BONUS: Think You’re Getting Enough Protein? – The Shocking Truth About Amino Acids & Aging with Angelo Keely

Team Cynthia
Aug 24, 2025
44 min read

We have another episode in our series of sponsored podcasts today, with brands I like, know, and trust.

I am delighted to reconnect with Angelo Keely, the founder and CEO of Kion, a supplement company that focuses on helping people look good, feel young, and be strong.

In our discussion today, Angelo explains essential aminos, highlighting their importance and clarifying how to differentiate between various protein powders and other forms of protein. We explore the significance of bioavailability, anabolic resistance, and changes in body composition, discussing how protein needs increase with age and how dieting and caloric restriction can augment our protein requirements. We also cover the results of intermittent fasting, examining how sleep, stress, and lifestyle requirements can change with menopause.

I regularly take Kion essential amino acids. They have generously offered a discount for our community. Use this link to get 20% off your next Kion purchase.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

The importance of eating sufficient protein as you age
How various protein sources, such as animal protein, plant protein, whey protein, and essential amino acids, differ
Strategies to buffer your protein intake and support your body as you navigate middle age and beyond
Why Leucine is vital for muscle protein synthesis
Why you should only source your amino acid supplements from trusted brands that follow the science
How much protein do you need to maintain your body composition as you age?
Why sleep is crucial for muscle protein synthesis
How supplementing with essential amino acids helps you maintain your muscle mass throughout your life
The benefits of body scans for a better understanding of your body composition

“As you get older, you should eat more and more protein.”

– Angelo Keely

Connect with Cynthia Thurlow

Follow on Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn
Check out Cynthia’s website
Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com

Connect with Angelo Keely

Transcript:

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:01] Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.

[00:00:29] Today, I had the honor of reconnecting with Angelo Keeley. He's the Co-founder and CEO of Kion, a supplement company focused on helping people look good, feel young and be strong. This is a one in a series of carefully curated sponsored podcasts with brands that I like, know and trust.

[00:00:53] Today, Angelo gave us essential aminos one on one, providing a refresher of what essential aminos are and why they're so important, helping to differentiate between protein powders like whey as well as other forms of protein, why bioavailability is the key differentiator, the significance of leucine, what anabolic resistance is, why our protein needs increase as we get older, the way to impact changing body composition, how dieting and caloric restriction can actually augment our protein needs, the impact of intermittent fasting and last but not least, the impact of menopause, sleep, stress and other lifestyle needs.

[00:01:39] Today is a truly invaluable conversation. I personally take Kion essential amino acids almost daily and they have offered a generous discount. You go to getkion.com/cynthia to get 20% off. Again, get Kion K I-O-N dotcom slash Cynthia to get 20% off. I personally like the essential amino capsules and my kids really like the powders.

[00:02:12] Angelo, such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Thanks again for coming back to connect with my community.

Angelo Keely: [00:02:17] Cynthia thanks for having me back. I love having these types of in depth, thoughtful conversations with you.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:02:23] Yeah, I think it would be helpful to have a refresher about what essential amino acids are and why they're so important, especially for those of us that are navigating, north of 35, north of 40, when we know that our protein needs actually increase as we get older.

Angelo Keely: [00:02:41] So, I think the simplest way of describing essential amino acids is naming them as the active component of protein. When we consume any type of protein source, whether that's from animals or plants, it's made up of 20amino acids. Nine of them are the essential ones. And in the name essential it literally just means that like you have to get them from your food. There is essential fatty acids as well. If you don't get them from food, your body can't synthesize or make them on their own, whereas your body can actually make the other amino acids. But the bigger point that I think so often gets overlooked around essential amino acids is they're the actual active component of the protein.

[00:03:18] They're not just like a building block, but they actually communicate to the body to stimulate this thing called protein synthesis, which is the rebuilding of skin, hair, nails, muscle, organs, etc. And the reason that happens is because the more you get of these essential amino acids in your blood at one time, meaning like a peak concentration, you can think about it like, if you're pouring maybe some food dye, like a green food dye into water, if you put just like one drop in, it gets like kind of green. If you put a bunch in, then it gets very green.

[00:03:52] Well, when you pour a lot of these essential amino acids into your body and they can get into your blood very quickly, it communicates to the body like, wow, I'm safe to be able to rebuild all these proteins in my body. That said, I wonder if almost taking a step back and just talking about protein might be helpful.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:04:09] Yeah, absolutely. Because this is a topic, I mean, it is an important topic that we have regularly. But I think for a lot of people, when I'm looking at macro intake over the course of a week, when I'm looking at patients, more often than not, most female patients are chronically undereating protein and they don't even realize it.

Angelo Keely: [00:04:28] So, oftentimes, and I know probably your patients are hearing this and other people, you're on Instagram and you're following content and it's always like, protein, protein, you got to eat this protein. I think if we take a step back and just ask why, like, why is it that this protein is so important? And the highlight here is that it is a fundamentally different macronutrient from carbohydrates and fat. The primary role of carbohydrates and fat in our diet is energy. When you consume carbohydrates, they get converted into ATP, which is like the energy source within our body, basically the energy currency of our body. And you use it to beat your heart, to breathe, etc. it's literally an energy source. I oftentimes like to use this analogy of a house.

[00:05:10] You think about your house, if you want to power your dishwasher, your lights, your hair dryer, your washing machine, all of these things, your TV, you need energy. So, you get that energy from the grid, maybe you buy it from the energy company or you have solar panels. If your power goes out, you could use a generator. And there's even different types of energy sources. Maybe you have a gas stove, and so you get natural gas in or natural gas furnace. That's kind of like carbohydrates and fat for our body with these different types of energy sources and they help fuel our body in that way. Well, protein, a very small proportion of it, single digits in terms of percentages. You know, like 8% of the protein you eat is going to get used as energy.

[00:05:51] The rest is to actually build the house that is your body. So just like our houses are made of sheetrock and wood and ceramic tiles and all these things. Well, all of those materials are made up of even smaller materials, right? Like just little grains of sand that go into the sheetrock, or little tiny pieces of wood that make up a wood plank. Similarly, in our body all of our vital organs, our hair, our nails, our skin. But even things that don't seem super physical, but they are enzymes, hormones, literally estrogen in your body is made up of proteins, these physical proteins and the way that our bodies work are very similar to our houses, actually, where materials that make up our house don't last forever, right?

