All Things Metabolism with William Grazione

Calvin and Brooke Masters: You've counted every calorie, tried every diet, spent hours in the gym, and still something's missing. You want more than just weight loss. You want your energy back. You want your confidence restored. You want a way of living that doesn't feel like punishment. Welcome to Master Your Metabolism, where we cut through the noise, ditch the fads, and give you a real plan to become the healthiest, strongest version of you. hosted by our team of expert coaches with proven strategies, science-based tips, and real life encouragement, not just to help you lose fat, but actually create that lifestyle that you love. You've tried everything. Now, let's try what actually works. This is your turning point. Let's go. Brooke Masters: Welcome, welcome to Master Your Metabolism. We are here today with a very special guest, William Grazion, with the Educated Dieter. And I have to tell everybody that we are really excited because we've been coaching for many years. And one of the very first mentors that we had was Mr. William Grazion. And everything that we are, and everything that we have become, and how we've been able to impact. people and help women and help men to be able to reach their goals has been it all started with this man. So we are very, very, very lucky to have him here today and to share all of his knowledge with everybody. So thank you, thank you for being here. william grazione: Well, I will say this, that is definitely saying a lot. Obviously you guys have built something absolutely incredible. It's an honor and a blessing to be on the podcast and just to see what y'all have been able to do is truly phenomenal. And I just want to tell you, I will absolutely love the name of your podcast. Master Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: Your Metabolism. If we can teach people how to do that, we will change a lot of people's lives. Brooke Masters: Yeah. Calvin Masters: thank you. Well, I'll give Brooke credit for that one. So I'll tell you, you know, Will has just had just a huge influence on our coaching style and he kind of molded us from the very beginning to do things right. And that's something that he really drove home and it stuck with my brain is do things right, you know, it don't don't be a part of a system that's hurting people, basically. And and I remember back, I don't know if you remember a girl named Karen. from about 10 years ago. Well, he she did bikini. She's probably mid-50s. She's friends with like I don't know, I don't want to name people on here, but but that we went out to dinner with them one night and in group that was when I met Karen for the first time, and she was about to do a bikini contest william grazione: Yeah. Calvin Masters: and she looked phenomenal. And if we sit down and we're talking, I'm like, Yeah, we're coaches, you know, and and we were kind of just coming up, you know, we were just william grazione: Thank Calvin Masters: figuring it out that we had a lot to learn at the time. She just kept talking about you. She's like, she's like, she's like, Will just he does he goes in and shall william grazione: Karen Mills. Calvin Masters: and so she was talking and and she was william grazione: No way. Calvin Masters: like, you know, she's like, it was the best prep I've ever had. She's like, I felt good the whole time. She's like, I got in the best shape I've ever got into. And she's like, I honestly don't feel like I'm in prep. And and and the whole thing, and She was talking about the functional side, how you're paying attention to the labs and how you're giving her breaks when she needed it and you were listening to her. And I was so intrigued by this, so intrigued. I I left there and I told Brooke, I'm like, I need to meet Will. I need to find her. This is before we knew you. And so we seeked you out. I seeked you out. And you know, shortly after we ended up seeing you at the fat muscle william grazione: Thank you. Calvin Masters: event in Tampa for the first time. And I And that's when we ended up doing your mentoring program to really kind of do william grazione: Wow. Calvin Masters: a deep dive into hormones. So so Will is really kind william grazione: Thank you. Calvin Masters: of the the core of what got us started and got us on the right path for all this. And and we just kind of have taken it but kept the same principles and and stayed a lot in alignment with the way that Will coaches because I had a great admiration for how he did it and what his what his drive was. And I didn't want to deter from that. So I appreciate you, Will, man. It's it's What we are today is is a huge part because of you. You should know that. No crying, no crying in the podcast. Don't do it. william grazione: I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that. Well, I remember coaching her and she had, you know, she had gone through a few things before, you know, and ultimately when somebody tells me, you know, this is the smoothest fat loss phase I've ever had. This was the easiest contest I've ever had. I liked the fact that you actually paid attention to how I felt. And you didn't just tell me to reduce my calories and increase my cardio. Those types of things at about 2015, 2016, I really started to pay attention to those things. because the majority of the women that I was working with, know, they had worked with previous coaches before in the past, they had lost their periods, they felt terrible, they walked across the stage and they felt like a zombie, right? And I'm like, what is bodybuilding as a whole or just the physique development world? What is it missing, right? Like what is the actually missing? Because when I first started, it was 12 week fat loss phase and that was everything, right? And I'm like, why has it gotta be 12 weeks? Why can't it be Calvin Masters: Mm-hmm. william grazione: 14 or 16 or 18 or- Sometimes even 20 and obviously as a Calvin Masters: Right. william grazione: natural like sometimes we need 20 plus weeks, right? And I noticed that in the sport of bodybuilding in general, like everybody was about the extremism side of it, right? It's like less calories, more cardio. And I said, well, how come bodybuilding doesn't have a half time? I played football my entire life. And I remember I had a lot of women that I was prepping at the time and I helped a lot of people turn pro and I was kind of in a past life. I still do it every now and then, but a little bit less of that now. And I started to actually just ask them about halfway through, how are you feeling? How are you sleeping? How's your digestion? Right? Like how's your training energy? Can you make it to the end of the workout? And then after the workout, how you feel for up to day, how much caffeine are you intake? And all these questions now are like common sense to us. Right. But back then nobody was really asking these questions. And so I remember I put together a word doc and it was just a basic word doc. had an HP laptop and I go in word, right. Brooke Masters: Yep. william grazione: And I, type up. GI, know, how Calvin Masters: Mm. william grazione: you're feeling and all this stuff. And I typed it out the biofeedback information, I filled this in for me. And it was horrendous. She felt terrible. She wasn't sleeping, so on and so forth. And I think for her specifically, I think she was around like, around 50 years, years young. So obviously going through the throws of the period and the