Episode 123 | Mar 27, 2025

Why You’re Stronger With A Teammate, With Col. Martha McSally

What does it take to truly rebuild yourself—body, mind, and spirit—after life’s hardest moments? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi is joined by Col. Martha McSally, a retired combat veteran, former U.S. Senator, and author of Dare to Fly, for a raw and uplifting conversation about overcoming adversity, redefining resilience, and how true transformation happens with the right support — much like the teammate role a health coach plays in someone’s health journey.

“When we fly in combat, we never fly alone… And it’s the same idea with a health coach… helping you sort out what’s working, what’s not, where they need to kick your ass from time to time, hold you accountable with compassion and love—as your teammate.”

Col. Martha McSally

Col. McSally made history as the first woman to fly a fighter jet in combat and later served in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. But her story is one of deep personal evolution. After surviving trauma and serving 26 years in the Air Force, she entered a new chapter of healing and growth—one focused on tuning in to the mind-body connection, fueling her body with intention, and helping others, especially midlife women, build strength from the inside out.

In this episode, she opens up about joining a health and fitness challenge that shifted her perspective entirely. Though already fit and active, she discovered she had been undernourishing her body and overtraining for years. With the help of coaching and community, she began prioritizing protein, sleep, and resistance training—and experienced a powerful physical transformation that mirrored her ongoing emotional healing. Alongside Dr. Sandi, she shares insights on the importance of nervous system regulation, resilience practices like breathwork and cold plunges, and a new mindset centered around noticing delight in everyday life.

Col. McSally’s story speaks to the heart of what health coaching is all about: guiding people to listen to their bodies, build self-efficacy, and make sustainable changes that reflect who they want to be. For health coaches, this episode offers a valuable lens into the layered work of behavior change and the impact of having a trusted partner on the journey. Whether supporting clients in midlife, navigating trauma, or simply seeking more joy in the day-to-day, coaches can draw powerful lessons from this inspiring conversation.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: On this episode of “Health Coach Talk,” we really do a deep dive into challenges, how you can navigate through situations that are quite challenging and stressful, and how do you emerge taking advantage of opportunities to undergo perhaps a major transformation. We also get into the mind-body connection, and this conversation is one that I think you are really going to enjoy. It is with Colonel Martha McSally, Former Senator McSally.

Let me tell you a little bit about my friend, Martha. Colonel Martha McSally is a pioneering, combat-proven leader, inspiring speaker, entrepreneur, and author of “Dare to Fly: Simple Lessons in Never Giving Up.” McSally is a compelling example of overcoming adversity and fear to achieve extraordinary feats. Losing her dad at the age of 12 and surviving sexual abuse and assault, she persevered to become the first woman in U.S. history to fly an Air Force fighter jet in combat and command a fighter squadron in combat. Martha deployed six times to the Middle East and Afghanistan, flying 325 combat hours in an A-10 attack plane, earning the Bronze Star and six Air Medals.

Col. McSally retired as a full colonel after 26 years in uniform. She then served as a professor of national security studies at the Marshall Center in Germany. Frustrated with D.C., she resigned her professorship to come home and run for Congress. Martha deployed to a new combat zone in D.C., serving four years in the House, and was appointed to the U.S. Senate after John McCain’s passing. Martha is now bringing her courage, resilience, and leadership lessons to the private sector. She is on the board of directors of three companies and impacts lives as a keynote speaker, executive coach, and leader of adventure trips and retreats. I’m honored to call her my friend, and I hope you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it. Martha, welcome to “Health Coach Talk.”

Col. McSally: Thanks, Sandi. Excited for our conversation. Hello to everybody.

Dr. Sandi: So, you underwent a real significant transformation. You were part of the Genius Lean Life program. And so let’s just start out by talking about that, because this was something that you did in 2024. And first of all, thank you for your service to our country, and we can talk about how you have utilized your past experience to build resilience and how you approach this Lean Life program.

Col. McSally: Yeah, well, for context, I have been an athlete my whole life and not necessarily very talented, but it was very much a part of managing my stress and being resilient. I just found early on in my life after losing my dad and other trauma that I went through, that going off for a run actually just really helped me settle my nervous system. And it just has been a part of my life.