[00:06:39] Some actually maybe last even less long. Let's say a paper towel is a physical material we use in our house. You use it once and you throw it away. Whereas maybe the wood that's in your kitchen, it's lasts for a longer period of time, but at some point, in time it wears out. You have to update your kitchen or you have to remodel or you have to fix a door that breaks. Similarly, in our body, the proteins that make up our hormones, our skin, etc., they're all deteriorating to some degree. And so, muscle in your body, about 2% of all the muscle in your body, all the proteins in your body get turned over every day. Whereas parts of proteins that are associated with your liver, it's way higher. It's like 30% of them. You have to get replaced every single day.

[00:07:23] So, what's actually going on inside of our body? And the simplest way I like to think about is maybe just look at my skin. If I look at my skin, it's hard to imagine, but it's made up of these millions of proteins. And some of them right now in this moment are not as functional as they used to be. And so, they're breaking down. They're actually deteriorating right now, when it breaks apart, this little tiny microscopic protein, it breaks into what I talked about earlier, these 20 amino acids. There's these 20 amino acids that actually make it up. And some of them can be reused to build a new skin protein. And some are old, some you're actually just going to pee out as urea. Some can get reused.

[00:08:02] And again, maybe going back to the analogy of the house, let's say you're remodeling your bathroom and it's like, “Hey, actually, this ceramic tile and the backsplash is cool. We can actually keep that. But the floor we got to get rid of it.” So, it's going to get-- gotten rid of. Similarly, that's what happens in our body. Some of these amino acids get reused to rebuild that protein. But so, then what happens is, well, I have to get new flooring for my bathroom. I can't just have nothing there. Similarly, I have to get new amino acids to help rebuild this skin protein. That is why we eat protein. When you eat that chicken breast, you digest it, you break it down, and those proteins that are in the chicken breast get broken down into these amino acids.

[00:08:39] They go into the blood. And the essential amino acids specifically tell your body, “Hey, let's go find.” It's not exactly let's go find, but it communicates to the skin, literally, “Hey, if there's older proteins that aren't as good, let's rebuild them. Let's break down the old ones and let's replace them with new ones.” And so, when we talk about needing to eat enough protein, we're not just talking, like, enough protein so that you have energy to get through the day. No, we're talking enough protein so that your skin can be rebuilt, your heart can be rebuilt, your muscles can be more functional, and maybe you can develop more muscle, and maybe you can replace some of that fat with lean muscle. So, it's this key building material, and the essential amino acids are these key workers.

[00:09:22] They're actually like the construction men or women inside your body that are helping to rebuild all of these parts of your body.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:09:30] And when did you get so interested in discussions around these building blocks of protein? Because I feel like if I reflect on maybe the last 5 to 10 years, it's certainly become part of the normal discussion, work of Dr. Don Layman, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, your certainly kind of talking about the value, the importance, the prioritization of protein. But when did you get so interested in essential aminos in particular.

Angelo Keely: [00:10:00] I was about three years old. [Cynthia laughs] I'm not kidding. So, my parents were very into natural health. They had a natural health food store, natural health food restaurant. I was born at home, I'm 41 so I was-- [crosstalk]

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:10:12] You're like ahead of the curve, way ahead of the curve.

Angelo Keely: [00:10:14] Yeah. At that point it was just weird and eccentric. But yeah, I was born at home. I wasn't given over-the-counter medicines. It was just a very hippie, natural food supplement type lifestyle as a child. And my parents chose to be pescatarians. And so, we ate fish, but not all the time. And they were very cognizant though of what complete proteins were and getting enough of it in our diet. So, from a very young age we talked about like, they talk, my mom talking to me like, “Angie, this is why we would have beans and rice, or this is why you have quinoa and lentils together. You need to eat them together.

[00:10:50] Like in the same way maybe another parent might tell their child, “Hey, you really need to eat that chicken or you need to eat the meat on your hamburger.” My parents would tell me, “You need to make sure you combine these proteins.” And my mom was very into exercise. And because of that, there's an increased need for protein and an increased need for essential amino acids. And she would take these essential amino acids and she would give them to me. And like, as a very young child I remember-- I'd go to the gym with her every single day and when she'd take them, I would take them as well. And so, I got introduced to it from a very young age.

[00:11:23] And then I know fast forward 30 years and went through a lot of different phases of life and exploration with fitness and health and nutrition. And it sustained as this thing that I personally found value around protein nutrition and specifically essential amino acid nutrition. And that corresponded with really significant research in the field. So, the people you named are kind of like the famous people talking about protein. The people that are doing the research, Dr. Robert Wolf, Dr. Arny Ferrando, newer people like Dr. David Church, Dr. Katie Hirsch, like, these people have been doing a lot of research over the last 20, 30 years specifically on amino acid nutrition, protein nutrition.

[00:12:05] And it's basically been uncovered these things that I'm describing, like how distinct the role of essential amino acids are, why and how certain sources of protein are very different and how supplementation can play this very distinct role. And so, I got brought up in a family that was into it, and then it simply has proven out in the research of the last 20 years that essential amino acid nutrition is one of the most important keys for maintaining muscle as we age and also specifically maintaining muscle in any type of caloric deficit. So, if you're trying to lose fat and maintain muscle like this key of essential amino acids is really going to be, I would say, more important than any other supplement that you're going to try to explore for those specific cases. And that doesn't mean like more than maybe a drug or some other really impactful type thing you might take. But yeah, so I guess personal exposure and this is what the science turned into.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:12:56] Well, this is what I find so interesting because clearly, it's something you're incredibly passionate about. And it's not a cursory interest. It's been a lifelong interest. How does taking essential aminos differ from a whey protein shake or a pea protein shake or a protein bar or a piece of chicken? I know those are not all equivalent, but for the purpose of listeners to understand there's a bioavailability piece, but protein is not all considered to be equal.

[00:13:29] And so, I think that in our harried lifestyles where many people, I mean, so many of my patients will tell me I'm eating on the go all the time, I can't sit down and have a piece of steak and broccoli and some rice because I'm in the car or I'm on calls or I'm constantly working. So, trying to help patients from a very realistic perspective, figure out how they can fit in whole food sources plus supplementation to be able to meet their needs.

Angelo Keely: [00:13:56] That's a great question. And I think it depends based off of your age, your gender potentially at certain stages of life, how much you're exercising, if you're trying to lose fat, if you're trying to gain muscle, etc. And I think I can speak to all those in a relatively simple manner. What I just want to start with saying is I think that whole foods and eating really quality whole foods should be just like the foundation of a healthy diet. I think that there's so many different types of micronutrients in addition to these macronutrients and these super macronutrients, like a protein or the essential amino acids inside of them that you want to be able to get.