quality transition. And I remember implementing this break or halftime, you know, and Brooke Masters: Right. Yep. william grazione: all it really was, was I was increasing calories to a modest amount to a place where I felt like was a kind of a very conservative paintings level, right? Understanding that they're in a calorie restriction and thus all we're trying to do is fill that energy gap that's creating the fat oxidation with carbohydrates. And I backed off her training a little bit. I backed off the cardio a little bit. I added in some supplementation to help her sleep. A week later, she was like, my God, I feel amazing. I'm like, what if I do this with everybody? And then just started to experiment with male physique athletes, male bodybuilders, female figure girls, female bikini. And it worked for everyone that I had do it. And then logically thinking forward, because you know, our brains just keep on spinning and they're like, what else can I do? What can I do to make this process more enjoyable? Especially people like you two, which you are living in. Like I just saw you in Missouri, right? And then you're in Tampa and now you're traveling up to the Panhandle. You're competing, you're coaching, you're running your business, you're doing an amazing job, But like, with all that being said, like our brains are always trying to figure out what can we do to better the experience for the actual client. And I remember talking to Bill Campbell about this. It was over 10 years ago. He's like, you know, this makes a lot of sense, William, because dieting is already hard. Why are we making it harder? I'm Brooke Masters: Mm-hmm. Yeah. william grazione: like, God, right? so after Calvin Masters: Yeah, yeah. william grazione: she filled out the information, I was like, this is a really interesting tool. And I began to share the idea with some of my colleagues that were locally, you know, here in Tampa that were also in the bodybuilding world. And my athletes started to get really, really peeled. talking like natural guys with glutes, striations, and girls that had the perfect, like white bulb glutes Brooke Masters: Yeah. william grazione: and they're all turning pro flying up to the Arnold and they're competing in the Arnold and stuff. I'm like, what's the difference? And inside that moment, I realized like health is. Brooke Masters: Yes. william grazione: We're just keeping them healthier throughout the entire duration of time. And you guys know as well as I do, but if you go to like a local show, could be a local show in your area where I'm at, anywhere you go, a local show. Most of the bikini girls, they're dry as a bone. They go super flat. They're eating asparagus and chicken and tilapia and they just look dry. No vast, vast good layer of skin, Calvin Masters: Mm-hmm. Yeah. william grazione: super dry, all those things. like, what can we do to change that? And then probably most importantly, what can we do after the competition is actually over with to be able to get some lab work done, see where they stand, because bodybuilding in general, doesn't matter how you do it, it's relatively unhealthy thing, Brooke Masters: Correct. william grazione: which the body's not that extreme. So then, now my brain's going like, what can I do to recover them after the show? So we started doing blood work like a week out and then like three to six months after the show, just so that I could actually show, and this is gonna stick well, but just so that I could actually show. What does trusting the process actually mean? Right? Because everybody at that time was saying, just trust the process, know, just trust the process. I'm evidence-based and you know, it takes six months of reverse dieting to rebuild your metabolism. Like nobody was showing any data. So I'm like, what actually is metabolic annotation on lab work? What does it look like? And then after we recover them, what's it look like? And then at what point are they ready to prep? because I can tell you to trust me all you want, but if I can't provide you tangible data, Calvin and Brooke, what Brooke Masters: Yeah. william grazione: is there to trust? Calvin Masters: Mm-hmm. william grazione: You're just trusting my word because you saw me on YouTube and on Instagram or something? No, let me actually jump on a Zoom call with you. Let's walk through everything and let's actually show you what is being covered actually. Calvin Masters: Yes. And that's that I knew that was one of the strong points. And and the key word is data. And I would tell you, my experience and and I see it today still is it lack of data with a lot of coaches. You william grazione: here. Calvin Masters: know, it's it's the one check-in per week, which is not abnormal, but the one way in. So they're not seeing how their body responds from a random refeed, two refeeds back to back, three reads back to back, or a diet break. They're just kind of seeing that weight once a week. So they're sticking to this regimen. And because I I've learned from you in the beginning data I've been watching. So I'm like collect as much as possible. So I do have them weigh in daily and I do test things when I have the opportunity. And I've learned so much because of that. And I've learned one thing, there are no rules. And when what it takes to get the weight to drop is what it takes, whether that means pulling them out of the deficit for one to three days or a week, you know, it could be four weeks out from the show if they're not dropping weight and they're stressed. Cutting calories isn't going to help that. You know, and so this because of those things and and and seeing how they respond, when the weight bumps up and when it drops, all the key things that make that you learn about the person's body can make that prep or even dust, just a dieting phase so much more pleasurable for the person, but also so much more efficient, you know. And so because of that, the things that we've learned through, you know, your early teachings. I in most cases, I can keep refeeds in all the way to the end of the prep and have success with it and have that weight continue to drop. And I'm and I'm looking at other coaches and I'm like, man, they haven't given a refeed to this person in so long. I'm like, and their weight's just trickling. And I'm like, don't they know they could give her some relief and she'll it's gonna start moving, most likely, you know. So, but it's it's all comes down to the data, like you said, the collecting the data and learning the body, taking the time to do it, caring enough. william grazione: I had a gal last year. She's a natural pro now, but when she came to me, her name is Dr. Jacqueline. She's phenomenal. lives here in Tampa. Jackie came to me just kind wanting to improve her body composition. And then ultimately that ended up with being like, wow. When she got lean, I was like, you know, could be a natural pro. And she's like, what are you talking about? In the sport of bokeh, you can be a natural professional. Because you guys know, when you have the eye for it, Brooke Masters: Yeah. Calvin Masters: Mm. william grazione: It just Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: jumps out at the screen and you're like, wow, structurally everything, right? And so, Calvin Masters: You see it. Yeah. william grazione: interesting thing about her was that she had stalled out. I mean, I was going as aggressive as I felt like I needed to get for her. She was only in her 30s, very