The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - JJ Virgin On Mindful Eating, Body Composition, & Powerful Aging Strategies That Work

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

#788: Join us as we sit down with JJ Virgin – a triple-board certified nutrition expert & Fitness Hall of Famer. Driven by her passion for the healing power of nutrition, JJ is on a mission to transform the way we view aging & longevity. In this episode, JJ shares foundational health strategies, discusses mindful eating habits, highlights the significance of body fat composition for both men & women, & reveals how you can embrace aging powerfully!   To connect with JJ Virgin click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM   To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697)   This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential   Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn’s favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes.   Visit istandwithmypack.org to support I Stand With My Pack’s (ISWMP) mission by donating or adopting. Every contribution helps!   This episode is sponsored by TravisMathew   Consider TravisMathew your holiday headquarters, and discover the perfect gift for everyone on your list. Visit travismathew.com and receive 20% off your order with code SKINNY.    This episode is sponsored by AG1   Go to DrinkAG1.com/skinny, you’ll save $20 off your subscription OR $49 o when you sign up for a double subscription just like we have! Plus you’ll get a free Welcome Kit, bole of D3K2, and 5 free travel packs.   This episode is sponsored by Noom   Start your GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com.   This episode is sponsored by Lightbox   Discover Lightbox Jewelry’s lab-grown diamonds for yourself on lightboxjewelry.com. Plus, all new customers will get 10% off their first order on lightboxjewelry.com using the code SKINNY10.   This episode is sponsored by Smartwater   Life’s full of choices. Smartwater is a simple one. Visit drinksmartwater.com to learn more.   This episode is sponsored by Stakt   Visit shopstakt.com/tsc and use code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off your purchase.   Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Meet Pugsley, the sweet, playful one-year-old pug who has an adorable curly tail and puppy dog eyes. You guys, that's right. Pugsley is great with kids, dogs, and even cats. If you're ready to give him a loving home for the holidays, you have to fill out an adoption application today. And where you can do that is IStand my pack.org. This is the charity that I am so passionate about. It's dedicated to saving animals and preventing cruelty locally and globally. They've done such a good job of rescuing dogs from high kill shelters in Southern California and placing them in foster homes for rehabilitation. I have seen so many amazing stories

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And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Since I've worked in weight loss this long, and I used to teach this course called Overcoming Weight Loss Resistance, and it, a decade, actually it was like 20 years ago, and I looked at all the different things that would get in the way of people losing weight or cause

them to gain weight. And what I would see is people get into a metabolic hole, and it is really hard to dig out of. And so this idea that, you know, you just need to eat less and exercise more when someone's damaged their metabolism, no, they need to improve their insulin sensitivity. They need to get to sleep. There's so many things to get them out of it. And when they're that insulin resistant, they need a little help. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today, we have JJ Virgin on the episode talking all things health,

wellness, simple nutrition, personal training, step-by-step blueprints on how to improve your health and to get the results that you want in and out of the gym. We also talk all about what actually works and what does not. JJ Virgin is a triple board certified nutrition expert and fitness hall of famer. JJ is on a mission to transform the way we view aging and longevity. And in this episode, like I said, we talk all foundational health strategies, discuss mindful eating habits, and we highlight the difference between fat and body composition for both men and women and how you can embrace aging gracefully. With that, JJ Virgin, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. I screenshotted your Instagram, JJ. I

sent it to the girls that we work with. And I was like, I have to have you on the podcast because I think you're the perfect person to nail this subject through the wall. We have a lot of young women listening to this show. And I guess the first question I would have is, what do women who are just starting out in fitness, maybe in their 20s, typically say to you? What's the pushback towards your favorite thing to do, which is weightlifting? So the big pushback, of course,

when I say you need to lift weights is, I don't want to get big. Right. And in 40 years of helping people lift weights, the only time I've ever had someone get big is when they don't lift weights and they sit on the couch, right? I mean, you're not gonna get big lifting weights.

Muscle is like metabolic Spanx. It holds everything in tighter and it boosts your metabolism. It makes you more insulin sensitive so you can burn more fat and it givess your metabolism. It makes you more insulin sensitive so you can burn more fat and it gives carbs a way better place to land than in your thighs or your belly, right? Land in your muscle for energy. I noticed when I started lifting exactly what you just said that this is so weird. I could tell that I had insulin resistance and it went away.

How could you tell you had insulin resistance and it went away. How could you tell you had insulin resistance? What were you feeling? I'm so sensitive to my body. I was just feeling different after I gave birth, maybe fatigued, maybe like I couldn't lose weight no matter what I did. Even if I didn't eat anything, I just couldn't lose weight, which probably made it worse. And then I started lifting and something about it, I swear to God, I could feel balanced my hormones or something. It's the fastest way to heal your metabolism. When you look at what's going on, we have a metabolic health crisis.

What is it now? Like 93% of the population is metabolically unhealthy, which is basically they're insulin resistant. The fastest way to fix that is to start lifting weights and get your muscles to start feeling that again. So you quickly become insulin sensitive. You give sugar a place to go. I mean, if all we had people do was start doing air squats after every meal and pushups, we could change everything. It'd be that easy if you just started doing air squats and pushups to just start to change. There was a study that looked at, it's called Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity

or VELPA. And they looked at people doing four and a half to 10 minutes a day in one to two minute increments versus people who weren't. And they could be doing other things too, but it was just doing these or not doing these, right? And it would be things like jumping jacks, air squats, push-ups. The people that did one to two minute increments, four and a half to 10 minutes total a day, had a 40 to 50, actually no, 45 to 55% reduction in all cause mortality and risk of cancer and heart disease death compared to those who didn't. It can be that simple. It could be that simple as habit stacking. Every time you eat, I'm going to do some jumping jacks or air squats or something to get breathy. Huh.

Think about that. You used to do that when you were little. I've known him since he was really little and he used to do push-ups all the time after certain things. I would get in trouble a lot as a kid and I'd be sent to my room a lot. So I'll just be in there just doing push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups, everything I could do. But no, my modality of fitness that I fell in love with from an early age, again, maybe 10,

11, 12 was weightlifting. It started out as a kid doing pushups and sit-ups and all that stuff. That's what I've made. I've always lifted weights my entire life. My friends would always say to me and Lauren would say like, oh, you're lucky it's genetics. And there is genetics play a part in it. I didn't know. But what I was trying to explain to them, like, no, if you start this early and you keep this habit, keeping weight off, staying metabolically fit, all of these things, keeping muscle mass on, you know, like I can take a break from the gym for like one or two weeks. I don't like to, but if I do, I can, I can get it right back. And so I'm, you know, we have kids now I'm telling them like the soonest they can get in the better. Yes. And that whole myth that kids can't lift weights till they're older,

which never made sense to me because I was always in acrobatics. I'm like, well, what is the difference? I'm doing pull-ups and push-ups, but if I go pick up a dumbbell, there's something magically different. It's bizarre. So yes, the sooner, like one of the worst things they ever did was take all of the sports out of school. Like reality is school should be sports and learning how to cook. Not only that, I think one of the worst things they ever did was take all of the sports out of school like reality is school should be sports and learning how to cook not only that i think one of the worst things they're doing is they're taking competition out of sports with children because what you're doing then is you're teaching children that it's you're basically anyone that's got a competitive drive you're telling them it's okay to not be competitive which is which is i think for some people going to

