← Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
16. JJ Virgin: The Real Reason You’re Not Building Muscle (+ What to Do Instead)
01:44:41
Ever find yourself putting in the time at the gym, only to feel like you’re barely moving the needle? Or notice that staying in shape seems to get tougher every year? Here’s the thing: muscle health is the backbone of your metabolism, strength,...
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to Xtend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah. A podcast dedicated to cutting edge science research tools and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained and board certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results. When it comes to your health span, we are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world renowned experts offering you a step by step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly, extend your health span. In this episode of xtend, we're diving into something that affects every single one of us as we age. Maintaining muscle building, boosting metabolism and staying strong. Did you know that by the time you hit your 30s, your muscle fibers, especially the ones responsible for strength and power, start to decline? And yet so many of us are still following outdated fitness and nutritional advice that doesn't work for the way our bodies change over time. To help us cut through that noise, I have brought in one of the best in the business, JJ Virgin. JJ is a leading voice in fitness, nutrition and health and and a four time New York Times bestselling author. She's a pro at simplifying science into practical strategies. Today she's sharing the secrets behind building muscle that last the key to optimizing your metabolism and why VO2 max might be one of the most underrated indicators of your longevity. If you're tired of feeling stuck with your fitness goals or wondering if your workout is really moving the needle, this episode is going to be for you. Jj, thank you so much for joining the Extend podcast. It's so incredible to have you here. It's been so great getting to know you and everything you stand for. It's just awesome.
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B
Agreed.
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A
Yeah, agreed.
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B
Agreed. I don't know where you've been all my life.
- [02:11]
A
I know, right? I feel the same way. I feel the same way. But I want to start off with just for the audience to get to know you a little bit. What do you consider yourself a true expert as? What do you love to speak about? What are you passionate about?
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B
I have always been obsessed with fitness and nutrition. I mean, since little kid, so. And I gotta tell you, I'm more excited about the field now than ever and especially the exercise science piece of things. So that would be what I'd talk about all day, all night. I've left to my own devices.
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A
Yeah, I totally see that with you. Like, you love talking about it, and you. You have so much knowledge and background. And why do you think there's this, like, this incredible upsurge of science in this field right now?
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B
Well, thank God. And what's super cool is we're finally actually looking at women.
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A
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
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B
Right. I love what Stacy Sims says. Dr. Stacey Sims is like, you know, women are not small men. It's like we're finally looking at women. We're different. And that's really exciting, too. And, you know, I think it's just a trend that's gonna become reality. Cause so often there's, like, you look at diets and you can just kind of grab the trends, Right? But this one, it feels like finally, with all the focus on longevity, the exercise physiologists are now, you know, the gurus. And back when I was in school, I felt like the peasant in the healthcare practitioner field. As the exercise physiologist, it was like, oh, you. And really, when you look at longevity, the single most important thing you can do for longevity is exercise. Absolutely the right type.
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A
Absolutely the right type. And that's exactly what I'm so excited about, is we have real concrete data that's, like, irrefutable about the importance of VO2 max, about the importance of muscle mass and muscle strength related to longevity. Like, there's very little argument, you can't argue against it, that we need to do it. And now we're really honing in on the right dose. How do we customize these programs and the fitness activity to the individual? And like you said, women, I want to dive into that with you in depth, too, because I think that's a really important topic and you have a lot of science about it. So on this kind of a trajectory that we're going, what is the one thing that you feel that you wish most people knew about this about the topic of fitness?
- [04:31]
B
Well, back when I started, it was very much a vanity thing. People, in fact, me, Mark Sisson, Body by Jake, Tony Horton. We were the first personal trainers. And everyone hired you because they wanted to look better. It was never about performance. It was never about health. And there's some very weird things that you still see to this day about fitness that I think people are concerned about. And what I'd love to really say to the women especially, is, lift weights. Do not worry about getting big. 40 years of doing this. I've never seen a woman who is lifting weights and dialing in their diet get bigger, they get tighter muscles. Your metabolic spanx. But on the flip side of that, what happens if you do show up a little bit bigger? You know, time to stop playing small. Right?
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A
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I think this renewed interest and focus in strength training, especially with women, I think changing your perspective on how we look like, who cares? So you have some muscle that actually looks good now. And I think what you're seeing now in social media is women flaunting it instead of trying to avoid it. And that's great.
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B
Well, we really have to get away from the scale as a metric of success.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
Because as long as we are using a scale and we aren't using body composition, we'll be forever, you know, challenged by this whole thing. And I'll tell you an interesting story. And I was thinking about the other day. Cause I went, you know, this really changed the trajectory of my entire life. This little incident that happened in my teens. And I'm so grateful to it in my teens because I was six feet tall. I naturally was like, I should be a model. And, and I remember going to a modeling agency and I was a gymnast and a ballerina. Really dumb sports for a six foot tall person. But it was very strength focused. Right. I go to this modeling agency, I look about the same as I look right now. And they told me I needed to lose twenty pounds.
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A
Oh my gosh.
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B
Right. And so I go home and I start counting calories. And I remember I would write it on a little calendar and I was doing loads of exercise, counting calories, dropped 10 pounds. My dance teacher thinks I'm anorexic. And what I'm noticing is the things that I was able to do I now can't do. Like I'm losing my strength. And it was a moment that changed everything because I thought, do I want to be strong or skinny?
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A
Right.
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B
And I chose strong. And then I started working out with the high school football team in the weight room. So. And I think this is a very important thing because for women for so long, it was skinny.
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A
Yes.
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B
And what we need to focus on is strong as the new skinny.
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A
Right, right, right. I think, and I think when you get strong, you will also lose weight. You will also have a better body composition and you'll have all, all the benefits you're looking for. Being skinny without having the metabolic disease.
- [07:15]
B
Aspect of it being skinny and without having to try to maintain your weight. I'm sure you've heard of tofi or sarcopenic obesity, thin outside, fat inside, where they found that the people who were struggling with that were the people that were trying to maintain weight through diet alone. And when you put on muscle, your metabolism's so great, you don't have to think about, you know, you don't have to worry about it. It's a non issue. You can actually eat, you know, and if you're eating correctly, you're not going to be hungry anyway.
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A
No, absolutely. I always say your metabolism lives in your muscle. Like, we think it's somewhere else. Right.
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B
I'm going to quote you, you can.
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A
Use that one for sure. But yeah, the more muscle you have, the better your metabolism works, the less chance of metabolic disease. It's all about the muscle mass, which.
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B
We should be packing on. It's like, I think of it so much as a retirement account. We should be packing on as much muscle as we possibly can. And I just want to emphasize to women, you'd be lucky, you'd be dancing up and down if you could put two pounds of muscle on a month.
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A
Yeah, absolutely.
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B
Like, this is no easy feat to put on a bunch of muscle.
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A
It's not. And I want to go over some specific protocols that you give for men and women about putting on muscle because I think that's really what we need to hone in on. Because there's so much misinformation out there and people are just confused and people don't know, like, what's the right dose? How does protein play into this? And so we should go, we should go dive into each one of those topics. But before we do that, you talk a lot about aging powerfully. And I want to tie in the longevity conversation as well. So tell us when what you.
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B
Why do I say that?
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A
Why do I say aging powerfully?
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B
It's like, forget aging gracefully. And I still hear this all the time. Well, age gracefully. I'm like, no, we do not want to age gracefully. So we have two distinct types of muscle fibers. We have slow twitch and fast twitch. And then we have these hybrid fibers that can convert to either one. Women tend to have more slow twitch than fast twitch. We're all different snowflakes, but we tend to have more. And it's the fast twitch that's really capable of more hypertrophy. As we age, we start to lose more fast twitch than slow twitch. Now here's why this is important. Women, when you look at a lot of the activities women tend to do, they tend to do more things that Are not gonna really work their fast twitch muscle fibers. Most women are not doing sprint training, power training, you know, that type of thing. Crossfit would be a great example of things that are gonna work fast twitch, but things like yoga and walking, these are slow twitch muscle fiber activities, Predominantly muscle fibers. Right. And that means that if I'm focused on those, then those hybrid fibers are gonna move into slow. And now I'm atrophying and losing my f, Just making myself slower. And that is the opposite of aging powerfully. And so that is why when you look at what do we need to do as we age, we need to prioritize fast twitch muscle fibers, because if we don't use them, we do lose them, right? Absolutely. You know, I think the important thing here is the less you do, the less you can do. And the more you do, the more you can do. So I have a very different idea about training than I see most people doing out there. And this really started back when I was working in physical therapy. And most of my grad work was in spinal lifting biomechanics. And what I saw in physical therapy and what we were taught in school, we were taught two really dumb things in grad school. Number one, don't lift weights until you lose the weight. That is so wrong. Yeah, that is so wrong.
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A
I remember hearing that back then.
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B
It's still out there.
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A
It is.
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B
It is still out there.
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A
It's sad that people still think that that's reality.
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B
The other bizarre one was, and this was especially so obvious to me, being focusing on lifting biomechanics. They were like, if you have a bad back, avoid extension exercises. Don't work your back, just do flexion and work your abs. I go, that would make you worse. That would make you weaker.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
We have this thing in muscle physiology called reciprocal inhibition. If you're working, flexing forward to work your abs, your back muscles have to not do anything. Otherwise you would be static, you couldn't move. So if you focus on one area at the expense of the other, that other area gets weaker.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
Right. So when you look at why people tend to not exercise, the number one reason is time, of course. Right. And that's an excuse. If you don't have time, find time, just make time. There's nothing more important than this. But the other reason is some type of an injury. Now, when I was 17, I blew out my knee. And then when I was 21, I broke my foot. Just dumb sports injuries. And those became my whys for so many people that go, I Have a knee injury, so I can't work out. I was like, I have a knee injury, I have to work out. And I literally had a bone on bone, very bad knee that they were like, you must have a total knee replacement. I put it off for 30 years because of how strong I had everything around it. And so that's what I want to emphasize. If you're listening, you go, oh, I can't do these things because of arthritis, because of an injury. No, that's why you want to do these things. Things, right, Right, absolutely.
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A
Yeah. I think, you know, even in surgery, like I, my background is surgery and we used to have people just lay in bed, we called it bed rest for a week after any surgical procedure. And people would get infections, they would get sicker, they would not recover well. And then the moment the, the entire thinking went to early ambulation, which is now, right after you get a knee surgery done, you walk that right out. You walk pretty much when you hit the floor, you go walking the same day. And people are getting outta the hospital in like a day now. Now they're doing outpatient knee replacements. So this concept of early ambulation in surgery especially can actually prevent that muscle loss, which then leads to worsening of the disease process. And so the same is true with, if you have an injury, train around the injury. Right. I think this knees over toes guy, he talks a lot about this as well, how to keep your knees healthy, which is training around the injury, developing the muscles around the injured joint. So very point. Well taken back to the slow twitch and the fast stitch muscle fibers. I think it's a really important concept for people to understand because I think a lot of people think going to yoga, doing pilates, all these things, they're exercising. But, and I'm not saying anything bad about those exercises.
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B
And they're great, they're great. They're a form of exercise. Just like we know there's nutrition, we've got protein, carbs, fat, we've got hydration, we've got like, there's all sorts of things in exercise, we've got all sorts of things. And so when you look at it, you've got aerobic cardiovascular training with the ultimate goal there to have good VO2 max. You've got muscle mass and when you look at training muscle, you've got both your muscle size and quality muscle. We don't want fatty muscle. You've got muscle strength and you've got muscle power. They're three different things. And we know that as we age, while you know, starting around age 30, you can lose up to 1% of your muscle mass a year. While it's two times as much for strength and three times as much, I think it's 2 to 4% strength and 6 to 8% power. That's because of that loss of fast twitch. So you've got the muscular component, you've got the cardiovascular component, and then you've got that balance, agility, stability component. They're all important, right? They're all important. But then you have to think, okay, where do I need to prioritize? And I would imagine for most women, fast twitch muscle fibers and putting on that quality muscle is going to be super important because we tend to, like, if you look at most women's history, they did a lot of cardio and then some flexibility work. And I find that most people who love flexibility work are generally the people who shouldn't be doing flexibility work because they're hyper flexible to begin with.
