Hello and welcome to the 40s Formula, your go-to place for insightful discussions on
navigating your 40s and thriving in this transformative decade.
We're your hosts, Amanda and Jasmine, two women that are passionate about exploring
the challenges and adventures that come with turning 40 and what lies ahead.
Today we're talking with Pari Priyadarshini, owner of The Lab Fitness.
Pari is a strength coach and athlete who believes in training for longevity.
She is a wife and a mom, an entrepreneur and a career consultant.
She is also the owner of local Singapore fitness centre, The Lab Fitness, a safe space for
women to learn and understand strength training and its benefits without any judgment.
She has dedicated her business and her very popular social media platform to the idea
that even one woman might make the life-altering decision to start training and lifting weights
because of her mission and her message.
I am so happy today to be joined by a fellow muscle mama and a fellow strength coach, Pari
Priyadarshini.
She is here today to talk to us about all things strength, muscle, menopause, thriving
in your 40s, all the topics that I am of course hot to trot about.
So thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Amanda.
Thank you, Jasmine, for having me here.
And first of all, before I start everything, I want to say this is such a noble cause you
guys are doing.
It is an amazing thing to do and I wish you all the best.
And no matter what happens out of it, I think I'm just kudos to you guys.
Thank you for taking this path.
We are so happy, like I said, to be on this journey with you.
And what blows my mind about your specific journey, Pari, is that five years ago, 2018,
you had never been inside a gym.
And now you are sitting across from me.
You are jacked.
Okay.
I wish everyone could see these arms that are across from me from the table right now.
It's like outrageous.
And you're running your own studio.
So it's not just like you're looking fine, you're walking the talk.
You're actually empowering other women to do it.
I need to know how that came about in 12 years.
Thank you so much, guys.
I mean, yeah, I feel like that was a whole different time for me.
So 2018 was, let me kind of remind myself who I was.
So I was getting quite, I was getting promoted quite a lot over like a few years and there
was a lot of business restructure that's going on.
Back then I had a job and yeah.
Good to know.
And so yeah, there was a, I kind of got the advantage of some of the restructures and
I got promoted.
And that meant I was on flights a lot.
Like I was literally flying over and what started with like Jakarta and Hong Kong and
Bangkok soon became like Minneapolis and London and people don't know it, but I hate flying.
I am super scared of it.
And every time I was on a flight, I think about the takeoff and the landing and the
turbulences and I was super scared the whole time.
So I would literally have to like drink champagne and listen to music to like, you know, kind
of take care of myself during the time.
So there was a lot of stress and on top of that, of course, with the job and everything,
I was carrying a lot of that stress load on me.
And at that point, my son was around five, six years old and I had to like leave him
home and go and I would carry that guilt with me all the time.
And I, and I remember like that phase as being the Tomica phase.
So he was into cars and I, what I would do is I would take all the currency that was
left from that country and at the airport, I would buy the Tomica cars and I'll fit
it in the bag.
And I would come home with like a bag full of cars and a heart full of guilt.
And that was a phase that probably one day I just woke up and I was like, is this it?
Is this what is there to life and is this all it is?
And I truly wanted to find something else and kind of a meaning, you know, and that
is the time when I was to run around the block, just a bit of cardio and there isn't any
time fitness that is right next to where I stay.
And there was this like, I can't explain this, like a universe is telling me like, just walk
in, just go in.
And I felt it for quite a few months.
And one day I was like, okay, there is a red light right in front of me.
I'm stopping here.
Just take it, just go for it.
And I took the steps in and that was it.
That was it.
How did you feel like when you walk through that door, do you remember the emotions that
were going through you like when you walked in to Anytime Fitness?
Oh, wow.
Okay.
So there were two emotions.
One was fear and the other was curiosity.
And I was just lucky that my curiosity was just a little bit more than my fear.
And that is the reason why I could walk in.
So I was like, I'm going to look like an idiot.
Yep.
And I think that's such, I think that's a sentiment that is shared by so many women
that have either never been inside a gym or have never walked onto the strength floor of
the gym, right?
They're in the cardio zone and that's where they feel comfortable.
But they see the barbell, they hear the dumbbells clanging against that rack and they're like,
no, not for me.
How did you let that kind of curiosity outweigh your fear?
I think there was a part of me that, like I said, it felt like there was something missing
inside me.
And to me, at that point, I don't think I was educated enough to know a lot more about
strength training, but seeing the gym in front of me and always seeing people go in and out,
and there was just some part of me that was always like thinking, you know, what is it
about?
And so that is the reason why I walked in.
It was not like how I was educated about it or anyone was telling anything about it.
It was just a feeling, to be honest.
I can't explain more than that.
Yeah.
And did you have a trainer that kind of showed you the ropes?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I started off by having a coach for a few years.
And at that point, I remember the first time I touched the barbell, it literally like changed
my life.
So it was a commitment that I made, which I think I was just all in.
And so at that point, I started not just having a coach, but also starting to hang out a lot
with athletes.
So I made friends and I started kind of getting introduced to people who were probably at
that point, I was hanging out with bodybuilders a lot.
And then also people who were doing some endurance training, like they're going for marathons.
So I used to hang out with the community.