And so over the years, I go longer and longer. I ran a bunch of marathons, and I ran Ironman Triathlons to include Hawaii. And since then, I’m fit, I’m strong, I do a lot of adventurous things and backpacking trips and hiking the Arizona Trail and paragliding. So, I thought last year at 57, I was actually in a really good place. My biological age was 15 years younger. I thought I was fit and healthy. And when I looked at my New Year’s, sort of, plan forward, I don’t set goals anymore. I set identities using “I am” statements. And then I build habits and practices that cast votes for those identities, like James Clear says in “Atomic Habits.”

So, in the area of physical and overall health, I wrote something like, “I am physically healthy, mind, body, spirit. I take care of this impermanent vessel.” It was a very kind of strong, healthy statement. And I put some routines up that were mostly what I was doing, Sandi. And then this Lean Life Challenge came up, and I honestly thought it was mostly for people who needed to lose weight and get in shape, which wasn’t me. But my friends were joining. And I thought, “Yeah, I want to build a little muscle. I could get some coaching.” I had a little FOMO of the community, and I decided to join.

And we started counting macros for the first time in my life. I was counting what was going in my body, every single thing with certain goals. And what I realized very quickly was I was undernourished, underproteined, and over training. So, it’s an amazing story of most people think like get in better shape and health. You have to work out more and eat less. I actually needed to eat more and work out less.

And what I discovered so quickly… I did a body composition, I’m postmenopausal, and I realized I had the same weight from high school, but I was like skinny fat. It didn’t look it. And my body composition had shifted. I was like, “Oh, my God, what am I to do with this?” And then I brought in a naturopath as a partner and started looking at my blood panels and stuff. And I was like, “Oh, my God, I got some real issues here I got to deal with.” And I went through a little grief cycle. As Dan Sullivan says, all progress starts by telling the truth. And I had to just face the fact that I had been pushing myself physically for so long, mostly based on mental toughness, building that anterior mid-cingulate cortex, that part of our brain that grows when we do really hard things.

And I laugh at myself now as an athlete that I don’t know why I wasn’t interested in the fuel. I wasn’t eating poorly. I wasn’t eating bad stuff. But I never really studied the fuel for me to make sure that my engine was working properly, and it all changed. And within six weeks, with some coaching, backing off the workouts, drinking more water, starting to work with a naturopath, eating 150 grams of protein a day, I lost probably about, I would say, 11 to 13 pounds of fat. I gained muscle, which at 57 is challenging to do. My body composition completely shifted. I mean, I was always looking fit and strong, but I’m now lifting more than the 25-year-olds next to me at the gym, and feeling better, more vibrant, all the way around, sleeping better, feeling more rested, and it has transformed my life. I mean, who knew that this thing that I didn’t even think I needed actually was a big wakeup call for me. And I’ve sent deep dives, gone down the rabbit holes of building expertise in all these areas, and I’ve been encouraging and coaching other people now in their own journeys, especially middle-aged perimenopause, post-menopause women to wake up to address their overall physical health. But there’s an element of mind, body, spirit that’s important as well.

Dr. Sandi: What a beautiful, inspiring story. And it really reminds me of my own journey, because I was raised in that to eat less, move more. And I was addicted to the steady state cardio for many years. And I had gone through… I was a vegetarian. I was a vegan, disastrous raw vegan, undereating protein. And also now I eat 1 gram per pound of body weight. And I have put on muscle. I’m turning 75.

I have found that my strength is just like… I actually maxed out the leg extension, the pin variety. And so I kept going, putting in more. Wait a minute, I could never do this when I was that skinny fat. And I think for so many women, they do not eat enough protein and they also are stuck in cardio. They do not do enough resistance training.

Col. McSally: Totally agree.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, yeah.

