want to even do the goofier version, like the wall sit version of a push up, just go halfway down until you’re ready to put your nose on the ground. Just get like an isometric push up. And not surprisingly, the third one is if you have a pull up bar, which it’s amazing how many people have them and they use it for hanging clothes, then I don’t care if you can do a pull up, like get a chair, put yourself all the way up and like hold as long as you can until you’re all the way back down to the exercise thing and just like do one each day. That would be my world’s simplest, basic workout. I just made it up.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yep, I love that. And what I like about it is it, it hits on. What I usually recommend to patients is try to do two to three times a week. So if you do one of each of those, you know, three times a week.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
And to pick, try to do things that are big compound body movements or like use your big muscles. So not just do like a triceps step, you know, kickback, but like use the big muscles of your body. So I love that the lower body stuff, you know, is the squats are using all, you know, your lower body muscles. So picking. And then the other thing I like about that is it can keep it simple. It doesn’t have to be these crazy, you know, different things. They just these basic workouts. And then the other thing I like about that is just repeating the same thing, you know, over, let’s say eight weeks, do those same three workouts three times. On Monday, you do their squats. On Tuesday, you do your push ups. On Thursday, you do your pull downs. And if you did that every day for, you know, six weeks, you’re going to progress in strength. You’re going to feel confident. It’s. You’re going to. That’s going to take you five minutes to get started, and you’re going to see gains and feel better and already make progress. And I think that’s so important to then be able to build from there. And that was so simple, and anyone can do that.

Steven Sashen
So I’m, I’m going to write a very complicated book about that and sell it for $25.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Now,

Steven Sashen
it literally just popped in my head and it would be really fun. But okay, so beyond, beyond that simple thing, what suggestions do you have for people? And by the way, we do have to come back to predicting your longevity, which is what we teased everyone at the beginning.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, well, so beyond that simple, I would say progress. As you know, the idea of progressive overload is meaning it’s a simple idea, but it’s funny how many times it’s kind of not done when you’re at the gym and kind of lifting weights. But it means, you know, working the same muscle for a period of time and so that you can see yourself, you know, increasing the repetitions or increasing the weight over time so that you’re actually challenging the muscle to grow. So I think that’s kind of an important feature. But, you know, I think starting, starting with that and then the world’s your oyster, you can really get, you know, get going with and build from there. But one, one other thing that I’ve found helpful for myself and I like to recommend is, you know, using the tools of technology to like, have an app that you follow that gives you a different workout. So that can be helpful or like an online virtual personal trainer or workout with a friend or, you know, getting some accountability can be really helpful. So, you know, like, oh, every day the app’s going to give me a new workout that I follow their program or, you know, I think that can be a helpful tool too. I think it can also sometimes inhibit someone so they’re like, oh, no, you know, But I think it’s something to explore that I’ve found really helpful for myself is, is, yeah, doing. Using those.

Steven Sashen
I, I just came up with it. I just came up with what my, what my book is going to be. It’s, it’s the wordle workout. So if you’re already doing something, I literally, if you’re already doing something. Like if you’re doing wordle and of course almost everyone who does wordle has someone that they, they compete with.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yep.

Steven Sashen
So do wordle while you’re doing a word, while you’re doing a wall squat. If you’re doing a cross repository, I mean like find the thing that you’re already doing.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
You could double it up.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
I love that. Yeah, I call that like habit stacking. So, you know, if you are. Everybody brushes their teeth every day already. So if you’re trying to start a new habit, maybe put your weights in your bathroom, your 10 pound weights in your bathroom and like you always, you know, link it to that in your mind that you remember, oh, there’s my toothbrush. And then after I do my toothbrush, I do two minutes of, you know, my squat after.

Steven Sashen
Come on, I’m saying, you know, while you’re doing your one handed, then switch hands, feel uncoordinated with the way you’re brushing your teeth and then, and then you’ll develop the ability to be coordinated with your other hand while brushing your teeth, which. That’s a whole. That’s. Wait, we’re onto something here.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Do it on one leg so that you’re working on your balance.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’m having a flashback day after I had when I had my right shoulder put back together and I had to learn how to brush my teeth with my left hand. At first it was like, is someone else trying to do this to me? Yeah, eventually I could actually do it. All right, so now we’re onto it. It. So you’re going to be learning how to. You’re getting cross, cross, synaptic, whatever things by using your left hand when you rush, you’re standing on one foot, you’re curl. I think we’re onto it. I think we’ve got a new workout program.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
I think so. Okay, tell me in on your book.