And most of my education didn't just come from the training at the gym, but also from
like spending time and listening to people who are athletes, who were probably competing
somewhere or training a certain regimen.
And I just started kind of absorbing all of that.
You fell in with the bad kids.
I did.
But it's true.
I mean, part of something that you and I have talked about a lot personally is the especially
here in Asia, the perception of women lifting weights.
And you said, for example, you know, you were hanging with bodybuilders and you touched
a barbell.
These are things that are not shared experiences for women worldwide, but particularly in Asia.
How did you start to feel comfortable with the idea that to build strength, you would
have to build a physical body that maybe was a bit bigger, a bit stronger, a bit less typical
by Asian female body standards?
You Amanda, you hit it right on the spot.
I think that is a reason why a lot of us don't go for strength training.
Right.
So when I used to work, I had a bunch of girls who wears the so-called skinny bitches.
Can I say that on air?
You can.
And it's a stereotypical kind of thing.
Right.
So you have this it's quite common, especially in Asia.
When I started going for strength training, my body began to change.
And luckily, I did get that kind of stimulus.
I was training really hard at that point.
I started getting a stimulus.
And you should see the number of friends or colleagues who started commenting about it.
And I did see a bit of some of my friends literally stopped like hanging out with me.
So it is a bit of a taboo and you're right about it.
So at that point for me, I did not ever go into training with an aesthetic mindset.
I didn't think of how my body would condition itself.
And I'm being very honest about it.
Like how I look today is not a reflection of what I wanted it to look.
It is just an outcome of what I wanted to feel.
And that is what I focused on.
I never thought about how I looked because I came from probably a place where I was slightly
underweight to be honest.
I had an issue with fat loss or whatever.
But I just loved the way I felt.
I love that.
I feel like a lot of people will be like, I'm going to the gym because I want to look
a certain way.
I need to lose weight, which tends to be sort of the key point.
They don't even say, I want to lose fat.
It's always I want to lose weight.
And then I think they might start working out a little bit.
And obviously, they start gaining weight because they're gaining muscle.
And it's like, oh, no, don't want to do this anymore.
I better sort of scale back.
Go back to going on the treadmill.
Was there ever a point in your life where you were like, hmm, do I want to be this way?
Or was it always just like?
Jasmine, I'm not going to lie about this.
Yeah.
Yes.
There were moments.
So there was a point of time where and I have a very long relationship with my husband.
It's been forever.
I met him when I was like 18 years old.
And he's seen me a certain way.
Yeah, over the period of time that we kind of studied and we kind of got married, got
jobs, whatever it is.
And then I started strength training.
I never had looked like that before.
And like I said, it's not just the taboo around friends and community, but also around my
own family, you know?
And so these like offhanded comments around how my clothes fit differently on my back
looks different.
It kind of got to me at a certain point.
And it did.
But then I would have to tell myself, this is something that means more to me than how
I look.
And there was this one part of me that was like, do not look at, do not think about how
you're looking.
Think about how much you are learning at the gym.
And I would love to talk about that.
You know, like the kind of things that you learn at the gym is so much more than just
strength training.
Right?
And so that's what I focused on.
And then there was this like slow validation that happened in social media or with my friends.
And they saw that turnaround curve.
When you see how your clothes fit around the curves and you get more curvy.
I never had a booty and I got a booty.
And my shoulders look broad.
So the overall shapes look a bit more hourglass.
And I think that validation started happening over a period of time.
And so that was my like, all right, I think it's gaining more traction.
I remember there was this lady that I know, she posted on Instagram, like three different
types of pictures.
I think one was like a skinny girl.
Another one was probably sort of in between.
And then there was like a Beyonce, you know, and she was just asking what kind of body
shape do you like?
And for me, I remember looking at the pictures and I think it was like a mix between the
Beyonce and the person who was really sort of cut.
And I was like, that's what I want to go for.
I don't want the body where you're born with it, that sort of skinny looking body.
I want the body where people are like, fuck, she works.
Yeah.
Well, it's so funny that you said in the beginning when you were starting to put on a bit more
muscle density and have more visible shoulders and glutes and stuff like that, that you were
getting negative remarks.
Because from where I'm standing, right, a few things, right.
First of all, I'm looking at you with my very American Western lens.
And when I see you, you are so petite and so small.
I would never think of this as someone who has gotten big from strength training, right.
So that's the first kind of diversion between me and what might be typical here.
And secondly is my husband and I run the Lyft Clinic together, right.
So we have a medical mindset about longevity and strength training.
So when I hear that you used to be more skinny and more petite, less muscle mass, and this
is where you've gotten to now, all I can think is, man, what an amazing transition for her
health she has made.
I could never think about a negative outcome because what you've done is transitioned from
a body that was less well to one that is more well and can really give you kind of longevity
benefits.
And I know that that's something that you truly believe in, training for longevity.
Can you tell me what training for longevity looks like in terms of how you train and how
you train your clients?
Yeah, I would love to.
It's not a common concept, by the way.
I mean, Asia, let's not even talk about Asia in general globally.
It is a concept that is not really, I think it's just about a decade or so that it's become
more mainstream and there is more scientific kind of journals.
