Is Your LIVER Stalling Fat Loss and Muscle Growth? (Sara Banta) | Ep 352
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Why are you gaining belly fat even while lifting and eating well? Could your sluggish metabolism be a liver problem in disguise?
I sit down with certified supplement expert Sara Banta to reveal how your liver and thyroid work together to control metabolism, muscle retention, and fat loss and why ignoring liver health might be what’s sabotaging your fitness progress. We unpack how stress, sleep, hormones, and toxins overload your body’s ability to function efficiently, even if you’re doing everything “right.”
If you're consistent with training and nutrition but still stuck, this might be the missing piece.
Today, you’ll learn all about:
3:23 – Sara’s health crisis and muscle loss
6:00 – T3, stress, and thyroid slowdown
10:02 – Iodine’s surprising benefits
13:02 – Liver's role in fat storage
18:37 – The real hierarchy of healing
25:10 – What to eliminate—and when
28:56 – Movement and metabolic communication
34:11 – Alcohol, toxins, and your thyroid
36:49 – Final truth: Why proactive health matters
Episode resources:
Website: sarabantahealth.com
Facebook: @acceleratedhealthproducts
Instagram: @acceleratedhealthproducts
Youtube: @AcceleratedHealthSaraBanta
Why Your Liver Might Be Blocking Your Fat Loss and Muscle Growth
Most people chasing fat loss or muscle gain focus on calories, macros, and training intensity. Few stop to consider that their liver is the gatekeeper to both fat loss and muscle growth. Your liver is where inactive thyroid hormones are converted to the active form that drives your metabolic rate. It processes every gram of protein you eat and determines whether those nutrients end up supporting lean tissue or being stored as fat. When liver function is impaired, you can feel stuck despite doing everything “right.”
How Liver Function Impacts Your Results
If you are eating plenty of protein and lifting consistently but not building muscle, your liver might not be breaking down and repackaging amino acids efficiently. Without that step, your biceps and quads never see the building blocks they need. Your liver also has to handle toxins, hormones, and byproducts of protein metabolism. When it is overloaded, those processes slow down. Fat loss stalls, thyroid output declines, and you may even lose muscle.
The thyroid–liver connection is central to this. Your thyroid produces mostly T4, which is inactive until it is converted to T3, the active hormone that drives cellular energy production. Around 80% of that conversion happens in the liver. If the liver is burdened with toxins, stress hormones, or nutrient deficiencies, that conversion suffers, and your metabolism does too.
Signs That Liver Stress Is Holding You Back
You might notice fatigue even with enough sleep, dry skin, cold hands and feet, brain fog, or stubborn fat gain around your midsection. Lab work might look “normal” at first glance because common panels only include TSH and T4. A complete thyroid panel including free T3 and reverse T3 is more revealing. Even then, blood levels only give a snapshot and do not tell the whole story. Pay attention to biofeedback like digestion, energy, and recovery.
Lifestyle Factors That Harm Liver Function
Modern life is full of hidden stressors that impact your liver. Chronic stress from work or relationships raises reverse T3 and signals your body to store fat and shut down muscle building. Lack of sleep alone can shift your body into this survival mode. On top of that, many people regularly consume substances that directly tax the liver such as alcohol or certain medications. Add in environmental toxins like microplastics, endocrine disruptors, and poor-quality processed foods, and your liver’s workload multiplies.
Practical Steps to Support Your Liver and Thyroid
Before reaching for complex protocols or additional medications, get the basics in place.
Sleep is non‑negotiable. Waking consistently between 3 and 4 a.m. can be a sign that your liver is struggling.
Reduce stress where you can, and build habits like strength training that make your body more resilient.
Choose high-quality protein sources that are easier to digest and assimilate. Many people notice improvement by prioritizing wild fish, bison, venison, or grass‑fed beef, at least temporarily.
Be cautious with extreme dieting or long fasts, especially during high stress. Your body needs to feel safe to build muscle and burn fat.
Iodine is another overlooked factor. Adequate iodine intake supports thyroid hormone production, helps with fat oxidation, and promotes protein utilization. It also aids detoxification by helping your liver process and remove harmful compounds.
Why Strength Training Still Matters
Building and maintaining muscle increases your ability to store and use carbohydrates, supports hormone balance, and keeps your metabolism robust. The act of training itself signals your body that it needs to maintain lean tissue and energy production. Chronic cardio without adequate recovery, on the other hand, can drive up stress hormones and make things worse.