limit what that person then does later in life. Like, I think it's good to have, I remember as a kid, I would play soccer and I'd play hockey and I'd box and I'd do all these things and I would get really bummed when I would lose. Like I didn't, I didn't like it. You've got to feel, the biggest thing you learn in sports is how to lose, you know, how to win, but how to lose. You, you learn way more in life and the things that you lost at and how to show up in that way. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm not going to be pushing my kids super hard, but what I'm not going

to tell them is they lose and they're upset about it. I'm not going to say, hey, it doesn't matter. Like, it does matter. Yeah. Right. Everyone shouldn't get a trophy. Sorry. If you had a wand that you could wave right now for all women out there who are listening,

what do you wish they knew? And you can do five things, 10 things, whatever about all of fitness and health and diet. Okay. First of all, that we get over this whole scale thing. I think that we need to toss the scale that's just looking at total weight and we need to start to use the scale as a biometric tool and we need to be on it monitoring as a biometric tool every single day. But we're looking at total, we're looking at body composition, not weight. How do you do that? So, you know, here I am, I'm six feet tall. I was 140 pounds at like age, I don't know, 15, right? So I've always been the bigger kid at school and more strong. And so I was always, when I'd step on the scale,

you know, it was like, oh my gosh, you weigh how much? 140, 150. And I remember I went to a modeling agency in my teens and they told me that I had to lose 20 pounds in order to model because models were 120 to 130. Now, had I known back then, had I known how to do bioimpedance, which I'll explain what this is, I would have seen that I was really lean, really low body fat and had a lot of muscle, but we just didn't know those things back then. So the technology has gotten so much better than it used to be. Now you can get a little home unit of a bioimpedance scale. They're like, you know, a hundred bucks. And what it's going to look at is your total body water. And what you want to see is that your total body water is either increasing or holding steady, especially if you want to lose weight, because your total body water

is a predictor of your overall fat-free mass. And you want to make sure that if you are trying to lose weight, that you're losing fat, not muscle. Your biggest goal in life should be, especially right now, whatever age you are, your biggest goal is to pack on as much muscle as you possibly can. Like what I would tell a 20 to 30 year old woman right now is put as much muscle on your body as you possibly can. And you would be lucky to be able to put on 10 pounds a year. Talk about that for a second, because I think this is, I always laugh on this show about this is guys have been trying to put on this kind of muscle day in, day out for a year. You know what I was saying on the, it took me like three years to put on 10 pounds of muscle. It's so hard. It's so much work. And yet women are like, I'm going to get

big. I'm like in your wildest dreams, this would happen. First of all, if you put on muscle, likely you're going to get smaller again, because muscles, metabolic spanks. And as you put on muscle, if your weight's staying the same, you're losing fat. So, but the reality is to build muscles, a very slow process. I call it, it's like watching grass grow. Now, if you go to the gym and you start working out, you'll start getting strong, but that doesn't correlate with getting bigger. You can get stronger and your muscle mass doesn't go along with it exponentially.

It doesn't go one to one. You'll get stronger first because it's your central nervous system learning how to communicate with your muscles, right? And then you'll start building muscle. But muscle growth is at best, once you're starting to build maybe a pound a month, it's not that easy to do.

And here's the thing with a woman worried about getting big. You know what you can do if you're lifting weights and you start getting too big? Stop it. But also, for me, my experience is when I was lifting weights at first, I was getting bigger because the fat had not shut off yet. So you almost have to get over the hump to get to the other side. Like, I feel like it took six months of lifting weights. I don't think you were getting bigger. I think you were saying the scale was changing. But that's why you have to use the scale correctly.

Right. From a composition standpoint, you were not getting bigger. Yeah. Maybe you feel, I don composition standpoint, you were not getting bigger. Yeah. Maybe you feel, I don't know, maybe you feel bloated. Well, women have really bad body dysmorphia anyway. Yeah. Like we cannot be trusted. Yeah.

You know, we can't. I will tell you a story about a woman. She came in. She wanted to lose 10 pounds. I have a bioimpedance scale. So I did the bioimpedance scale with her, looked at her body fat. It was 25%, which is in the range of normal for women. But she was one of those very lean, like she, to me, I looked, I went, I know the body type

she should be. And she wasn't quite there. She wanted to, you know, wanted to lose 10 pounds. She, over the course of a year, she lost 10 pounds of fat and put on 10 pounds of muscle so she dropped the 10 pounds of fat but she put on 10 pounds of muscle she went from 25 body fat to 18 and she dropped two inches off her waist and she dropped two clothing sizes like she looked like an entirely different person and she was still upset because the scale didn't say what she wanted it to say even though if i'd asked her at the time well what is it you're looking to achieve? Like, do you want to drop clothing size? Do you want to drop waist

size? Because if you're losing weight and not losing your waist, you're making yourself worse, not better, right? And so it was interesting. Back when I was in grad school, they taught us that people should not lift weights until they lose the weight. I completely 180 degrees disagree with that. First of all, doing resistance training is very metabolically costly anyway. So you're going to burn a lot of calories and burn calories after you work out. If you go for a walk, you're not burning calories after you walk. You don't have to recover from it. You're going to become more insulin sensitive. You're not going to be as hungry. You do a lot of cardio, you're hungrier. And so I would wonder about how you felt, if that

was just more how you felt versus what the reality was. If we could look at inches and we could look at the scale and we could look at what was going on with your body composition. If you'd been using a bioimpedance scale, you could track your total body water and your weight. And if your weight was staying the same, but your body water was going up, then you would have known you were putting on muscle and losing fat. So let's say a woman comes to you who's 35 years old. She has gained 15 pounds over the last 10 years, drinking maybe alcohol, maybe eating too much at night. And she comes to you and she's like, I really want to get back to the weight that I was when I was 20. What are the steps that you're taking and implementing for her? Okay. So the first thing that I would do is find out what her weight really is.

Okay. What is it made up of? Oh, okay. So not like how much. So what I want to know is, and the best way to do this is to go get a DEXA body scan. Okay. We did that. We did do that. So good. So you get a DEXA body scan because here's what you want to know. Not just how much body fat you have, but where is the body fat? Is that body fat, that fat, visceral adipose tissue, which is that dangerous fat, likely for you guys that you didn't have that issue, that tends to be more when someone's very metabolically unhealthy or a woman when her estrogen drops.

She actually starts to take more fat and drive it into her visceral adipose tissue. So you want to know how much body fat she has, where that body fat is, and how's her muscle mass looking. Does she have enough muscle mass? Like the gal I told you about, Vicki, who wanted to lose 10 pounds, she had what we would call, you know, she wasn't, you know, her body fat wasn't that bad, but sarcopenic obesity. She went down to 18% body fat. That was a good body fat percentage for her, but it wasn't that she needed to lose fat. She really needed to put on muscle. And quite often, that's the most important thing that we can do for someone,

yet we're focusing so much on fat loss, right? So it depends. Let's say she came in, she was 30% body fat, maybe 10 pounds overweight. What would I focus on? First thing that I would do is get her tracking her food and getting optimal protein in and making sure she's eating it at each meal first. So she actually eats what she needs to eat. Cause I hear all the time from women that can't eat that much protein. And I watch them sit down and eat the muffin and the latte and the juice and all the garbage. And I'm like, well, of course you didn't eat the protein. You've got to start with the protein, right? We have little kids.