Steven Sashen
Okay, you can write the forward. So, so, so moving with. Okay, let’s talk about the whole thing about longevity because I mean I’m, you know, I turned 64 a few months ago and it really is, I don’t want to say impacting me. That’s not quite the right word. But I’m certainly noticing people who are not a whole lot older than me who are dropping off and you know, dying like dropping like flies, whatever, you know, they’re dying and it’s. I know my mom lived not well, she had Alzheimer’s, but she didn’t die till she was 87. I think my dad tripped and fell and he died when he was 81. So that’s, you know, I don’t know. So, you know, at least it sounds like there’s moderate longevity that could run in the family if we take the genetic component.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
So how much do you pay? I mean, when people think about how much time they have, how do you talk about that with them? You know, how do you think about genetics, how do you think about these other things we’ve Talked about and etc. Etc.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, well, I like to remind patients that genetics is one small part of it. But your daily habits are make up even a, I would say a bigger sort of faction of whether you’re, how long you’re going to live. And especially, you know, if you’re intentional about having sort of good daily habits, it can override your genetic predisposition. So one of the things we know is your daily habits influence what’s called your epigenetics. So if you think of your genetics as being your hardware that that tells your body and runs your cells. The epigenetics is a software. So it’s telling which genes to turn on and off and the foods we eat and the way we move our body and the thoughts we think and all of that actually directly influences our epigenetics. So that your, those things are actually influencing your genes because they’re telling your genes upregulate this, downregulate that. So even your genetic hand that you’re dealt is modifiable by your health, by the habits that you do and the things that you do. So I think you know how, I guess as far as predicting how long you’re going to live, that’s not necessarily part of the longevity medicine science. But what we do have sort of calculators is sort of test to see where you’re at and sort of how you’re, that sort of how you’re doing. And if that predicts that you’re going to, you know, be strong and functional for a long time or, or not. And then there’s, there’s biological clocks which are these ways of kind of determining how your, your cells and your body, your biology is aging. And we can compare that to your chronological age. So let’s say your, you know, your body’s aging at a slower rate than your, than your actual age and you’re biologically younger. That means you’re like doing great. So we can kind of predict in that way, but kind of back to the movement part, there’s like, you know, DYI or DIY strength Tests that you can do kind of at home to sort of get a sense of where you’re at, or movement tests that you can do, like, for example, like a single leg balance test. Like, you should be able to balance on one leg for 30 seconds. You should be able to get up from the floor without using your hands. There’s like studies that show if you can do that, if you can’t do that, then there’s a high chance of mortality within, you know, a certain number of years. So there’s kind of ways like that you can predict. But I want to, I want to

Steven Sashen
address some of the, some of those in a couple different ways. It occurs to me now that I hadn’t thought of before. One is, yeah, there are a few things that are highly correlated to, to be frank, you dying within, let’s say, five years. One of them is something like being able to get up off the floor without using your hands. Being able to stand on one leg. Walking speed is another one. That one is really interesting. There was a nurse at Duke who figured that out about 15 years ago. And. But the, the thing that I need, that I want to emphasize because I think people misinterpret some of those. So for example, if they can’t stand on one foot, they’re like, oh, I’m screwed.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Right.

Steven Sashen
Instead of thinking, no, no, you can work on that.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Right. This is a, this is a way to tell you where you’re at. So you can work on it.

Steven Sashen
So you can work on it. These are not etched in. None of these. None of the movement ones are Etch Stone.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yes.

