Pursuit of Wellness - Strength Training Secrets for Women: Protein, Ozempic, and Aging Powerfully with Celebrity Nutrition Expert & Fitness Hall of Famer JJ Virgin
Episode Date: September 16, 2024Ep. #133 In this episode, we explore the transformative world of aging powerfully with JJ Virgin, someone I admire so much—a Triple Board Certified Nutrition Expert and four-time New York Times best...selling author. JJ shares her insights on why starting your fitness journey in your 20s is crucial, how to get your parents to embrace weight lifting, and the significance of VO2 Max and Dexa scans. We also tackle trending topics like the Ozempic craze, the role of protein in muscle health, and the importance of movement in achieving holistic wellness. Tune in for practical advice and cutting-edge information on how to redefine aging and health. Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Mari’s Newsletter click here! For JJ Virgin’s Instagram click here! For JJ Virgin’s website click here! For POW Brand Promo Codes click here! Sponsored By: Bite is offering our listeners 20% off your first order. Go to trybite.com/POW or use code POW at checkout to claim this deal. That’s trybite.com/POW. Try now risk-free for 60 nights, at Blissy.com/POWPOD and get an additional 30% off. That’s blissy.com/powpod and use code POWPOD to get an additional 30% off! Your skin and hair will thank you! Plus, if you visit carawayhome.com/PURSUIT you can take an additional 10% off your next purchase.This deal is exclusive for our listeners, so visit carawayhome.com/PURSUIT or use code PURSUIT at checkout. Visit clearstemskincare.com and use code POW at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Again, that’s code POW for 20% off your first purchase on clearstemskincare.com. Show Links: Eat Protein First Challenge Topics Discussed 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:02:11 - JJ’s background  00:04:34 - The importance of aging powerfully and starting in your 20’s 00:06:18 - Advice for getting your parents to weight lift 00:08:01 - VO2 Max and Dexa scans 00:09:51 - Focusing on getting strong and healthy 00:14:45 - Rucking vest 00:17:01 - Hypertrophy 00:21:07 - Protein first 00:24:11 - Muscles and glucose control 00:28:02 - Gym time length 00:31:52 - Women and weight lifting 00:35:26 - Muscle mass and caloric intake 00:39:55 - Using Ozempic right 00:43:13 - The Ozempic craze 00:44:20 - Healing your metabolism 00:49:41 - Ozempic alternatives 00:53:51 - Risks of Ozempic 00:55:31 - Body composition and cycling caloric restriction 01:01:33 - The importance of movement and covering the basics 01:03:13 - The tea on creatine 01:11:52 - Different types of diets 01:13:56 - Wellness means aging powerfully
Transcript
Discussion (0)
In putting together an exercise prescription, what are the results I'm going for? Like,
in putting together a diet, what are the results I'm going for? Because people ask me,
should I do this or that? I go, I don't know. What are your results you're looking for?
What is your current state of health? What's your lifestyle like? What are your goals?
And then let's just design it so that it will get you where you want to be.
This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. What is up, guys? Welcome back to the show. We have a very
special guest today, someone I admire so much, JJ Virgin. She is a triple board certified nutrition
expert, fitness hall of famer, and four-time New York
Times bestselling author. We are going to cover some amazing topics today. She's on a mission to
change the narrative from aging gracefully to aging powerfully. She was such a wealth of knowledge. I
also just love strong, powerful women in the health space. We're talking about the importance of aging powerfully
and how to start in your twenties, VO2 max and DEXA scans, what they're good for,
focusing on getting strong and healthy, focusing on protein first, women and weightlifting,
how to heal your metabolism, using Ozempic the right way, the importance of movement and covering
the basics, the tea on creatine, and what wellness really means to her. You guys are
going to absolutely love this episode. So many good topics you guys are always asking me about.
So without further ado, let's hop right into this episode with JJ Virgin.
JJ, welcome to the show. Glad to be here. I'm so excited. You look amazing.
Thank you. I'm glowing because I burst trained over here.
But your muscles are so impressive. And I feel like being muscular as a woman is something I've
always admired so much. When I first got into fitness, it was like my goal was to have muscle
because I feel like it's such an obvious way of showing
hard work and discipline because it is so difficult as women for us to put on muscle.
So I know you are a triple board certified nutrition expert,
fitness hall of famer, and four-time New York Times bestselling author. Incredible.
I'd love to start from the beginning and just hear about how you became interested in this field.
I never wasn't like I've always been interested born interested I was I was started out in dance classes right um and so I was very interested in what I was able to do with my body but I always
loved strength stuff so in junior high and high school this is going to sound so ridiculous now that you know how tall I am.
I got obsessed with gymnastics.
I was also in gymnastics and I'm 5'10".
And my son is a tricker.
He does parkour tricking.
He's 6'2".
I'm like, honey, not our sport.
No.
Not our sport.
He did like a similar thing to what I did to my knee.
I'm like, because it's not our sport.
Well, I did point ballet and I did gymnastics.
And then I lifted weights with the high school football team because there were no like back
then, literally back then it was jazzercise and figure salons.
Like seriously.
So no weights for women were even an option.
The little, you know, the ones we think of as paperweights, those were an option because
I love the fact that you love muscle and see it as this great sign of, you know, this sexy strength and proof that you're like doing the work.
Yeah.
But that was not the case back then at all.
Like not the case.
And I just have that type of body naturally lean.
If I if you were going to say, what do you want to do?
I'd rather throw weights
around any day of the week than do any kind of endurance anything ever. I feel the same way. I
think it's so much more empowering. Oh, and it's just more fun. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, you're going
to tell me that going and running for four hours is fun. I see nothing fun, no fun. But it's so
great when you're lifting weights because you can actually see yourself getting stronger. It's been challenging over the years because, you know, my body type was always
like lean and muscular. And I finally went, that's who I am. This is it. Like this is the way it's
going to go. I actually dated a guy once was like, I, I like curvy women. I'm like, why on earth
would you, you know, like, I don't know. There's no way I can transform to that
nor am I going to nor do I want to. So I mean, you know, God bless the curvy women and they're not me.
I know you have a focus on aging optimally and focusing on muscle as we age. A majority of my
listeners are probably 25 to 30, kind of my age range.
Why is it important that we start thinking about that now at this age?
Let's reframe it to aging powerfully.
Aging powerfully.
Powerfully. And this is the right age to start. You know, I feel very fortunate. I was lifting
weights at 16 with the high school football team with the bros uh and i grew up i mean i went to richmond california i went to a very like rough neighborhood high school and lifted weights with the football
team if in the perfect world we would be doing dexa scans on girls in their teens and really
seeing where they were in terms of bone density and muscle and we would start just like in the
perfect world if you had it to do over again, you would start like investing from the
time you were born. Your parents would teach you how to do it. You would just invest all the way
along. You'd be a gazillionaire. It's the same with muscle. The earlier you start, the better.
But the cool thing is you would never tell a 60-year-old, well, you didn't start investing.
Guess you're screwed for retirement.
You would say start now.
And that's what I'd say here.
Start now.
But gosh, in this time period, I can't think of a better time to really get this dialed
in and started than right now, because the dividends you're going to get later on in
life are crazy amazing.
Like there's all these horrible stats about aging. And I can tell you they don't
need to be at all if you've got a solid foundation and you just don't stop. And so it's never too
late to start weightlifting in your opinion. No, if you're 26, you're fine. But even if you're 80.