Col. McSally: Yeah, if I could just give one message, and this is for men and women, but mostly women, because culturally… I mean, I was an endurance athlete, and I loved going farther and longer mostly because I wasn’t talented but I had mental toughness and eventually people would give up. But generally, culturally, they point the women towards the cardio machines at the gym and the men towards the weights. Women, listen, you have to go lift heavy things. We have to as we age, in order to preserve not just our muscle mass, our cognition, like everything related to it… I love Dr. Gabrielle Lyon’s approach of muscle-centric health for longevity. But let’s bust through these cultural barriers, lift heavy weights, and protein. I like eating sometimes 200 grams of protein a day, protein-focused eating, and getting good sleep are probably three of the most important things that we can do as we’re aging, and you can quickly shift. I see all these people at the gym, women who are working out with me, and I know they’re not eating enough protein, and I’m not seeing any change. They’re doing the hard work, but they’re not getting the benefits from it because they’re not eating the protein.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, absolutely. We were at an event. There were a bunch of women, and I could tell they were sarcopenic. And I looked at what they were eating. And they filled up on the salads, on the grains, and the protein, they had a tiny little portion, whereas… And we were eating late. So, it was at a party. And so I had my beef sticks. And I didn’t care how it looked. I took out my beef sticks from my purse, and I had three of them before dinner, realizing that the choices might be limited at dinner. But I think it is possible with some planning ahead. And you are really an inspiration for what is possible because of what you accomplished in how many missions you flew in Afghanistan, and doing things that we typically don’t associate with women as the first female pilot, and everything that you have that needed incredible resilience.

Col. McSally: Thanks. And I mean, the irony is that I didn’t think this is one area of my life. I was just like those women. A year and a half ago, I would have been them and I wouldn’t have known any better. So, I have compassion while I’m saying this and while I can’t unsee what I know now. And so for all those out there, all those people out there, men and women who are not paying attention to these issues, it’s not complicated. You don’t have to get a PhD. Lift heavy things and eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, and then make sure you’re drinking enough water and you’re getting a good night’s sleep. Whatever that means for you but there’s some good sleep protocols that you can do. Those are so important for our physicality. And you can’t preserve your muscle mass and your functionality as you age. Biohacking and longevity are such an important thing right now. You can’t do that unless you are doing resistance training in order to preserve your muscle mass and eating that protein. So, it’s not complicated.

Dr. Sandi: It’s critical and I say it’s non-negotiable. It’s part of your personal hygiene. And I actually look forward to it. So, after we record, I’m going to go out into the garage. I got a trap bar with some plates. I really enjoy this. And every time I could put another plate on it, it’s like, “Yes.” I see it as fun. And you mentioned something. So, Martha and I belong to Genius Network run by Joe Polish. And you talked about something that I really resonated. And that is the concept of finding delight in your day. I’d love for you to talk about that.

Col. McSally: This is a new practice that I’ve started in 2025. And it has been so transformational for me, and I want to share it with everybody. I didn’t create it. I was listening to a Huberman podcast, and I can’t even remember who the guest was. I feel bad about that. But they were just having a conversation about gratitude practices and how sometimes when people create a new habit of a gratitude practice, sometimes actually when we are in conflict with what we’re actually saying, that is not good for us unconsciously. You may say you’re grateful for your family, but maybe you’re unconsciously feeling some resentment or just something else is going on.

So, we sometimes feel guilty about a gratitude practice, right? And we’re like, “Oh, we’re going to write these things down I should be grateful for,” and maybe you don’t feel grateful. So, instead, they had a discussion about the word delight, and it just hit my spirit. And it just felt so expansive. And it means of the light. Delight, right? It’s a divine idea. And that is, as you go throughout your day, look for things that bring you delight, big and small. And I understand neurologically, the importance of this because our lizard brain is looking for all the saber tooth tigers and all the things that are going to hurt us and all the things to be afraid of. That’s our default network, right? That’s how we’re evolutionarily designed, but we can rewire that and create new neural pathways by looking for things that bring us delight. And that could be like, “Oh, look at that bird over in that tree or that flower,” as you’re walking by or just my dog rolling in the grass or the first sip of coffee you have. It can be big things like, “Oh, I’m looking at the Grand Canyon. I just got a promotion.”

