Episode 415:JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits

Summary

Podcast Summary: Habits and Hustle
Episode 415: JJ Virgin's Powerful Aging Secrets: Muscle, Metabolism, GLP-1 and Fitness Habits
Release Date: January 14, 2025

Hosted by Jen Cohen and Habit Nest

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1. Introduction

In Episode 415 of Habits and Hustle, host Jen Cohen engages in a deep and insightful conversation with renowned health and fitness expert, JJ Virgin. The discussion spans over four decades of JJ’s experience in the health and wellness industry, focusing on effective aging strategies, muscle maintenance, metabolism optimization, GLP-1 therapies, and sustainable fitness habits.

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2. Guest Background and Journey

JJ Virgin introduces herself by highlighting her extensive experience in health and fitness, beginning from her high school days teaching calisthenics and tap dance. With nearly 40 years in the field, JJ emphasizes her commitment to simplifying complex health concepts for the general public.

JJ Virgin [02:01]: "I took a personality test and I am a simplifier... I've always loved exercise and nutrition. I started dance class at 3 and acrobatics. I've always loved it."

She transitioned from aspirations in acting to focusing entirely on health and wellness, running successful healthy food catering businesses and authoring four New York Times bestselling books.

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3. Foundations of Health: Diet, Exercise, Sleep, and Relationships

JJ underscores the importance of the fundamental pillars of health: diet, exercise, sleep, and good relationships. She criticizes the medical industry's oversight of these basics, emphasizing that no amount of biohacking can replace the necessity of these core elements.

JJ Virgin [04:15]: "When you get down to it, moving and eating and sleeping are the things. They're the things."

She argues against the notion of "hacking" exercise and diet, asserting that consistent effort in these areas is non-negotiable for longevity and health.

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4. Resistance Training vs. Cardio

JJ shares her evolving perspective on fitness, moving from a heavy emphasis on cardio to integrating resistance training and High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). She highlights the long-term benefits of muscle building over cardio, noting her increased muscle mass and strength despite reducing traditional cardio workouts.

JJ Virgin [06:35]: "I have more muscle, I'm stronger now than I was in my 20s because I was doing loads of cardio and loads of resistance training. I dumped a lot of the cardio and flipped it into high intensity interval training."

Her approach focuses on functional movements that improve overall bodily strength and metabolic health, rather than merely burning calories through prolonged cardio sessions.

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5. Hormone Replacement Therapy and Menopause

A significant portion of the conversation delves into hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and managing health during perimenopause. JJ discusses her personal journey with HRT, explaining how proper hormone management has been pivotal in maintaining her metabolism and overall health.

JJ Virgin [09:18]: "When things start to shift... I started treating it. I started with thyroid, then testosterone, which helped bring my estrogen back."

She emphasizes the necessity of personalized medical guidance, cautioning against one-size-fits-all approaches and highlighting the adverse effects of improper dosing.

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6. Supplements: Creatine for Women

JJ introduces her latest product focused on creatine supplementation tailored for women. She debunks myths surrounding creatine, clarifying that it does not lead to bulky muscles but instead enhances energy production, muscle recovery, and cognitive function.

JJ Virgin [14:29]: "Creatine does not make you have big muscles. It helps you make energy... It's the single most important supplement beyond the basics like D and K, magnesium, and fish oil for women 40 plus."

She launched a Creatine HCl variant to address common side effects like bloating associated with creatine monohydrate, ensuring better absorption and minimizing gastrointestinal discomfort.

JJ Virgin [17:49]: "If you take creatine, HCl, you won't get bloated."

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7. GLP-1s: Benefits and Misuse

The discussion transitions to GLP-1 agonists, a hot topic in metabolic health. JJ passionately advocates for their appropriate use, citing their benefits in improving insulin sensitivity, reducing inflammation, and aiding in neuroregeneration.

JJ Virgin [40:32]: "GLP1s... they help with inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, they help with neuroregeneration... they are the greatest longevity peptide."

She criticizes the pharmaceutical industry's pricing and misuse of GLP-1s for purely cosmetic weight loss, stressing their potential to address deeper metabolic issues when used correctly and in microdoses.

JJ Virgin [43:00]: "They are being used completely inappropriately for what we could do with them."

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8. Daily Habits and Routines

Jen asks JJ to share her daily routine, revealing practices that support her health and productivity. JJ emphasizes the importance of tracking body composition, maintaining consistent meal patterns, and incorporating both infrared saunas and cold plunges into her regimen.

JJ Virgin [25:19]: "I wake up, I do my thyroid, my husband hits the coffee... I always get on the bioimpedance scale to watch the trend lines."

Her morning includes reading, journaling, sauna sessions, and strategic cold plunges to enhance recovery and metabolic function without hindering muscle protein synthesis.

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9. Workout Routines: HIIT and Functional Training

JJ details her workout strategies, focusing on High-Intensity Functional Training that incorporates movements like burpees, squats, and mountain climbers. She advocates for short, intense workouts over prolonged cardio sessions, aligning with research that supports multiple brief exercise bouts over a single extended session for better cardiovascular health.

JJ Virgin [35:10]: "If I'm doing high intensity functional training, it may be 20 minutes, 30 minutes max... I do squats and pushups and mountain climbers. So it's like my core's working."

She also discusses the concept of rucking (walking with a weighted vest), integrating it into her routines to mimic everyday functional movements and enhance overall strength.

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10. Detrimental Fitness Habits

JJ warns against popular but ineffective or harmful fitness habits, such as One Meal A Day (OMAD) and excessive reliance on cardio for weight loss. She explains how these practices can disrupt hormonal balance and lead to muscle loss rather than effective fat burning.

JJ Virgin [51:56]: "OMAD... That's one that I do not like."

She also highlights the misconception of viewing the body purely as a calorie bank, emphasizing that metabolic health and muscle mass are far more critical for long-term well-being.

JJ Virgin [55:42]: "We can't ever look at it like that. It's much more of a chemistry lab."

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11. Conclusion and Resources

As the episode wraps up, JJ Virgin shares resources for listeners to further explore her methods and products. She directs them to her website, jjvirgin.com, where they can access her podcasts, challenges, and newly launched supplements aimed at enhancing women's health post-40.

JJ Virgin [59:20]: "You can find me at jjvirgin.com... proteinfirst and forward/snack challenge."

Jen Cohen thanks JJ for her invaluable insights, encouraging listeners to adopt sustainable and scientifically-backed health practices over fleeting fitness trends.

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Notable Quotes

• JJ Virgin [04:15]: "When you get down to it, moving and eating and sleeping are the things. They're the things."

• JJ Virgin [14:29]: "Creatine does not make you have big muscles. It helps you make energy... It's the single most important supplement beyond the basics like D and K, magnesium, and fish oil for women 40 plus."

• JJ Virgin [40:32]: "GLP1s... they help with inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, they help with neuroregeneration... they are the greatest longevity peptide."

• JJ Virgin [51:56]: "OMAD... That's one that I do not like."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Habits and Hustle with JJ Virgin offers a comprehensive exploration of effective aging strategies, emphasizing the importance of foundational health practices, personalized medical approaches, and debunking prevalent fitness myths. JJ's expert insights provide listeners with actionable steps to enhance their health, muscle mass, and metabolic function sustainably.

For more information and resources, visit jjvirgin.com.

Transcript

[JJ Virgin]

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

[Tony Robbins]

You're listening to Habits and Hustle.

[JJ Virgin]

Crush it.

[Tony Robbins]

Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their tri light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach, cramps, shoulder, ankle, Red light therapy is my go to. Plus it also has amazing anti aging benefits including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therassage Trilite everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com right now and use code be bold for 15% off. This code will work site wide. Again, head over to Therasol T H E R A s a g e.com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their products. So I'm just going to say a quick like two sentences about JJ Virgin because JJ Virgin has. You've had like how many New York Times bestselling books in the fitness and health space?