healthy, very active, strong, amazing shape, great genetics. And she'd stalled out 10 pounds above what she ended up turning pro at. And I did not expect a 10 pound out stall that hard. I was pushing her down like under a hundred grams of carbs, like 35, 40 grams of fat, so on. And the interesting thing was, you know, I provided her one diet break right there at that stick point. And obviously the diet break has kind of evolved over the course of time. So then we add in like an adrenal root set, right? Back and off steps, back and off cardio, de-loading, in the products, having mutations, regimen and everything. stress management is really what the system is. And I implemented that one diet break and then within the next three weeks, you drop a pound and a half a week. And I was like, just started to Calvin Masters: Nice. william grazione: tighten up. And I'm like, wow, okay, we're going to do the same thing. And we're going to do it for the next three months. She was exactly Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: nine weeks out. And I'm telling you, it worked so beautifully that she ended up getting as we knew she needed to get to be able to turn pro. And then ultimately being able to recover her on the back end of that was really amazing to watch. And then I'd also mentioned that think really the people that probably need this information the most that aren't using it is like the most superior genetic elite women that are out there that are like competing at the Olympia. Right. And I had the tremendous opportunity to work with one. not going to name drop her anything, but she worked with a kind of an old school coach and the coach took her from 2000 calories, 1800 to 1600 to 1400. 1200 to 1000 right car you run from 30 minutes 45 60 75 92 hours towards the end right and and so what if you think about it ten years ago you know unless you were thinking outside the box that was kind of like normal standard protocol right and then during peak week you know you kind of pull some water back and manipulate a few things you add in the potassium and take away the sodium which is not very smart right but at the end of the day we ended up helping her after the show because once I had learned what she was doing and then I took a look at her blood work and her T3 Calvin Masters: Mm. william grazione: was 1.8. She wasn't on any T3. was, Brooke Masters: Yeah. william grazione: I mean, very low amounts of performance enhancers, you know, but from a genetics perspective, she was, she was incredible. She was the best in the world, right? And we took the time, which I didn't have a lot of time, but we took about four to six months of time and I was able to get her T3 level back up to roughly about a 3.7. Now, the really cool thing was that the chief complaint to me was, I heard about you through, I really want to see what this is all about. She's like, every prep I've done with any coach I've worked with, it just gets harder and harder and harder and harder to get to that level of weakness. We cranked her thyroid back up, fixed a lot of her internal blood work numbers, and she brought one of the best physiques to the stage that, granted she switched coaches, but we've seen one of the best physiques that she's brought in. years and I know it's because of that right so when we're thinking about this stuff it's like how do Calvin Masters: Yeah, yeah. william grazione: we take exercise science and everything we know about in the world of evidence-based like nutrition coaching and bridge the gap to functional medicine not play like I'm on this side and everybody over there is an idiot or everybody over here is a quack or looking at it from the functional side saying all the calories and calories out people don't know what they're talking about I think what we really have to learn is how to bridge these things together and use them as I'll say a collar, a superpower to really pay attention to more than just the weights, more than just the body color, and from an internal perspective, what's actually making them respond or not respond. Brooke Masters: Yep. But I think it's like everything else. Like Calvin Masters: Yes. Brooke Masters: I how I explain it to clients to keep keep it very simple is think about a job. You have a lot of responsibilities. And then something comes in, you have more projects on your plate, someone gets fired and you take on their job. So you just keep going and going. And when you're dieting, it's the same thing. The deeper you get into it, it's more taxing on the body. So just like if you had all that work, if you were working seven days a week, 12 hour days, and someone came to you and said, Hey, let's take weekends off. Cool, there's your repeats. Hey, let's, you know, the next week now we're only working william grazione: Yeah. Calvin Masters: Mm-hmm. Brooke Masters: eight hours instead of twelve. Then the next week we're only working three days. And then eventually you get to the point of take a month off. I'm gonna cook everything for you. Someone's gonna train you. Like you get massages, you chill out for a month, that's your diet break. And then say, william grazione: dialed in, Brooke Masters: Okay, can I come back in and work three days? You're gonna be like, sure, I just had all this time off. So I always explain to people that it's really the concept of. Understanding that your body is working, understanding, and especially like I'm in menopause now, and going through this time and seeing the women that I prepared to work with in perimenopause and menopause, like your body already can't handle stress and you're forcing it to do so. So understanding that with all that push, you need to chill. So every william grazione: Yeah. Brooke Masters: time you try and do something, there needs to be some balance. So yes, it is some functional and some, you william grazione: this Brooke Masters: know, coaching as well, but understanding just common sense in general of what it it is on the body. william grazione: Yeah, it's the concept of allostatic loading, right? You can only load so much. These two books, I'm just gonna share them because they were sitting there all right by my desk, but these two books helped me a ton. Brooke Masters: Yes. william grazione: Rain Barrel Effect and Quarter Salt Connection, right? And when Calvin Masters: Mm, courtesy, yes. william grazione: you're looking at both of those books, mean exactly what we're talking about, but it's directly applying it to the world of nutrition coaching and trying to make something that was once deemed to be the most vigorous process ever, right? It's a feeling to suck a little bit. you know and then also just teaching people that Calvin Masters: Mm-hmm. william grazione: again like you can't just continuously redline your car on the highway eventually Brooke Masters: Yep. And it generally does in perimenopause. Calvin Masters: Yeah. And I'll tell you I would tell you there's other things too that that in addition to it is post show I I've noticed as far as like the rebound, much less the the question I ask my competitors, male or female, is, you know, at the show I'm like, what food are you craving? You know, and nine times out of ten now is they're like, I'm not really craving anything. You know, I just want a regular meal, you know, and that to me is a win. Because I know they're not overly depleted and I know that they're not going to be binge when they come up, you know. And then the other thing too I