But the smaller actually the better because what it does is it allows us to fall more and more in love with our lives. And there actually is delight all around us. And we may be even noticing it, but maybe we’re not noticing that we’re noticing it, if that makes sense. So, if you create an intentionality of a delight practice… So, I now have another person in Genius Network, Jeff Hays. Every single day, we text each other what brought us delight that day. And it gives us accountability too. And yesterday I was in a little bit of a funk, and he was having a massive day. So, his delight brought me delight. And then it caused me to look for delight in some of the small things. And it’s just helping to rewire in a way that I now look for things. And I think about like, “Oh, I’m going to have to text Jeff today. Has anything brought me delight today?” So, I want to encourage you to just try it out, find an accountability partner, try to look three things every day that bring you delight. And if you can start anticipating it and noticing it more and even get smaller and smaller, you’re going to change your life, and I’m not exaggerating.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, I absolutely believe it. So, a couple things, what you talked about, and you talked about it previously, you mentioned coaching and now your accountability partner, Jeff… I love Jeff, by the way. And this is what health coaches do. They are your accountability partner. You can go it alone, but a health coach helps you get from where you are to where you want to be. And it’s critical to have that partner who can give you guidance, reinforcement, support you, help you overcome obstacles.

And I love what you have been saying. And it reminds me of the noted researcher in positive psychology, Barbara Fredrickson. And she talks about prioritizing positivity, because many people fail at gratitude or finding any joy during the day, because they’re not programmed to get in. But if you write down… And for me, it’s like going to a ballet class, for example. So, I know every time I leave a ballet class, I feel good, because it’s like meditation, and I love it, or taking a nature walk. And she pencils that in. And that’s what she recommends that you actually look for what activities will give you delight, where you could say, “Yes, I watched a comedy with my friend, and we laughed.” Whatever it might be, and it’s personalized. So, it’s not one size fits all. But having those during the day is really critical.

Col. McSally: Yeah, and I think I do a very extensive end of year reviews anywhere. I actually go back day by day through my calendar and my photos and identify peak positive and peak negative and neutral days as I go throughout the year. I’m doing that real time this year, because the whole idea is when you identify a peak positive experience, a experience that feels expansive, that brings you delight, that builds your energy, right, then you want to do more of that, you have to look at, what was I doing? What type of thing was I doing? Who was I with? Similarly, if you are having peak negative experiences, look for those trends, what was I doing? Who was I with? Where was I? What was the environment? And simply eliminating the peak negative experiences, “I’m going to do less of those,” you raise your floor. And then on average, you have a more delightful life because you’re stopping the negative and you’re intentionally choosing to do more positive. This is not toxic positivity, which I think there’s too much of that out there where people are having a miserable situation. They just lost their spouse, I guess, a bad diagnosis. Oh, I feel wonderful. No, I don’t feel wonderful.

Dr. Sandi: Right, right.

Col. McSally: So, it is important to be congruent. Don’t be lying to yourself. Because when we have our foot on the gas and our foot on the brake at the same time, that creates all sorts of energetic and systemic and then health challenges because holistically it impacts us. Try to be as brutally honest as possible. If you’re in a place that’s fearful or angry, call it out, feel it, let it pass through you. Be curious about it and express it and let it get out. But don’t be like, “Oh, I feel great,” when you don’t feel great, right? So, this is not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about toxic positivity, but with an intentionality, you can carve out more life experiences and live the life you love by seeking to do more of the things that actually bring delight. And then you will actually be able to impact the world in more positive ways because you’re doing those things with the wind at your back instead of…

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. And a big part of that is really catching those thoughts. I was fortunate to have trained in cognitive behavior therapy with Dr. Albert Ellis, where you break it. I’m catastrophizing. And 99% of the things that are most stressful… For me, it might be a tech issue. I’ve got a new phone and it’s not working and I can’t get to something or… And I tend to then have a meltdown if I don’t catch it. And often as our mutual friend, Whitney Jones would say, I don’t have… I get to be upset about this because I’m alive and I’m breathing. And you can transform it so that you send different signals that are going to create… You can’t be totally relaxed. That’s the toxic positivity. But you say, “It’s inconvenient. It’s uncomfortable. It’s stupid,” but you tone down the language. Whereas people say, “It’s awful. It’s horrible. I can’t take this. I can’t stand what he’s doing or what…” You get to that level up to a 10.

