Women Are Not Small Men | Dr Stacy Sims

Michael Gervais (0:00)

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous Fiber Plus. Here's a stat that surprised me when I first came across it. Nearly 95% of us are not getting enough fiber. And the thing is, most people think that they are. That used to be me. I eat well, I'm intentional about whole foods, and I still wasn't hitting it consistently. And fiber matters. It's one of those quiet, unglamorous fundamentals that shapes how the rest of your system runs. Your gut, your energy, how well you absorb, everything else you're putting in. So when Jeff Byers and the team at Momentus reached out about Fiber Plus, I paid attention. I've been using their products for years. And the reason I keep coming back to them, it's pretty simple. They don't chase trends. They go deep on the fundamentals and they build it to a high standard. And the same holds true for Fiber Plus. It's clean, no artificial flavors, no unnecessary additives. The cinnamon flavor uses real cinnamon bark powder and it tastes great. And I don't usually say that about fiber supplements. I mean, they built this thing right. Like everything they make, Fiber Plus is NSF certified for sport, which is why it's trusted by over 200 professional teams and athletes. That's the momentous standard. And that's why it's been part of my routine. If you want to upgrade one of the most overlooked foundations of your health, head to livemomentous.com/findingmastery and use the code findingmastery for up to 35% off your first order. Again, that's livemomentous.com/findingmastery.

The code is findingmastery for up to 35% off.

Stacy Sims (1:25)

When someone first starts yelling at you for the rage, that right there is the physiology. It's not the person. I think that's one of the things that really confuses marriages and partnerships when women are going through perimenopause. We see a high uptick of divorce rates in this age group. It's because there's this disconnect where the men are saying, wait, this isn't the person that I knew what's wrong, and the woman is just so frustrated because doesn't understand what's going on because every system and body is affected by this change in hormones.

Michael Gervais (1:55)

What has been the cost of women by relying on research that was not designed around female physiology?

Stacy Sims (2:00)

So many times I've been told, why do you want to study women? We don't know enough about men. Or, oh yeah, we study women and then you look and all the results are included with men's and they're not teased out. One of the biggest ways that we can attenuate or slow the rate of those risk factors that start in perimenopause is.

Michael Gervais (2:16)

Welcome back. We're welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. A high-performance psychologist named Michael Gervais, who head coach Mike McDonald and former head coach Pete Carroll brought in to work with the Seahawks. Famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos Project.

SPEAKER_3 (2:37)

Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent.

Stacy Sims (2:40)

They have to stay mentally tough.

Michael Gervais (2:43)

Today's guest is the brilliant Dr. Stacy Sims, exercise physiologist, nutrition scientist, and best-selling author of Roar. She also authored Next Level. Through her research over the past two decades, Stacy has become one of the leading voices reshaping how we understand women's health and performance with a very clear message that has become synonymous with her work.

Women are not small men.

Stacy Sims (3:07)

You can't study women, they're too complex. They have a menstrual cycle and that skews the results. The publication rate for women is lower than men. Funding for women's research in health and biomedical sciences is just a very small percentage of the total funding that's available. So we're still a huge uphill battle to close the gender gap.

Michael Gervais (3:27)

This conversation is not for just the women in our community. If you know a woman and you love a woman or you have a daughter or whatever, this is for you. With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with Dr. Stacy Sims. Stacy, one of the most favorite insights that you've shared, and there's lots that you have, is that, and I wrote it down, make sure I get it right, women are not small men.

Stacy Sims (3:55)

Yeah.

Michael Gervais (3:56)

So can we just start with where that came from and what that means to you?

Stacy Sims (4:00)

Yeah, so that was a tagline that wasn't really a tagline when I started using it. When I was at Stanford doing my postdoc, I also picked up some teaching, and it was training principles and practices, and we're talking about all the systems, and it was in the afternoon, and I would wake up the kids, or I shouldn't say kids, the young adults, the undergrads with, women are not small men. Why? Because this is a difference in the cardiovascular system, and it would be how I would open it. So people started calling it the women are not small men class.