00:04
Speaker 2
Hey, I’m JJ Virgin, PhD dropout. Sorry mom. Turned four time New York Times best selling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, Fitness hall of Famer and globally recognized leader in health, I’m driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health into actionable strategies that help you thrive. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here’s the fun part. When you send me your review, I’ll reply to you using my on demand virtual me. That’s right, my team and I created a virtual JJ packed with my books, speeches and wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here’s how you do it. Subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast. Take a screenshot of your review, text it to 813-565-2627. That’s 813-565-2627.

01:03
Speaker 2
My virtual JJ will reply directly and trust me, this will make your day. So subscribe now@subscribetoj.com and text me your review. Let’s keep thriving together.

01:20
Speaker 1
I feel so fortunate that I was early on. I helped this one doctor create a hormone certification program in 2005. And so the minute I had a symptom of perimenopause, I was on hormones because I agreed the biggest challenge, I think, for women 45 plus has been that Women’s Health Initiative. But there’s another thing out there, another challenge. And there is one thing that I would argue has been more damaging, if you can believe it, than the Women’s Health Initiative. Cheetos. Oh, gop. Well, we. I will see. We’re going to talk about that. However, it’s not GOP’s. This has damaged women’s metabolic health. It’s damaged women’s metabolism. It’s damaged women’s mental health. Anyone have an idea what it could be? 1980S Aerobics? Sugar. Yesterday I was taping a podcast in Miami and they literally had me with a baseball bat take out a scale.

02:22
Speaker 1
Back when I saw clients in the 80s, before we had bioimpedance scales, I literally used to take skinfold calipers and a tape measure because I knew what happened when we focused on weight loss. We devastate your metabolism. The biggest challenge with that scale is it’s rewarding. The wrong success metric. Right? The worst thing you could possibly do is lose a lot of weight if you’re not focusing on what that weight’s made up of. Would we all agree? Thank God we have way easier things now to do. Called biompedance scales. But here’s what’s crazy about that. When I was on Dr. Phil, and I was on for two years, and the funny thing is, the reason I got on this is I was helping a doctor and he said, could you come help me? Over on the Dr. Phil Show?

03:06
Speaker 1
We’re doing this thing at this house with these people who need to lose weight. I’m like, sure, I brought my $5,000. It was like, early on, segmental bioimpedance scale. And since I had the scale, they kept asking me to come back. And I end up on this show for two years as their nutritionist. And so I was testing bioimpedance the whole way through. They would not let me talk about it because it wasn’t interesting. Changing body composition is like watching grass grow. Losing weight, if you do it incorrectly, Lots of muscle. It’s exciting. Think about the Biggest Loser. And you all know what happened with the Biggest Loser and what happened with that metabolic adaptation, right? You all know that one where their resting metabolic rate is now 500 calories lower than it should be. 500 Calories.

03:50
Speaker 1
How will you ever make it out of that metabolic hole? So here I am doing this with Dr. Phil. One of the things that happened, and this actually was the challenger who won. I’m monitoring his cortisol, I’m monitoring his insulin, and he is in the lead. But I’m also monitoring his body composition. And I come to him and I go, your cortisol’s going up. You’ve absolutely plateaued. You’re going to need to get rid of all this cardio craziness you’re doing. Take it down. Let’s walk, do weights and stabilize your calories. Stop the caloric restriction. He’s like, I want to win this contest. You know, he’s thinking, this is really risky. Right? But it worked. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about is why that worked, why, what muscle does for you.

04:31
Speaker 1
And the other side of that, we had a little contest at Christmas on Dr. Phil where went, what can we do in December? It’s such a terrible month for weight loss. So what we did with those challengers in December was we pitted them against each other. We had two groups, and the group who lost the most weight, notice I said weight in that month, was going to win a trip to Canyon Ranch. And so the morning of the weigh in, I am looking at the scale. So I’m using a bioimpedance scale. We all know how that works. Yeah, it’s going to send an impedance wave up your body and check in the impedance. The fat resists it. So it’s going to give you total body water from total body water. It is going to predict your fat mass and your fat free mass.

05:16
Speaker 1
So people are stepping on the scale and their weight’s down and so is their total body water. What does that mean? They dehydrated themselves. Right? More water, more muscle. We store carbohydrates and water in your muscles. More water, more muscle. Good. Less water. With weight loss bad, their weight’s going down, their water’s down. The group that won one by one half pound overall, they were the most dehydrated because that group the day before didn’t eat anything, didn’t drink anything, walked all day. I remember going into the hotel gym and they were all on the treadmills, just walking. That night, they all went into their hotel rooms, they took towels, they put them underneath their bathroom doors, they cranked up their showers as high as they could go and they dehydrated themselves. I mean, it was really smart.

06:07
Speaker 1
No one said they couldn’t do it, but it was such an example of damaging yourself, Right, in this effort to improve this number on the scale, rather than focusing on improving what that weight is made up of, which is everything. Now, one of the great things about GLP1s is that dosed incorrectly, what do they do? They cause the same thing. They cause you to lose muscle. We’ve known this forever. I would argue it’s not the GLP1s. I would argue it’s the poorly designed diet, not enough protein and no resistance training. All that’s happened is now we see it, which is fantastic, because for 40 years I’ve been talking about this and everyone’s like, oh, I’m afraid of muscle. What do you think they say? What does a woman say when you say, you know, you want to put on some muscle?