Steven Sashen
And none of the strength ones that we haven’t talked about, we can talk about. Those are etched in stone. There’s another component to the strength ones that I’ll talk about, but the, the walking speed is a very interesting one to me, given all these shoes that are behind me. Because what I see happening to elderly people is they have some balance issues and then some idiot puts them in a shoe that is an inch and a half, two inches off the ground, and then they’re less stable because the foam doesn’t really hold up well. And then they start walking more slowly and it’s a vicious cycle until you are walking into a grave.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And, and the proof that you can change that, the CDC sponsored study that was done, the study came out in February where it was a number, it’s number of people who are elderly. And I love that word because technically that means they were only 10 months older than I am entertaining. But anyway, there Was, you know, a range of people above 65 who were given Xero Shoes and given a very slow, progressive path to start to wear them all the time. And at the end of the. Their foot strength improved, their balance improved, their risk of tripping, falling, and dying was decreased greater than almost any other longevity intervention ever. And so this is, you know, the, the reason that I bring up the footwear one is some of these things are literally being caused by external circumstances that most people never think to even question. And that one in particular just annoys the crap out of me because that’s how my dad died. And so Trip felt was, you know, four days later was fine, and then three days later was not. So I, I. It just blows my mind watching medical professionals give interventions that cause the problems.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
That we’re dealing with.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. I think when. Yeah. It’s either medical professionals giving interventions or just our life, the way our life is structured. Like, you know, the sitting. Like they, you know, we sit all day for our jobs, and that’s literally like killing us. Well, the shoes that we wear are literally killing us.

Steven Sashen
The shoe. The shoe. The shoes are. I have to address the sitting one because the sitting one is a meme that sitting is the new smoking is a meme. And Dan Lieberman, ironically, Dan Lieberman, who helped kind of kickstart the whole barefoot running movement with research that he did on people habitually, barefoot runners, when. What happens when they put shoes on and it gets all bad? Is the short answer. He has a book. Oh, my God. I just blanked on the name of it. Anyway, look up Dan Lieberman books and the. It’s a whole bunch of. Of health and wellness myths. And the first one is sitting as the new smoking. Yeah, sitting is not a problem. There’s. It’s more complicated than that. Like, our. Yes. Our tribal friends spend as much time sitting as we do. But the weird little difference is they move around a lot when they’re sitting or lying down. Yeah, they’re more. They’re more kind of twitchy because they’re not sitting on things that make them immobile.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, they’re. Yeah, they’re probably. They’re potentially squatting. Like sitting down on the ground, squatting sometimes.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
They’re doing good for your mobility and.

Steven Sashen
But they spend a lot of time not moving. Moving anyway. Yeah, but what was I gonna say about that one? Don’t remember. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it is. Is crazy when some of these things sort of take off in the comma, in the, in the zeitgeist. And, and seem like common wisdom that are exactly the opposite of what you need. It just. Yeah, it just shocks me. Anyway, so let’s talk about the strength ones, because similarly, and I’ll, I’ll preface it with what I said before, these are going to be. I want you to tell which tests you think are interesting, remembering that A, you can get better at them, and B, let’s say there’s five different tests. If you suck at one of them, it’s okay. And I say that as a guy who sucks at one of them because I’m a sprinter, not an endurance person. And so the endurance stuff, I cannot do it. Never have been able to since the day I was born. But I can sprint faster than anybody else. Not anyone else, you know, but the majority of human beings that are my age. So let’s talk strength exercises to kind of get a sense of where you are.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing I like to mention about these exercises before we talk about them, or that these tests that sometimes, like, you know, for example, grip strength is associated with, with longevity. And so then people think, oh, I got to go out there and train my grip strength. And it doesn’t work like that either. You know, I think the purpose is, is just to sort of test, you know, these tests kind of give a sense of overall where you’re at and can be a marker. And certainly doing exercises like you mentioned in your, in your three simple exercises of like a pull down, it also trains your grip. But I like to bring that up as a point because I think sometimes people get confused about that too. Like, the purpose of the. Isn’t to train, to be able to do the test better. Um, it’s just an overall train. And then as you’re. Your health and fitness improves, that test will improve as well.

Steven Sashen
But yeah, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re already lifting heavy things, which could be your body in different ways, the odds are your grip strength is pretty good. Doesn’t mean that you’re going to be at the, you know, top 10% of whatever. Not necessarily, you know, but, but it, yes, it’s a, it’s sort of a side effect of some of the other things that we talked about.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, but.

