Look, Feel, & Stay Young Forever: #1 Orthopedic Surgeon’s Proven Protocol

Summary

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The Mel Robbins Podcast: Look, Feel, & Stay Young Forever: #1 Orthopedic Surgeon’s Proven Protocol

Host: Mel Robbins
Guest: Dr. Vonda Wright, Double Board-Certified Orthopedic Surgeon
Release Date: March 6, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this transformative episode, Mel Robbins welcomes Dr. Vonda Wright, a distinguished orthopedic surgeon and expert in mobility and aging. The conversation centers on redefining aging, emphasizing that decline and frailty are not inevitable consequences of getting older.

"You don't have to get weaker as you get older. You don't have to slow down."
— Mel Robbins [00:00]

2. Challenging the Myths of Aging

Dr. Wright dismantles the pervasive belief that aging leads to inevitable decline. She introduces the concept that movement and intentional living can reverse or mitigate the effects traditionally associated with aging.

"There is a pervasive myth in this country that aging is an inevitable decline from the vitality of youth down some slippery slope to frailty."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [06:28]

3. Mobility as Medicine

A cornerstone of the discussion is the idea that movement is medicine. Dr. Wright explains how regular physical activity combats the onset of chronic diseases and maintains both physical and cognitive health.

"Movement is medicine, it’s because there is this phenomenon, and I wish I had made this up, called sedentary death syndrome."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [24:51]

4. Healthspan vs. Lifespan

Dr. Wright distinguishes between lifespan (total years lived) and healthspan (years lived in good health). She highlights that while lifespan may be increasing, healthspan is not keeping pace due to sedentary lifestyles.

"Life expectancy does not equal healthspan, those years in our lives when we are healthy, active, vital, joyful."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [23:23]

5. The Critical Decade: Ages 35-45

Emphasizing proactive health management, Dr. Wright identifies the ages 35 to 45 as the critical decade for establishing habits that promote long-term health and vitality.

"I call 35 to 45 the critical decade because it's the time to develop the habits of mobility, lifting weights, and smart nutrition."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [35:52]

6. Building and Maintaining Muscle Mass

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the importance of strength training. Dr. Wright explains how muscle mass acts as a metabolic organ, releasing proteins that support overall health, including brain function and glucose metabolism.

"Muscle is a metabolic organ that talks to each other in a community. When a muscle contracts, it sends out communication factors like irisin and Clotho."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [59:59]

7. Actionable Exercise Protocol: F.A.C.E

Dr. Wright introduces the F.A.C.E. acronym to help listeners integrate essential components into their fitness routines:

• F: Flexibility and Mobility

  • Engage in activities like Pilates and yoga to maintain joint flexibility and core strength.

  "Flexibility and mobility prevent joints from becoming stiff and improve overall movement."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [53:52]

• A: Aerobic Exercise

  • Incorporate regular walking or slow biking, complemented by high-intensity sprint intervals twice a week.

  "Spending at least three hours a week walking, broken up into 45-minute sessions, plus sprinting twice a week."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [64:34]

• C: Carrying a Load (Strength Training)

  • Focus on lifting weights to build muscle mass, essential for maintaining joint health and metabolic function.

  "Learn to lift heavy to build muscle. Even lifting your body weight is a significant step."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [62:52]

• E: Equilibrium and Foot Speed

  • Practice balance exercises to prevent falls and maintain neuromuscular coordination.

  "Balance exercises like standing on one foot while brushing your teeth can significantly improve stability."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [62:52]

8. Overcoming Barriers to Movement

Addressing common challenges, Dr. Wright offers strategies for those experiencing joint pain or feeling overwhelmed by exercise routines. She emphasizes starting small and gradually increasing activity levels.

"If your knees hurt when you walk on dry land, let’s go to the pool and walk there."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [43:58]

9. Nutrition and Inflammation

Nutrition plays a pivotal role in managing inflammation, which is linked to conditions like arthritis. Dr. Wright advises reducing added sugars and focusing on complex carbohydrates and proteins to support muscle health and reduce inflammation.

"Anti-inflame our diet by cutting out added sugars and focusing on fiber and complex carbs."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [72:54]

10. Empowering Personal Change

In her concluding remarks, Dr. Wright empowers listeners to take control of their aging process through deliberate and consistent action. She stresses the importance of self-care and believing in one's worth to motivate sustained health practices.

"Believe that you are worth the daily investment in your health."
— Dr. Vonda Wright [83:51]

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "We don't get old because we age. We get old because we stop moving."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [07:23]

• "Movement is mobility is medicine."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [24:51]

• "If you are 40, you can still improve your healthspan."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [38:36]

• "You will not take care of yourself until you believe that you are worth it."
  — Dr. Vonda Wright [83:51]

Key Takeaways

• Move Regularly: Incorporate daily movement to prevent the decline associated with aging.
• Strength Matters: Building muscle mass through weightlifting supports metabolic and structural health.
• Balanced Approach: Utilize the F.A.C.E. framework to integrate flexibility, aerobic exercise, strength training, and balance into your routine.
• Nutrition is Crucial: Reduce inflammatory foods, particularly added sugars, to support overall health.
• Empower Yourself: Recognize your worth and commit to self-care to sustain a healthy, active lifestyle.

Final Thoughts

Dr. Vonda Wright and Mel Robbins deliver a compelling message: Aging gracefully and healthfully is within your control. By adopting simple, research-backed habits centered around movement and nutrition, individuals can significantly enhance their quality of life as they age. This episode serves as both an inspirational call to action and a practical guide for anyone looking to improve their healthspan and embrace a vibrant, active life.

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Transcript

[Mel Robbins]

Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Today's episode is a profound wake up call. The expert you're about to meet is going to teach you things about your body that you have never heard before. For example, did you know that you don't have to get weaker as you get older? You don't have to slow down? In fact, her pioneering research shows the exact opposite. Whether you're 20, 50, or even 80 years old, you are designed to be strong. What you're gonna learn today will surprise you. It may shock you, and it will certainly open your eyes to a completely different possibility for how you experience your life and your future. And even if you've let yourself go for years, you know you could be in the worst shape of your life right now. Or maybe you're in what you think is the best shape of your life right now. You still need to understand the specific things your body needs in order to function properly and work for you. If you're not aware of the actual functional design of your body and you're not doing some simple things that our expert is going to talk about today, you will not live a strong, long and healthy life. So get ready to have a whole new way to look at the intelligent, miraculous design of your body and leverage it for the rest of your life.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

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[Mel Robbins]

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[Dr. Vonda Wright]

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[Mel Robbins]

Hey, it's your friend, Mel Robbins. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so thrilled that you're here. You know it's always an honor to spend time with you and to be together. And if you're a new listener, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. And because you made the time to Hit play and listen to this particular episode. I know that you're the kind of person who not only values your time, you value your health and the quality of your life. And you're going to love today's conversation with the extraordinary Dr. Vonda Wright. And I also want to say this. If you chose to listen to this right now because someone in your life shared this with you, I just think that's really cool that somebody sent this to you because it means that you have someone in your life that cares about you and they want you to learn how to leverage the intelligent, miraculous design of your body and how to feel stronger and more energized in your life. And that's exactly what you're gonna learn to do today as you and I spend time together with Dr. Vonda Wright. Now, Dr. Wright is a renowned double board certified orthopedic surgeon. She specializes in hip preservation, musculoskeletal aging, and sports medicine. And she has treated over a hundred patients in her career. At the University of Pittsburgh, she was the medical director of the UPMC Sports Complex and the director of many of their biggest research groups, including the Performance and Research Initiative for Master's Athletes. She's also an internationally recognized researcher and you're gonna hear about some of her fascinating studies today. You're also gonna learn about her pioneering work in mobility, musculoskeletal aging, and how it's changing the way we view and treat longevity, mobility, and the process. She's also written five bestselling books, including Fitness After 40, Younger in 8 Weeks, Guide to Thrive, and the upcoming book Unbreakable. Aren't you so excited to learn how to unlock all of the natural strength and natural design of your body to make your life better? I know I sure am. So please help me welcome Dr. Vonda Wright to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Dr. Vonda Wright, thank you, thank you. Thank you for hopping on a plane and coming all the way to our Boston studios. I am so thrilled that you're here.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's my pleasure.