And if you put pasta and if you put toast and if you put the fruit and you put the cookies on the plate, they're not going to eat the healthy thing. Right. I mean, when my kids were little, I always gave them what I wanted to make sure they ate first. Like you have them eat it first. So breakfast, they'd have like a hamburger patty or chicken. They didn't even know about cereal till they went to grandma's house. Grandma's house is a problem. Oh my gosh.

Hi mom. Grandma's house. Uh-huh. Same with grandpa's house. Don't sleep on grandpa. Yeah, grandma and grandpa's house is dicey. Yeah. Oh.

Yeah, they introduced cereal. They introduced Cheez-Its. They introduced, the other day Zaza said something about McDonald's. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? How do you know about this thing? So you would introduce more protein. You would have them get a DEXA scan.

And then what? So DEXA scan to see where things really are and then come home, have a bioimpedance scale and a tape measure at home. There are these cool ones that actually report to your phone, Bluetooth. So if someone gets all triggered by the scale, first of all, I'm like, you don't have to look at home. There are these cool ones that actually report to your phone, Bluetooth. So if someone gets all triggered by the scale, first of all, I'm like, you don't have to look at it. Get on the scale. It will report to your phone. And once a week you take the average. You never look at the scale every day and make judgment calls. That's ridiculous. You might be retaining water. You might like have not gone to the bathroom for a day. All these things happen, right? So you track

it over a week and you take the average of the week for your weight and you're looking at really body fat and fat-free mass and total body water. And then you do a waist and hip measurement once a week. How long are you seeing people lose weight with this sort of like prescription? So here's the reality. I hate to even call it weight loss, although I know we need to. I really want to think of it as losing fat, holding on to or building muscle. And yes, you can recomp. You can build muscle, lose fat at the same time. Now, if someone's goal was purely I want to build muscle, I'm not going to focus on fat loss.

I'm actually going to give them a little caloric surplus. But if you want to lose fat, build muscle, you can do it and still be at a little bit of caloric deficit. You can do that. But I don't focus on that at first because here's what I know. If all we did to start was increase someone's protein, as we start to fix NEAT, which I'll talk about in a second, they'll start to lose weight there. I want them losing maybe a percent of their body weight a week because I know that that would be from fat. And again, while they're holding onto or building muscle. So the first step is they do that DEXA, they come home, they get used to using a bioimpedance scale every day. They wake up, go to the bathroom, get on the scale. It goes into their phone. Once a

week, they do their waist and hip. Then we start tracking what they're eating and getting the right amount of protein for them at their meals. So basically do 0.71 gram per pound of target body weight. Easy peasy, right? 0.7 is the low end. You could go over one. It wouldn't really matter. Like there isn't really a protein threshold. If you're 150 pounds, you want to have like 105 grams of protein roughly. Which is why when I was the weight that I was before I had my first baby, the same jeans didn't fit after my weight training. They were way too big, which is weird. I was the same weight, the same exact weight on the scale.

But because I was lifting weights in my body composition trunk, they were too big. But again, I've been part of these conversations on this show now for a while. And a lot of the questions and a lot of the questions and a lot of the tips are geared towards weight loss, and I agree with you. I think it's more, the whole idea is you're changing the composition and structure of your body. You're adding more muscle and getting rid of fat so that the muscle can help you with insulin resistance, boost your metabolism, and make your body more efficient at burning

the fat off so that even when you're sleeping or just walking around, your body's working for you as opposed to storing all of those carbs and fat in bad places, correct? Exactly. But it's like watching grass grow. Body recomping is a slow process. And let's not forget, you know, bone density, which everyone worries about bone density. Well, if you are doing resistance training and fixing your body composition, you don't ever have, it won't be an issue for you. Yeah, we talk about young people that have low back problems, and they're like 20s and 30s. I'm like, that's likely an issue with muscle mass and structure and bone structure.

You shouldn't have those issues. Well, and not lifting weights. So the diet part, they're now eating protein. They're using a food scale because we underestimate what we eat. Even dieticians underestimate what they eat by 20% to 40%. So they're using an actual food scale because we underestimate what we eat, right? Even dieticians underestimate what they eat by like 20 to 40%. So they're using an actual food scale to weigh their food in for a couple of weeks so they can know what they're really doing. They're tracking on a

food app to make sure they're getting that protein in with, again, 0.7 is the low end. It's easier just to go, let's go one gram per pound. If you are more plant-based, you're pushing it up to the higher end for sure. So you get all those essential amino acids. If all you did was keeping calories the same, shifted some of the calories from carbs and fat over to protein, initially, you're going to have some weight loss because of the thermic effect of protein is so much higher than the thermic effect food of carbs or fat. That makes sense. And I think that those are all applicable and digestible and things that people could start right away. What are signs that you see when someone needs to put on muscle?

Say you're at the airport, you're looking around. What are the signs where you're like, fuck, that person needs to put some muscle on? Well, an easy way to look at this is if someone's got normal weight, but they've got high body fat. I mean, there's the obvious ones where you see the really thin people, right? But the ones that you, I think for most people, it's not obvious where you'll see someone that looks totally normal weight in clothes. But if you put them on a body fat scale, all of a sudden they're 35% body fat, normal weight.

That's called sarcopenic obesity so that's more the issue and i'll give you another example of one so a lot of the things it's not like you're gonna look i mean the person you would see and go oh my gosh they need to put muscle on by the time they get there it's way like it's way far gone right it's more the you're trying to to unscrew a lid and you can't do it these little things you wouldn't like you notice over time right so it's small things that maybe just add up i also notice this is so weird that the skin on my face is tighter from lifting weights yes what is that i know isn't it So, and creatine does that too, by the way, but resistance training improves your skin. I mean, exercise is going to improve

your skin with circulation, but resistance training is going to help with collagen and it helps your skin. What do you wish that women understood about creatine? Because that's another thing that I post that I'm having creatine and people like lose their minds about it. They don't. Okay, well, let's stop creatine. And we have to circle back to neat because I mentioned, yes, we're opening all these loops over there. Because when I look back, like, what would I tell my younger self? Well, my younger self started lifting weights early on. So that was always good. I was always good there. But, you know, I would have skipped the vegan days that I felt I needed to do. It was very interesting that when I played around with veganism and I was always an omnivore and

then I went into this vegan downslide and I was still lifting weights. But the crazy thing is, I've always been super lean. Like my normal body fat is 10 to 12 percent, which for a woman is ridiculous. But it's just my genetics or you know i mean i work my butt off too like but i tend to be really lean and when i did the whole vegan thing i was up at like 25 body fat why no comment no i've already commented before is it because you were just eating a bunch because i was getting loads of carbs and fat and not enough protein. And why did you decide to go vegan? I was in LA.

Right. That's all I have to say. Okay. Next question. I was in the fitness industry in LA. Yeah. Like enough said. Yeah.

Had to try that out. And you know what happened? I finally, and I was running three aerobic studios in la at the time and i remember i just i was feeling so rotten and one of my clients was a doctor and he went and brought me to his office drew my blood and he goes you can either go to the hospital or go eat a chicken pick one i'm like i'll get the chicken and when you eat the chicken after you haven't had it in a while, it's like you're probably like stuffing it in your face like the hyena from Lion King. You're so hungry because it's like your body like craves the... It's always so funny when you're in these vegan places and they've got like vegan bacon.