Steven Sashen
So grip strength again, or the, the other one is a dead hang, which is related to grip strength. Strength.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And how long you could do that. And of course there’s different ways you can hang. You can do it where you’re just letting your shoulders, like as you’re relaxing everything and Just trying to hold on for dear life versus engaging things in your back. I mean, anyway, there’s arguments about that one online forever as well. Yeah, doesn’t matter. Who cares? Just, you know, try any one of them and see what happens. Do the one that feels better for you. Do the one that gives you a better score if it makes you feel better. Friends, you know, whatever. Whatever you need. Need. What are the other ones that you know of?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
There’s like a sit to stand test where you just sit, you know, get up from a chair and you should be able to do that like, you know, within 30 seconds, like at least 15 times. But yeah, some of these, like that one I don’t like because it really. You have to already be very much decompensated and declined to not pass that one. So some of them are like really hard. Some of them, like that one they use in doctor’s offices to kind of see if a patient frail and is like, can kind of make it at home. But that one sort of seems like you’ve missed the boat on intervention. If, like, you know, but I guess, you know, I guess if, if you see an older person who is already weakened and you’re not sure, you know, that that’s one that. But most reasonably fit people can kind of make that one. But yeah, I think I want to

Steven Sashen
back up to back up to the. Getting off the ground without using your hands.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
My favorite thing about that is that when I watch people try it, if they find one that doesn’t work, they usually stop right there instead of trying other ways to get off the ground.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Oh, yeah.

Steven Sashen
So it’s like, there’s lots of different ways you can get up without using your hands. I mean, one that I’ve never, I almost rarely see anyone do is like, okay, just like roll onto your back and then roll forward and give yourself some momentum. I mean, like, come up with some new way to do it. It don’t just think of like the one that you would think is the right one. Just like. Yeah, because I think that’s another thing about movement. Like getting creative and just experimenting is another thing that we typically don’t do very much of.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. And I think that brings me to another thought of, you know, as we get older, sometimes we’re limited by like, you know, let’s say you’ve had a shoulder injury and a surgery there or whatever, and you’re, you’re like, oh, well, I can’t do that anymore. So, you know, you, you. But getting creative and what can you do? And what, you know, what ways can you, can your body work that now it’s, it’s different than it used to be. But what can still work for you?

Steven Sashen
Well, and backing up to the fact that we think we’re much younger than we actually are, there’s two things that I want to highlight just for, just to give people a sense of reality. So as a competitive sprinter, which I am, there’s a thing, there’s a certain, for every race, there’s a time that if you can beat that time, you become an All American. And the times over time get longer and longer and longer. And so I remember being the first time I went to the senior games for people over 50, I just turned 50, the 60 year olds were behind me, they were going to be in the heat right behind me. And one of them asked me how fast I was going to run and I, whatever the number was, I said it. And he goes, well, all I can tell you is wait till you’re 60, because it really falls off a cliff when you’re 60. And the 80 year olds who are standing behind them went, you have no idea what you’re talking about. So there’s that. And I remember Jack LaLanne, who many people will not know, but Jack LaLanne was very, very influential in the fitness world through the 40s, 50s, 60s, I mean, up until he died when he was like 90 something years old. And I remember when he was about 92, they showed him still working out. He did crazy things too. He’d like, you know, chain himself up and get tied to a boat and pull a boat by swimming across a river. It’s not like crazy things.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Wow.

Steven Sashen
They showed him bench pressing and he helped invent one of the first weight machines, the Universal Gym. So they show him bench pressing and he’s like, you know, working really hard and everyone’s like impressed about, you know, the guy’s really working it. And I think I was the only one who noticed he only had 20 pounds on the machine, but he was like 93 years old. Yeah, working it. I remember we were, my wife and I were at the world Masters Track and field championships like 20 years ago and there was 101 year old guy who did the field events. So he’d come out on his walker, he’d get to the line, he’d put the walker down, they’d hand him like the shot put, which I think for that age weighs like 5 pounds and it goes like 10ft. And the entire crowd goes insane because we all just want to be that guy.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
You know, so back to our dealing with reality. Yeah, it’s, you know, you can. You can put on muscle till you can’t. You can put on strength until you can’t, and then you do the best you can.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Hopefully you have some measure to, you know, to play with there. So this doesn’t feel bad that it’s getting worse. I mean, for me, I mean, my whole goal, I just want to hit all American times in my age group. That’s it. And if I can do that, I don’t care if it’s fast or slow, that’ll make me really happy. It’s really good that you get a new age group every five years, because then if I hit it in my first or second year, I don’t care if I can’t hit it by, you know, I already did it, and then I got a new one coming up.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
So, you know, the. The motivation component, I think, or, you know, the enjoyment slash motivation component is something we want to come back to.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
And I think also just to remind yourself it’s not too late to start that you think, oh, I missed the boat. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t get in shape, like, in my midlife, like they said. Now I’m too old to do it. I can’t start weight training, and I’m too weak. I’m too old. Like, there’s no week or too old to start, you know, and you, you, you know, wherever you start from changes depending on your fitness level. But like your example with the guy in the walker, it’s, you know, you can always get stronger from where you’re at, and it’s always going to help you to do so.