Col. McSally: And this is a reality is that… And I’ve seen this in my own life experiences. People often are like, “Martha, you’re so resilient and anti-fragile.” I get stronger after I go through harder things. And I’ve now realized, now that I’ve studied it more, that actually we go through painful experiences. Pain is a given. Life is going to bring pain. So, if you’re not going through pain right now, you will soon. It’s just the reality. I don’t mean that as doomsday, it just will. But our suffering comes from the story we tell ourselves and the narrative we tell ourselves about the pain that actually might not be happening right now anymore.

So, we go through something horrible, and I’m not saying you just forget it. You may need to go through some healing, some practices in order to release it and all that. I don’t mean suppress it because I did that for many years and that serves you until it doesn’t. What I’m talking about is be aware that you may be causing yourself present suffering when you’re actually no longer in a painful state, right? You’re no longer experiencing the trauma. You’re no longer experiencing the bad marriage, the situation at work, whatever it is, but you playing the record over and over again creates suffering right now when actually right now, it’s a beautiful day. Everything’s cooking. So, we suffer in the now because we’re either doing the story from the past or we’re then catastrophizing the future. It’s usually past or future focused when we’re suffering.

So, creating just an awareness of that, be easy on yourself and catching yourself and creating a little bit of distance between stimulus and response when you just notice what you’re feeling, notice what you’re noticing, notice what you’re thinking, just a little bit of a space to be the observer to be like, “I’m really frustrated right now. And I could either be a runaway train and I could just feed this thing and start suffering, or I could catch it, be aware, be curious, process it.” It takes some clear actions as to what you could do to address the situation and then let it pass. That is the more fruitful and healthy way to be. And I learned this all obviously over decades, but that’s also a part of our overall health.

We’ve talked about physical health, but if you don’t have tools to release the negative impacts of what has happened in your life from the past or the emotional impacts of the trauma or the… Everybody’s been through trauma. Big T trauma or little T trauma, we all have. And if we don’t go through the work to do the inner work, to understand, what is holding us back? What are we afraid of? What are we triggered by? What is the pattern we have in our lives? Why do we keep dating the same person over and over again with a different name or the same dynamics?

The courage really… People say I’m courageous because I flew in combat, but courage really is to look inward and to be like, “What’s going on in there?” Shine a light in there and be willing to be like, “I need to be freed from this stuff, whatever modality I’m going to take.” And that overall, if you don’t do that, then it doesn’t matter if you’re lifting weights and eating a protein and sleeping well. As a holistic being, mind, body, spirit all together, you are still not going to be well overall. And it could impact your physical health because the body does keep the score.

So, I just want to encourage everybody, it’s not just physicality. It’s the emotional, it’s the spiritual, it’s taking captive your thoughts and choosing new thoughts and not allowing those catastrophizing to happen. It’s all these practices that actually allow us to live a life of wellbeing and abundance and longevity in all aspects. It’s not just the physicality.

Dr. Sandi: This is profound. And I’m turning 75 now. And so I have a lot of events that at the time I thought horrible, “How am I going to get over… My career or my life is ruined.” I mean, you’re stuck in them if you don’t let go. But so you always said, well, will you remember this in 5 years and 10 years? What about in 20 years? What about in 30 years? It’s gone. And perhaps you’ve learned from them, you’ve learned life lessons. But at the end of the day, with perspective, you zoom out with a broader lens and your whole timeline. And you can see that you are able to let it go. You don’t wake up every day thinking about it as you do when you’re in the middle of the crisis, the failure, the setback, whatever it might be.