I'm just eat the bacon. Like, you know, if you have to make all these fake things to taste like the thing that you just want to eat, which would be better than eating the fake things because they got all this garbage in them. But anyway, over to the creatine. Also, has anyone ever looked at our teeth? Like, do you think these are just here for just, you know, just for looks? Like the reason we have these sharp teeth is to get through food. Well, there were no vegans in the wild. They would have died of nutrient deficiencies. They couldn't have made it. So there you have it. When you have a diet, and I have a whole rule around diets, because I mean, there's all sorts of diets out

there and they can be really good for, you know, three weeks to three months to create some change, but that doesn't mean that's the diet you need to be on forever. You know, I think we get confused about these things. I also think that, you know, I'm a diet book writer. We all write the diet book we needed for ourselves. It doesn't mean everybody else needs that, right? So that's the other piece of it. Over to the very first part of this before we go over to creatine. When you said, what would you tell someone who wanted to lose weight? I'd say, first of all, know your body composition and you want to figure out if you want to lose fat, you need to put on muscle. Likely you need to do both. Likely both you first shift and i have people shift protein and do eat protein first

because that makes the fastest change and people need wins or they're out right i've been doing weight loss for 40 years if they don't see a change they're like i'm out if you're hungry i'm out well protein's like a glp-1 razor, right? So another thing to talk about. I said that on TikTok and got eaten alive. I asked Paul Saladino. I was like, so meat is like a Zempik. It does the same thing. Well, it's HCA2.

It's fast acting, though. So if you take, it's like semaglutide, terzapatide, they're keeping GLP-1 around. What this does is help you raise GLP. GLP-1 comes up and comes down. So protein does that, fiber does that. So I mean, this is what your body naturally should do. My take on GLP-1s is that we have a GLP-1 deficiency and resistance going on in this country because of insulin resistance, fatty liver, obesity, create GLP-1 deficiency. So there's that. Anyhow.

So then the deficiency is creating a situation where our bodies aren't functioning. We're hungry and insulin resistant. And then we're eating cat food. Yeah, if you look at GLP-1s, they help improve insulin sensitivity. Yes, they shut off food noise, but they're doing a whole lot of other stuff.

I feel like we're focusing on one aspect that's the smallest part of it. Like the big things it does is improves, helps your body secrete insulin when it should, not when it shouldn't. So that when you eat, you secrete it, you bring back down blood sugar. And it helps drop inflammation quickly. So it can be, and it helps heal your metabolism. So you think there's a lot of positives of it? I think it's hugely positive.

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The way that I love starting each and every day knowing that I'm getting it off on the right foot is with AG1, longtime partner of this show. And that's because it forces me to start each day, like I said earlier, with a healthy habit, especially during the holidays. So here's what I do every single day, almost for the last eight years now. I drink AG1 by taking a simple scoop in a heaping glass of water every single morning. Sometimes I add a little lemon, but typically just the powder itself. And after I take it, I feel great. The under eye circles under my eyes have slowly diminished over the years.

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slash skinny, you'll save $20 off your subscription or $49 off when you sign up for a double subscription, just like we have. Plus you'll get a free welcome kit bottle of D3K2 and five free travel packs. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com slash skinny to get this offer and start your new year on a healthier note. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash skinny. Noom. Noom is the leader in behavior change weight loss. This is very, very interesting. There's been a lot of talk about GLP-1. I've heard so much off air, and I've heard that if it's done right, maybe a microdose, that you can really get a lot out of it. I've actually heard a lot of good things about GLP-1s from scientists and doctors, but I think it's important if you're going to try them that you

work with someone who is a clinician or a coach, and Noom has that. So with Noom, you won't be going at it alone. You'll get access to a clinician, a coach, and a supportive community all from within the app on your phone. Noom's app comes with a number of features like a protein tracker, so you can ensure you're getting the right nutrients and fitness classes so you can keep the muscle while losing fat. That's what I've heard from a lot of people who are on GLP-1s. They always say that they want to make sure that they have the right nutrients and protein, but also that they're kicking up their fitness. Noom doesn't just give you access to meds. It helps you build healthy habits so you can lose the weight and keep it off. The best thing to me, though, about this, if you're going to try a GLP-1, is that Noom GLP-1s

are available and shipped to your door in seven days. So it's quick, it's affordable. It starts at $149 and they combine their proven weight loss program with the GLP-1 so you can lose weight and keep it off. Noom GLP-1 starts at $149 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com. That's N-O-O-M.com, Noom, the smart way to lose weight. Disclaimer, not all customers will medically qualify for prescription medicines. Compounded medications are not reviewed by the FDA for safety, efficacy, or quality. A lot of people have said this recently. I've noticed really smart people that I respect. They've said, if you're going to do it, you shouldn't do too much. It's like going to have a drink with your friends and you have 10 beers as opposed to one. That's exactly right.

Since I've worked in weight loss this long and I used to teach this course called Overcoming Weight Loss Resistance a decade, actually it was like 20 years ago. And I looked at all the different things that would get in the way of people losing weight or cause them to gain weight. And what I would see is people get into a metabolic hole, and it is really hard to dig out of. And so this idea that, you know, you just need to eat less and exercise more when someone's damaged their metabolism. No, they need to improve their insulin sensitivity. They need to get to sleep. There's so many things to get them out of it. And when they're that insulin resistant, they need a little help. And this is the little

help. Don't you think if you take on a modality like weightlifting and you're doing it, maybe in the beginning you're doing it with a friend or with a trainer and you're learning how to properly do it, you're getting in such a different kind of workout that one, you're kind of exhausting yourself, especially if you're new to it, which is going to enable you to get to be hungrier after. And then you can go and eat this protein. And then if you're tired like that, you're also going to go to sleep earlier and sleep better. For me, I don't just weight lift just for the muscle aspect.

I do it because it exhausts my body and then I can go and rest later and recover. It's like, it's not just the one thing. It enhances the sleep. It changes my hunger hormones. It's like all of these things that then have a compounding effect. It also pumps more blood to the penis.

I'm not joking. It pumps it up. It's different having sex with a guy that doesn't lift weights than with a guy that does. I hate to break it. If the guy's listening, it does. So I had a friend message me a guy who's around my age yesterday and he said hey

i'm thinking about peptides and i also want to get your take on trt and i was like listen because we're talking about testosterone lift some weights i said listen there's a lot of things you can do naturally before you do those things like if you need to do those things after you're doing all the things that's and you should by the way you should do the same with same with glp1 it's like okay let's let's fix your diet let's fix your exercise let's fix your sleep however what i will tell you having worked with morbid obese people for years is they can't exercise like that they're too inflamed so if you can give them something that can start to calm down the inflammation and get them insulin sensitive, then they can start moving. It's super duper helpful. But I don't think anyone should be on a GLP-1 if they're not tracking their food,

getting that protein in and doing resistance training. It has to be in there. I think that and that's the problem is that people who get on it, but they don't do anything else. I think that's a problem because you're not adding any healthy habits. It's almost like a lazy way out same same with Testosterone replacement therapy or hormone therapy any of these things. It's a tool. They're a tool That you want to get all the other stuff working. Yeah, so You know you are eating your protein first You're the simplest thing getting your steps in so one of the people that i've been working with 385 pounds when we started, low testosterone, no duh, right? And I'm like, you're getting