[JJ Virgin]

Four.

[Tony Robbins]

Four. Okay, four. And you are one of my go tos for information. Because what I love about you is that you're really good at breaking down sometimes very complicated matters or things that may be just kind of like overwhelming into layman's terms. And I appreciate that about you. So I'm love that you're on my podcast today.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, thank you very much. I'm a. I took a personality test and I am a simplifier.

[Tony Robbins]

Really? Oh yes. Which one, which one did you take?

[JJ Virgin]

I forget which one. This one was like usually all the ones all say the same thing, but this was a totally different test. And it's. And it gave four different ways people behave in business. And I'm a simplifier. And I go, that's absolutely true.

[Tony Robbins]

That is. And now. And you've been doing this for how many years now? 30. Like how many years?

[JJ Virgin]

Almost. Well, truthfully, I started teaching calisthenics and tap dance in high school. So if you cap the calisthenics in high school is over 40.

[Tony Robbins]

Wow. So you came by this honestly. This has always been a very big piece of your life.

[JJ Virgin]

It's only been all I've ever done is Health and wellness. Like I was catering, but healthy food catering. You know, I did want to be an actress, but then I, you know, switched off of that.

[Tony Robbins]

So is it something. No. So is it something that you always just inherently had an interest for or was there like a reason? Like, a lot of times that I find people who are like fitness experts are typically because they had some kind of like, issue, they were overweight as a kid or they had to like overcome something where, you know, they went into this, they went into this space because of something that they had. Or was it just like a love for athletics or tap dancing or what was it?

[JJ Virgin]

I've always loved exercise and nutrition. Like always from when I was 12. I mean, actually, you know, I started dance class at 3 and acrobatics. I've always loved it.

[Tony Robbins]

And I think what I want to ask you this because I feel like over the years, right, Everything kind of has like their fads and trends and ebbs and flows, right? And sometimes people don't want to know and hear about the actual things that work, right, like, you know, basically eating properly, exercising a certain amount. There's all these like longevity hacks and health hacks and fitness trends. What would you say over the years, right? Would you say have been kind of, you think that stands the test of time? That are the things that actually move the needle that people don't want to know that they should do and without the fluff.

[JJ Virgin]

I'll tell you what, I. I love the fact that Brian Johnson spending $2 million a year to find out that diet, exercise, sleep and good relationships are what make you healthy and extend your lifespan. I was like, no, duh. And when you get down to it, moving and eating and sleeping are the things. Like, they're the things. And I was just at this really cool conference this weekend, Eudaimonia, and someone asked me, you know, because my buddy Dave has been out saying that you can like hack your exercise to 20 minutes a week or something. Ridiculous. And I'm like, no, you can't. No, you cannot. You can't hack these things because you just gotta move more. It's like flossing. So, you know, there's just certain things that you just have to do. And if anything, as we get more and more into this, I feel like exercise used to be this kind of nice to do thing. But as we move into the longevity space, it's not an optional, it is a must do thing.

[Tony Robbins]

Well, yeah, my concern with. And I cover. I talk about longevity all the time. I do so Many things myself. And like, people are always saying to me, well, does that work? Does that actually work? And honest to God, I don't know.

[JJ Virgin]

Right.

[Tony Robbins]

Because I'm like, you do so many things. You're not. You don't know what works, what doesn't work, what do you say and what do you feel are the things that work? Like, for sure. Like, give me, like when you're saying diet and exercise. Okay, we got that. Is there a particular diet? That's broad. Brush. Exactly.

[JJ Virgin]

Huge. I mean, you know, what could that be? And here's the thing, I think it's a hierarchy. What I see in the space that drives me bananas is that we are majoring in the minors. Like, I'm sorry, I'm not worried about your red light therapy. If you are not moving, you know, you're sitting here trying to pump up your mitochondria with red light. Why don't you just do a little HIIT training? So I think there's some things that are nice to have, but there are some foundational things that it is so clear that we need to have. And like when you come down to it, it's having, it's having skeletal muscle that's high quality, it's strong, it's powerful, it's having a great heart that you've pushed by doing high intensity interval training. And, and it's moving more all throughout the day. Cause we were meant to move, right?

[Tony Robbins]

I mean, how have you changed your workouts over the years?

[JJ Virgin]

Well, it's pretty interesting. You know, when I was in graduate school, we were taught, I kid you not, we were taught, do not have people lift weights until they lose the weight. Now I was paying my way through graduate school as one of those first personal trainers. And what I quickly discovered was they weren't going to get any better unless I had them lifting weights like nothing was changing. Weights are like your metabolic Spanx that holds everything in tighter, gets you insulin sensitive, boosts your metabolism. So I just ignored and most of my professors were like overweight, which I thought bizarre and made no sense. Right? Especially when you got in the nutrition department, the exercise department, not as much as the nutrition department. And then in the nutrition department, I was taught that you could get everything you needed from a potato from women that literally look like potatoes. I'm like, how are we going to get optimal protein from that potato right there? Now, if we're on Mars and this is all we have, okay, fine. But other than that, I think we can do better. So I literally, way back then Everything was about cardio. And at first I was doing loads and loads of cardio. And then I did a massive flip early on into resistance training and high intensity interval training. And I never looked back, mainly because I hate doing endurance cardio. It's not fun. It takes up a lot of time. But in my 20s, I was doing a lot of it and a lot of resistance training. And what's interesting is I have more muscle, I'm stronger now than I was in my 20s because I was doing loads of cardio and loads of resistance training. I dumped a lot of the cardio, flipped it into high intensity interval training. I, you know, walk and ruck and I'm now, you know, more ripped than I am now than I was then.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, you look insanely good. I mean, I was gonna ask you, are you on, like, are you doing HRT or something?

[JJ Virgin]

Steroids.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah. Are you on something? Well, no, because you're so ripped. And. And if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

[JJ Virgin]

So I'm 60. Wonderful.

[Tony Robbins]

60, wonderful. Okay, 60.

[JJ Virgin]

Wonderful. And I'm an open book. I'll tell you everything I'm doing. I had been on hormone replacement therapy from the moment my hormones started to shift. And here's what was super cool about that. So when I was on Dr. Phil, he had a little chapter in his book called weight loss resistance. And I thought that what a concept. I fell in love idea, because working in real life, working in the wild, I saw people that were eating, eating right, exercising, and stuck, especially, you know, perimenopausal women. And this whole idea that nothing changes when you're perimenopausal, your metabolism stays the same. Is gotta be men saying that. Not one perimenopausal woman will say that to you. I don't think.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, you know, and where did you start? Because I think that's a big question that people are very confused with.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, you. Yeah, you start when things start to shift. So that's different for everybody. That could be late 30s. It could be early 40s for me. Early 40s, I think it was. I was around 44. I remember all of a sudden I used to always be the sweaty one. Like sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, you know. And all of a sudden I'm cold and I got a little constipated. I started to lose my eyebrow. And this happened like that. And one of my friends was an integrative med doc who was like, looked at my TSH, which was 2.25, I remember, totally in the range and I was hypothyroid. And the minute he gave me a little thyroid, it's like the lights came back on. Everything normalized. The next thing that happened was I could not recover from my workouts like I used to. Now I know from, you know, Dr. Vonda Wright that this is musculoskeletal syndrome due to menopause. But back then I was like, I had no clue. I was just like, what is going on? And my. My gums started to bleed a little bit and my dentist is like, that's low estrogen. So the minute these things started to show up, I started to treat it. So I started first with thyroid, then I did a little testosterone, which helped bring my estrogen back. I never did progesterone until I started to really use estrogen consistently, because for me, progesterone makes me gain weight and weep. It just.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, wow.