06:54
Speaker 1
What do they say? I don’t want to get big. 40 Years of helping people lift weights, the only people I’ve seen get big are the ones that aren’t. So the challenge is when you’re losing weight, rather than improving what that weight’s made up of, it costs. It’s going to cost your metabolic health, it’s going to cost your metabolism, it’s going to cost your mental health. In fact, when you look at all of the things that happen as women start to go into perimenopause and menopause, muscle can help counteract so much of that. But here’s the challenge. And that woman I told you about when I was doing that certified practitioner program way back when, her big message back then was, you don’t lose weight to get healthy. You have to get healthy to lose weight.

07:34
Speaker 1
And here I was, a weight loss coach on that. That is such a terrible, not popular statement. No one’s going to want to hear it. But it is so true, isn’t it? And quite often, if you’ve got someone who’s dug themselves into a metabolic hole because they’ve lost weight, muscle and fat, and then what do they gain back? Mainly fat. And then they lose weight again. Muscle and fat, and then what do they gain back? And so what is happening to their body composition? Their body fat’s going up, their muscle mass is going down, they’re in a metabolic hole where they get to that point that the Biggest Loser study showed where they had that metabolic adaptation. When you have that, you don’t go in there, go, you know, we’re going to do some caloric restriction and move more.

08:13
Speaker 1
Those were the clients I seemed to always get back when I was in graduate school. And I was so fortunate back then that I was paying my way through graduate school by working in the real world because everything they were teaching me in graduate school didn’t work in the real world. They told me, never have someone lift weights until they lose the weight. Doesn’t work. Lots of cardio, eat less. Lots of cardio makes you what? Hungry? It makes you hungry and it raises your cortisol. If it’s chronic, not acute. There’s some really weird things going on right now about cortisol and exercise, which we’ll talk about. So this is a really important concept for people to get. And the reality is we’ve got to take a muscle first approach because muscle changes everything. And the way I approach this.

08:59
Speaker 1
So women will get this and get over this fear because it’s still happening. If you think it’s not anymore, literally. Last November I was teaching a class with Vonda Wright at Eudaimonia and a woman comes up to me and says, I’m afraid to do this one class because I’m afraid I’ll get big. As if there is drive by muscle jumping onto you. I’m like, do you know how hard I work just to get this muscle? Like this is not easy. But here’s the reality, and this is how I say these things so that people will get them. And I’m a simplifier. By nature, muscle is metabolic Spanx. A woman will get this. So if the woman says, I’m afraid I’ll get bulky. Say muscle is metabolic spanx. It holds everything in tighter and boosts your metabolism.

09:47
Speaker 1
What do we know about your resting metabolic rate? The only way we can affect it. We can’t change our age, our genes, our height, our sex, but we can add muscle. That’s really the only way you’re going to impact that resting metabolic rate. And the reality is, in terms of weight loss, exercise is not the driver for weight loss, but adding muscle is the driver for metabolism. It’s your metabolic control center. So first thing is muscle is your metabolic spanx. Next thing is, they’ll understand this. They don’t know what a glucose sink is. If I hear one more doctor telling someone it’s a glucose sink, I go, what? Tell them it’s a sugar sponge. Muscle is a sugar sponge. Those carbohydrates you eat that you’re afraid of, as if they’re going to like jump into your stomach?

10:30
Speaker 1
No, those carbohydrates will go in your muscle. So. So they’re ready for the next workout. So muscle is a sugar sponge. But the most exciting thing that muscle is of all is it’s a multitasking messenger. And we didn’t even know this when I was in graduate school, that it could send these messages not just in the muscle, but around the muscle and all over the body. So when you think about the things that are happening during menopause, you’re getting more inflamed, contract muscle, powerful anti inflammatory, you’re getting cognitive decline. Your quad strength is directly related to your brain strength. If you do a little high intensity exercise, your cognition is better for the next four hours. Huge hack there. And as we age, we’re starting to worry about bone density, lose muscle, all these things muscle’s gonna counteract if you’re using it right.

11:20
Speaker 1
So we’ve talked a lot in the world about, oh, it’s now health span, not lifespan. Here’s the thing with muscle, we know that people who have the lowest grip strength have the highest all cause mortality. The people with the lowest VO2 max, which you can improve with resistance training, highest all cause mortality. We knew with people that one of the things you can do to increase your health span and have better quality of life, put on more muscle. But no one’s really talking about strength span. And I think this is really where we need to focus. Because if you improve your strength span, if you improve your muscle mass, everything else gets better. You’ll never have someone say, you know, What? I got stronger at the gym and my whole life fell apart. And here’s what we’re up against.

12:00
Speaker 1
And the big question I would ask you to think about, as I’m saying this, is, are these statistics happening because we’re aging, or are we aging because this is happening? How much of this could we offset? And I’ll just take you to a little story that happened couple years ago, because when I turned 50, it was, like, totally exciting. I was all fired up about 50. It was like, such a cool thing. And anyone who’s turned 50, you know, there’s that little switch that flips where all of a sudden you really don’t care if someone doesn’t like you anymore, right? You’re like, oh, don’t like my shirt? Don’t care. I don’t like yours. But then there’s 60, which at 54, eh, 55. 56. Oh.

12:45
Speaker 1
And all of a sudden, I noticed that I’m starting to kind of buy into some of this stuff, the aging memes, the things. I thought, oh, this is ridiculous. And then I was doing a podcast interview with Mark Hyman. He goes, you know, this study came out that said if you are excited about aging, you will live seven and a half times years longer. Wouldn’t it be great if it was times years longer than those who aren’t? I go, all right, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to get all fired up about turning 60. In fact, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll be in the best shape of my life at 60. Now, I knew what the best shape of my life was in my 20s, so I knew where I wanted to be.