[Mel Robbins]

So I wanted to start by having you speak directly to the person who is listening and explain what they might experience that's gonna be different about their life or a person that they love, who they share this with, if they take to heart everything that you're about to explain to us today.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

By the end of the day, I hope that I have changed your whole perspective on aging to realize that you do not have to be the victim of the passage of time and become frail by the simple tools we're talking about. Today, with mobility and all the other things, that there is no age. No matter where you find yourself today, there is no age and skill level where it is too late, that your body will always respond to the positive stress you place on it.

[Mel Robbins]

I love that. I can feel the fire.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's a very hopeful message.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, I think it's a very important one because you're gonna talk to us today about your experience as an orthopedic surgeon and how movement actually is medicine.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yes.

[Mel Robbins]

And you are changing the conversation about aging in the world. You are getting women to think, in particular, very differently about their health and the unbelievable design of the human body and how you can leverage that in simple ways. And so I am so excited to unpack all of this with you. And I think maybe where we should start is what do people get wrong about aging?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

There is a pervasive myth in this country that aging is an inevitable decline from the vitality of youth down some slippery slope to frailty, where we spend the last 20 years of our lives dying. But the fact of the matter is, we actually can be healthy, vital, active, joyful. But people think that they have to go down this slippery slope and that there's nothing they can do about it. But the fact of the matter is, there's so much we can do to pre plan our future.

[Mel Robbins]

I am so excited for this conversation because already what you just said makes me think about getting older differently. And it makes me think about my aging parents differently because, you know, I think we've all had that experience, whether you see your grandparents or you see your parents, and you have that feeling where you're like, oh, my God. Yeah, they look so old.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

How did that happen?

[Mel Robbins]

How did that. They seem so frail. So I love this quote of yours. We don't get old because we age. We get old because we stop moving. What does that mean?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So, you know, if we step back and look at our bodies, I think nature is very conservative. If we were designed to sit still night and day, we would not be designed with our strongest muscles below our belly buttons. We would be sessile, like a mushroom with this giant stalk and all the good stuff on top. Right.

[Mel Robbins]

But what does sessile mean?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So, you know, Jabba the Hutt had this, you remember, from Star wars, sky in the world had this giant blubberous appendage he kind of laid on.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Mushrooms have this giant stalk, which doesn't go anywhere. Right. So if we were meant to be immobile, we would have been designed like one of those two beings. But we were not. We were designed with the strongest muscles below our belly buttons. We have two legs. What is the first independent skill we ever learned? Walking. It is human nature to move. So what is unnatural, Mel, is not continuing to move. What is unnatural is not moving.

[Mel Robbins]

So are you saying that one of the reasons why our parents and our grandparents and we start to age rapidly is because we're not moving?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I think that when you look at the statistics in our country and somewhat around the world, that 50, 60, 70% of people do no intentional movement a day. So we get up, we get dressed, we get in our car, we go sit at our desk for 8, 10, 12 hours, get in our car, sit in traffic for two hours. Then if we're lucky, we get eight hours of sleep. If you add it up, we are probably like a mushroom in one place, 20 hours a day. That is not what we're designed to do. And so all of that sedentary living that we're doing, because by nature, our organs work better when we're moving, when we're flexing our muscles, when our bones are being pounded, we age due to lack of mobility.

[Mel Robbins]

What I'm really excited about is we have so many conversations on this podcast that, you know, I'm 56, that I'm constantly sharing to the 20 year olds in my life. I think this is one where if you're in your 20s or your 30s and you're listening to this, you're gonna be sending this to your parents and to your aunts and your uncles as this gigantic sh. Shift around how to think about aging. And so, Dr. Wright, that brings me to this other question that I have. How does the way that you think about aging shape the way that you age?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I love that question because I think that what we do too often is. And I always look over my left shoulder when I do this and say, oh, my God, 25 was so amazing. Okay, well, 25 was easy, right? But let's think about that. At 25, I don't know what you were doing, but I was still going to school, I had no money, I was still going home in summers to live with my parents. And we're worshiping that. When I contend to anybody listening, and I may have come to this late, I admit I know I'm turning 58 on Saturday.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah. So I may have come to this late, but now I would say from 48 on, I am the most authentic, the most indefinable. I get to choose. And that comes from the confidence of experience, that I could not possibly have had at 25. So I'm not saying anything against my. I have a 17 year old. I have all the way up to 36 year olds and children in our blended family. It's a wonderful thing to be young. But if we are so stuck on the past, we will never melt, be able to pivot, literally pivot our brain and our bodies towards the next 50 years. Because the reality is midlife for men is about 37. For women it's about 40.

[Mel Robbins]

Hold on a second. Midlife. Midlife for men is 37.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah. The life expectancy for men in this country is 76.4. So half of that, you don't even think that you're aging yet. Right. But if you really pay attention and how could life possibly be over at 37? How could it possibly be over at 40? And yet if we don't pivot our mindsets, that's essentially what we're saying.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, and there's so much that you're about to share and shift in terms of the way that we think about this. Because if I am reading between the lines when you refer back to being 25, when you don't have everything figured out, it's a very challenging decade. We as a society obsess over youth. And now the medical industry is obsessed with. For women anyway. Anti aging.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

And what we're talking about today is how to use all of the research and your experience as an orthopedic surgeon and as a doctor who has been seeing patients. You're in a clinical practice. How to actually change the way you think about aging so that it changes the way that you think about your health and what's possible in your life. And when should you start to think about this?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I want to backpedal for two seconds and pick up on something you just said. For women in this country, it's all about anti aging. If I do nothing else in the next year or so, I want us to pivot that narrative because it's part of mindset. When you think of in society, men growing older, we assign the word longevity. It's like legendary. It's about legacy building. It's about reflecting on being distinguished for women. We have assigned this word, whether it is in literature, whether it's in our conversations, whether it is in the products we smear all over anti aging. As if Mel. It's a problem. Aging is not a problem to solve. Aging is the most natural thing we do from the moment of conception to the very last minute of our death. It Is the most natural thing we do. It's how we age that matters. And so I think to circle back to your question. In my career, it has always been my goal to change the way we age in this country, and we cannot do that if we don't believe it's possible. If I am going through life thinking, oh, when's the next shoe gonna drop? I'm just getting older every day. That is not a hopeful perspective. I believe there's never an age or skill level when people cannot change the trajectory of their health.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, I think, you know, one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is because you're an orthopedic surgeon. Yes. And in 2022, only 7.4% of orthopedic surgeons were women.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Oh, that's so high. When I trained, it was only three. Can you imagine?

[Mel Robbins]

Why is that the case? I realize that there are bigger issues around sexism, but why is it that there are so few women that are practicing as orthopedic surgeons?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So there began this culture that you had to be strong as an ox and twice as smart, which is a joke to say that surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, are just big, burly, athletic men. The fact of the matter is, orthopedic surgeons is one of the most competitive disciplines to get into. So it stands to reason that women would want to get into it.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So it has taken a long time for the culture to start accepting women into orthopedic surgery. Although we're doing a better job now, obviously, than we ever have. But it's going to take us another 50 years to catch up.