Scientists are talking about it.
Researchers are talking about it.
So it's something that is still kind of like in a box.
And how does it, how does it different, let me give you an example, okay.
So when I started hanging out with my badass athletes, you know, the ones that were bodybuilders
and they were competing for something.
And then there were these endurance athletes who were training for marathons and they would
look at me and they would ask me, so what are you competing for?
You know, you have that figure, you know, you're petite and you can truly build the
kind of bodybuilder, bikini model kind of a thing.
You could totally go for that.
And then I would say, no, I'm okay.
You know, I like, I like to train.
I like how it feels.
And they would say, oh, it's called training for the sake of training.
And that's what I lived with for a while.
I didn't know how to explain it, but then now that there are enough information around training
for longevity, I do have an answer.
So let me just tell you, like, give you a bit of a understanding of what it means.
So training for longevity means that the variables that you measure are different.
So your, your measuring is basically, I'll give you two variables, which are the most
common if you look at it in the research.
So one is the lifespan.
This is a total number of years you're going to live on this earth.
And then you have the health span, which is the total number of years you'll function
as an independent, healthy human being.
So training for longevity is essentially taking the health span and extending it to as much
as you can for your lifespan.
So then what does it mean is you would look at those last years, the last decade of your
life, and then you would kind of try to gauge what are the things that you want to do?
What are the movements that you would want to do?
For example, I would like to run to a bus or walk for a bus.
I would like to be able to play with my grandkids, you know, I'd be able to pick my groceries.
And those are the things you want to do in your last decade.
So you'll take those variables, and you'll just bring them to the gym in a conditioned
environment and you train around those.
So there'll be two parts to it.
The one part will be the structural muscular skeletal part, which is essentially looking
at the structure.
So your basic movement patterns, for example, the knee dominant, which is a squat when you
go to the bathroom.
We all need that to the very end.
Our hip dominant is like a hinge when you're picking up stuff from the floor, or your upper
body movements like a vertical push or a pull when you're picking stuff out of or putting
cabin baggage in.
Right?
Yeah.
Or you still want to go on those holidays.
Yeah, exactly.
So you would have the holidays and then you would have the horizontal push pull, which
is opening and closing doors or things like rotational movements and also things like
carry like carrying your cold storage groceries.
Right?
So those are the movements.
If you want to do, you would incorporate those movements in your structural strength training
right now.
And then the other part is, which is on your cardiovascular.
So your heart, your lung health, your mitochondrial health, and all of that is taken care of with
a regimen that includes some form of aerobic training, endurance training, which is in
scientific terms, if you can keep up to around 20, 25 minutes of slightly elevated heart
rate where let's say the two of you are going for a run together, you can talk to each other.
Yeah, happens all the time.
Exactly.
You don't catch me running.
That is an aerobic training.
And then you have the anaerobic training, which is where you take sprints.
You go speed work and then you're doing 30 seconds of all out work and you're taking,
let's say, a 60 to 90 second of rest.
Between those two broadly, the structural, muscular, skeletal part and the cardiovascular
part is where you'll focus on if you're looking at training for longevity.
Yeah.
And I think that resonates so well with us as scientists and of course with us as women
in our 40s, right?
Because that's something that we want.
We want to play with our grandchildren.
We want to travel and put our bags overhead.
What I would ask is a little bit more challenging in terms of speaking to women who just haven't
arrived at that mindset yet, meaning they're still training to look hot.
Let's be real, right?
They're training for aesthetics.
They have not yet made the jump to training for longevity.
How do you convince women?
And I think it's important that I think in your 40s is when you are still negotiating
those two identities.
You are still wanting to look aesthetically good in your 40s and you are wanting to start
thinking about longevity.
How do you kind of nudge women toward that longevity transition with their training?
And a lot of times that means more strength training.
Yeah.
Having podcasts like these.
Yeah.
Darn right.
I think it's a dissociation of...
So I have to come back to so many conversations that I've had with clients that come to the
gym and they would say things like, hey, Pari, I really want to lose some weight.
I want to, of course, be strong, but I don't want to look like you.
What?
I think you look incredible.
Incredible.
I wish you all could be in the studio.
I don't want any shoulders.
Oh my God.
I feel like those...
I feel like it gives...
Like you said, it gives you that shape.
Oh, Jasmeen.
You're a 1%.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
And that is the presumption.
First of all, it is, of course, the whole conditioning that we have as women and that
is essentially Asian women more so, but stay petite.
Style yourself.
Make sure that you fit into the size zeros and the size twos.
Size six is too big.
And then we do what you have to do to look like a Victoria's Secret model.
And so that is why we go.
We want to lose weight.
We want to look small.
And of course, we want to have some level of functional strength, but it doesn't...
You don't have to lift heavy.
You just have to lift enough.
And that is kind of like assuming that if you lift heavy, you're actually going to gain
the muscles that show through your skin.
Like that is not possible for most of us, especially women.
We do not have the metabolics.
We are not conditioned that way to be able to train, just lift heavy every day.
And you're going to like look jacked and get big muscles.
We don't have testosterone.
That level of testosterone doesn't exist in our body.
And someone like me, I want to look jacked and I have been training.