Col. McSally: Oh, absolutely. And what I have come to realize… Again, it’s taking me a long time to discover this. But as I look back, it makes so much more sense. Our life circumstances are actually a mirror of what’s going on inside. We attract into our life opportunities to grow and learn and see areas that we need to let go of, that we need to heal from, that we need to get past. So, instead of looking at just externally, you cut me off in traffic, business partner failed me and relationship partner did this, take a look at like, what is this teaching me? Is this a pattern? Do I have a pattern of people abandoning me or people that are abusing me? Do I have a pattern? I’m not blaming the victim. I’m just saying to look at it as an opportunity, where do I need to grow? What is this maybe mirroring inside of me? That’s the hardest thing because the things that annoy us the most about people actually can be reflecting a part of us that we don’t want to deal with. And the best thing we can do is graduate from the lesson so we don’t have to repeat it again, because a different character will come into your life to teach it to you. I always joke that the divine gives us a whisper, then a billboard, then a 2 by 4. And we often are like, “What?” The 2 by 4 surprise us, but we saw the indications of the opportunity for us to grow and learn and let something go or heal from something with the whisper and the billboard. But sometimes it takes the 2 by 4 to get our attention.

Dr. Sandi: Yes, absolutely. So, what about healing our work to improve our nervous system in terms of self-regulation? And you are a fan of some things like breathwork or cold plunges. Can you talk about that?

Col. McSally: Yes. And some of these things I was doing my whole life and I didn’t realize I was able to be resilient and I was able to continue to go through really difficult things in life, surviving sexual abuse after I lost my dad at 12, and then abuse by my coach and then sexual assault in the military and then combat and all that I went through. I had the resilience because I was doing things I didn’t know what they were at the time, whether it was like get outside and move your body, right? When you’re actually feeling like you’re overwhelmed, get outside and move your body. And over time, I’ve brought in more practices because we can top down control our autonomic nervous system. Autonomic makes it sound like it’s out of control, but as many of your listeners, we can take control of that top down through some practices.

So, I have added breathwork. This morning, I did 45 minutes with our friend, Jason Campbell. When I can’t tune into his sessions, I do Wim Hof breathing or other types of breathwork. When I sense like, man, I’m just feeling some turbid emotion and energy, so I need to do some longer exhales than inhales, for example. I mean, there’s very simple things you can do. I’m feeling a little dysregulate. Well, just do some basic box breathing, right? Just one second in, one second hold, one second out, one second hold. I need some energy instead of going for an espresso, which I also do at times. Maybe do some what they call primer breathing, where you’re doing some full…kind of Wim Hof, full in, full out, or you’re doing longer in than you are out. There’s things that you can do that then impact the pH, your oxygenation, and it impacts your nervous system. It settles it down. It gives it the message. Sometimes you’re wanting to get into parasympathetic, right? Calm down, get clarity. Sometimes you’re wanting to get into sympathetic, like, “Hey, I got some things to do. I got to get some energy in me.” So, using breath can really help do that. And that’s a tool that I’ve just been using really in the last three or four years.

Cold plunging is another one. It’s a way for us to put ourselves into stress. Also, I do infrared sauna, I did last night, but put ourselves into a stress state because we’re basically living between 68 and 72, right? Instead of being out in the elements and that stress was actually good for our bodies to be able to adjust neurologically our nervous system, our immune system. But when we don’t do that, then actually unwanted guests can come in. So, just subjecting yourself to cold plunging. And I’ve learned from Stacy Sims, for women, it’s a little bit different than men. You don’t want to actually have it be something that increases inflammation, so make sure you follow good guidance.

But putting yourself in that cold water, I never want to do it. I hate the cold. I hate it. And every time, like, “No,” and then you get in, you get past the cold shock, you settle your breathing down, you take control of your body, you take control of your breathing. You say, “I’m in charge, settle it down.” And then within three minutes, you feel amazing. The dopamine hit, the almost euphoria at times. So, there’s many practices like this that are free, that people can use on a daily basis. We’re not adding more and more into your habits, because you’re already tired. But throughout the day, you’re driving somewhere, you’re stressed out, you’re stuck in traffic, control your breath, right? Take time to focus on your breathing, do some eyes open breathwork meditation. And these things can be really life changing and can impact obviously our health. Unwanted guests are excused, like viruses and things. It’s time for them to leave. And you can actually use these things for free in order to impact your health overall.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, I could not agree more. And I had been teaching breathing since 1975. I think I used to do workshops, which was so radical at the time. It is remarkably effective. I probably saw thousands of people with panic attacks and taught them how to stop them just with breathing and changing your thought pattern and use of imagery. And it’s so effective. You mentioned Jason Campbell. I love him. He’s on our faculty. So, these are things that are wonderful because they’re in our control. Let’s turn to what’s not in our control, which is our healthcare system, our broken healthcare system, difficulty addressing or find acute care for… You’re having a heart attack and you need the best acute care will take care of you. But what about chronic diseases, which are on the rise like never before? And you’ve experienced that as a patient. You’ve been through the system and your experience, what you have learned having served in Congress, both in the House and the Senate.

