← The Dr. Josh Axe Show
The Dr. Josh Axe Show
Jillian Michaels EXPOSES Health Myths, Big Pharma, and Fitness Secrets
01:02:52
Jillian Michaels has been a household name in the fitness industry for decades, helping millions achieve their health goals.
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- [00:00]
A
You are, in fact, overweight because you want to be overweight. Whether it's because you want to desexualize, because you want to connect to your mother, because you want to reject the parents that rejected you, it's a choice you're making. If it's worse where you're at, you'll move. So I was very focused on making it very bad, where they were at feeling the pain of being so tragically unhealthy that their wife worried they would become a widow, that their kids worried they would die before they met their grandchildren, that they couldn't literally walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes without vomiting. How much does this hurt? Does it hurt bad? I hope it's crushing you under the pain of these choices. We're inside all the time. We don't have any community. Everybody's on their screens. There's no way that as a human being who's evolved to exist in a community, in a pack, in a tribe, outdoors, hunting and gathering, eating off the land, being connected to nature, that we can exist in this capacity. Health was dragged into the world of politics and made a political football. I don't see how it gets worse. And any criticism about rfk, I think I can effectively address. Is he eccentric? Yeah. As eccentric, does he sometimes go a little bit too far in his speculations? Personally, I think so. And I could give you examples of that, but none that would be to the detriment of the American public. He's not taking away your measles vaccine.
- [01:25]
B
Are you tired of doctors dismissing your symptoms or worse, even making you feel crazy? Even if your blood work comes back normal, it doesn't mean your health is where it should be. Think of your blood like a delivery truck carrying nutrients and hormones. But the real payoff happens when your cells open the package and use what's inside. If your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, triggered by stress, toxins, or infections, they go into protective mode. In this state, cells close off and don't properly take in or utilize the hormones or nutrients they need from the bloodstream. Now, this makes the blood work often appear normal, so doctors often miss issue, leaving you feeling tired, gaining weight, experiencing mood swings, and dealing with other symptoms while other cells remain in a state of limbo. Visit BeyondBloodwork.com to learn how you can start changing this in as little as 30 days. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show. I'm your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. Today I've got an incredible guest on a friend of mine, Jillian Micha Goals. She's a world renowned personal trainer and she's really moved more into the culture and politics world as well. She's got strong opinions, some that might surprise you on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So if you're interested in RFK and what he's going to be doing and her thoughts on it, we're going to share that today we're going to jump into longevity exercise. If you want to extend your lifespan and live longer, we'll talk about exactly how to do that. We'll also talk about some controversial topics around vaccinations around. We'll talk about people like Peter Attia and many others on today's episode. A lot of information, great information. I think that's going to transform your health and life. Hey, Jillian, welcome the show.
- [03:22]
A
Wow. Thank you. Thanks for having me, boss.
- [03:25]
B
Well, you know, you've gone through such an amazing, I'll say just maybe transformation yourself in terms of your brand, what you're known for. You know, if I would go online and search historically, Jillian Michaels, I mean, there would be so much content pulling up around weight loss and motivation. And today I'm seeing a lot around politics, I'm seeing a lot around culture, a lot of these different terms. What caused you to make this shift from being really solely focused in the health and fitness industry to also having a big focus on areas like culture, politics and things like that?
- [04:03]
A
I will tell you that health was drug into, dragged into the world of politics and made a political football. And this really began for me, eyes pretty wide open in 2019 when I was asked if I celebrated the fact that Lizzo was obese. And I was like, I celebrate Lizzo. I think she's a brilliant artist. Like it's none of my business. I don't see why that would matter. If you're asking me whether I celebrate obesity or that she's overweight. No, because it would be awful if she got diabetes. And there's nothing more true in the world than that, Steve. Like factually true, authentically true. And I got hit with the cancel culture stick so hard, but in a way that had never happened to me before. And people have always hated me and always had thoughts and feelings about my work and what have you. But it was around the narrative that you can be healthy at any size. And that's a flat earther conversation. That's where you lose Me. And I thought to myself, okay, this is a narrative that's being perpetuated by big food that's infiltrated the legacy media, and people are literally losing their livelihoods over truths like this one. And then Covid happened, and none of that made sense to me. The way they were handling it didn't make sense to me. None of it made sense to me. And then you had things like gender affirming care. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, hold on. We're not allowing children to get tattoos or have a beer, but they can choose as a child to permanently sterilize themselves or never have an orgasm again because they're confused about their gender. Like, these are off label cancer drugs on the box of Lupron. It's like brain swelling. Their brain is currently developing. You want to interrupt this? Like, this does not sound normal. And all of these things that touched my wheelhouse became a political football. And the fact that we're not even allowed to ask questions about health. Any mother should be able to ask, okay, hold on. I, you know, I've just had a baby and I'm not anti vax, but why does my newborn need this hepatitis B vaccine on the second day of life? Like, I just want to understand it. Somebody tell me why we're giving them this shot or that shot. You're not even allowed to ask that, or you're ashamed or you're kicked out of polite society. And it was these things that heightened my awareness and then subsequently broadened my perspective. Because when you start to see, let's say, for example, the revolving door between the FDA and the big pharma companies, right? Or, you know, the FDA and the big food companies, all of a sudden you start seeing the revolving door with, like, the State Department and Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and you're like, wait a minute. This is a playbook that crosses all aspects of culture, as you so aptly put it. And I think once you start to wake up, you start to wake up. It's not limited to your area of expertise.
- [07:30]
B
Well, you know, I totally agree. And one of the things, Jillian, I've always respected about you is you're a seeker of truth. And so whether it's in that field of health or whether it's in the field of politics or any of these areas, and I think that, you know, this is crazy. I never would have thought I would have said this, you know, four years ago. I am grateful for Covid. I might actually get some flack for that. But here's why I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful because crisis reveals character. And going through that caused me and I think a lot of other people to say, listen, I'm being lied to constantly, all the time. I need to learn how to find the truth. I need to learn how to discern the truth for myself, for my kids, for my family in a business, for my team. And there are people like you. I think about Joe Rogan, I think about Russell Brand. Just a number of people that might not even have been necessarily in the political space, but they're saying I need to know the truth and get the truth out there. And so really, it's crazy, but like, you know, I saw so many people, their character revealed of, hey, who's just going to go along with the agenda and live in a state of fear and who's going to be courageous and speak out? And you were one of those people.