[Mel Robbins]

What made you want to become an orthopedic surgeon?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I decided to go into orthopedic surgery because we get to take care of people from the moment of their births to the moment of their deaths. And it's aspirational because if I harness the power of mobility, I can save you, you from the ravages of chronic disease. So for me, I mean, I love the technical side of putting metal in bones. And I use metal. I use needles now to do arthroscopy. I don't even have to make incisions. The technology is amazing. But that would never be enough for me because of just who I am and my mindset around taking care of the whole person. So the fact that I can help people aspire to healthy, vital, active, joyful. That is good work.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, what I find interesting is that you're gonna teach us about aging through the lens of being an orthopedic Surgeon. But I'm also curious because I know that prior to becoming an orthopedic surgeon, your first career was as a cancer nurse.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

So what was it about being a nurse, treating and caring for cancer patients that led you to want to go into orthopedics? And how does all of that inform the way that you think about aging?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I'm a much better doctor, and I have a deep empathy and perspective on taking the whole care of the whole person and not just treating you like an ACL or treating. And I'll give you examples of these because I was a cancer nurse. So in the late 80s, early 90s, when I was doing this, there was a tremendous shortage of nurses. And so you get out of college, they say, come train as a nurse, and in three years, youthful vigor. In three years, I got another bachelor's degree and a master's degree and started working on 11 Kellogg, which is a cancer floor at Rush University in Chicago. You cannot be 23 years old pushing chemo in the middle of the night to women mostly in the struggle of their lives and not come out a changed person. At the time, most cancer care was done in the hospital. Now it's mostly outpatient. And at that time, nursing was primary nursing. Meaning, Mel, if you're in the hospital every month for six months, I would have been your nurse, just me and you. And so in the middle of the night, chemo is given at night when I am there with you. And you can imagine, you've seen hospitals. It's dark, There's a light behind the bed. There's ivies dripping with this beeping thing, and it's me and you there. And our entire goal was to give you this poison so that you could live another day, another years. Right. The gravity of that, the hope of that was not lost on me. The view of, do you know what women and I would do all night? I would come in and out, and we would be shopping on the home shopping network. I only reflected later, like, what were we doing shopping? We were just trying to be normal women in the grips of the most abnormal situation you could ever be. But you can imagine, Mel, how could I be 23 years old, live through the most vulnerable part of a woman's life, in which she is fighting for her life, and not come out a different person. I took that six years at the bedside of strong, brilliant, surviving women, and it's flavored the rest of my life. And there might not be a big correlation between pushing chemo and putting metal in bones, but what it has done is provided for me a deep empathy to the human condition.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, it really strikes me that after six years of being bedside with women who are fighting for their lives, battling cancer, that if I had had to guess, I would have thought you would have gone into oncology. I think it's fascinating that the experience of being with people who could lose their life actually led you to a medical discipline that allowed you to prolong life and that has now led you to being a world renowned and respected voice about longevity and how you can age differently. So have you thought about how those two things connect?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

You know what, Mel? I don't mean to cry in public, but I am still a practicing surgeon. I have looked into the eyes of more than 100,000 people in my lifetime as a doctor. And I started as a cancer nurse. Right. But I see the future of people today every day when I take call. And this is what it is. And I've got to solve for this. You and I have got to solve for this. When your aunt Mary breaks her hip and I'm called to the hospital bed to see her, she is laying there in excruciating pain, balled up at the bottom of the bed with that horrible blue gown on that we put people in. And she doesn't want to be moved up because it hurts too much. Right from bones that she never even paid attention to, never knew she had because we ignored it. Now they're screaming. That's number one. Number two, what's happened to her is she's laying there in a pile of her own urine because she was not treated for the gynecourinary syndrome of menopause. Her pelvic floor got weak. So many women do not talk about the fact that they become incontinent in late in life and have urinary tract infection. So she's painful. She is incontinent, which if she even realizes that, is pretty. She feels ashamed about that. I need to do a 45 minute surgery on her where because she's broken her hip, I need to put a rod down that the size of my thumb. Actually, I cannot do that if her heart is not healthy enough to withstand anesthesia. And many times her heart is so unhealthy because she's taking care of everybody else in the world except herself, that the hospitalists have a hard time clearing her heart. And do you know what else? She either has a touch of dementia or she has full blown Alzheimer's. That is the state of women that I see every time I go to fix A hip on call. And do you know, in her lucid moments, what she is saying to me? She is standing there with her daughter. It's usually the eldest daughter at the bedside. She's looking at me, she's looking at her daughter. And time after time again, she'll say something like, I've not always been like this. I don't know how I got here. Don't ever let this happen to you. Don't get old. Well, I am not blaming her at all. I see the future of women, Mel. I can't not, not cry. If we know we have within our hands, it changes the trajectory of our future. And if we choose to not be the victims of the passage of time, we don't have to end up like all those women I take care of, 30% of whom, after they break a hip, will die. We can choose another path, but it takes conscious effort and a belief that we are worth it.

[Mel Robbins]

Dr. Wright, I am so happy that you went to the most important and profound reason why this conversation today matters. And you have this concept about healthspan versus lifespan that I think really encapsulates the fact that while we are all gonna get older, we do not have to be frail. There is a completely different future that's available to us as we age. What is the difference between healthspan and lifespan?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So when we think about living longer, we quantify that as how many years we're gonna live the lifespan. And in the United States for women, it's about 81. It's 76.4. But what we know from our research is that life expectancy does not equal health span those years in our lives when we are healthy, active, vital, joyful. What we see is people spend the last 20 years of their life going to a doctor's office three times a week in a steady decline. But listen, that is not the way it has to be. And so what I spend every day doing now, not only treating people for both and longevity, but I am teaching them to build this unbreakable lifestyle so that they are not the victims of the passage of time, which we can all succumb to if we're not intentional.

[Mel Robbins]

I would love to just stay right there because I think that is a extraordinarily powerful idea, that as you imagine yourself getting older, you do not have to imagine yourself becoming breakable and frail. That there is this, what you call the medicine of mobility that you're gonna talk about today that is important for all of us to understand and embrace. I don't care how Old or young, you are, and that there is a different way to age that creates a completely different life and that you do have control here.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Well, when I say things like movement is mobility is medicine, movement is medicine, it's because there is this phenomenon, and I wish I had made this up, called sedentary death syndrome. It is the 33 chronic diseases that kill in this country. It's everything you've thought of. Heart disease, brain disease, stroke. It is diabetes. All of those 33 chronic diseases that people die of are directly treated by moving. Because if you have high blood pressure, you'll take a pill for that. If you have cardiac disease, you'll take a pill for that. If you have dementia, you could take a pill for that one pill. Moving your body is the medicine that positively affects them all. So if we want to cure sedentary death syndrome, it involves the medicine of mobility. Now, let's just take two steps back so that we acknowledge that we don't control everything in the future. There are legitimately these time bombs of aging that just happen at a cellular level. But the thing is, our lifestyle can control our mitochondria, the energy of our cells. They can control how many bad cells circulate around. They're called synes or zombie cells. We can control that by the lifestyle we live. We can control inflammation in our body to a certain extent with the lifestyle we live. And so all these time bombs that age us faster, we are not the victims of the passage of time. If you want to feel better now, then that is an action step. It is not reading more about what could happen to you and putting the book back on the shelf. It is learning how to take action to change the trajectory of the future. Or else you are a victim of the passage of time.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, one thing that I will say is that if you are somebody that listens to this podcast and you normally listen to it while you are sitting at work or you're sitting in your car, one change you could make is listen to this while you're walking.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Absolutely.

[Mel Robbins]

And that way, you're combining the advice with your interest in listening to something that's helping you improve your life. Let's take a quick break and hear a word from our incredible sponsors. And I want to give you a chance to also share this episode with people in your life who you know are going to love learning from Dr. Wright. And don't go anywhere. There are so many more strategies and tools that you're going to want to hear when we return. Stay with me.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

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[Mel Robbins]

Welcome back. It's your buddy, Mel Robbins. I am so glad you're still here with me. You and I are spending time today with Dr. Vonda Wright, and we're learning all about how mobility is medicine. So, Dr. Wright, you've said that our understanding of aging is completely skewed because all of the studies that have been done on folks that are older are studies done on people who don't move much. Can you unpack this for us?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Absolutely. So when we look at aging studies, you will often find things like, oh, we slow down when we age, we lose our muscle. And some of that is true, right? It is true. I'll concede that. But in big population studies, like there's a study that was going on when I was at the University of Pittsburgh called the Health ABC. They took a cohort, a group of 70 year olds, and just followed them and to see what happens, they all slowed down. They developed a lot of body fat. All the things you think about of an aging well, when you look at the US population and it's not that different around the world, 70% of us don't do any form of mobility or exercise a day. It's like this thing I described to 20 hours sitting down, right? So what do we know from those population studies? We know how we age if we don't move. So my group and I, I formed this group early in my career called Prima, the Performance and research initiative for master's athletes. Masters just means people over 35 or 40.