noticed, if I can manage to get the diet break in and keep the brief regular, is you know, kind of you had mentioned before about it was kind of a thing with with prep that the it it's harder and harder to get the fat off, you know, as you go. And the thing I've I've learned with this is that I haven't had that issue so so much. It's actually the reverse. That I've been able to take the competitors and keep improving them through through time and and and substantial improvements. And I do believe a hundred percent it's because of those diet breaks and and the refeeds and paying attention, you know, to the hormones during the time and and listening to them with that, but they're able to do it and they're able to kind of go back the next year and go back into it because their body doesn't take such a hit, you know, and they can improve as they go. So it's I haven't had the issue of that where I have to sit them out for two years. I just think if somebody gets dragged through the dirt and prep, it's going to take them a year to recover. It just is. And they're not really going to gain much muscle because their testosterone is going to be low and this and that. And so so if you do these things and prolong the timeframe, like you said, and the prep and budget these in, the payoff is so worth it, you know, in the end, as far as your progression and longevity in the sport, you know, which is the ultimate goal, I think, as a coach. william grazione: Yeah, I definitely agree, especially Calvin Masters: You know, which william grazione: in that world. in the bodybuilding world. know, honestly, for me, that's kind how it started. You it's like the most extreme thing that we can do to human physiology, right? it's kind of like, what can we do to just keep the Ferrari running like a Ferrari, not swap the engine out for a Honda Civic, you know what I mean? Which makes it a lot harder. Calvin Masters: Yeah, yeah. william grazione: But like transitioning that information into kind of where I started to go, which was like right before COVID, was working with a lot more women that were about my age. Now I'm 40. at the time, 30, 34, 35, 36, And I noticed that as women got a bit closer to that like 40 or 45, even 50 years old kind of bracket, it almost like really a bullying process for them to lose body fat. And then you start hearing a lot about, I think I have like weight loss resistance and it's getting harder and harder for me to lose body fat and I can't crack the code by myself, can you help me? Right? And so I think that's where, for me at least, I was already doing lab work. I was already working with My wife was kind of the first person I started to play around with a few of these things. My wife's eight years older than I am. She was competing at around that time when I really started to dive into the functional world and what worked and everything. So I started really testing on her to see if this stuff actually worked. And then ultimately I started sharing some of her case and then obviously more women in that 40 to 55 year old range kind of started to come in. And ever since then I've been really interested almost in a sense, kind of obsessive about what can I do to make sure that they don't feel like they're plateaued at all. point in their life where in all honesty, know, stress is at an all-time high. Most of them are working full-time jobs. They're raising kids. They're managing the family. They're trying to manage the marriage. They're managing the finances. They're managing all the things, right? It's like, it's easy to see just like what Brooke says, like if you overload that stress bucket, what eventually happens. And so I'm more than happy to talk about the peri-menopausal side too, but open to your suggestions and kind of how you want it. having a conversation. Brooke Masters: Yeah. So that's my kind of again after going through it myself and seeing the weight loss resistance and all of the things. And now I'm like all of the women coming out. And I think the hardest thing is that a lot of us were hearing all types like I know growing up it was a lot of dieting, a lot of no carbs, a lot of like restriction. It was a lot of let's do all the Tybo and the P ninety X and all of the things, you know. Calvin Masters: Hm. That was a the Jane Fonda william grazione: A phadron. Calvin Masters: era. Brooke Masters: So it's so hard to like think, well, I have to add carbs to lose or I have to eat more. And people are just plus, but you know, and that's why I try and find ways to explain to them, like, you've been pushing for so long and they're like, I'm not stressed. Well, you've been doing a lot for so long that it now seems like your norm. So I think a lot of people don't even recognize, and I don't know if you wanted to kind of expand on this, that they don't feel that they're stressed. And their system to explain to them where their hormones are now and having an imbalance automatically is going to put you into that fight or flight response by nature. You have to make an effort now to get out of that and go into that rest and digest. And I think, you know, understanding that sleep recovery and paying attention to the biofeedback and the markers, knowing that your body is telling you, like you said, asking the questions of. Hey, if you're noticing that it's taking a long time to recover, you're noticing you're waking up in the middle of the night, you know, you're noticing you're not going to the bathroom. Like all of these systems are going to give you that information to let you know your body is not happy with what you're doing. Like your body's screaming at you right now, and we gotta pay attention. So I don't know if you find that as well with some clients and it's really hard. william grazione: Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. What I would say first and foremost, though, is I think a lot of it is really dependent on the individual. Right. So we know from coaching people and probably talking to them on Zoom quite often, but you get different personality types all the time. Now, most of the personality types that I coach happen to fall kind of within like three different categories. The first one is usually she's like the hard charge. She's the type A. She's the give me all the data. I want to know everything, right? She just tell me what to do when I will execute. But that's also typically the woman that's that'll look in the face and say, but Brooke, I'm not stressed at all. Right. Because she's had the hard charge forever. Right. And then you have the other woman, she's a little bit more emotional. You know, she wants you to ask her how she's doing before you start to coach her. Right. And then you have the other woman, which You know in all honesty, it's kind of just needs a little bit more kind of hand-holding kind of check in on them every now and then you send that like maybe a few weekly email reminders out Hey, don't forget this coming in your check-in, know So you have that type a and then you have the more emotional one you have the other one that really just needs to be guided and I think it really breaks down to Inside of knowing the personality type. How are they more than likely going to perceive what's happening in their life? So the hard charger they've had to tuck it under drugs for a long time. The emotional one, sometimes she just really hasn't felt like she's been supported enough to get her out of that slump. And then the other one that needs