Col. McSally: Yeah, our life expectancy is going down. Our chronic disease rate is exploding, whether it’s heart disease or diabetes, obesity, dementia, all these things. If you get in a major car accident, we’re the best in the world for you to be able to go into hospital and save your life and put you back together. But our system is so broken because it’s not teaching doctors the things that actually can impact the prevention of these chronic diseases. I mean, how much nutrition education are doctors getting these days, like an hour in medical school, the things that you can actually do to impact your overall health and prevent these chronic diseases are not a part of medical training. They are not a part of what we’re incentivizing in payment system either, right? It’s fee for service. It’s basically do surgery on you or give you a drug. The pharmaceuticals, although they come up with life saving drugs and cures here and there, the reality of the revolving door between the regulators and the regulated and the seeking to just put people on drugs to manage diseases for their whole lives for profit is where we’re going and where we are as a country.

There’s also an element of us as the patient that we’ve got to get past the cultural, kind of, white coat mentality. I thought I was going to go to medical school at first instead of being a fighter pilot. I changed my path. But we grew up where it’s like, “Well, the doctor said, you know, the white coat, whatever they say is true.” We have got to shift that to like, “I’m responsible for my health, and you’re a highly educated consultant and I’m going to listen to you and I’m going to self-educate. I’m going to listen to other people and I’m going to decide what I do for my health and kind of take responsibility for that.” Trying to reform the system so that we incentivize preventative care, that we incentivize outcomes instead of five-minute doctor’s appointments where they just give you a drug, where we actually do not allow the pharmaceuticals to… I mean, I’m a free market kind of person, but I’m also conscious capitalism, right? Stop advertising on television. We’ve got still chemicals and dyes in our food that are not allowed anywhere else in the world mostly. So, we’ve got to make sure we make our food safer.

But there’s also an element of personal choice because just telling people like, “Buy whole fresh foods and cook them up while people are busy,” well, it’s a cost element to it, and ultraprocessed foods are cheaper and faster. And then an addiction comes with it and then you’re just craving more and more of that. That’s challenging for us to break culturally where there’s an opportunity for families who are busy to be able to buy and prepare whole fresh foods for them and their kids, and you’re not seeing the kids just throwing away any of the fresh foods like in the school cafeteria. We’ve got to shift. It’s not all a government thing. We have responsibility to be more educated. And it does start with the government. The food guidance is ridiculous. It’s not based on facts or science. It’s corrupt and we need to shift all that so that there’s more opportunities for functional medicine and those who are integrated looking at the body holistically can actually spend an hour with a patient and help address all their needs as opposed to looking at things as disconnected.

And in my Nirvana, the functional medicine would go even further where it’s mind, body, spirit. It’s not just the body. Ellen Langer has done some amazing studies on this like counterclockwise and some other studies where she put… This was back in what I think the ’70s. She put some 80-year-olds into a setting of 20 years as if it was 20 years prior, and they lived in that kind of setting just for a week. And within a week, their functionality was better. Their blood work was better. Their vision was better. So, the impact that our mind has, the impact of emotional healing, the impact of spirituality, all of this is… We’re getting even more science on how important this is to our overall health, well-being, therefore productivity, right, and there’s economic impacts to all this.