- [08:39]
A
Oh, thank you. I tried with the COVID thing, I tried to sort of stay out of it because you didn't fully understand what was going on, even though it didn't make sense. But I was like, well, I'm not a doctor and I'm not a PhD and I don't really get it. But then when you start as the information about the vaccine starts to come out and it's like, actually it's not very efficacious, actually, it doesn't stop transmission at actually, there are quite a few people who got vaccine injured. Actually Foushee gets a royalty off the vaccine. Hold on. It actually came from a lab and we ruined the lives of anybody who questioned these things. You're exactly right. It is like a magnifying glass on corruption and an accelerant to the wake up process, if you will. Not to say red pill, as in like Republican, Democrat, but red pill, like the Matrix, like, this is what's real and this is what isn't. And that definitely was a big part of a lot of people's awakening. And I couldn't agree with you more. I see your point. It's like that's the silver lining.
- [09:48]
B
Yeah. By the way, I do remember when the Lizzo, when that piece ran and seeing you kind of like I was all over the Internet and a lot of people being sort of critical of you, which was insane. And it became very bipartisan even then, which is sort of crazy. But, you know, I was watching it. You did a great interview recently with Peter Attia and he went through and he said, you know, and I did an episode recently, very similar on the testosterone crisis today. Now, he gave the example of since around the year 2000 to now, we're talking about just a little over 20 years, the testosterone rates in men. You know, if you're in your 30s now, it's more like you're in your 50s. Well, if you go back even further than that, it's more like you have. The testosterone levels of men in their 20s is like that of men in their 70s from around 70 years ago. So. So these statistics are crazy. But he went through, and you asked him this, you said, what is the number one reason today why testosterone levels have dropped? And he said, being overweight, it's obesity. And so to your point there, it's like, okay, well, you know, it's not. It's not. We're not being critical of anybody's size. We're being critical of their health and what that means for their health and for men, how it's going to dump their testosterone levels, it's going to cause. It's going to take years off their life, it's going to cause diabetes. And so, you know, I think that we really need to get back to really looking at, you know, like, what are the key factors that are really making us sick today? And I think there's a balance, too. And you can speak to this between, like, you know, praising Victoria's Secret models versus praising obesity. They're both almost this. They're both raw, can't can be wrong for what we're looking at. It's like, we need to be looking at, like, longevity. And this is something I know that you've looked in more recently and been studying is longevity. So feel free to comment on any of that or just feel health.
- [11:42]
A
I always say that you're what matters. Like, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you like a Victoria Seger model, great. If you like a bigger girl, great. What matters is the numbers on your chart at the doctor's office. That's what matters. I mean, in large part, right? What are these biomarkers that a medical professional can say, hey, danger zone. And, like, we can get into our conspiracy theories about cholesterol. In large part, those numbers are a pretty good reflection of where you're at. And when 74% of American adults are overweight or obese, we know there are 170 comorbidities related to that. So it's like, listen, this is not an attack. These are simple facts, simple biological truths. And you're better off knowing them, because if you're thinking, well, okay, I'm healthy at Any size. And this makes me feel better. So I can bury my head back in the sand. It will ultimately kill you. Wouldn't. I would feel irresponsible if I didn't tell you the truth. And subsequently provided tools for a solution while also working on the systemic corruption that RFK is talking about, obviously to help support people in that endeavor, because the system really is rigged against them. There's a reason it's 74% now and it was 10% in the 70s when I was a kid. So, you know, not 64% of the population has that suddenly become obese and overweight. Like, there's obviously more going on.
- [13:13]
B
Yeah, well, you mentioned RFK here. Are you excited about him? And if so, why are you excited or not excited for, for his nomination?
- [13:22]
A
I'm really excited about it. I. Here's, you know, if we could go kind of into the crazy things that this guy said. What's kind of scary is if you investigate it, there's. So there's a lot of there there, like, there's a lot of stuff there that ends up being highly concerning and questionable. And we, we can talk about all of that, but let's discuss what he's tasked to do. Right. You and I both know this. We know all the same people, but he's tasked with gold standard safety testing around vaccines and drugs. Well, okay, are we against that? He specifically said, I'm not going to take away your measles vaccine. It's verbatim. He said it. And a great analogy is he said, Listen, I spent 30 years trying to get mercury out of fish. Nobody said I was anti fish, I'm not anti vaccine. I want safety, I want transparency. I want gold standard testing. And it is not there. And anybody who tells you it is is a liar. And if you dig a little bit deeper into what these safety standards actually are, it's quite alarming. That's my point. So to give you one example of that, everybody's like, he's a moron. And they're so robustly tested. And you're reading it on ChatGPT, you're reading it on legacy media, you're reading it on like different, different websites of medical institutions robustly tested. So I thought like, well, how, you know, what does that mean? So I looked up hepatitis B and I was like, all right, how's this? What's the. I went to the FDA's website of vaccines that are licensed in America and I, I clicked on recumbavax HB and I looked at the little package Insert that shows you now which section? 6.1. So I could see, like, okay, what did they do? What were the safety trials that they did? Three studies. Josh, you cannot make this up. I swear to God. Everybody go check it out. 100.
- [15:17]
B
I already believe you. Go.
- [15:18]
A
Okay, 147 kids total. And they were monitored for five days after each injection. There's nothing else in the insert. And then people are like, that's not true. They followed up. No, they followed up to see if it was still efficacious if you still had the antibodies for hepatitis B. Not to go, aha, you have manifested with XYZ, PD&Q neurodevelopmental disorder or allergy or this or that, because you couldn't even begin to figure that out with all the other, like, co factors of the way we live our lives. Like, is it the goldfish that the kid ate for the first three years of life, or is it the 20 vaccines they got from zero to three or whatever that number is? Like, you couldn't possibly measure it. That's the robust safety testing. So is he really that crazy? So he's not taking away anyone's vaccines. He's demanding gold standard testing. He's rooting out corruption. Well, okay. I mean, when you look at the revolving door employment policy between our health agencies, the government regulated health. Sorry, government health agencies like the fda, the cdc, the nih, even the USDA that made the food pyramid, for God's sake. Like, it's just bonker shorts. And then the guy from Pfizer goes, who works at the fda, and then the guy.