that hand holding, like I said, again, she's kind of more like she needs to learn so that she has the skill set for after you're done working with her. So I think the perceived stress comes down to personality type of action. Brooke Masters: True. That's a good point. Yep. william grazione: Because it's perceived stress, right? Like actual stress is one thing, but like how they perceive it is another thing. You know, you'll have some people every now and then they just honestly feel like they are just trapped. Like no matter what they do, I just can't get out. Right? And then you have some others, it's like, that's just who they are. They've just hard charged and they do everything for everybody. And that's just the way that life is. But I do understand where you're coming from and the fact that they've just lived that life. for so long that their biology has actually kind of transitioned because of the lifestyle habits that they accepted or said Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: yes. And more than likely, I think you all know just like me, a lot of the women that are in that position where they're very chronically stressed, they just say yes to a lot of things, but sometimes they probably shouldn't say no. Brooke Masters: Yep. Yep. And coaching them through that and teaching them that it's okay. And this is kind of how to do things differently. But it's definitely, you know, talking them into eating more and training less is always william grazione: Hmm. Yeah. Brooke Masters: fun. william grazione: Yeah. Yeah, that's a whole nother conversation because I'll give you an example because I talk a lot about my clients just because the fact like it's in my inbox and it's jumping out, know. But I had one gal, she was referred to me by a local team here at Campa and she was doing about a thousand calories a day, doing a lot of cardio. She was on HRT. And the interesting was like she found a friend that I know at a local I knew EOS or Crunch Gym and she was talking to him. She's like, my body's just not responding anymore. I've already lost 20 pounds or 25 pounds. She is on a GLP-1 peptide as well. But her body just wasn't responding. And she's like, I feel so stressed. I'm not sleeping well. I've got someness. And interesting thing was, when we brought her in, I assessed all that information first. And I think that's what a good coach should do. Have them fill out Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: the HAQs and the MSQs. talk to him for at least a half an hour on Zoom call, you get a really good layout for what's actually happening. And then more than likely, you of begin to press forward with insulin sensitivity, the chronic fatigue, sleep, movement, looking at blood work, evaluating thyroid levels and all that kind of thing. And then you can begin to work forward towards potentially like doing like something like a formal detoxification phase, resetting the adrenal. feeding them more calories, backing off training. This girl was training six days a week doing like four and five sets of everything, you so I backed her way off. The interesting thing was is that she was extremely androgen dominant, so her DHEA level, I don't know if I talked to you all about this, but her DHEA was 1350. You ever seen that before? 1350. The HRT clinic that Calvin Masters: Gosh. Wow. I don't think I've ever seen it that high before. william grazione: the HRT clinic that she was using had her doing 50, I believe it was, I think it was more than that. It was either 100 milligrams of DHEA a day or 150. And they were like these giant wafers that she was getting from them. And then I look at her testosterone, testosterone was a 450. She said it was lower than it was before her and I started. And then I look at her free testosterone and it was like, it was not like, 80 or 100. I'm like, my God, we have no, that's what I'm saying. Like when Brooke Masters: And she didn't look like Anne? And she didn't have any symptoms? william grazione: I saw that, I thought she was like pro bodybuilder, you know, like, Brooke Masters: What? william grazione: but no, not even, not, not even close. And so we backed all that stuff down. told her to stop taking the DHEA. her to consult with her HRT clinic, back her testosterone down and all that kind of thing. We did everything I just told you about with regards to internal health. And now she's like 25 additional pounds down, but she's eating like five to 600 extra calories a day doing half the exercise in the gym. So I'm training three, each training three or four days a week at the moment. And each workout is 45 to 60 minutes. And then she was doing an hour of cardio a day. And now I have her doing two cycle sessions of 25. So I mean, Brooke Masters: Wow. william grazione: we've way off, but again, like if that case Calvin Masters: She must have been so inflamed. But then Yeah. william grazione: went to somebody that didn't look at anything from an internal health perspective, they're just like, you're cheating on your diet. It's your fault. Because I couldn't Brooke Masters: Understand, yep. Yep. Let's let's add one more. Yep. Yep. william grazione: be wrong, right? But understanding what's the information you're not acquiring? What's the information you're not looking at? What can you actually do to help me heal my body from the inside to get it to be responsive again? And she's in a very good place now, obviously. But I see things like that and I'm just like, are they? Granted, I'm sure there are good clinics out there, but I'm just like, what are some of these places doing? Brooke Masters: And you know, you almost have to wonder Calvin Masters: So it is crazy. We've seen Brooke Masters: in some of the places, but also some of the people and the follow-up and and things like that, but looking at the whole person also. Cause I have some people that william grazione: 100%. Brooke Masters: are like, Well, I'm not feeling good. Okay, just increase it. But they're not taking labs. They're not looking at it. They're just going by the person and not understanding, well, maybe it's not the hormones. Maybe there's something else going on. Did you ask her about sleep? Did you ask her about her stress? but without doing labs, like I think that's the main driver is I I see people that are doing things and not looking at labs first. But if you're having symptoms, that's like your blueprint. william grazione: Yeah, I was just Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: contacted by an HRT clinic the other day here in Tampa and they were like, we're looking to hire a nutritionist to basically create a blueprint for all of our GLP-1 users. And I'm like, okay, how many GLP-1 you got? you recommending anything from a foundational health perspective at this point? Or are you just providing them with the GLP-1? Well, we're just providing them with the GLP-1s at the moment. There's no foundational nutrition and exercise, stress management, sleep. no information like that. I'm like, man, you're missing the boat here, guys. Like, I understand that there's a lot of people that just want to like, yeah, I mean, I understand Calvin Masters: They're missing the whole foundation. Yeah. william grazione: that there's a lot of people that probably just, they just want the shiny bottle. And I understand that. But I think at some point in time, it has to be the clinic's responsibility. Otherwise, we're looking at negligence here. When you know something is going to