The Big Picture
If you are stalled despite consistent training and a solid diet, consider what is happening internally. Your liver and thyroid are not isolated systems. They communicate with your gut, your muscles, and even your brain. Addressing sleep, stress, and nutrition gives your liver a chance to convert hormones and process nutrients efficiently again. From there, fat loss becomes easier, and muscle building starts to show results.
Taking care of these foundations is not restrictive. It is about choosing whole, nutrient-dense foods and supporting the systems your body relies on every day. When you do, you free yourself from spinning your wheels and finally see your hard work pay off in the gym and in the mirror.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
Your liver converts thyroid hormones from form to active form, processes every gram of protein you eat and determines whether nutrients get shuttled to muscle or fat. Yet most people, focused on body composition, never think about liver health. Today, my guest explains how this overlooked organ controls your metabolic rate, muscle protein synthesis and fat storage, and why liver dysfunction might explain why you're struggling with your fitness and nutrition. You'll learn how to recognize when liver function is limiting your results, which common foods and lifestyle factors can impair liver performance, and evidence-based strategies to optimize liver health for better body composition. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency. I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we're discussing how thyroid and liver function affects metabolism, muscle retention, fat loss and more.
Philip Pape: 1:02
My guest today is Sarah Banta, a certified supplement expert, health coach and founder of Accelerated Health Products. She's also the host of Accelerated Health with Sarah Banta. Go, give that a follow. She's got well over, I think, 600 episodes covering health optimization and so many topics that you guys really care about. So give her a follow.
Philip Pape: 1:23
And Sarah, the reason I wanted to have her here is she has experienced firsthand how addressing some of these health issues, some that we don't talk about enough or understand enough. The thyroid, the liver, function, everything going on in your body, how they can impact your results, your training, your metabolism, and why some people might get frustrated or hit plateaus despite doing all the right things, despite sound nutrition and sound training protocols. So today you're going to learn how thyroid and liver affects more than just the processing of what you eat and your hormones. It's evolved in hormone conversion, nutrient metabolism, muscle protein utilization, all that fun stuff that we're going to nerd out on. Today. We're going to explore what the research shows about the function of the systems in your body and with your body composition, look at lifestyle factors that can impair your health and discuss evidence-based strategies, as always, to support optimal thyroid and liver health for better results. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sara Banta: 2:20
Thanks for having me Super excited. I love that you mentioned efficiency and energy in your intro, because I feel like so many people are banging their heads against the wall with workouts and not eating enough or trying to figure out what to eat, when they just have to figure out how their body assimilates and makes energy and becomes efficient with the results. So, anyways, I'm super excited to dive into this because we're going to tackle all of those things.
Philip Pape: 2:50
So you're saying it's not about cutting out whole food groups? Is that what you're saying?
Sara Banta: 2:54
No, it's not and it's not about taking a weight loss drug. It is about your body trusting you. It's about getting all the systems on without the clogs in the wheel per se. So we need everything to be working right and the things that disrupt it. That's what we're going to get into as well, and it does come down to thyroid and liver. Before we get into that, I thought I'd tell my little story.
Sara Banta: 3:23
I've been an athlete all my life. I was a rower, played volleyball in high school, rode at the national level, and those aren't. Rowing especially is not an easy feat. All three of my kids have done it and they've had their own health issues along the way with it. But you have to be dueling right. You've got to have strong muscle, you've got to have good cardio.
Sara Banta: 3:45
But what happened to me almost coming up on a year is I was hit with spike protein viral activity. Well, what was happening to me is my thyroid numbers went down, so my metabolism slowed down. Numbers went down, so my metabolism slowed down, and then I was eating over 200 grams of protein, which, as you know, is a lot of protein for someone my size. But my body was not assimilating that protein and turning it into muscle. And then, fortunately and fortunately, philip, I'm really boring I'm so consistent with my workouts, with my eating regimen and all of that. So anything that goes up or down, it's kind of there's like this outside factor that you've got to look at. So I was not only not building muscle, which was my goal, I was actually losing muscle and my thyroid numbers were going down. My testosterone was going down. I've always had a good, healthy testosterone. So something was amiss.