2,500 steps in a day, you get hypogonadal, if you're stepping less than 3,500 steps a day, like, could we just get you moving first and get you a little insulin sensitive? So the studies show that 7,500 to 8,000 is sort of the low, like that's your floor. That's the, for me, that's the, no matter what, I could be at a meeting all day long. I come home, if we're not there, like I'm going to get my, you know, that's the bare minimum 8,000. Like you could look back at my aura ring and I think I've missed it one day the entire year because whatever, you know, but I think we should be hitting that's the floor. And so so it's the

it's the DEXA eat and then tracking your your body comp, eating protein first, knowing your overall calorie load, because if you do want to get more strategic, you'll want to do some strategic caloric restriction cycling. Then getting that neat in and ideally adding in like a weighted vest on some of it. Just doing more walking, more steps with 8,000 as the floor. Then adding in resistance training. So that's how I put the hierarchy. Like I don't want someone doing resistance training twice a week for 30 minutes and sitting on their butt the rest of the time and thinking they're great. So generally,

I want to get the steps first because one of the things that tends to happen when you do exercise is your body is very, very adaptive, meaning it are very homostatic. It wants to stay where it is. And so if you restrict calories, you will tend to move less. If you do exercise, you'll tend to move less the rest of the day. So I want that foundational stuff that you're tracking. So when you go do resistance training, you won't move less. What is if you could if you could say in your perfect world, how many steps like for someone like me, I'm doing my things that I need to do. I don't really know what the ideal amount of steps is. What do you look at your watch and you're like, I'm so happy with this. I don't think it's really an ideal amount of steps. I think it's more make sure you get your 8,000 in. 12,000 would be better. Okay. You know, but here's the thing. If you did 4,000 more steps, but then it blew off your resistance training, no, that wouldn't be a thing. So what I would say is foundationally 8,000 more is better. But the next thing I want to add in is resistance training,

minimally two days a week. I think you're better off with three. It depends on where you're at or four, you know, like two days a week split, two, two, or three full body, or even more than that. And then add in some HIIT. Okay. But the point is, is like if you're sitting around

and you're looking at your protein intake and you're at 40 grams a day, and you're looking at your protein intake and you're at 40 grams a day and you're looking at your walking steps and you're at 2000 steps a day and you're not sleeping till 1130 at night, every night, like. Don't worry about getting in a cold plunge. Yeah. This is where, yeah, let's major in majors. First that you got to, you got to lock down before you even start thinking about all the. Peptides.

And that's, this is my, this is my gripe. It's like, and this literally just happened to me a couple nights ago i was in new york and i was getting barred by people going which peptide should i be on i go you're not even lifting weights like you know you have to earn your peptides earn all like you want to do all this stuff do the basics first eat protein get your non-starchy vegetables in sleep i don't know how to help someone if they don't sleep well. You know, do your resistance training, get your steps in, do the foundational stuff, and then you can start frosting the cake.

You don't jump into all the other things. That's what I was kind of saying to this guy, because I was telling him, maybe not with peptides, but if you start going down the TRT path of the hormone replacement, that's a whole different discussion that needs to take place for a longer period of time. Which by the way, you don't want to touch that till you really have exhausted everything else. And there's so much, in general, it'll be later in your late fifties. And there's so much you can do to raise testosterone outside of TRT. That's the last resort when it actually is physiologically dropping. Yeah. I think the bigger discussion there is like, why are men in their 20s and 30s having issues with their testosterone? Like that

is the bigger concern. Honestly, as I've gotten older and now I'm like more of one with the world, I think it's a concern not only for individuals, but for the entire population. No kidding. Like it's a problem. It's a huge problem. I think that easy ways to boost your testosterone is to lift weights eat more protein change your cleaning supplies to branch basics code skinny and watch football watch football but also we had this guy on yesterday that said even

the pans that we're cooking on the teflon is lowering testosterone so we're going to the farmer's market getting organic eggs cooking them onflon, and it's literally causing hormone imbalance. So examining what your environment is. Yeah, the plastic bottles. You had a clip go viral. Plastic bottles, for sure. You had a clip go viral that said that you wanted to be in the best shape of your life at 60 years old. I love that. I'm all about that. I'm all about that. Talk about that. So we want to be in the best shape of our lives at every, every decade. So, well, what had happened was I'd had all these really big goals for 50 and I hit them all and I never did a reset. And I noticed that I was kind of like not excited about 60 because it sounds old. Like, you know, 50 was like, let's go all these 60 I was just kind of ignoring ignoring ignoring and all of a sudden now which is fine until you're like 56 now you're closer to 60 and about 58 I I was trying to unscrew a jar and I've always been able to like I'm strong right and I couldn't unscrew it and I didn't think anything of it the first time but the third time I was like oh and I knew

the statistics with grip strength grip strength if you are at the low end of grip strength you have the highest risk of all-cause mortality like grip strength is a proxy for overall strength it matters like they should not sell you know those little plastic grippy things to help people unscrew things no those should not be allowed if you have to get a plastic grippy thing get your butt to the gym I almost had to buy. Michael couldn't open jam the other day. When did this happen? This is true. If you go to my office right now, you know what I do when I sit on my computer? By the way, I have grip strength. That's amazing. That's why I'm married. My grip strength is so good. Hold on. That was a lie. I'm fact checking you on the show. That

never happened. I think I ended up opening the jam. You work on your grip strength, Michael. I use those when I'm sitting around on calls. That's not the point of the grip strength thing is to use the grippy strength thing. She's saying open the jar of jam for me. I know, but I'm saying I have good grip strength. No, why are we having jam is what I want to know. I am having jam sometimes once in a while. At what time?

Yeah, I want to know about the jam. At night on a piece of sourdough. At night. She's having jam at night on bread. I'm a sourdough toast in the bed. Oh my goodness. Why am I insulin resistant? Wow.

I don't know why I can't lose weight. I just had jam with sourdough at night before bed. One piece of toast in the middle of the night. In the middle of the night. The plot thickens. It gets worse. This is fully backfired on her. You're just...

It crumbs all over the bed. It's grass-fed butter. It's raw grass. Oh, that makes it totally fine then. You can totally eat in the middle of the night in bed. I'm glad you're here. I'm a bed eater. It's not great.

It's not great at all. Well, if you say that, you are. Okay. You're right. That's so Louise Hay of you. Wow. I'm going to try to not be a bed eater. No, what do you mean try?

I'm going to not be a bed eater. No, that's wrong. You're a great eater. You're an excellent eater because you want to be an amazing role model for your kids. And your kids will do what you do. I know they're eating toast in the bed. Probably don't want your kids getting up in the middle of the night, raiding the refrigerator with grass-fed butter and eating it in bed.

They can't open the jam though, don't worry. Michael can't open it either. I can open the jam. We won't eat jam anymore. He can't open it. The thing is though, if you got rid of every jam jar in the house, it wouldn't affect my life in one way. I don't. Why do we even have the jam?

A little jam on toast is pretty good. Do you know what you're doing there? What? You're just spreading sugar on toast. And spiking my insulin. So, well, you're raising your blood sugar. But that's I mean, it's not bad. It's like, what's what's the value of that?

Why not just eat some fresh fruit? Why would you eat this condensed sugar bomb? You know what I can do, JJ, because of you, I can take some raspberries and mash it on toast. How's that? Why? Why are we eating toast? I count like my macros. Squirming a little bit here.