happen, like you've got to sit down and have a conversation. If you're not sitting down and having the conversation, like how many people get on that thing. Some of them not even looking at blood work. I've had a lot of women that are in the perimenopause transition reach out to us and I start coaching them and they're already on HRT but I said, can you send me the lab work that your hormone clinic did for you before you started? And they're like, they didn't run it. I'm like, Brooke Masters: Yep. Calvin Masters: yeah, yeah. william grazione: so how do they know? well, it's because I'm 45 that they got me on testosterone estrogen and progesterone. And I'm like, no, Brooke Masters: Yep, yep, yep. william grazione: that's not the way it works. Calvin Masters: They're they're just in there making the cell. They're just making that cell. And they're they're william grazione: All Calvin Masters: pushing things they probably got her on growth hormone and everything. I practitioners are guilty with this too, not doing the full panels and you know, you know, thyroid meds, that's that's a whole nother story. That could be a whole nother podcast. Same thing, you know. They'll put on on the thyroid meds and not look at why is, you know, their T three low. Why is their TPOIP high? You know, it's probably a gut issue. But we're gonna go ahead and just put on Thyroxine. You know, so it's it's a very common thing. So it's it is. I think I think this is really kind of puts light on why coaches are really, really right now an important thing in the in this in this industry or this this area that we're in with GLPs and all the things coming out, because they need to be done responsibly, or you can really mess yourself up, you know. And it should be you should have somebody watching over it, but somebody that knows how to manage the things, you know, with the food and the lifestyle and the foundations, like you had mentioned, which is the most important part, because if you don't have the foundation, there's no structure to support the things that you're doing. And it will end up crashing. And it's just like a fad diet. You'll end up in a worse place. So this is more of a reason why the coaching industry needs to step up and be a part of this. Well, they are, but. But it's an important thing that they know that. Brooke Masters: I think people just want that, you know, they see my friend lost 20 pounds. I'm just gonna take this magic pill and make it happen. But understanding you can get great results, but knowing how to keep those results, knowing how to now that you have something that, you know, can allow you to, you know, your insulin sensitivity is improved, great. Your inflammation is down, great. But how about what happens when you decide I don't want to take this anymore? And now that hunger comes back. You don't have those foundations in place and you've lost muscle mass because you didn't understand how to fuel your body, you didn't understand how to train properly. And now you wind up all that time and money that you spent, now you're gonna lose all of that and then have to kind of just keep bouncing back and forth. So I definitely think education, and I think that's the main reason that we even have this podcast and this platform is to be able to, you know, educate people in understanding what the drugs do, what which is most appropriate for you and what it's doing to your body and how to be able to create those foundations and allow long-term results and the least amount of side effects without having your body ha have all of these breakdowns and things go on, understanding what you need to be doing in order to keep things safe. And like you mentioned, thyroid, from what I've learned from you, is is like that check engine light. Like if something's going on, we want to look and see what is driving it. what's doing it because it is responsible for so many functions in the body. So, you know, maybe if we can go into a little bit, I don't know, of thinking about like levels and what people like you mentioned free T3. And free T3 is not on a lot of labs. Many people that come to us and you probably know this as well, doctors will test your TSH. That is something that once it's in a bad place, like you didn't look long, you know, before you didn't look underneath the hood and see what was going on to be able to stop that from happening. So, you know, free T3 in a nutshell is going to tell you where your metabolism is. That's going to tell you where things are going. And if you are having Calvin Masters: Mm-hmm. Brooke Masters: issues, like that's that first layer that you can kind of start looking deeper at some of these labs. So maybe some of the things that you look at with labs might be helpful for people of what indicators you're looking at and why you're looking at them and what some of these numbers maybe tell you. william grazione: Sure, yeah. Do you want to stick within the realm of the perimenopause transition side? Okay, Brooke Masters: be great. Yep. william grazione: cool. So Calvin Masters: Yeah, I think that's good. Yeah. william grazione: yeah, a few things that I will say before, because I don't ever want to come across as like boasting about anything in the negative light to a traditional doctor's job. I have respect for them. They've gone to school. But they're not going to school to learn about exercise science and nutrition. They're going to school for specific reason. Brooke Masters: With them. william grazione: With that being said, I come from the perspective of coaching a fair amount of doctors. I think I coached about 25 doctors over the course of a few years and I've made one deal with all of them. If I can ask you some questions about your career and your line of work, they're like, that's fine, as long as I can ask you questions about how nutrition ties into health and so on and so forth. Deal. The reality is that many of them actually want to be able to do a better job. It's just that the system ties them to only being able to do a certain thing. One physician cannot change the entire system, but this is also why the world of functional medicine exists. And it's because of the fact that there are a fair amount of doctors that decide, could help people in an end-of-one setting and really do the work that I want to do, but functional medicine is going to help you do that. It's not traditional Western medicine. So with that being said, with all due respect to physicians, you just have to understand that their job is not to you what we're talking about is to say, well you have X, Y, Z, right? Like you utilize this prescription to be able to help solve some of those issues, but they're really not addressing anything from a lifestyle perspective or even an ongoing coaching perspective because they literally are hands tied behind their back. You have seven to eight minutes per person and that's it, right? So I'm empathetic to it because if you told me I only get seven minutes for each one of my clients, I don't know if I could do a good job. I don't think I could unless I Brooke Masters: Truth. Truth. william grazione: was just typing email responses and I'm like, adjust your macros, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's it. So as far as blood work and levels go, specifically when it comes to your thyroid health, what I've noticed is that a lot of women anywhere from 40 to 55 years old have spent more than likely the majority of their adult life just kind of