[00:14:33] And rather than trying to just get it all from supplements, I think you start with whole food meals and then you try to fill in the edges. And what I would say is something like essential amino acids. Again, just want to start with saying it's going to be really good if you're trying to lose fat but maintain muscle. If you are aging and really after the age of 30, but it progresses every decade after that you want to maintain muscle, it's going to be much more impactful than protein or supplementing with. And the last one would be around kind of physical performance. And that can be any age that could actually be a 20-year-old athlete. Like if you're a 20-year-old athlete or you're 20-year-old and you're already pretty fit but you're not trying to compete for something, focus on eating three really awesome meals per day.

[00:15:12] But if you really want to get that extra edge, then amino acids can play a distinct role. So, comparing these protein sources or these amino acid sources, how do they fit together? What I would say is that there's a few things you want to look for. You want to look for the amount of protein that is in the food relative to the total amount of food you have to eat. And that's both from a caloric standpoint, but also just like appetite. And so, you want to look for foods that are very dense in the protein and those are honestly kind of like the traditional things you think of. Like it's the reason why bodybuilders eat egg whites. Like they're very dense in protein and essential amino acids and not as much other things.

[00:15:47] That said, the egg yolks are really good too. They have a lot of other good micronutrients in them, but eggs are very dense, lean chicken, fish, etc. Plants typically are simply not as dense in the proteins. They tend to have lots of carbohydrates and other things in them. But that could also be true for animal sources. Like if you eat a really fatty piece of meat getting or bacon, right. It's like got a lot of fat combined with the protein. But the second aspect then too is of that protein, how much of it is essential amino acids.

[00:16:20] So, when you look at something like beef or whey protein powder, but a whey protein powder I would say is it's a supplement, about 45% of it is essential amino acids, which is actually pretty high compared to some plant proteins, they're like 10 to 20%. So, a lot more dense. And then the question is, well, how digestible is it? Also like, is it dense in protein, is it dense in the essential amino acids and can your body, with your enzymes, can you digest those proteins and get the essential amino acids out of it? And again, animal proteins tend to win out.

[00:16:49] And so what I would say is across the board, if you're trying to eat whole foods, and that's really your main focus, animal proteins are going to be much more digestible and dense and high in those essential amino acids in a way that's impactful. That gets them into your blood and stimulates this protein synthesis. You can do it with plants only if you want to. You just need to be more thoughtful. I was describing earlier, combining different types of plant proteins and thinking about the total caloric intake and if you're already having a hard time getting 120 g of protein in per day, adding a plant only restriction to it is going to make it just that much harder. So, with all that kind of said, let's just say like a beef protein is a very high-quality protein source.

[00:17:30] And again, I want to emphasize the importance of eating whole foods, but this is, I think it's going to maybe shock people. So, research and this is not disputed research, like the International Society of Sports Nutrition put out a whole position paper on essential amino acid research a couple years ago. There's a big article in Nutrients that summarized all this by David Church was the lead author on that one. That basically 30 g of beef protein and that's approximately like a six-ounce steak, that's about how much protein is in it, will stimulate more protein synthesis in your body than over twice that amount, 70 g, like about a 12-ounce steak.

[00:18:09] If you eat that smaller steak on its own, if you eat the bigger steak, but you mix it with broccoli and potatoes and eat this whole, good, whole balanced meal, it actually stimulates less protein synthesis than the smaller portion of meat eaten on its own. Why is that? That is because again, going back to it, the speed at which these essential amino acids are digested and they get into your blood and you have a peak concentration of them is directly what stimulates the new protein synthesis. It's what tells your body and it makes sense if you think about it like your body's just trying to keep going and living. And maybe you have some skin proteins that are like they're on the edge of being too old and they need to be replaced.

[00:18:51] But if you don't have the nutrients in your body to help rebuild them, you're not going to start breaking them down. But if suddenly you get this big- your body can detect there's this big concentration of these essential amino acids in your blood. It's going to say, “Oh, it's safe. Great. Let's break down the old proteins and rebuild them.” So, I think it intuitively makes sense in that way, but that's like, “Wow, okay, if just a smaller portion of beef actually does more than the bigger portion but if I eat it on its own.” And the reason why I say the whole food and eating meal thing is because I don't want to encourage people to start being orthorexic, where you're dividing up all your meals and making this whole complicated thing. But that is just the introduction to a whey protein powder.

[00:19:29] If you consume a whey protein powder, which is consistently shown to be the most impactful protein powder that you can take compared to other types of plant protein powders, again, it's because of how digestible it is. It's because of the essential amino acid profile, etc. Gram for gram. it will raise the essential amino acids in your blood three times as much as that beef. 20 g of whey protein powder, in the simplest terms, is three times the impact as 20 g of beef protein from a steak.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:20:02] That's incredible.

Angelo Keely: [00:20:03] Proteins are not equal. And the reason for that is because that protein powder it's even more, I'm going to say refined, but not refined, like, in a way, it's like in a bunch of fake stuff is put in it. It's basically the fats and the sugars have been stripped out, other parts of the milk protein have been stripped out, and you're just getting this isolated protein and your body's able to digest it more quickly. And thus, it has this greater impact.

[00:20:26] So, if you're over 40, really over 30, but at 40, it really hits this much more kind of, it picks up its pace in terms of your ability to stimulate new protein synthesis, rather than trying to sneak in a piece of beef jerky, in the middle of the day to get that extra protein, the whey protein powder, gram for gram, is going to be much more impactful, three times the impact.

Cynthia Thurlow: I think that really says quite a bit. And I typically, if patients are saying, I'm really struggling, this is where I'll say, maybe not as eloquently as you just did, but I think this is a good indication for whey protein as opposed to the 6 g of protein you get from that beef jerky, which is still a healthy thing, but it's not going to trigger. And that's the big thing, is that you have to eat enough protein to get that muscle protein synthesis triggered. And so that becomes the other piece. It's not to suggest that the beef jerky is unhealthy. That is not the point we are making. It's just as we get older, we need more stimulus to get that muscle protein piece stimulated. And so-- [crosstalk]

Angelo Keely: [00:21:30] That's exactly it.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:21:31] Yeah, I just wanted to interject that because I think for a lot of people, they listen and they feel like because they can't get in, let's just say 150 g of protein in a day, they're just like, “Oh, screw it, I'm just not going to worry about it.” But we're here to talk about there's ways and strategies to be able to buffer your protein intake to ensure you're supporting your body especially as we're navigating middle age and beyond.