Do you have advice? Like I would love if my parents were to weightlift, but I don't even know where to begin
convincing them because they just didn't grow up in that culture. Do you have any tips on like how
we can encourage our parents to weightlift? Yes. So they did grow up in the time of calisthenics
and Jack LaLanne. And in the reality, when you look at what a lot of what he was doing, it was
bodyweight calisthenics. It still was resistance training with some power training, right, jumping jacks and things like
that. So they grew up with that, where I like to do this, I have a very specific progression,
my favorite audience is the audience that's new to resistance training, like I love that audience,
like it's easy to indoctrinate the indoctrinated. But someone who's never done
it, first of all, the results they're going to get are so much more. You take someone who's
always resistance trained, you know, it's like cleaning a clean window. Like, oh, I got rid of
the speck. You take someone who has never resistance trained, it's like you've got a
dirty window and all of a sudden you can see the light. It's crazy what they feel.
Newbie gains.
Yes. So newbie gains.
But the cool thing is, and I always like to say, you don't train to get better at training,
you train to get better at life. The great thing is, is you'll see it in every aspect of your life.
Yeah. Like everything. So what I like to do is first just have someone track. Well,
first of all, I like them to do a DEXA. I think that's the most
important thing. You know, when you look at what we should be really monitoring as people age,
they should go get a DEXA, which now the DEXA can do a predicted VO2 max. So they don't have
to do the horrific stuff we had to do in grad school with the terrible mask and the nose plug.
Can you explain what a VO2 max is? Yes. So it turns out, and I
learned this from Dr. Andy Galpin, that a VO2 max is the single best predictor of lifespan.
Wow. You know, and not just lifespan, really healthspan too. And so it is how much oxygen
you can take up when you're maximally pushing it. So in the way they do it in a laboratory setting,
which is awful, is you're on a treadmill or a bike in the way they do it in a laboratory setting, which is awful
is you're on a treadmill or a bike, they put a plug on your nose, they put a really tight
fitting mask because none of the oxygen can get out. And they just basically run you. And, you
know, you just because you're trying to get as much oxygen as possible to have a highest VO2 max,
it's not pretty at all, right? Because lactate is basically going to kind of be your stopping point.
So you can do this when you get a DEXA scan that basically going to kind of be your stopping point. So you
can do this when you get a DEXA scan that's going to look at your body fat, but more importantly,
where your fat's located. It's going to look at your muscle mass and how even that is. And then
it can do a predicted VO2 max. I just found this out from the DEXA fit group that they figured out
the software on this. I'm like, could you imagine if this just became part of your physical that you did this? I've never done a DEXA scan. I'm kind of sure. You haven't? No. You've
not done a DEXA scan? No, I don't even know where to go. I bet you there's a DEXA fit in Austin.
I'm 100% sure of that. Yeah, please. Because I have no idea. I know. Oh, you have to do a whole
thing on it. Okay. This again. So, so if you started with this, and then I'll tell you a funny story about my husband. Okay. So they go do that, then they'll see. And it's easy to,
to, you know, the challenge with body composition, and strength and power is that it changes so
slowly. It's like, all of a sudden, you look outside, and your grass is dead, but you didn't
realize it was dying all the way along. It's the same with the stuff you won't notice until all of a sudden you, you know, can't move
fast enough and you break your hip. Such a good point. Like I think of my personal journey. I mean,
I lost 90 pounds in 2017 and I didn't really notice until it got really bad. And I think
hitting rock bottom is sometimes a blessing
because it makes you jump into action. And then I haven't looked back ever since because the way
you feel when you learn how to lift weights and eat well and get strong, it's like you couldn't,
you wouldn't trade it for anything. Yeah. I'm excited to talk to you about that because I think
the important thing there is you're not focusing on losing weight. You're focusing on getting strong,
getting healthy and falling in love with those activities. And if you live like a healthy,
lean person, guess what will happen? And then you stay there, which is the hardest part of all. So
if your parents were to do that, Dexa, that's not you telling them. It's facts. It's the facts,
Jack. So they do that. And then ideally that predicted VO2 max. Then what I
like to do is start to track their activity. Because here's the thing. If they start doing
30 minutes of exercise a day and sit on their butts the rest of the time, that's not going to
work. And if they actually get the movement first, it will help more. So I first track activity and
then I get them up to eight to 12,000 steps a day. That's kind of the
sweet spot. More is better, but you know, that's the, you got to hit that. Then I add some intensity
a couple of days a week into that. So maybe put a rucking vest on. I think that my husband loves
those. Do you do it? You ruck? I do. Uphill? No, no. Well, I live in Florida. It's a little flat.
Yeah. Unless I can find a
bridge, I'm out of luck. No, what I use it for is if you look at the research on the 12,000 step
studies, they did a group where they had one group of 12,000 just walk. They started these people
out. You walk 12,000. These were sedentary people. You walk 12,000 steps a day, but three times a
week, add some intensity for 30 minutes. They both improved LDLC, but the group that did the intensity also improved body composition, waist circumference,
HDL. Wow.
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Same amount of steps. Yeah, a little less time over there, right? Because you added some intensity. So the way I see a rucking vest, it's a great way to add intensity. It's a great way to put,
you know, to strengthen your bones. And if someone's losing weight and they're concerned about a little metabolic downshift,
which some of that we can offset with resistance training and adding more muscle.
But the other way we could is like, wear your rec and vest around.
Make it home.
I'll wear my rec and vest around and I'll do some treadmill walking with my rec and
vest.
That's how I use it as just more of my sustained activity.
Although sometimes at night we'll go out and crank it with the Reckon Best. So that's the next step. Then I add in resistance training,
but really focusing on compound moves that mimic what we want to be better at in life.
Like if I had to pick one, it would obviously be a squat. And you hear from people, they're like,
oh, I can't do that because i have bad knees bad back
it's i often think the the reason why you say you can't is the reason why you must
yes right and so like i blew out my knee at 17 because six foot tall gal shouldn't do point ballet
nor should they you know what's funny i also did did point ballet. It's like, are you the
type of person when they say you can't do that? You're like, really? Yeah, let's try it. Let's go.
I horseback ride now. I feel like being shorter is easier for horseback riding. I mean,
we're just defying the odds. It's fine. When I first, I blew out my knee and then I had
an ACL repair and I actually trained people down at Goldstum in Venice, hopping on one leg. Wow. And they said, listen, you can do anything, but don't mogul ski. And I'm like, I've never
mogul skied. But now all of a sudden, what do I want to do? I had to go mogul ski because
that has to be the hardest thing on the knees ever. I mean, it's all knees.
There's nothing fun about it, but I went and did
it and I blew my knee out again. So he was right. So what types of exercises would this be? And
again, when you're first getting someone moving, a lot of it is how the nerves, you're training
your nervous system. Like so often when you first start the first month, you're not going to see any
real muscle hypertrophy because you're getting more of neurological learning.
So can you explain what that means?
Hypertrophy.
So hypertrophy is your muscles getting bigger, which we know starting at around age 30s,
your muscle size starts to go down.
It's anywhere from three to eight percent a decade.
Doesn't have to.
I'll come back to the Tim, my Tim Hubby story on the DEXA.