[JJ Virgin]

I never felt good on it. In fact, we had a doctor in Palm Desert, California, who literally, he was a nut job. He put everybody on progesterone therapy, men and women. He thought everyone was progesterone deficient. And you would put em on like 100, 200 milligrams every single day. And then he put everyone on thyroid with the goal to drive their TSH to as close to zero as possible. I mean, horrible. And he put me on progesterone. I gained £12 in a week. I was like, okay, this is not for me. So now once I started to get, you know, more into perimenopause, I could. I started to cycle it in. But low dose, where, you know, most people are due about 100 milligrams. I was doing 50, so I never could use that. And that's why I say these things. You have to know the symptoms of the different hormones and what's low and really where your ideal levels would be, and pay close attention because there's no way a doctor's gonna know that they won't know how you're feeling. They're not inside, you know, in with you. But I literally have been on hormones since my, you know, what, mid-40s.

[Tony Robbins]

And do you feel at this, like, at this stage, are you still having to tweak it depending on different things, or now you have it not like, is it dialed in at a certain point?

[JJ Virgin]

It's dialed in. What was interesting is, you know, once you get through menopause, life is so. It's fabulous. It's. I always say, you know, there's two amazing things. Empty nesting and menopause. These are like, amazing things that I hear. People go, oh, my God. Empty nesting. I'm like, it's the greatest thing ever, right?

[Tony Robbins]

You have your life back.

[JJ Virgin]

It's fantastic. They come over, they leave. It's awesome. And, you know, how old are your.

[Tony Robbins]

Kids, by the way?

[JJ Virgin]

They are 27 and 28.

[Tony Robbins]

Okay, that's great. Yeah.

[JJ Virgin]

Yes. So menopause, once your hormones are stabilized, it's the perimenopause that's like, crazy because it's, you know, you're trying to, like, shift things when they're all over the place and trying to supplement that way. The only time I had to shift this a little bit is I went to Korea a couple years ago and got on this very special ginseng, and it made my hormone receptors more sensitive, and I was able to lower my doses, which was pretty cool.

[Tony Robbins]

Oh, wow.

[JJ Virgin]

No, I didn't put it together until I was hearing a lecture at a 4M and I went, oh, that's what happened. I was like, what happened?

[Tony Robbins]

That's so. I find that, like, the problem is that I hear a lot. Me, I get. I get asked this a bunch. Like, if people are going on testosterone, but they're not doing estrogen yet. And like, you know, there's so much information out there, and I think people then stop. They don't even do anything because they're like. It's basically like an analysis paralysis. Right? You don't know what to do, so you don't do anything.

[JJ Virgin]

You find a really good doctor that knows this stuff that actually specializes in menopause. Right. Which is amazing that you could be in a gynecologist and not trained in menopause, and you'll hear all of them telling you, yeah, we didn't get trained in it. So you find someone trained in. In hormone replacement therapy because you might need testosterone and not estrogen. You might. You know, it's like everybody is different and there's no. It's not like the guy in Palm Desert with standard dosing. That's crazy. That makes sense.

[Tony Robbins]

What about supplementation for. For example, creatine is a big, hot. Is a hot topic now. Everyone. Everyone's talking about it. And I think women are still very nervous about creatine because we remember that people like men who are. Who are always taking creatine and they look big and bulky. What's your stance on creatine? Do you take it?

[JJ Virgin]

So I just came out with a product, actually. I launched it at Eudaimonia, called. My husband named this. Wait for it. She a Teen.

[Tony Robbins]

Oh, cute. I like it.

[JJ Virgin]

Okay, here's what happened. So if I could go back in time and tell my younger self something, it would have been start creatine in your teens. Now, I was training people at Gold's Gym in Venice, and they were all. And there were all those big dudes, and they all took creatine. I'm like, I'll have none of that, thank you.

[Tony Robbins]

Right, right.

[JJ Virgin]

And you know, creatine does not make you have big muscles. It doesn't. If it does, if it did, it would be banned substance. What creatine does is it gives your body creatine for the phosphocreatine system to make ATP. So it helps you make energy. And creatine is in your muscles and in your brain. If you have enough. If you don't have enough, it's not gonna be in your brain, but it's in your muscles and your brain. I think it is the single most important supplement beyond the basics of, like, D and K, magnesium and fish oil for women 40 plus. I think it should be an absolute. You need this for a couple different reasons. Number one, it's going to help with energy production. And one of the biggest complaints as women start to get into perimenopause is that they have poor energy. This can help. And it can help not just with body, but can help with mental, like, with focus, with mood. In fact, there was a study done on postmenopausal women on SSRIs, and those who did creatine actually had way better changes in their mood than those who didn't. They're now doing studies on it for neurodegenerative diseases and for cognition. So it helps you work out harder because of the energy. It also helps you with recovery, but it doesn't build. You don't take creatine, sit on the couch, and something happens. Now, here's what happened. As I started to dig into this a couple years ago, I looked at. I'm like, everybody needs to be on this, right? And especially women. We have less tissue stores of this than men do. So I was like, we need this, and we need it in our brains. And so I was like, you know, pushing it. I was a creatine pusher, and everything I'd ever heard was monohydrate. It's the most studied. So do that one. Which is true. It's the most studied, but it's kind of like, you know, a rotary phone. Just because we've always used it doesn't mean that's the best One, right? I mean, would you switch over? You know, would you still be using a rotary phone at this point? No, you would not. So what I kept hearing back from women and these were some of my closest friends who are doctors who are like, I'm not going to take it. I don't like the way I feel. I feel bloated, my stomach hurts. I was like, just get through it. And they wouldn't. And I go, oh, this is a problem. Well, a year and a half ago I was speaking at a medical conference and talking about powerful aging. I talked about creatine. And this, this researcher followed me out and he had, he's the one who developed and patented creatine HCl and showed me all the research showing that creatine monohydrate, about 15% of it actually gets into your bloodstream. And so that other stuff is causing some of that extracellular fluid retention, some of the GI issues and that. So he went to solve the problem and created an HCL version that all of it gets into the bloodstream so you need a seventh of the dose and you don't get those side effects that are, you know, frustrating women. So I wouldn't have done this except I kept hearing from women and hearing, I was like, all right, so that's what I created was a creatine HCl. And what you'll hear out there is, well, monohydrate's the one you should take. It's the most studied and all the rest are marketing hypes and they're just more expensive. Except the reality is you need a smidge compared to the monohydrate. So BS and I had all the research studies to show this uptake and it's significant. So it's pretty interesting. So that's what we just launched because I want women to take it and I know how crazy we get with weight.

[Tony Robbins]

We do. And of course we do. It's all psychological. That's why we are cardio junkies, right? Because we think if we're sweating hard, harder, and we're moving faster and we're doing it longer, that we're getting a better result. And that's like the same thing. Like The, I think so 80s. It's so 80s, but. But yet that's what you see. Like there was a great meme was that was going around that someone sent me of like middle aged women exercising. They're doing everything but with the exercises they should be doing, you know, they're like bouncing on a swing outside or.

[JJ Virgin]

They'Re doing, they're on the rebounder.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, yeah, they're on the rebounder. That was one of the fun.

[JJ Virgin]

Do you remember the rebounder? We. So when I was at ucla, I still remember this in the sorority house because somewhere the idea was, like, you could burn a hundred calories with ten minutes of rebounding. So literally, people were, like, pigging out and jumping on the rebounder.

[Tony Robbins]

Totally.

[JJ Virgin]

I mean, totally. Our body is not a bank account. I mean, come on.

[Tony Robbins]

It's true. And I. I feel like, listen, the way I look at it is, like, some movement's better than zero movement. So all the power to you. But if you want to change your body composition, it's not going to be doing that. And that's just the bottom line. You don't have to. You don't have to believe it, but you'll. You know, the proof is in it.