Angelo Keely: [00:21:53] Exactly. And so that's a great segue or introduction to essential amino acids. So then why just take free form essential amino acids. And to specify what this would be is when you take a whey protein powder, again, they're basically taking the protein out of the milk and they're isolating it through cold filtration process. Essential amino acids, typically they can come from animal products, but like higher quality brands that you're going to be looking for, it's actually from a fermentation process with beet sugars, etc. And they ferment these essential amino acids. And then you can put the essential amino acids kind of in different formulas. You could put them in the exact same proportions as they are in whey protein or you could increase the leucine a little bit.

[00:22:35] You can make them kind of as you want, but when you're taking them, they're entirely essential amino acids. The whey protein is only 45% and the other 55% is the nonessential. These other amino acids that are again, not bad, but you actually don't need them to stimulate the protein synthesis. They actually increase protein synthesis 0%. They do not increase it at all. So, if you could get whey protein powder that was only essential amino acids, that'd be awesome. Well, there is such a thing that's called free form essential amino acids. This is for a young adult. So, say we're going back to people in their twenties. Essential amino acids, gram for gram will stimulate three times as much protein synthesis as that whey protein.

[00:23:21] So, you start to see this spectrum from a piece of meat as part of a meal, which is great because you're getting in micronutrients from the broccoli or from the salad or from whatever other foods that you're eating with it. If I eat steak just on its own, I don't get all those other micronutrients, but wow, it stimulates a lot more protein synthesis than the other did. Then you get to like a whey protein powder that's three times the impact as the beef. And then you get to essential amino acids and it's three times what that whey protein was. So, it's this hyper concentrated, super effective source of essential amino acids that gives you the benefits of protein. Why you're trying to eat the protein in this much easier format.

[00:24:03] Now that's for someone in their 20s, as you get older, so there's these studies and people may have heard of these claims where it's like, you know, EAAs can be six times the impact as whey protein. That's for people in their 60s, that's for women in their 60s. And that is something very distinct that is essential amino acids that have a very particular type of formula. It's when it's leucine enriched. So, you take a good solid essential amino acid formula, which ideally would be based on human skeletal muscle and then some. You could tweak the branched-chain amino acid some but basically you got to increase the leucine and increase these other two amino acids that go with it, the other branched chain and increase the lysine. That's the type of formula that's been shown to have this.

[00:24:47] The EAAs have six times the impact as the whey protein. Now why is that? Why is it suddenly as you get older there's more impact? Like how does that work? Well, what happens is as we get older, our sensitivity to the beef protein, to the whey protein diminishes. And it's a combination both of digestion, but it's less digestion and it's more this thing called anabolic resistance. When the essential amino acids go into our blood, they don't set off this alarm. They don't alert the body to replace the old proteins to the degree that they used to. And unfortunately, it's the same thing with resistance training. If you take the same person when they're 25 and they go and they do a workout in the gym, and then you have them do it when they're 55.

[00:25:32] When they're 55, they're literally not going to stimulate as much muscle protein turnover and new synthesis as they did when they were 25, because their body simply, it's not as receptive to that stimulus. It makes sense as we get older, right? Like, your body's not naturally wanting to be like the most awesome, badass athlete or like strong, vibrant, it's more like trying to survive, rest, etc., right? But that's also in a time when we used to die, when were like 50, right now we're living to 70, 80, 90 beyond. And if you want to stay physically fit and active and vibrant, you may have to look at strategies to help overcome that anabolic resistance. And this is where that the tweaks of the formula are so important.

[00:26:13] When you give an essential amino acid formula to these older adults and you give them that extra leucine, it suddenly makes it six times the impact as the whey protein. And it's not necessarily because it suddenly got way better. It's because the whey protein got not as effective for that audience. So, when you start thinking in those terms, like, wow. And what I would say is, if you think about it decade by decade, if you can take an essential amino acid supplement that is leucine enriched and has these types of clinically proven elements to it, I would say that when you're 40, it's about four times the impact as whey protein 50, about five times, 60 about six times, and it's like, every human's going to be different the amount of anabolic resistance you have. Like, we're not exactly the same, but, like, it's about that kind of threshold.

[00:27:02] So, as you get older, the essential amino acids become-- they go from in your 20s like, cool performance hack, to make me a little bit faster and stronger and recover better to in your 40s, wow, if I take this, like, it's hard to eat all this protein, I can take this and it helps me actually get-- I can take one scoop of Kion aminos and it's like 20 g of whey protein and it's easier. Whereas when you're 60, it's like, you don't have to take it, but it's the kind of thing like with my parents who are in their 70s, I'm like, you have to take it, like you take this every single day because it's the thing like you can't get what you need from whole food protein at that age. Like you're not going to be able to maintain and build muscle as you age. And again, hopefully that's an exposition or explanation of how protein amino acids work that isn't just this simple story of like it's better to this degree. It's a spectrum.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:27:53] Well, and I think it brings to mind several things. I think about my very athletic. I have one college lacrosse player. I have another one who does mixed martial arts. He's still in high school. And my youngest son actually got mono in January. And this is relevant to our conversation. And he had so much muscle that he had built very diligently lifting heavy, doing mixed martial arts. His nutrition is pristine because he's a little bit, I don't say this diagnostically, but he's a little obsessive about tracking macros. And so, he was really conscientious, gets mono, can't lift for, I'm not kidding, four months because every time he would start going back to gym, it would cycle up again.

[00:28:34] Thankfully, we've a wonderful, wonderful physician who was on top of it and we did a bunch of peptides, a bunch of other things to heal him. And he's now back in the gym. And the thing that he did consistently for that five months when he really didn't have enough energy to lift heavy in the way that he did before, he would get his protein needs met, but he was doing essential aminos every single day without question. Like he used your Kion product. I love being really transparent and saying like he used it every single day. He would be the first person to say that. He thinks that's what allowed him not to lose as much muscle mass as would happen if he were an older individual. But if you were to look at him, you would be surprised to know that he had mono and felt so poorly for such a long period of time because it allowed him to maintain a great deal of the muscle that he had built without losing it all.