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A
Right, Yeah, I see that a lot too. You know, it's really interesting when you tell people, like, I'm so happy about your yoga, daily yoga routine, but we really need to start adding some strength training to it. And on those three categories, I always say if you had to pick one type of exercise, you only had 30 minutes, you know, once a week to exercise, what would you pick? I would say strength training, because you get with that an improvement in your VO2 Max, and also an improvement in your flexibility and balance and all of that too.
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B
You can do resistance training in a way to incorporate in some high intensity interval training to incorporate in balance, stability and flexibility. So you can really get it all with that if that's the only time you have.
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A
Right, Absolutely. So let's dive a little bit more into, like, specific protocols then. So, and I want to talk about women and men together and also separately. Right. Because I think women need to do things potentially a little bit differently. And I would love to dive into some of the reasons why, but I would think that most of the listeners of this podcast, they're probably, you know, somewhere in their early 40s or even later. And we might have some younger listeners as well. How does exercise routines change as you age? So say you're between 20s and then 40s and then 60s. How would you kind of think through that?
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B
So in your teens and twenties, there's something that I think doesn't change, and that is that need for building and maintaining muscle. And when you really look at it in the perfect world, if you could focus on that in your teens, and 20s. That would be amazing.
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A
Why is that?
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B
Because you're gonna now lay down. Muscle have great mitochondrial function and it's gonna be easier to maintain that as you age. Now you can build muscle at any age. When I was, I did my doctoral work at USC in exercise science and it was exercise science with nutrition and we had like 80 and 90 year old athletes in there and they were amazing, incredible. But the better the foundation, the easier it's gonna be. So that's really laying your foundation during that time. That I think is super important. I actually have an algorithm. So I don't know that it's that important to focus on change as much as individually. It's important to focus on where your deficits might be. So someone who is, let's say they've got really good. This is my example. I love resistance training. I would lift weights all day, every day to the expense of hiit training or really, or flexibility. Yoga, like yoga, kicking and screaming, I go in. But I do it because I know I need to do it because I need the flexibility and the stability. Resistance training, especially heavy stuff, I do it all day. So what we have to look at with someone is when we look at your body composition, you know, how's your skeletal muscle mass, how's your strength, how's your power and then what's going on with your cardiovascular Fitness, how's your VO2 max, how's your balance, how's your flexibility and really whether you're in your 20s, your 40s, your 60s, what do we need to prioritize? I don't know that it shifts that much as we age. Really, it's really what everyone's a snowflake and, and for someone who's got great flexibility and again what I see with especially women, they've got great flexibility, they'll do more flexibility. I've got great strength, I'll do more strength. So what you really want to do is strengthen the weaknesses. And in life I generally like to strengthen the strengths, but in this one you want to strengthen the weaknesses.
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A
Got it. So how are you evaluating muscle power and strength? What metrics?
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B
Here's how we can walk all this through. And where I really like to start with someone is a do great, do a DEXA scan, know your body composition and then take that home and get a bioimpedance machine at home, knowing that it's not as accurate, but it doesn't matter. You are looking for relative, not absolute. So you could do, go do a dexa if you're really working on Shifting body composition. Do one every six months. But every day you get on that bioimpedance scale. At the same time you wake up like my husband will go way in at night. What are you doing? That's completely irrelevant. Get up in the morning. We have a scale at home that reports to Bluetooth. So we have it charted in our phone so we can just track it and we track the trends. You do not track it every day and make yourself crazy because every day it will bounce up and down. So we track the trend. Make sure that when you're looking at bioimpedance, it's looking at total body water. So again, that'll shift. You know, maybe you're over hydrated, under hydrated, but you're looking for a trend over time that your total body water is maintaining or increasing. And that will be, that will show that you've actually been able to hold onto or build muscle. So that's one thing that we're looking at those home units now are making. And again, this is predictions about your visceral adipose tissue, your bone. I don't buy it. I'm really looking at it purely for total body water. Once a week I say do a waist and hip measurement. So you have your waist to height, waist to hip, and then every six months do a dexa. So that's a starting point. But then here's how I walk through it. Next thing you would do is, and I think you're doing VO2 maxs at your office, right?
- [20:08]
A
Yes, we utilize VO2 max, right.
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B
So, you know, ideally, gosh, wouldn't it be great if every office was like your office and you came in and things you had were, you had a DEXA scan, you had VO2 max, you did grip strength, you could check power by doing a vertical jump. Very easy to do at home, by the way. All you have to do is reach up with a pencil in your hand, mark a spot, then jump up as high as you can, mark the spot and then check the difference between it. But you would do that, you would do a balance test. Simple. Just cross your hands, lift your foot up, right? Do it with both sides. And then we would have some metrics to start with. Where I like to start people is the first thing that I do is just have them track their activity. How many steps a day. The average person is getting somewhere around 3,000 steps a day. That is unbelievable to me. Like unbelievable.
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A
It's crazy. The sedentary behavior of our society now has just gone off a deep end and is leading to Massive increases in mortality risk. For every 10% of time that you spend sedentary over four hours, you have a 10% increase in all cause mortality. It's mind blowing.
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B
Yeah, that's insane. So that's where I like to start is let's just now track your steps and let's get those steps up to that 8,000 plus. And once I get them to 8,000, I'm like, let's get them to 10. Now let's add a wrecking vest and add some intensity in. So I start there because I know that if we get that in, it's actually gonna make everything else easier. So I think that is always step one and then increasing the intensity. Now you live in the hills so you can go out and walk. I live in Florida. So I think for women too, rucking vests are amazing. You know, it's like so often you see it with the guys in these military vests. I'm like, where's the cute vest for the gal? But for women, especially for bone mineral density, throwing on a weighted vest is fantastic. And you start with five or ten pounds, but you should be able to get this thing up to £25. And now you're stressing your joints and you want to. Right, right. We've got to put the stress on our spine, on our hips, you know, so we stress our joints so that we don't have poor bone mineral density, which I believe though, you know, just like fasting glucose is really an indicator of poor fasting insulin and it's a lagging indicator. It's the same with bone marrow density. If we're fixing our muscles, we're likely not going to have issues with bone marrow density.
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A
Absolutely. Yeah.
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B
Unless we only just started at 60. So that's where I would start. And then now that you've done so how do we assess muscle mass, muscle power, muscle strength? The muscle mass is going to be the Dexa.
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A
Right.
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B
And what I love about the Dexa 2 is you can see how even you are. And then muscle strength. The great proxy for it is grip strength. But the reality is, and you can buy a hand grip dynamometer on Amazon for what, 30 bucks? And then you test both sides. And what's nice about grip strength is if your grip strength decreases, it's actually an overtraining sign. But you know what else do I love to do? Pushups. I'd love to see you go into the doctor's office and you have to do push ups and see how many you can do. Absolutely right.
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A
A thing that I like to do too is I send patients home with like, I want you to do these five weightlifting exercises with your trainer at the gym and tell me where you max out. Right. Like knowing what their one rep max is. And then you can. There's programs online now that you can kind of correlate that with age and sex and find out where you kind of should be to be in the, you know, the bell shaped curve somewhere in the middle. And so even if you just are listening to this and you are going to the gym knowing what your one rep max is for things like a bench press, a squat, it's such powerful information because then you know how much catching up you need to do or if you're doing okay on that too. Right.
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B
And you can do it predicted. So you don't. You could do like five.
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A
Right.
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B
But here's the big caveat with that that I found with most people, they didn't really stop when it was they were done. They could add another one in the tank. So when you're doing that testing, you really have to get to that. I can't do another one.
- [24:06]
A
Got it.
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B
So you want to have someone do it with you so you don't hurt yourself with that. But you can even doing air squats for time over bench, I mean, there's enough ways you can do this at home. You can do a predicted VO2 Max. It's not going to be as good as a VO2 Max, but it's also not as painful. But you could do that on a treadmill or you can go do that on a track. So there's all sorts of ways people can identify these things. And the reason I love doing that strength training, like your testing, like you talked about, is it gives you a benchmark and it's so quantifiable. So many of the things that we do, you can't really tell, like, am I getting better? You can totally tell it with resistance training. In the first couple weeks you're doing resistance training. No, you're not gonna see muscles change. Your nerves and muscles have to learn how to communicate with each other. So you'll see big strength increases, but without any real hypertrophy shift. That's gonna take a little bit more time to do. But you'll. But just that change in strength. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. Translates to everything that you're doing. What are those five exercises that you send people home with?
- [25:07]
A
Yeah. So I have them do a bench press 1 rep max and a bench press, a shoulder press, a squat and we also have them do bicep curl and then maybe pick from one pull.
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B
Up or a hang.
- [25:18]
A
Yeah, we do a one minute hang. Absolutely. And so that's. Well, we try to get them to do at least a minute. Some people can do more than a minute. Some people can't even do like 10 seconds. And so those are. Yeah. And we actually have a list of 10 of them and then we have, we pick five that they feel the most comfortable doing. Some people don't have access to a gym. So then we'll use a different proxy. But just to highlight this, it's so important that everyone knows where they fall in power and strength.
- [25:42]
B
And let's talk about the difference with power and strength because I think it's confusing and you know, so VO2 max is really clear. And you know, how you train for that is interesting and painful, but strength, muscle is different. Where you look at, you have muscle size and then you have muscle strength and then you have muscle power and you actually train for these differently. And what's interesting is if you really want to get strong, you could get stronger without that much hypertrophy. And I'll see women at the gym and they don't want to lift the heavy weights because they don't want to get big. But they're doing, you know, 20, 20 reps, multiple sets of a weight that they can, you know, they're, they're actually pushing themselves on. Well, that's going to cause more hypertrophy than the, you know, ten sets of three reps of something. So, you know, that is one that's important for people to understand is time under tension and that volume that really does a lot of the hypertrophy. So training for hypertrophy, we want more muscle because muscle is really, I call it the metabolic Spanx. It holds everything in tighter. It's going to burn more calories, requires more calories for that muscle protein turnover. It's also, I, I think of it, I know it's called the glucose sink. I call it the sugar sponge. This gives carbohydrates a great place to land rather than excess being converted to fat and stored as body fat. So you now have carbohydrate stores in your muscles and it's your immune system. So it really is how do I become more insulin sensitive so I can burn fat all day long and have a better metabolism? Muscle's all about it. So that's muscle. The strength is what can you move the heaviest thing you could lift one time. And where for hypertrophy it Tends to be time under tension and volume with. I've divided the body into four parts so I have upper body pushing, that's chest press, overhead press. I love that you said overhead press for bone density, overhead press and squats for the win. But these are things that work your chest, shoulders, triceps and I focus on compound movements. I always say you don't train to get better at the gym, you train to get better at life. And so you wanna do compound metabolically, very costly exercises. I don't really ever do bicep curls or tricep curls, tricep extensions unless I'm really bored, you know, waiting for someone. I do dips and push ups and overhead presses and things like that. So that's pushing pulling are things like pull ups and pull downs and bent over rows. I love bent over rows because they're so functional to everyday life.
- [28:09]
A
Love them.