- [16:40]
B
That's insane.
- [16:41]
A
So he's gonna root that out. And his third thing is he's gotta improve health in America. I'm for all of those things. I don't see how it gets worse. And any criticism about RFK I think I can effectively address. Is he eccentric? Yeah. As eccentric. Does he sometimes go a little bit too far in his speculations? Personally, I think so. And I could give you examples of that, but none that would be to the detriment of the American public. He's not taking away your measles vaccine.
- [17:08]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's so good. You know, he made a tweet recently going through some of the things that he wants to, you know, I guess, make fully legal. And there were things like, things that I've been using for years, like peptides. I mean, this is something where it's like the pharmaceutical companies, I'm like, just get your hands out of there. You know, there's certain Things, and they're trying to do n. Acetylcysteine. I mean, there's nutrients that. That have been used for a really long time that are backed by studies that are completely healthy and fine. And there are raw milk. There's another one. Let's leave the raw. People have been consuming raw milk since the beginning of time. If somebody wants to sell locally raw milk at a local farmer's market, let's not go and arrest that person. So. So I'm with you. I think there's a lot of things that he's going to do that I'm. I'm very. Let me just say this. This is the most optimistic I've ever been about changes actually getting made in health care. You know, I know that you were at the. At the Senate hearing with people like, you know, Vani Hari and Jason Karp and Callie and Casey Means and Jordan Peterson, and that was first off. I love that you guys did that. I was cheering you guys on that entire time. And, you know, I think. And then he made a post recently, too, saying, hey, we're gonna get the food dyes and the chemicals and all of this stuff out of kids cereals. I mean, that alone is gonna make such a big difference if we can get some regulation around the food dyes in the adage, in the processed sugar and all those foods. And it's crazy. Now. I just saw recently, it's like some of the administration's gonna try and maybe do some of that now to make themselves look good. But I'm like, why didn't you do that four years ago?
- [18:45]
A
Right. Or 40 years ago? I. I think. Listen, I'll take it, though. I will take any change. I will take any progress. I will work with anybody on either side of the aisle. Health is nonpartisan, in my opinion. You're starting to see people like Bernie Sanders speak up. You're starting to see Cory Booker speak up. And the reality is that the left has effectively ceded the mantle of health to the right. And it was a huge faux pas, in my opinion.
- [19:17]
B
Yeah.
- [19:18]
A
If you start to tell moms, and I have never seen a more vigilante group than moms. Oh, man. Geez. Whoa. I mean, like, I'm not nearly as aggressive as my. As my ex. I mean, moms are literally, like, they say mama bear for a reason. And if you tell a mom that she's alt. Right. Maga. Because she's worried about what is actually in these vaccines, do they need all these vaccines? Or what is this food coloring in my kid's food and why is it banned in Canada? Like, well, guess what? You've effectively defected all of those people from your party. And the Democrats just continue to expand the purge bubble, which is so bizarre. I don't understand it. So I, I'll take whatever change from whatever on any side. I don't care.
- [20:10]
B
Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the things I think that's happened when you look at sort of Republicans and Democrats is I think that, you know, I, I think that Democrats essentially just started saying, we're against whatever Republicans are against. It became this thing where it's like, we don't have a guiding principle anymore. And I think at some point they did have some guiding principles, some things that they really stood for. Like, you know, when you look throughout history and I. And I think part of it is the right has been more committed to tradition and religion, to where even though it sometimes maybe it's kept certain things from progressing and moving forward as fast as they should, there's still this sort of thing that they're anchored to. So they're still anchored to the same thing versus, I think the left just said, well, we're just against whatever you're for, in a sense, is part of what's happened.
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A
They did that. But I also, I have to wonder, because both sides take money from.
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B
Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's true. Right.
- [21:07]
A
Both sides take it. But the question becomes, is one side taking more money? Because, I mean, these things are financially motivated without question. Like, when you look at the NIH holds patents to the COVID vaccine, and then the people that work at the NIH personally get royalty payments off the COVID vaccine. And then you find out that therapeutics that have been around for 30 years, like ivermectin, weren't actually researched. And then you find out that if they had worked, you couldn't have moved the vaccine through the Prep Act. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars over time.
- [21:59]
B
Yeah.
- [22:00]
A
So you wonder like, these guys aren't pulling the strings. These politicians aren't in charge. It's the monsters at the top with the money. It's the guys who are making the campaign contributions. You talked about my Anna Kasparian episode. She was saying, like, look at who's funding these guys.
- [22:17]
B
Alex Vanguard, all that. Yeah.
- [22:20]
A
Reid Hoffman, Larry Fink. That's exactly it. The Koch brothers. Like, that's going to be the answer to this. So I just wonder, like, did the Democrats get more money from big food and big Pharma or something? Like, I Don't know. I actually don't know. But it's very bizarre to me. Very bizarre, you know.
- [22:41]
B
You know, I want to go back to something around this vaccine topic which let me say this. When I tried to post and talk about this, I don't know for all time, anytime I'd post anything for some reason it would not. It would just get it sometimes it would get banned or not viewed. I see a lot of people talking about it the past like six months or so. And it's not and I don't know why. So I'm gonna bring this up. You know, when I look around this vaccine debate, if I think about, well, one of, one of the principles that I believe and I adopted this principle from my greatest guide in life and that's the Bible and there's a verse Jesus says, and he says by their fruit you will recognize them. So hey, if you want to know how to invest, well, well, who's got good fruit of investing? You want to see know how to have a great marriage? Okay, who's, who has a great marriage, who has real fruit in their life? Model them, do what they're doing. That's how you'll know the truth.
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A
Right.