13:19
Speaker 1
So I go into a DEXA scan, and my dexa scan at 59 was exactly the same as 39. So the first thing I’d ask you, same bone density, same body composition is okay. But wait a minute, what about those stats right? Now, I also knew what my body composition was in my 20s. Actually, in my early 20s, I was a vegan. And it was the only time I had problems with body composition and muscle loss. But once I stopped that, then I repaired it. So I was basing it on what my optimal was, and I literally got back to that. So I say that not to impress you. I say that to say, I really wonder about these stats. Don’t buy into them, as this is the way it needs to be. It does not have to be buy into. This is this.

14:02
Speaker 1
I’m going to do the opposite. And I’m going to help my patients do the opposite of this because starting at around age 30, left unchecked, we can lose up to 1% percent of our muscle a year. It’s 3 to 8%. Now here’s the thing. That’s actually not the bad part. The bad part’s not the muscle size. The scary part is the strength and the power. We lose two times the strength and three times as much power. So you know what sizes, hypertrophy, the size of the muscle fibers, strength, what you could pick up and heaviest thing you can move once power, how fast you could move it. When you think about what happens as we age, you see people walking really slowly, shuffling along. They can’t pick things up. That’s because they’re losing their fast twitch muscle fibers. You know, muscle fibers.

14:47
Speaker 1
You have the slow twitch, the. And then you have the fast twitch and then you have the ones in between. And as we age, what are they telling you to do? Oh, you should downsize, get a one story house. I think as you age you should get a three story house. And then, oh, don’t go into the weight room. Go to the bar class or the pilates class, right? Do the gentle yoga. All of a sudden we’re doing more of the slow twitch easy exercise instead of the hard fast twitch exercise. And so those in betweener fibers, they go slow. The worst thing you could do. And then what about sarcopenia? I was just reading yesterday that 50% of people, 80 plus have sarcopenia, low muscle mass and they say 5 to 13% of 60, 70 year olds.

15:29
Speaker 1
But I would ask you, how many of you are checking your patients for sarcopenia? And generally when I ask this, because this is a way different group, usually people, no one’s doing it. You know what’s so simple about sarcop? Sarcopenia. We can do this very easily. You’re doing bioimpedance scales, right? You’re looking at fat free mass. The other thing you can do, and I’m going to have this with me all weekend so you can do this. It will be very fun. It’s funny. I’m going to go do a talk in an event and they were going to bring their bioimpedance scale. I go, don’t bring your biome scale. No one wants to get on biopene scale. I go, but they do want to do a grip strength test, right? Who’s doing this with their patients? I love that so much. You’re so smart.

16:05
Speaker 1
So you know what’s great about These, this one, you can get a medical grade one, but this is like 30 bucks on Amazon. These are really inexpensive and I really like this digital one because you don’t even have to program it. So this is a very cool tool and we know that. Lowest quartile of grip strength, highest risk for all, cause mortality. But here’s the other reason this is great. When you’re putting someone on a program, you aren’t going to see big changes in muscle. Like that’s why when people say, oh, I’m afraid I’ll get big, the first month you’re doing resistance training, your muscles and nerves are just learning how to talk to each other. Nothing else is going to be happening. You’re not going to start lifting weights and go, look at this. That’s like years down the line, right?

16:43
Speaker 1
But I love the people who’ve never lifted weights before because I know in the first month, as their nerves and muscles are learning to talk to each other, their strength is going to go crazy. They can get 50% stronger within the first month, so they’ll see big changes. And these are the metrics we have to look at rather than these metrics where they’re going to step on a scale and go, nothing happened. Well, you can’t see what’s going on inside here. We’re under construction. The next part is that VO2 max decrease. Anyone done a VO2 max test lately? Like, I haven’t. I admit I have not done one since graduate school. That was like a long time ago. But we did do like predicted ones.

17:18
Speaker 1
And my belief is if we’re doing a, we’re doing good high intensity interval training, then you and resistance training, you’re probably in good shape. And then bone mineral density. You already heard Donna talking about this. Well, if you’re lifting weights, guess what you’re doing? You’re going to help offset some of that. Now I believe in putting these things all together with bhrt. That’s the real magic. But a lot of things that you can do as you start to build muscle are amazing. You think of all of the challenges that happen as someone goes into perimenopause and menopause, especially when they feel like their body’s out of control. A good resistance training program and a good nutrition program can offset a ton of it.

17:58
Speaker 1
So the first place I’d like to start with someone you is finding their starting point and getting them to get rid of a scale. If I could leave one legacy when I’m done, it will be that no one’s Using a scale for anything other than weighing their suitcase. Other than that, it’s not giving you any information. I think back to a client I had, Vicki. And Vicki came to me and her BMI, or body mass index, was 19. And she said, I need to lose 10 pounds. And I’m looking at her and I’m like, she does not need to lose 10 pounds. But Vicky was very ectomorphic. And so she’s 19 BMI, she’s like, lower. Lower level, like thin, but high body fat. What we would almost call, like, sarcopenic obesity.

18:40
Speaker 1
She was 25% body fat, which isn’t, you know, 27% when we start to get more concerned. But for her body type, it was a lot. And so for a year, we worked together, and it took a year for her to lose 10 pounds of fat. During that year, I wasn’t focusing on that at all. I was solely focusing. I didn’t tell her this because this isn’t what she wanted. I was only focusing on putting on 10 pounds of muscle. And over the course of the year, she went from 25% body fat to 18%, dropped 2 inches in her waist and looked like an entirely different person. And the scale didn’t budge. And what do you think Vicki said she wanted to lose ten pounds. No, I know. This is why, like.