- [28:09]
B
Picking something up off the floor. Love, hate them. And then so that's again back of the shoulders, biceps, lats. And then you have hip and thigh hinging and squatting and so squats and step ups and lunges and I don't really do much single leg stuff except for leg curls, deadlifts, things like that and then power core. I will throw some abs in during rest periods at the gym. But if you are doing your resistance training correctly, you should be working your core.
- [28:41]
A
Right.
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B
So if you do a squat, if you do a pushup, if you do a pull up, like you should be working your core doing all those things. So I'm like, you can do those for rest breaks in between sets or if you're super setting. But the reality is if that's how you're working your core, that's not very functional.
- [28:57]
A
Right.
- [28:57]
B
Because you know, most of us don't really need to be able to lie on the floor and do a crunch in everyday life. Right, Exactly. But we need to be able to pick something heavy off the floor. So then to have more muscle size, it's going to be repeated sets. Now the research is all over the place on this of like how often should you do it? And it's in when you're first starting. You can pretty much do anything and you'll get some gains.
- [29:24]
A
Right.
- [29:25]
B
But once you're further along, generally 15 to 20 sets a week of in a specific area is what the recommendations are. It's kind of a bell shape. Yeah. So let's say we're doing upper body pushing. Say if you could get into doing chest press three days a week, five sets or maybe you're doing chest press and overhead press. And you're doing that two days a week, five of each. And it's really making sure that you're getting to a point where at the end of a set, so I'll go in and let's say I'm doing chest press, I'll do a warmup set, a warmup global warmup, overall warmup set of that exercise where you're focusing on really feeling where you're working, paying attention to that. And then I will do four sets, generally somewhere in the 8 to 12 range, 8 to 15 range, and with say 60 to seconds to 2 minutes in between.
- [30:24]
A
Perfect.
- [30:24]
B
Unless I'm doing super setting, which I will. And so if you want to progress past that, there's all sorts of ways you can do it. You could throw in a strength week. And if you're really focused on building strength, it's shorter, it's somewhere in the 1 to 5 rep range with a longer rest period, like 3 to 5 minute rest period. And this is where you can actually go, I tease people. Cause I go most people at the gym are doing scroll workouts like what are you doing? You're not working out in the time that I just did an entire workout. You did three sets of bicep curls. But it's great to throw in. I'll throw in a week of strength periodically and it actually helps me increase my weights when I go back to doing more of a hypertrophy type of training.
- [31:09]
A
Got it.
- [31:10]
B
And then once a week I like to throw in a more of a power training. Now power is how fast you can move something and you can throw that into your regular workouts. It's called high velocity resistance training, where you can go really fast on the, let's say the concentric, the hard part, and then slow it down a little bit on the eccentric. So you can do it there or you can lighten up the load a little bit and do some real power moves like a kettlebell swing, a snatch. Sometimes I'll use those as my warmups before I go and do bigger workouts.
- [31:40]
A
Right, right. I think, you know, this whole program you put together really highlights the importance of mixing things up.
- [31:48]
B
Right.
- [31:48]
A
And having different types of exercises, different set ranges. And I think that's even more important when you kind of reach plateaus as well. So mixing it up is another way to get through a plateau. People struggle with plateaus a lot and it kind of is demotivating. And so what are some of the other ways you get past like a Plateau?
- [32:03]
B
Yeah. Cause I love to design like an 8 to 12 week program. Okay, this is what we're gonna do. And if someone's new, it's really think 12 weeks to 16 weeks of doing a lot of just getting your body to understand this. Where a lot of it starts with body, you know, just body weight and moving past that. I always like to build up slowly, but once you get past that, you can do some deloading, some tapering. And what I find is that naturally happens in life with me. Cause I'll be traveling and I walk into a gym and I look at this gym. Like I literally walked in when I was with the Perlmutters and Blands, and I went into the gym there and they're like, there's a gym on the island we're going to. I'm like, yay. Because I brought an exciser with or a TRX with me. The Perlmutters had an exciser. And I'm literally on the front of Jeff Bland's boat doing hiit training. And they're laughing. I'm like doing up downs and squat jumps. Because I was like, all right, there's really not much I can do here. But they said, we have a gym where we're going. I walk in. The heaviest weight's 20 pounds.
- [33:01]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [33:01]
B
Now I was like, that's a warmup. What am I gonna do here? So sometimes you just have to innovate. And so I've got it set up now where I can do a bodyweight workout that's pretty much a functional. It's high intensity functional training. So it's a hiit training. But it will get things like, you know, I've got push ups in there, squat jumps and their side jumps, all sorts of awful things.
- [33:23]
A
Do you have a video on this?
- [33:24]
B
I actually just did one.
- [33:25]
A
Oh, great.
- [33:26]
B
I did a 10 minute, no repeat hiit training workout. And it's really. When you think about hiit training, a lot of the time when we originally hiit training was you go out and do like sprints and then walk it off. Sprints, walk it off. Well, you can do hiit training in another way called high intensity functional training, which is super cool because it kills two birds with one stone. And so that could be some squat jumps and then maybe some goddess squats that are easy recovery. And then maybe you're doing some up downs and then some easy side lunges. So you're doing something super hard and then something easy. Right. And then super hard. But they're functional moves. So, you know, squat. So I did this training and it was 10 minutes. And I go, no problem. I kind of tested it out beforehand, but I didn't really run through it till I actually taped it. And it's one minute of squat jumps, and then a minute of squat recoveries, air squat recoveries. And then one minute of up downs. And then I think I was holding a plank and I go, you know, this is really hard. Like, this is really. It's hard. 10 minutes, you're done.
- [34:35]
A
Especially after rapid succession.
- [34:36]
B
Oh, my gosh. I'm like, who said planks for recovery? What was I thinking here? You know? And then those skater side jumps with side lunges, I was like, oh, but you're done in 10 minutes. So while I like to have, especially when someone's new or intermediate, like, give you an eight week program to do, but then let's take maybe two weeks and we can either do a taper down, we could do two weeks of power training. You can mix things up. It keeps it fun. You will continue to progress. And again, you can progress, you can add more volume, add another set, add more reps to the set, add some speed to the set. So there's all sorts of ways to do it that will make it more fun. Now I have one more hack for you, please. So the other way that we do this is we've been going to this yoga studio in Tampa for like two years. Except Tim the other day a couple months ago looked at me and goes, I'm done with yoga. And I'm like, great.
- [35:31]
A
Oh, no.
- [35:32]
B
Now I'm gonna have to go do this by myself.
- [35:34]
A
But.
- [35:34]
B
But the other thing they had there was in another. It's these three huge warehouses. And one of the warehouses is a hit warehouse. So I book us in there, and I don't pay any attention to what it is. We'd never seen it. And I was like, perfect timing. So we go walk into this, and they are like, you're the yoga couple. You sure you want to be here? And I go, both of us are so competitive. We're like, get out of the way. The room, half the room, it's all black. Said grind time. Half the room was sprint treadmills, and the other half of the room was these weights. So you alternated. So the weight station had like, kettlebells and big weight plates and a TRX and a big step bench. And so you would do some sprinting rounds, and then you would go over and do like, you know, some jumps or some kettlebell Swings or a snatch. And we go in the first time, and I look around and go, all right, I could have given birth to everyone in the room. Maybe they'd even be my grandkids.
- [36:27]
A
Oh, my God.
- [36:28]
B
And they're all super fit, and they are fired up, and I'm like, perfect. And this is what's really important. Someone asked me, they're like, how do you make sure that you stay fit? I go, you find fitter friends.
- [36:39]
A
Yes.
- [36:40]
B
You always hear that, you know, your income's the average of the five people you hang out with. I'm like, well, your fitness level is, too.
- [36:46]
A
Absolutely.
- [36:46]
B
So if you want to get fitter, don't go to the like. When I first started going to yoga, I was going to a yoga class at LA Fitness, where I was the youngest person in the room. There were all these old men and women, and the women still could kick my butt. But the guys, I was like, I. I found my thing. Do yoga with old guys. I'll be better. And I kind of fooled myself into thinking I was good at this until I went to a San Diego yoga class and got my butt kicked. And it's the same thing here. If you want to get stronger and fitter, go to where people are way stronger and fitter than you.
- [37:19]
A
So when you're at this studio, this warehouse, these young kids are there, and they're super strong and super fit.
- [37:25]
B
They were fitter and. Well, I was stronger than them. I will say, I bet you could. On the weight side of things, I'm like, you know. But on the sprinting side, did you see that meme going around the Internet about how after the age of 30, like, 5% of us will ever sprint again? There's no science behind that at all.
- [37:45]
A
Right.
- [37:45]
B
However, I realized that except for one, like, soccer game where it was the parents against the kids, I had not sprinted at all for years and years and years. And so I got on this sprint treadmill, and I came home, and for a week, I mean, it hurt to touch my thighs. And so what I realized was I needed a sprint treadmill. Absolutely right. And I was like, oh, I have to do this. We have to go back to this class. We have to do. You have to do those things that are hard and uncomfortable? And you know what's awesome about exercise? It is a controlled environment to do hard things so that when you get out in the wild, those things are easy for you.
- [38:24]
A
Exactly.
- [38:25]
B
Right.
- [38:26]
A
Exactly. And it's so important to highlight the fact that, like, when you're at the gym, and if something feels really hard, of course, be safe, get a trainer to help you. But that's probably what you want to be doing more of. So you discovered it on sprints. I actually go run sprints on the beach at least once a week and just I keep doing them until I can't do them anymore. Because that sprint training, not only is it great for VO2 max, but like you said, it's so functional. Because in life there's going to be times where you need to sprint.
- [38:50]
B
Right.
- [38:51]
A
If you're not doing it, especially I find as I age, if I'm not doing it, I lose the ability quickly.
- [38:56]
B
You do, because again, you will start to lose that fast twitch. That's why I hate this like idea. I don't know if you remember when there was that whole emphasis on slow training and I was like, I mean, I just went from an athlete perspective, you're gonna be able to do things at the rate at which you train. Why on earth would we train slow? You know, I don't wanna go slow in life. So you have to be able to push yourself. And you wanna push yourself in those, you know, in controlled environments. Because it's. For most of us, we're not getting injured at the gym, we're getting injured out in the world where we stepped off a curb, where we had to get out of the way of something. And you know, the rotten stats of breaking a hip after 60, I mean, we just, we've got to avoid that at all costs. So you've got to maintain that flexibility. That's where I'll use a trx. By the way, my TRX trainer I use so I can do full squats. Cause full squats on my own with a knee and a hip replacement are a little tough. But I can do full squats and pistol squats using a trx. And I just try to do it with as little touch point as possible.
- [40:01]
A
That's a good hack to getting squats and if you have knee injuries or hip injuries or something, right?
- [40:05]
B
I mean, cause I can do squats and I do heavy squats and heavy leg presses, but to get past hips at knee level takes a bit, right?
- [40:23]
A
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- [41:18]
B
You can tell what I love?
- [41:19]
A
Yes, exactly. I mean, I think the sprint training, actually what you're talking about right now, is an excellent way to build VO2 max and get some cardio training in. Do you have other kind of protocols around cardio training?
- [41:30]
B
Yes. So I love hiit training for cardio. Here's my cardio philosophy. I think that the first thing that we do is look at how we can just move more in life. I still remember I was doing a lecture in, I don't even remember what town it was somewhere in Kansas, I think. And most of the audience was obese or morbidly obese. And this one guy pings me a month later and he goes, I've lost ten pounds. And I go, what'd you do? He said, all I did was take the stairs. He goes, I just started taking the stairs. I went, we underestimate how impactful that can be. So if in life, all you started to look at was, how do I just park farther away, Take the stairs. And you really gamify the steps. So that's my first step is let's get the steps in.
- [42:15]
A
Just get more movement in, get more.