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B
And I think about this in terms of health. Like when I look about who's running healthcare in the U.S. now, what do they look? Are they actually healthy themselves?
- [23:47]
A
Right.
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B
And this is one of the things I actually like about RFK Jr. He's in his 70s, he's doing pushups, he's doing pull ups, he looks ripped with his shirt off. He's looks very physically healthy. I mean he's as mentally sharp as any 70 some year old I've ever seen in my entire life.
- [24:04]
A
I know.
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B
And I think that's the sort of person that I want to listen to what they have to say when it comes to health because I want to model what they're doing. Same thing. It's like if I want to be fit, what is Jillian? This is why I got Jillian's app. It's why I'm following these workouts, I'm doing these things. And I want to bring this up with vaccinations. When I look at the healthiest groups of people that I know, it's probably functional medicine. Doctors, chiropractors, home steaders, you know, and some of those groups and people that probably lean a more little today, more right than left, even politically right. And those are the groups of people that probably have the lowest rates. I know personally, I'm not giving statistics here, but I know the people that, that either change the schedule or do the least of for their kids. Those are the groups of people and they're the actually healthiest people that I know in terms of longevity.
- [25:06]
A
I totally agree with you. You know, if we could actually look at some of the criticisms about RFK for a moment. He's not a doctor or a PhD. Neither were the last several heads of the HHS. They're career politicians, they're lawyers, they're lobbyists. He's dangerous. Well, the current administration, the current HHS lobbied the Biden administration to remove any limitations on gender affirming care for children. So sex changes for children, no age limit. That is more alarming to me, Josh, than. Yeah, that is more alarming to me than wanting robust safety data around vaccines and questioning what's in the vaccines and how they're tested. Like, this goes back to looking at what you said. Like, show me the. Forgive me, I. Show me the fruit or something and you'll recognize it. But no one looks at that. So the first thing they do is they're like, well, he's not a doctor and he's not a PhD. I'm like, so tell me, Xavier Richara, who is currently the head of HHS, is he, does he a doctor or PhD? They're like, it's like the best Scooby Doo, man. Nobody looks, Josh. Nobody looks. It's crazy.
- [26:29]
B
It is crazy. It's so crazy. Well, good things are ahead. I know, I know we're going to see some great changes. I believe that. And it's, it's exciting. You know, I want to switch gears here. I am curious, you know, of all the, you've done a lot of just high profile interviews recently, what are some of the things that you've heard said or some of the interviews you've done where you've heard something that really shocked you, you're like, wow, that, that really, really surprised me.
- [26:58]
A
I just interviewed Senator Ron Johnson, and when you see the level of frustration coming from somebody who has the highest subpoena power in our country, his inability to get to the truth or to have the truth obscured and to be attacked, and that is deeply alarming. And he'll talk to you about how there's partisanship at the FBI, the CIA, the amount of election interference that he's seeing from the legacy media, the fact that he still can't get Foushee's unredacted emails after three years, and he doesn't even know if they even put his subpoenas through the level of corruption at the nih, knowing that there were all of these adverse events associated with the COVID vaccine. And he confronted Francis Collins about it. And Francis Collins said, well, you know, Ron, people die. It's like. That was arguably the most alarming interview. It's not out yet. It'll be out on December 16th. But you're just thinking, like, you're the guy, though. Like, aren't you supposed to be the guy who knows if there's aliens in the sky? And, like, if the. You know, if the FBI who actually shot Kennedy, like, don't you know what's behind the curtain? You don't know, and you can't find out. And your job is to regulate the government. Like, that's the committee he sits on, is to regulate the federal government. He goes, I've got five people that work for me. That's all they'll give me. He's like, they don't ever turn over the data or the information, no matter how many times we subpoena it. It is so disturbing. And he's like, I got into this in order to provide my grandchildren with a country that was promised. Like, this guy, he's not. He doesn't make any money. He doesn't make any friends fighting these big fights. That has to be the most alarming is him exposing the level of corruption within our own government, the level of regulatory capture, not just, by the way, with our government health agencies, but also with the military industrial complex like it is. That was a. That was an alarming interview because you're just thinking, like, if you feel this way and you're in a position of this kind of power, who's actually in charge? Who's in charge?
- [29:40]
B
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- [31:21]
A
Yep.
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B
You know, this is why, I mean, it's going to be interesting because I mean, Trump, obviously, the people, the people that he has picked for his administration, they're all go getters. They're like grab the bull by the horns. And like most people would think, oh, they're, they're all intense. Like, if you kind of look at most of them, they're like these very intense personalities. I think maybe because he knows that like we've got, you have to have somebody that's, you know, Jillian Michaels nature, like of intensity to get anything done anywhere.
- [31:49]
A
I think also he is trying to have loyalty, if I had to guess as well. I mean, when you look at somebody like Cash Patel, they indicted the guy, what, twice, wasn't it? I'm sorry, no. They indicted him 30 something times. They impeached him twice. I'm sorry, forgive me. You know, and he spent the whole first two years with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Josh, I thought that was true. I fully bought that. I went all the way down the rabbit hole on Putin has something on him because he's a pervert and he has young underage girls peeing on him and, and, and they're investigating him and this is all true. And he's, it all turned out to be fake. The Steele Dawson is fake. All fake information like Russian disinformation. None of it was true. So I think arguably he wants people for better or for worse. I can't really speak to the opposite side of this. I can only say my personal speculation on the fact that he wants loyalty because I think so many. He's been indicted 30 something times. Everybody was like, He's a Nazi. He's a this, he's a that, He's a scumbag. He's a. I think he's like, I'm done with this. I want absolute loyalty. And I, I'm sure there are many people who would say that's a very bad thing. But I'm guessing whether it is or whether it is, because I really, I don't know. This is, there's a limit to what I know, but I think that might be part of it. I really do.
- [33:22]
B
Well, I think it's a big part of it. I know leaders like that who the number one thing they look for is, is loyalty. And do I think that should be number one? No. But do I think it's important when you've been betrayed and had people.
- [33:37]
A
I would do it.