I'm not squirming. I count my macros I'm not squirming I count my macros and one of the non-negotiables for me while I was losing weight was I could have a piece of sourdough so I'm doing all my things and my sort of reward is my piece of sourdough. Yeah but Lauren this okay now you're in a little therapy session excuse the show for a moment

Lauren has this thing which I will say I do not have I'm just going to put a blanket statement michael has no attachment to food no no not the thought that it but you have a thing where you need to negotiate everything so for example if somebody gives you a plan and tells you this is the exact way to get something done yeah lauren doesn't like the person delivering the message even though she knows it's correct so she has to hold on so she throws in a negotiation like well i will do all these things but then i will have my toast

because i need it it's like a control thing for her right i mean don't you think i can have a piece of toast a couple times a week sure depends what else you have going on in your life protein weightlifting walking pilates hold on hold on no no in terms of your overall like looking at your diet absolutely there you don't there first of all a piece of toast and it just depends if you're gluten sensitive or not even though sourdough is lower so as long as you don't have issues with gluten although i believe everybody has issues with gluten and our wheat sucks here because it's going to have glyphosate so i'm'm never a fan, but maybe you're sitting in sauna and one or two days a week is not an issue. So I think we're majoring in a minor.

If once or twice a week you're eating sourdough, if you're eating sourdough in the middle of the night in bed, that habit's the scary habit. It's anything. It's like, I'm getting up in the middle of the night eating. Maybe it's 6.30. I was going to give you a way worse example about infidelity, but then I had a better one to not get myself in trouble. It'd be like this. It'd be like if I hire a business coach and they say, okay, Michael, you got to do this and your business will just crank and crush and everything, right? And I said, okay, I can do all that, but I just have to embezzle a little money like once a month. Once a month, I just need to embezzle just a little bit. And that's like the same thing I think about these diets. It's important to create some wiggle room in life

because in life, if it's absolutes, then you're either completely on it or you're failing. So there are the black and white people out there that do great with that. But most people have to have a little gray in there too. I have to have a piece of sourdough just a couple of times a week. You say you have to have certain things. It's not like once in a while. Okay, I like that. You would love to. I'd love to.

And part of life is what would you love? And it's not like you're saying, you know, I have to have a heroin a couple times a week. What do you think about alcohol? I dry farm wines. Oh, so you will have a drink. I grew up outside of the wine country in Northern California. So you like your wine? Yes.

Okay, I like dry farm wines too. I did a little co-brand with them. I like my wine, I like my sourdough. Yeah, we've been buddies since forever. We actually did a test with him to see how much we could all drink without getting a hangover. And what is it?

That's a fun test. How many glasses? We unnecessarily did that. We were in Palm Springs during the pandemic altogether and we were like, literally went through bottles and bottles of red red wine and he had his dog with him, Pino, who drinks red wine. And all I know the next day I wake up, I had been wearing a white t-shirt, white shorts, and it just spattered because I was feeding Pino wine all night long. I'm like, oh my gosh. Sounds like a fun time.

It was a fun time was had for all. Yeah, he sponsors, he sponsored our wedding. He needs to do a bread line and do no glyphosate. Like, how do you say? Well, you have to go to Europe to do because don't you notice when you're in Europe, you feel fine eating bread and you come here and it's just a nightmare. You wanted to be in the best shape of your life. You decided. Oh, yeah. So so the whole thing was happening with that, you know, screwing the container, I'm like, oh my gosh. So first thing I did was go get a DEXA. And I'll share the story of my husband too, because it's wild. He actually had the wilder experience than me. So I go get a DEXA at 59 and I trained for it. I actually increased my calories, trained for it, pushed myself and went in and did a deck set. And I was 154 pounds and 13.9% body fat, same weight, same body fat as I was at 39, which is crazy. My husband, who's always been athletic, 6'2", he was 25% body fat. And I'm like, but it's not me saying anything now. It's the Dex-X. I was like, whoa, you know, and you wouldn't have known it. That's what he, like, he, he didn't look

ripped and lean, but he didn't look, he just, he didn't look fat. He just looked a little soft. To pause for one second for men and women, what is a range that just for, because I think people are like, what percentage should we be? So here's the reality. And the percentages are crazy. What I learned in grad school 25 years ago and what the norms are now are different. I'm like, but we haven't changed. So I'm going to give you where the essential fat is and what I think they are. But the numbers are all over the place. So women have 10% to 13% essential fat. That's like the fat we need to have in our body to survive.

Contrast that with men, 3% to 5%. So men have much less fat to begin with, right? So men, what I learned in school was that athletic males would be like five to 12%. Healthy males will be somewhere in the 10 to 18%. And they could go up to say 22%. But really, I always looked when I was training guys, 10 to 18% was where I was trying to get them. And for women, it was athletic women would be like 15 to 22%. And then you'll see the physique model girls. So when they really rip down, they'll get into 8 to 10%. And the men will get down to like 3%. They'll get as low, as close to physiologic as they can. And then healthy women, somewhere in the 18 to 25% range. So for him to be 25% was unbelievable.

Now, fortunately, if he hadn't quite been doing all the things that I'd asked him to do, well, this kicked his butt into high gear. So a couple of things happened though. And one of them is the big differentiator that I wish we'd done differently because it's impossible to parse it out. He went on testosterone. So that made a big difference. How old was he? He was 57. Okay. Well, that's an, that's an appropriate. Yeah. And he needed it. He was down at 300, brought him up to 900. So he went on testosterone, doubled up. We both take

Mitopur. Timelines when you take Mitopur? No, what's that? You don't? What's that? Mitopur is a urolithin A that triggers mitophagy that helps you get stronger. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'll hook you up. So we both went on Mitopur, creatine, but he started really tracking his protein too. Now I had pushed myself and now I wanted to get lean. So I went in and started doing cycling caloric restriction where you figure out how much you really eat, which you do over a course of a week or two. So you can get your average calories and then five days a week. And I learned this from Dr. Bill Campbell. If you had him on, amazing guy. He's doing menopause physique research right now anyway 25 caloric restriction five days a week normal two days a week and so i did that tim just started tracking what he was eating and

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part. It fits anywhere. It's foldable. It's the coolest yoga mat. They like reimagined it. It's twice as thick and really lightweight, but it gives you support wherever you move. And it folds up so I can just put it in my little closet area where I have all my workout stuff. But then when I pull it out, I'm really excited about it because it's so beautiful. Stacked is a female-founded wellness brand that believes movement is important for a well-balanced life. You may know them from creating the Stack Mat. It's a first of its kind, a foldable fitness mat that doubles as a block to enhance or modify workouts. But this year, Stacked expanded its vision beyond the mat. With the recent launch of the Stack Mat Pro, a more durable and grippier version of their iconic mat, and their newest innovation, the stacked weight, they continue to elevate your everyday fitness needs and inspire movement. Visit shopstacked.com slash TSC and use code skinny at checkout. You get 20% off your purchase. That's S-H-O-P-S-T-A-K-T.com

slash TSC and use code skinny for 20% off your order. Is there an app you guys like to track? We use Chronometer. Chronometer. You're the second person that said that that's good on the show. It's a great one. I'm going to write that down. So I actually push my protein up to more like 1.5 grams per pound of target body weight.

He pushed his up to a gram per pound of target body weight. In eight months, he went from 25% body fat down to 10. Wow. Wow. I know. I was a little irritated with him. He dropped 27% body fat down to 10. Wow. Wow. I know. I was a little irritated with him. He dropped 27 pounds of fat. It's so annoying.