[JJ Virgin]

It's just science, you know, and here's the big challenge is unless you're tracking your body composition, you wouldn't know anyway. And this is why we have to move off of weight and we have to go to what that weight's made up of. Because, you know, my husband, case in point, weighs the same as he's always weighed. And he's always been athletic. He's a volleyball player. He was a baseball player. And so a couple years ago, we go get our DEXA scans. Cause I'm like, I'm getting in the best shape of my life for 60. So I trot him on in there. He's always like, we'll go along with whatever I come up with. And he was a skinny fat. He was 25% body fat, which is high for a man, you know, and he was. He was a skinny fat. I was, like, way lower than him. And I was like, wow. First I was like, the machine must be wrong. Except it can't be wrong. It can't be that wrong, right?

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah.

[JJ Virgin]

So we completely shifted his programming. He. He'd been resistant to going on testosterone. He had lower T. Gets on testosterone therapy, but also starts finally tracking his protein and getting the protein and he needed. Starts finally doing his creatine. Like, he does all the things that I'd been, like, yakking about to do. He does them all. Starts lifting heavier, and he goes. He drops 27 pounds of fat and puts on 24 pounds of muscle. Now three pound change. Looks like an entirely different body. I mean, like, this is like. He looks like a high school, you know, volleyball player. Body now.

[Tony Robbins]

Wow.

[JJ Virgin]

It's a three pound change. Three pounds. He went from 25% body fat to 10% body fat.

[Tony Robbins]

And so is it because he also. He was doing heavier weight more consistently and he dropped the other kind of more of a cardio, like biking, volleyball, whatever.

[JJ Virgin]

He was never doing. He does volleyball. He'll do that for hiit training. He was never doing. Like, when I met him, he was drinking smoothies with like juice and running. So we stopped that quickly. But, you know, he was not doing heavy, heavy weights and he wasn't eating enough protein and he wasn't consistent with things like creatine until he got the Dexa. And that's why these things are so important. Because when you see it in real life, like, you can't go, oh, you know, because he looked fine. You would never have thought anything of it. But the difference now is insane.

[Tony Robbins]

Wow. No, I know. I think a big issue with is bloating. Women get bloated because the amounts that maybe they're taking. Is there a way to eliminate bloating from taking creatine? Is it just the amount? Is there other things that we should.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, take creatine, hcl. You won't get bloated.

[Tony Robbins]

So you won't get bloated with that one.

[JJ Virgin]

Okay. You may get a little bit of fluid into your muscles. If you're lucky, that's what you want to have happen. You might get a little bit of it. If anything, it would be a half pound to a pound that would normalize. But you want that. Like, if you could get that, you should celebrate it. I didn't get that.

[Tony Robbins]

So you didn't get that.

[JJ Virgin]

I wish I had because that's good. Like, remember when you're doing bioimpedance scales at home to check your total body, your body composition, it looks at total body water because total body water is how we look at fat, free mass, more muscle, more water in the muscle. Right. So we look at that number. You want more of that? So you might get a teensy bit of it. But that's the whole reason I switched to hcl is you don't have to take the higher doses. The dosing is somewhere between 750 milligrams to 1.5 grams. I mean, it's tiny doses, so you don't have to take a lot. And by the way, the other cool thing with creatine, I did a lot. I've been like last summer, did so much international travel, jump in time zones and I read about it for sleep deprivation. It's the best jet lag formula there ever has been. It's amazing, really. Oh, my gosh. Like, solved my problems.

[Tony Robbins]

So does it help you fall asleep or is it just.

[JJ Virgin]

It gives you that energy? So what I do is like, the minute I land, I take some, and then I'll take it like two more doses throughout the day.

[Tony Robbins]

Interesting.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah.

[Tony Robbins]

I actually. I actually read a study that was saying that if you are sleep deprived and you take creatine, it will. That the creatine will actually help your mental performance. Because if you're taking the creatine with sleep deprivation. So I guess you need it enough.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, your muscles will preferentially. Preferentially use it. And you need enough to get into your brain, too. So I pop a little bit more when I'm. When I'm traveling to make sure I have it. Like some of these neurodegenerative studies. Now the company that has the patent on this, hcl, I turned them on to some big top. If I said their names, you would know them. Brain researchers who are using it now in their brain studies because, you know, they don't have to now use 20 grams of monohydrate, which is what they were doing, which was causing GI stress. Now they can use a couple grams.

[Tony Robbins]

Oh, my God. I want to try this. It's called. It's.

[JJ Virgin]

I'll send you some.

[Tony Robbins]

Please do. Yeah, I'm going to send it to you. I really will. Because I haven't started to take creatine because I'm one of those girls, women who don't want to be bloated, who don't want to do all that.

[JJ Virgin]

And so we bloated who said, you know what? Sign me up for that bloat.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, no, I mean, that's exactly. And the thing is, I'm not a shake person. Right. I don't believe in these shakes. Shakes. Can you end up having a thousand calories in a shake? And mostly sugar. So I like to actually eat real food. Are you mixing creatine with water? How do you do it?

[JJ Virgin]

So I have two different ways I have it. One is in capsules. I put it together with taurine and magnesium because I wanted a little ATP booster. And both of those. I mean, we know taurine helps with longevity, but both of those help make ATP. So I was like. And we never seem to get enough of this stuff. So I was like, I'll put that all together. So I created. That's the product I created. And it's in capsules. You take three and you can take another dose. Like, I'll take three as my foundation. Then if I'm going to the gym, I'll take another three. Or you can use the powder and throw it. What I like to do when I'm going to the gym is electrolytes, creatine and some essential amino acids.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, okay, so tell me the day in the life. I want to know all these things I'm going to. I have a pen too, because I think these are. I. No, I think this is like. I love this. That's what it's about, right? Habits and hustle. I want to know what time you wake up, what you do every day. Go, let me know.

[JJ Virgin]

What do I do every day? I wake up, I take my thyroid.

[Tony Robbins]

What time do you wake up? I want to know the time.

[JJ Virgin]

Generally I'm waking up right now. I'm a little like, I Woke up at 4:30 because I have some stuff going on business wise that I was processing. But I got up at 5:30. But normally once it's not daylight saving stupid. I think this is the dumbest thing ever. Yeah, about 6:30.

[Tony Robbins]

Okay, and what do you do? What's the first thing? Okay, so what is your routine? What's your morning routine?

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, I've been playing around with it. Cause I was doing meditation every single morning and now I kind of have been reading instead. So I get up, I do my thyroid, my husband hits the coffee, most importantly. And then I always get on the bioimpedance scale. It reports to my phone. I always watch the trend lines. So I believe that we should weigh in every single day. I travel with a bioimpedance scale. I have one at home and they go into my phone. So you know, I don't pay attention to it so much as I'm just. We'll check to make sure. Because here's the thing. Twice I have had weird weight gain. Once during the pandemic and then once when I landed in Spain where literally my weight would go up a pound or two every day. And one time it was an autoimmune thing going on. Another time it was because I changed my thyroid medication and didn't pay attention to the fact that like I went from what I normally do over to armor and literally gained six pounds in like three days. So if you're not weighing in, you wouldn't know. Right. And other part of that is when you're shifting your body composition called recomping. Right. You're. You're putting on muscle. And I think for all of us, our biggest goal should be to pack on as much muscle as humanly Possible. Which if I'm lucky, maybe I could put on another £4 in a year. At this point, you know, it's like really hard once you're kind of where you can get to. But if I'm not watching that, I'd never know. So we do a DEXA scan once or twice a year, and then I'm monitoring that at home. So do my little thing. Right now I'm doing reading and journaling, and then I do my depends on the day. If I'm home, I like to get into my little hot sauna. I have a quick heat sauna and then I'll go into the cold plunge.