I literally train to failure every day.
I keep my protein levels high every day.
And even then, I am trying so hard to build some muscle mass.
Grams.
Grams of muscle mass.
Oh my God.
It is so hard.
When you think that you'll do a few pushups and you'll get chest muscles.
It's such a big misconception and that is what we have to break.
And this is a topic for a whole other podcast, but the only time that I've been able to gain
significant muscle mass is by training through my pregnancies and using my pregnancy as an
anabolic period to leverage against my actual muscle mass.
But we can talk about that another time.
But it is not an easy journey, gals.
Let's put it that way, right?
I was going to say, what would you say to women who are like, oh, I'm 40, I'm fucking
old.
Is it too late to start?
Can they start?
How would you encourage someone who's in their 40s, never stepped foot in a gym before because
they either never had to, but just like, oh, I'm past it.
Oh my God.
That is another big misconception, which is essentially it's too late.
It is never too late, ever.
All you're doing is what happens is that if you don't use it, you lose it.
You'll start using it.
You'll start gaining it.
And it doesn't matter when you start at all.
I think that is something that we are thinking it's too old or it's we're way past it.
And now it's like too late for us to do something about it.
It's never too late.
So that's what I'll tell them.
And if like there was some other stuff like key tips or advice to somebody who has never
started strength training or never entered the gym, the first one is that if fear is
the thing that's holding you, now you're too scared.
And it's not fear.
It's like, I'm scared.
I look like an idiot kind of a fear, right?
I'm scared I'm looking like I look like an idiot.
If I go into the gym and I look old and everybody around me just knows stuff and they're younger
than me, then I just tell them, girl, there are enough idiots in the gym.
Don't you worry.
Young and old.
And they have been training for years, very confidently doing stuff that they have no
idea about.
So you'll fit right in when you go there.
And secondly is that, like I said, curiosity, right?
Ask questions.
Like, talk to people.
Talk to people who are training and don't be scared to go and ask, how does this work?
You know, get a coach.
And that is where you start.
And it doesn't matter how old you are, you'll get there.
And the last thing is like, you know, something that I, it comes personally from me, it's
be prepared to be surprised.
Everything about you is going to change when you start training.
It doesn't matter which is you go in, but you would get benefits out of you that you
never thought.
It has nothing to do with strength training.
It's going to translate into your life, in your relationships, in your job, in your day
to day that you'd never have thought about.
So be prepared for that.
And I love that.
I think that really leads into my next question for you, which is that a lot of times fear
is absolutely something that holds women back from getting in the gym.
But I think the second most common thing would, or even possibly the most common thing would
be busyness.
Women in their forties are at the peak of their careers.
They're either childbearing a bit later, like myself, or they're having young families in
their forties.
They're taking care of elderly parents in their forties.
They are so busy.
They're like, you know what?
I can't layer another thing onto this life that I lead.
And least of all, strength training.
At least with cardio, they have the idea that they can at least put their shoes on, pop
out for a run and get it done.
But women are not prioritizing strength training in this decade yet.
How do you help women fit strength training into a part of their fabric of their lives,
like it is yours?
Yeah, that's the thing, right?
So how do you have time for cardio and you don't have time for strength training?
That blows my mind, girl.
Just a mental block, isn't it?
But yeah, I mean, I would say the conversation I had with me like a few years back when there
was a point in my life when I was in between a job where I was trying to really focus on
the lab, right?
I needed time to build the lab.
And that is the time where I invested everything I had literally into the gym.
And I was like, this is it.
This is my baby.
It's my passion project.
And there were those few months where I had an issue with my business partner.
And then there was a challenge with the real estate itself.
And I went through a lot at that point.
And I was literally kind of jumping through hoops trying to manage everything.
And I sat myself down one day and I told myself, Pari, you would be at the center of your universe,
your biggest priority from now onwards.
And it would not matter what other aspects exist in your life.
Everything else is an extension of who you are.
The lab is an extension of who you are.
Your family is an extension.
You know, a job that you would have would be an extension of who you are.
But that is not you.
So I had to kind of literally tell myself and I journaled it.
I literally wrote it down and I said, from now on, your physical and mental health would
be your biggest priority.
And you'll be the best version of yourself.
And that will, as an extension, make everything else in your life the best version of itself.
I love that.
Yeah.
Putting yourself first and then everything falls into place.
I think women need to hear that.
Definitely.
Because I think you always put everything else first.
You always put your kids first, your husband first, your work first.
And then you're like, oh, if I've got time, I'll go to the gym.
Or if I've got time, I'll get bed early or I'll eat well, whatever it is that you want
to do.
But you never put yourself first.
But if you are the best version of yourself, then you can share that with your family,
with your work.
And I guess be better at what it is that you do.
Yeah.
And the other one that I think all of us kind of fall prey to is the perfection.
Yes.
Right?
Oh, guilty.
We are looking at the perfect time in our calendars, the perfect workout.
We are waiting for that.
It's never going to happen.
Our lives are too busy.
We have too much going on.
So it has to be done is better than perfect.
You just have to get it done.
Oh, girl, preach that mantra.
That is, I think, something we all need to hear over and over again.
Yeah, just get in the gym.