19:23
Speaker 1
Like, for the men here, this is the way it is working with women. Now contrast this with my husband. So when I went and did my Dexa at 59, he was. He’s younger than me by a year and a half. He will tell you if I didn’t. So he did his dexa. His DEXA was a little high. And fortunately, it wasn’t me saying anything. It was the dexa. So he then his dexa, his body fat was 25%. Now he’s athletic, and you would never have known he was like Vicki. He was a skinny fat. 25% For a man is high, especially for an athletic man. And what was crazy is we had a bioimpedance machine at home, and it was saying that he was like 15 to 18%, which I was like, okay, that’s, you know, it’s on the higher end for an.

20:07
Speaker 1
For an athlete. But okay, so when he gets that, he goes into motion, he gets on testosterone. So that helped a lot. And he started measuring his protein to make sure he was getting what he needed. He started tracking what he was eating because he was having a little siete chip situation in the afternoons. Too much healthy food is unhealthy.

20:29
Speaker 2
Right?

20:30
Speaker 1
It’s very easy to eat a bag of those. And I’m not talking the little snack size bag. The bag. So he did all that and you really. I think he’d been phoning it in at the gym, but I didn’t want to become his trainer. So he then really took it upon himself to start training hard. And he went from 25% body fat down to 18, down to 15, down to 10, and his weight dropped three pounds. He dropped 27 pounds of fat and put on 24 pounds of muscle. This is why we’ve got to do body composition, but this is also why we have to do body composition. Because I never would have known that, like we wouldn’t have known that he was up at 25%.

21:08
Speaker 1
And this is why I like to do a DEXA scan and then, and get a DEXA like once or twice a year. And then I’ll use a biome penance machine and compare them. But I use that as my ultimate. As we know biome penance is going to vary, right? It’s based on total body water. Someone’s dehydrated, if they’re constipated, things will shift. But I look for the trend line with that. The things I’m really looking at when I’m looking at body composition, I’m looking at fat mass, I’m looking at fat free mass. Of course you can get bone marrow density if you’re doing a dexa. I think that echolight’s a little better than that. But the thing I’m going to really pay attention to there when you can see visceral adipose tissue. But the way I really track that is with a waist measurement.

21:49
Speaker 1
So a waist to hip and a waist to height is the easiest way to do this. What I have clients do now is I have them get a bioimpedance scale for home. Because if they’re coming to your office to get to do bioimpedance, the most important thing with any of these type of measurements, like if you’re doing a dexa, same person, same clinician, same technician should be the one doing the dexa same time of day, same conditions. If you’re doing bioimpedance has to be same conditions, same time of day. So I really like to have someone have something at home that they can get on every morning, get up, go to the bathroom, get on the scale and then I have them pinky promise this with me. You already know what I’m going to say, right? Because women are crazy.

22:30
Speaker 1
I said, this is what you’re not going to do, you are not going to go. Okay? Yesterday I was perfect. I ate perfectly, I exercised, I did my meditation, I slept well, my weight is up. Right, because that’s how it works. So what you do instead is you have them use one that reports to their phone and then all they do is look at the trend each week. If I’m trying to lose body fat, am I maintaining or increasing total body water, which means I’m keeping my fat free mass up or increasing it. Fat free mass being the proxy for skeletal muscle mass while I’m losing weight, which means I’m losing fat. Remember, fat free mass is everything but fat. So it’s not all skeletal muscle. The thing you can change in fat free mass is skeletal muscle.

23:17
Speaker 1
But you’re going to get a prediction of how much skeletal muscle you have. The only way you can really tell is if you DID, say an MRI or this test called a D3 creatine, which hopefully will be available at some point. But the reality is we’re going to look and go, are we increasing your fat free mass? Because if you are, you know that it’s got to be. And they’re doing resistance training and they’re fueling appropriately, then they’re putting on muscle. It is really hard to put on muscle. It’s maybe when someone’s new to resistance training, a pound a month and then once you get really good at it, maybe it’s a half pound a month. That’s why I say it’s like watching grass grow.

23:53
Speaker 1
So the other piece that’s really important here is one of the things you can’t tell when you have someone stepping on a scale is what’s the quality of that muscle? I don’t know. Right. You can’t tell. And this came up and then I became very adamant about it because someone on my team, I have a person who’s worked with me for a while and she is right on the verge of morbidly obese. She goes to get a DEXA scan and the person who did it said, well, what’s great is you have a lot of fat free mass. And I thought we’ve missed the point here because we’re not able to tell the quality of that fat free mass. That fat free mass has a lot of fatty infiltrate. We’ve got fat free mass now supporting the fat mass.

24:29
Speaker 1
And it’s really, I know that this person has trouble walking up stairs. So do we have quality muscle? No, we’ve got to check the quality of the muscle. How do you check the quality of the muscle that grip strength Tester. And then you can do a very simple sit to stand test. And you just do that with a normal sized chair, hands across their shoulders, squatting down and up, tapping the chair. How many can they do in 30 seconds? That’s a great one because that’s a test of power. And then the other one is a push up endurance test. So these are three things that would be easy for you to have someone do at the office. And then what’s great is you can tell if it’s changing. So there’s three ways that I help someone build muscle.

25:09
Speaker 1
Three tools fuel the actual movement and then what you do to recover. Now for fuel, my mantra, and it’s, I’m very specific as to why I say this, is to eat protein first. Because the number one thing I hear when I talk to people about eating protein, women, not men on this one. What do you think I heard when I tell them how much they need to eat? So I am fascinated by people’s eating habits. Maybe it’s why I do what I do. I really love to watch people eat. I also love to watch people grocery shop. I think it’s interesting. And so it’s always really interesting when I do a talk and then I go and watch what they do. And I remember the first time I did this talk.