[Mel Robbins]

Gotcha. That doesn't sound that old. That's a category.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's a category. Okay. Yeah, it's a category. So all of my academic research has been investigating what happens if we take sedentary living out of the equation in terms of our aging. And so I was the principal investigator on a number of studies that looked at bone health, muscle health, brain health, our stem cells with aging, all looking at, when do we slow down if we continue to be active our entire lives. And we started studying people, active people, they were not professional athletes asking the question, what are we capable of if we take the variable of sedentary living out of the equation, can we maintain our muscle mass? Can we maintain our bone density? Can we maintain our brain function? When do we really slow down? And we found that in our active people, 35, 40, and up all the way. I think my oldest in these studies were 103. That yes, indeed, you can maintain your bone density. Yes, indeed, you can maintain your muscle mass. Yes, indeed, you can retain the cognitive function in the front of your brain. Yes, indeed, we can stimulate the production of longevity proteins, all with something as simple as moving our legs, walking around, competing in a little sports. Because remember, we are designed to move.

[Mel Robbins]

You have with you these MRI results and we're gonna put em up on the screen for you if you're watching on YouTube. But I would love to have you walk us through what we're looking at here. And if you could just keep in mind that there's a person listening so we describe it for them.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah. So the study that you're describing has been published since 2011, and it was one of the first, really the answer to the question, can we maintain our lean muscle mass with simple daily activity? So this series of three pictures has become iconic on the Internet. I should have named it because it is everywhere. Gym people put it up in their gyms. But what it shows is this. The study was looking at master's age recreational athletes. Nobody was a pro athlete in this. They were mere mortals. Like.

[Mel Robbins]

So we're basically saying if you do a 5K and you're over 40, you're considered a master athlete.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah, masters just means that you're out of the Olympic pipeline. You're just, gotcha.

[Mel Robbins]

You're a normal human being.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

You're a normal human being. So my patients were all normal human beings. So in the study that we're looking at, there are three pictures. I did this study using an mri, which if you've ever had an mri, you know, you just lay really still. You go into a tube and it's really loud in there. And all that clanging and banging is. We're taking pictures of your body with a magnet.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's such cool technology. So in the first picture we have slices as if you were slicing up a ham. If you see this picture or if you're imagining it, think of the Christmas ham. There's a bone in the middle.

[Mel Robbins]

Yep.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

There's a layer of muscle on top, there's a layer of muscle on bottom. And there's a very, very thin rind of fat around the outside.

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah. It looks like almost like a filet. Like if you order a filet and I'm looking at this beautiful, almost like a solid piece of meat on a 40 year old athlete. It looks exactly the same on the 70 year old who's active. But talk to me about the one in the middle, which is the 74 year old who does nothing and sit because that looks like a bowl of cottage cheese. Like that does not look healthy.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So if you look at the 40 year old slice, I call that exactly what you said, the flank steak.

[Mel Robbins]

Yep.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Very lean, no marbling, very thin fat that you don't have to do anything with. And when we tested the strength of these athletes, they were strong. Then if you sit around for 35 or 40 years, this is what happens. The cottage cheese picture, I call Kobe beef.

[Mel Robbins]

Kobe beef, I don't even know what that is.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

That is that Japanese cow that they massage. And all the meat has all this fat in it. So if we sit around for 30 years, we lose all of our muscle architecture. We become very weak. And you are right, it looks very disorganized. And so this person in the middle picture can't get up from a chair.

[Mel Robbins]

And what you are saying to us today is that you're going to teach us that aging is inevitable, but how you age is within your control. And so for somebody that's listening in their 20s to 40s, this message about look, you have got to incorporate movement because it creates a roadmap for a long, amazing life. And I think the message to anybody that's listening, that's 40, 50, 60, 70 is. It's not too late.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Exactly. So what are we doing in those last 20 years if we don't pre plan that, if we don't get in front of this, I call 35 to 45 the critical decade.

[Mel Robbins]

Why is 35 to 45 the critical decade?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Because if I say, oh, 25 was easy. By 35, most of us have figured out a little bit to what to do in our careers. Unless you're a surgeon like me and you're still training, but figured out some things about life. Sometimes by that point, people have made relationship commitments, sometimes they've made raising other little people commitments. But you are still young enough with youthful vigor, with youngish stem cells to course. Correct. So if 35 to 45 is the time to develop the habits of mobility, to develop the habits of lifting weights, to look at what you're eating, your body is not a garbage can that we just shove whatever in, right?

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I mean, you can burn anything for fuel, but should you be burning the noxious? Right. Because what happens at 45 for women and even to some extent for men as we start going through perimenopause and it's not a continuation of the game, for women it is a different game. So if we can, in the critical decade get these habits established, it will not be such a shock as those people who come to my office at 65 and say, oh my God, what do I do now?

[Mel Robbins]

Well, let's start there because I want to hear you explain what are the critical habits for that decade of 35 to 45. But I want to just tell the person that's with us right now who's either taken us on a walk or you're listening at home, or we're in the car with you because you're probably thinking, oh my God, I blew that decade. Now I'm screwed. And so we're going to get to you. And Dr. Wright has very good news because. Well, I'm just going to ask that right now. What if you're over 45 like me or your parents are over 45 and you're listening right now and you feel like, is it too late for me to course correct? Is it too late for me to build strong muscle? Why the hell do I need strong muscle in order to have a better health span? Like what about the person who's listening or who got this forwarded to me, who's over 45? Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Aren't we all over? All the cool kids are. Listen, the short answer is no. There is never an age or skill level when the strategic stress you put on your body in the form of all, all the things mobility, the strength training, the smart nutrition will not dramatically change the trajectory of your health. There is not an age.

[Mel Robbins]

I just want to make sure the person hears this. Yeah. So Dr. Wright, you're sitting here as an expert in longevity and helping us age in a way that creates a better life.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yes.

[Mel Robbins]

There is never an age where, if you're listening to Dr. Wright right now and you're 92 years old, you can still improve your health span. You can still change the way you age.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

You can still take steps to feel better every day. Even if you're sick and you don't feel great every day, you can pick up the phone and talk to somebody in your life. You know, I'm thinking to myself, maybe the only person I still know is the barista. If I'm 97, the only person I know is the barista at a coffee shop, then go say hi to that person every day. It's not rocket science, but the basic thing is people don't invest every day in their health and mobility. So, critical decade. Let's get our proverbial expletive together. I don't know if I can cuss on your show.

[Mel Robbins]

You can say whatever you want.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah, let's get our shit together, people. Can we please stop taking every day for granted? Because it's easy and you're young, and can we please take a minute to notice ourselves? Try to figure out what your body's saying to you, because I'm gonna tell you for sure. Your body speaks to you every day, whether you're listening or can we please stop abusing ourselves with quite so much alcohol? Because we can metabolize it when we're young? And so what if you've been sitting around for 30 years and you're like, is it too late for me? Am I the guy in the middle picture of that with the fat rind all over my leg? Listen, remember, your primary skill is walking. So if you're doing nothing else right now, you put on your headphones, you get up, and you take Mel and I with you, and you walk around the block. Because I am not telling you that the first day out the door, you have to do five miles to be successful. You just need to get up from your seated position and invest in yourself. You should think of this as an investment in yourself.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, what I also love about what you said from the very beginning is reminding us of the obvious. Our bodies are designed to move. Yes, like you're, as an orthopedic surgeon, been repairing people's bodies and joints and bones. But your body is designed to move. And one of the things to think about when you think about wellness and you think about your health span and you think about aging in a very different way. Is that we expect to get frail because we expect to slow down and stop moving. And if you actually flip it on its head and you say, well, actually I don't expect to stop moving. I certainly don't. I want to be hiking like the week I die, I want to be taking five mile walks every day when I'm retired, I want to be swimming in the ocean, I want to be going to yoga class, I want to be out and about. And when you realize, wait a minute, my body's actually designed in a certain way, if I just work with it, it will work with. And for me, that is absolutely the truth.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