But the scary part actually isn't that the muscle size is going down. It's the muscle quality problem. A lot of it is
our muscles getting infiltrated with fat. Think ribeye versus filet, right? And we're losing
strength. Two to four percent of strength versus one percent muscle. But we're losing even more
power. Strength is how much could
you pick up one time? Power is how fast could you do it? And when you think about what translates
to everyday life and why you see people breaking a hip and never recovering is they can't catch
themselves, right? They can't dart out of the way fast. Isn't that one of the leading reasons that older people end up in the
hospital and die young? I don't know how many of them, how many people break a hip. I can't
remember that stat. I do know this stat. If you do, if you are one of those people,
and right now, like sarcopenia, it's something like four to 11% of 50 to six year olds have low muscle relative to their weight,
sarcopenia.
And then it of course just gets worse, but it doesn't have to again.
But if you are one of those people who breaks your hip at 65, it's,
it's a third of those people die within a year,
like never get out of the hospital, die within a year.
And half of the people they're, they're never where they were. Yeah. You know, they're, they lose muscle. They can never get out of the hospital die within a year and half of the people they're they're never where they were yeah you know they lose muscle they can never get back that's why it's so important
not to get injured as you age so you would start with things like doing an air squat I mean I
literally I'm doing this with someone right now who is morbidly obese and we've gotten him to see back to the person he used to be, which was a, you know,
professional tennis player. Right. And so the first thing that we did was squats, but they
weren't even squats over a chair because he couldn't go down that far easily. Like he has
to pull himself out of a chair. There was a squat over just side of the chair, you know, an air
squat. Next we'll go down to the chair. Right. And then we might add a little, a little handheld weight. Yeah. But you just,
the form is always the limiter. And then when you think about it, like how many things in life
involve you getting up off of something, a toilet, a chair, a car. So I would start with a squat with
no body weight. Then you can add a little dumbbell that you hold. Then you can also, once you get that foundation, you can do a squat with a jump
to add some power in. Yep. One of the ways we can test a vertical jump is just take a pen,
a pencil with and mark it and then jump as high as you can and mark it again.
And you can get the norms for that. So that would be one. One's obviously a deadlift. And the caveat is I hear
from people, well, I can't do these things because, and again, if you have bad knees,
when I blew my knee out at 17 and then did the dumb thing again, they're like,
you need a knee replacement. I go, all right, I'll come back. And I came back 30 years later.
And literally they were like, we don't know how you're walking.
You are bone on bone. Like, how are you doing this? But I'd strengthened everything else so much
that I was able to do it. And then I trained for the knee surgery. So literally I never used a
walker. I never used anything. Three weeks later I was on stage. And so, you know, it's like,
you have to think of these things differently. Right. So if
they started with a squat, they started with a deadlift, what's the deadlift? It might be just
them doing the movement. And then maybe they're picking up water bottles. Yeah. Right. Um,
them doing pushups, like in the perfect world, you would go in for a physical, you would get a
DEXA with a VO two max, you'd have to do pushups
and you would have to do like a jump test. It would be amazing. And then you'd have to do a
balance test, right? In terms of nutrition, I know you are a big advocate for protein first.
Can you explain what you mean by that? Yes. So when you look at what happens as we age we get this this thing called anabolic resistance
where we're having trouble making muscle from the protein resistance training those those are our
two stimuluses really for making muscle as we age and so the challenge that happens i see as we age
is we're starting to eat less like we do less and. And I always say the less you do, the less you can do.
Then we're eating less. Our nutrients go down. And for so many women, and I think this is women
in particular, like women in particular have been trying to get smaller their whole life.
Yeah. Eat less, get smaller. I mean, I used to do nutrition consulting for South Beach models. So and they were so afraid of putting on muscle
because they had to just be skinny, skinny and toned. And I'm like, what is toned?
Toned is the funniest word to me. They would literally like, you know, it was like the cocaine
diet. They would literally eat very little. Wow. But this is I feel like a pretty endemic situation
is that we've always thought that we need to just eat less. And what I find with people is I start to talk about how much protein you need
as you age, which I put it at somewhere in the 0.7 to one gram per pound of target body weight.
What I find is that someone will eat and I'll go, oh, I'm too full. And I go, well,
you had a salad. And I just watched this the other day. I went out to dinner with some
people. I go, this happens every single time. I'm like, is this the universe? Like to saying,
keep going. This, my girlfriend sits down. She has a Caesar salad, croutons, cheese, dressing.
Now it's better than maybe a salad with, you know, glazed nuts and dried fruit and a raspberry
vinaigrette, but either which way to me,, I look at that as a sundae. You have five calories of lettuce. You have a whole
bunch of garbage, right? You know, has that, then has three scallops. I'm like, why don't we just
not eat the salad and have six scallops, right? But, you know, then I'm full. I can't eat any more.
Oh, the three scallops with the entree.
That was it.
Oh, for me, that would be an appetizer.
It was an appetizer. That's the point. She had the appetizer for the entree. I'm like, okay,
if you sit down, so if you eat your protein first, a couple of things happen. There's
some great study that showed that people who eat protein first actually make better food
choices overall. Okay. There's the first part. I think it's that protein leverage hypothesis. I
don't know if you've looked at that. I think it's so interesting.
You make sure you get your protein in. So if you get full, you're fine. And protein,
of course, we know is more satiating. It's got a better thermic effect. It also is more satisfying.
So, and it's got great blood sugar control. I know there's all this stuff all over about what you need to eat for blood sugar control.
And I'm like, well, lift weights, eat protein, your blood sugar will go up.
That's okay.
Just don't go up a hundred.
Can you explain how muscles help with glucose control?
A variety of different ways.
First of all, one of the things that happens as we age,
and I really think of aging as we have to start thinking about 30 plus.
That's giving me anxiety because I turned 30 in what, 20 days at this point?
Oh, wow. Happy birthday. It's the best. First of all, like what you're going to discover as you
go through life is that, and it's all mindset, by the way, every decade just gets better. Now that's all mindset by the way every decade just gets better now that's all mindset
do i need to lift more you know what's your decks gonna say let's look at your deck so let's let's
do this on information yeah um in my mind i would want to be getting as much of a reservoir for
muscle as i can but you know it's not just having the muscle mass it's that quality muscle. And what's interesting is you can increase your strength without really increasing muscle
size as much. Like there are different types of training for strength, power and size.
Yeah. So, you know, when I was down at Goldstrom in Venice, those guys were all size,
but there are people who could outlift them. Yes, for sure. I think that's a big misconception in the fitness
space. It's all for show in a way. Yeah, it is all for show. Yeah, it's all for show. So, you know,
I look at it and go, well, we do want, you know, you want to have that muscle fiber. Yes. But if
you think about it, especially for women, we have slow twitch and fast twitch fibers, as you know,
but we tend to have predominantly more slow twitch and we are better at burning fat in our muscles than men are. So what we want to focus on is that fast twitch,
which is more prone to hypertrophy. That's the stuff that's more important for strength and for
power. Now, a couple, there's two different ways this is good. Number one, you're more insulin
sensitive. That's fast way you can increase insulin sensitivity is through muscle. And then you also have a storage depot for carbs because you store energy in the form
of carbohydrates called glycogen in your muscles so that when you go do things again, you can
use it.
So that's great.
And you can now just get some of that blood sugar out of the bloodstream and into those
muscles.
So like if you were going to go eat a piece of pie, then go do some squats and pushups. Right. I love that. Or do you feel like a walk is also
effective? Oh, sure. A walk, you know, in the perfect world of which I want to really see,
I'd love to peek behind the curtains of the influencers and go, do you really,
is that really your routine? Like, really? Because I I, I have a sauna, red light, cold plunge. I wish I could do
that every day. For me, that's a perfect day, you know, on a perfect day. Exactly. Like I'm probably
doing that level like one to two times a week. Exactly. Yeah. Like you fit it in when you can.