25:48
Speaker 1
I think it was when were in the Maldives and everyone was at the buffet going, eat protein first. And I went, it worked. I love these simple mantras. People go, I can remember this, right? But I did this talk and now we’re out to dinner and this woman, one of the women in the group, orders an appetizer. Usually appetizers are fat and carb bombs. Can we agree? So she had the appetizer. I don’t even remember what it was. It was some breaded thing. Then she had a salad. Salad’s about five calories of lettuce. And then it had a raspberry vinegarette, some glazed nuts. Basically she had a sundae with some arugula. Did she? A little bread. And I noticed what she’d ordered, so I doubled up my steak in preparation for her to be supportive because she ordered eggplant parmesan.

26:33
Speaker 1
You know, eggplant on its own is like 10 calories of very dried. Has anyone ever just eaten plain eggplant? Not delicious, right? If you soak it in olive oil, it’s like a sponge. And then you cover it with cheese and bread. It totally different situation. So now she’s like that main course comes. She goes, oh, I’m so full. I’m like, well, I didn’t say it, but I’m like, you ate the bread and the salad and the sundae and. And I’m like cutting off half my steak and handing it to her. And she’s like, you’re protein shaming me. And I’m like, yes, I am. But see, that’s the thing is they’ll tell me they can’t eat it all, but I watch what they ate. That’s because they ate an entire meal of stuff before they got to the meal.

27:08
Speaker 1
So if we just ate the protein first, we solved the problem. So just get them to eat the protein first. Now, because of the glucose goddess, they’re going to go, but wait, right? I go, we’re going to eat the fiber second. We’ll eat the protein first, we’ll get the fiber second. Your blood sugar will be great. It’ll be great. Don’t worry. And you won’t have to hack it by having apple cider vinegar before. So you could eat the donut. I know. We could do a whole. I could do like a comedic routine of social media influencers. Nutrition advice. Okay, so do it. All right, that’ll be later. Later. Okay, so here’s the other big thing, and I’m glad they’re starting to shift the protein recommendations with the food guide pyramid. Shift, shift or whatever the plate or whatever.

27:51
Speaker 1
The thing is now it’s like they’re starting to make some shifts. But the reality is we really need to think about protein recommendations based on age. And again, as people age, we become more anabolically resistant. Now it’s not just age. If someone’s more insulin resistant, if they’re more sedentary, these are. If they’re more inflamed, these are all the things that could cause this. Where your body has trouble taking the essential amino acids from the protein you ate, which is why you ate the protein for those amino acids and then using them to go through muscle protein synthesis and build muscle. So we need more, not less, as we age. Super important. So how much do you need? And this comes from a lot of different protein researchers out there and what they think we need.

28:34
Speaker 1
In the perfect world, we would actually base this on fat free mass. But I think if we make things complicated, people don’t do them. It’s complicated enough to go 0.7. Right? So somewhere between 0.7 or 0.75 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. So find out what weight they Want to be at that makes sense. Times it by 0.7 to 1. Give them that range with a couple parameters. Number one, their most important meals are going to be breakfast and dinner. Call them the bumper meals or whatever they break their fast with and whatever thing they eat two to four hours before bed. The reason being is we need to get enough leucine to break our overnight fast and trigger MTOR to trigger muscle protein synthesis. It’s somewhere between 2.5 to 3 grams, maybe even 4 grams of leucine.

29:26
Speaker 1
So I’m going to show you in a minute why all protein is not created equal and the type of protein matters. So bumper meals, first and last. Most important for getting 30, 40 grams of protein overall, at least 100 grams. But ideally you’re dosing it based on their target body weight. Now again, I was talking about how protein is different. We’re eating it for the essential amino acids. I’m going to show you something called the digestible indispensable amino acid score. That will show you why these vary so much. Because there is a difference between eating a grass fed, grass finished piece of steak and legumes. The amino acid profile is different. How well your body is able to digest and absorb it is different. It doesn’t mean someone can’t do this on plants, but here’s the challenge with plants.

30:16
Speaker 1
Legumes, quinoa, all those grains come with what? And then nuts and seeds come with what. I don’t know how to do a vegan diet without getting a lot of carbs and fat. Like I can’t get the amount of protein grams that I need unless I supplement because otherwise I’m gonna have way too many calories. So this is that score that I was telling you about. And what you want to think about with the score is that you really want to be in the hundred plus range. That’s the best range for having a better amino acid profile balance. That’s very digestible, absorbable, bioavailable. If you are in the 75 to 100 range, good. Below that, not good. So I have a hack for this.

30:58
Speaker 1
If you do have a plant based person in your practice, the first thing is if they’re coming in plant based because they heard that this was a thing to do because they were listening to an influencer online who told them this was the best way to eat, then I’m going to, you know, if it’s a health thing, we’re going to have a discussion. If it’s a religious thing, then I’m going to give them a hack for it. And here’s the different things. The one that I would like to do with vegans is I’ll either use a protein powder supplement. PEA is the one that I like to use. And then I’ll also use essential amino acids. I think essential amino acids are one of the most underrated tools, underutilized tools that we have to help people get to where they need to be.

31:31
Speaker 1
Especially if someone’s on a GLP1. I think everyone on a GLP1 should be using essential amino acids. If someone’s calorically restricting, I think they should be using essential amino acids, because you even need even more amino acids, not less. So this is a way to help someone. Maybe you’re. They have two eggs for breakfast. And if you ask most people what they think, two eggs is like a ton of protein and it’s 16 grams. I literally was doing a consult with a woman a couple months ago and I said, all right, well, let’s walk through it. You know, what’d you have for breakfast? She said, o do great. I go, really, What’d you have? She goes, oatmeal and an egg. I’m like, all right, we have room for improvement. Another thing to think about here, too are digestive enzymes.