Sara Banta: 4:49
And when your body is under a stressor whether it's financial stress, your spousal stress or an internal stress of a virus, an allergy or liver being loaded, an allergy or liver being loaded, overloaded your body goes into this survival mode and it says, hey, shut down all these systems. We're not going to worry about building muscle and burning fat, because we've got to take care of this thing over here. And so my liver was not. The wheels had come off. And what people don't understand is your liver and your thyroid are directly connected. Now, regardless of what your diet is, what you're eating even you know eating nothing, you're not going to burn fat and you're not going to lose weight, because your thyroid is in charge of your metabolism. It's in charge of your metabolic rate, your body temperature and for all of you out there going well, I think I have a healthy thyroid. My doctor says it's healthy. They tested my TSH and my T4. That doesn't tell you the whole story. That's two of the many thyroid hormones.
Sara Banta: 6:00
You need to look at the big picture. You need to look at free T3, reverse T3. That will tell you what your metabolism is and what your level of stress is. That your body is seeing, because my T3 was low and my reverse T3, which was my stress hormone, was extremely high during this period. What is that telling my body? You are in survival mode, shut down metabolism. Not only shut down metabolism, but we're going to have this added propensity to store fat because we need to protect these expensive muscles around our belly, our liver, our kidneys, our gallbladder, all of these, our heart. That's why you get the belly fat when you're under stress, right, and you get that thin butt look and the big belly and the big shoulder pads. So your body goes into the survival mode and so your body actually adds on more fat than you would in a non-stressed state.
Sara Banta: 7:04
If you don't have a healthy thyroid, you're not getting energy to the brain and this is what you don't realize. Your body produces T4 and T3, just a little bit of the T3, which is the active thyroid hormone. But T4 needs to convert into T3. T4 is inactive into T3. T4 is inactive, t3 is active. 80% of T4 has to be converted into active T3. And guess where that happens? In the liver. There we go. So how is my liver going to do the job for the thyroid if it's dealing with all of these other things over here the microplastics, the endocrine disruptors, the PFAs, the artificial sweeteners and it's going to disrupt your gut? Now some people could probably eat it fine without any issues. I definitely couldn't. My body said no, so I went back to just whole foods, boring as it is, I did. But your liver cannot help your thyroid if your liver's overloaded with all of this stuff. So when you start seeing a slower metabolism, fatigue, even though you're eating or you're sleeping dry skin, thin hair, cold hands, cold feet, the brain fog, weight gain, especially around the middle that could mean that your liver is not converting that T4 to T3. And that is where the T3 is. What gives your cells that energy, the cellular energy inside the mitochondria. That is where the ATP gets up.
Sara Banta: 8:47
Now, part of this issue with the thyroid is a lack of iodine. And what does that iodine do? It increases your metabolism, right, but not only that. It helps with the protein being used for muscle building and fat oxidation. So you're going to increase that fat oxidation and increase that muscle protein synthesis. Iodine helps that metabolism slow down after, during weight loss. If you're in a cut and you usually see a metabolism slow down, iodine can keep that metabolism boosted because it increases that ATP within the cell. So if your thyroid can't work properly, it's going to make it harder to gain the muscle, to assimilate the protein that you're taking in and turn it into muscle, and easier for you to gain fat. Iodine helps with cleansing the blood so the liver can do its job. It increases the efficiency of the mitochondrial function. Without healthy mitochondria you will not have fat oxidation or muscle performance. You will also have better brain activity.
Sara Banta: 10:02
Iodine deficiency is the number one cause of brain fog, depression, anxiety. Most people on antidepressants are not getting their thyroids tested. Most people on antidepressants if they just corrected their thyroid, they probably would let go of their antidepressant medication. So iodine also helps balance out the hormones growth hormone, testosterone and even the estrogen, progesterone. Most men and women are suffering from estrogen dominance. What does that look like? Man boobs not able to develop the muscles in the body, low testosterone levels. Our testosterone in our men, as you know, I'm sure, is just plummeted.
Sara Banta: 10:49
Well, iodine plays a key role in hormone regulation, not just in the thyroid but through the whole endocrine system, and it also boosts that detoxification in your liver and your lymph. So the iodine is supporting the thyroid, but it is also supporting the liver and helping cleanse the heavy metals, the plastics, the xenoestrogens, the halogens. So, with that being said, like I mentioned, it helps with the focus and if your focus is better, guess what you're going to do in the gym? You're actually going to have better performance because you're more motivated. When you have brain fog or you're depressed, who wants to work out? I just want to sleep in bed, right, so that is all related. But then it gets to the liver.