Right. And you celebrate it. I finally just went, you know, I'm going to look at, I think we have to look at all of
these things.
Like, I don't want to call them snacks because I was just, I was doing a talk recently and
someone said, what about exercise snacks?
And someone goes, we get to eat while we work out.
And I'm like, no, I'm thinking more like microdosing and microdosing your self-care,
microdosing your exercise.
And in fact, years ago, there was a study that
looked at a group that was told to exercise 30 minutes a day versus a group that was told to
exercise three times a day, 10 minutes each time. And at the time, I remember reading the break,
the results, and they thought that the reason the three times 10 got better results was because you
either did 30 minutes or nothing. I think now we would look at that and go, there's a variety of things at play.
One of them being, you're going to be more intense if you're only 10 minutes, but also
you're breaking up those bouts and stimulating your metabolism and getting blood flow going.
And there's a lot to it. So exercise, don't think you have to work out an hour straight.
In fact, I think you're better off breaking it up if you can.
I love that you're saying that because I feel like there's a misconception that you need
to be in the gym for two hours to see any results.
I'm never in the gym two hours.
People always say that to me, too.
They're like, how long do you spend in the gym?
I'm like, not that much.
As if the number's like the magic number.
How long are you in the gym?
You know, I love, I haven't read the article
yet, but Peter Atiyah sent out a blog that said it's the results, not the time. Yes. Yes. And
that's why you have to look at all of these things and go in putting together an exercise prescription.
What are the results I'm going for? Like in putting together a diet? What are the results
I'm going for? Because people ask me, should I do this or that? I go, I don't know. What are
your results you're looking for? What what is your current state of health? What's your lifestyle like?
What are your goals? And then let's just design it so that it will get you where you want to be.
And some of these things may be short-term interventions and some of them may be things
that you'll do for a while. And then it may switch. If you're pregnant, it will switch.
If you're postpartum, it will switch because all of a sudden, like I had a great hack of wearing a baby on each, each side and hiking
up hills. I mean, that's rocking baby hit training. That's true. And squatting and all sorts of stuff.
I'm like, I'll do something with these kids. Yes. Figure this out.
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The nutrition I do now because I've been through so many phases of nutrition. I was in the 80s
during the don't eat fat phase.
Oh, no. Yeah. So that took a while to recover from. But the nutrition, the supplements,
the exercise I do now is not the same as what I was doing in my 20s or my 30s. You know,
shift. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. So I would love for you to speak to the women listening
who are afraid to get bulky. This is sort of like a common concern,
which I find, you know, I've spoken about it a lot on here. I find it quite funny because when
I personally look at myself pre and post weightlifting, to me, I feel like I look more
feminine now. And the bulky concept is just, I don't know, I lost I lost 90 pounds weightlifting.
So when people ask me if they're going to get bulky, I just find it funny.
But what's your response?
I just interviewed Dr. Stacey Sims last night and we were dying laughing about this because I will literally say in 40 years of working with people.
And she concurred with everyone she's worked with.
We have never seen someone get bigger lifting weights, a female.
I remember early on Miriam Nelson, this PhD from Tufts, did some research on women.
And she found that when women resistance trained, they got smaller.
What I like to call it is metabolic spanks.
If you want to get bigger, do not work out. Maybe just do some, you know,
do some walking, but don't work out, increase your calories, you'll get bigger. If you want
to get smaller, go lift weights, it's going to hold everything in tighter, it's going to improve
your insulin sensitivity, it's going to give sugar a place to land, it's going to be easier for you
to burn fat. And you're going to have a better metabolic rate and better metabolic afterburn.
And all of a sudden, and I'll tell you the story of Vicki, you'll look at your body and go, wow,
I'm the same weight and size is smaller. So I had this gal who came to me and thankfully I had a,
like early on, I had one of the first segmental bioimpedance machines. This was 20 years ago, I think, 2015.
And so she comes to me, she goes, I need to lose 10 pounds.
You know, she was 19 BMI.
She did not leave.
If she lost 10 pounds, I was right.
She didn't need to lose 10 pounds.
And I go, huh, OK.
So and she was she was doing Jenny Craig diet and she wanted to lose 10 pounds.
So I, in fact, even looked at the Jenny Craig diet to see if I could use any of it.
And I was like horrified. I mean, I was like, there's nothing in here that I could actually utilize.
What was it? It's just it was like damaged fats and and it's just ultra processed, fatty, you know, low.
It was low fat, high carb, very low protein.
The oils they did use were bad, terrible.
Anyway, we worked together for a year.
Over the course of the year, she lost 10 pounds of fat.
She put on 10 pounds of muscle.
Wow.
Now, for women, putting on a pound or two of muscle a month is
great. Like a woman's not going to go in. That's when they say I'm going to get bulky. I'm like,
if we kill it, maybe we'll get two pounds of muscle on the month, two pounds of muscle.
Right. And likely you'll be like Vicky who lost 10 pounds of fat alongside it. She lost two
clothing sizes. She lost like two inches off her waist.
She went from 25% body fat down to 18% body fat, looked amazing and was upset.
But the scale didn't move.
I know. I'm like, I don't know what to say.
But this is such a fantastic story for you to share because women are hyper fixated on the scale. I personally don't even
use it. I go based on how my clothes fit, how I feel, how I look in the mirror, because I feel
like that's so much more telling than the scale. Well, I have a whole philosophy around the scale,
which probably isn't popular. Go ahead. I am no longer afraid of people saying mean things about
me though. So social media does that for you. They're like, I'm like,
what are they going to say? Tough skin. Well, but I also feel like I have a responsibility to
share things that may work for someone. So I think you go get a DEXA. The challenge with the scale is
we're looking at weight. It's not the weight. It's what the weight's made up of. But we need to see
that shift to know if what we're doing is working. So what I like to do is get a DEXA, see what that says.
And if you are really working on changing, do your DEXA every six months.
If you're fairly stable, you could probably do it once a year.
Then come home and get a biomedicine scale.
That is a scale that's going to do your body composition.
It's all predicted. It is, the DEX says,
the most accurate, easy one to do, because we can either kill you and do a cadaver dissection or do
an MRI. So the DEX is going to be the most accurate that's out there, but this, you're
going to correlate it to see the change, the relative change. So this is going to test,
do a biomedicance wave up your body and
check the resistance to it. The more resistance, the more body fat. So because fat creates
resistance, it's actually doing this by calibrating your total body water. The more total body water,
the higher your muscle mass, right? Now, in every human, every day, this goes up and down.
It's kind of like the stock market, right? You would never decide what to do with the stock.
One day, you would look at the trend, right? You'd look at your investment account, you'd look at the
trend. So what you do with this is you go get your DEXA, you come home in the morning, you pee,
you get on your scale, you take that number of your body fat, your total body water, it's going
to give you all sorts of numbers, it's going to report into your phone on an app, you don't even
have to look at it. But once a week, what you do is you look at the trend. Okay. And then because
what you're doing is you're using that data just like the data you'd use going oh i
was able to do 20 push-ups when i can only do 10 you're looking at all of this biometric data now
you would never get up in the morning look at your aura ring look at your sleep sleep score and say
i'm a horrible person i suck i can't you know we never do that right but we do this stuff with the
scale and it's ridiculous yeah so that's why we have to stuff with the scale. And it's ridiculous. Yeah. So that's why
we have to use it for the information that it has in there. And then you can go, wow, you know,
my I've been doing this for a month, and I'm not really seeing a change in muscle mass.