Steven Sashen
Yeah. You know, you can improve from where you are until you’re. Are you. I mean, technically, until you have, you know, sort of done as much as you can, and then over time, it’s going to slow down. But the whole, like, our line in track is I just want to slow down. Slowing down. Down. Yeah, that’s the whole thing.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
And that should be my line for longevity, too. You know, I want you to slow down. You’re gonna age, but I want you to slow down that aging.

Steven Sashen
Slowing down. Well, I’ll give someone some inspiration for track and field. When you’re over 85, if you’re doing the pole vault, the height of the bar you have to clear is barely over the mat that you’re landing on. So if you can do that now, just keep doing that.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
So let’s in on the Longevity thing. Let’s take a different tack. What has been, you know, has come across the transom that you’ve seen in, let’s say, the last five or even 10 years, that has gotten a lot of attention that you think doesn’t deserve it, basically. What are people being snowed about right now?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Oh, I thought you were going to say does, and I had a really good one.

Steven Sashen
Okay, well, here, you can give me. You can give me a does, but then you have to give me some dozens.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. Okay. Well, one, I think does. It kind of made me think about earlier, I was. When we were talking about something else. But I think, you know, of all the different biohacking things out there, I think there’s very good evidence that sauna is helpful for our bodies and can specifically with movement. I was thinking about it when we were talking about sort of optimizing movement, that if you pair a sauna with movement, or even, you know, not to parrot just doing a sauna can be one of the things that definitely is shown in literature to be. Be helpful. And people, my patients and, you know, myself, they can see that there’s helpful benefits to that. One of the ways I want to

Steven Sashen
push on that one for a little bit, not to totally discredit it, but. But I’m pushing on it for a very particular reason. Most of the original research came out of Scandinavian countries.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yes.

Steven Sashen
Where it’s just part of the culture as it is just being healthier in general.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And I don’t know, and I’m not suggesting that it’s not true because there’s lots of reasons that we see value in it. We understand, you know, physiology. Yeah. We understand the physiology of it. We understand that it can be just lifting, raising your heart rate and heat shock proteins and blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Right.

Steven Sashen
But I’m saying it to be careful when one of these new things shows up is to be able to look at the research, if you can, to figure out does this apply to me or is this only applying to people who are living in Papua New guinea who. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
So.

Steven Sashen
But this one seems highly likely that it will stand the test of time.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. I do think you’re right to be skeptical also of new things and that they’re gonna take the place of those basics. Like, no, they’re not. But could they have some added benefit? But I think to your point about the research being done in Scandinavia, they did look at. They compared it to other Scandinavians who were already healthy. So a Scandinavian who was doing sauna versus at Scandinavian who wasn’t.

Steven Sashen
I have never met a Scandinavian who doesn’t do sauna. When.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, well, I guess it was. How much? It was like one time a week versus five times a week.

Steven Sashen
Okay.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
But, yeah, I do like sauna. I think I was thinking of other ones. Yeah. Other things that I don’t think is. Are as helpful. Yeah. I mean, I think here I’ll do.

Steven Sashen
I’ll do an easy one.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Okay.

Steven Sashen
At the moment, anything that you can swallow that’s a pill is probably not making a difference or a noticeable difference. And now I’m not saying don’t take them. I mean, I take a couple of things. I take a very Lotus multivitamin and I take some Omega 3s. And what else do I take? That’s a thing. That’s kind of most of it. And there are a couple things that, you know, ostensibly could be good for muscle recovery because I’m working out about challenge, but I don’t bank on those for my longevity and certainly not things like, like resveratrol or some things that were really, really popular that have been, you know, not good. My favorite thing is when researchers spend a lot of money to prove something and it doesn’t turn out the way they hoped based on work. And so there’s a guy named Brad Stanfeld who basically built a business just to fund research on rapamycin. And his research came back going, did not make a difference. And he’s like, that’s called science.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. So a recent example of that is that they. There’s a. A blood marker called lipoprotein little A or lpa, and it leads to increased risk for cardiovascular disease. And they’ve been studying it because they know of the drug medication that can lower the lab level. So that’s been under investigation for the last several years from the drug companies. And they were thinking, this is going to be the next new statin and the big, huge drug that’s going to come out and lower LP and decrease everyone’s cardiovascular risk. But they just announced last week that the drugs. The study did not meet its endpoint of lowering cardiovascular risk. So it did indeed lower the LP levels. People, that was like the primary initial study. They knew that. And then they waited to see over time and like these 8,000 people, did that lowered level decrease their events of cardiovascular events? And they found that it didn’t. And it was like the researchers were sort of bummed and shocked to have to admit that they didn’t. That drug didn’t. The study didn’t meet its Endpoint to