32:09
Speaker 1
Anyone stressed over the age of 30, any kind of gut dysbiosis likely is going to benefiting from having some digestive enzymes as well. If you’re eating the protein and you can’t break it down, it’s like you didn’t eat it, right? I have collagen here, but I have collagen here. Not for the protein source. Yes, it is the most abundant protein in the body. But you’ll see, when I talk about exercise, I like collagen for the connective tissue. So that’s where I think of collagen being the most helpful, is in the connective tissue. When someone’s doing resistance training, the first thing that happens are muscles and nerves serve to talk to each other. Then your connective tissue has to be strong. People don’t tear a muscle. They tear where the muscle and the tendon connect. So that’s where collagen can come in.

32:51
Speaker 1
And then creatine, which we’ll talk about in a moment. The other piece of this again, you’re going to hear, well, I thought I was supposed to eat. Eat carbs first, fiber first. I like people to eat their protein first to make sure we got it in. It’s more satiating, it’s more satisfying. We know people who eat protein first tend to make better food choices. Overall, it’s got a higher thermic effect of food than carbs or fat do. If all we did was take some calories away from carbs and fat, move over to protein, people start to lose a little bit of fat and also they’ll tend to eat less anyway. But then the next thing that I throw in is fiber. And interestingly enough, fiber can support muscle protein synthesis.

33:29
Speaker 1
It’s not anabolic in itself, but the fact that fiber and the polyphenols that you’re getting with it, polyphenols can help lower inflammation, that can help with muscle protein synthesis. So basically when I’m building someone’s plate, protein first, then all the non starchy vegetables, a little bit of fruit, slow, low carbs that are rich in fiber, lots of colors. I would say the 30. I do a 30. 30. 30 Grams or more of fiber and 30 different types of plants each week. So that’s my mainstay of diet is I start with protein, I add in fiber and then I evaluate how much more we need of either fat or carbs. Because protein doesn’t change based on what that person likes. If they’re more insulin resistant, I’ll do lower carbs. If they’re working out a lot harder or adrenally exhausted, I’ll do higher carbs.

34:16
Speaker 1
The protein stays the same. Those things adjust best. Diets or tools pick the right one for them. But the fact that you are having them do is going to be focused more on Omega 3s, right? To help get them through wild fish, grass fed grass, finished beef, and then getting more whole fats, things like egg yolks and olives and nuts and seeds. And then I will add in things like olive oil. But I find for most of us we don’t have to add fat because we got it when were cooking. So I think the days of like drowning things with olive oil because were supposed to have more fat, I don’t find, especially for women that they really need to do that we’re getting enough in our protein sources and then when we add it into our cooking for our vegetables.

34:58
Speaker 1
So there’s a big thing out there online you’ve probably seen it about, it’s lift heavy things, right? So for someone who’s never worked out before, what happens when they see lift heavy things? Do you think they go, that’s what I want to do. And then they see grandma deadlifting, because grandma is now deadlifting over there. So they either go one of two ways. They’re like oh, I’m never doing that. Or they go, well if grandma can do it, I can do it too. And then what happens, right? So I do not say lift heavy things. I say challenge your muscles because it’s the safe, sound way to do that, right? And the first thing that I have people do, I mentioned earlier, we can improve resting metabolic rate by adding in adding on muscle.

35:39
Speaker 1
We can improve thermic effect of food by adding more protein. The third part of your total daily energy expenditure is activity. And there’s two types. There’s exercise and there’s non exercise. And non exercise is everything that’s not structured exercise. Up here I am kneading. See every time when I’m doing this, that’s neat, right? The fact that I’m standing that sitting neat. So anytime, if you’re fidgeting, neat. We used to think it was like all the things you never thought about. But I think that we can be a little bit prescriptive with neat and then we can also trick our bodies a little bit. So I live in a two story house.

36:17
Speaker 1
When were moving in, we knew our offices were going to be upstairs and I was thinking, well I should put an espresso maker up there and I should put a refrigerator up there. And then I thought, no, I should put nothing up there. So all day long I have to go up and down those stairs, right? That’s why I say someone who’s 60, 70, 80, put them in a three story house. Kitchen on the top floor, bathroom on the bottom floor, right? Up and down, up and down. Be perfect. My mom lived till 93. Two story house. I think it was one of the reasons. So I always start with neat with movement.

36:47
Speaker 1
Because here’s what I know to be true and the research backs this up, that if you are not tracking your steps, if you start an exercise program, what do you do? Less of neat. Because our bodies love to stay in homeostasis. Oh, we disappeared. What happened? Anyway, our bodies love to stay in homeostasis. So if you are not actively tracking that and get that as your foundation, when you start to do your other exercise, you’ll do less of the other and your body will compensate and you’ll go back to right where you were. That’s one of the reasons they say, you know, exercise doesn’t work for weight loss. It doesn’t. Every study bears that out. But for weight management, you can’t do it without it.

37:23
Speaker 1
In fact, that’s what James Hill studies show where he looked at 70 people that had lost 70 pounds or more. Seven years or more. Over 10,000 people in his weight management registry. Their thing they do is structured exercise every single day. So we know you need it. But I actually don’t think the reason we exercise is for body composition, for weight loss, it’s exercising for muscle, it’s exercising for myokines, it’s exercising for lactate. So the first place I start is, let’s just count how many steps you take the minute you do this, because it’s fun and you can gamify this and everyone can get a tracking, some kind of tracking device. And I guess I’m working on my new book that comes out in December. I had to literally, you know, publishers won’t let you put anything in if it costs more than $5.