- [33:37]
B
Do I think it's still important? I do, but I see your point there. I want to switch gears here a little bit and we can come back to some of this. And I want to ask you about, you know, you have focused a big, big part of your career on physical fitness. And I want to get into, in a few minutes, how to exercise for longevity. But before I do that, though, I'd love to ask you about not just, I guess, physical health, but also mental health and spiritual health. You know, I know when I first opened my practice, this would have been like, I think 17ish years ago. I. Or no, I mean like 15 years ago. And I saw a lot of hypothyroidism and diabetes and autoimmune disease. Today, when I look at the conditions that have grown the fastest, it's like, it's mental health disorders, it's depression, it's anxiety, it's identity issues. It's a lot of these issues. I mean, how much have you seen that play a role even in physical health today? People having more and more mental health challenges, identity challenges, those sort of things.
- [34:41]
A
You know, what's interesting is that because I was always I tasked with, I, I gravitated towards working with people who were morbidly obese. And it was a life or death intervention. I wasn't working with the average soccer mom once I got on Biggest Loser and that was 30 years old. So prior to that, sure, you know, 17 to 30, like, yeah, sure, I could work with an actress in Hollywood or soccer mom who wanted to fit in her jeans by Friday, kind of that, you know, that, that very Us Weekly, you know, Hollywood celebrity trainer kind of thing. But after 30 years old, when I started working with people who had Significant weight to lose. It was always tied to a psychological vulnerability, a defense mechanism, a form of distress, a coping mechanism. And then I would say that because that was my world, I sort of saw it everywhere and just thought, okay, well, this is indicative of not just the food we're eating and how that's affecting our biochemistry, but also the way we're living. And we're inside all the time. We don't have any community. Everybody's on their screens. There was a graph I saw recently where it showed how over the decades, it was like, how do you spend your time? And family and friends were at the top, right? And at the bottom was something stupid because we didn't have cell phones. But it was sort of like that. Then you watch as the last, like, 50 years have gone on. Family and friends go down to here and like, screens and web surfing come up to the top. And there's no way that as a human being who's evolved to exist in a community, in a pack, in a tribe, outdoors, hunting and gathering, eating off the land, being connected to nature, that we can exist in this capacity in a healthy fashion. So I would only imagine that as we sit more and more and the food gets worse and worse and we're drugged for everything and anything to treat symptoms but not fix the root cause, you would see an exponential growth in loneliness, depression, and Covid. Sure the heck didn't help. Made everything worse.
- [36:58]
B
I mean, I mean, Jillian, you. You know, you. You helped so many of these people get the weight off. I mean, how. I guess. I guess in one. You were obviously very aware and conscious of it. Were there things that you tried to do? And part of me. And again, I'm psychoanalyzing a little bit here, but I'm trying to think through, you know, when I. When I. When you see people. And this is true, I think with almost every condition. This is. I don't know if you've read books like Body Keep Score or in my study of Chinese medicine. This is. This is just throughout it. It's that our different emotions and identity issues and lack of purpose and those sort of things, they affect our physical health even more than food. I mean, it's. There are the biggest determining factor. And so, you know, when you're working with some of these people, are there certain things? Like, one thing I think about when the way I watch that you trained is you brought a level of discipline and intensity to people and not letting them get away with things. I mean, I think about. Not everyone had a dad like this, but I did. I had a dad that, you know, had a lot of, you know, reminded me of, you know, the way that you train people. And my dad was like, if I would walk off of a soccer field, he'd be like, you don't. If your coach tells you to get over there, you. You sprint as fast as you can. So my dad didn't let me get to get away with things. Like, I had the dad. So when I was growing up, he put a pull up bar in the garage. And before I would go in the house every day, I had to do a set of pull ups, like push ups and a plank. Something like every, like seven days a week for 18 years. No, not. I started when I was five. But my point was almost every day of my life and like, I was. Now I'm looking like, I'm like, I was so blessed to have a dad who didn't get me. Like, like, I realized that he sees every. Like he. He is, But. But also made me realize, like, man, my dad really cares. Like, like, then I would be like, man, my dad's just giving me a hard time. But now I'm like, no, my dad, like, never missed a game. He was always there. He was always, like, motivating me and challenging me to get better. And I think about the way that you train people. There are probably people, Jillian, that they had parents who never did that for them. Maybe they didn't have a father and they never had that person in their life telling them, listen, you're capable of more. And I think about even our society today, that's moved more towards, again, the best way to put this is becoming more feminine and less masculine in terms of the general energies and nature there. So there is less discipline, there is less of that. But that's one of the unique things you bring to the table that probably not a lot of people have had in their life. How much do you think that that maybe is a reality of why you were so successful in helping people see transformation?