Philip Pape: 11:38
Early on in what you were just talking about with your own personal experience. I love that you brought up the fact you were super consistent and quote-unquote, boring with your routine. Those are actually my favorite clients because then you could easily tease out the variables Not easily, but you could at least isolate the variables, like you said, and try to understand what else might be happening. You know we're doing all the right things but still something's frustrated. Is it menopause? Is it because I'm old? Right, you get all the classic kind of reasons or excuses and it might be some cascade with your liver, your thyroid, the environmental inputs coming into your body with the modern food environment. So I think that's really important for people to understand first is don't assume and fearmonger for yourself that it's like the sky is falling all over the place. It's, if you can be consistent you can help tease these out. The second thing you mentioned is this big cascade between the thyroid and the liver, which is probably news to a lot of people, and it's not surprising to me how interconnected everything is, because we see, for example, muscle and bone are more connected than we ever thought. Hormonally, right, Fat and muscle cells are more connected, and so your personal experience of, okay, checking my hormones, looking at and seeing the T4, the T3, this that you know when you first do that, people are still overwhelmed, they don't quite know what's going on and they slap a bandaid on it with just they might go straight to HRT. That may not be the solution right. And the fact that it's then linked to your metabolism.
Philip Pape: 13:02
Now we get to the special sauce here of weight loss resistance. And why can't I lose fat? And why is all the fat that I am gaining going to my belly? Why am I eating so much protein, like you did, and not able to utilize it? And finally, that gets us to two things incoming toxins and then mitigation of those toxins in the body. So when we talk about toxins, I've talked about it before in the context of chronic inflammation right, Because we often blame inflammation on, like, specific foods, but it's really the context of your lifestyle and the environment and everything coming together. Answer this question for me, Sarah is our liver capable of detoxifying quite a bit of junk that comes in from the outside if we are doing other things right, or is there a point at which, like it's just kind of a lost cause and we really have to unload those toxins coming in, If you, if that, if you feel me on that and we really have to unload those toxins coming in.
Sara Banta: 13:55
if you feel me on that, from what I've gone through and the way I live my life, I truly believe at this point in modern day society we have to support our livers with the proper supplements. But the other thing I wanted to touch on was you mentioned hormones like let's get on HRT, or I had doctors saying, oh, you need to get on a free T3 medication or you need to get on testosterone. Your testosterone is too low. My body was in a survival stress mode. It was adapting to this condition that I was dealing with. If I had thrown hormones on it which my liver would have had to process on top of everything else I was dealing with, if I had thrown hormones on it which my liver would have had to process on top of everything else I was doing, it was going to make me feel worse. And in fact a side scenario was my own 18-year-old daughter, whose menstrual cycle pain went from a five level five to a 12, where she's throwing up and wanting to yelling at me saying mom, help me, pass out, just hit me. I can't deal with this pain, something a mom should never have to witness. It was horrific. And but what I witnessed was the doctor put her on progesterone to bring up her progesterone. Well, that was going to back up her liver because she was fighting a viral issue as well, and her liver was overloaded. Within one day of using the progesterone, she got even more nauseous. She couldn't even drink water. She got that bad. So throwing on more hormones or things that your liver, your liver's got to process everything, good and bad. So you don't. You want to remove as much as you can.
Sara Banta: 15:45
When we talk about muscle growth, it starts in the liver. Your liver plays that huge role in amino acid metabolism, protein synthesis. This is the other thing, philip. When I was eating, all that protein didn't matter because my liver was not able to break it down and repackage it, those amino acids to send to my biceps and my quads. It wasn't doing what I thought it was supposed to do. So this is where the body builds and repairs muscle tissues. And so if your liver cannot properly convert amino acids or clear out ammonia from protein breakdown, you won't see results.
Sara Banta: 16:25
And the toxins, the plastics, heavy metals, excess estrogens, they get stored in the fat tissue when your liver's too backed up to eliminate them. And so when you try to burn fat without supporting the liver, those toxins just get reabsorbed, trigger inflammation, slow your metabolism and your hormones. We're talking about hormone health, the thyroid hormones, estrogen, testosterone, insulin, cortisol. They're all activated, broken down or detoxed in the liver. If your liver isn't working, you're going to see a sluggish metabolism, estrogen dominance, low testosterone, insulin resistance, cravings, high cortisol.