[00:29:28] And then the other piece of it is, for those of us that are navigating perimenopause and menopause, we tend to struggle more with maintaining and building muscle as we are losing estrogen, because estrogen is anabolic hormone. Estrogen is also intricately involved in muscle satellite cells. And so, I talk about this a lot on the podcast to help people understand, like estrogen is a helper for maintaining and building muscle. So, if you're not eating enough protein or you're not consuming essential aminos and you're not lifting weights, it is a very slippery slope navigating sarcopenia, which is this muscle loss with aging.

[00:30:07] And I think a lot of what we're speaking to is avoiding that loss of muscle mass, leading to frailty, leading to falls. And I think that your parents, if they're way ahead of the curve, and it sounds like their entire life they've been very focused on nutrition, are probably much healthier than a lot of their peers. That's why these conversations, I think, are so important for just building awareness around what are the things we can do proactively to maintain our health as we are getting older.

[00:30:40] Now, you touched on leucine. What is it about leucine that is so intricately related and important for this muscle protein synthesis, because this is a differentiator between your product and other products on the market as well.

Angelo Keely: [00:30:49] First of all, I just want to say I'm sorry to hear about your son, and I'm so grateful to hear that he did have the exposure to essential amino acids and the impact they can have. And I would just say that personal story has been validated by studies for NASA. And I can't remember if we discussed this last time I was on the show, but in the mid-2000s, NASA was trying to figure out how to help prevent muscle loss with astronauts. Sponsored these studies with the University of Texas Medical Branch. And they actually did studies on young adults in their 20s on complete bed rest for 28 days. So could not move out of bed for 28 days given three meals per day, but then given these essential amino acids. I can't remember now if it was two or three times per day and in slightly higher doses, 10 to 15 g.

[00:31:29] And after 28 days, the participants had zero muscle loss. And many people think that can't be, you know, it's like you have to weight train, you have to be moving around. No, essential amino acids are so powerful. I'm telling you, especially-- and if you take 2, 3 servings at a time a couple times per day, if you have bed rest, if you have an injury, if you have an illness of some kind of course, if you have something like mono, check with your doctor to make sure there's no contraindications with the supplement. But you literally can lose no muscle.

[00:31:58] It's possible to lose zero muscle on bed rest for 28 days, which is just kind of shocking. I think what I again would say, though, in those cases where it's under stress or any type of stress, and that could be from aging, from caloric restriction, etc., it's got to be leucine enriched. And I'll maybe just trace the history of amino acid research. So, about 40, 50 years ago, there became a lot more interest in trying to understand how protein worked specifically and which amino acids were most important. And what was initially discovered was, well, it seems like these branched-chain amino acids, which are leucine, isoleucine and valine--

[00:32:39] The story I was telling earlier about like the essential amino acids. They're the active ones. It was like, “Mm I think it's maybe just these three. These are the three that do all the work. And maybe we don't even need to eat protein. Maybe we just need to eat these three. And, and they did a lot of studies on this, but they were very acute mechanistic studies in very short timeframes. So, they would just see, if you gave someone only this leucine, isoleucine and valine, could you see an increase in the plasma levels? Could you see an increase in how it went to the muscle, etc.? And they saw this big peak and they're like, “Wow.” So, like, that must be what it is.

[00:33:12] Unfortunately or fortunately over time and over the decades, what was uncovered was, yes, basically the leucine and its partners this isoleucine and valine, they're like the core of the team. And you're thinking about like a football team. It's like the three most important players, or maybe a band or a dance troupe, whatever it is, like the three most important kind of stars of the show, they're the leaders. The leucine is the key leader and like those other two, like the sidekicks, they're what actually like communicate the most to the body to kickstart this process.

[00:33:44] Unfortunately, you must have the other six insufficient amounts to complete the process of the protein synthesis. Otherwise, it just crashes and goes down. So, if you were to supplement with leucine on its own, you will get zero increased protein synthesis. If you supplement with leucine, isoleucine and valine, the three branched-chain amino acids on their own. And if you go and look out for amino's products, you might see a lot of BCAA or branched-chain amino acid products. If it's only those three, it's a waste of your money. It will create this big peak and then it will crash. And this has been validated by again, sometimes it's the same scientists who did the studies 30 years ago. So, it's not like this community iterating on their work and trying to understand it better. But basically, it's key igniter of all of the amino acids but you have to have the whole team of all nine.

[00:34:34] And as we get older and the exact reasons for this, you know, we're not totally clear, but basically if you take that leucine, that's the equivalent of what is in say just whey. If you take away protein, you look at that percentage, if you increase it by 50%, it has this huge, if you just add some leucine to your whey protein, it makes that whey protein work way, way better in older adults. And so, it was through lots of different experiments like that where if you can get more leucine with the protein source, then it will increase it again. What I would say though is like for a normal person trying to concoct your perfect amino acid mixture, [Cynthia laughs] like okay, I'm not going to take these essential amino acids, but I'm going to add leucine to like I think you could start to get into risky territories because the proportions really do matter to each other to maintain an overall equilibrium and to ideally optimize the stimulation of the protein synthesis but not send anything else out of whack.

[00:35:32] And a great example of what could be out of whack is amino acids are also the precursors of our neurotransmitters. So, the chemicals in our brain through which we experience our emotions, excitement, sadness, etc. They actually come from amino acids. So, you want to be thoughtful about which amino acid supplement you're taking and ensure that they really are from trusted, respected brands that really follow the science and there's lots of studies on them. And this is maybe just a good time to name, we talk about it more later. But do not buy an amino acid supplement that is proprietary. If a brand doesn't tell you the exact amount of each amino acid, exactly how much isoleucine, exactly how much lysine, they're hiding behind some weird marketing mumbo jumbo to protect their business, and they're not actually thinking about what's right for the individual.

[00:36:21] And on top of that, you need to know, you want to know and make sure that you're taking the right amount because it can cause things like mood imbalances. If you take way too much tryptophan and you're not trying to take way too much tryptophan, it has a really big impact on serotonin and then on melatonin production. So, it's like this is not something just like mess around with. You really want to know what's in the product and take things that studies where there's tens of studies sponsored by the NIH, by NASA, etc.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:36:49] Well, and I think it brings up such a good point that these proprietary blends, that's what you're speaking to, is you want to be able to look at a supplement and be able to see exactly what's in it. Because there are instances where even medications can have a contraindication to something that's in a supplement. And if it's not fully disclosed, the potentiality exists where you could have a problem. And to your point about tryptophan, I think everyone likes to think about tryptophan in the context of Thanksgiving dinner. But I remind people you'd have to eat a lot of turkey, like not just two helpings of turkey. You'd have to eat the turkey to hit a lot of tryptophan.