And if you Google, you can find all kinds of examples of people that are seeming anomalies, like mistakes, that they're 92, lifting weights for the first time. Oh, somebody's mother started lifting at 70 and now she's a bodybuilder. That is our true capacity to build muscle, to take more steps, to develop relationships. That is our capacity, our capacity. And our design is not sedentary living.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, this is like a really important point because I don't think I truly thought about the possibility of it looking completely different. When you get old, I want you to really embrace what Dr. Wright is saying. Imagine a world where the 80 or 90 year old who has muscles and is going to the gym.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

Is not defying the odds. They're actually the norm. And that's what you're saying that you're like, I want you to embrace the idea that we've all bought into this lie, that getting old means you have to be frail. And what you're here to say is no, actually the research is very clear on this. Your body is designed to build muscle, to grow and to move. And if that's what you do, whether you're starting for the first time at the age of 70 or you're listening right now and you're 25 and you're like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. I need to do this so that I can live a vibrant life. Like this is just a part of what I need to be doing.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's what I am. It's my lifestyle. It's not a diet. It is not a six week exercise program. It is my lifestyle. Because I think people can get overwhelmed with all the information that's out there. What frequency do I have to get on the vibrating plate? How many pounds in my weighted vest? I mean, can I jump? Jump? Can I jump on a trampoline? Listen, people, we get so caught up in the 99% of minutiae when we are not even taking the first step. If we focused on the 1% that we know is true. These things that I keep saying and will detail for you, if we focus on that, when that is your lifestyle, then you can layer on the complicated stuff. But I really feel, Mel, that we get so caught up in the data overload that we get so paralyzed we do nothing.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes. And you're basically saying if you literally just get up out of the chair and you move the legs that you have or you wheel yourself in your wheelchair, you are doing what your body is designed to do and your body will thank you by building muscle even.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

If you're in pain. Listen.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay, talk to me about that.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Let's talk about some pain. Because I am an orthopedic surgeon and people come to me in pain. I get it. You don't wanna get hurt by trying something new. I get that a lot.

[Mel Robbins]

Walking is not something new.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

That's true. Let's be honest. Or it hurts when I walk or I don't have the time. Or listen, I've been doing this so long. I often say to people, you cannot out. Excuse me, I have heard it all. If your knees hurt when you walk on dry land, well then let's go to the local Y which has a hot pool and a budget program and let's get in that water and walk. Right. Even if we have to walk around our kitchen table until we can walk outside or we have to get up and down from a chair until we can go to a gym. You just have to make the effort. Because what happens if we don't?

[Mel Robbins]

You will end up frail and old. You will be the statistic of somebody who breaks their bone and who dies an early death. That's what's coming for you.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

You are right. And that is what I'm saying.

[Mel Robbins]

What you're sharing, and I think more importantly how you're sharing it, it's game changing. And so I'm so grateful that you're here and I'm also grateful that you're here and you're spending the time learning with me as we listen to Dr. Vonder Wright. Now I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors. And I want to give you a chance to share this episode with people that you care about. Don't go anywhere because when we come back, there are so many much more that you and I are going to learn from Dr. Vonda Wright. So stay with us.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

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[Mel Robbins]

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[Dr. Vonda Wright]

New subscribers only.

[Mel Robbins]

Varies by plan. I'm Dr. Jenna Ashton, your host for season two of the Visibility Gap, a.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Podcast presented by Cigna Healthcare.

[Mel Robbins]

Throughout this season, we'll be tackling something the Women Women's Health Gap.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

We'll hear from real people and experts.

[Mel Robbins]

As we unpack important topics like maternal health, menopause and heart disease. Listen in and download the new season wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's your buddy, Mel Robbins. Welcome back. I am so thrilled that you're here with me today. And I'm also thrilled that you and I get to learn from the extraordinary Dr. Vonda Wright. And we're learning all about mobility and how movement is medicine and how to unlock the natural intelligence, strength and design of your body so that you can be happier and healthier. Dr. Wright, here's where I want to go next. Since you're an orthopedic surgeon, I would love to have you educate us about joints and bones.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah.

[Mel Robbins]

What is a joint?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Joints are the mobile parts of our body. They're comprised of at least two bones, sometimes multiple bones, surrounded by a capsule which is like an inside skin. Muscles attach around the joint to move it, Right. So if we step back and think of the musculoskeletal system, what is that? That is muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, fat. Actually muscle stem cells. All of those tissues that we sometimes put in little boxes, they belong in their own houses, are actually cousins. They are all de from the same type of cell in the beginning. So they all speak a similar language. Bone we think of, okay, there's on either side of a joint. We think of it as just the skeleton at Halloween, right? Yeah, just these structural things they're hanging out that's all they do is structure. They're like the strong silent type. You never know where they're there until they say something profound. In bone's case, it's a fracture. The truth of the matter is bone. Bone is your body's master communicator. And think about it. If we think about how we're formed, there is bone from the top of our head to the bottom of our pinky toe. Why wouldn't we be designed that? Bone is not just structural, it is releasing proteins, hormones. Osteocalcin is one of them that communicate everywhere. So when bones release their hormones, I'll give you one example, osteocalcin, it goes to the brain and it stimulates the release of something in the brain called brain derived neurotrophic factor. Long word, an acronym, which means we build neurons after stimulation from the bone. We know that people with osteoporosis, which means bad bone, weak bone, have more dementia. There is a communication pathway going right, Right. It's like mind blowing. Bone sends out osteocalcin to muscle. It speaks back to muscle and helps it with metabolizing glucose. Bone sends out osteocalcin to our pancreas, which is where our insulin comes from. So between talking to our muscle and talking to our pancreas, that is glucose equilibrium. Right? It helps us not be diabetic. If you're a man, osteocalcin goes to your testes and helps you make testosterone. So this intercommunication of muscle and bone gives a whole new perspective on just this skeleton in the closet that just makes muscle structural.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, what's interesting about, and it's so exciting to hear how passionate you are about this because, you know, we're obviously talking about changing the way that you think about aging and understanding that getting older is inevitable. Feeling older is actually a choice, and it is a choice that you're making every day based on how you take care of your muscles, how you take care of your body. And what I love about the way that you're explaining all this is because I don't really think much about my bones.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yeah, who does?

[Mel Robbins]

I don't think about my joints unless they hurt. And so in addition to thinking about how you age is within your control and getting frail is not inevitable, you actually have an option to live your life in a very different way. But there's also immediate benefit because of the way the brains and bones respond and how it improves your life.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Now, however, I also recognize, despite the fact people you can't out excuse Me, I've heard them all. I realize that it is very difficult for people to invest in a future they can't see. And so I learned this concept from the banking industry called temporal disconnect. The bankers in this country are trying to get us to save 10 cents a day so that we have some money to retire on. And that is difficult for them. I find the same trouble trying to motivate people or have people motivate themselves to invest every day in their mobility. Because everything we've talked about, if you're 40, you can't imagine what you're going to be like when you're 80. And so why do you care?

[Mel Robbins]

True.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Because today you're doing your thing. So how about feeling amazing today? I can tell you for sure, Mel, that when I hop off a treadmill where I have done sprint intervals and not fallen off the back of the treadmill, or I have added five more pounds to my deadlift, oh my God, I am such a badass when I do that. It's not only for my body. It rejuvenates my brain and makes me have hope for the future. Because I'm gonna be that cranky 90 year old lifting my own suitcase to the top of the thing. And if my old friends can't keep up with me, then I'm gonna travel with some young whippersnappers who can keep up with me. But. But if I want to be like that, then I want to feel great today.

[Mel Robbins]

So where do you start? So like you just mentioned deadlifting. You mentioned running on a treadmill. Neither are things that I do. So does Pilates or yoga count? Does a HIIT class count? If you're somebody like me, where I work out at home, if I walk into the hotel gym, I don't know what to do. Like I'll start that little circuit of machines. I'm not quite sure how to position the machine. Where do you recommend you start? If you're thinking, she's right, I do need to move more. Walking. I got it. But I keep hearing about strength training and the importance of muscle mass. How do you make this simple in a world where it's easy to get overwhelmed?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So I have an acronym that I use to help form the ideas of exercise for midlife people. It works for everybody. Critical decade. But I call it facing your future. Here are the four components we need to work into our life.