Sara Banta: 17:09
So all of these things and without that strong bile production. So bile is that detergent for the fat, so it and I put people through a liver cleanses where on that last day of a two week process of eating real food and taking some some herbs, on that last day you do a drink of olive oil and citrus fruit. But that olive oil is kind of that. It emulsifies with the bile to push all that bile and the dirty toxins out of the body in one big push. But without that strong bile production you can't absorb fat soluble vitamins like A and D, e and K. So here you are popping your multivitamin, not doing you any good because your body's not using it.
Philip Pape: 17:58
Let's take a step back before we get to. But you mentioned briefly, not a protocol, but kind of a hierarchical approach that people should take. Where they do the basics, they do the foundations, let's start there. When it comes to you mentioned gut health. You mentioned, of course, stress and the link between stress and your thyroid metabolism, and that's such a loaded topic. Other things to come to mind when you talk about fat, like just being recovered and sleeping and being consistent with your training and maybe not dieting all the time. So, yeah, what does that hierarchy look like? So people are like okay, I've done that, I've done that and I've done that. Now I should look at the next, like the 1%, the 5% solutions that I haven't dealt with yet.
Sara Banta: 18:37
So number one is is free? It's that sleep. None of this stuff matters. I don't care what you eat, what you do, what supplements you throw down your throat. You're not sleeping, you've got. That's step one, and it's easier said than done. My, I wear my aura ring, and it's, it's my, my priority. And what's also interesting, though, is your liver. If you're waking up at three to four in the morning, that's your liver waking you up. That's your liver screaming at you that it wants some support. So sleep is number one. Stress, Stress, easier said than done, though, right, I mean stress is the killer. It's the killer. It causes cancer, it causes brain fog, it causes headaches, it causes your hair to fall out. Why is your hair falling out? Because your thyroid shuts down, and your thyroid says we need to conserve energy. I don't know if we're gonna go through a famine for six months, or if we're being chased by a tiger, or if I'm fighting with my husband. It doesn't care. It is going to shut down your metabolism.
Philip Pape: 19:42
So for all these things we talk about where your thyroid is suspect, if you just went and got blood work, would it show up in your numbers?
Sara Banta: 19:50
Okay, but you have to get the full thyroid panel. Sure, the TSH tells you nothing. That is a thyroid stimulating hormone, that's actually a pituitary hormone. So it's telling your thyroid to produce T4. But T4 does you no good unless the liver converts that T4 to T3. And so I even have a very astute thyroid client who just got her thyroid numbers done, and she had. I saw the TSH, I saw the, the T4. And I'm looking, I see the reverse T3, and I'm keep looking down her test. I'm like where's your free T3? And then I went back because I'm like no, my eyes are just not seeing it. I said where's the free T3? She goes oh my gosh, I can't believe we didn't do it. And that is it. That is your metabolism. Now your reverse T3 says a lot as well, because that's your stress hormone.
Philip Pape: 20:47
So just to put a cap on this right, like, if you get that blood work and it looks good, is there still potentially an issue?
Sara Banta: 20:54
Yes.
Philip Pape: 20:54
Okay.
Sara Banta: 20:55
Okay. So you are different than me, Just the way that your cells can be resistant to insulin. Your cells could be more resistant than mine to thyroid hormone. So what's floating all in the blood doesn't tell the whole story, and it's a snapshot, because did the person take their thyroid medication an hour before or or not, you know? Not at all before they got the blood test. Did they just have a spike of cortisol from a huge stress moment right before their blood test? Have they been under chronic stress for months? All of these things you have to take into account and it's just a snapshot. So your thyroid numbers can go up and down and personally I'm super sensitive.
Sara Banta: 21:46
I feel my body go hypo and hyper. It does this and so it's constantly. I'm managing and I take different doses of supplements for my thyroid based on how I'm feeling. And what do I look for? Better digestion, edema or a lack of edema? My energy, of course. How is my brain working that day? Those are just signs, without a blood test to say, okay, your thyroid's on point today or it's not. And when it's not, I go okay, let's go back to the fundamentals. Where's my sleep, Where's my stress? And it's never. It's never about caloric restriction or I need to work out more, because that those, those thoughts of working out more or eating less is an additional stress.