- [39:36]
A
I definitely think, okay, so. So it's multifactorial. If I could address the emotional piece and the way it manifests in the body. My mom actually is a psychoanalyst. She has her psy d. Her doctorate in psychoanalysis, and she corroborates everything you're saying in spades. And when I looked for a mechanism, like, why, like, what is this? Like, I feel ill, so therefore I'm ill. Oh, I'm stressed. Oh, my back hurts. But it was explained to me by a psychiatrist, actually, that the brain chemistry Your actual body chemistry changes and can manifest disease in that capacity. There's actual. I'm butchering that, by the way. Go listen to an expert. It's been a while since I've had it explained to me. But you're right, there are literal physical mechanisms that you can point to prove the case on that one. So I would always know that that was an element. But when you're dealing with somebody on a show like the Biggest Loser, you're. You've got a life or death intervention that unfortunately exists on a ticking clock because a person could go home in a week, they could go home in two weeks. There were a host of different reasons why they were there, but always trauma. So not only was there not somebody saying, hey, you could do it, and I, I demand you bring your best because you're capable of your best. What I mean, one of them, her mother was a heroin addict who would turn tricks to buy drugs with her locked in a closet. And she ended up in the foster care system. Horror stories from these people who. That never made it on TV because it's just way too dark for prime time. You know, one woman did some of this stuff did, but most of it didn't. One woman who lost her entire family in a car accident. And she was the only survivor. Like horror stories. So you've, You've got that part of it. So it's like, not only did they not get the, like, I believe in you. You can do it. It was just like the worst of the worst things you could possibly live through. So they're now looking at food and its control. If they were molested, it could be a defense structure. Like if I desexual, it's not conscious. So if I desexualize myself, then I'll never be attacked again. Like, none of that's real. But it's how their unconscious would manifest these different traumas. There was a kid on the show that I talk about often who bonded with his mother over food. She was also morbidly obese. He goes back home, his mother feels like, you know, he broke the contract. We're all in this together. We eat together. This is how we bond. She withdrew, she became depressed. So what does the food represent to him? It's a primal connection to his mom. When he stops eating, she becomes depressed and withdraws. It's a primal abandonment. So there's way more to it that people are dealing with when we're not talking about dad Bot. Right. So now I'm looking at this going, okay, we've Got these much bigger issues that I'm truthfully not qualified to help them with. I can see it. I can help them understand it. But to work that stuff through, they needed a professional. And that really is one of the biggest ways the show fell flat, even though it made no promises. Josh, it wasn't even designed to help people. They designed that show to embarrass people. And it just so happened that Bob and I just did our job and it ended up working. And they're like, oh, look how motivational. That, like, it was a fluke. Wasn't designed to fix anybody. So, you know, they're going home, they're being eliminated after a week or two weeks. So that bigger problem really couldn't be rectified for those individuals that needed it the most, which is why so many gain the weight back and why 95% of the people who lose a large amount of weight in the world gain it back. And on Biggest Loser, we had a 35% success rate, so that's huge. That said, how could I combat it? Well, the first thing was helping them understand that while they were a victim, there's no question you went through hell. I validate this for you. You were a victim, but now you are perpetuating this cycle with choices that you're making because this food is providing you something, and you're going to need to get real with what it is. You are, in fact, overweight because you want to be overweight, whether it's because you want to desexualize, because you want to connect to your mother, because you want to reject the parents that rejected you. It's a choice you're making. You have to get rid of the victim mentality and take ownership, because if you don't, you are fundamentally disempowered to make any changes if you are a victim. And by the way, you see this narrative from Big Pharma. Oh, no, no, no. You have a disease. Obesity. That's a disease. The American Medical association in 2013, their own panel of experts said, this is not a disease. This is an adaptation. And yet they did it anyway. I wonder why. So you could charge people for GLP1 drugs to the tune of $35 billion. Anyway, that's. That's why. So that's the narrative, though. If it's a disease, you can't pick yourself up by the bootstraps because you're diseased, so you need our drug. That was step one was the cold, hard truth of, I get that you went through this, but now you've made this mess, and you continue to make it. And until you take ownership of that, you have no opportunity to make a different choice. The second part was a rock bottom moment because so many people live in such a way where they just bury their head in the sand. We both see it every day. Like, oh, I did just see the cancer rates are up and infertility's up and autism is up, and that's up. This is up. Everybody's dying and everybody's sick, and it's an extinction level event. Can I get a Diet Coke?
- [45:06]
B
She's like, what are you doing?
- [45:08]
A
What are you doing? But people just. They can't handle it. So they just sort of go into that Pink Floyd state of comfortably numb and they robotically move through life. It's like, you know when you miss the off ramp on the freeway and you're like, oh, my God. I was just kind of like, just going through the motions. And I, like, they're just. They're not checked in. So if you give them a moment where they feel the pain of the choices they've made and it's more painful to live the way they've been living than the risks and the costs associated with the change. Giving up the thing that the food afforded you, doing the work in the gym, giving up those foods that smash the dopamine center of your brain and all of the. If it's worse where you're at, you'll move. So I was very focused on making it very bad where they were at. Feeling the pain of being so tragically unhealthy. Feeling the pain that their wife worried they would become a widow, that their kids worried they would die before they met their grandchildren, that they couldn't literally walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes without vomiting. I was vicious with that because, remember, it was a very short period of time.
- [46:23]
B
Yeah.
- [46:24]
A
So I needed these three things to happen before they went home for them to have any hope. So it's like, okay, you're responsible for this now. No more victim mentality. How much does this hurt? Does it hurt bad? I hope it's crushing you under the pain of these choices so that they'll say, okay, well, it's better over there. Let me move. And then the third piece is, you've got to give them an achievement. It doesn't matter how small. And the reason is because we build these constructs in our mind of who we are, what we think we're capable of, what story we were told, nobody believes in a reality they haven't experienced. So I can sit here and say to you, yes, you can, and I know you can, and I'm the pro. And it's just so. It's like a SNL skit. Oh, just love yourself more. You have to say, like, they go from the I was the funny fat guy and pee that nobody picked. Like, this is, I'm saying, like, this is the narrative I would hear over and over. But if you take that quote, funny fat guy, and you have that guy run his first mile, all of a sudden he's like, wait a minute. All the things they thought they couldn't do. Oh, my God. I was in the gym for five hours today and I walked 10 miles like my shins are killing me and my feet hurt. But I did it. I did that. I ran that first mile without stopping. I did that push up on my hands and feet. Oh, my God. I did a pull up. I haven't been able to do a pull up my entire life. It's not about the pull up. It is about the fact that that accomplishment shatters these perceived limitations. And once they have that and they realize that the identity and the self image that they had created for themselves is in fact, not real, it begets itself. So those are my, like, starter points on a deeper level, because anybody can say, eat less, move more, and use common sense with your food choices.
- [48:14]
B
Well, I think that's so good, Jillian. I think you're leveraging two things that we, we all can understand and know that drive us. And it's pain and pleasure, right? Or it's, it's, you know, fear and love. It's these sort of dichotomies, these two things that we will make us change. And as you said, you know, we know that achievements. I'm thinking about, like I do peloton, typically a couple days a week. And it's like you get these little achievements and they're little, but you're like, they're awesome. I'm going to go harder. I'm going to do more because of it. And of course, there's, like you said, there's the, you know, there's the pain part. And I think, you know, some motivates people more than another, but you really want to have both in your life, need both in order to. And I used to do this with patients. I think, I think the doctors or the trainers or the people that get the most change in people are the people that help others experience in real time the most pain and pleasure right then, or become the most aware of it.