[Mel Robbins]

Facing your future.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

F, A, C, E. Face your future. Number one, flexibility and mobility. Meaning if we do not move our joints through their full range of Motion like an old car sitting in a junkyard. We will become stiff because the natural history, meaning what happens in time with our tendons and ligaments is, is they become tighter and tighter, tighter. That is a natural. That is the way nature happens if we don't invest in making it not so. Pilates and yoga are amazing for maintaining flexibility mobility of the joints. It's also great for core, a solid core. So that's number one. Number two, aerobic. We must invest in a healthy cardiovascular engine. So how do we do that? Well, we grew up in a time where we were high intensity all the time. We know now. And my philosophy on this has changed over the years because I'm a curious, evolving person that I want to work at the two extremes, meaning most high intensity interval training. And I can name several brands of gyms that do this. Work you out in a mid range where it's not light enough that you're not going to get hurt and it's not intense enough that it's going to stimulate real change in your body. So these HIIT classes where you're working in the middle zones of your heart range are a good way to get injured. And see me in my office on Mondays. So when I prescribe aerobic exercise to people, I say walk or slow biking or low heart rate. Any apparatus works. I say walk, but hear me, any apparatus works. Or the ground. Do that. And then we're gonna sprint our guts out a couple times a week. Sprinting does not mean you're usain Bolt on a track. Sprinting is a heart rate phenomenon. So we're gonna work as hard as we can go so that we're almost so working hard we're gonna throw up.

[Mel Robbins]

That sounds horrible, but literally, that sounds absolutely horrible.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

This is what happens. You're going as fast as you can. Your fast is probably faster than my fast. I'm a short person.

[Mel Robbins]

Unless somebody's chasing me, I'm not really there.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Is that. But the concept is low heart rate most of the week. So I'm asking you to walk every day.

[Mel Robbins]

Yep.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

And then twice a week after you've done your walk, I'm asking you just to go as fast as you can, whether it's on a rower, an alpine, a treadmill. But here's the kicker. It's only 30 seconds. You can do anything for 30 seconds. So I'm going as fast. I choose to do it on a treadmill. So I'm just going to give your audience an example. For my walking, I'm at an incline of 4 to 5 and a speed of about 4. So I'm just going along. I'm listening to your podcast, I'm doing my. I'm learning. I use it as a multitask learning time. When I am done with that for 45 minutes, I take off all the apparatus because I need my brain to concentrate. And I hit 11 on the tread, the whatever. I don't even know how many miles. It's fast as my legs can go. And I go for 30 seconds and then I totally turn it off and I fully recover. 30 seconds with full recovery four times. This is what happens. It sounds daunting. It is not. It's only 30 seconds. That is gonna stimulate more connections between our brain and our muscles to contract better together. That is gonna build a big cardiac muscle. Right? So let's stop wasting our time in the middle. We can take classes because they're fun, but unless you get these two things in on the ends, in midlife, we're not stimulating ourselves enough. So that's f. Flexibility, a aerobic C. Carry a load. Notice I didn't call it weightlifting, although it is weightlifting. But you can do it in your house. You can pick up the five gallon bucket and farmers carry across the front yard. We need to lift weights. We need to lift heavy in midlife because for women in particular, around 45, we enter perimenopause, where our regular cyclic hormones go up, go down, go up, go down, become total chaos as our ovaries retire, such that by the time we're 50 and our ovaries have completely retired, we do not have the stimulus of estrogen on our muscles anymore to stimulate our muscles to grow so that we do not become the one in three women who ends up frail in a nursing home or with a broken hip, which I'm happy to give you the dire statistics on that we must build muscle mass. I am all for Pilates for balance and flexibility. I am not for anything except learning to lift heavy to build muscle. So what if you've never done it? There are great online programs. We are not without resources these days. This might be the time to invest in yourself by investing in an expert. You take your car to an expert, take yourself to an expert, and have someone teach you the proper techniques so that you don't get hurt. Walk you around the gym so that you have a friendly face taking you around. You don't need years and years of personal training or strength conditioning coaching to learn. You need a few lessons and then you can build on that. And so once you're starting to lift weights. We want to progressively load to lifting heavy. No Mamby pamby pink weights for midlife women. We can put down the little weights in the attractive pastel colors that. I know I'm being so patronizing. That would lift 30 pounds.

[Mel Robbins]

We love it because we're. Because there's actually a really important reason around muscle mass. Can you break down why building muscle mass is actually important for your health?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Well, if we think about this from a purely structural standpoint, yes. Muscle is what will help us get up and down from a chair. Right. Wanna live alone or have the opportunity to live alone? You have to get up and down from a chair. You have to be able to transport yourself to the bathroom. You have to be able to lift addition to the microwave. But if you want to enjoy your life, you need to be able to be strong enough to get out of your house. Right? So from a very practical standpoint. But muscle, like bone, are not just structures. They are metabolic organs that talk to each other in a community. So when a muscle contracts, skeletal muscle, like your biceps contract, it sends out all these communication factors. One is called irisin. It talks to the bone and helps you lay down more bone. It is critical for glucose metabolism, which is our ability to process our food. Right. It is critical for the brain. It goes to the brain, but that's not all. Muscle releases a protein when you contract it, called Clotho. Clotho was the goddess of the thread of life, Right. And it was first described in a journal called nature about 30 years ago. The simple act of contracting skeletal muscle causes our muscle to make this protein, Clotho, which is the longevity protein, and goes to all of our organs and keeps them functioning in a healthy, more youthful way. And we know from animal studies that mice that can't make Clotho die old, very young.

[Mel Robbins]

So. So do your muscles behave this way? No matter how old you are or what shape they're in, they have the.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Potential to behave this way. Let me tell you about another study we did with this protein, Clotho. So if I say to you contract your skeletal muscle, it's going to keep you younger and you're like, right, well, we did this study where we measured circulating levels of this protein, Clotho, in three groups of people. Clotho, the longevity protein. I measured it in. In active people over 70, and I measured it in sedentary people about 35. Well, not surprising. People in midlife who were active had the highest level of longevity protein. But you would think 35 trumps all. It does not. The active people over 70 produced more Clotho longevity protein than 35 year old sedentary people.

[Mel Robbins]

Wow. Wow.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So there is not an age or a skill level when the positive stress that we do with our bodies can't change our health. And this is one simple example through a protein called Clotho.

[Mel Robbins]

So Dr. Wright, you've talked about flexibility, aerobics, you've talked about carrying, which was weightlifting.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Carrying a load is weightlifting.

[Mel Robbins]

Carrying a load. What's E?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Oh, E. E is equilibrium and foot speed. I'm so glad you brought us back to that. Equilibrium means can we balance? Every year from about 20, the neuromuscular pathways that connect our brain to our muscles can degrade. And that's why you reach over for something and fall over. Right. Or trip and can't catch yourself. So in every exercise program I prescribe, we not only have flexibility and mobility, aerobic, carrying a load, but I teach people foot speed. Meaning we're in my little. We're in our, my offices in a giant performance center, and we're teaching people to, to rapidly move their feet. Because this is what I do. I come into my office, I throw my work bag next to my desk, and if I'm not thinking when I get up from my desk, I get up too soon and I will catch my foot on my bag. Well, if I didn't have the foot speed to hop over my bag, I would land flat on my face. Fallen. We break when we fall. So in my book, we can build all the muscle we want, but if we have no balance and can't stay upright, we can still break. And so I teach people that. And you know something simple to regain balance that I ask people to do is brush their teeth on one foot, like in tree pose, because that's one foot. It's usually on a carpet or a bathroom. You're moving your body. So if you alternate legs every day, you will regain the core strength, the muscle strength to stay upright with a little bit of imbalance.

[Mel Robbins]

So Dr. Wright, you just mentioned that you, you have this exercise routine that you prescribe. Yeah, what is it?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So on a weekly basis, we need to be spending at least three hours a week walking, broken up into 45 minute sessions. So put on your favorite podcast, Go learn all week. Right?