Sara Banta: 22:39
Right, and not even just that, but not even just doing anything different, but thinking about the fact that, oh my gosh, I'm going to gain fat because my thyroid's not working. Do you not think those thoughts aren't going to affect the way your metabolism, your systems are working? Your thoughts are so powerful. So that's another thing and that's free. So train your thoughts. But with food, I prioritize wild animal protein. I love my venison, my bison, wild fish those are my go-tos. I'll eat grass-fed, grass-finished beef so your body is able to assimilate wild animal protein, wild fish, much more easily. And when I was going through this huge issue with my liver and realized what was going on, I essentially tended to eating a mostly pescatarian diet, which drove me nuts.
Philip Pape: 23:40
And I got as an elimination effectively.
Sara Banta: 23:43
And it was just for a month, just to like my liver a little bit of a break and breathing room. And I was shocked that I actually saw a difference in my muscle tone and things improving. And I thought wait a second. I thought I would get all of that from my all the good red meat I was eating, not the wimpy little fish. But what was happening was the more animal land meats were harder on my liver. Now my liver's healthy now I eat tons of those meats now. So these things are not long-term Fixed. Yeah, they're just a short term to get your body back.
Philip Pape: 24:21
So, okay, you mentioned sleep, stress, food, but you also mentioned the whole conversation about T3 was, I think, one of the takeaways for listeners. There is the importance of biofeedback and the importance of really understanding your body and that hormones and all of these things can vary within the day, day to day, week to week. It's going to depend on your stress levels and everything else. Just like when we talk about fat loss and muscle building, it's like different times of the year. You're a different person. You might even weigh a different amount, you might have. You know it's winter versus summer. There's different things going on. I like the thing about. I like what you talked about eliminating as well. Is there a standard kind of elimination protocol that you suggest for people Like doing a I hate to say carnivore, because, again, I'm not I don't advocate specific diets ever, but like cutting out what people think of as the trouble foods, let's say, like dairy or gluten or something like that?
Sara Banta: 25:10
Yeah, I do tend to prioritize wild animal protein. Fill in with the carbs and the fat, depending on your health goals. Personally, I tend to like carbs more than fat. Most people have fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease for the American population is over 50%. If your liver is backed up, like mine was, it cannot process that very well. So any ketogenic diet, any high fat, low carb diet, is probably not going to work for you. So that's where the protein is number one and then you fill in with the fats or carbs, depending on what your preference is. I noticed when I started adding in more carbs, my metabolism went up. Imagine that when I started not fasting like I used to, my metabolism went up. Why? Because my body is trusting me.
Sara Banta: 26:08
How much money do you have in the bank? You only got $20. You're only going to spend a very little amount. If you've got millions in the bank, you're going to spend more money and your body does the same with its metabolism. So it's not about protein, carbs or fat. It's more about the specific wrong or right proteins, carbs or fats, and I'm sticking to the more whole foods or wild animal proteins like the bison, the elk, venison these foods also, phillip, there are so many ranches around the country. You just Google at delivery, bison, delivery and you will have plenty of websites show up. They're family owned, they're high quality meats. They're directly delivered to your doorstep in these nice dry ice frozen packages, no more expensive than going to get your meat from the market and it makes it super easy. So it's not a cost thing because the ultra processed foods those costs a lot of money. Your Starbucks costs a lot of money compared to this, the these whole foods that we're talking about.
Philip Pape: 27:18
Yeah, we had a cattle rancher on recently and she was talking about like one of the best places you get food is just your local farmers, your farmer's markets, like just you know, cause at least you can talk to the people raising the food and ask them about their process and what's in it and pesticides and all that stuff. I like that tip.
Berkeley: 27:35
Hello, I am Berkeley and I wanted to give a huge thank you to Philip of Wits and Weights. He has helped me so much, gave me a completely free 30 minute call where he answered all of my questions, gave lots of great insight into programming and nutrition. All of his content is really wonderful and he has a great Facebook group that is supportive and informational. He has tons of free resources that I really really enjoy and they're all super science-based. What I really love about Philip is that he always updates his guides and he makes time to answer any questions, even though I am not currently a paying client. He really has helped me so much and I'm just so grateful.