[00:37:25] But for many people, the reason why they get sleepy after a big meal has more to do with their blood sugar being dysregulated than actually the tryptophan. But to your point, tryptophan begets serotonin, serotonin begets melatonin and melatonin is your sleep hormone. If that gets dysregulated, I mean, that is a whole separate problem that can take a bit of time to totally determine. So, if we're looking at essential aminos, we're looking at macros. I know a lot of my community likes to count their macros. Do essential aminos count as protein macronutrients or should we think about it separately.

Angelo Keely: [00:38:02] So, they don't technically count as a protein? But again, I'll offer more nuance to it and let you know that I and others educated in the field track them as part of their protein intake.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:38:15] Okay.

Angelo Keely: [00:38:16] So, what I would say is that the recommended daily allowance or the DRI which is the daily recommended intake-- dietary recommended intake is 0.4 g of protein per pound of body weight, which is quite low. And that's from these very old nitrogen balance studies where they actually measure. I won't get into how they do it, it's gross. But they measure things in ways that have been very outdated.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:38:39] [laughs] The things that ensure you don't die. That's how low this threshold is.

Angelo Keely: [00:38:43] Yeah, yeah. And what I was going to say, though, is even those measurements, I think they're outdated. I think the more current research shows it's really close to about 0.6, maybe 0.5. But yeah, it would be don't die. Don't have your hair fall out, don't have organ failure. These are the amount of protein you need to eat so that you can rebuild your heart tissue. You know, it's like very basics. So, 0.6, that's like and again, for simple math, let's say you weigh a hundred pounds that'd be 60 g of protein per day. That's quite low. What I would say, though, is I wouldn't go below that in supplementation. You just got to find a way to make it happen. You got to find a way to, do you like Greek yogurt? Do you like chicken? If you don't. If you don't want to eat animals? do you like tofu, Spirulina?

[00:39:28] There are solutions that are dense in protein, and I believe you can figure it out and fit it in. So, I wouldn't go below that 0.6 g because I think there's other really important micronutrients. And now suddenly you're going to have to be taking other supplements to fix those things. You know, it's like, hit that, hit that 0.6. Then after that it's, well, what are your goals? Are you happy with your current body composition in terms of the amount of lean muscle and body fat that you have? And you're just wanting to stay active and let's say you're in your 40s. I think that probably 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight. That's good.

[00:40:03] That's like, you're doing pretty well. And maybe like a serving of essential amino acids per day is just going to ensure that you don't lose muscle over that decade. Because like you haven't really hit the super high anabolic resistance threshold yet, but it's coming for you. That said, it could change. If you're 45 and you become perimenopausal and suddenly your hormones are shifting and your sleep is really poor, sleep has a huge impact on daily muscle protein synthesis. Suddenly I'm going to say, you know what, like I would maybe increase the amount of daily essential amino acids you're taking and hit a little bit higher protein, get to 0.9, get to 1. So, there's not a perfect formula, but it's finding the right balance for you.

[00:40:48] And then I think once you're like 50, I'd be trying to get that gram of protein in per day for sure. And if you can't, right? Like you can't be hitting it, definitely be taking essential amino acids to get there. But I'd be taking essential amino acids anyway. And going back to these and beyond that, what I would say is like I would go back to this formula I described earlier. One scoop of a high-quality leucine-enriched essential amino acid formula is going to be about four times the impact as like a protein. So, if you take one scoop and it's 5 g, it's about 20 g of protein.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:41:22] Okay. I mean, I think-- [crosstalk]

Angelo Keely: [00:41:23] If you're 40. If you're 50, it's about 25 g. If you're 60, it's about 30 g of protein. That said, as you get older, I'm going to say you should be eating more and more protein.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:41:32] Yeah, well, and it's interesting to me, I mean, how much the research has shifted, the messages have shifted because when I started as a nurse practitioner 25 years ago, weren't talking about these proteins, we were talking about very minimal protein. It was very heart healthy grains, lots of vegetables, avoidance of healthy fats because we were convinced that butter was bad and animal products were bad. But as things have shifted along with the aging process, I think for so many women, in particular men as well, but women, it's a much more pronounced shift in body composition. Like you can be doing the same workout you did at 35, at 45, and it's not going to produce the same results because your hormones are starting to adjust. You become less stress resilient, maybe your sleep is off.

[00:42:18] I think for so many people, the shifts in body composition are particularly challenging. This is where I think bioimpedance readings, Bod Pod, DEXAs, if you have a good person reading the scan can be really instrumental in helping bring greater awareness of how much fat free mass you have, how much muscle mass you have. Because as we are losing muscle mass, unfortunately we are gaining fat free mass. Like this is where women will say to me, I haven't necessarily gained a lot of weight, but like my pants are tight, like they're tight in my waist or I suddenly have more fat in my buttocks or visceral fat, which is obviously more pathogenic. The fat around our visceral organs, our major organs that is of course worse.

[00:43:04] But I find for men it seems to be a slower decline as they are losing testosterone. Men do go through andropause, it's just not nearly as dramatic. But for women navigating perimenopause into menopause, those bodily changes are a real thing. And this is where I think essential aminos can be really important. I myself, I got really serious about weight training last year. I had been lifting, let me be clear, I wasn't a couch potato, but I got very, very serious about weight training. It is taken in nine months. It took nine months. I put on three pounds of muscle loss a pound of fat. And I started integrating more essential aminos over the last couple of months.

[00:43:42] And I'm happy to report I've lost three more pounds of body fat, which was the goal all the way along was to lose body fat and gain muscle mass. And I think in many instances, I think essential aminos have been integral along with the other lifestyle pieces because I'll be totally transparent some days, even though I'm not intermittent fasting with any frequency anymore, I still believe in the strategy, but it's very hard to put muscle mass on. I think for many of us, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, so I'm working and doing things all day long. Sometimes I don't have the ability to sit down and have three meals. And that's where I think buffering with essential aminos can make things a whole lot easier.

[00:44:20] Sometimes, I'll actually take my essential aminos with a whey protein shake just to kind of double down on that first bolus of protein is more substantial. And so, I love that you're really encouraging people to think thoughtfully about their protein intake, understand the nuances around supplementation and how it can be very beneficial to help preserve and build and maintain muscle mass throughout our lifetime.