Yes.
You know, hire that first session with the trainer.
Start doing the thing.
Yes.
And you'll magically, you'll find that your life organizes around it.
Exactly.
So it doesn't matter how long you're training.
You have some time, just commit to it.
Get it done.
I think that is where we are kind of waiting for some perfect time for us to happen.
All the variables will fall in place.
It never will.
Have you ever gotten to a point where you're like, what the fuck am I doing?
Like, you know, how did I get here?
Do you ever feel like that?
Or do you always sort of feel good and look forward to your workouts?
We all go through our kind of ups and downs.
And yeah, I mean, do you think that like people like us, we always feel good about everything?
We would definitely go through kind of, you know, the why am I the way I am?
Why am I like this?
Why am I?
Why is this neighborhood, you know, which is my mental makeup, which I have to stay
in the whole time?
Why is it the way it is?
Like, and of course, like every month you have those days in your cycle that you feel
like everything is shit, right?
Nothing's working out.
You know, I could have had a whole different life and I could have lived a different life
and this is not who I supposed to be.
And then, you know, a few days later.
I'm Flo Comptain and he's like, hey, that was just my period.
Am I the queen of my world?
Like, look at me.
Yes.
I love that, again, it still blows my mind that five short years ago, you were, you know,
skinny parry and never had been in a gym and now you're like owning it parry.
I love that you use the word athlete to talk about yourself and to talk about your clients.
I think that that's yet another thing that women are reticent to do in general is to
consider themselves athletes unless they are competing in races, unless they are competing
in bodybuilding and winning trophies.
They're like, OK, I'm not an athlete.
I'm just a person who works out.
How do you encourage your clients to accept and embrace that title of athlete?
Yeah.
You know what?
I actually looked at the dictionary.
Oh, tell me.
Oh, this is fun.
Educate us.
I have to show you and this is something that I think you need to hear what the dictionary
says as an athlete.
Who is defined as an athlete?
A person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports or games, requiring physical strength,
agility or stamina.
That has nothing to do with competing or winning, getting a medal, standing on a podium.
It is about the skill set.
It's about training towards a certain goal, which could be an exercise or a game or a
sport.
And that is how I feel like there are so many variables to why women and that is what I
talk to my athletes.
My female clients who come to the gym to train is basically what is stopping you from defining
yourself as that person, right?
So of course there are many factors going into it.
One, let me just get that big one, which is I don't see myself as an athlete because I
don't want to look like an athlete.
That's a big one because not every girl goes in there and says, you know what, if an athlete
looks like this and especially they're thinking of the bodybuilders who are on stage, I really
don't want to associate myself with that title.
Let's not get there.
And the second one is there is this perception that an athlete is a full time job.
Like an athlete is somebody who is an athlete and they do that the whole day and that's
not who I am.
So there is this period of time where you really have to start reflecting on, okay,
you can incorporate that definition.
Just like you're a mom, you are an entrepreneur, you're a business owner, you're a career consultant,
you're also an athlete.
And all of these can exist side by side and you do not have to be one in isolation.
And I think the third one is a big one and it's just all of us, all of us women defining
ourselves as whatever we want to define ourselves as and that is the fear of judgment.
Oh, she goes to the gym three times a week and now she calls herself an athlete.
You know, that fear of how people are going to perceive us if we call ourselves that,
out loud and say I'm an athlete, I need to sleep at 10 o'clock.
You know, I don't drink or I have a certain set regimen and I want to follow it because
I do define myself as this person and you're just worried you'll be laughed at.
Yeah.
I think in a lot of ways, Pari, that's where the term athlete becomes kind of an empowering
one.
Because you can say I do need to go to bed at 10 o'clock because I'm an athlete and I
do need to, you know, eat this protein shake after I work out because I'm an athlete.
I think it almost gives you license to do cool shit, you know, and to take care of yourself
in kind of a more elevated way.
I love that term and I love using it in a way that, you know, justifies the habits that
make you a better person.
Babe, I mean, just think of it this way, right?
I mean, here, all of us, we do live the lifestyle that is required for us to train at a certain
level and we take care of us that way.
If I'm going in the morning, I'm doing a 10K in the morning and I come to the gym and I'm
lifting two times my body weight, that means I have put in the time and the effort and
the mindset that it takes for me to get there.
And I'm not saying that I have to lift that heavy at all.
I'm saying it's the mindset that matters more than anything else.
And the thing is that if I do not define myself, all of us, any one of us, if we don't define
ourselves as a certain way, in a certain way, you will never act that way.
And that's scary.
So it's good for us to say, okay, I'm an athlete.
Now it means I'm going to behave like that.
And that's going to translate into my day to day behavior.
So earlier you mentioned that you try to get your protein in.
How much protein are you taking in?
And what would you say to somebody that says, oh, I don't like meat or I don't, I don't,
you know, I can't eat that much protein is too much.
That's always something.
Oh, if I had a dollar for every time.
Oh, you haven't hacked it yet.
I think we, there is a period of time that I invested in just educating myself on nutrition
to such a large extent.
Like that was the phase I would call myself.
And by the way, to answer your question, you would be surprised.
I'm at least at 2.4 to 2.5 times of my body weight in grams.