Steven Sashen
geek out on this a little bit. Is this the. Is this a. About the recent oral PCSK9 inhibitor?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
No, it’s a different. Different medication.

Steven Sashen
Okay. Okay, good. Because I got. Because I think that one could change the world. Not necessarily in a good way, like, I mean, for people who don’t know. So, yeah, it’s not.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Getting that one, I think is. Is a good thing. That’s.

Steven Sashen
I think it’s a good thing. Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what’s interesting about it now. I’m going to. We’re going to geek out for a second. So statins impact cholesterol pretty much in every cell of your body, but you really care about the liver. And there’s a. Just for the sake of saying it, there’s a thing called a PCSK9 inhibitor that basically just works on the liver for reducing cholesterol. And usually you’d have to take a shot to get that. And now there’s an oral medication that just came out. The thing that’s interesting to me about this is if, in fact it does reduce the incidence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, then it doesn’t mean that you’re getting rid of things like diabetes or other whatever. So it could be that it reduces cholesterol tremendously but doesn’t have an impact on mortality because people go, oh, cool, I got that taken care of. And they’re still eating, like, and not lifting, you know, not moving and doing all those other things. Or it could be. I mean, so it could mean. And this is going to sound real, I don’t want to say that I’m looking forward to this. It could mean that people who have other confounding factors or co factor comorbidity factors like diabetes or obesity will end up living longer because they’re not dying from cardiovascular disease. And this could put a huge strain on our medical system. I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying I don’t have a really good history. Human beings with unforeseen consequences. And this one might have, like, a significant one that will be fascinating to see how it plays out. That said, I can’t wait till I can find, you know, get access to that drug.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Because. Well, only because I have genetic. I’m genetically hyper. I genetically have high cholesterol called. And it’s my favorite thing when I’d get tested and some nurse would say, well, sweetheart, you know, you should do some more exercise. I go, I’m a Nationally ranked athlete, stop eating meat. I said, I haven’t had red meat in 50 something years because I have a genetic thing where it tastes bad to me. And they keep coming up until they get to the end of their list and they go, well, we don’t know what to do. I go, well, there you are. So very. So I love, I don’t love love, but I love hearing that something that we thought was going to do something.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Find the real research, like, good. It’s something you don’t have to worry about now.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. Or just that. Yeah. With, with science, like you say, you know, you do the science and sometimes it doesn’t always, you know, you don’t always get the outcome. But that’s why we do studies.

Steven Sashen
There’s someone whom I know who I’m trying to think of how to be coy about this for the fun of it. We became friendly because he was involved in a very, very expensive dietary study based on some opinions people had from the Paleo movement and, and there was a number of people involved in financing this study. And the study did not prove what they hoped it would prove to justify their belief. And most of the people stuck to their story. And this one guy went, well, I was wrong. And I went, yeah, I can be your friend.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, it’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, but that’s an important part of science too.

Steven Sashen
Well, it’s so fun. It’s funny you say that. I said, there’s two kinds of people that I know who have no. Who fundamentally have less problem being wrong. I happen to be both of these people stand up comedians and marketers because we both just want to know if we’re wrong fast and cheap with little impact. So it’s cool if we’re wrong, we just gotta move on because we’ve got other things we gotta figure out. So there may be others, but yeah. Anything else that’s come across the transom that you’re curious about or glad that it. Or, you know, showed that it didn’t work or you’re, you know, hoping that it does?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Well, I think.

Steven Sashen
Oh, I can tell you mine. If you don’t have one, I can tell you mine.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. Yeah, let’s hear yours.

Steven Sashen
Well, so this one’s an interesting one because it originally got a lot of attention and then proved to be really bad and then it got a little more attention and now it’s about to get more attention attention. So are how hip are you to Yamanaka factors?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, I’m aware of that.