- [49:12]
A
So it's yes, it's the why. Like, what's your why? Oh, I want this, I want that. I want this. Great. Now you have like the pleasure point, all the things you want, but here's the problem. And they don't realize it because it's not conscious. So if you're like, well, I want to meet my grandchildren and I want to fit into this and I want to wear that and I'm getting married. Okay, all these great things, this is your why. Sure. But if the why that the food is providing them is bigger than that why, and it could be, you know, the dopamine hit. It could be the desexualization piece. It could be the connection to the mother. They don't even know what the connection is because it's usually unconscious. That why won't cut it. So you got to make this hurt a little bit. You got to make them feel the pain that goes along with that food. So like, oh, maybe this actually sucks. Maybe this actually does hurt. This doesn't feel so good. So when I go, it's like Clockwork Orange. I swear to God. Aversion therapy. So now when you go to the drive thru, think about your kids crying themselves to sleep at night. And if you could kind of mess with their head just a little bit so it's not like, oh, I look forward to this every day. Oh, this is my dopamine hit. Oh, this is my moment of control. It's my moment to do me. No, no. Picture your children burying you, hearing stories about you because they'll never meet you. The grandchildren feel that heart attack, buddy. They're painful. I know it sounds cruel, but I am telling you, Josh, 99.9% of the time, it's the only way to get people to move.
- [50:51]
B
Pick your pain. You know, it's pick. It's pick your pain. Yeah. And everybody would rather have the sort of pain that you inflict that's not permanent than the heart attack or the stroke or the other things we're talking about.
- [51:06]
A
So.
- [51:06]
B
Good. I want to ask you about longevity exercise. You know, one of the things that I. And I think you can probably relate to this. When I was in my 20s and even early 30s, I definitely, I knew that I wasn't. But part of me didn't know that I wasn't invincible. And so, like, I'd be doing CrossFit. I'd been doing everything possible. Then I hurt my back at 33 doing deadlifts for time, you know, don't get me started.
- [51:30]
A
I hate CrossFit. I don't understand it.
- [51:32]
B
And it's.
- [51:32]
A
That's exactly why.
- [51:34]
B
And honest. And I knew better. That was the whole thing. But it's just like sometimes your com. My competitiveness overrode my intelligence.
- [51:40]
A
And so it's designed to, it's designed to do that.
- [51:43]
B
Yeah, yeah. So. So I ended up doing that. And then over the years, you know, I, I realized that, you know, even though I would love to be able to go and squat and deadlift a certain amount of weight and I'd like to be able to do a Ironman triathlon, I realized, you know, I would actually, rather than doing those things now, I would rather do some sort of functional movement or swim or cycle lightly like, and be able to like, run when I'm in my. Or be very active and fit when I'm in my 80s. So I'd love to hear from you if there's any lessons and if you've learned any lessons like that over time and how you train now for longevity and how you train clients, maybe even something practical for people here if they really want to be healthy, you know, for, you know, well into their, you know, latter years.
- [52:33]
A
Okay. There's so many different ways to tackle this. And, and the reason I say that is because, like, if you had five hours a week, I'd give you a different prescription, if you will, than if you have three 20 minute sessions. I tend to go to the lowest bar here of like, you're limited if you're working out five hours a week. Like, you probably don't even need to ask this question. You know, we all hear, I think Peter Atia at this point, like, can you open the jar of Soup when you're 80 and can you get yourself out of the pool? Like these very like, low bars of physical functioning. And I, and I appreciate that too. And I, I think, well, Peter does set low bars. He certainly has high expectations for how you get there. It's like. And then you should hang from that. Hang from a bar for three minutes.
- [53:21]
B
Yeah.
- [53:21]
A
Like what?
- [53:22]
B
Like, I don't even think I can.
- [53:23]
A
Hang from a bar for three. Peter's nuts. Like, I happen to love him and I think he's a genius, but the guy is nutso. Josh. Like, oh, and then I, like, I climb this mountain with a 50 pound thing and then I was on keto, even though it, you know, even though I was getting. He's nutso. So I, like, I love him and I think he's a genius. But on one hand he has a low bar, but on the other hand, his training regimen is bananas. So, yeah, I would say if you've got limited time, what are the things we know are going to impact you? Well, first of all, like bone breaks, you know, okay, we're gonna like, you want bone density and you want a modicum of strength and you want to keep your body metabolically healthy. So having muscle is also going to be an imperative. So without question, strength training. I'm also kind of the person and you know, he gets a lot of criticism from people. But I also, and I'm speaking about Lane Norton, like, he gets a lot of criticism and sometimes I feel that he relies too heavily on the science. In other words. Well, I don't see any.
- [54:32]
B
I agree. Let me say this with Lane Norton. I've never met him and do. And I think he's a very intelligent. In fact, I follow him and I have learned some things from him in terms of analyzing studies and it's helped me analyze them better. So I really admire him. But I also would say you reap what you sow. He is criticized because he is the most critical person of other people I've ever seen in the fitness industry.
- [55:00]
A
I know he is. And you know something, here's the thing, here's where he does that, and I wish he wouldn't, but. And that's actually how I ended up meeting him is he criticized me about protein. But you know what, Josh? He was right. So what happened was.
- [55:16]
B
Oh, it's not that he's not right a lot of times.
- [55:17]
A
Well, it was in this case at least. So I was asked about protein consumption and I went to a PhD that I work with in nutrition and she gave me the American Medical Association's recommendation, which is nominal. And, and at that time I was reading books from Dr. David Sinclair and, and listening to Dr. David Sabatini, and he was like, oh, too much protein over activates the MTOR pathway and you know, that'll age ya. And you don't need all these aminos unless you're working out. And he went after me and I was like, all right, well come on the show then. Because I'm like, you're not just attacking me, you're attacking the AMA. You're attacking my personal PhD that I work with. You're attacked, attacking this PhD, that PhD. And he ended up being right about having more protein. And. Yeah, so.
- [55:59]
B
Oh, but by the way, I do want to say, I wasn't saying he's not right. I said, yes, he is right most of the time. I think it's just the way he goes about it. But he is right. He goes about it.