Wow.
Gram per kg.
You are amazing.
You are kicking my butt, girl.
I'm just thinking that.
I was like, ah, I can't eat.
Everything.
Yeah.
I'm at 2.2 on my best day.
So that's amazing.
That's great too.
I mean, we are at least at that level where we will be able to get that, the hormone rush.
So I think there was a period of time where I just went into my fitness pal and I would
go into the grocery store and I just literally read labels.
You know?
And that is a period of time that all of us need to go through and just try to understand.
And then I did go through the measuring my protein, measuring the meat and my macros.
Because even though, yes, over a longer period of time, you don't want to keep doing it because
it becomes like a stigma.
But you do want to get that period of time when you are committed to learning about food.
Because that I think is a basic foundational education for all of us, which is what am
I eating?
Nutrition literacy.
Exactly.
And that comes back to not just protein, which is of course, you know, a foundational macronutrient.
But you're looking at food in general and you're trying to understand.
For me, there was a period of time where I'm going to tell you girls, it's like, I would
train the best on my leg days if I had beef and my best shoulder days would be on chicken.
So my shoulders are made of chicken.
And their booties are made of beef.
And it's the point to which you have really conditioned yourself to your nutrition.
And you're just like listening to your body and saying, OK, I had this.
Now how does it feel for me when I'm training?
And that's a period.
And like, you have to invest in it and then kind of learn more about your food and how
it kind of responds to your body.
Yeah.
I always say that learning nutrition literacy is like learning a foreign language.
If you want to speak that language and you want to have a conversation with others in
that language, you have to take the time to learn it.
Otherwise, if you're just following meal plans or following what some coach off the internet
told you, you're just doing Google Translate.
So you're just taking a screenshot of what you think you might want to say and showing
it to someone else.
When you learn about macronutrients, when you learn about what the difference between
one gram of protein per kg of body weight and two could do for you, you unlock an entire
conversation that you would not have that access to otherwise.
And that is beyond powerful.
And you mentioned something I really wanted to ask you about today, Pari, which is hormone
optimization through diet and training.
I know that you work with a lot of women that are in menopause.
In fact, that's kind of your specialty, paramenopause and menopause.
Can you talk to me about some of the strength training and nutrition hacks that you use
for women to optimize their hormone profile during that time?
Oh, my God, I would love to.
Why, thank you.
Yeah.
You're giving me a platform to speak about it.
I'm crying horse.
Right?
Screaming my lungs out for someone to listen.
In a gym somewhere, a sweaty gym talking to a woman.
And I want to start with an example here, which is like, guess what kind of an example?
Let's say you're a woman in your 40s and you have started getting the symptoms.
The hot flushes.
I would agree with that.
That is awful.
So just so you know, you are speaking to me directly now because I'm in parimenopause.
I've been through the symptoms.
So your nights feel sweatier.
So your temperature changes in your body are slightly different.
And then you would have those hot flashes, mood swings, right?
You wouldn't know who you are.
You're like, there's a stranger inside my body and I don't know who that person is anymore.
And that you then go with that feeling like, I really don't know what's happening to me.
There is a stranger in my body, by the way.
That stranger will be injected in a few months.
And so you go to a doctor.
Guess what the doctor will tell you?
You're fine.
It's normal.
That's one.
The doctor would most likely give you an antidepressant.
And it has happened to a lot of my clients.
And at that point, when they reject, they say, I'm not going to be on an antidepressant
pill.
You know what?
That is where you start asking yourself.
Okay.
That's one.
What would an educated doctor who is probably from a developed country and knows a bit more
is a female doctor, you know what?
Doctors are, if you're lucky, you might get an estrogen patch or a shot of some level
of hormone replacement therapy.
They would talk about you, talk to you about it.
But they would never say that the first intervention that you need to have is a lifestyle intervention.
You don't need a medical intervention yet.
You can go through a lifestyle intervention.
And that's true because I feel like when I went through the experience, it was all about
BHRT, you know, what hormones you can take, what you need to do.
But no one ever said to me, right.
You need to make sure you are exercising or you need to eat in a particular way.
And there needs to be some changes about that.
So what I always say to my clients is you need to see a functional doctor, someone who
is really not just going to look at the, you know, your anxiety or your hot flashes.
They're going to look at everything.
They're going to look at your lifestyle.
And I guess that's what you guys tend to do as well at the Lyft Clinic as well.
Yeah, exactly that.
I mean, of course, lifestyle intervention is the first place you go.
And I think it's so funny that it's the last place in conventional medicine because it's
the first place in functional medicine and not only, you know, diet and nutrition intervention,
but also ALMI.
What is your muscle mass?
What does your body look like from the inside?
I think a DEXA scan should be one of the first steps that almost every woman goes through
that starts to have symptoms of perimenopause.
Now you tell me.
Yeah, get in there.
Get in there for your scan.
You know what, ask women around you who knows about what sarcopenia is.
Yes.
One of the leading problems of frailty in older age for women in Asia.
My mom didn't know it and there was a period of time where my dad had a pacemaker inside
him so he was medically sick.
And my mom was the one crying to me and she was like, I don't know what's going on with
me.