[Tony Robbins]

So, like, what kind of sauna you like A therassage. The ones that are like a relaxed.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, it's like a relaxer or a therassage. Those. One person, One. So we have two saunas at home. You have the big infrared one. And I think of all of the things, you know, the red light, nature, all the stuff, sauna to me is like the one that I think is the most important.

[Tony Robbins]

Right, I agree. I agree. And you do that in the morning?

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah. Well, the reason being we'll do sauna, the infrared sauna at night and watch Netflix in there. But in the morning, it's 10 minutes, and then I can get in the cold plunge and I'm far enough away from my workout, like, the last thing I want to do. I could come home and get in the sauna. That'd be great after a workout. But I can't get into the cold plunge because that can then blunt muscle protein synthesis by blocking the inflammatory response. So I do the cold in the morning.

[Tony Robbins]

So you do that. Okay. And then you do the rapid sauna in the morning for 10 minutes. Do you get sweaty? 10 minutes. You get sweaty in there?

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, but I always do it before my husband because he, like, I'm in there and I either do my little red, red light collagen mask, which I can't tell if it's working. Everyone asks, is it working? I don't know. I don't know if any of that stuff. I have no clue. Like, I've got the big red light panel. How would we know? Like, I don't know exactly.

[Tony Robbins]

I agree.

[JJ Virgin]

You know, it's. So my husband puts the neck thing on the hat on, like, so I sauna after him. It's absolutely nasty. So I have to get in there first or it's not going to happen. I'm curious.

[Tony Robbins]

Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm curious. About the rapid one. Because I have one here. I'm looking at it. It's a thera red light. It's like a indoor you. It's like, you know, it's canvas.

[JJ Virgin]

Is the zipper one you.

[Tony Robbins]

Yes, yes, Same one. You have the same type.

[JJ Virgin]

Okay, yeah, it's that. It's that type. But then I have the big thing from sunlight and that's the far. Near. Right, that one.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, I have the clear light I'm looking at too. But you're right, you can't get in the morning. It's like a whole thing to get in there and the whole thing.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, yeah. So you know, that's like a whole long thing and you have to turn it on and blow.

[Tony Robbins]

Yes, it has got to get the heat up. It's like. I know, it's like not two seconds.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's not two seconds. So there's that. And then generally morning brain is my money brain. So I have my thinking things and you know what happens is I always have projects that I need to do. And I never know. This is why I could never be a professional writer because I never know what's going to pop out and beg to be thought of. And, you know, so usually something comes out of my head that's important in the morning and I work on it and then I eat breakfast. You're going to ask what? So I'll tell you. Currently, I have been playing around with dairy Greek style yogurt. For a long time I couldn't eat dairy. Then looked like my gut was healed and I'm back on dairy. Although I just now I'm. I'm doing another food sensitivity test to see how I'm doing with it. So I think I'm cool with it. So what I've been doing is doing Greek style yogurt and stirring in bone broth protein powder. So I have a bone broth protein powder, 80% collagen. I stir it into the Greek style yogurt. So I'm getting everything. So that's what I like to do.

[Tony Robbins]

That's a good idea. I'm so sick of eggs and I need to eat protein in the morning. That's a really good idea.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, and you don't get enough from eggs. You have to do eggs plus egg whites.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, I do that. By the way. That's what I do. But I didn't realize you can't get enough from eggs. What do you mean?

[JJ Virgin]

Well, you could, but you're going to get a low. Think about it. Each egg Depending on the size of the egg is maybe 6 grams of protein.

[Tony Robbins]

Mm, that's true.

[JJ Virgin]

So, yeah, you have to eat five eggs.

[Tony Robbins]

I. I do two eggs and I add about three egg whites. Is that kind of fine?

[JJ Virgin]

Probably need a couple more egg whites. Maybe another. At least another egg white.

[Tony Robbins]

Really? Wow. I feel like also the. If you eat. I mean, I think for me, what happened was my. Now I'm like, inset. Like, I'm sensitive to eggs, so I've been eating them every day.

[JJ Virgin]

I don't like to eat, like, eggs or dairy. When I did all of the food sensitivity testing that drove me to write the Virgin diet, and I looked at so many food sensitivity tests, and then I talked to the head of the lab, and I'm like, I see number one, eggs and dairy. Eggs and dairy. Eggs and dairy. Eggs and dairy. Number two was corn, soy, peanuts. You know, gluten's another type of test. So where you might see wheat, you're really looking at gluten. Gluten drives gut permeability anyway, but so, you know, I just think it's something we have to be careful about getting into the everyday. Every day. Every day. With that, we got to rotate these things, which is hard because it's so easy to get into a breakfast habit. Like, of all the things. Like, I know I do for dinner every night, and it's super easy, but we rotate. But breakfast, it's like, who wants to think about it?

[Tony Robbins]

No, I know. And then, by the way, are you, like, not an oatmeal? I mean, because protein in the morning. I know you're going to say that, but what about oatmeal? Remember when oatmeal was a thing and people loved oatmeal? Do you ever eat oatmeal in the morning or. That's such a shock, Rhonda.

[JJ Virgin]

Like, you know what the. I think there's some great things with oatmeal. I don't think it's peasant food, but I don't feel good when I do it. Like, I love oatmeal, but I could have, like, maybe a half a cup and then have the other stuff. But I find that I feel best when I eat mainly protein with some fat in the morning. You know, like, take that yogurt, throw in some freshly ground flaxseed meal, something like that. And then I go off to the gym with my essential aminos and my creatine and my electrolytes, and then I come back, and generally I'll have protein and carbs as my Lunch. So whatever we make for dinner, we always make a bunch of. And if we ended up like plowing through all of our protein we made for dinner, we always have some grass fed ground beef that we can make up. So like today at lunch I had grass fed beef patties and blackberries and blueberries.

[Tony Robbins]

Oh, I love that. Okay, wait, so then we're not even. Why are we not? Jj, you're going ahead of me. So basically you have your breakfast and then you go to the gym and then each workout is how long.

[JJ Virgin]

So I either go upstairs because I have an amazing gym that I created upstairs or I go to the gym. My husband likes to go to the gym. He likes the whole thing. I'm pretty self guided so I can do whichever. If I'm going to do my high intensity functional training, generally I'll do that as more exercise snacks throughout the day. But if I'm doing it as actual workout, then you know, I like to do that at home because I would look like a freak at the gym doing it.

[Tony Robbins]

What are you doing? Like tell me what you're doing. What does it look like?

[JJ Virgin]

So it's so funny. So for Eudaimonia Summit they're like, we'd love you to teach an exercise class. And I'm thinking to myself, I've not taught an exercise class since, for 25 years. Okay, I'll do it. And then I was like, what the heck am I going to teach? And, and with no weights, you know, because I was like, I'll teach how to, you know, a, an upper body workout. I couldn't because there were no weights. So what I taught was high intensity functional training. Right. So it's doing HIIT where we know we could do HIIT with sprinting or running upstairs. But this is functional movements like mountain climbers or burpees or jumping jacks or air jumps, squats jumps. Right. So it's functional movements done in a high intensity way. So if I, if I'm doing that stuff at home, what I like to do, I have a sprint treadmill. So I'll do some round to the sprint treadmill. Then I have an exciser and I'll do overhead push pull while I'm on the exciser, which is this mini stepper. Then I'll get on and do box jumps. Then I'll do some up downs. Then I'll do some mountain climbers and sometimes I have a power plate that they just sent me that I'm playing around with. So I'll do things, you know, Jumps over that. So I've been just. I like to mess around with all the different things and the way I do it is I make a list of all possible stuff and then I just start to check off because I like to. I'm very goal oriented, so I just play around and mess around with all these different things. Which you wouldn't be able to do at the gym, you know.