So I either have to evaluate, am I doing the right type of stimulus? Do I have enough protein on
board? Maybe I need to add some creatine, like what needs to shift to get to that goal?
That's why I use it.
Thank you for explaining that.
And one more piece, please.
And this really goes along with how my clothes fit.
Use a tape measure.
And there's a Bluetooth tape measure.
Oh, Renpho, $30.
It's so cool.
That is cool.
You do a waist and a hip.
You do your waist to height and your waist to hip.
And that goes in every week.
And so now you can just monitor these height and your waist to hip, and that goes in every week. And so
now you can just monitor these things and see what's going on. And it's cool because if you're,
you know, you can, if you track your food, you can now see if you need to adjust something,
you can see what's working, but it's never done based on a day. Yeah. Because, you know, because
I don't know about you, if I have a perfect day, right?
Perfect day.
Like I did all my therapies.
I did my perfect workout.
I ate perfect, did everything perfect.
The weight's always up the next day.
I was like, what the hell, right?
Because the exercise can inflame you and then you weigh more, 100%. Absolutely.
Oh, I remember I was starting to do some cycle racing.
And so I was like doing all this horrible stuff and i get on
the scale next morning and i'm five pounds up and i'm like oh my gosh how is this possible yeah i
know it cracks me up too when i hear about you know people going on the keto diet and they're
like i lost five pounds and it's water you know um i know there's a concept, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast.
If you have more muscle, you essentially burn more calories just existing. But I don't know
how to explain the science behind it. Can you explain that for us? Yeah, because muscle protein
turnover is costly. Okay. Doesn't take much for fat to hang out. So for someone who's losing weight
right now, because a lot of the girls who listen to my show have a lot of weight loss questions, the more muscle they put on, the easier it will
be for them to lose weight. Yeah. I love weight loss. I have worked in weight loss since, since,
you know, my late teens, I've been fascinated, obsessed with weight loss. And I really,
really, really wish we could reframe it to fat loss.
Yes.
Unless you're working with someone who is morbidly obese and then they will lose some
fat free mass too.
You basically have two components in your body.
You have fat mass and you have fat free mass.
Now within fat mass, we have subcutaneous.
That's, you know, the stuff you'll see on your hips and thighs.
And then you have that visceral adipose tissue. Why I a deck size it's going to tell you what you have you may not like the fat on your
thighs but that is not the problem that the fat around your organs are and we want to see that
and your fat-free mass is basically skeletal it's everything else right and so some of that
fat-free mass supports fat so if you have a lot of weight to lose you're going to lose some fat-free mass supports fat. So if you have a lot of weight to lose, you're going to lose some fat-free mass too. But if you have 10 to 20 pounds of weight to lose, even 30, or you're a
skinny fat, which is what my husband was when we discovered when he took the DEXA, you may have
no muscle, like you may want to be putting on muscle while you're losing fat. And a lot of
times that's where people are. If you want to get to a
point where you don't have metabolic adaptation, like you heard with the biggest losers, where all
of a sudden they go through this extreme weight loss and their calorie, the basal metabolic rate
is 500 calories less a day than it should be based on their metabolism. muscle is key. Because when you do a real basal metabolic rate test,
which you can do through a breath test, the DEXA is going to predict it. But a breath test will do
even better. Like the DEXA predicted me, I think at 1600, 1500, 1600, and the breath was like 1750.
Okay. You know, it's just, so it's going to be based on
your muscle mass that dictates everything because that muscle is very metabolically active. It's
turning over all the times, breaking down, building up, breaking down, building up. Ideally,
you are building up more than you're breaking down. At the very least, you want to keep it
static, but you definitely don't want to be breaking down more than you're building up. Okay. Do you have a view on the ozempic craze? Because I'm hearing people are losing muscle
as well as fat. So if you design a diet that does not involve resistance training and is not optimized for protein, you are going to lose muscle.
A diet, a poorly designed diet will be anywhere from 25 to 40% muscle loss.
Wow. It's not the Ozempic doing it. So you're not against Ozempic, you're just against people like
eating and exercising the wrong way while on it.
I'm against anyone going on a diet the wrong way. Right. Because of the devastation that it does to your metabolism. So I've worked in weight loss since my 20s. And I got very interested early
on because of a client who came to me and if she ate over 1200 calories a day, she'd gain weight.
She had lived on like you went into a pantry and opened it up. You won't remember these things
because you were probably in the womb, but she had things like butter buds, snack wells, like
all these fat free, all this garbage ultra processed diet food. Right. Wow. And so,
and I was like, this is such a head scratcher because I didn't understand at
the time that you don't lose weight to get healthy. You have to get metabolically healthy
to lose weight. And that if you've gotten to yourself to this point where you're so insulin
resistant, that you've got to go and start to do the things that start to heal your metabolism so
that your body can burn fat and hold on to her build muscle. And that's where she was. How do you heal your metabolism? Well, the greatest things are, you know, when you really
look at what heals your metabolism the most, because the person I'm working with right now,
who literally has more fat than person to lose. And so what we started with, we're really looking
at three things. How is your sleep?
If one poor night of sleep and you're more insulin resistant.
So sleep has got to be dialed in.
How do we start working with your nutrition to help make sure that you've got good satiety,
good blood sugar balance and optimize nutrients?
Because quite often we're low in things like vitamin D that's going to contribute to insulin resistance.
And then the exercise that we can do to improve that insulin sensitivity. So really,
a lot of what we're trying to do is start to improve that insulin sensitivity as quickly
as possible. The reason I think these medications are fantastic, and here's the thing, I'm going to
differentiate. There's a medication, Zempik, Manjaro, et cetera. And then there's the peptide that the medication
is made from. The real question we should be asking is why are these working so well?
What's the problem it's solving? And is this the best way to solve the problem or is there another
way? What these do is one of the things is shut the food noise down. And we know that when you're really insulin resistant, it is very hard for you to get,
you know, your cells are resistant and you're not getting the nutrients signaling that you
need and you're hungry all the time.
In fact, if you look at GLP-1 deficiencies, it shows that people who have insulin resistance, obesity, or anaphylidine
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is 25% of the population, are GLP-1 deficient.
So if you've got someone who's not going to get that satiety signaling going, who's more
insulin resistant, and you could give them something to help start to support that insulin
sensitivity and shut the
food noise off, reduce the inflammation. Inflammation is its own independent risk
factor for obesity. The more obese you get, the more inflamed you get, the more inflamed you get,
the more obese you get. And then the more insulin resistant you get, which is the more inflamed you
get, it starts to just be this horrible spiral. That's like you're in a metabolic hole. And so
you get a little bit of this which i i would
love to see and i know there are these doctors out there because i'm friends with a bunch of them who
are using this in a very different way they're using the peptide not the drug form which is
higher dose and they're using it lower dose to help the body go oh okay here's a little bit of
this now i'm going to push out a little insulin and I'm going to get my blood sugar down and I'm going to shut down the satiety signals and I'm going to reduce some of the inflammation so the person feels comfortable moving again.
I mean, they're showing that this is good for brain health, heart health, kidney health, osteoarthritis.
So my son had a major traumatic brain injury, like almost died multiple times.
And so he's got a longstanding brain injury.
And as I was listening to a doctor teach about these peptides, and then I went and started
to dig through the research and went, oh, my gosh, like it's neuro regenerative.
Wow.
So we've put him on it and I will cycle him on it forever.