- [56:09]
A
But here's. Sometimes I don't agree with him. And this is where I think he gets into this concept of scientism that Dr. Drew will talk about. And I just had this guy Jason Karp on to talk about. And in other words, if you can't prove it, then it's not true. You know, and Lane, Lane will kind of go there with things like artificial sweeteners. And I, I disagree with him. He's like, but the doubt.
- [56:32]
B
I'm just gonna point. I was just gonna point that out because he did this with sucralose recently and aspartame.
- [56:37]
A
Yes.
- [56:37]
B
And he went through this and I thought, you know what? Yeah, yeah, but, but, but most the time, yes, I.
- [56:43]
A
Most of the time, yes, I agree with you. But then it's like, well, seed oils and the data, and you're thinking, but there's so much behind this. Like, common sense would dictate if something is being bleached and deodorized and has all these chemicals, like, it's probably not that good for you.
- [56:59]
B
One of the things that he likes to do is pull the meta analysis, which I do think is the most accurate way to read things. But I also think, well, with a meta analysis, how many of those studies in the analysis itself were funded by, you know, groups that want to see the positives of seed oil? So, so, so to your point, I do think you also have to use that other lens that you're talking about of common sense and ancient wisdom and patterns to be able to.
- [57:21]
A
Definitely. But I actually brought him up for a positive reason, because.
- [57:24]
B
Yeah.
- [57:25]
A
You know, when I. When you talk to Lane about fitness and he really. I mean, He's. He's a PhD. He's a very smart guy. He's definitely got his flaws. I know all of them. But nevertheless, you know, he and I were talking about time under tension. Like, more reps, less reps, more weight, less weight. And like, he's like, in general, stress the muscle. Stress it. If you do more than 30 reps, it's cardio. Less than that. Like, stress the muscle. It could be more weight, Less reps, you know, more reps, less weight, keep it under 30 reps. It's just very kind of common sense. So it's like strength training. We don't need to get insane. Mix it up so the body doesn't adapt to it. And, you know, he. I like that he kind of. It gave people that simplicity. And I Thought that was great. And the other thing that I would also say is Tabata protocol is really important. I would do hit training over what Peter. Peter tends to call what the junk cardio zone. I don't know that I agree with him there. He's like, this is a throwaway for the most part of, like, if you're not doing hit training, you're not doing this and that, you know, you're kind of wasting your time. It is far more efficient. Hence, if you have a limited amount of time and you're taxing your cardiovascular system to that degree of intensity, you know, and that Tabata protocol, for anybody who may not know it, although I'm sure your audience does, of 20 minutes, 20 seconds on, 20 minutes, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, heart rate 85% plus for four minutes, then four minutes off, four minutes on again for, I don't know, however many rounds you want to do. I tend to recommend two to three rounds of it and no more than that twice a week, separating the. The days that you do it. That said, why? Well, because at that level of intensity, you're forcing an adaptation. That kind of cardiovascular conditioning is going to be good for all different aspects of your health and keeping all those little blood vessels alive in your brain so you're not getting dementia and all these fighting off cognitive decline. So you've got strength training and you've got HIIT training, and I think those are the two most important things. And then I would drop down to a daily step goal. And to be honest, Josh, I don't even know if I would drop down to it. I mean, maybe I put it at the top of the list. When you look at the blue zones and these guys are. What are they doing? They're walking everywhere in their little village. So if you had 10,000 steps a day, get yourself a little walking pad. So when you're at your desk working, you can kind of shuffle along, answer emails, do calls. It makes a huge difference. Those would be my top three is strength training. It doesn't have to be perfect. It. It's like just push your muscles, make them work. At least in my perfect world, you would do either train every muscle group twice a week. So if that's two full body sessions, okay, fine, so be it. With two days of recovery in between. Because recovery is such a critical component in progressing and getting the benefits of your workout. So if we're beating the crap out of ourselves, and that's the architect, recovery is the builder. That has to happen. Otherwise you're just Continuing to injure yourself. Okay. If we had more time, then I would say, okay, how about a push split and a pull split? I like those splits. I'm not into. I'm always into staying lean. I'm not into packing on tons of muscle and bodybuilding. So I like push pull splits and then. Cause they also optimize recovery days and then one total body day. So now you've still hit the muscle groups twice. Yeah, but if I get more, then I want two push days and two pole days. Four days of strength training with ideally two days of Tabata protocol and a step goal of 10,000 steps per day. And then I'm really happy.
- [61:06]
B
I love that. I mean, it's super practical and I think people are going to see with either one of those really, really good results. I mean, if you're building muscle and you're working on that cardiovascular fitness and the Tabata, it's going to go a long way. And there's a lot of science to prove that. I mean, you and I both read, I mean, a lot of studies over the years on Tabata and hit training and the benefits and I love it. Jillian, I want to say thanks so much for coming on.
- [61:28]
A
Oh my gosh, thanks for having me, boss. It was so great to see you and you look so healthy. I love seeing you look so good and thriving and like muscular and everything. How's the family? Are they good?
- [61:37]
B
Thank you. They're great. Yeah. We just actually had a one year old birthday party for my second aln and and so she had just turned one, so that was fun. And everyone's doing great. We're back full time here in Nashville and yeah, doing so, so good.
- [61:54]
A
Well, send my love and thank you for having me. It was an absolute pleasure.
- [61:58]
B
I will. Well, thank you so much. I want to say, hey, thanks everybody for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe show where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit. And again, want to say thanks so much to Jillian Michaels for coming on today. Jillian has been a pioneer in the health and fitness industry. She's been helping motivate people, help people, helping people transform for so many years. And hey, we'd love to hear from you. If you're watching on YouTube, let us know your biggest takeaway from what Jillian had to share today. Was it something regarding RFK in the government? Was it something regarding these longevity fitness tips? We'd love to hear from you. And hey, don't forget to share and help spread the word. Thank you to all of you who are on mission with us, people like myself and Jillian who are on a mission to help transform the health of this world. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for subscribing. We'll see you on the next episode.