38:04
Speaker 1
So I was like, but they can get a pedometer. I mean, they can. People can use a pedometer. So there’s always a way to track steps. The reality is what you measure and monitor, you can improve. So the minute someone starts tracking steps, what do they do? It’s just like when you have someone track their food. One of the first things I have people do is just do a macro audit. I’m not going to tell you to change anything. Just start tracking what you’re eating. What do they do? They eat better. And then when you have them start measuring their protein, guess what they eat, what they need to eat. So same thing with steps. If you’re having them track their steps, all of a sudden they’re doing more steps.

38:35
Speaker 1
I was on vacation with a friend, and I gave them a present of a pedometer. And the next thing I know, this was the wrong thing to do before vacation. Like, we are walking everywhere trying to get all this. But this is a great thing because it doesn’t take much. You know, the average American right now is getting three to 4,000 steps a day. Three to 4,000 steps a day. I had a client come to me, he had 3,000 steps a day. And I found out that if you’re only getting 3,000 steps in as a day as a man, you’re also more likely to have low testosterone, that if you bumped your steps up, that you could get your might be able to get your testosterone up without having to have supplementation. Because I had this client, 3,000. I’m like, why don’t you.

39:09
Speaker 1
We just try to get you to 8,000 first. We give it a couple months, see what happens. Like step one. So that’s step one. Step two is then to add resistance training. But here’s the easiest thing, like this is such an easy thing with your patients is just get them moving. And then you can send them to an online program or to a trainer for the next piece of resistance training. But I’m going to show you the minimum viable product here, because the reality is only about 30% of the population is doing the bare minimum of what the CDC recommends for exercise, which means most people aren’t. And it really doesn’t take much if you’re doing it correctly. Because when I say 30%, I don’t think they’re probably doing it correctly.

39:50
Speaker 1
I divide the body into four parts, but you’re going to see why I only focus on three. So upper body pushing are things like push ups, overhead presses, dips. It may surprise you to learn that I never ever do tricep extensions and bicep curls. I don’t do them. And whenever anybody says, where’d you get those arms? I’m like, I don’t do biceps and triceps. I do push ups and overhead presses. I do upper body pulling, pull ups, bent over rows. Compound movements with a bigger metabolic cost that actually mimic how we live life. Because you want your patient to train to get better at life, not to train to get better at training. Right. And then hip and thigh hinging, those air squats, step ups, lunges. I especially love step ups and air squats. I blew out my knee when I was 17.

40:37
Speaker 1
And one of the things you’ll hear from people as they’re telling is you’re telling them about this and what you want them to do is they’re going to tell you they can’t do it because my knees hurt. Okay, so that’s the reason they should be doing these things. Right. You want to have all those muscles strong to support your joints. Now have them work with a good personal trainer or physical therapist. But the reason why not is usually the reason why. And the reality is if you want someone to stay mobile, the single best exercise they can possibly do is a squat. That’s going to be the difference as to whether they can get out of the chair or not, whether they can be mobile as they age. So this is how I put it together.

41:14
Speaker 1
And while I call this my starter formula, this is also. You could be your travel formula. This could be your maintenance formula. If all you did was this, if all you had your patients do was this could change everything. And it is this simple. Pick two exercises from each group. I said upper body pushing, upper body pulling, hip and thigh hinging. So again, it could be a push up and an overhead press. I love overhead presses. Why? Because they load your spine. Great for bone mineral density. And then you could do a bent over row and a high pull. You know what you do those with dumbbells or bands, they don’t even need equipment because most people will tell you they’re too out of shape to go to the gym. But then you’re like, but wait, are you with me?

41:54
Speaker 1
Okay, so they can do it at home. They don’t have to go to the gym. They can use a couple dumbbells or they can use a band. Then squats and step ups. So see how simple that is? So two exercises per body part, two times a week, least 48 hours in between. And each exercise that they do, let’s say they do squats, they do two sets. That’s it. Two working sets. Easy warm up. Set, working set. And here’s what’s really cool about this. What’s the number one reason people tell you that they can’t work out? Or rather, what’s the number one excuse people tell you why they can’t work out? Time. Right, so what they could do is Monday they could do push ups and overhead presses. Then Tuesday, they could do bent over rows and high pulls.

42:35
Speaker 1
Then Wednesday they could do squats and step ups. Then Thursday they could do push ups and over a press. Yeah, that’s five minutes. They could literally do that in between phone calls. And here’s what’s cool about that. Well, I’m gonna actually skip this and then come back to this. What’s great about resistance training? And this is why in my hierarchy, I start with walking and then I add resistance training. I don’t add cardio before resistance training. Just start walking a little bit faster. But I add in resistance training because remember, as we’re aging, we’re losing muscle. Cardio is not going to build muscle. Resistance training is what’s going to build muscle. You have to build muscle by doing something harder than what your body is used to. So it has to recover and rebuild.

43:17
Speaker 1
If you do something that’s the same as your body’s used to, like say, go for a brisk walk, your body’s not going to build muscle from that. You have to do more than what your body’s used to. So it has to recover and rebuild. But resistance training not only helps you build muscle, it also helps you build VO2 max. So it’s a two for one. Super important. Now I’m not going to Spend a lot of time here. I just want you to be aware of it. You have a continuum. You have strength one side of the continuum, you have power on the other side of the continuum, you have hypertrophy in the middle. If you’re lifting purely for strength, and this is where you’re hearing it online right now, but from a lot of different exercise scientists and doctors saying, lift heavy.