- [42:17]
B
Movement in, get more movement in. And then that high intensity interval training is my next focus. And especially for women, I'm not as focused on the Zone two training for women. I'm much more focused on women of let's get your steps in with a rucking vest as much as possible. Like you can be at home wearing a rucking vest, right? Get the rucking vest to load your spine, let's get that resistance training in, and then let's start incorporating in high intensity interval training. And back when I first started doing high intensity interval training with people, which was 30 years ago, because I always was, and when I was in grad school, all of our research was done on cardio training. And back then, the whole way people thought was if you couldn't do 30 minutes, you shouldn't even bother because you're, you're not going to get into the fat burning zone. And then a study came out and it said that they looked at one group that was told to do 30 minutes a day, and one group was told to do three minutes of three times 10. And the three times 10 had better cardiovascular adaptations, they had better shifts in body composition. And the whole idea back then was, well, it's because you either did 30 minutes or no minutes.
- [43:23]
A
Right.
- [43:23]
B
But I actually think there was more to it. I think it was the fact that they were kind of doing exercise snacks all throughout the day. They were staying active, that if they knew they could do 10 minutes, they were gonna do it a lot more intensity than say, they would do it 30min. So, you know, I really love to focus on how do we get more throughout the day. But this high intensity interval training, the way I used to dose it was, it was 30 to 60 seconds all out a minute recover. And now I look at it and go, if we're focusing on VO2 max, I think that Norwegian 4x4 is really fantastic. And I would love to see us all do that once a week where you do four minutes hard, three minutes recover, do it four times. It's hard.
- [44:05]
A
That's hard.
- [44:06]
B
It's hard, it's hard. So maybe you just start with four minutes and then you bump it up to four minutes with that three minute, and then you bump it up from there and it might take you a month or two months to get to the four minutes. But the other cool thing with high intensity interval training is it's cool and not cool. It never gets easier. So you know where you might be doing four minute sprints right now, and you're sprinting at 5.2, you know, and in a couple months it might be 5.8 or 6.2. Right. So you just continue to get better. You don't go longer, you go harder. Just like with resistance training, you just always go harder. So I think that to limit it.
- [44:46]
A
To four minutes and keep increasing the.
- [44:48]
B
Speed, well, what I'd love to see is, yeah, you never go past the four for that. Norwegian 4x4, that's really the VO2 Max. I think that one once a week would be a great one. One to two other times a week it is literally doing anywhere from. And I like to mix these up a bunch because if you look at it, if you're doing very short, like you're doing a 20 seconder, and now it's really creatine phosphate. It's gonna be different energy system. If we can go up to a minute, it's a little different. Four minutes is different. But I'll generally go between 20 and 60. And I'll just push it and recover and push it and recover. And I'll just mess around with that and play with it.
- [45:22]
A
Got it.
- [45:23]
B
If I'm really short on time, I might just do that, you know, 22nd, 10 second, 22nd sprint training intervals. You know, sprint training intervals. But I think you play around with those a bunch. And ideally hits at least twice a week. Resistance. I'm also messing around with resistance training because I just looked at a study that showed better body composition shifts with people doing resistance training three times a week. Full body versus, you know, splitting. But I think it depends on someone's priorities. Like, if I've got someone who's really sarcopenic, I would probably have them do resistance training. Upper one day, lower the next, every other day and maybe every day.
- [46:03]
A
Right, right, right, exactly. And you want to hit the muscle groups harder on one day. And it's all dependent on what time the person has at the gym as well. So you got to really kind of fit it to what their time schedule is as well. And if they're completely under trained or they haven't trained in a long time, you have to start people off really slow, really easily.
- [46:22]
B
That's why I love a trx, because it could be as simple as doing an upper body pushing exercise and pulling exercise with a TRX in a squat. And they're all assisted and then you can make them harder. But most of that stuff is body weight to start. Plus you could do that at home or when you travel. Like, you can literally do that anywhere. And if you think about it between you have a trx, you could do a pulling exercise, you could do a pushing exercise, you can do a squat, you can do an air squat over a chair, you can do a push up on the floor or against a wall or against a table. There's so many things that you can do wherever you are. There's really no excuse.
- [46:58]
A
Exactly. And I think what's helped me a lot on that, because, you know, I travel a lot. You travel a lot, is you have to have these things easily accessible in your back pocket. So I love to have like videos by people like yourself. Just kind of download it on my YouTube. They're there when I'm traveling. I can pick from one of five different videos. So it's not too much choice there. And I just do that you know, and so I also travel with a TRX as well. I have a great TRX videos, but sometimes I don't feel like doing trx. I have a body weight as well. And so I think having those options when you travel, because if you travel and you don't have those options, you're just not going to do it. And so.
- [47:33]
B
Right. So what I do when I travel to make sure all of this happens is I check the hotel. I actually call ahead to know what the hotel has. I do not believe if it says fitness room, it's like house shopping and finding the house is quaint. This is a fitness room. Usually is a room with three pieces of cardio equipment and one of them's broken. So you really want to find out what they have or what's close by. So that's how we choose. Our hotels is like the one we're staying at right now has amazing equipment in there. So I know that we're covered. And I knew Tim coming out of his hip surgery, I was like, going to go get you on a bike.
- [48:10]
A
Yes.
- [48:11]
B
Immediately you're going to be moving. Yes. I know you don't want to. You'll feel better. So, you know, that's part of it, is see what's around. And sometimes my gym is the stairwell. You can do great hit training in a stairwell. Oh, yes, you can. Like, it's amazing.
- [48:28]
A
Yeah, you're right. There's stairwells everywhere, so people might think you're crazy running up and down the stairs.
- [48:33]
B
There's no one in the stairwell. Every once while there's a random smoker on the stairwell. But other than that, you're not going to see anybody. So it doesn't matter. Right. Just make sure you don't get yourself locked out. I've done that before, too. Right.
- [48:46]
A
Are you training? Are you strength training? Five days a week, seven days a week? Like, what's your protocol?
- [48:51]
B
It really depends. If I were home now, I'm flipping my schedule right now because of my priorities. Like, my priority really is to focus more on VO2 Max and HIIT training. So when I'm home, I'm focusing more on doing full body because I've got good muscle mass and then doing HIIT the next day. I do one day of yoga on the road, though. I'll do a lot of times I'll go in and do upper body one day, lower body the next. I'll throw some HIIT training in on either of those sessions. Yeah. So it just depends. I hit each body part minimally. Twice a week. I like to do it three times a week. And one of the fun things when you travel is you naturally mix things up. So kind of have to sometimes, right? You do. I'm focused a lot right now on pull ups. Really? Working on my pull ups.
- [49:37]
A
Yeah.
- [49:38]
B
Right now I can do four to five sets of six, but I really want to get it to sets of 10.
- [49:42]
A
Wow.
- [49:43]
B
So that's what I'm working on.
- [49:44]
A
Yeah.
- [49:45]
B
Yes.
- [49:45]
A
I always think I need to work on my pull ups too because I can't do that many. And so I'm always like trying to get myself. You got to go hit the pull up bar. But you're right. Once again, doing the hard things that you don't do, a lot of those are the ones you want to on focus.
- [49:59]
B
Yeah. And I mean, you look at it because yesterday I had a whole conversation with myself. It's good. You're just here, you know. You know, do the pull ups. No, you're just. But the reality is it's like you do the pull ups. That was what, 20 seconds?
- [50:10]
A
Yes. Yeah, exactly. I know you can do it. Absolutely. Yeah. Even if you just show up at the gym and just do a set of pull ups, you've won the day.
- [50:19]
B
Exactly. If you're not exercising, if you go to the gym, you do a flexed arm hang, some push ups and some air squats. Winner, total winner. Right? It all counts.
- [50:29]
A
Yeah. And that's why, even though hotel gyms sometimes aren't very inspiring, I still at least do something there because at least I got something in. It's a win for the day. I'm also a big believer in working in exercise throughout the day. Exercise snacks have been a game changer for my own personal health and my strength and my VO2 max. And so 45 minutes of work. I will always have an egg timer. I actually have an app on my screen now that shuts my screen off.
- [50:55]
B
Nice. This is in the perfect world, we would be doing it that way because when you look back, I mean, I Even think back 40, 50 years ago, we never sat all day long. Look what it was when we were kids in school that they've now messed up. But it was like you would sit, then you would have a little pee, then you would sit, then have a little. This is what adults need. They need PE breaks all throughout the day. And there's easy things that you could do. So I'm actually designing a little challenge around this right now. So I'm glad you're bringing it up, but you think about it. And go. You could get the exciser. I think this machine is so underrated. Have you seen this thing?
- [51:29]
A
No, I haven't.
- [51:29]
B
Okay, so it's X I S E R and it is this heavy duty little stepper. It looks silly. You'll go that hard. And if you have some dumbbells, you can do your stepping while you're doing overhead presses and bicep curls so you have balance, stability. It's hiit training. So it is a great little exercise snack to do throughout the day. Just like you could do up downs, you can do air squats, you can do jump squats. I really want people to put in some jumping power moves. Super important. And as you age, you might go, I shouldn't do that. No, you should do that. But you can do it in such a controlled setting where you're coming up from a chair. So I like to have people do air squats over a chair and then just do a little jump at the top. That's it. Little jump.
- [52:20]
A
I have a box jump outside of my office and I have a set of dumbbells and I'm going to get this exciser thing.
- [52:26]
B
Oh, this exciser is the coolest thing. And then if you have a trx, like you've got so many cool things.
- [52:31]
A
And a dream would be to also have like an assault bike as well.
- [52:34]
B
Yes.
- [52:34]
A
I love the assault bike. Do you like the assault bike?
- [52:37]
B
So at home I have. I used to. That was what. I used to rehab my knee when I couldn't even move my knee. And I could only use my arms and leg. At home I have a peloton, I have a StairMaster, I have a sprint treadmill and I have battle ropes, a trx, like all my stuff. And I just have no more room to put anything else. I cannot get anything else. I had to get rid of my big step mill. With the steps going around. I was like, enough.
- [53:02]
A
I think it would be such an incredible thing for a business to do or an office to do is to have just a few pieces of equipment in a room somewhere where people can take their break, go in there. Kind of like instead of like a water break or in addition to a water break, go and just have a quick.
- [53:18]
B
Actually, I don't think it should be in the room. What would be really amazing when you think about it is, and I did this for a while where I put my exciser, where whenever I got up, I would trip over it. Now in my office, I have a standup desk and I Have a walking pad?
- [53:31]
A
Yes, so do I.
- [53:32]
B
And so, but if you think about it, what would be great is right by the coffee machine, you would have like a TRX and an exciser and you would have a little points board where people would check off their exercise exercise doses, right? And I still think about exercise snacks. Cause I was coaching, I'm working with someone who literally has 200 pounds to lose. And so I started with exercise snacks. And he was so excited to hear exercise snacks. Cause he thought he got to snack. And I'm like, no. So I get the concept, but it's like I almost feel like think more micro doses that we really want to accumulate all throughout the day.
- [54:07]
A
Microdose the exercise.
- [54:08]
B
Every time you do that, think of what you're doing with blood sugar. What I love about Europe is you actually walk after you eat. And just think if every time you ate, you went and did the exciser, the trx, you sucked some of that blood sugar into your muscles, you changed.