Steven Sashen
So There’s a phase. So, okay. For. To tell people. So there’s basically these four proteins, for lack of a better term, that when they, when they interact with a cell, basically for, again, I’m going to be really, like, cartoony. They basically make it younger. And the problem originally is that it made, it made everything younger. And then it also caused cancer. Like, there’s no tomorrow. It turned out that if you only use three of them, it doesn’t do the cancer thing. And so there’s all these animal trials going on right now where they’re having, like, really cool results. Yeah, this works. It’s not like we’re going to live forever. It’s not. I mean, but it could be one of the first serious interventions that might have an impact in some way. But I just love that, you know, there’s a bunch of people looking into it and this is going to be one of these things where we either find out, wow, we found something, or, wow, we didn’t find something.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Right.

Steven Sashen
But we learned a lot about science.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
So that one’s, that one’s interesting to me. And there’s.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, that is interesting.

Steven Sashen
So, I mean, I, I love hearing about these things that are on the cusp because I’m fundamentally optimistic, but, you know, more locally pessimistic. And, and it’s, it’s not, you know, so there was a group, I don’t want to mention them by name, that they, People paid a lot of money to be part of this group where they had longevity experts come and talk to them. And the way they were trying to entice me to spend a lot of money to join the group, they said, don’t you want to hear about these things 20 years before they become public knowledge? I said, no, I want to hear about them 20 minutes after a really good human trial is done.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, that’s a good answer.

Steven Sashen
Yeah. And they, they didn’t know how to respond to that one. So.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. So then.

Steven Sashen
Anything else, you know, that you, that you found personally that you like lately that you’d want to share? As long as it’s not pickleball,

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
I think, you know why I said, when you said pickleball, I think, you know, tennis, I love. I’ve recently, in the last few years, picked up playing tennis, but I like that it, you know, I think it’s to the point of find something that you enjoy doing and it hits a lot of the things it’s outside, which there’s benefits to being outside. It’s social. There’s. It’s Great. If you can find something you enjoy and you’re getting to be social doing it. And you know, learning something new as we get older is so good for our brains and good for our confidence and good. You know, we sort of stop doing that. Like, you know, your kids get to learn all these new things and then they, we sort of don’t do that as often. But so if it’s not tennis, you know, hitting on some of those things for, you know, for patients, I try to recommend finding something that you enjoy that’s ideally, if you can find something that’s even, you know, hits on one of those, those. One of those things I think can be very helpful.

Steven Sashen
I think that is a fine note. Well, Jen, this has been an absolute pleasure and sorry for saying Jen without approving whether you actually ever get called that or it makes you scream. Too many friends who are gens and only one who’s an actual Jennifer. So. But. Oh yeah, but it’s been an absolute pleasure and I, I really appreciate something like we said at the beginning where it’s really easy to get enamored by the shiny objects and forget the basics and find a way to make the basics. It’s really something that you do instead of something, you know, you should do. So, you know, thank you for that. If people want to get in touch with you or find out more about what you’re, what you’re up to, how can they do that?

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah, they can follow on social media. I put out sort of educational topics and talk about educational things. Medic medically related things on. It’s at Jennifer Timmons MD on social media or my website TimminsWellness MD.com if they, they can reach out there to like get information about working with me or also just my blog and other information. It’s on my website and to be clear.

Steven Sashen
So for tim is 2m. So t I m M O N S. Yes. So for people who always wonder about things. I love it when listening to NPR when someone says just go to and they just say the thing and you have no way of knowing.

Dr. Jennifer Timmons
Yeah. Www.or they say the name. Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen
It’s like that didn’t help me at all. So anyway, well, thank you, thank you. I really appreciate it. Everybody else, thank you again. A reminder, head over to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. there’s nothing you need to do to join. That’s just the domain we got. There’s no secret handshake, there’s no money involved. This is where you can find previous episodes the ways you can share on social media and spread the word. The ways you can find us on social media and find out what we’re talking about. Where if you can. How where you can find the podcast on other places other than where you found this one. If for some reason you don’t like this one, and if you have any recommendations, questions, comments, et cetera, you can reach out to me. If you know someone who should be on the podcast. Especially if you know someone who thinks I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, I would love to talk to them. That would be a lot of fun. Just drop me an email at Move m o v eoin themovementmovement.com and until then, go out, have fun, and live life feet first. All right.