ATHE_Transcript_Ep 606_My Husband Lost 20 Lbs & Got Ripped in 6 Months Doing This…
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout, sorry mom, turned four time New York Times best selling author. Yes, I'm a certified nutrition specialist, fitness hall of famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe, but I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information I uncover with as many people as I can, and that's why I created the Well Beyond 40 To synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive.
In each episode, we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to healthy aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100.[00:01:00]
My husband Lost 20 pounds of fat and gained 19 pounds of muscle and get this in just six months. And I'm going to share exactly what he did. And you're going to want to share this with your husband or your partner or your best guy friend too. Now, here's the deal. He's always been healthy, right? Yeah. You know, when I met him, he had some family heart disease risk factors.
His dad had open heart surgery in his forties, died in his fifties. But when I met him, we had a couple issues. He was only sleeping five to six hours a night. He might've had a little bit of a sugar problem, maybe just a little. And he was doing a lot of cardio, wasn't really doing that much weight. And when he was doing weight training, it was what I would refer to as more wimpy weight training.
You weren't getting in quite as much protein. I was not. No, not at all. More of a carb guy. He looked good. He looked healthy. He looked fit. You know, maybe we'll show pictures a little soft around the middle, but I mean, you wouldn't have been like, Oh, whoa, you know, you looked great. [00:02:00] And that is why it is so important to use DEXAs and bio impedance.
Now here's the thing is bio impedance scale at home said he was 18%. And I have a good one. It's a Tanita Segmental, but it's not the gold standard. The gold standard is DEXA and this is his DEXA report. And in his DEXA report, we both went and did this. And his DEXA, what was the first thing that it said?
25%. And what did you think when you saw that? This is wrong. I know we did. We're like, this has got to be wrong. It's gotta be wrong. Mine was how much? I forget. I blocked wrong. All right. 14, right? All right. Mine was 13. 9%, but who's counting? Who's rounding up? His was 25%. And once we got over the fact that, no, the machine's not wrong, he got inspired, right?
And finally was willing to do the things I'd been just letting him know you should do. And so one of the first things that you did was started to do macro tracking. Yes. Was to use an app, which you wouldn't do before. I wouldn't do before. [00:03:00] No, you wouldn't. So what happened when you did that? I started realizing what I was eating was not good for me.
Like I was blowing out my numbers. Like what were you doing? I was eating a lot of nuts, like almonds and cashews, siete chips. I love that little afternoon, late afternoon, four o'clock, 4. 30. And then in the evening it was zero sugar, coconut ice cream, which I'm like, this is like free food. Yeah. And this is important because too much healthy food is unhealthy.
So. It was the first thing of just kind of doing that macro audit where you're like, Oh, let's check this out. Where are things happening? But along with that, the next thing that you made sure you did on the app was you increased your protein. Now we have you do 0. 7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight.
His target body weight, we're still kind of figuring out, but it's somewhere in the 170. So now he's going to eat 180 grams of protein a day. How much do you think you were eating prior to this? Oh, probably maybe most 100, 120. Okay. And what about in the morning? How much were you getting in? Hardly any.
Okay. It was a [00:04:00] carb boost. It was, there was a lot of granolas You've got to have that bolus of protein so that you get the leucine 2. 5 grams or more. This is Dr. Donald Lehman's work so that you can trigger mTOR to trigger muscle protein synthesis, otherwise you're just in that muscle protein breakdown.
You're still in turnover and you got to shut that off. So that was a big deal. Yes. And you've been eating four meals. Been eating four meals. Yeah. Because think about it. He needs to get in a lot of protein. So that's a lot to get in, in three meals. The other thing that we did was we did a gut test, and this was very funny, because We did a GI map stool test and a food sensitivity test.
And we happened to get the results back when we were on a cruise. Yes, we did, which I was not too happy about, but realized that I needed to stop after the cruise. Yeah. So what happened was he decided what happens on the cruise stays on the cruise. I'm like, all right, you know what? I'm not going to fight this battle.
[00:05:00] However, what we discovered was that he had leaky gut. And he was still sneaking in a little bit of dairy and gluten. It was really more gluten. And so that showed up on the test. And after the cruise, he pulled out dairy, gluten, and eggs. He doesn't eat soy or corn or peanuts. And he's really gotten low sugar impact as long as I'm around.
I was like, do not cheat on me. And so there was that. The other thing that we did was start to shift up exercise. So let's talk about that because we need to get rid of some of that VAT fat. So what'd you do with the exercise? I started playing volleyball again, cause I grew up, you know, my entire life playing beach volleyball and I just stopped it and wasn't getting enough cardio in, so that was a great way for me to really work the cardio side, as well as increase my weight training and the frequency and here's what's cool about the volleyball is.