- [54:25]
A
The game, you changed the game of your metabolism completely. And the key to that whole thing is what we're talking about here is that you need to have that consistent, constant physical activity in your day by working in exercise snacks. A treadmill desk or a walking desk is incredible if you can get one. But at least doing something throughout the day that should be separate. And in addition to going to the gym, you need both. They're both two very important parts of metabolic health and fitness. And so you gave us a great protocol for a gym workout, you're giving us great protocols for throughout the day workout. And then on top of that, another layer to just make sure you're getting in enough movement throughout the day is activity counting, step counting, those kinds of things. I think if you get those three big picture buckets in place in your day to day life, you are going to lose weight, build muscle, your VO2 max is going to go up, you're going to live longer, you're going to not fall, you're not going to get frail, and that's it. It does sound a little bit overwhelming.
- [55:25]
B
To start with, but you're not gonna start there. So that's the big thing is if you live like a healthy, lean person, you will become one. So if you wanna be that, just do the habits, but start with one. That's why I like to start with the activity first. And the activity has to be all throughout the day, so it's not the end of the day and you're like, oh my gosh, I've Gotten a thousand steps in. And then add in the resistance training and then add in the high intensity interval training and then get a yoga class in once a week.
- [55:52]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [55:53]
B
Even a 30 minute flow. I actually record it. I go, listen, I'm not a yogi, I don't play1 on YouTube. But I'm gonna record like, if I can do this, you can do my yoga flow.
- [56:02]
A
I love that. So yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's also important. But like you said, it's kind of one of those things that if you had to make a priority list of what you're doing, the strengthening is going to be on top. In addition to moving constantly all day. Right.
- [56:15]
B
Well, look at, you could actually do like I love. They're called Romanian deadlifts or stiff leg deadlifts. Now one legged stiff leg deadlifts, it's like going to yoga. It is not easy, Right. So it's a lot of balance you can do. You can incorporate some of these in. You're not gonna get the strength you would get by doing say a straight Romanian deadlift, but you'll get the balance piece. So you can do some alternating between these things and incorporate in some, right?
- [56:39]
A
Absolutely.
- [56:40]
B
Do an overhead press, standing on one leg.
- [56:42]
A
Yeah. And you're touching on like functional movements as well. Which I think everyone also needs to kind of look at is how do I incorporate functional movements? At least once a week or throughout your workout regime, I like to do sled pushes, sled pulls. I think those are very functional. Simulating what you're gonna be doing out in life on a day to day basis. You know, you might have to push something, you'd have to pull something.
- [57:03]
B
We were laughing just on this last trip, we bought so much stuff in Spain and literally had every suitcase straight up to £70. So we have four big suitcases at £70. Then we have two carry ons that are more than £70. Because we jacked everything we could.
- [57:19]
A
Right.
- [57:19]
B
We put all the heaviest stuff in there and we are literally dragging this stuff across the airport. And we got into the IT global outage. So now we got all these things we're recruiting and I go, this is perfect. It's luggage. CrossFit.
- [57:30]
A
Yes.
- [57:31]
B
And that's what I look at with a lot of these things is you are training, you're doing that overhead press or that snatch so that you can throw your carry on into the overhead compartment when you just put 70 pounds in there because you couldn't put in your suitcase. Right. So you look at what you have to do in life. And that's why I don't understand when people go, I can't do a squat because I have bad knees. I go, but you have to get off the toilet.
- [57:51]
A
Yeah, you have to squat.
- [57:53]
B
You have to squat. When I lived in Japan, it was crazy because everyone would squat and just wait for the bus or they just squat. Yeah, I mean all the way down squats.
- [58:04]
A
I've totally added that to my daily routine. In fact, I read every morning and I read in a squat now and it gets painful for about 20 minutes, you know.
- [58:12]
B
20 minutes. You're 20, that's so impressive.
- [58:14]
A
Yeah, I try and I try to, I try to stay in it as long as I can. You know, I'm Indian heritage too. So we grew up being in the cross legged position all the time, you know, like in a, in the, in a crisscross applesauce basically.
- [58:27]
B
Right.
- [58:28]
A
And so I try to sit that way as much as possible. These chair things that we have.
- [58:32]
B
Yes.
- [58:32]
A
Really decreased our mobility. And getting off the chair as much as possible, I think is also an important kind of thing to have in the back of your head.
- [58:40]
B
Guess. Yes.
- [58:41]
A
Yeah. So let's switch gears a little bit. We have some great exercise routines from you. I want to switch to some nutrition focused topics. So I'd love to get your take on protein intake. A lot of times I talk to my patients about 1 gram per pound body weight. Protein should be your goal and that's just so daunting for people to get through.
- [59:01]
B
Isn't that crazy?
- [59:01]
A
Yeah. So let's talk protein.
- [59:06]
B
I started out as an exercise physiologist and I realized that you could not and you can't out exercise a poor diet that you have to have both. And that is when I went, I better start studying nutrition. And boy, when you put the two together. Now if you want to shift your body composition, obviously you have to do resistance training. But the thing that's gonna make the biggest change immediately is shifting your diet. And you've gotta have both. And especially as we age with this whole anabolic resistance that, you know, when you look at your teens and twenties, when you really wanna focus on laying down muscle and bone, that's hormonally driven. You can mess up your diet and you can still build muscle. Not the case as we start to get into our 30s and 40s and beyond. And this is where I think it's really important for women, because women. What is the protein phobia with women? I don't understand it. It is wild Most women won't eat red meat. They're eating more plant based. And it is just difficult to get the protein in if you're doing that. Especially when you look at.
- [60:10]
A
I think it's a fear of bloating. That's what I hear a lot from my female patients. They're just fearful of getting bloated with protein. Wild.
- [60:16]
B
Like, I've never been bloated from protein. You get bloated from carbs.
- [60:19]
A
Exactly.
- [60:20]
B
Like, that's crazy. It was the other night we were in Bellevue, Washington, after our boat trip, and we went to one of those Brazilian steakhouses.
- [60:28]
A
Yes, Love those.
- [60:29]
B
Okay, so we sit down at the Brazilian steakhouse and we don't mess with the salad bar. Why would we waste time over there? But I wish I'd had a little food scale because we are, you know, we are now in it to win it with the meat and the lamb and some really good red wine. And we, we get up the next morning, we both weigh ourselves because we travel with the bioimpedance scale. And like, how do we both. We both lost two pounds overnight. You cannot get bloated eating protein. Here's what's great. When you focus and I tell people to eat protein first. The reason I tell them that is I know women get full and they didn't get their protein in and they'll actually end up overeating. I'm sure you've heard of that protein leverage hypothesis where we're eating protein for the essential amino acids. If we don't get what we need, our body's gonna tell us we think it's cravings. It's not. It's cravings for essential amino acids. It's cravings for our body getting what it needs. If you start with protein, the biggest things I hear from women are, number one, they don't have the cravings that they had because they weren't getting what they're needing. So their body's pushing them to try to get more essential amino acids. And they're not hungry because protein's the ultimate GLP1 booster. Right? So you've got better satiety. You don't have the cravings if all you did was take the same amount of calories and divert some off of fat and carbs and divert it over to protein. You're gonna lose weight initially because you've got only you've got basically no thermic effect from fat. You've got 5 to 10% of the calories from carbohydrates are gonna be utilized in metabolism, but it's 20 to 30% of protein. So if all you did was shift some calories off of carbs and fat, you would lose weight right there because you'd expend more calories in the metabolism and muscle protein synthesis. But the reality is, you'll eat less too, because you're not as hungry.
- [62:18]
A
Exactly.
- [62:19]
B
So the very first thing that you want to do is just eat your protein first. That's the simplest thing to do.
- [62:24]
A
That's the simplest thing to do. Protein first, every meal. You know, a lot of restaurants are not set up that way. They bring you some bread, and then they ask you, do you want to?
- [62:31]
B
Well, you don't ever let them bring you the bread.
- [62:33]
A
Exactly.
- [62:34]
B
And guess what? You're paying. They will do it however you want them to do it. So, you know, we eat this way wherever we go, and don't let them bring the bread basket to the table. That's just mean.
- [62:44]
A
Yes.
- [62:44]
B
Like, that's, you know, we know what's gonna happen there. That's just mean.
- [62:48]
A
You're right.
- [62:48]
B
I did a lecture, and I'm, you know, for a group, and then some of us went out to dinner afterwards. And I'm watching this woman who is the perfect role model of what I was talking about. She was sarcopenically obese. She was normal weight, high body fat. She probably was 30, 35% body fat, not enough muscle. In her early 60s. She sat down at the table, had a glass of wine, had the appetizers, which were carb bombs, had a salad, ordered eggplant, and I had this big steak. And I'm like, I'm gonna just share my steak with you. She goes, you're protein shaming me. I go, yes, I am. I am protein shaming you. And I sent her some essential aminos afterwards. Cause there's the hack that I think. I actually think everyone, especially women, 40 plus, if you just had some essential aminos, especially with breakfast, would make a big difference. Cause then it's sort of that insurance policy that we know you got what you needed, right?
- [63:39]
A
In powder form.
- [63:40]
B
In powder form, yeah.
- [63:41]
A
You just mix it into your tea.
- [63:41]
B
Not yummy. They're not delicious. They have to have some kind of flavoring to them because aminos taste icky. You can take them in capsules, but you have to take a bunch of them. But the other piece is if. Just like we talked about with exercise, start with tracking. If you start with your food and all you did at first was go, you know what? I'm just gonna Track what I eat. Now, the crazy thing that happens when you track what you eat is you change what you eat. Right. It modifies your behavior because you're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't realize. So if you first started with tracking and then went, okay, now I'm gonna make sure I'm getting my optimal amount of protein in at each meal. Just that alone will change everything. Right. But that's how I like to walk people into diet, is I'll start with, okay, we're gonna optimize protein. Now, if you insist on doing it all plant based, we're gonna have to get a lot more creative and definitely use those essential amino acids. It's possible, but it's harder. And then once we've got that protein dialed and we've kicked out snacks, it's so crazy. In Europe, no one snacks, no one snacks. No one walks around eating. No one walks around. It's like, only the Americans are walking around with frappuccinos. No one else is absolutely right. No one's walking down the street eating anything. And they just ate a meal for two hours. And that was a short meal. Now, granted, it was 10 at night, but, you know, they walked afterwards. Right.
- [65:01]
A
So the food companies just invented snacking to sell more food.
- [65:04]
B
Oh, yeah. I remember when it started.
- [65:06]
A
Yeah.
- [65:07]
B
So, you know, I still remember back in the 80s when Susan Powder came out. First of all, it was back in the 70s that all of a sudden we had the issues where fat was the villain and sugar is fine. And then in the 80s, Susan Powder was stopped the insanity. And we're not gonna eat fat anymore. Well, you're hungry all the time when you're not eating fat. And then all the snacks came, and you were supposed to graze.
- [65:30]
A
That's right. That's amazing.
- [65:31]
B
Remember grazing?
- [65:32]
A
We're supposed to graze 10 meals a day.
- [65:34]
B
Yeah, because it keeps your metabolism up. It's like, no, it doesn't. It keeps your blood sugar up. Yeah. That was a disaster.