yo-yoing back and forth between diet trend, diet trend, exercise program, cardio regimen. signing up for 5Ks and 10Ks and doing all the different exercise protocols to try to stay at least in some kind of capacity of fit, right? And unfortunately, a lot of the low calorie diets that they've tried never actually have recovered from any of those low calorie diets have costed them a lot of their metabolic health. Now, when I say metabolic health, this word's kind of gotten bastardized, but what I truly mean is just that their thyroid levels are not operating in a place where they should be. so that their metabolism is capable of metabolizing a higher amount of calories because they have more muscle mass and they're not chronically dieting all the time. Metabolic health, they can eat a lot of calories, they're insulin sensitive, stress is under control, there's low inflammation, their thyroid's cranking, and they're strong. They can go to the gym, they can lift weights, they have muscle. Hormones are also stable across the board. We understand though that in the perimenopausal transition, progesterone will begin to slowly decline over time. Estrogen kind of does the same thing. Testosterone will do the same thing, but testosterone is also fueled by the adrenal glands. So obviously, if you can maintain some form of health of the adrenal glands, you can maintain some form of testosterone production. From a thyroid perspective, we're looking at TSH, basically, which is kind of the introductory kind of other hormone of thyroid stimulating hormone, which is what TSH stands for. Then you basically are sending signals to T4, okay? And you also also check for T3, which is the most metabolically active. hormone that you have is basically the dictator of how good your metabolism metabolizes. And then if the individual happens to be very stressed out or they're dealing with lot of this overflowing bucket like you kind of referred to earlier, they probably have high reverse T3. So if you recall in the bodybuilding case study I showed in Missouri, the woman had like a 36.8 reverse T3. Obviously that's very high. And then also I think her T3 level was like a 1.8, right? And that was at the very tail end of a bodybuilding contest preparation. She was dieting very extremely. Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: She wasn't having like high carb days or refeeds or diet breaks either. So I kind of expected that that was going to happen. But the reality is that those two things can be miraculously switched and transformed, dropping reverse T3 and dramatically increasing T3 as long as you handle the post diet phase appropriately. So again, get some lab work done, take a look at how they're feeling. understand that hypothyroidism or anything under like a 2.0, sometimes 2.2 depending on what lab structure you're looking at, you know, that's going to have a lot of negative outcomes with regards to like fatigue, your mood, muscle loss, strength loss, power output, all those kind of things. We want to get them back to optimal as fast as possible, right? And then downstream from those, if you happen to suspect that an individual may have Hashimoto's hypothyroiditis, which Calvin alluded to earlier, it is a gut problem first. It's not a thyroid issue first, it's a gut problem first. You fix the gut and kind of close up those openings and the toxins can't even bloodstream, you can tremendously lower TPOAB and TGAB, Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: which downstream the whole panel is TSH, T4, T3, reverse T3, thyroid paroxidase antibodies, TPOABs, I thyroid glibulone antibodies, TGABs. In an ideal setting, we want reverse T3. under a 10, somewhere in there, you know, from a, from an optimized thyroid perspective, I like to get women at least back up to three, but most of Brooke Masters: Yeah, for sure. william grazione: the women that I work with, they're somewhere in the range of like a 2.0 to a 2.3 maybe. then usually they come with that am I weight loss resistance? I'm tired of teagull time. I don't really have the energy to do this. I've been on this diet for a long period of time. I'm like, so you're scared to eat. They're like, my God, yes, because I haven't had them in so long. what we also have to understand is that we need the carbohydrates to be able to send the signaling to produce more T3, right? Because as leptin concentrations, so leptin is a kind of a master hormone of our metabolism that sends positive and negative signaling throughout the cardiology. If we can optimize those positives by feeding the body more and dramatically dropping that stress, we're to be able to send more signal to optimize. that T3 conversion. Inside of T4 to T3 conversion, you're also gonna have various items and minerals, selenium, iodine, zinc, those things are very important for that conversion. But a lot of people that are chronic dieters, they may be deficient in all of them, right? So therefore, what can we do from a coaching perspective to try to optimize that system to make sure that we're not just telling you to trust the process, you need to reverse diet. And then when you reverse diet, you gain 20 pounds of fat that you don't wanna have to gain in the first place. What can we actually do to keep them lean, keep them insulin sensitive, but kind of optimize their metabolism? Now it's important to understand this because I'm not saying this for physique athletes. cannot keep a physique athlete's stage lean, you know, forever, especially a natural one. Like she needs to live 15, 20 pounds probably above that stage weight to even be able to get the hormones to pulse again. But who I'm referring to is the woman that's 40 to 55. She might already be 30 pounds, maybe a little bit more over, you know, over the weight that she wants to be at. We're not trying to reverse diet them because more than likely they're already insulin resistant. They've already got some inflammatory responses that are keeping the inflammation up. They're probably under a lot of chronic stress, probably dealing with gastrointestinal issues and probably most importantly, they don't feel well. So what can we do to actually Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: get them to feel good again? And it happens to be taking a look on the inside before we just go throwing a bunch of macro. descriptions at them and really trying to figure out what's happening. Now we don't have to overwhelm them with this information. Like this information I'm telling you this because I'm talking to coaches but when I'm talking to a client I am I'm not trying to stress you out about the information. I'm not Brooke Masters: Yeah. william grazione: trying to send you to go get all this different testing done and freak you out and having checking your blood sugar every day and all that kind of thing. What I am doing though is I'm trying my best on the back end to kind of articulate what's happened, why it's happened. and then what we can do to fix it. And then throughout the process of kind of hand holding them, I'm supporting them in basically achieving every win along the way. So it's like, look, we did XYZ. You're feeling better already in the first four weeks. Amazing. Like, yeah, I feel great. haven't felt this good in forever. Awesome. Now let's go ahead let's experiment with a fat loss phase to see if your body is actually responsive, knowing that all we did was fix these things. Most of the time, the body will actually quite