It is life changing. Wow. Now what would happen
if you took someone, and by the way, there's also supplements that can do this and a special form of
sugar that can do this. But if you took someone all of a sudden, you can give them a little bit
of this, shut the food noise off, get them eating protein first. You're only going to give it to
them if they, if they commit to eating protein and tracking with a food scale and an app, because otherwise we know they even dietitians
underestimate what they eat by 25%. So, you know, it's like when you go to places where they serve
you such big sizes, we have such food distortion, but they're going to eat protein, track their food.
They're going to do resistance training, and then they're going to start doing the things that help your body help restore that GLP-1 sensitivity again,
and production again, like protein and fiber exercise, improving insulin sensitivity,
you might get to a point where they don't need to be on anymore, or they may have to cycle low
dose for life. And I would argue, with my son who had to be on hypertension
meds because the brain injury messed that up. Right. And he had to be on a couple other things
that we've been able to take him off of to low dose cycle this. What if you could get rid of
polypharmacy just by using this? And what if you could help someone regain control enough because
they'd been so stuck for so long that all of a sudden they see the light and now they're able to move again?
I mean, when you're 200 pounds overweight, walking to the mailbox is hard.
Yeah.
Right.
Sitting up and down off the chair side is hard.
Yeah. yeah and you know if we could give someone a chance with the right counseling like i wouldn't
let if i was a benevolent dictator you would have to do all of those things you basically have to
have a like camera on you know this is what i'm eating this is the resistance training and you
would do it in little exercise bites and i've now seen enough people that have used this and have
lost no muscle so i don't buy it. Okay. I have a few questions
because I, Ozempic is just such a big topic right now. I mean, why is it, why is there so much
polarizing anger and nastiness around this? You know, I see the anger side, but I also see the,
the people who are so interested. And I even see it like I have a supplement company. People
behind the scenes are creating supplements that are in line with Ozempic. And like this is just
creating such waves in the industry. And I have so many questions about it. You mentioned there
are supplements that can kind of mimic it. Are you referring to berberine? Berberine does not
mimic it. Berberine helps improve insulin sensitivity.
Berberine is amazing.
It's amazing for your guts, amazing for insulin sensitivity.
That's not what it's for.
Okay.
So there's things that improve insulin sensitivity.
That is one of the things that GLP-1 does, right?
So that could be berberine.
That could be things like lipoic acid, chromium, right?
So magnesium, vanadium, zinc, fish oil, improving insulin receptor sensitivity.
But there's actually two things that I know of that are pretty amazing.
And so one of them is a rare sugar allulose.
And allulose is basically doesn't really, your body doesn't absorb any of the
calories from it. What they found, there's a company called RX Sugar who's gone deep into
researching this and has put together a medical advisory board of like rock stars, Dr. Rick
Johnson, Dr. Ben Bickman, Dr. Dom D'Agostino. And what they found is that it causes a GLP-1 release. So much so that they
have now got diabetics who have shown like type one insulin dependent diabetics taking allulose,
eating a candy bar, not needing insulin. Like it's that level of crazy control that'll do.
I'm not saying do that. That's by the way. But what I'm saying is
here we have something that if you did a 10 to 15 gram dose before a meal, it can act like it can
help raise GLP-1. Then there's another supplement from New Zealand called CaloCurb. CaloCurb.
With a C? With C. It was for for 10 years they studied these different forms of like hops
varieties and figured out how to put together this formula they patented and then this really smart
woman bought this and created this company and it'll raise glp-1 for about four hours post
if you look at at these glp-1 agnes they just keep raised. And that's not how GLP-1 works. I mean,
if you look at it, exercise raises it. That's why it's like no one in the middle of exercise goes,
God, I need to eat something right now, right? So exercise does it, protein does it, fiber does it.
Allulose will do it transiently, which is how the body does it too. And calicurb will do it as well.
Allulose, I feel like I've heard of.
It's a sugar replacement, no? I would love to think of it, where I think of monk fruit and
stevia sugar replacements, I think of allulose as a therapeutic sugar. And I don't really love
sweet, but I have been working on how to put more of this in to my diet because it just
makes sense to do. Yeah. Right. So they do little, these little, I have one, I have one of these,
they have these dark chocolate bars called their Swelthy Stacks snacks. And so, and they have 10
grams of allulose. So if you eat one of those, it helps with that GLP-1. That's fascinating. I've never heard that before.
Super cool. Okay. I'm going to look at that. Yeah. Okay. My other question. Oh, one more thing about
GLP-1. Yeah. It can, and I've got this paper too. I can share this with you. It can actually start
to lower myostatin. What's that? So what it can do is help you with muscle protein synthesis. So
it can help block muscle breakdown.
So there's so much more to it. What you're seeing is, I think, it being used incorrectly.
I think people are taking way too much. I mean, I don't know much about it, but I know when I lived in LA, people who were already somewhat underweight were going on it,
and now they're just... Now, I think there's a place for anyone to be on it for the other longevity effects, the cardiovascular effects, the
osteoarthritis effects, the autoimmune. There's a whole bunch of stuff in it that it does beyond
just like the appetite piece. Do you think there's anything negative that could come out of it down
the line that we don't know about yet? Who knows? It's been around for what, 10, 15 years? So it's been around for a while. I think
that with so many things, it's the dose. Yeah. If your body's already naturally producing it,
and maybe it's not producing it like it should because of those factors, and you're just giving
it the little bit that it needs, you're basically mimicking normal physiology yeah who knows okay i'd be much more concerned i mean
you look at what are the long-term risks of carrying 50 plus pounds around yeah right yeah
because it's not the weight that you're carrying it's the inflammation and what it's doing to your body, what it's doing to your brain, what it's doing to your heart. You know, what's the ramifications of that? And the big thing I hear is, oh, you have to be on it for life. I'm like, well, you would have been on your blood pressure, stat a point where you could use these other things, or hopefully you wouldn't need any of it because you've totally healed your metabolism.
But even if you had to be on a low dose for life versus all those other medications,
I don't know, I'd pick that. Right. Okay. Thank you for answering that. I appreciate it.
On the topic of healing your metabolism, back to that, something that I ran into on my weight loss journey that kind of got me stuck for a little bit is I felt like I was using the method of obviously weight training.
And then I was slowly but surely like decreasing the amount of food I was eating.
I reached a point and now I know more and I probably wouldn't get into the situation again, but I think a lot of the girls listening have experienced this where I was eating probably not enough, like probably close to that
1200 range. Um, cause I was using my fitness pal every day so I could see, and it definitely wasn't
enough. I didn't have enough energy for my workouts, but I was so terrified to increase my
food and gain weight. So I essentially kind of went on a reverse
diet. How would you handle that type of situation? First of all, this is why I love to track body
composition, because then you have the information and it keeps you from being insane. Keeps you from
being terrified. Yeah, because we get insane. And if you really think instead, I'm healing my metabolism,
how are what are the ways I'm going to look at this? It's my you know, how much lean muscle mass
do I have? What's my body fat percentage? How much visceral adipose tissue? What's my insulin
sensitivity look like? Right. So if I look at the things that are important, and they are improving,
if my weight's the same, but I'm losing fat and putting on muscle,
great. If my waist is going down, great. And I really love, and I learned this one from Dr.
Bill Campbell, I love this idea of kind of cycling caloric restriction. So where I like
to start with someone is the very first thing I think you should do is just do an audit for a week.
Now, your weight has to stay stable during that week.
And what I know is if you do an audit for your week, you'll lose weight because all of a sudden you're actually paying attention.