Like, I really don't know.
Things are falling off my hand.
I'm feeling weak.
I can't walk as much as I used to do before and I'm not, you know, she was not medically
unfit.
And I had to tell her that and like, you are, there is a medical condition, mom.
It's called sarcopenia.
I'm sorry.
That's right.
Not a lot of people know about it.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
So, Pari, are you of Indian descent?
Yes.
Yeah.
So obviously in India, there's a lot of vegetarians and there's a lot of this and I guess, you
know, like with your mom and maybe with some other relatives, you know, the idea of, you
know, eating meat is like, well, you know, I'm, I shouldn't be doing this.
This is not, you know, good for me.
How do you convince somebody who is at that age, you know, going through, you know, issues
with their muscle mass and, you know, changes in their lifestyle that actually meat is really
important?
So it could be from, you know, like it could be from a, you know, religious or an ethical
perspective, but for somebody who just says, I don't like it or I don't want to eat it,
you know, how can you encourage them that actually you kind of need it?
It's the missing piece.
Oh my God.
You know what?
The sneakiest way to do it.
Don't tell them.
We're all about sneaking.
Seriously, you just give them something and say, it's like, you know, just have this.
You give them a supplement and that is the first place to start because they think of
supplements as medicine.
Interesting.
So Jasmine, you're all about that low carb life, right?
Yup.
Have been for a while now.
So I'm assuming that your groceries look a lot like our house.
Lots of fish, tons of meat.
Yup.
Sounds about right.
Honestly, we get the best cuts of meat from the meat club, the premier online source for
top quality Australian and New Zealand produce in Singapore.
Yeah.
We also love the meat club around our house for the subscription service, making sure
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The meat just is there.
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And now back to the conversation.
They're eating beef liver.
Yeah.
And they wouldn't know because it's not like I'm telling them to put the chicken on the
plate.
Yeah.
I'm saying that, you know what, have this.
This is great.
And if you have this for like a few months, you would see a change in the way you feel
is the first place to start.
And then as they start taking a bit more protein in their diet, which is through some form
of supplementation of pea protein or whatever protein that they're having with them, that
is when you start giving them a bit more education and telling them, here's what you were having.
And so now I would like you to ask, and which is what I do with my clients as well, which
is like, I'd like you to ask yourself, what is the easiest way for you to get some level
of protein?
And I would not be the one telling you this, but I want to see you experiment with different
kinds of protein to start incorporating that into your diet.
If I'm hungry.
Maybe I can try some egg whites.
Yeah.
You know, I'll just try it in a way, which is a recipe that maybe does not feel yucky
to me, you know?
And then maybe I will try seeing if I probably won't have fish in a different way.
Like, you know, that is how they start kind of looking at it.
But I don't want to get like head banging conversations where you're just like trying
to tell them, no, you need to have more meat on your plates.
Just take the protein.
Yeah.
And we talked about nutrition literacy as a process of learning a language.
You can also see it as a process of experimentation.
Yes.
Right?
So try this intervention.
So test this hypothesis that more protein will help you function better, feel better.
Test this hypothesis with whatever source of protein you're comfortable with and then
observe the outcomes, right?
Measure the outcomes in your own body.
And if you see that they're favorable, then it would be to your benefit to seek out better
sources of protein.
Exactly.
Right?
More bioavailable sources of protein.
Exactly.
It's a scientific experiment.
And if more women would undertake it, I think they would admit to themselves that they're
seeing a different result.
I think, Amanda, that is very, very on point, which is essentially like you're saying, right?
The analogy that uses amazing, which is like the Google Translate analogy, you don't copy
paste.
Yeah.
Right?
You never learn.
You never learn if you copy paste.
It might get you to the bathroom in a different country.
Exactly.
So even when I'm looking at the clients, Jasmin, to your point about coming from an Indian
descentory.
So I think even here, you would have the men who do not want to take that much protein.
There is this stigma around it, like whatever gut health or whatever it is, I do not want
to go there.
And then I would just give them the idea about recovery.
And I say, OK, do your training and see how you feel.
You talked a little bit about sarcopenia in your mom's generation.
And I think, I'm not sure if we're all comfortable talking about our moms, but I can share my
mom's story.
So my mom is 74, never did any sort of strength training, regular exercise, anything like
that.
And when I became, obviously, really embedded in my profession, I was always kind of pushing
her, Mom, you got to lift weights, you got to do something.
And she would always say, when I'm retired and when my career isn't so demanding, I will
get on that.
And to her credit, she retired 12 years ago now, gosh, 14 years ago, 60.
And she has strength trained committedly since that time.
My mom lifts weights.
I bought her a little pair of weights because she's here visiting in Singapore right now.
I bought her a little pair of weights from Decathlon and she's lifting them.
And she has made that commitment that late in life because she understands now the importance
in that.
And I think we talk about women in their 40s, right, and talking to women that are going
through perimenopause.
But how do you talk to women whose parents are struggling with these issues?
How do we translate it to that generation?
I think the way, and I have had those conversations, by the way, to the generation like ours, who's
bringing their parents in to the gym.
And that would be around training for the mobility, the movement itself.
And so you start from there.