[Tony Robbins]

No, you cannot. And how long do. How long do you work out for? About.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, if I'm doing high intensity functional training, it depends on the way I'm trying to do it. But I mean, you know, like, I did it for Eudaimonia and everyone was pretty much destroyed in 20. We did 20 minutes total, but we did it in two to three minute bursts that had some intensity and then a little bit of recoveries in them and people were just like, done. Yeah, done. And then here's what's cool at the end of it. I learned this from Gabby Reese. She said she taught me this on this podcast we did. And I'm like, that's the smartest thing I've ever heard. I put balance training at the end because that's tired. You know, when are you going to have a problem with balance? When you're tired. I was like, oh, that's brilliant. So I had everyone do balance stuff at the end, which we're all falling over. So it was great.

[Tony Robbins]

That's a good idea. I like Gabby. That's a good idea.

[JJ Virgin]

It's so smart. Yeah, she's a smarty pants. Anyway, so basically it depends on what's going on. Like if I'm doing hiit training, it may be 20 minutes, 30 minutes max. You know, if I'm doing resistance training, might be 40 minutes. Just depends. Depends what I'm doing. I like to put everything. I've got the body divided into upper body pushing, upper body pulling, and then hips and thigh. I don't. Every once in a while I'll throw some core work in, but the reality is I'm doing squats and pushups and mountain climbers. So it's like my core's working.

[Tony Robbins]

It's all the same stuff. So basically you're saying all the same things we've always done. You're just doing it at a high intensity and that's how you do it. But you're saying rucking. Rucking's like again, this is another one of these fitness trends. I mean, it's been around forever.

[JJ Virgin]

It's not a fitness trend. We did it when we went to school.

[Tony Robbins]

We did. Well, I was going to say it's a fitness trend, which is not even a trend. I mean, it's like you're basically wearing a weighted vest or a knapsack or whatever.

[JJ Virgin]

Basically doing the backpack you used to wear to school that now they don't anymore. Now we're just doing it. You know, it's like the stuff you did when you were eight. We're doing it again, 100%.

[Tony Robbins]

How? Yeah, how often are you. Exactly how often are you doing it? Every day?

[JJ Virgin]

No, so a couple times a week. You know, here's the thing. So I travel like about 75% of the time. I'm not traveling with a rucking vest. Yeah, like I'm not gonna do it. So, you know, if I'm home and meeting a friend for a walk. So I have a girlfriend that I walk with and she's about 5, 2. I'm 6ft. Clearly I gotta do something here. Otherwise, you know, so even though she's a fast one, I throw a rucking vest on. So there's, you know. Yeah, that's what I will do.

[Tony Robbins]

That makes sense. Okay, so basically nothing you've said was, has been that outrageous. So nothing.

[JJ Virgin]

It's outrageous. It's normal stuff. The basics work the best.

[Tony Robbins]

The basic. That, that was how we began this podcast. Like, the basics do work the best. Even though people want to find these.

[JJ Virgin]

Magic, I know they want a cranky formula. I keep trying to think of a formula. Here's my, here's my overall formula though. The first thing you do is make sure you're getting in 8,000 steps a day at least. Bare minimum. That is like, that is like flossing your teeth. Once you have that dialed and ideally a couple times, you know, that's just throughout the day. You're moving all throughout the day. You're standing instead of sitting, you're walking instead of standing. Throw a rucking vest in where you can add a little intensity, where you can all that. Then you add in resistance training and you train to get better at life. So you do things that mimic normal life. In life, you have to get off the toilet, so you're squatting, you're picking up groceries, you're picking, doing deadlifts. You know, you do the stuff right. Then you add in some high intensity interval training to improve your VO2 max. And then one day a week, you throw in a yoga class so you get your balance and flexibility. That's it. That's the formula.

[Tony Robbins]

I love that. Did you know Americans spend an average of 90% of their time indoors. But did you also know that indoor air can be up to 100 times more polluted than outdoor air? Breathe Easy with Air Doctor, the award winning air purifier that eliminates 99.99% of dangerous contaminants like allergens, viruses, smoke, mold spores and so much more. Air Doctor was actually voted best air purifier by Newsweek. So it's no surprise that 98% of Air Doctor customers agree their homes airfield cleaner, safer and of course so much healthier. Unlike other air purifiers, Air Doctor captures invisible particles a hundred times smaller than standard HEPA filters. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE to get up to $300 off today. Air Doctor comes with a 30 day money back guarantee plus a three year warranty. An $84 value free. So get this exclusive podcast only offer [e-mail] that's a I R D O C T O r p r o.com using promo code Hustle. I wanted to ask you about, about GLP1s. They're a huge topic as I'm sure you know.

[JJ Virgin]

You did not see the, the, it was all over. Everyone's going, this is going viral. So at Eudaimonia they had a GLP1 panel.

[Tony Robbins]

Oh, they did? Okay.

[JJ Virgin]

Oh yeah. So it was this tufts nutrition researcher. I don't remember his name. I just remember Dariush, but I don't remember the last name was started with an M. Then they had Zachary Knight who was a neuroscientist. I was in the middle. Then they had Cali Means. Then they had Jillian Michaels. And my belief on these, first of all, I don't believe that you lose weight to get healthy. I believe you have to get metabolically healthy in order to put on muscle and burn fat. We are in a metabolic health crisis as we know. Like less than, I think it's probably less than 5% of the population now is metabolically healthy. I mean, the fact that we are almost at 80% overweight and obese and that we have a very high amount of people who are normal weight that are normal weight obese, it's absolutely frightening, right? For the first time, the obesity trend lines are starting to normalize where they've been exponentially increasing. And it's because of these, the issue with the GLP1s, I think they're the greatest longevity peptide and they're being used completely inappropriately for what we could do with them. You know, the pharmaceutical companies have done jack these prices, if we could just compound them in small microdoses, they actually can heal your metabolism. And when you've got someone who's in a metabolic cold trying to pull them out of it just with diet and exercise, I mean, we would all love this. Here's the thing. What would we love? If everyone could eat healthy, exercise, get great sleep, match your stress, and have great relationships and believe in something bigger than them. That would be so great, wouldn't it? But when you're in a metabolic hole that you can't climb out of, all of that looks impossible. And you hurt, you're inflamed, you can't move more. I mean, I'm working with a guy who's 385 pounds, now 350. And you know, he was getting 2,500 steps in a day because everything hurt. And he wouldn't go on these because of all the bs, shame, misinformation out there about them. Like, it is so ridiculous to me. It me off. So this whole thing over here was Callie and Jillian screaming, basically called me a liar and told me I was full of. I don't know if I can swear on this.

[Tony Robbins]

You can swear on my thing. You can't, right?

[JJ Virgin]

Shit. Called out the other scientists who are like the sweetest guys ever. I'm like, you know, game on. I go, I have all the studies for anything I'm saying here. I've got the research, but I first got interested in them because my son's got a traumatic brain injury. And I was at a lecture and the doctor had been using him for a decade, started talking about neuroregeneration. And I'm like, are you kidding? And my son, it has changed his life. Changed his life. Like, you know, whatever I have to do to continue to get this from him. He's on semaglutide, compounded small dose. And, you know, this was a kid who was like, they did a brain scan, a neuroquant, and it's like 75% brain loss from, you know, the second injury over the course of a year, like he was going down and dying. And this has pulled him out. And guess what? He's happy. So we know, like, they help with inflammation, they help improve insulin sensitivity, they help with microvascular dilation, they reduce blood pressure, they improve lipid profiles, they are neuroregenerative and cardio regenerative, like all these things. And there's all this BS out there. And a lot of it's because they're being dosed Totally crazy. But then you have people out there screaming and yelling that we just need to eat better and exercise well, and clearly we do. But that's not going to save the planet at this point.