43:56
Speaker 1
Because as we age, we lose strength. But remember, I said we also lost power. So strength. If you really just wanted to build pure strength, you would do the heaviest weight you can handle for like one to five reps. And then you take a long rest break, like three to five minutes, and then you do it again and you do a couple sets of that. It’s extremely taxing to your central nervous system. You’re not going to build a whole lot of muscle. You won’t get a whole lot of hypertrophy, you’ll get a lot of strength. But that’s why you’re hearing people talk about that, because of what was happening as we age. The reality is, though, you’ll still build strength as you’re building muscle. And most people would like to have the muscle, they like the way it looks. Remember, it’s metabolic Spanx.

44:33
Speaker 1
And then on that continuum, the next part of that is power. On one side is strength, heavy short sets. On the other side is power, fast, lighter weights, like a kettlebell swing or a burpee or a squat jump. I build a foundation. First you’re hearing, you should jump, you should lift heavy. If someone’s coming and they forgot to lift weights, they don’t start by jumping or lifting heavy. They start by just making sure they’re getting their movement up. Then start them with really easy resistance training. Have a trainer work with them, and all they focus on is for. Is with form for the first week. And then they start adding a little bit more weight and a little more weight.

45:11
Speaker 1
You take someone to the gym and you overdo it with them and they get hurt or too sore, they’re done, they’ll never come back. I learned that the hard way. You know, it’s like, did that happen to you? Like my very first client, I was so excited. Took her to the gym for two hours, wondered to learn everything I knew, and she literally was in bed for a week. I’m just glad she was a friend of mine, but not that good of a friend after that anyhow, so this then could be added on. But even with jumping, which is so good for bone mineral density, I wouldn’t start someone there, that’s the foundation. Walking, resistance training. Then we could add some strength. Then we can add some power.

45:45
Speaker 1
All right, so one other really important thing here that I alluded to when I said, you know, you could do this five minutes one day, five minutes next day, five minutes the next day. I like to meet people where they are. And the reality is most people are not exercising. If they are, they’re not exercising at enough of an intensity. Most people aren’t eating enough protein. We’re not even getting to sleep yet. And this is one of the easiest things they can start to employ. That will make a massive difference. I mean, look at this. If you engage in vigorous, intermittent lifestyle physical activity, this could be four and a half to ten minutes a day in one to two minute bouts. It could be as simple as just going up the stairwells here fast, right? It could be air squats.

46:28
Speaker 1
40 To 50% reduction in all cause, mortality, cancer and cardiovascular risk reduction. I just did a challenge with my community. This was like one of those things that actually stuck. They’re like, we can do this. It gets rid of the time thing. And all you have to do is habit stack it. You ate breakfast, do some air squats, brush your teeth, do some push ups against the counter. Simple. So again, important thing is we’re not exercising to burn calories. You’re exercising to build muscle. You’re exercising to produce those myokines. You’re exercising to decrease lactate, which is, it’s an incredibly cool fuel that helps you make new mitochondria and is a great fuel for your heart and for your brain.

47:05
Speaker 1
And the recent information that just came out because we used to say it was 75 minutes of high intensity exercise a week, vigorous versus 150 minutes of easy. We now know that a minute of vigorous activity is worth anywhere from four to nine minutes of easy activity. So when we talk about that 10 minutes a day or even four and a half hours minutes a day, think about how much it’s worth. It’s dramatic. Couple things that I love here. I love creatine. I use an HCL form. I love forot tropin. It’s fertilized egg yolk. It increase muscle protein synthesis 18%. I love urolithin A because it helps with mitophagy, so it helps improve strength. They showed that even with people not working out, it could improve strength. 5 To 14% collagen and C4. The connective tissue benefits.

47:51
Speaker 1
And fish oil, probably it’s anabolic because of its improvement in reducing inflammation, as we know. So we’re not going to talk about recovery except to say that this is when you repair and rebuild. So you must do this. The study just showed that people were six hours or less a night, were not able to trigger the muscle protein synthesis that they needed to build muscle. So you’ve got to sleep in order to repair. Super important. And a couple things that really help here. And I want to point out something important that people don’t realize. Sauna is incredible. It’s anabolic. It’s a great thing to use after you work out. But if you get a cold plunge, do a weight training session and then go cold plunge. You just blunted muscle protein synthesis.

48:35
Speaker 1
So cold plunges can be great contrast therapy, just not around your resistance training. Do it about eight hours afterwards. All right, putting it all together, test your body composition. Eat protein first. Add in the fiber and the polyphenols. Add in the 8,000 steps a day. Resistance train two days a week. Think of the 2 by 2. Make sure they’re getting quality sleep. Use the supplements and recovery tools as needed. My mom lived in a two story house, was very stubborn, didn’t have a real exercise program, but golfed, walked, did all of her own housework, all that stuff. Stuff counts, right? So she was doing that VPA all throughout the day. My dad drank, smoked, ate the worst diet ever. So my dad dies at 70 in a hospital bed in our bedroom, wasting away from cancer, lung cancer.

49:25
Speaker 1
My mom lives another 23 years and then does what I want to do, which is go out like a light bulb. You know, it’s like, it’s all great and then boom, very active, total brain function, Sharp remembered, everything. And what this really showed me, just watching the difference in their two lifestyles and how it played out, is that aging really is a privilege. Anyone says I don’t want to age, I’m like, well, what’s the alternative, right? But while aging is a privilege, aging powerfully is a choice. And that choice happens when you build muscle. First,.

50:03
Speaker 2
Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Also, I’d love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast.

50:15
Speaker 1
Here’s how.

50:17
Speaker 2
First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review. And third, text to 281357. That’s 813-565-2627. When you do, I’ll reply using my brand new Virtual jj. It’s my on demand virtual self built from my books, talks and years of experience so I can interact with you directly. You’ll make my day and I can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you on the next episode. Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that’s designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

51:15
Speaker 2
If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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