Dr. Stacy Sims: The Protein Standard for Women Was Never Based on Women | #164

**Stacy Sims** (0:00)
Over 50% of the women said that weight was their biggest concern. That is where we're going wrong, where we're focusing on weight, weight loss.

**Vonda Wright** (0:07)
I read Roar, your first really big book. I'm like, holy shit, Stacy says.

**Stacy Sims** (0:13)
You must lift.

**Vonda Wright** (0:14)
The world's expert in exercise physiology, women's health, nutrition.

**Stacy Sims** (0:18)
It's not about weight loss.

**Vonda Wright** (0:20)
It isn't.

**Stacy Sims** (0:20)
It isn't. It's about how are we building strength and capacity so that we have functional brain, we have functional bone, we have cardiovascular health, better metabolic health, it comes from being muscle centric.

**Vonda Wright** (0:30)
I've trained my algorithm on my own social media to only show me strong women. And then I saw the Oscars this year. I was so sad because I want GI. Jane. I want Sigourney Weaver in The Alien.

**Stacy Sims** (0:44)
And Linda Hamilton in The Terminator.

**Vonda Wright** (0:47)
Yes. That's what I want.

**Stacy Sims** (0:49)
I am so tired of the way society makes women feel inferior if they aren't very small and petite and fit into this little box. And I want every woman who exercises on purpose to know that she's an athlete, because athletes have a plan and they fuel for what they were doing. You as a woman, as a human being, have the right to do these things for yourself. If you are a better person for you, then you're a better person for everyone around you.

**Vonda Wright** (1:18)
Okay, my friends, you don't know this, but Dr. Stacy Sims and I have already been talking off screen for more than a half an hour because not only is she a world's expert in exercise physiology, women's health, nutrition, an amazing speaker who was just on stage leading a show we were both in, but she's a friend. And we are frequently in the same place and really believe in a lot of the same things. And Dr. Sims, Stacy, I don't know if you know this, she profoundly influenced my life because when I first read Roar, I had written books that were all about functional fitness and fitness after 40, but had not demanded a return to what I did in high school, which was slogging power lifting around. When I was 18, I was in that weight room with the football boys because I was trying to earn some squat shirt. If I squatted 200 pounds, I got a shirt that said it. I was the only woman in that room. And I'm like, I'm getting the friggin shirt.
And then I read Roar, your first really big book. And I'm like, holy shit, Stacy says.

**Stacy Sims** (2:31)
You must lift.

**Vonda Wright** (2:32)
I must lift heavy. And so it really changed my life. But I want to know, because people who are listening now will know of you because I talk about you and you're everywhere. What drives you, my friend? Why have you just spent the last six weeks in the US? Why are you here? Why are you working night and day to change the world for women? What is it?

**Stacy Sims** (2:57)
I think there are two big things. One of the drivers is I am so tired of the way society makes women feel inferior if they aren't very small and petite and fit into this little box.
It makes me mad because we are more than that. We are more than what a weight is on the scale. We are more than what we look like in clothes.
I feel like that's being projected. Now that we see this microdosing and misuse of the GLP-1, it's coming back. That just makes me so incensed because that is not how we want to navigate through life.
The other big passion is my daughter and all of her friends, and all of her friends' friends, and all the other girls that are coming up, so that they don't have to navigate in a society like we've had to navigate, where you don't talk about your period, and you are training only to look a certain way, instead of to look for health and to be powerful. And those are the drivers. And when I talk about being muscle-centric, like all of us do, it's really pushing back on all of society that's trying to make women be a certain way. When we talk about lifting heavy, I'm not about building the big muscles. I'm about, let's look at how it affects the neurons in the prefrontal cortex. Because we know about the sex difference in aging and how women get cognitive decline and Alzheimer's. One of the major contending factors that you can do from a young age onward to help prevent that is lifting and lifting with purpose. So that's why I'm so passionate about trying to get women to understand. It's not about the running and the cardio and eating less and trying to fit into this certain dress. It's about, let's be muscle centric, because it's so important across all aspects of life. Bring confidence, to bring character, to bring strength in everything that we do, and to help with health span.