He was not doing much in the way of cardio at all. Like he kind of went from doing loads of cardio to only doing weight training, but doing moderate weight training. So he started doing high intensity interval training on the beach, in the sand. He was doing one on one [00:06:00] lessons. And then we also started going to HIIT classes.
Where we were the old cute couple in the class getting our butts kicked. The other thing was that you'd been kind of phoning it in at the gym with the weight training. Absolutely. Yeah. And so what did you do? You know, I really got serious. I mean, I was checking in with you as well, but I was there lifting.
You know, more free weights versus the machines and really trying new things every time I was in the gym and really mixing things up, which, you know, you were making mention, that's really important. And he did. He checked in with me cause I used to go in and kind of give him some advice and he was like, stop it.
So now he's like, Hey, can you help me? I'm like, okay. We also have some supplements. You take creatine. You've been religious about, you're always been good with supplements. Yes. So creatine, GG, and timelines might appear, they're urolithin A, but there's another thing that you added because you're working with Dr.
Tracy Hepburn. And so he added in some testosterone, maybe talk a little on that. I always see the low T commercials, like, that's not me until I get my testosterone levels checked. I'm like, that's me. [00:07:00] So he got me on a really nice dose that really just supercharged. More energy, more focus, the body weight started to fall off.
Like, I really felt like. You know, I was back. And that's one of the reasons why I was able to go out and train so hard in the heat here in Florida for volleyball, because I had that energy. And this is important where estrogen is important for women for building muscle and having great mood, testosterone's for men.
So if it's low, and that does not mean that it looks normal on the lab test, normal on the lab test is low. So that was one big thing. Now we'd already fixed the sleep situation and we'd started with Dr. Joe Dispenza a couple of years earlier. So we'd been doing the meditation. So all that stuff was happening.
And the other interesting thing on this DEXA is it does something called an android gynoid ratio. Now, obviously, women will have more gynoid fat, that's hips and thighs. But what was crazy is this actually showed that he had a low T because he had high gynoid fat, which shouldn't be if you are a male with good testosterone levels.
[00:08:00] So it was another indicator when he started, which he's lost significantly. But we went in November of 2022, and that was when he was. 25. 4 percent body fat. Then we went back the next year in April and he had gone down to 18. 9 percent body fat. And then we went back again in June, two months later, and he was down to 14.
3 percent body fat, and I guess, I'm guessing now you're more like 12%, here's the deal. Some of this, of course, is testosterone. So I want to be really clear. Testosterone is going to play a role, but it's not all testosterone. Like normally you'd gain maybe a pound of muscle a month, and this is him putting on 19 pounds of muscle.
So you've got probably 10 pounds of that is testosterone driven, hormone driven. But like what a dramatic shift and his waist, his waist had been measuring at 35 and guys. If you're measuring your waist, if you're going to say to me, [00:09:00] Oh, you know, my waist is 32 because that's what my pants are. That is BS.
It's about usually two inches bigger than that because you're bringing that down underneath your belly button and pulling it tight. So add two inches. His waist was 35 at the time. Now it's down to 32. What have you noticed about. Just your strengths. 20 to 30 percent like more efficient in the gym. So, and it's amazing that, you know, I would go back a week later if I'm serious on that and I'd put more plates on that I didn't think I could put on and lift in those.
Okay. So what, what would you say to other guys at this point who are like looking at that going, huh, cause they're not going to listen to me. I would say number one, go get your testosterone checked. That is most importantly. Secondly, increase that protein, you know, 0. 7 to 1 gram per ideal body weight. Do you have the protein calculator?
We'll link it below. Yep. Start tracking macros. I think that was the big differentiator. I was fighting that until I finally got into it and realized what I was eating was the wrong things. Yeah, your [00:10:00] wife is always right. She is always right. Almost always right. But that really became like the catalyst for me to really start to check in.
And now it's like so easy for me and I'm tracking the protein. I'm tracking the fats and the carbs and It's now a lifestyle. And you know, can't eat like you did in your 30s and 40s. All right. Like there's the deal. Now, all you gals watching, I know you want the same results for yourself, but of course, the approach has got to be a little different, right?
So this next video is for you. It's all about my best tips for losing that menopausal belly fat so that you can both age powerfully. And feel great till you're a hundred, right? I want you to be built to last. So check out the next video. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques.
You can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great. And more importantly, that you're built to last and check me out on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And my website, jjvirgin. com [00:11:00] and make sure to follow my podcast. So you don't miss a single episode at subscribetojj. com. See you next time.
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