- [65:41]
A
Disaster. Yeah. Exact opposite of what we should have been doing the whole time. I've been dissecting the science of NAD for over three years now, and I want to tell you what I use for optimizing my own mitochondrial health. If you want to support healthy aging at a cellular level, TRUNIAGEN's NR is scientifically proven to increase NAD levels, a critical coenzyme for energy production and overall cellular health. It's my favorite supplement for boosting nad, improving how your body handles stress, optimizing your recovery, and supporting longevity Whether you're looking to stay sharp and feel more energized or simply age better, Tru Niagen NR is my go to solution. If you're looking for the best in fitness equipment on the market, I found it for you. I've recently joined IFIT as their chief science advisor and I want to tell you why. Their commitment to science and research is commendable and I see them doing more to incorporate it into their devices than any other brand out there. So whether you're aiming to crush your cardio goals or build serious strength, ifit's cutting edge treadmills, bikes and strength machines are designed to bring the gym to you. With world class trainers and interactive workouts built into every machine, ifit doesn't just keep you moving, it keeps you motivated. So if you're looking to elevate your home gym experience with the best in Fitness tech, choose iFit. So as far as protein dose goes, you know, I think people are aiming really high, but some people need a high dose of protein. And what I like to do is I like to tie it in with Dexa scanning biomedical. Track the directionality of how much skeletal muscle mass you have. If you need to increase skeletal muscle mass, you need to take more proteins. You gotta keep aiming higher for protein intake. But once you get to a point where you're maintaining, I think that protein intake, you can probably stop there. And it might not be a gram per pound, might be less, but I don't. What's your thought on that? And I also think as you age, you're gonna need more protein as well. So you have to constantly keep tracking this. I love the daily bioimpotence scale. I have one, I have an H20N and I think I just bought an H30 actually in body is my favorite one that I use. But yeah, talk a little bit about the dose.
- [67:57]
B
So I like, I think this is Brad Schoenfeld's work of the 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. That makes a ton of sense. Obviously if you could dose it towards your fat free mass, you're gonna be better off. I mean, I think there's probably an algorithm out there that would say imperfect AI at some point we'll be able to throw in our fat free mass if we need to increase it our age. And then we'd also look at are we healing like right now? Tim's healing from surgery.
- [68:22]
A
That's true.
- [68:22]
B
I am cranking him 2 grams per pound of target body weight. Like when my son had a Major car accident, nearly died, cranked him and added essential aminos too, Right. So if you are healing, if you're under a lot of stress, or if you're really sarcopenic trying to put muscle on, crank it up. I know there's all this weirdness around too much protein. I think our bigger risk, it's just like when they go, don't take vitamins, you'll have too many vitamins. I go, we have an undernourished country, overfed, undernourished, so I'd rather someone err on the higher side of protein because they're not right. But when you look at it and go, if you get used to eating 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight, you don't stop doing that. If someone said to you right now, okay, now you're going to cut your protein down, you wouldn't do that, you.
- [69:13]
A
Would never do that, right?
- [69:13]
B
No, you go, why? I feel great, I feel fantastic. And I want to make sure that I'm maintaining muscle mass now. I'm not. This whole anabolic resistance and what we lose as we age, I just really would love to see. And I know we don't have this and it's going to be challenging to do with what there's what, 5% of the population's now metabolically healthy. But it would be very interesting to look at someone who's been doing resistance training their whole life, who's got good muscle mass and see if anabolic resistance really happens to them or not.
- [69:42]
A
That's a great study, you know, and.
- [69:44]
B
Also looking at this muscle mass loss and strength loss and power loss and see how much we can impact it. I will tell you that a couple years ago I started, I couldn't screw a lid off a jar and I didn't think about it the first time, but the third time I started to go, what the heck is going on? That's when I started doing pull ups and hangs and I'm like, oh, and farmer scaries and stuff like that. So I mean, we will all lose it, but I've gotta assume that the rate that we'll lose it is so much less. And if you've put on, if you've really focused on power and strength and size before, you've got stuff to lose.
- [70:21]
A
Yeah, right, Absolutely, absolutely. And then on the nutrition front as well, how are you talking to your clients about their carbs?
- [70:29]
B
Okay. Oh my gosh. So here's my thought on all of this is first optimize your protein, right? Get that Dialed now if you're eating animal protein, you are going to get in some healthy fats with it. This is where you are, what you eat ate. Why you want the clean sources, the wild fish, grass fed beef. I think the hardest thing to get clean as chicken. So you know you're eating beef and lamb and fish and you're gonna get some fat there. I think we, except for fish, I think fatty fish. But I tend to go with the leaner cuts of meat. So the next thing that I do is focus on, let's make sure you're getting in at least five, but ideally ten servings of non starchy vegetables a day and two servings of fruit, preferably berries. Then I'm gonna look at that and go, okay, you probably used some fat with your veggies. Where are we now? I think kind of baseline. If I was gonna look at this, I go, all right, 100 grams of carbs is sort of a baseline. 60 grams of fat, sort of a baseline. And then how do you feel best? Are you someone who's doing a lot of training? You feel better bumping your carbs up higher? Are you someone who's more insulin resistant? You feel better bumping your fat up higher because they work opposite each other. What you don't wanna ever do is have low protein, high fat, high carbs. That's the standard American diet. We saw what happened with that, that experiment. It's just like the food guide pyramid. It was like no people group ever ate like this. No ever. This was created by the cereal companies.
- [71:53]
A
Absolutely. It is so obvious. Like the bottom of the food panel became grain.
- [71:59]
B
The one thing we could live without. You look at it and go, okay, you cannot live without water, you can't live without protein, you can't live without fat. You can live without carbs. You've got a redundant system.
- [72:09]
A
Uh huh.
- [72:10]
B
But yet we just made a diet based on the one thing we can live without. It's so bizarre.
- [72:14]
A
It was mind blowing and now it's finally, it's getting turned around. But it's taken so long. We lived this way for 50 years and that's why our population is so sick and tired. Right. It's just.
- [72:25]
B
And is it really getting turned around?
- [72:27]
A
I mean, I think people like yourself talking about this is the way we should be managing our diet is helping.
- [72:34]
B
But the government guidelines aren't changing. Government guidelines and it makes zero sense. And there's still the guidelines for protein have not been changed despite all these researchers sending in. And if you look at it and Go. Okay. We based our protein guidelines on young men and looking at nitrogen excretion, which we know underestimates your protein needs and didn't look at people who were 50 plus. We've gotta look at life cycles for protein needs. It's bizarre.
- [73:01]
A
It's really bad. And in some ways it's getting worse because there was just recommendations published by the government saying that ultra processed food is not bad for you.
- [73:10]
B
Was that based on that? Was it Cornell? Did you see that study where they showed that a chicken thigh. They basically said, cocoa Puffs are better for you than a chicken thigh.
- [73:20]
A
I saw that.
- [73:21]
B
And a professor, I go, how could you put your name on this? How could you do that? You're gonna say that ground beef and chicken thighs, that Cocoa Puffs would be a better choice? Are we really that misinformed? Do you think that the American public really looked at that, went, because I look and go, there's two things that could happen here. Someone go, oh, goody, I get to eat Cocoa Puffs, which were my favorite growing up there with, you know, Pop Tarts.
- [73:45]
A
But.
- [73:45]
B
Or it would be like, oh, come on, we're not. You think we really are going to fall for this.
- [73:49]
A
Right? Right. When I saw it, I was just so. I was almost angered by that study that I didn't even want to give it the time to dive into it deeper, to find out how they made an error, because just the whole premise is ridiculous. Right.
- [74:01]
B
It's like, you just hope people now are starting to see through all of this. You know, the little American Heart association stamp of approval on a cereal box. Like, come on.
- [74:11]
A
Right under it is like the notice that this is mostly not real food. It's mind blowing. Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of the wave of change is happening now because we're not getting our information solely from the government and from media, which are both fully funded by the food companies that are trying to just sell us food as much as possible. And so I think things like podcasts, social media, even though there's a lot of, like, religious controversy about what diet is the best, I feel like there's pretty much complete agreement that ultra processed food needs to be eliminated.
- [74:42]
B
Yes. And the thing is, people, I've seen this enough. We all do this. You write the diet for yourself. A diet is not a religion. There's some core foundational things, but as we've seen is, I think that we need to look at diets very differently. There's a therapeutic use of a diet. Like, I think the Carnivore diet can be an amazingly therapeutic tool. You've got food intolerance, leaky gut. Wow. Here's a simple way to like get rid of a bunch of the potential offenders and let yourself heal a bit and then go back and challenge. So there's therapeutic things that you can do that will help you identify what's the best long term diet for you. Because the best long term diet, and that's gonna change as you age or maybe you've got health things going on. And so, you know, it's like keto, vegan, paleo, like there's all these options out there.
- [75:28]
A
Absolutely. If you look at those diet interventions, you're going to find where you fall in what your body needs. And everyone needs to look at themselves as an n of 1. Right. Your biology is going to be different than mine. Your gut bacteria are different than mine. Your activity level is going to be different than mine. Your hormones are different than mine. Your diet needs to be totally individualized for you using those core principles that you mentioned earlier. Protein first, vegetables eventually. Everyone's gonna need some vegetables eventually, right? There's vitamins and vegetables, there's fiber, you need that eventually. And some carnivore people might say never, but I don't, I don't know, aren't.
- [76:05]
B
Most of the carnivore people now coming back in? And again, I see it as a great therapeutic tool, but not as a long term tool. What's interesting to me right now is the protein debate and this idea that eating, eating optimal protein, which I don't consider this to be high protein, I think 2 to 3 grams, which you've seen bodybuilders do for years.
- [76:28]
A
Yes, absolutely.
- [76:29]
B
And they're fine. Right? So, but eating 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight, that's not a high protein diet. High protein would mean you're getting the majority of your calories from protein. You're not. That's like 30% of your calories. How is that high?
- [76:45]
A
The definition of high protein diet is actually for me it's like two or three grams of protein, not one gram. But people have trouble even getting to one gram.
- [76:53]
B
And it's just, that's because they're loading themselves with ultra processed food. That is, you know, and you look at what happens when you eat ultra processed food where it actually has a lower thermic effect. So like, and it's significant, something like 500 calories lower a day. If your diet's mainly processed foods like.
- [77:11]
A
Thermic effect, just so people know what would. Can you define that?
- [77:14]
B
So when you look at metabolism, you've got your resting metabolic rate. That's how many calories you would burn if you just basically sat on the couch all day long. And that is the big mover to change your resting metabolic rate is your muscle mass. Right now thyroid and estrogen, testosterone will have some impact there too. But the big driver there is muscle mass, more muscle mass, better resting metabolic rate. Then you have two other things that you can do to change your metabolism. Number one is movement, activity and exercise. And in fact, when you look at what's gonna make the bigger difference overall every day to your metabolism beyond resting metabolic rate, it is really activity, not so much exercise. Exercise might be 5%, but it's how much you're moving all throughout the day can change your metabolism by hundreds if not thousand calories, you know, so getting up and moving all throughout the day. And then the other compartment is thermic effect of food. And so we have protein, fat, carbs, protein, 20 to 30% carbs, 5 to 10% fat, basically 0.3. So when you look at these ultra processed foods, they are high fat, high carb and so very low thermic effect. High carb, high fat, low satiety. So now you don't get that thermic effect and you're hungrier. So you tend to eat more calories. I mean what they've seen with people who have a high ultra processed food diet is they tend to overeat and they don't have that thermic effect of food. So it's a double edged sword. Right. I was just in Spain and I was looking at like, okay, geeky, but I was looking at ultra processed food consumption by country and. Cause I was so intrigued because I was looking around going, I'm not seeing anyone walking down the street. And when I go into the grocery store, you can find the ultra processed food, but it's like back in a corner, you know, grocery stores look completely different. Totally different. Totally different. So I mean you can find it if you really want to, but it's not, it's not obvious. No. And it turns out they eat like maybe 20, 25% of their calories from ultra processed food. We have 70% here in the United States. 70%, it's mind blowing.
- [79:16]
A
So the United States, the highest of ultra processed food per capita. Yeah, that's not surprising.
- [79:21]
B
Yeah, yeah, I know. We were in London and we were taking pictures of the grocery store because it was all refrigerated sections and again, there was like a back area that.
- [79:31]
A
Right. With the chips and.
- [79:32]
B
Yeah, but I mean, it was very small.
- [79:34]
A
Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. And I think as people make food choices, it's hard when you go to a supermarket because most of the supermarket you're going down the aisles is ultra processed food. So you just got to stay on the outside of the supermarket for the most part. Just.