Angelo Keely: [00:44:44] I love those stories that you shared. And I think the body composition conversation, it's weird. It's one of these things where I feel like people almost don't want to talk about it because it seems tacky or something like that. But everyone is thinking about-- look so many people are thinking about weight loss.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:45:00] Yeah.

Angelo Keely: [00:45:01] But what they're really thinking about is, I think, how they look and they feel in their body. They go to the scale and they see whether it's up or down. And that's how the tool that they're using to measure. But it's actually not that helpful. It is much more helpful to get some type of body scan of bioimpedance, etc., where you can actually see how much is fat wear, how much is muscle, because, honestly, you could weigh the exact same amount, but you could feel entirely different and look entirely different in your body if you replace 5 pounds of fat with 5 pounds of lean muscle throughout your whole body, like, it’s a very different look. And I think this is a great segue also to just talk about how dieting and caloric restriction impacts your body composition, because it's getting talked about more now. I feel like with GLP-1s and people getting on GLP-1s and them losing a lot of weight, but also losing muscle and realizing, like, “Oh, I should have been strength training.”

[00:45:55] And there's more of a conversation around it. But here's a very quick summary of what happens, when you cut calories, your body goes to your fat stores to live off them, right? Like, literally, if I eat less food today, then I need to eat in order to just maintain, eat less carbohydrates and fat, etc., to maintain my current body weight, I literally burn the fat that I'm storing. It's a cool evolutionary tool in our body. Like, if you had a bunch of food at one time, you could store it. And then if you didn't have food for a while, you could live off of it.

[00:46:27] Well, what also happens, though, is that when you deprive yourself of the calories, you need to maintain your current weight, even if it's intentional, your body goes into this stress response and what actually happens is you start burning muscle as well. And maybe burning is not the truest way of saying it. What happens, though, is your muscle is a reservoir of amino acids for the rest of your body. So, if right now you stop eating protein and your body doesn't have any protein, but it has to rebuild that heart tissue, it has to make more estrogen, it has to support all these other skin cells, etc., where is it going to get the amino acids from to help rebuild those proteins? Your muscle, it literally starts breaking down your muscle to send amino acids in the blood to the rest of your body.

[00:47:14] And so, what happens when you go into caloric restriction is your body wants to use more of any protein that you get instead as an energy source. It's not saying like, “Oh, let's use this protein to help me build more muscle, like you were saying, intermittent fasting or caloric restriction.” It's hard to put on muscle during that period because your body doesn't want to use the protein for muscle. It wants to try to actually use it more for energy. The other thing that happens though too is your body literally it has this similarly mimicked anabolic resistance. It just doesn't want to stimulate as much of the muscle protein.

[00:47:45] And so what's been shown, and this is more recent studies, but very high-quality studies, it's actually sponsored by the Department of Defense and it's out of the University of Arkansas. They're really closely organized with the medical school there. A 30% caloric deficit, so, let's just say 2,000 calories per day is your maintenance calories, including your exercise, etc. If you cut 600 calories per day, which is not nothing, it's aggressive, but it's about you typically plan to lose a little more than a pound per week if you did that. That 30% in caloric deficit requires a 300%. I'll repeat 300% increase in essential amino acid intake per serving to maintain net protein balance.

[00:48:31] And if I just dumb it down, basically, if you cut your calories by a bunch, you have to eat three times as much protein or you need to take three times as much essential amino acids to lose no muscle during that period.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:48:45] Wow.

Angelo Keely: [00:48:45] So, it sounds like shocking like, “Oh my God, I can't do that.” I'm not going to cut my calories and eat all this more protein. But here's what's crazy and it really does work. If you cut your calories by that amount, but then you supplement with Kion aminos two times a day, but you take bigger servings, you take say 10, 15, 2 to 3 scoops a couple times per day, you could lose no muscle and you could only lose fat and we've seen this over and over again. Again, the study in the Department of Defense, like they just showed how this works. And so basically what that could look like is you go on this diet and this weight training thing and you're trying to get healthier, etc., but you don't adapt this essential amino acid component. It's likely that when you lose 10 pounds, if you do it aggressively, about 4 pounds of that loss will be muscle and 6 pounds will be fat.

[00:49:33] If you do it over a longer period, it could be 3 pounds is muscle and 7 pounds is fat. But that typically is what's going to happen if you go into caloric deficit. If you were to do the caloric deficit but you supplemented with these extra essential amino acids, it could be 10 pounds of fat loss and no muscle loss. And I'll just tell you, it will look significantly different if you lose 10 pounds of fat and maintain all your muscle versus if like 40% of it is muscle, it is a very different feeling in your body. It's a very different look. And on top of that by maintaining the muscle, you maintain a higher metabolism.

[00:50:07] Muscle requires energy like to help rebuild all these proteins in my muscle or when I have more muscles and I exercise and work out. All those muscles need more calories, they need more food because they're energy intensive. So, by maintaining that muscle it makes it that much easier to maintain the lower body weight and the lower fat because you're burning more calories just at rest with the muscle. Every time you exercise you burn more calories. So, I would just say essential amino acids like an instrumental tool for real lasting body composition change cannot be understated.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:50:43] And I think this is such an important discussion. I mean obviously I grew a platform talking about intermittent fasting and no way am I suggesting that there isn't value with that as a strategy. But what I started to see, not just with myself, but also patients, clients, people that just interact with us on social media is that many women in particular just get down to one meal a day. They're eating one bolus of protein a day, they're sarcopenic, they are losing strength. And this is self-reported. This is not me observationally identifying this, myself included. Last year I was like, I feel like I am not as strong as I was. And so, I think for a lot of people it's for full transparency, I personally decided to stop doing intermittent fasting. I do 12 to 13 hours of digestive rest. That's what I call it and I've been in encouraging a lot of other women in particular that are at my stage of life to really consider, do they just need to widen their feeding window to eat enough protein, get those essential aminos in, ensure they're lifting weights, they're getting high quality sleep, they're not overstressing their bodies because we know stress in particular cortisol.

[00:51:53] Cortisol is an important hormone, gets a bad rap. But chronic cortisol elevation is going to lead to muscle breakdown, it'll lead to leaky gut, it becomes catabolic, which means that it's breaking things down in the body. And so, I think that we just constantly need to be reexamining whether or not certain strategies continue to serve us at different stages of life.