Right. So we have to do it where we now know exactly what it takes to maintain your weight.
So it might take two or three weeks till you kind of get in the groove.
And then we know how many calories you need. You can get that predicted. But again, that's going to predict your
basal metabolic rate, not your total daily energy expenditure. You have to do that multiplied by
your activity factor. And that changes all the time. But I want to know an average of like,
oh, I on average eat about 2300 calories a day to maintain my weight. Then five days a week, you do 75 percent of that amount and two days a week go back to that amount.
And what he found was that it was easier for people to do this.
And it works really well, like five days a week and then on the weekend.
And it's not on the weekend. Have a free for all.
It's just go back to eating that amount.
And then, you know, when you're cutting those calories, I think the best place to cut them. And I, Dr. Stacey Sims said this last
night. I'm like, I love that so much. She goes, cut them from dinner. Hmm. Because you can digest
better and sleep better. You can digest better. You can sleep better. I think you're better off
eating less at night anyway. And you're going to go to bed. Yeah. So yeah. Like, when you're eating your calories
during the day, you're following the normal circadian rhythm, you're more active, it makes
more sense. Like I've always been a hungry. I tried to breakfast skipping just because I wanted
to see I'm always an NF one. And I'm like, a my workout suck. B I'm angry. Yeah, me too. I wake
up hungry. Yeah, I wake up. I've always woken up hungry. So I wake up, I'm angry. Yeah, me too. I wake up hungry. I'm a mad exerciser.
Yeah, I wake up.
I've always woken up hungry.
So I wake up.
I do my Dr. Joe Dispenza meditation.
I have my coffee.
Love it.
I wait a bit and then I'll have breakfast and then wait before I go work out. If I try to work out fast, it's the lamest, most pathetic thing ever.
So that's how I think that we're good.
But also understanding that, let's say
you're going to lose 30 pounds, and you lose, let's say you lose 30 pounds of fat, but you put
on five to 10 pounds of muscle, so you've got a 20 pound difference, you're still going to have a
slower, lower metabolic rate, you don't have as much body to handle. Now, some of the muscle mass
increase will offset it. but it's only going
to be so much. That's why it's so important to also get that activity going. We underestimate,
like we all think of exercise as this big thing for metabolism. But if you look at a thin person,
they naturally are like moving all the time. And in fact, the study, there's
cool research out there showing that when you overfeed someone who is normal weight,
they tend to move more under feed them. They move less in that non-exercise activity,
thermogenesis, you know, just that stuff. A lot of that's things you aren't as aware of.
They'll start to fidget more if they like just burn it off,
but give people less and they start to conserve.
So that's where we have to be very aware
of how much we're moving.
Like it is the big focus for me.
It's like, did you get your steps in today?
I think it's so easy nowadays
to spend the entire day on your butt,
truthfully, because I think
we're all on the computer, on the phone.
I mean, even us recording today, we're going to be in these chairs.
We should be on walking pads.
We should. It would be very annoying to listen to. But we're sitting here for two hours. I'm
mentally telling myself I'm going for a walk right when I get home, probably after my lunch.
I have to be very intentional with setting that walking time because it's really easy for me to
let the day go by. And then I check my phone and I have 5,000 steps.
I know.
And I'm like, oh my God, I literally haven't moved.
Because even if I do a crazy leg day and just that,
like that isn't really enough.
Like the movement is so crucial.
I always think of my husband, he's a bodybuilder
and he's, you know, six pack jacked.
But people don't realize
he's not just lifting weights in the gym. He's getting
twenty five thousand steps a day usually because he takes every meeting while walking. Wow. I know
he paces around the pool. He's constantly moving and he eats a lot of food. So anyway, he's just
good. You want that energy flux. So, yeah, I think the easy way to do it. And it's it's interesting.
This person I'm working with right now is a super disciplined person.
He just has to have a process.
So I said, all right.
He was getting 2,500 steps in a day.
The average person gets 2,500 to 4,000 steps a day.
I know.
I know.
That's why let's fix, let's major in the majors first.
Yeah.
So much like before we worry about seed oils, before we start focusing
on red light. Yes. Maybe we need to get our steps in. Yes. I don't know. Call me crazy. Maybe we
need to eat enough protein. Maybe we need to make sure we're hydrated enough. Let's major in the
majors that are the biggest things that will like someone just DM me, are B12 shots going to help me with weight loss? I'm like,
not really. Could we major in the majors? No, the foundation is crucial. Right. Like where I started
five years ago. Now I have the sauna, the cold plunge, the red light because I've done all the
other stuff. Yes. But I think the most important thing is to start with the steps, start with the
weight, start with the foundation and you can add from there.
Yes.
And if anything, that's less overwhelming.
Well, you know, it's so cool.
This Brian Johnson guy who has spent two million dollars a year hacking his health and says
the majority of things that make the biggest difference are the things that don't really
cost anything.
Yeah.
Diet, exercise, sleep.
Yeah.
I'm like, amen.
Right.
I love that he's saying that.
I know. Because at first I was like, OK,'m love that he's saying that i know because
at first i was like okay this guy's weird i don't i ran into him on the street actually in venice
he was glowing he looks like he looks like alien glowing or yeah alien yeah yeah like that alien
glow you know yeah um okay i would regret not asking you this can you give us the tea on creatine? For women? Okay, you love creatine.
I love creatine. I would definitely, I wish I'd started this much sooner.
I can't believe I didn't. I think it's because when I was training people at Goldsham in Venice,
it was such a bro dude thing. I was like, none of that, you know, and I just never looked at it. And then as I started to really look at sarcopenia, there were a couple of things that
became very clear. Number one, like, why are we not all taking creatine, especially women
who have less tissue sores, as we know? And, you know, especially if you're a plant based woman,
and you're not getting enough, you're not going to get it from your diet. You're only going to make about a gram, but you look at what it does. A great study in menopausal women helping with
depression. So we know it helps with cognition. It helps with bones. It helps with skin.
It helps you work out harder. And I have been amazed because as I've been talking about creatine,
I have gotten so much resistance that I'm blown away.
Like, you might as well just say, take this and you're going to blow up.
They're like, but what about my hair, my kidneys?
And I'm going to retain water and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, oh, my gosh.
Like this one.
I have gotten more feedback on this supplement than anything else ever.
I think it's, is it the water
retention weight gain concern is the big one for women? It is. And I am really, so I'm digging into
creatine right now, big time. I have been using creatine monohydrate because that was, you know,
the oldest, most researched one. I met the guy who has creatine HCL, who created it. He found me because I was
speaking at a medical conference and he tracked me down on LinkedIn and gave me the whole spiel
on creatine HCL. And I'm like, okay, well, but you created a creatine HCL. So he goes, this is like
the iPhone 15 and that over there is rotary phone. So I'm really looking right now to see what makes
the most sense,
which type of creatine, whether it's the most pure form that's 99.9% pure, the regular form that's 99% pure, like how much does this matter? Or is it the HCL that turns out you can use a lot
less of and may not cause some of that fluid retention. So what is the fluid retention? And
I'll tell you what I've done to work through this and help people. Some of that fluid retention is amazing. It's in the muscle, right? Which goes
back to you got to use a biomepedant scale because then you'll go, oh, this is awesome.
I have more water in my muscles. This is what I want. Right. This is the best thing ever. I did not take creatine
and put on body fat. And I don't know about you, but when I started taking creatine, I'm like,
where has this been in my life? I can now work out harder. It's fantastic.