Philip Pape: 28:26
So now, what about movement strength training? So I'm obviously so grateful. So now, what about movement strength training? So I'm obviously huge in the strength training and one of the things that surprised me being in this industry now is how much that unlocks your body's capability, is the way I'm going to put it like down to the cellular level, how much of our body is tied to. It's not just having muscle mass and looking good, it's the act of training the myokines that get released and the signaling and you're using your body in space like we're meant to do. What are your thoughts on that? Tied to liver and thyroid health?
Sara Banta: 28:56
Oh, it's huge. Your cells are communicating right, and so when you are strength training, you're essentially telling your brain I want to be strong to live life, I want to be more capable, I want to be more grounded. I know that when I feel too thin or not enough muscle on my body, I feel very weak in the mind. So there's this mind body connection there. The muscle is going to burn more fat and burn more calories. Your muscles are glucose storage banks. So the more muscle you have, the more carbs you are able to eat and sponge up.
Sara Banta: 29:42
And the chronic cardio especially for women, it's not going to pay off. Your hormones are going to be wrecked, your hair's going to fall out, your skin is going to look awful and your body's going to go back to that bank thought of hey, I'm not getting enough money in my bank to be expending on an eight mile run right now. So I'm going to lower my metabolism and maybe I'm going to burn a lot of calories during that run. Then I'm going to shut it down. So with I'm a huge believer in strength training. I lift heavy weights. I try to bulk up. It's very difficult, women. You're not going to get bulky unless you're taking testosterone shots, and even then it's going to be difficult, so I'm a huge proponent of that.
Philip Pape: 30:32
My general thought. Having watched the industry and seeing how things have gone, my general advice to people is but I'm curious about your thoughts on the fasted training piece, cause that's where a lot of people go to like EAs, even if they have no problems handling the muscle, the protein coming in right and the amino acids, if they're very efficient with that, do you find them valuable or not?
Sara Banta: 30:52
Yes, so I tend to work out early in the morning and I take my iodine. I take the essential amino acids after and then I really do follow up with a big meal to help fill in and support my caloric need. Personally, that works for me. Some people need a meal in the beginning or in the morning before their workout, especially women. I feel like men can get away with a lot more. Women need to really think through their hormonal balance and how they're feeling.
Sara Banta: 31:25
So do you have to be fasted in a workout? No, Is it a possibility? Yes, but you really need to be listening to your own body and where you are. If you're in a very stressed period of time in your life, not a time to be fasted, right, we want to. If our bucket's full of stress, we don't want to add another one. Just like if our liver bucket's too full of toxins, we don't want to add another one. We need to take care and see where we are, and it might be it might be it might change in a month from now and then change back again for you.
Sara Banta: 32:02
If you are constantly doing the same routine every single day, with the same workouts and the same food, your body's not going to make any big adjustments because it's just going to settle right into that routine.
Sara Banta: 32:18
You know there's that study where they've looked at different tribes around the world where they're doing a whole lot more physical activity than we are, but they're eating the same amount of calories because their bodies adjust. You know your metabolism is going to adjust. So the two biggest things when you're talking about fat loss or muscle building and getting results is your liver and your thyroid. And, like I said, if you choose to eat a meal before your workout or if you choose to be fasted, that's not going to make or break you if you have not addressed the thyroid and the liver. And those things are also related to your sleep and your stress. So it's all interconnected. The cells are talking. Your cells are, just like in your interview about bone and muscle, how they're interrelated, which is super fascinating and makes total sense. All of our cells are talking, All of our organs are talking. You're not just having the head doctor and then the liver doctor and the kidney doctor and the muscle doctor. They're all connected.
Philip Pape: 33:31
I feel like Eastern medicine has known this a lot longer than we have, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think there's one little elephant little or big elephant in the room. People are thinking because we said liver about 100 times and that, of course, is some of the biggest toxins that we're all aware of that maybe we shouldn't imbibe in on a regular basis. Let's just hit on those Alcohol. But I also want to talk about smoking. You would think by now anybody health conscious would not even think about smoking, let alone addiction and all that. But I'm even curious about pot and like cigars and pipes and all that because I've got friends who are like, yeah, I celebrate with my cigars, no big deal, but they're super health conscious everywhere else. How much toxic load does that stuff put on your liver?