They're so annoying. It's like, I just, I think I want to change. It's so annoying. I can't even go on and on. I know. Anyway, 27 pounds of fat loss, 24 pounds of muscle put on. Now, the testosterone treatment, probably, you know, that's why I look at it and go, well, testosterone treatment. But still still i love blaming genetics and testosterone it's like

just because you have testosterone and genetics no but i think it's relevant for you to share that story because i i think for men of that age like that's drastic change and important and it's like you know obviously a combination of things but but. What happened to you? I went down to 10% body fat, which is my, like, I, I, that was what I would sit at. And what are you right now? Cause I think you look amazing. Somewhere in the 10 to 12%, I'm about to go do another DEXA. So you're, this is the thing that I find so interesting about people. But I'm abnormally, like I need to couch that cause this is not normal for a woman okay like that like a woman if she got to say 18 would be amazing and fantastic you just you just like to push it is what you're saying i just

this is your life this is where i've been for i mean i started lifting weights when i was a teen and i've always been really naturally lean i met my birth mom i'm adopted i met my birth mom. I'm adopted. I met my birth mom in my 20s. Same type of body. So you're just naturally lean. Well, no, if I I mean, if I didn't lift weights and didn't exercise and ate all to process foods, I would look like, you know, I'd be 30 pounds heavier and probably 30 percent body fat. But I think what's so interesting about high performers is it never stops. You're constantly checking yourself like you're constantly checking yourself. Like you're constantly going to the decks. It's not like it's just like one day you get to this

like top of the mountain and like you're done. You're constantly. Well, but we don't stay still. We're like, like if you are not consistently pushing it and you hear like Dr. Peter Atiyah talks about the centenarian decathlon and what do you want to be able to do in your 90s and 100 and the fact that we're on this downhill slide, you look at the statistics that starting around age 30, we're losing up to 1% of our muscle mass a year. It's like 3% to 8% a decade

and starts to double after the age of 60 and it's twice as much strength and three times the power. And I'm like, I'm not going to let that happen. And that was my big takeaway as I started to go into my 60s. I go, what if I could be in the best shape of my life at 60? What if I started to do things that I haven't done for years? Like I went and got a sprint treadmill and started sprinting.

And I went, all right. And I blew my knee out at 17. I put off my total knee replacement until I was 52. They kept telling me, you got to have it. I kept putting it off. But you did one? I did a total knee and I had to do a total hip because of it. Those are brutal. And I have to do another one because of that whole stupid

point ballet injury because six feet tall girls should not do point ballet. Like it's a dumb, it's a dumb sport for us. Like gymnastics, bad sports for us, right? I did not know that about ballet.

Well, I was doing a period, yeah, bad. I mean, six feet, who, if you're six feet tall on point who are you dancing with no one you know lebron's not doing ballet no lebron is not doing ballet our producer does ballet and it's not a side to see not carson our other producer what do you eat in a day walk us through it everyone loves this shit walk us through isn't it so funny everybody they love it we did a we did a show with a bunch of us one time with sarah gottfried and and dave asprey and

everyone's like what do you eat everyone how do you cheat i'm like you're gonna be really disappointed it's not that exciting it's routine but like we also want to know like are you waking up and having coffee or is it water is it water with lemon do you have electrolytes we want the whole day so tell us so i'll tell you what i do and what you should do when you're at home well but i do so i travel 50 to 70 percent of the time so my routine stays the same the only thing that's different when i travel is i can't go do my little hot sauna i have two types of sauna at home okay and i think that you know you got to major in the majors first but then you get to get the tools I think saunas are amazing we have a cold plunge too but I get up I know you're supposed to wait 90 minutes to have coffee if I had to wait 90 minutes someone's getting their stabbed I waited

four hours this morning I can wait oh I can't wait you can't wait I I no I don't I will here's the thing I'm sure I could wait because I've waited for a fasting blood test but I don't. Well, here's the thing. I'm sure I could wait because I've waited for a fasting blood test, but I don't want to. What if I stop doing sourdough every night in the bed and you stop? You don't do sourdough every night in the bed. Not anymore. I don't. So this is a non-issue. What about now?

Well, look at her negotiating with me. I told you. I told you. Go ahead. I told you. I'm not stopping coffee. I love it. It's one of my most favorite food groups.

Coffee's good for you. I think coffee is a great health food. Like if you look at it, it helps with muscle protein synthesis, helps you burn fat. It's good for focus. It's got all those polyphenols. I love coffee. We actually travel all over the world. We have the European plugs.

We have the U.S. plugs. We travel with coffee makers wherever we go. What's the best coffee? So we alternate around. Sometimes we'll do Dave's Danger danger sometimes we do purity okay we've been playing around with my buddy vincent pedre just came out with this happy gut coffee so we got a bunch of different ones that people okay so you wake up you have your coffee wake up my husband gets i wake up go to the bathroom get on the scale take take my thyroid medication.

My husband either takes the dogs out to pee or pushes the coffee maker and the espresso maker. Sometimes we're meditating, sometimes we're not. We used to meditate every single morning. We got a new palm tree puppy. She is not on the meditation train yet, so it's hit or miss. So that's about 50% of the time is meditation. Then this is my money time for my brain. So I get my writing stuff done. And usually I wake up and something has to come out. So program or whatever I'm doing. If I'm at home, we do the hot sauna, cold plunge.

If I'm here, I don't or wherever I am. Then I eat breakfast. I try to eat breakfast about an hour or two after waking up what are you eating if I'm traveling it just depends like I finally can eat dairy again which is so great because greek style yogurt is the easiest thing and if I'm traveling I'll do greek style yogurt and I'll either stir in my paleo protein or stirring caught my collagen into it oh that's a good idea you take the greek yogurt and you put the protein in. Yeah. What kind of collagen do you like? Mine. I have my own. Okay. Yeah, I have my own stuff. I basically make the stuff I use, except for timelines might appear

because it's patented. So I use theirs in qualia. I take their senolytic and their NAD plus. And then if I have to focus, I take their mind. So I do either Greek style yogurt with collagen or paleo, my paleo shake. and this is what i love and this is my little ultra processed food thing but see i think we need to distinguish between like heinous ultra processed food processed food and and whole food i love cereal so much like cereal is my favorite food on the planet next to when i was growing up i was called called nickname Poppy because I ate so many Pop-Tarts, but I ate Pop-Tarts or Captain Crunch. So Catalina Crunch makes a Captain Crunch knockoff that's high protein and fiber. If you can have your Captain Crunch, can I have my sourdough?

But I don't eat Captain Crunch. I eat Catalina Crunch. And it's basically 11 grams of protein and a bunch of fiber. So I throw it on top of my Greek style yogurt. So I get about 50 grams of protein in there. That sounds good. It's amazing. I either do that or I make a smoothie with my protein powder and then I'll throw it on top of that because I make my smoothies really thick

and I eat them with a spoon. Yum. If I'm traveling, I have access to none of that. Then I do an egg. Like this morning at the hotel, I did an egg white omelet with two eggs. Okay. Because I want the eggs, but I can't get enough protein from just eggs without overloading

everything. So you do the omelet and then you add the egg white. Well, so this one, they had an egg white. They were completely confused. I'm like, just add two eggs to the egg white omelet. This was going over their head. So I'm like, all right, just give me two hard eggs and an egg white omelet with some feta cheese and spinach and mushrooms. So that's my other thing I'll do.