Angelo Keely: [00:52:13] I think that's such a great point. And it's even the way you ended. It's clearly your experiences as a woman and working with female patients, etc., and the age thing. Yeah, age is a big difference. It's a lot different for yeah, I mean maybe if your sons are training really hard in lacrosse, they're going to be starving if they don't eat. If they--[crosstalk]

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:52:31] It's unbelievable. [laughs]

Angelo Keely: [00:52:33] But if you weren't training that hard, like maybe you can get by with it a little bit longer. But it's like it's okay too for it to be a truth for you that intermittent fasting was this very effective way to give yourself digestive rest, to contain caloric intake to a smaller window to do all those things at a certain stage of your life. And now at this stage it's not as effective like that happens in life.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:52:55] And I think it's also I'm very transparent with my community and I think it's important for me to say. I'm not saying it's not a good strategy. It's just you have to really examine what are your goals. Mine is to continue to build muscle. And they were mutually exclusive. It was like, I can't eat two meals a day and think I'm going to build muscle. It's just nearly impossible. And so, I think very humbly, I think people that care about their communities and care about being fully transparent, they'll say, you know, this worked for me before, I still believe in it. But not for me right now.

[00:53:26] And this is where I think that especially when I'm having conversations with you because you are such an expert in essential aminos and building greater awareness of how our bodies are utilizing not just protein, but amino acids. Talk to me a little bit about why you think women in particular. Let's just focus in on women. Has it been your experience, you know, talking to women that are using your products, do you feel like it's that slippery slope of changes in sex hormones that are really contributing to this acceleration of loss of muscle in middle age and beyond?

Angelo Keely: [00:54:02] So, I'll speak anecdotally and then also just my understanding of the research. I'll just condition this first thing, my understanding of the research specifically for the impacts of menopause and how those hormonal changes of estrogen, progesterone, specifically impact protein synthesis. I don't have a very distinct, really strong outlook on it, actually. My understanding is that there's a lot of different research and there's a lot of debate around it, and there's some sides that say, like, “You know, it's actually like the hormonal changes themselves are not as significant.” And then others say, like, “No, it's this huge change.” I think where I come back to, and it seems quite intuitive, is that these hormonal changes create stress and these hormonal changes create significant sleep disturbance. And stress and sleep disturbance, I think undisputed, have a very significant impact on anabolic resistance.

[00:55:02] So, if you take a couple, a man and a woman are married and they're both 50, and yes, the man's testosterone is decreasing by whatever percentage year, but the woman suddenly has this really significant hormonal shift and suddenly can't sleep at night and is only getting three hours of sleep and it's very disrupted. The idea that they're going to have. And we know that sleep's going to be more important than even resistance training can actually overcome some of the negative impacts of sleep. But sleep's going to be more impactful than resistance training or nutrition. It's the number one thing actually, for this protein synthesis thing, that she's going to have worse sleep than her husband and not have a decrease in protein synthesis. It seems crazy.

[00:55:45] Like, obviously, if you have both these people and one has much worse sleep and they have all these other additional stresses from the hormonal changes, it's highly likely, you know, that they're going to have a decrease in protein synthesis and turnover. So, you know, how does that play out for protein and essential amino acids? And how should you be thinking about it? I think this is maybe more anecdotally now as well. I think there's different trends of marketing to both men and women and different groups whether you're bodybuilding group or your endurance athlete group or healthy mom group or whatever, it's like there's all these different groups. But historically, I think there's been a lot more communication to women in general to be smaller, and there's more communication in general to men to be bigger.

[00:56:34] And then that's always true, right? There's men that struggle with being too big and they want to be smaller, they feel overweight or it's not like a simple, one or the other, but it's rather obvious to me that's been the case. And so, with that, if the communication to a certain population is consistently like, eat less, you know, this kind of smaller amounts, like naturally, that group is just going to get less support and training to try to build robustness. And I'm not saying like, try to get like bigger or bulky, but just be robust, be really vital.

[00:57:08] And so, I think that there has been a way in which protein has been less marketed and the science of the importance of protein and things like amino acids have been less marketed to women over many decades. And so, it's likely that now you go into 2025 and you're thinking about different folks, again, a man and woman of a similar middle age, like, who's going to be that much more inclined to try to eat more protein or think they need it or where are they going to get it.

[00:57:34] And so I think oftentimes women are benefiting more in the recent surge advertising, really, because it is, it's a marketing, whole supplement business thing of trying to get them to buy protein powders or take creatine or take the essential amino acids, etc., that there's honestly going to be more benefit for them potentially because they haven't had as much of those nutrients marketed to them in the past and they have more to gain from it because of that. And then if you combine that with again, you've got these hormonal changes in your sleep disturbances and additional stress, like, you could actually get a lot more benefit potentially than maybe your male counterparts.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:58:10] I love that answer and largely because I really threw you a curveball when I asked that question. But I think you're absolutely correct that it's been the gym bro science for many years. Like, my boys have been taking creatine for a long time. But, you know, I feel like when I first started taking it and talking to women about creatine or essential aminos, people are like, “What? Oh, that's like a guy's thing?” No, no, actually, we're starting to see the utility in particular, endogenously, women have 70 to 80% less stores of creatine in their muscles. So, there are sex hormone differentiation depending on where a woman is in her cycle. There's so many factors that impact that you add in the fact that some women are undereating protein and they're completely unaware of it.

[00:58:54] So, I love that there's conversations like this that bring greater awareness to the fact that these are ways we can properly support our bodies without going overboard. Because I'm always a proponent of, if you're choosing to supplement, be smart about it because it's very easy to get supplement overwhelmed. And so, things that have multiple purposes I think is really important. I just want to take an opportunity to thank you for your time. This is like unpacking amino acids one on one. I think this is going to be a very popular conversation. Please let listeners know how to connect with you outside of the podcast, obviously, very generously Kion has left a 20% discount, which we will include. I'll put in the intro. We'll put in the notes as well.

[00:59:36] Please let listeners know how to connect with you, learn more about your products and Kion as well.

Angelo Keely: [00:59:42] So, honestly, we're. We're kind of in all the normal places. We have a website, getkion.com and we're on all the social platforms and we publish educational information. We have live phones. You can call us and talk to us if you have questions. Yeah.

Cynthia Thurlow: [00:59:56] Such a pleasure. Thank you again.

Angelo Keely: [00:59:59] Thank you.

Cynthia Thurlow: [01:00:02] If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review, subscribe and tell a friend.

Tune in