Sara Banta: 34:11
Oh, it's not even just your liver. All of the toxins from smoking love your thyroid. Oh, yes, love your thyroid. So you're slow, you think you're suppressing your appetite and you're going to have a weight loss effect from that smoking. It's actually slowing down your thyroid. But, yes, all those toxins are hitting your liver.
Sara Banta: 34:32
Alcohol is a poison. There's no storage capacity for alcohol in the body and you might think, oh well, that's good news, that means that I can drink and nothing's going to be stored. No, what that does is the body says, okay, stop, we got to stop everything else, anything that comes in, other than the alcohol, the carbs, the protein, fat. We're going to store it in our fat cells because we got to burn, burn, burn this alcohol right now, right. And so the liver is just under attack.
Sara Banta: 35:05
And you know I have alcoholism in my family and I don't tend to drink. I've not, I have not said to myself oh, you're never going to be, you're never going to drink, because I don't want to do that to myself. But it's so funny because I'll go out and I'll be offered a drink and I'll think. You know, I feel too good, I don't want. It takes me down when you optimize your thyroid and your energy is up and you feel good. You don't want to be taken down.
Sara Banta: 35:34
My kids, you know, they've experimented a little bit with alcohol. They don't care for it because they feel good on a regular basis and most people are suffering from anxiety and depression and they're using it as a coping mechanism. So the problem is, is alcohol and other drugs, but specifically alcohol makes you more impulsive when you're not drinking. It makes you more depressed when you're not drinking and obviously your tolerance goes up and you need more and more and more. And it's also empty calories and alcohol also crosses the blood-brain barrier. There are so many things that you're looking at it going. Why would I do that? It's true.
Philip Pape: 36:20
Okay, yeah, I know I just wanted to address that because again, people think about that. I'll call that an easy one, but it could be a very hard one depending on your history. But easy in that has a huge positive impact if you can reduce or eliminate and, like you said, reframe and focus on what is life without it and how great can that be and how wonderful it is when we're doing these health-focused activities and foods and drinks. Okay, is there anything I'll say like a misconception or a big thing we didn't hit on related to this topic that you want people to leave with?
Sara Banta: 36:49
I would just say we are no longer in our grandparents' generation, especially if you're wanting to live a vibrant, energy-filled life, and that does require addressing your thyroid, your liver, your stress, your sleep, and more chronic disease than ever before is occurring in everybody, in all ages. Our children one out of three children have a chronic disease that is going to last a lifetime. One in three 25% of children have fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease used to be an alcoholic's disease and now our children have it. There's something going on that was not here before and it's it's time to wake up. It's time to face the fact that if you want to live a vibrant, healthy life and enjoy the muscle building, the fat burning, but just the energy, the pain-free lifestyle, lack of inflammation or disease, you'll have to be proactive, but you don't have to be constrained or restricted. Like I mentioned, the food guide has hundreds of foods that are delicious, that will help your body heal instead of causing inflammation and causing your chronic disease to worsen. So there are answers.
Philip Pape: 38:13
Yeah, and that's the empowering message that, at the end of the day, we want to take from this. If you focus on yourself, you listen to yourself, you act like an engineer and stabilize some of the variables here and tweak one thing at a time and reach out to and listen to podcasts like ours and Sarah's, I think you'll be empowered, and then it's just a matter of your choice and your actions. So, speaking of taking action, sarah, where can people learn more about you and your work?
Sara Banta: 38:37
Everything's at sarahbantahealthcom. I've got free group coaching because after today you might be going. Wait a second. I have questions. You post the questions in the group chat. I answer daily, seven days a week, almost 24 hours a day, unfortunately for me and my family. But I also post tips and tools, new podcasts, new articles. I write tons of articles. I love writing articles, protocols. You can also get your free protocol off of my website. Just write in what your condition is and I will put together a supplement protocol writing articles, protocols. You can also get your free protocol off of my website. Just write in what your condition is and I will put together a supplement protocol for you. And I truly believe that God's put me on earth to help all of you, and that's my mission.
Philip Pape: 39:22
And I can get on board with that. I feel you, that is our intent. We are trying to help in every way we can and lots of people need it and thank goodness for these platforms like our podcast. We're going to send folks to sarahbantahealthcom for all the stuff you just heard about the Q&A, the Tips to Pools podcast, the resources, the articles, everything. And Sarah, it's been a blast. Thank you so much for coming on. Wits and Weights, thanks, thank you.