[Mel Robbins]

So that's four. Go for a walk four times.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

At least four times a week. Okay. Right. At a brisk pace, not so fast that you're out of breath, but not so slow that you can solve world peace in your conversation. A minimum of twice a week. Minimum of twice A week. We must learn to lift heavy. And listen, how heavy? I know I don't expect you to power lift right out the door, but what I do expect you to do is learn to lift your own body weight. Every woman should be able to do 11 push ups, regular push ups on the knees.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay, no. Oh my God.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

But listen, you can build up to that. I used to teach classes at Pittsburgh called start and I did it for nine years. My starters started out with 51% body fat. They could not hold a plank and literally couldn't walk around the track over a three month period. We met with them twice a week. We did variety of weight bearing exercises. They not only completed a 3.2 mile walk run, they could hold a plank for two minutes.

[Mel Robbins]

Wow.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I know.

[Mel Robbins]

So 11 pushups.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

11 pushups.

[Mel Robbins]

I got to start on our knees, but we gotta be able to get to 11 pushups to be able to get up.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Upper body strength is critical for women.

[Mel Robbins]

Got it. So we've got walking four times a week at a brisk pace. We have 11 push ups. You gotta be able to lift your body weight.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

We have to start by learning to lift our body weight and progress until we can lift heavy. And what lift heavy is defined as? That is the weight in an upper body. Push, pull. So something like a bench press, something like a pull up, lower body push, pull, Something like a squat, something like a deadlift. Heavy means what you can lift four to six times. To keep it simple for my people, I'm like four times, which we want to lift to fatigue. Listen, you don't get there overnight. If we're starting at just body weight, it may take you six months, maybe nine to learn the technique and to work up, but it is so worth it. And listen, I have plenty of examples of women starting in their 60s, no age limit on this. So heavy is an individual thing and it just is something we work towards. So walking, lifting, at least twice a week. Twice a week. When you're comfortable with walking, I want you to get your heart rate up really high.

[Mel Robbins]

And you had a very simple way of doing that.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

30 seconds, complete recovery. It takes me, my example is I can get my heart rate up to about 186 and then I two or three minutes, I completely recover. It's down to 130, 144 times. You do that four times and then that's it. And then I work on balance every day when I brush my teeth and foot speed. You can jump around, you can skip rope, but that's something else. Bones Require impact.

[Mel Robbins]

You know, I've heard a lot of people say that running's bad for your joints, that weightlifting's bad for your joint. As an orthopedic surgeon, what's your opinion about this? Like, it's bad for your joints. What does that mean?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Well, that comes from the knowledge that on the end of every bone. Like, for instance, I don't know if we can see this. On the end of this bone?

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah, your whole. Why do you explain what the hell you're holding?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I brought you my.

[Mel Robbins]

It's like a dinosaur bone.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It kind of is, except it's a femur. It's the longest bone in your body. It goes from your hip to your knee. Right. And so when people break their hip, this is what we're breaking. So if your aunt Mary fell down and broke her hip, this is the bone that she's breaking.

[Mel Robbins]

Okay.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

But if we're talking about this question you ask about why people think that running and exercising and lifting is bad for your joints. It comes from the knowledge that, you know, when I had a stem cell lab and we wanted to damage cartilage, which is the smoother than ice glistening end of a bone, all we really had to do is drop a marble on it as it's very pressure sensitive. That being said, our joints themselves require mobility to be healthy, because the way we feed our joints is through the pressure of the fluid in the joints. It's like.

[Mel Robbins]

So it's almost like a rubber. If you've ever seen an old rubber band that gets brittle, that's like a.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Tendon that gets brittle. Right.

[Mel Robbins]

So like stretching the rubber band actually keeps it healthy.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It does. Moving muscle, moving joints, lubricating cartilage with mobility keeps everything healthy.

[Mel Robbins]

One thing that I want to just reflect on, because I think it's a very empowering thing to consider that we have gotten to a point in evolution or in history where so many of us are not taking care of ourselves because we're optimizing for working more or being at school more or being online more, that we're not spending time doing the things that our bodies are designed to do. And when I listen to you talk about the medicine of mobility or that movement is medicine, and then I hear you as an orthopedic surgeon and a renowned expert in longevity and in aging in a way that is vital and joyful and powerful and strong, and that that's an option for all of us, what I also am hearing is that so many of us buy into the lie that getting frail and slowing down is inevitable. And then you'll take a pill, and then the pill is meant to address symptoms that you feel. And what I think is very exciting is putting the power back in our hands. And as you're listening to Dr. Wright, she's basically saying your body is actually designed in this extraordinary, glorious way to work for you, to make you feel better, to build muscle, to help you live a full and amazing life. And if you really just consider all the science that you're sharing and the common sense that we'd be built like a mushroom if we were meant to sit, and that your biggest muscles are from the belly button down and you've got legs to move them, or if you're in a wheelchair and you can't move, like, you've got arms to roll yourself.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Absolutely.

[Mel Robbins]

That when you work with the intelligent design, the intelligent design works with you.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Oh, my gosh, I couldn't have said it better.

[Mel Robbins]

And so, to me, that's a very inspiring thing to be told. You're not broken. You're just not using your body the way it was designed. And if everything aches and you feel like, okay, I've got all this pain, that this is something you can overcome. So if the person listening is thinking, okay, I get this, like, this is exciting. And I do have a lot of joint pain. I do have arthritis. What do I do? Where do I start?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Let's talk about arthritis. And I'm gonna give you an example from yesterday of a girlfriend of mine in Lake Nona who was a professional tennis player. But it could be anybody. It doesn't have to be a professional.

[Mel Robbins]

But.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

But through the pounding that she did over her life, she did wear out her cartilage. And so I see this vibrant woman at the peak of her career in exactly what you're saying. She has knee pain and arthritis, and she's not even as old as us. So I could have taken a purely medical route with her. I could have said, okay, I'm going to shoot you up with steroids every few weeks, which I don't do. But, I mean, just, I choose not to treat my patients with that remedy. Only I could have said, okay, when you're ready for a total joint, let me know. But knowing that the body will respond with strength to the positive stimuli, we cut out all the inflammatory foods in her life. Because pain is an inflammatory process. And if we want to be in less pain, then we have to quit junkifying our diet, primary of which is the added sugar that the American food system has to the tune of £16, if I remember correctly, of added sugar a month that we don't even know.

[Mel Robbins]

Can I ask a question about that, though? Because I know I'm going to get a lot of questions because I. What does that mean? Does that mean you don't put sugar in your coffee?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I don't, but.

[Mel Robbins]

No, no, no. But what does it mean when you say I cut out sugar because I'm like, what the hell does that even mean?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Does it mean I'm not anti carb? I'm not saying everybody only has to eat protein. I'm saying when you eat carbs, your body responds in a least inflammatory way by eating fiber and complex carbs. So this morning here in this studio, I had eggs, which is protein, and some of the most gorgeous complex carb multigrain, sprouted this and that bread that just came from your local place, which is so much slower digesting full of fiber than a piece of white bread or an English muffin that's gonna spike my sugar and it's gonna make me inflamed all day long.

[Mel Robbins]

Got it. So as a doctor, when you hear somebody talking about joint pain, arthritis, chronic pain, you go, inflammation. Obviously there are those conditions that are bone related from pounding the bones over years and that kind of stuff at any age. But simply changing the way that you.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Eat can go a big change. So. And when I say, just to clarify that question, added sugar, turn over any label on a packaged food. It's gonna say 6 grams of added sugar. 10, 15 grams. What? Why? So anyway, so number one, let's anti inflame our diet. And that's what I told her to do. We really focused on feeding the muscle. I was gonna ask her to build with protein and fiber, right? So that was number one. Number two, people are always interested when they come into me with arthritis. Sometimes we are in pain in our joints because our joints are pounding together because we don't have enough muscle surrounding our joints to act as shock absorbers. So every step is a pounding motion. Instead of engaging our butt, core and hips, our muscles on the front and back of our legs to shock absorb every step. So the second thing I did for her was to get her back to lifting.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, that's counterintuitive because if you have joint pain, the last thing you think you should do is actually go to the gym or build muscle. But it makes a lot of sense because so many women in particular are so focused on being thin that oftentimes that means you're trying to be thin or slender at the Expense of building muscle and that then makes you weaker.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So do you know I think women wanna be slim so they look good in their clothes, right?