- [79:46]
B
Just order online or order online, then you won't even get tempted.
- [79:50]
A
That's a great tip.
- [79:51]
B
Just order online. Then you have your things that you get all the time. And then it's simple and you don't. You don't mess up.
- [79:57]
A
Yeah, that's another great way.
- [79:58]
B
It's very easy. We just have like our house, we have a freezer stocked with all of our meat and fish. And then I always have things like cauliflower, rice pilaf, so I can make simple stuff. And then we have our pantry with like olive oils and nuts and seeds and beans. And then we just get our fresh vegetables and fruit and little bits of yogurt and we're fine. Right? Easy.
- [80:20]
A
Exactly. And people are like, what if I get hungry? Don't I need snacks? If you're snacking, you're not getting enough protein in.
- [80:25]
B
That's why I always say, well, look back and say, did I hit a hormonal winner at my last meal? Because if your meal was eat protein first, and it really should be protein, fat, fiber, now you're gonna get some fat with the protein, but the fiber is all those non starchy vegetables, maybe a little bit of fruit. I notice when I'm working out, like, my body will go, you need some carbs. But I always try to do berries are my go to. Which, by the way, the berries, in your opinion, tastes like entirely different food. This, this whole idea that we transport our food all over the place. Such a disaster.
- [80:56]
A
So bad.
- [80:57]
B
Like, eat seasonal, eat local, eat organic, rotate your stuff.
- [81:01]
A
If you look at the number of miles your food travels, it's. It's just mind blowing. It's. It's.
- [81:06]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [81:07]
A
It can't still be good. And it's probably still good because of the chemicals.
- [81:10]
B
I know. Yeah, they preserved it. It's a nightmare.
- [81:13]
A
Yeah, it is a nightmare.
- [81:14]
B
Yeah. So, but protein, fat, fiber, it was going to improve your blood sugar balance and your satiety so you won't be hungry. If you were hungry in between meals, you boo booed that. Do better there. Like that night we went to the Brazilian Steakhouse, I was like, I Don't think I'm going to be hungry for days. I was just so full after eating that I was like, oh, because you will be. Even if you eat like an 8 ounce serving of you're full. Eat that and a bunch of veggies and your. You're good to go. And you're going to have that stability. And then have some water. Chill out. Right.
- [81:48]
A
If you can drink mostly water and kind of eliminate almost every other beverage other than maybe tea and coffee in the morning or something, you're winning there too. I think all the beverages that are out there, whether they're in bottles or, you know, cans or whatever, try to stay away. Right?
- [82:02]
B
Yeah. This, this hotel we're staying at, I was pretty enthused that they actually have a water pitcher in the room and, and a purified water dispenser down the hall. I go, that is so cool that you are doing that. I know one hotels do that as well. So sparkling water, water, green tea. I love coffee.
- [82:22]
A
Yeah. And I think having a can of something here and there as a treat is great. But it should be a treat, not like a refrigerator stock full of Diet Coke.
- [82:31]
B
Right, Right. The whole artificial sweetener thing. I'm still like, I'm just not a fan. But I am a big fan of allulose. I think allulose is one of the most amazing things out there.
- [82:43]
A
Yeah. It's incredible. The science ban allulose now. And I actually wasn't using sweetener in my coffee, but now I put allulose in my coffee every morning just because of the metabolic effects.
- [82:51]
B
Right. I know I don't like sweet in my coffee. So I was like, how am I going to get this allulose in? Because I want to make sure I'm getting it in. And for those who haven't heard of allulose, it's a rare sugar that, that basically doesn't get absorbed. It doesn't really have any calories, doesn't cause any GI distress, doesn't raise blood sugar or insulin, does raise GLP1. Like, it's amazing.
- [83:11]
A
Just all the good things.
- [83:13]
B
Yeah. I'm like, it's like it's a miracle compound. It literally I looked at and went, I need to get this into my diet. And that's what I've been trying to figure out is how do I get people to be able to get like 10 grams in of this a couple times a day? Because this is fantastic for insulin sensitivity.
- [83:28]
A
GLP one doctor promoter gave me my first box of allulose. I've been just like a huge fan ever since then. Can we talk a little bit about supplements? I would love to hear your thoughts about what do you consider are crucial supplements for most people. And a little bit on the topic of creatine.
- [83:45]
B
My favorite supplement on the planet.
- [83:47]
A
Mine too.
- [83:47]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [83:48]
A
Creatine has risen to my number one supplement, actually. The more research I see on it, it's fantastic.
- [83:54]
B
And you can feel it so foundationally. I think we should all get our omega 3 index tested and see if you need omega 3s. Most people do. I think we should all have our vitamin D tested. And then likely you're gonna need some D3 and K2. Magnesium is another one. So those are my foundational supplements. And then I like doing an organic acid test or something that you can look at and go, how else am I doing with my pathways? But that's where I start. Then the supplements that I love for aging. If I could go back in time, I would be taking creatine from the time I was a teenager. I will tell you full disclosure. I used to train people down at Gold's Gym in Venice. And it was the bro thing.
- [84:38]
A
You did? Yeah.
- [84:39]
B
And all the dudes took creatine. I was like, oh, you'll get big and bloated and blah, you know. So it wasn't until a couple years ago I started looking at this again and going, where have I been? Especially for women. When you look at women, we probably aren't getting the creatine we need from food. And cooking is going to destroy some of it. So it's in fish, it's in meat, but you really want to eat like tartar and sashimi. We have 70 to 80% less tissue stores of creatine. Creatine. First thing that's going to happen when you take creatine is that you will notice a difference in your exercise performance. The way that it helps you get stronger and build more muscle is because it helps you perform better, because it's the creatine of phosphocreatine that we use for that quick, fast bursting energy. But there's 5% of creatine's actually in our brain. And if you don't have enough tissue stores in your muscles, you're not having it in your brain. And so this is why we wanna push it more. So I now do a foundational dose and then I do an extra dose of fine time zone adjusting. Like I just went from Florida to London, back to Florida, to Boston, to Spain, to Lisbon, back to Florida. To British Columbia.
- [85:50]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [85:51]
B
I looked at. I went, this was a dumb plan. Like, you know, but it just was the way things worked out. And literally, I would. I would come back home and unpack, repack, and leave. So I was time zone changing like crazy. I used to struggle going from California to Florida. Now I had no challenge with any of this. And the only difference is I used creatine to time zone adjust because I read the data on it for sleep deprivation, and it's amazing.
- [86:17]
A
Interesting.
- [86:18]
B
Zero challenges, really. Yes.
- [86:20]
A
I had no idea.
- [86:21]
B
I know.
- [86:22]
A
I want to see this study. I'm going to link to it in the show notes as well.
- [86:24]
B
Yeah. So look at it for sleep deprivation. I was talking to a creatine researcher, and he's like, it's the jet lag formula. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. I'm shocked, shocked.
- [86:35]
A
Like, literally shocked. I found this app called Timeshifter for jet lag. It's been really good, but I never heard of creatine for that. So I'm gonna do it.
- [86:42]
B
This changes. I have tried everything that they say to do, and it was like, I just, you know, I'm just not good at this. Nope. Now I am. There was a great study that came out for women, postmenopausal women, depression, where they found that this creatine made was like, I think they were taking antidepressants, and the ones that took creatine to way better. Way better response. So it's important for brain fog, for cognition, for skin wrinkles. I mean, like, everything. So I think every single woman, especially 30 plus, should be on creatine. Now, I am playing around with different forms of creatine right now. I know all the research is on monohydrate, and everyone says you should. Should take monohydrate because monohydrates, all the research is on. I'm gonna go actually to this researcher and unpack all this. But from everything that I'm seeing right now, the reason that we tend to get some GI distress with creatine monohydrate or some bloating is it's not all absorbed. And the part that's not absorbed is giving us GI distress.
- [87:45]
A
Got it.
- [87:45]
B
And giving us that extracellular bloating. Now, one of the things that creatine does is it will pull more. It's more fluid into your muscles, which is fantastic. And that is why we have to do bioimpedance so that women don't make themselves crazy. Right. Because if you went on creatine and your weight went up two pounds. And it was because your total body water increased and you've got more fluid in your muscles. Celebrate.
- [88:09]
A
That's a good thing.
- [88:10]
B
That's the greatest thing ever. But if you've got GI distress and you just feel bloated, that's that creatine. That's not. That is extracellular, chronic, creating some problems. So I'm researching right now because I'm likely going to make a shift and I've been doing it myself with an HCL form. And it's funny because all the word out there is, oh, it's just marketing and more expensive. It's actually cheaper because you need a much smaller dose.
- [88:34]
A
Really?
- [88:34]
B
Yeah.
- [88:35]
A
It's the HCL form of creatine. Yes. Okay.
- [88:37]
B
Yes. So I've got all the research now showing how it's absorbed, contrasting it, looking at all the different forms, because there's a lot of different forms of creatine out there. But again, everyone's like monohydrates, the most studied. It's like, well, but it's been around the longest. Doesn't necessarily mean like, okay, you know, that sounds like so archaic. We've used rotary phones forever. We should just use those. You know, I mean, it's like kind of crazy.
- [88:59]
A
So that's a good point.
- [89:00]
B
I'm playing with both right now. I still have monohydrate, but I've been messing with the hcl. Stay tuned. But the bigger takeaway is this is such a critical supplement. And if you as a woman are afraid of gaining weight with this, what I tell women to do is just start with a gram if you're using monohydrate and then go to 2 grams and then go to 3 and dose it throughout the day. That's how I told, you know, and then. And just make sure you're doing biome peens, but just see how you feel. So that's one I also love. Are you taking Mitopure?
- [89:30]
A
Yes.
- [89:30]
B
Yeah, I used like Mitipure I've been on for over a year. Plus their skin stuff.
- [89:35]
A
Yeah, I'm using their skin stuff.
- [89:36]
B
Oh, my gosh. But, you know, there's so few supplements that you can take and notice a difference. Caffeine, you can take and go to the gym, you notice the difference. Creatine, you go to the gym, you notice the difference. And timeline. You go to the gym, might appear and you notice a difference. And I was like, I don't even want to say this, but looking at all the research with this, it really truly is like exercise in a bottle. So when I look at people, you know, longevity, focused, I think that the supplements that you definitely want to make sure you're doing is creatine mitopure, and then qualiacinolytic is the other one. You take that one.
- [90:11]
A
I haven't taken it for a while, but I do have a bottle of qualiocinole.
- [90:14]
B
But this is so easy. You just take two days a month.
- [90:16]
A
I know I need to. And that's what happens.
- [90:18]
B
I forget to take one day. Okay, so here's how you do it, because my husband's in charge of these things, but we just do it the first two days of the month.
- [90:24]
A
Oh, that's a good. Easy. There you go.
- [90:27]
B
Right.
- [90:27]
A
I gotta get the bottle.
- [90:28]
B
Easy peasy.
- [90:30]
A
Send me a text reminding me yes.
- [90:32]
B
The other thing I've been playing around with, there's a company that's doing AI generated peptides orally.
- [90:38]
A
I've seen this company.
- [90:39]
B
It's incredible.
- [90:40]
A
Yeah.
- [90:41]
B
So there's a muscle one called peptistrong that I've been playing around with, and they also have a BPC oral. So we're playing around with those too.
- [90:50]
A
Yeah. The oral BPC I found really helpful in fixing people's leaky gut. Actually, it's been extremely helpful in that too. So you definitely look into that.
- [90:58]
B
So I also like essential amino acids. I go off to the gym in the morning with essential aminos, creatine and electrolyte. And then I also take some extra collagen throughout the day. So that's my other one that I love.