[Tony Robbins]

Right? Exactly. You know, it's funny. I know you know Dr. Tina Moore. I'm sure you talk to her. I've talked to her.

[JJ Virgin]

I love Tina so much.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, she's great.

[JJ Virgin]

You guys were just together. She told me.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were.

[JJ Virgin]

You saved her with the, with the Instagram.

[Tony Robbins]

I know. And she's telling everyone that. That's so funny. And I find it interesting because, you know, like, everything, politics, everyone is so divisive. Like, God forbid you don't agree with somebody, you get like, you get like canceled or shut down. And, you know, it's interesting because people in the fitness realm I've seen get very, very angry. Right. About this. Right. And I, and I feel like, to your point, like, if it helps somebody, it also, if it jump starts you maybe get you out of the hole, right? If it's a jumpstarter and not. And it gets you to a place where it can get you, get you to at least 10% along the way, what is. People are just going crazy and being very, very vicious. Vicious for it. I think the problem is also it is expensive. And the concern is what happens when you're not on it. Do you rebound, you gain all the weight back? Do you go right back to all the inflammation? Like, like, is it something like where, where is it where it is a microdose? I think that's the problem.

[JJ Virgin]

Here's the issue. If you have fatty liver, 30% of the population now does. Most don't know they have it. If you have insulin resistance, if you're obese, you have a GLP1 deficiency. Now, we don't know if you also have resistance because a lot of times with hormones you get resistant as well, like insulin resistance. But let's say you have a GLP1 deficiency. So we can start to do the things to help your body produce it, right? Like improve your L cells. Things like Akkermansia. You've probably heard of that. Things that help slow down the breakdown of this. There's this DPP4 enzyme that breaks it down so we could slow it down, we can help with production of it. However, some of these people may never have it come back online. It doesn't need to be expensive. When you look at the compound inversions, it could be $50 a month. For a lot of these people, they're on Polypharmacy, they're spending more on their high blood pressure, their lipid lowering drugs. And if they went on this, they would, and they, they eat less, right? So if they went on these things, low dose, a microdose is usually about a fifth of the dose. You may have to go up to the starting dose, but then you could back down. But here's what needs to happen. If it could be the case that if you wanted to use one of these, you had to go in and get your body composition tested and be consistent with checking your body composition, because it doesn't cause muscle loss. Caloric restriction causes muscle loss. Any diet poorly designed causes a 20 to 30% loss in skeletal muscle. That is the diet, it's not the drug. The drug actually doesn't cause muscle loss. It doesn't, in fact, you can gain muscle on the drug. So that's bs but.

[Tony Robbins]

So that's the thing that a lot of people are talking about, right?

[JJ Virgin]

It's not true. It's the diet. It's the diet. So if you are any diet that does not have optimal protein and you're not doing resistance training, you'll lose skeletal muscle. If you're doing caloric restriction, that's the way that works. So if you are eating correctly, getting that protein in, maybe supplementing with essential amino acids, if you're too low in protein, if you're doing your resistance training, which first you just start with getting the person to move. Because a lot of these people are. The average person's walking 3,000 steps a day. 3,000. So really if we just got them to walk to 8,000, if we started to get some air squats in, you know, we just get them moving and you know, working with people who are morbidly obese, we oftentimes have to have an air squat over say a couch arm because it just hurts so much. So we got to get the inflammation down. Then you start to improve the diet, right? You get them moving more, you get them sleeping. They might need to do some sleep therapy because a lot of times when you're obese, you don't sleep well. Then you start, you can taper it. Will they have to be on it for life? They might have to cycle it for life. Low dose. But I contend that that would be better than living a life of obesity on medications.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, agree. I think the problem is people are abusing it. I think people who don't need it are, are taking it. I think like a lot of fitness influencers are taking it and it's what.

[JJ Virgin]

Are they taking it for? Are they taking it because they had issues?

[Tony Robbins]

Vanity reasons. Vanity reasons.

[JJ Virgin]

There's other. I mean, yes, you could use it for vanity reasons. However, you could also use it for inflammation. You could use it for apob. Like my husband's on a teensy cycling dose. And these cycling doses are not meant to take your appetite away. Right. It's purely to lower his apob that was chronically elevated. We tried everything, couldn't get it to go. Same with my son is using it for his brain. So you can use low doses of these, not for body composition, but for inflammation, for insulin sensitizing, for neuroregeneration, for microvascular dilation. There's other things they do and there's a whole host. Like if you go to ConsenSys and ChatGPT and plug in benefits of GLP1 agonists, it's kind of mind blowing, overwhelming. And that's a PubMed, you know, thing. So.

[Tony Robbins]

But what about the side effects?

[JJ Virgin]

Like the side effects when you're low dosing are not an issue.

[Tony Robbins]

So it's only when you're taking a big dose. Is that.

[JJ Virgin]

Yeah, like you should they start. The dose they start people with is ridiculous. Like it's way higher than it should ever be.

[Tony Robbins]

Do you have to know? But does it. Do you. Does your body get acclimated to whatever dose you're taking? So when you. What does a cycle mean? Give us examples.

[JJ Virgin]

So let's say I am not a physician. I don't play one on podcasts. If I were. If I were working with someone who I could work with a physician who would get compounded pharmacy, you know, tirzepatide or semaglutide. I would start with about a fifth of the starting dose and I would start super low with that. In combination with, they have to track their food, they have to make sure they're getting in their protein 1 gram per pound of target body weight. And then we're going to start to move and then we see how they do and then we get them, you know, we'll see if we have to raise it or not. And then if we do have to raise it, you just continue to do all the other stuff. So hopefully you can start to take it down. And then cycling might be once every two weeks, once every three weeks, once every month.

[Tony Robbins]

Mm, okay, that makes sense. Actually, do you take it or no.

[JJ Virgin]

I take a teensy bit of it. Now, here's what's interesting. I tracked everything with this because I have a weird autoimmune thing that every once in a while. Remember I talked about how my weight went up?

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah.

[JJ Virgin]

This weird little autoimmune thing that every once in a while will trigger. And I'm like, what the heck is that? And So I was 144 pounds and like 11, 12%, I think it was 11% body fat when I did it. And I went on and the person who initially put me on it, put me on a starting dose was too much. It was way too much. And so that dropped me like I like and it was funny. Here's what's weird. I was actually tracking my calories and I didn't change what I was doing or eating by more than 200 calories, but I went down to 1:38. And so I popped the dose way down and started cycling it. So basically a fifth of the dose once or twice a month. Right. And came back, back up to my normal weight, normal body fat. And so it's, it's one you just have to watch and. But I use the teensiest dose every once in a while.

[Tony Robbins]

Right.

[JJ Virgin]

All that, all the autoimmune stuff at bay. Because there's good research on that.

[Tony Robbins]

Right, right, right, right. I want to just end with one other question and we can just wrap it, but let's talk about a, like a few or as many as you want, but some popular habits that people do that are actually detrimental, that are, that they think are good for them.

[JJ Virgin]

Omad.

[Tony Robbins]

Omad.

[JJ Virgin]

One meal a day.

[Tony Robbins]

Oh, who's doing that? Oh, is this like intermittent faster do you mean?

[JJ Virgin]

Well, you know, fasting's. Fasting's kind of such a tough word because what's it really mean? It could mean anything from normal eating. Like stop eating three hours before bed, eat about an hour or two after waking up in the morning. That's like to me, what we should be doing. Get that, you know, 10 to 12 hour window. It could be eating, compressing that a little bit. And there's some, you know, benefits for that. Some of it might be caloric restriction, but some of it's, it's hard to say. Like I, I don't know when autophagy starts. I don't know how you test for it. I don't know how anybody knows this. I don't, you know, I don't know why we'd all be the same. Would seem like it would have to be with your metabolic health. But I think there's some benefits to these things. But I also think there's some detriments to it. So that's one that I do not, I don't like is omad.