[Mel Robbins]

Yes, I do.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I know, I know, me too. But I don't wanna be slim, I wanna be lean. And do you know what nature Spanx is? No muscle. So if you have your same size 4, size 6, whatever your people are.

[Mel Robbins]

We 10, 12, whatever, right?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I don't care what the number is. And we're thin, we could be 40% fat and thin and you still got this bulgy stuff coming out the side of your bra. But if you are lean, you are spanxed up without having to put on all that elastic. So anyway, that's just my funny way of saying muscle is, muscle is more than you know. It can be cosmetic. Sure. So for this woman we're talking about her arthritis, we anti inflamed her diet, we fed her muscle with protein, we got her lifting again so her joints aren't pounding. I put her in a pool. We're in Florida, but everywhere in the country there's indoor, not that expensive pools. And she does her mobility in a pool several days a week. She's just there moving all her joints. She was describing to me, she's lunging, she's high kneeing, but doing that, that getting the mobility in every joint in her body is without pounding. And you know, she was in the hall yesterday showing me how she's like Vaughn, I haven't been able to lift my knee up to my chest in years. And there she was balancing on one. So listen, that is the whole person approach to arthritis. Not just I'm gonna stick some cortisone in you and hope for the best.

[Mel Robbins]

When we do, does cortisone work? Oh, you know, cause like tons of people just go get their cortisone shot. And I'm not saying that in a judgy way, I'm just saying.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

No, I, it's, it's a pretty standard thing and it works for a couple weeks, but it solves no problem. It is not good at the root cause. It, it decreases inflammation in the moment, but it doesn't make you strong, it doesn't anti inflame you. Research shows cortisone lasts about three weeks. That is not enough because you can't give it every three weeks. I, I mean I, I don't not medicalize arthritis and joint pain. I give people their own biology back. I use something miraculous called platelet rich plasma asthma which takes blood out of your own arm. It's Your blood, it's you. We spin off 10 billion of the platelets. Blood separates in a centrifuge, spinning by weight, and I pull off the platelet portion. We have great research and multiple studies that show you can profoundly decrease inflammation by giving you back your own platelets. Because they're not just little sacs that make you stop bleeding, but they, they are sacks of your own growth factors. And so when I want to treat someone in a natural whole way, I give them back what their body is already making to heal themselves.

[Mel Robbins]

I would imagine those platelets are better if you're following some of the advice you've been telling us all day.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Mel Robbins]

Could you speak directly to the person who's been listening to you, Dr. Wright, and thinking, I haven't taken care of myself like my entire life. I mean, is it too late for me? I would love for you to just talk directly to them.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

You know what I think? Sometimes when enough time has passed, you can end up feeling pretty hopeless. I mean, maybe you don't even know how the extra 50 pounds creeped up. Because no one sets out as a goal in life to be immobile and to feel terrible and to be in pain all the time or have to have three clients closets of different size. That is nobody's goal. But I completely understand how time and circumstances can creep up on you, especially. Listen, I'm a midlife woman. I went through menopause. I gained the 30 pounds that I then had to get control of and reverse and do all the hard things it took to get back to feeling like myself again. Listen, nothing is free. But if you believe anything I've said today, is that just believe me, on blind faith that your body will respond just right. Now, get up, put on your headphones and go for a walk, even if it's around your kitchen table. If you're feeling like that, like, it's just too late for me. I'm whatever age old. It's just too late. Take the first step and do that today and tomorrow. And if you're worried about the work you have to do at home, listen, there is no such thing as dishes. Police. If you get done with your dinner and you push back and you're like, I'm gonna go invest in myself. I promise, nobody's gonna come to your house and arrest you for leaving the dishes on the table. You are more important than the menial tasks that you prioritize over your own health. So if you're just starting out and you're like, yeah, I wanna do something. Just start by going back to your basic skill and taking a walk for seven days. I don't care how long it is, once you've done something for seven days, it's a streak. And you don't want to break your streak. You've done it for seven days, right? What if you're traveling well, you know, you're going to sit there for two hours, walk around these giant terminals in the airport, just push that suitcase that counts.

[Mel Robbins]

Well, you've done an incredible job, Dr. Wright, like really connecting the dots. From this being a directive to lose weight or to look better to a just treasure that's inside your body that is waiting for you to activate it. And I think particularly for so many people that listen to this show and are at stages in their life where they're either consumed by school or they're consumed by caregiving or they are going through a major change in their life or their career or, or what's happening in their family that it is so easy to find yourself in these phases of your life that can last years where you just let yourself go. And simply being reminded that your body is designed, no matter how young or old you are, no matter how out of shape or far gone you are or how much pain you may be in, your body is actually designed to move. It is designed to respond to everything that you're prescribing to your patients and explaining to us, and that it's something that even just adding a walk in every day right now will make a big difference. So if the person listening takes just One action today, Dr. Wright, based on absolutely everything that you have taught us, what is the most important thing to do?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

So you know what, Mel? If there are 300 million people in this country and we know that 51% of them are women, if we share this with 31 million women and they share this with five of their best friends, we will save the lives of 50% of people in this whole country and everybody they love.

[Mel Robbins]

I absolutely agree with you. And so as you're listening to this, I want you to take the time and think of five women in your life. I don't care how old they are. I don't care how young they are. Share Dr. Wright's information with them. Share this conversation with them. It is something that you can do that could absolutely change the trajectory of their life. What are your parting words?

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I think we've had a lot of instructions today and a lot of things people can take little steps at. But here's what's not going to happen if what I'm going to say next doesn't occur. You can read anything you want, you can listen to me talk all day and give you instructions. But until you believe that you are worth the daily investment in your health, then nothing else matters. You will not take care of yourself until you believe that you are worth it. And so if I could change one thing from people like you who are experts at helping people believe in themselves. I want people to believe in love of themselves because. Because self care is really loving yourself to take care of yourself. So if nothing else, please know that you are worth the daily investment in your health.

[Mel Robbins]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Wright. I love how you framed all this. I love how many people are gonna share this. I appreciate the heart and what I deeply appreciate about you and the work that you're doing and, and what you did today for me and the person listening is that you actually gave us a achievable roadmap to follow so that aging is inevitable, but being frail and broken and weak and putting yourself last isn't correct. And so thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Oh, it's my pleasure.

[Mel Robbins]

Oh my gosh. And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that will. Will change your life for the better. Thank you for taking the time to share this with everybody in your life that you're worried about or that you would wish that they would take better care of themselves. I think this is life changing information. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you. I believe in you. I believe in your ability to take Dr. Wright's advice and get moving. I believe in your ability to follow the things that she suggested today, even if it's just take me on a walk. Start listening to this podcast on a walk, get moving again. And I think you will be startled by how your body is actually designed, that muscle and movement are medicine. It is designed to feel better. And when you feel better, you're going to do better. Alrighty. I will see you in a few days. I'll be waiting to welcome you in to the very next episode the second you hit play. I'll see you there. Yeah, we're great. Awesome. Thanks, boss.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

What a nice crew you have.

[Mel Robbins]

Thank you.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Oh, so. So everybody knows their thing.

[Mel Robbins]

It's just really cool to not only be able to do creative work and to be able to do something where you're learning new things, but that you also know that it's making a difference.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I think it's work worth doing, right?

[Mel Robbins]

Yes.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's worth getting up for.

[Mel Robbins]

Yes. I, I, I, I really cannot. I pinch myself every day.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

What a good job you have.

[Mel Robbins]

I know, right? Look at us.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I know, I know. It's so fun.

[Mel Robbins]

All right. Well, are we. Are you ready, Kev? Fabulous. Trace, you ready? Awesome. Oh, my gosh. I am so excited. Okay, so I'm gonna welcome you in. Okay. You ready? I love that. I can feel the fire.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

It's a very hopeful message.

[Mel Robbins]

Boom. We got it.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Yay.

[Mel Robbins]

This is going to.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

I appreciate this so much.

[Mel Robbins]

Load. Fantastic.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

Good. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Mel Robbins]

Yeah. We're like truffle pigs here, just rooting around till we find it, right? All right, everybody. Dr. Roy. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.

[Dr. Vonda Wright]

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[Mel Robbins]

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