- [91:13]
A
Wow, that's a great. And all the ones I try to hit on too. The only one I would add to that is I take nicotinamide riboside as well.
- [91:20]
B
Oh, I take Qualia's nad.
- [91:22]
A
Got it.
- [91:23]
B
So it's a trifecta that they actually looked at, and it raised NAD more than just doing NR or NMN or anything else. So that's why I'm taking that one.
- [91:36]
A
Got it. Got it. Yeah.
- [91:37]
B
Yes.
- [91:38]
A
I like the true Niagen product because that nr, they've done some really good studies.
- [91:42]
B
So this has that in there.
- [91:43]
A
Ah, so there.
- [91:44]
B
So it has that. Yeah, so.
- [91:46]
A
Got it. Yeah. I think there's like this new kind of thought process around supplements. I totally think there was a time where we were taking way too many with very little evidence and probably didn't do a lot.
- [91:57]
B
I was doing. I. Guilty as charged.
- [91:59]
A
I was just like, ease of supplements.
- [92:01]
B
Right. And. And I. I've. It's funny now because I don't even take a multi anymore. I used to have big multi and big and then all the minerals and I went, you know what? I'm looking at my, like organic acids and, you know, need all this.
- [92:14]
A
And I found that too with many patients. It's that I test and I tested myself. I'm like, why am I taking all this?
- [92:19]
B
Yeah.
- [92:20]
A
So really tailoring the supplement protocol with the few key ones that you talk about that most people need. Like, if you test most people, they need their omega index is off, the vitamin D is off. So most people will need those. And you know, it all depends on your environment at that moment too. Like, if you're traveling a lot, you're not getting out of the sun a lot, then you're going to need some vitamin D. So.
- [92:38]
B
Well, and don't you find too. I mean, for most people, it's like your gut's wrecked. So if we just fix your gut and your diet, I mean, ideally we're getting the majority of these things from your diet.
- [92:49]
A
Absolutely.
- [92:50]
B
That's the goal. Right. So if you're not eating ultra processed food and you fix your gut so it's not leaky, which is another reason I love collagen, then you're actually good.
- [93:01]
A
And your enter sites will be able to absorb all the vitamins they need because they're not fighting off toxic chemicals constantly. Absolutely. It all goes full circle. So awesome. Jj, this is like one of the best protocol talk I've had in a long time. I love all your protocols for exercise, for diet. You really simplify it. So thank you so much for doing that. I wanted to touch on one more thing, and I know we've talked for a long time, but I really wanted to make sure I hit this with you was what should women be doing differently, especially around the menopause age? I think that's a question that a lot of people have.
- [93:34]
B
So Ideally in your 30s, you know, in your teens and 20s, you've put on muscle and you've gotten this, you've gotten yourself very focused, you're in your 30s, you're optimizing your protein. But there's another piece to this that you wanna make sure you're doing in your 30s and 40s, and that is that you are really building your stress tolerance. And that's why I love high intensity interval training. Basically you're training your nervous system to go hard and recover. Right.
- [94:02]
A
Now, when you say stress tolerance, you mean like life stress.
- [94:04]
B
I want you to be like, so your body doesn't know if it's stress from getting married, getting divorced, getting like, you know, physical stress. It is getting your body to be able to recover from stress. You know, we're not gonna be able to get rid of stress. If you look at the most successful people, they don't have less stress. They've just taught their body how to handle stress well. So you put those things in place, whatever they are for you. Meditation, breath, work, tapping, whatever those things are that help you tolerate, recover, become very stress resilient. Because when you look at what happens as you start to head into menopause, it really comes down to how well, how are your adrenals doing? You're gonna be relying more on them. You've gotta have great habits in place, like sleep, and then you want to really pay attention to your body. I knew exactly when my thyroid dropped. Like, I could tell went in, and sure enough, I'd gone from a 1 TSH to a 2.2. Now, that's not for most people. They wouldn't go, you don't have a thyroid problem. I go, yes, I do. I mean, everything happened. Started to lose the outer third of my eyebrows. I'd always been someone who sweat all the time. Now I'm cold, now I'm constipated, my hair's starting to get weird, so boom, I'm better, Right? So pay attention to that, because that oftentimes is the first thing that goes. But then ideally, you've done a good hormone panel in your 30s when you know, so you know what optimal looks like for you. And the minute you start to notice things, like, for me and Dr. Vonda Wright talks about that musculoskeletal menopause syndrome, I couldn't recover from my workouts. I was doing the same workout, couldn't recover. And then my gums started to bleed. And I went to my dentist. He goes, low estrogen. And so it really is becoming so aware. And that's where you can use things like your hrv, your temperature, and go, what? Okay, things have shifted because you want to start replacing those hormones as quickly as possible. Like, I was fortunate that all my friends were functional medicine doctors. I mean, literally my 50th birthday party was Dr. Sarah Gottfried and Dr. Anna Kubeca. Love it. And I started replacing the minute things started to shift. And then I was working with really good HRT docs who could help me work through symptoms. Because you can't test your labs all day long every day, So a lot of it has to be based on symptoms.
- [96:17]
A
Exactly. And that's such a great point. Because I think a few great points. One is if you're listening to this in your 20s and your 30s, get your hormone panel down, get a full.
- [96:26]
B
Find out what normal and ideal is. Now, when you're in ideal and normal.
- [96:31]
A
And also like when you are going through menopause, it's more impactful to listen to your body than even a hormone test sometimes because those fluctuate.
- [96:38]
B
Well, it's a vacuum. Yeah. It's a one, one, one moment time. I said at the same time. Yeah. And here's one other interesting, weird, crazy thing that happened last summer. We went to Seoul, Korea on our way to Bali and we went to the ginseng museum. It is a, you know, country run museum. I didn't wanna go. You know, Ann Shippey, Dr. Anne Shippey insisted we go. So we go, we buy a year's supply of ginseng. It was like, you go in there and they go, we have this six year black root ginseng you can't get outside the country. We're like, okay. And the reason we bought it is cause they told Tim it's gonna help with erections. I'm like, okay, great. All right. Anyway, it did. But here's what's crazy about it. Two months later, we get our hormones tested and we're both on HRT and both of our doctors are like, you need to lower your doses. You need to lower your dose of thyroid of estrogen. Now I just had a hysterectomy. I had my hormones test because I was like, oh, now I probably need more, right? I had my ovaries out, no less. He needed less testosterone. And I was sitting here going, what on earth has gone on? And I didn't put it together. Then I was at a 4m and I was listening to a lecture by Chris Shade and he was talking about hormone receptor sensitivity and adaptogens and ginseng. And I'm like, oh my gosh. So the other important thing here is to look at, you know, I think that we use hormone replacement therapy, the lowest dose we need for the impact that we have. And so it's just like, you wouldn't want to start driving up, you know, taking exogenous insulin because you're insulin resistance. You'd fix the insulin resistance. So, you know, look at that too and go, could I be using some things to help support hormone receptor sensitivity?
- [98:15]
A
Right. Makes total sense, I think, you know, whenever I talk about hormone replacement therapy, which I'm a huge believer of for men and Women for andropause and menopause. It's always in combination with what are the natural things we can do to optimize your hormones as well. Because you're right. You want the lowest possible dose. That gets you to where you need to be. Right. And also where you need to be is different for each individual person. And like you said, if we had hormone panels on people when they were 30, we would know wherever they need to be. But you need to listen to your body if you don't have that hormone panel and treat for symptoms more than.
- [98:49]
B
Yes, yes. Because I'm someone who, like, I get pregnant and gain £12 overnight. Progesterone makes me cry, break out and gain weight. I get quickly insulin resistant from it. And so. But if you look at the common ideas out there, it's progesterone's otc. It's like, go ahead, slather it on. I'm like, oh, no. You know, careful. These are hormones.
- [99:13]
A
Like, same with many hormones that are over the. Like, what's another hormone that's over the counter? Dhea. Right. That's same thing. Don't just buy it and start taking.
- [99:21]
B
No, no, no.
- [99:24]
A
Melatonin too. Yeah, that's a hormone. Right? So, wow, jj, this is incredible. Thank you so much. I know we went way over time. I really did. We.
- [99:33]
B
I'm not even paying attention to the time.
- [99:35]
A
That's when we have fun conversations. Yes, exactly. It's a fun conversation. You lose track of time all the time. So, last question. What are you most excited about coming up for you, jj, what's going on?
- [99:44]
B
I am so. I am more excited about the whole nutrition and fitness industry than I've ever been. Like, I am super excited about this whole idea of powerful aging that truly we can in our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. I mean, look at our buddy Mark Sisson. Like, we can be in our best shape ever and living it full out. And we have more information, more research, more tools. Right. So I'm really fired up about that. I've got my powerful aging book still to be named. I kind of know what it is, but I'm keeping it a secret. You know, I'm launching a powerful aging method program. I'm launching powerful aging method coaches working on a special women's creatine product. So I'm more excited now for all of this stuff than I think I've ever been.
- [100:32]
A
I feel it, too. It's palpable. The amount of science, good science that we have now, combined with people really getting it and being able to talk about it. I feel a palpable change in where the nutrition and fitness industry is going and is really exciting. I think hopefully the next generation will be so much better off than all the misinformation that we had in the past. So with that, I want to thank you again from the bottom of my heart for joining us. Where can people find you?
- [100:56]
B
Jjvirgin.comEasy jjvirgin.comEasy thank you so much. Thank you.
- [101:06]
A
That was a great episode with JJ Virgin. She is a wealth of knowledge. Here are my top 10 takeaways. Number one stop obsessing over the scale. The scale is an outdated measure of health. Focusing on weight alone can lead to unhealthy habits and misinterpretation of your body's true health. Instead, you should prioritize body composition, muscle mass and metabolic health. Number two you can be skinny fat. Being skinny fat means having low muscle mass and high fat percentage, which is unhealthy. It's not about being thin, but about having a balanced body composition with adequate muscle and low fat. Number three Building muscle boosts your metabolism. Muscle mass is crucial for a healthy metabolism. When you build muscle, your body burns calories more efficiently and your metabolism remains strong even without constant focus on diet or weight management. Number four Muscle should be your focus, not fat loss. Rather than focusing solely on fat loss or weight reduction, aim to build muscle. It's a long term investment in your health akin to contributing to a requirement count. The more muscle you build, the better your body works overall. Number five Plateaus are natural in fitness. Fitness plateaus are frustrating, but they are part of the process to overcome them. Mix up your workout, use different exercises and experiment with new techniques like high intensity interval training or hiit. Number six Innovate to break through plateaus to get past the fitness plateau. Try new workouts or adjust your current routines. Incorporating different set ranges, intensity levels and cardio exercises like sprint training can help you push through a plateau and keep progressing. Number seven Move throughout your day. Cardio doesn't mean you have to have structured exercise or cardio time. Simply moving more during your daily activities can improve your cardiovascular health. Sprint intervals, walking and staying active outside the gym contribute to Overall Fitness. Number 8 Strength training from the start. Forget the myth that you need to lose weight before you start strength training. Lifting weights is vital for everyone, regardless of weight, and can help you build strength, muscle and overall health, especially if you're dealing with injuries or chronic conditions. Number 9 Avoid narrow focus and exercise. The old advice to focus on one muscle group at the expense of others. That is, Avoiding back exercises if you have back pain is misleading. A balanced workout routine that strengthens all areas of the body is crucial for avoiding injury and improving long term health. Forget the outdated fitness myths There are many fitness myths that need to be debunked. For example, the idea that you shouldn't lift weights if you're overweight or that certain exercises should be avoided due to pain are outdated and counterproductive to building strength and muscle health. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.