responsive and I say, look, we just dropped five pounds. So like, wow, I didn't, I've been trying to do this, but it hasn't been working out. And then we dropped another five. And that's the reason why I like to do five pound chunks is because every time we lose five pounds, can celebrate them. I can celebrate the fact that at one point in their life, they felt like they were completely stuck and now they're actually seeing progress again. So then that makes them kind of rethink the entire way that they were doing before. So. Brooke Masters: Yeah. It's almost providing just the evidence and showing them, hey, this is what we found. And like I like that. I like, you know, what you said because and your whole concept of the educated dieter. It is something that I feel when I was going through it. I just wanted someone to explain to me. It's why I went through the rabbit Calvin Masters: Yeah. Brooke Masters: holes and why I work with women in perimenopause now because I've been through all the rabbit holes. Like I've I've dove deep. I went there and it's a lot of information, but understanding that every individual is different. And everybody's hormones, yes, progesterone drops, testosterone drops, estrogen does this for a little bit and calms down. So I like to kind of explain to women based on their labs, hey, this is what's happening. This is why you're feeling this. So I find that the labs when I'm working with clients is just this is what this does. So this is probably why you're feeling like this. And it almost, william grazione: Correct. Brooke Masters: for me at least, now I feel a little validated. Now I understand william grazione: Correct. Brooke Masters: what it's going on, and we do know. Okay, do I need to start focusing on gut health? Do I need to start like I find a lot of my women are coming at me with all the protein bars and all the protein chips and all the protein whatever? But william grazione: Yeah. Brooke Masters: now you have a gut issue because you're taking all this garbage in. So understanding, yes, we want more protein, but hey, let's do it this way. So it's william grazione: Yeah, and there's also sometimes, you you got to back off as much protein. I Brooke Masters: Yes. william grazione: mean, there's plenty of times I've had, because you know, mean, constipation is not something new. mean, people have been dealing with this forever. I just think now we actually have the tools to be able to fix it. We're thinking outside the box. But a fair amount of the ladies, you know, they're like, I've listened to all the hairy menopause experts and they listen up. Everybody says high protein. And usually the funny thing is, like, well, when they hire me, like, I know I need to be eating high protein. I'm like, define what that even means first, you know, because if... Wow. So it's Calvin Masters: Yeah. Brooke Masters: I had someone doing twelve hundred and fifty grams and she was only five two. I'm like william grazione: like, if... Well, okay, let's just say, for instance, if you have Brooke Masters: Mm-hmm. william grazione: a woman, right, that's going to the bathroom two to three times a week, you know, having them eat 150 to 200 grams of protein a day, I mean, that's just, in my opinion, ridiculous, because those proteins, knowing that more than likely they have compromised... stomach acid because they've been dieting for a very long period of time, they're probably not breaking those proteins down as well as they thought that they were. And therefore now they have constipation due to it or because the fact that the metabolism is just so bogged down that they're not detoxifying appropriately, which is another thing that happens when you're not going to the bathroom appropriately, right? Brooke Masters: Yes. william grazione: You start to develop this almost like this almost like a toxicity of like things that can't escape. So this is kind of where estrogen dominance can come from and stuff like that. But I will back protein down to like 70, 80, 90, 100 grams. And they're like, why are you, I'm on. What are you doing? Brooke Masters: It's witchery. william grazione: I don't say this very often when it's like, I'm reducing your protein intake and Calvin Masters: Okay. Yeah. william grazione: I'm going with more easily digestible proteins in the beginning because you're not going to the bathroom every day. If we can just get you to go to the bathroom every day, we're going to solve a lot of these problems. then I'll also, you know, I'll increase like fruits and veggies and carbohydrates and, you know, healthy fats, like coconut oil, avocado oil, avocados in general, whole eggs, salmon, like I'll add a lot of that stuff in just so we can get the balance kind of. And once we get in one of the baths, we're like, my gosh, I must have to the bathroom consistently in like five or 10 years. Like, well, now we can solve that problem, right? So that's Calvin Masters: Yeah. william grazione: one instance where I will start on a lower protein intake. And then as we know that they're going to the bathroom every day, we're going to start to crank that protein intake up, especially as I get a little bit older, maybe like 50, 55, and start to get a little bit like anabolic resistance, right? Then we can try to work them up 120, 130, 140 and so on. And C, How high can we get them until their digestion starts to slow down a bit, right? And I think Brooke Masters: You start to see it again. Yeah. william grazione: that's just an outside the box way of thinking when we're talking about a gastrointestinal case, but that's one of the first things I do outside of just adding in more like oily fats and stuff. Brooke Masters: For sure, for sure. william grazione: work all the time anti-inflammatory. Brooke Masters: Yeah. Calvin, you got something you look like you're deep in thought. Calvin Masters: I I am. I mine my computer keeps cutting out. And so Brooke Masters: Okay. Calvin Masters: I missed some of it. But I'm trying to catch up. Yeah. But I know it's I'm william grazione: Well, you still look jacked, though. That's all that matters. Calvin Masters: I I can do that here. You know, so william grazione: You Calvin Masters: but I'm getting I'm getting most of it. But but definitely I agree. Like even I had just recently learned about that FGF twenty-one fruit cleanse and and I actually ran it with a few people. but I think that's something too, like when you have somebody that's been going high protein for a while. I think even just to take a week and just kinda go in and have do the fruit, pull the fats and the protein, get inflammation down can go a really long way. Just blast them with fiber, and that aspect. But I've I have found that dropping the protein down, even with athletes, before stage time, even in peak week, as we're loading, you know, carbs up and bringing it down almost as low as one william grazione: there, makes sense. Calvin Masters: gram per lean body mass, which you don't see a lot of coaches doing that, but that just drops inflammation. you know, and just really has a different outcome on show day because they don't really need that protein leading up into the show. They built the muscle they're not trying to build. So I use that, you know, to do it. But it it applies in so many different scenarios and it helps them to go to the bathroom, you know, because now I have them to process the hard foods. william grazione: Yeah, it could also be the stress factor of th