Lunch today, I went to the well. Oh, that's great. I was like, oh, we're right by the well. So I had bone broth and some salmon and beets and arugula. But very typical lunch for me. We make a ton of protein every night. Whenever we're making protein, we make extra for lunch the next day. And then I'll either do leftover vegetables or put it on a salad. And then I have a bunch of blueberries. I usually eat like a cup or full of all the butcher box meats. And then we also get the Piedmontese, these amazing grass-fed sirloin tips and these huge Bronco, like these big,

they're like big beef ribs. Yum. Oh, they're so amazing. Yum. The reason we have them is we went to a barbecue place in Austin and got one and I've been obsessed with them ever since. Oh my God, you got to send me the link to that. They're incredible. So we always make you know protein for dinner or wild fish from Vital Choice or he does these air fryer chicken thighs that are amazing and then I make vegetables and my favorite thing to make is cauliflower rice pilaf. Yum. Love this. Have you posted this on your Instagram? I don't know if I've done that one. I'm working on my next book, so I'm working on all the recipes right now. But the other thing, we do a lot of mushrooms. We eat a lot of mushrooms.

I'm kind of obsessed with mushrooms. Good for you, huh? They're amazing. If you're doing dessert, are you doing wine or are you doing a dessert? I don't really do. He eats dark chocolate. Sometimes I might eat some blueberries. I'd rather have a glass of wine personally.

Okay. I'm not a big dessert. If you said to me, would you rather have a ribeye or a piece of cake? It's the ribeye with salt all day long. Yeah, for sure. Like that's just always been my preference. What is your actual at this point? Because right when I walked in, I noticed you have beautiful arms. Everyone's trying to get these arms right now. They're like ballerina arms. Ballerina arms. What is your workout schedule? How much do you personally lift to look the way you look? Yeah, this is funny because I have so many women come up and they go, I want to get your arms, but I don't want to get big. I'm like, okay, so I'm not going to lift

heavy. I'm like, I just want to be toned. I go, what is toned? What is toned? Toned means you're lean and you've got good muscle mass. So you just have to make sure that as you're building muscle, you're also losing fat. So, you know, if you're really, if your whole goal was to get bigger and stronger, you'd have to up your calories and you'd just get bigger. But the reality is like when I used to train women one-on-one, I would cut their calories, get their protein up, and they would put on muscle and lose fat. They get tighter and smaller, right? So the biggest things that I do, I don't do any independent little single lever moves. I do all really core functional moves. Like I think that if you want to get better at life, do it in the gym. Like I'm not training at the gym to get better at training at the gym, right? I'm training at

the gym to get better at life. And at life i'm training at the gym to get better at life and at life i travel really heavy like generally we'll have two or three 70 pound suitcases each because all of our like we travel all the time so my trx or coffee maker supplements like we bring a lot of stuff oh my god you and michael would be a lot of stuff no no i like i i like to have a separate but i guess you're doing you're bringing a separate suitcase with all the stuff and then one for the clothes, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then I have, and then I have like, you know, camera setups with the lights and mics and stuff. I have a lot of stuff with me all the time. So I have to be able to throw things in the overhead. I have to be able to pick stuff, right? You have to be able to do stuff, squat and deadlift,

et cetera. So for me me a typical upper body workout is i'm really working on getting and being able to do five sets of 10 pull-ups right now i'm at four sets of eight still good it's not bad for a girl right but i do it this way i don't do it this way like so i do assisted pull-ups or pull-downs at the gym um and then i do close grip pull-ups i do bent over rows and upright rows. I'm doing a lot of the stuff she's doing. How many days a week are you lifting? So I hit each body part at least twice a week, sometimes three days a week. So I'll either split and do upper body pushing and pulling one day, hip and thigh hinging the next, or I will do all

of it once. If I do it all together one day, I'll do two exercises for each area. I'll walk you through exactly what I do. If I do, if I split it, I'll do three exercises for each area. So example, if I'm going to do an upper body pushing and pulling day, and a lot of times I will superset, do push, pull, push, pull, push, pull. I'll show you, I'll explain how, so I can get it done in less time. So let's say I'm at home doing this. I would do push-ups to failure, and then I would do pull-ups, push-ups to failure, pull-ups, right? Then I would do a bent over row and a dip, and a bent over row and a dip, and then I'd do an upright row and an overhead press. So I'd alternate, go back and forth between them. And I'm doing upright row and an overhead press. So I'd alternate, but back and forth between them. And I'm doing the heaviest weight I can handle. I'm working in,

you know, you can do anywhere from six to 30 reps for hypertrophy range, but I generally work in like a six to 10 rep range, about two minute break. And if I'm super setting, then I use the break to do the other exercise. So it sounds like you're very disciplined with your schedule and with the way you eat. So here's how I get myself to be disciplined with my exercise. I write out my little plan and I like to check things off. Oh, I like that. Right. So I just like to check things off. If someone's listening and they want to work with you, what does that look like? Where can they find you? Tell us your Instagram if someone wants to work directly with you so i very rarely take on one on one clients i have a couple at a time okay however they can dm me on instagram at jj.virgin

on that i do have a program that i take people through as a group called my powerful aging method program because it's the lineup for my book coming out in 2026. And what I'm also lining up is when I was in my 20s, I coached a lot of women in their 50s. And I feel like I need to write an apology, a public apology from my 25-year-old self in booty shorts to those 50-year-old menopausal women. I was like, no, the hormones aren't doing that. It's like, I'm sorry. So I'm actually creating a certification program for health coaches and trainers who work with people who want to work with people 40 plus who are also 40 plus. Because it's just like, you know,

when I was a trainer, I worked, I did a lot of prenatal training. And once I was pregnant, I was like, oh, oh i mean you can know it theoretically but it's very different when you know it intimately you also forget right you get pregnant and you're like oh that was easy and then you get pregnant again and you're like whoa i forgot where can everyone shop your supplements find you i know we never even talked creatine oh my goodness well you got to come back on when your book launches. My husband named that product sheateen because it's the one that doesn't bloat women. Sheateen.

Sheateen. If you're scared of creatine, go check out sheateen. Go get sheateen. It has creatine, taurine. So it has creatine, taurine and magnesium because they have a exponential effect. Magnesium and creatine together, you get better results than one or the other below. Nothing magical is going to happen

from swallowing a creatine pill. You know that, right? I know that, but I take creatine every day. You can take it, yeah. Take three of them. Taurine helps creatine be absorbed better and uptake in the muscles better. And magnesium actually helps creatine kinase make the enzyme

creatine kinase which you need to make phosphocreatine which is what you're why you're taking creatine so creatine is great for women because it helps not just in your body but also in your brain and really important for mood for cognition for bones slows down bone loss helps with more muscle strength just and also that timeline I have to get you guys on that too but it helps you lift harder so you're going to get better results from your exercise and better better muscle and better bone but also gives you more energy helps you create energy we're both big creatine fans I love that yours doesn't make you bloat at jj.virgin on Instagram everyone you guys I foundine fans. I love that yours doesn't make you bloat. At jj.virgin. On Instagram, everyone, you guys, I found her on Instagram. I love your page. I think

what you're doing for women is absolutely amazing. I can't wait to see your next book come out. You have to come back on the show. Love to. Thank you for coming on. I'll keep you updated on the sourdough stuff. Yes, yes.