So, when I was in Congress we tried to address many of these things, but there’s a lot of barriers to that. I think there is an opportunity for a lot of it to be changed now. But what I said when I was there, there’s a lot of people that are right now in the middle of getting life-saving care based on the current system as broken as it is. So, let’s be careful and do no harm if we’re shifting to something else that we’re landing an airline, not a helicopter, right? We need to be careful for the collateral damage as we move… Let’s move things in the direction where patients can have more power with their money, with who they want to go to, that they can use their health insurance for some of the things that are all out of pocket right now, and there’s ways for you to work with functional doctors who are getting the kind of education that are needed to work with the whole body, the whole spirit, the whole mind, and we actually have better outcomes for health. I know that sounds very aspirational, but I’m an optimistic person and I think we have… It almost can’t get any worse, so I think we really have an opportunity to get into what Peter Attia calls Medicine 3.0 in a more profound way, and I think we are on the verge with technology and AI and other things. We’re on the verge of being able to cure these diseases, but we have to take responsibility for not just take a pill to cure something but take responsibility for our actions, our well-being, what we’re spending our time doing, our level of nutrition and movement and sleep and emotional regulation and all those things as a part of our overall lifespan and not just our health span and lifespan.

Dr. Sandi: Well, you are speaking my language, and I think that the health coaches that we’re training, those are the boots on the ground, the functional medicine health coaches and the book that I have coming out goes into all the research. People don’t know this, that it’s very effective working with a health coach. It’s affordable and people get better. Their biomarkers change. And having that partner who is bringing back bedside manner, which we’ve lost. Physicians don’t have it anymore. We have a critical shortage of primary care doctors. It’s growing and hopefully there will be reimbursable codes for health coaching. If you want to see a health coach that is for that prevention, you will save so much money in acute care services down the road if they are addressing it. If every primary care office had a health coach, you had to see the health coach addressing and showing you and helping you and guiding you and and supporting you just as you made those changes with that Lean Life program. Everyone had a coach behind them to support them. And one of the best things time after time in all these research studies, what was the critical factor? Self-efficacy, empowerment where people decided, “Yeah, I do have control and possibly be in charge of my health.” Well, this has been an incredible conversation and Col. McSally, Former Senator McSally, Martha, where can people find you?

Col. McSally: Well, thanks, Sandi. Let me first just… I got a comment on what you just said. When we fly in combat, we never fly alone. And it’s the same idea with a health coach. People can feel like they may want to do something different, but they’re so overwhelmed, they don’t know what to believe, what diet should I follow, every day a new study comes out contradicting the other one. What should I start with and how do I keep momentum going and building small habits?

And so a health coach is a wingman for you to be able to stay on track, helping you sort out what’s working for you, what’s not, where they need to kick your ass from time to time, hold you a little accountable but with compassion and love, right, as your teammate so that you’re constantly getting better. And, yeah, if you were to look at that economically, oh, my gosh, how much money that would save for people to be able to prevent all these preventable diseases? It’s priceless. So, I love what you’re doing. And I think about as an athlete, I think about just in life and business, having people who are coaching you and holding you accountable is a key to success. Going in alone just really isn’t where the most successful… I mean, some people can do it alone, but the most successful people are finding the biggest inflection points and the biggest changes because they have a wingman.

But for me, yeah, I’m at marthamcsally.com. I’m keynote speaking. I’m leading adventure trips. I’ve got one in the Grand Canyon coming up. I’ll have some other ones happening so you can jump on and find me there. I’m @marthamcsally on all the social media platforms, so please follow me and comment on my posts. And I’d love to hear from you all and look forward to seeing everybody’s personal health journeys and transformations. We’re all in this together. And the power is with us. You’re talking about the things we can’t control. We actually can’t control… There’s many things that we can’t control. So, let’s take control of those things and live the amazing life that we all were designed and created to live.

Dr. Sandi: Well, follow her on Instagram and other social media. Check out her website, her book “Dare to Fly.”

Col. McSally: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

Dr. Sandi: This has been an incredible conversation. I’d love to have you back. To be continued. You are absolutely awesome. You’re my idol.

Col. McSally: Thanks, Sandi. You’re the best.

Dr. Sandi: Thank you.