[Tony Robbins]

I love that you call it that while we're on that habit. You know, I find that for women, it's very. For hormone hormonal reasons, women are not getting the same benefits from fasting or intermittent fasting as I see some. Like, you know, my male friends or my male counterparts get, you know, we.

[JJ Virgin]

You know, we just, we are complex machines. Like, you know, they are like the vw. Remember growing up, everyone who had a VW bug, you could literally go in there with like a bobby pin and fix it.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Versus, yeah, yeah.

[JJ Virgin]

You know, it's just we're complicated and you mess with us a little bit, it throws all of our hormones off. Whether it's fasting, keto, any of these types of things can be wonky for us. I'm not a fan of keto for women. Unless now diets are tools. So, you know, if you've got cancer, fasting and keto would be a different situation. Right. So, you know, I'm not talking about that. I'm looking at powerful aging and looking at that. So again, you always have to look at it. Because I'll get asked about all these different diets and I go, they're tools. What are you trying to accomplish? And realize you might use a tool short term. It doesn't mean that that's going to be. That that diet that's going to heal. This issue right now is the diet you need to stay on forever.

[Tony Robbins]

What is your idea? Okay, so give me another popular habit that people are doing that's actually detrimental.

[JJ Virgin]

Hmm. I don't know. Like, what are the other things that they're doing that are not healthy?

[Tony Robbins]

Lots of things.

[JJ Virgin]

I don't know, putting too much fat.

[Tony Robbins]

In everything, like butter and coffee type of thing.

[JJ Virgin]

Like, just especially for women, like, you know, easy to overload your calories with a lot of this fat. I remember as I first started to really track food and I just did an interview with Will Lee and you know, talking about olive oil and I'm like, ah, you know, and then I started to really track. I was like, wow, I think I put a half a cup of olive oil on my salad.

[Tony Robbins]

Right, right, right.

[JJ Virgin]

It adds up. You know, too much healthy food's unhealthy. It's gotta go somewhere. I always think it's funny with keto. Cause people are like, I'm doing a ketogenic diet to burn fat. I'm like, well, are you burning dietary fat or body fat 100%.

[Tony Robbins]

I think the problem is the, a big myth is how many calories we over index how many calories we're actually burning. And so we think, oh, we can eat that piece of cake or we can do that because we went, we went to the gym for 45 minutes. But we, we are, we actually only work. We only like burn a third, I think it was, of what we actually think we do.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, it doesn't take out your resting metabolic rate. Here's, you know, and you can't. Don't look at your body like that. It's. Yes, there in a way it is a bank account, but it's much more of a chemistry lab and we can't ever look at. And I used to do this way back in the day. I remember like going and eating a bunch of crap and then sitting on like, you know, the exercise bike at the gym for hours as if this was going to work this way. Right. Does not work that way.

[Tony Robbins]

It does not work that way.

[JJ Virgin]

Right. But if you're looking at the treadmill, it says calories burned. It didn't subtract out your resting metabolic rate, how many calories you would have burned if you just didn't do anything.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah.

[JJ Virgin]

So the biggest way, actually this is really interesting. So we have our metabolism, we have our resting metabolic rate, we have the thermic effect of food and then we have activity and in activity we have exercise and we have non exercise. Right. The biggest needle mover for us, I mean for our resting metabolic rate, really the only way we can shift that is to put more muscle on our body for our overall metabolism. The biggest needle mover is really that non exercise activity. It's how much you're moving all throughout the day. And one of the studies, like I'm thinking, I mean, there's been multiple studies of this that show in overfeeding situations people move more and in underfeeding situations people move less. Like our body strives for homeostasis. And so if you can start to really track. And I've become a little like, I like to focus on something to really lock it in. And so I've been really focusing on steps and making sure I'm moving all throughout the day. And I love the research. I don't know if you've seen the research on Vilpon exercise snacks.

[Tony Robbins]

They just see it.

[JJ Virgin]

So they did a study where they showed people and they looked at two groups versus nothing. So one group, no exercise snacks. And these are short, one to two minute, really high intensity Things like I was talking about when we started. And so one group did four, four minutes of exercise, snacks a day. It would be like doing, you know, two to three circuits. One group did 10 minutes of exercise, snacks a day. The group that did 10 minutes lowered their all cause mortality by 40% and their risk of cancer and heart disease by 50%. And the group that did 4.4 minutes lowered it by 28%. And we also know that if you did 30 air squats, you actually will lower your blood sugar response or no, if you did 10 air squats every hour for 8 hours, 8.5 hours, you will have the same blood sugar control or better than if you did a 30 minute walk. So I think that one of these really important things for us to start to think about is how do we get more, more vigorous movement. Run up the stairs, do the air squats, do the squat jumps all throughout the day.

[Tony Robbins]

No, I could not agree with you more on that. I mean, I always tell, I always say that I would prefer to do three 10 minute workouts a day versus a long extraneous one because it's about how much you're moving your body during the day. It's not because most people go to the gym and then after the gym they're like sedentary for the next 23 and a half hours. Not the smartest thing.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, the research also showed, I remember early on this was in graduate school, there was a study that came out that looked at people that were instructed to do three 10 minute sessions of cardio a day versus one 30 minute session. And they compared the two groups and the 10 minute session had way better cardiovascular effects because of it. And their whole hypothesis was that it was because you either did, you know, you either did 30 minutes or you didn't do it all versus you could do maybe one 10 minute one. But I also think if I know I only have 10 minutes, I'm going to work a lot harder than if I'm going to push myself through an hour. Like then you pace yourself so you don't.

[Tony Robbins]

That's 100% true too. Right. Because you're like, I'm only doing this for 10 minutes. I might as well put on, you know, let's do it. No, Such a good point. Okay, jj, I've had you for a long time on this show. I appreciate, after all the technical difficulties, I appreciate you coming on, tell people how they can find out more about you, where they find you. Besides the Shia team, which I am.

[JJ Virgin]

The Shia team, that I'm Sending you. Yeah, Send me your address.

[Tony Robbins]

I'm going to. I'm going to send you now.

[JJ Virgin]

Yes, yes. So I. So very fun stuff. I'll give you a couple websites, but JJvirgin.com is where everything is. And that's where, like, I have my well Beyond 40 podcast. I created two different challenges. One is our eat protein first challenge. That takes you for a week of really figuring out how much protein you need and making sure I have people eat their protein first so they get it in. Because I heard from too many women, I can't. I'm too full. I'm like, well, eat it first.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[JJ Virgin]

Then you got. And you have to use a food scale and you have to use a biome or a little chronometer app. So I use a food scale and an app to make sure that you got it. So that is jjvirgin.com proteinfirst and then I just launched at Eudaimonia a snack challenge. So it's 10 minutes. 10 days. 10 minutes to win it. A snack challenge where I take them through the things that they can do for 10 days. Because I figure if you do it for 10 days, like, I don't believe that it's 21 days to do a habit. Like, where'd that urban legend come from? Like, just get used to doing it. You'll be amazed how you feel. So that one's JJ virgin.com forward/snack challenge. But again, I'm like, I love that. Simple, actionable things that we can do that will make. They'll move the needle. Right. They'll make a big.

[Tony Robbins]

Yeah, I love that. I'm going to. Actually, I'm looking for your information. I can't. You're going to give it to me after. I don't know why it's not in here, but I got to send you my address. Thank you again. And I think we're going to do this again for you right now. So I'll see you soon.

[JJ Virgin]

Well, we're going to do our business one.

[Tony Robbins]

Yes. That's fine. Either one. Okay, so bye.