That is both an intervention that the education is for not just the training but also for
the nutrition, right?
So it's both ways.
But I think it starts with as simple things as you take a box and then you ask them to
sit within that and stand up and how you feel about it.
And then you start from there.
And we have had quite a few aging parents come in and start seeing the value of it.
And I think that is something that is coming more from our generation because we are sandwiched
between two generations that are totally diverse.
We had that generation of women, our parents, our moms, who were all about safety, right?
So we were all like, be safe.
Get a certain amount of money.
Get a husband.
Get kids.
Get a house.
Get a job.
Never, ever go against conventional wisdom.
Never question.
Ever.
Do what you're told.
Stick to the lane.
And society has norms for a reason.
Just fit into that box.
And then our kids are the ones that are like, I'm going to question everything out there.
Oh, even my two year olds questioning.
Yeah, I'm going to question everything.
I literally don't believe in what you're telling me right now.
Yeah.
And if I don't want to do it, I'm not doing it.
I'm not going to do it.
Yeah.
And then even my nine year old, he's like, I wish I was like him.
He says, I know to everything.
I know.
We should have him on the podcast.
And so we are the ones that are right in the middle, just about independent enough in our
thinking, in our finances, in stuff that we have now started kind of looking at ourselves
as independent identities.
And we are the ones that are best placed to kind of have that conversation with our parents,
you know, and say, okay, maybe mama, the way we're looking at things is not exactly how
it's supposed to be.
Maybe we could see how you feel, just kind of movement prepping, doing a few things that
kind of take you from point A to point B and see how you feel about it.
I feel like I'm really lucky.
My mom was always really sporty.
I was not sporty.
So I wish I'd actually gone to my mom's side.
But even now, if I, yeah, if I took my mom to a gym, she would be there and she'd be
doing the same as me.
Like, you know, she's the person who's like, I'm not old.
She's not old, by the way.
So my mom, mom, mom, definitely not old.
So my mom is 60.
She's just 1060.
Wow.
So she was always a young mom and she, you know, she'll dress really cool.
She'll, she'll, you know, go to the gym.
She's got energy.
And I love that about her.
So so lucky.
Yeah, I feel that.
I love you, mommy.
Shout out to the moms, all three of the moms.
Well, party, we do have to start wrapping up here.
But most important question of our conversation today, because I feel like, and if you don't
mind me disclosing this, I'm about to, you're 43 and you're nailing it.
It's out there.
And you know, you perhaps five years ago weren't nailing it as hard as you are now.
So I want to know what is in your forties formula?
How did you crack the code so that you could thrive in this decade?
And how can you advise that other women do the same?
Oh, well, I, you know, when you, you send that question to me, I said, I'm an engineer,
so I'm going to break it down into its left side and its right side and add up the equation.
You could see it's a formula.
It's like, no, you have to stick to your number of words.
So I would just say, I think my forties formula is self-love.
It is two words, which has meant nothing to me for a long time.
I have loved everyone.
I have loved things and objects.
You know, I have had relationships where I poured all my love out.
And I have had objects that I have poured my love out, my business or whatever it is.
And then in your forties, I think you're best placed to truly find love from within for
yourself.
And that for me, I think is the magic because then you know that your physical and mental
wellbeing and health is your utmost priority and you'll do everything.
I love that.
Right?
Yeah.
That is beautiful.
And I have to say unexpected.
That's where you're going to go with this and I really love that you did.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Pari.
Your insights have been invaluable and this has been a great chat.
We're going to have this chat over coffee later.
Okay.
So we're going to continue this chat outside the studio.
I haven't said so much now.
We're going to continue from here on.
Thank you so much again.
It was a pleasure, Amanda, Jasmine.
Thank you so much for having me here.
Thanks.
This is Paul, our editor.
He's a 25 year old unmarried Singaporean guy listening to the ramblings of 12 older women
on everything from menopause to weightlifting to sex.
So Paul, what's your thoughts on today's conversation?
Hey, hey.
Hello there again.
I don't exactly have much of an opinion about strength training.
It's definitely not something I do and I'm pretty much not athletic.
Sorry about that.
But it's a great insight to life of being a strength coach and your story.
So thank you, Pari.
See you all.
Bye bye.
Hey guys, did you know that you can leave us questions and comments on FanList?
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On FanList.com slash the 40s formula, you can leave us a voice note where you can ask
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Great quality chats.
I love how someone said, you don't lose, you learn in the first episode.
This is so applicable to everything in life.
I've already used it when talking to my kids in sports and fitness and weight loss.
It's not a loss.
It's an opportunity for growth.
I also love setting the intention for the day.
Next thing when you wake up, you set your intention.
Love listening in.
Meghmak, thank you so much for your wonderful review and definitely you never lose.
You always learn.
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Bye.
Okay, sure.
Shall I move?
Should I?
From this side?
We're all so scared to touch the equipment.
Sorry Paul, you're the expert.
Sorry.
Oh, you can move that thing.
Okay.
Great.
Hello.
Hi.
Yeah.
I think that's Paul's subtle way of telling us that we are quite loud and Pari is probably
not as loud, which is like totally cool.
But yeah, so it's like, you know, yeah, get up close in person with that mic.