And you didn't see bloating when you first started taking.
No. And I even did loading like I did loading. I did five grams four times a day because what you have to do
is get your creatine stores up okay and but I've had now a different way I would teach people do
it based on all the feedback I'm getting from people I just went and it's like fine I'll do
five days and load it a little a little tummy thing one day I was like nothing really um and I've been taking five grams
at least a day ever since but now I'm kind of playing around with the HCL um now what I would
do with someone is I would start them with a gram okay and then I would take them to two
then to three depending on their size I put them and their diet. If you've got
someone who's totally plant based, let's go to five. But depending on your size, somewhere between
three to five grams. And then you just always stay there. Now, there might be an advantage to doing
that before you go to the gym seems like it at first I was like, it doesn't matter because it's
tissue stores, but it seems like it could be helpful and I always figure I'm gonna get every advantage I can why not why
wouldn't I so um that's how I do it as I take it in the morning do my electrolytes mix it all in
like a habit yeah yeah um I also started adding in and I don't think this is important for me
but I think this is important for a lot of women like scallop women i was talking
about this would be a perfect thing scallop woman and i have a friend who um you know i i'm a really
close friend who i'm looking at i'm like she's got sarcopenia what do i need to do like i can't
can't can't lose her so i brought her essential amino acids and i go we're going to have these
with breakfast and with dinner because i know we're not getting enough protein in.
And this is our insurance policy.
No, this doesn't mean you don't have to eat it.
But let's say that you had 20 grams of protein, which I think for most people that might be
what they're getting and they think they did a great job or maybe they had an egg.
That's not going to do it.
But let's say that you got, you know, 20 grams of protein in.
Getting a hit of essential amino acids is going to help you get the leucine you need
for muscle protein synthesis.
So to me, it's a little health insurance policy.
And I found really good data on sarcopenia and using this with older adults.
And I was like, why wouldn't we be doing this?
Why wouldn't we be doing this?
Breakfast and dinner so that we help with those
bumper meals of getting enough of that leucine and so that we're covered. So creatine and EAAs.
And a little, yeah, creatine EAAs in the morning. I also think collagen, like especially as you're
aging. Right. I'm just starting to use creatine again. I used it. So I was keto for a while.
Oh, you were. How did you like that? So I think it's a great tool.
Right.
I answer tools.
Yeah, I think it's a great tool.
I did it probably for a little bit too long.
How long did you do it?
Like on and off for three years, to be honest.
It wasn't just for weight loss.
I also did it for my skin.
And I felt like it was incredibly beneficial for my skin. But I also found when I did stool tests
that I was missing some crucial bacteria. So now I'm eating sweet potato again. I don't respond
very well to carbs. I don't feel amazing afterwards. Like potatoes are kind of like my sweet spot.
I don't feel great with rice. Like I've had to kind of experiment and figure out the best thing for me. But I liked it. And I used creatine during that time to kind of like help
with the muscle. You know, I felt like I wasn't getting that pump at the gym. And I remember Greg
recommending creatine and now I'm starting to use it again after having so many people on the show
tell me how amazing it is. So aren't you trying to get pregnant? Yes, ma'am. Yes, yes. It helps with that?
It's not helping with that.
But when I look at pregnancy, I look at a couple different phases.
There's before you even think about getting pregnant, where you're doing all of the detoxification
and upgrade to make sure that your body's super healthy and, you know, saunas, all that.
Then everything that you want to really maintain is great nutrients.
During pregnancy, you start before you get pregnant.
Then you keep that through.
Then post with the nursing and the recovery.
Right.
So creatine is a helpful supplement.
Creatine is a helpful incarnate.
Creatine incarnate.
OK.
Those two.
Yeah, I'm not.
It's funny.
My diet basically is protein.
Yeah. A little berries. See, this is
me. A lot of non-starchy vegetables, a little bit of fat. Yeah. If you like, I could be a very happy
carnivore with Brussels sprouts. I love Brussels sprouts. I love them too. Why are they so good?
Love, love, love. Obsessed. No, don't like them boiled, but I love like roasted, roasted Brussels sprouts.
Oh my gosh. And I also love cauliflower rice. Oh, okay. Cauliflower rice. And I make cauliflower
rice peel off all the time. But I mean, that's what basically at home, my husband will fit some
carbs in like some rice, some starchier carbs in, but I just, every once in a while I'll eat
some lentils or a little black beans, but I'm just, I just don't feel good on them. Yeah. I feel the same way, but I also do not,
I've never been able to pull off keto. Don't, don't like it. Don't feel good on it. Interesting.
Don't feel good on high carb, low fat. Like I know all the different things,
tried them all, tried vegan, vegetarian. If I had to, if you said you have to do one of these crazy diets it would be carnivore
same same it truly is for me i did it for a little bit actually and i felt phenomenal i mean this
morning i had steak and berries for breakfast yes that's amazing yummy i love eggs but i think i
made myself allergic well eggs are very interesting. So when I wrote The Virgin Diet, it was because I was teaching this course to doctors called Overcoming Weight Loss Resistance.
And I was using a food sensitivity test to help people get on the program. It was one of the
things because they would like, if you get a test, they're like, oh, they'll do it. Well,
the food sensitivity test took three weeks to come back. And what I noticed in looking at these
tests and then talking to the lab director and having him validate this was that 80% of the people showed dairy and eggs.
Yeah.
And then underneath that, the next tier was soy, corn, peanuts.
Now, gluten is a different type of test.
But if you looked at why it was the gut getting leaky to let these foods create inflammation. It was because of
gluten and sugar. And so we had three weeks before the test results came back. I just started pulling
the foods out anyway. And I was like, I'm getting the same results. And then I would help them heal
their gut. And then we'd go back and check and see which foods work and which foods don't.
The foods that I think are concerning that we have to be careful with are eggs and dairy and soy corn peanuts.
Right. They just and I just am not a fan of gluten.
Now, I lived in Italy, entirely different story, but I don't agree.
I live here and we've got glyphosate and it's garbage.
And so I just I mean, if I'm in San Francisco, I'm having sourdough bread.
That's where I grew up.
But San Francisco is a nightmare right now, so I won't be going for a while.
Yeah.
OK, agreed.
I've been in I've been baking on the weekend.
And if I make it myself, if I make sourdough myself, I will eat it.
But other than that, no gluten.
Yeah, my my bonus daughter during the pandemic moved in with us and decided, you know, there was that whole thing of like perfecting sourdough. Yeah. My, my bonus daughter during the pandemic moved in with us and decided, you know,
there was that whole thing of like perfecting sourdough. Yes. Every morning I'd come down to
like freshly baked sourdough loaves. I was like, you have to leave, get out of here.
You have to take your bread and leave. Yes. JJ, thank you so much. That was so insightful.
It's time for the question I ask every guest. I ask this question because I believe
everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What would you say wellness means to you?
It means aging powerfully. I love it. And I know you have a challenge coming up. Can you tell us
where we can find the challenge? This is because I know I always love the biggest things that will
make an impact. Again, let's major in the majors, right?
And so I created an Eat Protein First Challenge.
It's seven days.
And what happens when people go through this is crazy.
Like in just seven days, they're not hungry.
They've got better food satisfaction.
Their cravings go away.
Their energy is balanced. So it's just one thing that you focus on.
That's what you do.
Big results.
Incredible. And where can everyone find you online on. That's what you do. Big results. Incredible.
And where can everyone find you online?
JJVirgin.com.
Amazing.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast.
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